Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/54

32 sippi. Six months were occupied in the journey, and the negotiations were every way successful. Pitehlyun displaying no little diplomatic skill and courage. He emigrated to the new reservation with hi? people and built a cabin on Arkansas river. He was an admirer of Henry Clay, whom he met for the first time in 1840. He was ascending the Ohio in a steamboat when Mr. Clay came on board at Maysville. The Indian went into the cabin and found two farmers earnestly engaged in talking about their crops. After listening to them with great delight for more than an hour, he re- turned to his travelling companion, to whom he said : " If that old farmer with an ugly face had only been educated for the law. he would have inrulf one of the greatest men in this country." He soon learned that the old farmer " was Henry Clay. At the beginning of the civil war in 1861 Pitcblynn was in Washington attending to public business for his tribe, and assured Mr. Lincoln that he hoped to keep his people neutral ; but he could not prevent three of his own children and many ethers from joining the Confederates. He himself remained a Union man to the end of the war, not- withstanding the fact that the Confederates raided his plantation of 600 acres and captured all his cattle, while the emancipation proclamation freed his 100 slaves. He was a natural orator, as his ad- dress to the president at the White House in 1855, his speeches before the congressional committees in 1868, and one delivered before a delegation of Quakers at Washington in 1869. abundantly prove. According to Charles Dickens, who met him while on his first visit to this country, Pitchlynn was a handsome man, with black hair, aquiline nose, broad cheek-bones, sunburnt complexion, and bright, keen, dark, and piercing eyes. He was buried in the Congressional cemetery at Washing- ton with masonic honors, the poet, Albert Pike, delivering a eulogy over his remains. See Charles Dickens's " American Notes " and Charles Lan- man's " Recollections of Curious Characters " (Edin- burgh, 1881).

PITKIN, William, lawyer, b. near London, England, in 1635 ; d. in East Hartford. Conn., 16 Dec., 1694. He received an excellent English edu- cation, studied law, and settled in Hartford about 1659. where he taught, bought a tract of land on the east side of Connecticut river, and engaged largely in planting. On 9 Oct., 1662, he was ad- mitted a freeman, and in that year was also made prosecutor for the colony, became attorney for the colony by appointment of the king in 1664, was deputy in 1675 and treasurer in 1676-'7, and in 1676 he went with Maj. John Talcott to nego- tiate peace with the Xarragansett and other Indian tribes. From 1665 till 1690, with the exception of a brief period, he was a member of the general court, and occasionally served as commissioner from this colony to the L T nited Colonies. In 1690 he was elected a member of the colonial council, which office he held ur.til his death. In 1693 he was appointed with Samuel Chester and Capt. William Whiting to a commissioner to run the division-line between Connecticut and the M .i--a- chusetts colonies, and in that year he was sent by the colony to Gov. Benjamin Fletcher, of New York, to negotiate terms respecting t lie militia until Gov. Winthrop's return from England. whither he had gone for the same purj ' '.id out with John Crow the first Main and oti. ;' Hart- ford on the east side <>f the river. He owned a full- ing-mill near Burnside, whii-h was burned i and the locality became kii"wn as 1'nkii, Many of his descendants held important [ '.: the civil, political, and military affairs of the col- ony. He married Hannah, daughter of Ozias Goodwin, the progenitor of the Goodwin family of Connecticut, who came to this country with Dr. Thomas Hooker. Their son. William", jurist, b. in Hartford. Conn., in 1664: d. there. 5 April, 1723, was a member of the committee of war that was appointed with plenary power to send troops into imsetts and the frontier towns of Connecti- cut, and that ordered, on 1 Jan.. 1704, 400 men to be in readiness for any sudden occurrence. He studied law with his father, and was judge of the county and probate courts and of the court of assistants from 1702 till 1711 when the superior court was established in place of the court of assistants. and of which he was chief justice in 1713. This office was held by four successive generations of William Pitkins. He was said to have been apt in repartee as well as argument, and once, when a lawyer named Eels, in summing up a case, said, "The court will perceive that the pipkin is cracked," Mr. Pitkin's reply was: "Not so much cracked, your honor, but he will find it will do to stew eels in yet." In 1697 he was elected one of the council of the colony, serving until his death. He was one of the commissioners to receive the Earl of Bellomont on his arrival in New York, was a commissioner of war in 1706-'7, one of a committee to prepare the manuscript laws of the colony in 1709, and again to revise the said laws. In 1718 he was appointed one of a committee of three to build the first state-house in Hartford, and one of a committee to prepare a map of the course of the Connecticut river from the mouth of it to the north of the colony, to be inserted in the plan "f the colony now ordered to be drawn." In 1706 he built two fulling-mills at Pitkin's falls. in connection with which he conducted a large basin clothing and woollens, which was continued by his sons. The second William's son. William. _ ernor of Connecticut, b. in Hartford. Conn., :!D April. 1694: d. in East Ha > in.. 1 dot.. . was chosen town-collectr.r in 171">. served in the colonial assembly from 1728 till 1734. was made captain of a " train band" in 17:!0. and nel in 1739. He was elected to the council in 17:!4. appointed chief justice of the supreme court in 1741. holding this office until 17Cli. From 1754 till 1766 he was lieutenant-. : Connecti- cut, and was the fir-t t'i rei>t the stamp-a< j t : in 1765. He was one of the _ to the Colo- nial convention in Albany on 19 June. 1754. and also one of a committee, of which Benjamin Frank- lin was chairman, t" prepare tin 1 plan of union that was adopted. He wa~ governor of Connecticut from 1766 till 17i>:' _ a ma- jority "that the votes were not counted." His urbanity and courtesy of manner were long reniem- U-tvd. and a "Satire on the Governors of Connecti- cut." published in 1769. mentions him a~ "I and scraping, and continual hand-shaking." His brother. Joseph, b. in 1696; d. in 17i'.-j. was justice of the peace, represented the town in the general assembly for twenty years, ami was judu'e of the county court in 17:15. He was eaptain in the 3d militia company and be.-ame colonel of the 1- ment in 1757. He mustered I he c< 'inpany raised for the expedition airainst Crown Point, which wa- led there by his brother, John. b. in 17n7: d. in 1790. who also served in the legislature, and presented with others a memorial t" incorporate the town of Hast Hartford, which ' : - The third William'- son, William, jurist, b. in Hartford in 1725; d. there. I'. 1 I >. ; - is major of the 1-t regiment of the colonial f. in.- that were