Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/557

Rh of Missouri by Gov. Gratz Brown. He was connected with the press as editorial writer and correspondent, and published a volume of German poems (St. Louis, 1863; enlarged ed., 1885).

SIGNAY, Joseph (seen-yayl, Canadian arch- bishop, b. in Quebec, 8 Nov., 1778 ; d. there, 3 Oct., 1850. He studied philosophy and theology in the Seminary of Quebec, was ordained priest in Lnn- gneil, 28 March, 1802, and was appointed assistant >astor at Chambly, and subsequently at Longueil. n 1804 he became parish priest of St. Constant, and lie was transferred to Sainte-Marie-de Ramsay in 1805. He went as missionary to Lake Cham- plain in 1806, to take charge of the French Cana- dians that had settled in its neighborhood, but in 1814 he was appointed pastor of Quebec. He was chosen coadjutor to Bishop Panet in 1826, named bishop of Fussala by a bull of Leo XII. the same year, and consecrated under this title on 20 May, IS'JT. He became administrator of the diocese on 13 Oct., 1832, and on 14 Feb., 1833, succeeded to the bishopric of Quebec. Bishop Signay excited hostility among part of his flock by his efforts to prevent the Irish from building a church in Que- bec, and, after it was erected, by his refusal to visit it. During the cholera epidemic of 1833 he dis- played the utmost zeal and devotion. The same year lie selected Pierre Flavien Turgeon as his co- adjutor. The letter that he wrote on this occasion to the British ministry, praying them to sanction his choice, was considered by a large number of his flock to be humiliating and unnecessary, as the ap- proval of the English authorities in the case of Ca- nadian bishops was no longer required. In 1844 the dioceses of Upper and Lower Canada were erected into an ecclesiastical province, on the de- mand of the Canadian clergy, and the dioceses of Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto were placed un- der the metropolitan jurisdiction of Quebec, which was created an archbishopric. Although the title of archbishop had been given to his two predeces- sors, he was the first that was entitled to it offi- cially. Several months alter his nomination he received the pallium, which was brought to him from Rome. He showed great activity and dis- interestedness during the conflagration that de- stroyed part of Quebec in 1845, sharing his means with those that were ruined ; and during the ship fever of 1847 and 1848 he rivalled his priests in his personal sacrifices for the victims. In 1849 he found it necessary, from physical weakness, to con- fide the administration of the archdiocese to his co- adjutor. The pastorals and other letters of Arch- bishop Signay are published in the 3d volume of the " Mandernents des eveques de Quebec," which also contains a biography.

SIGOGNE, Maude (se-gone), Canadian clergy- man, b. in Tours, France, in the latter half of the 18th century; d. in Nova Scotia about 1850. He emigrated to England in 1791, and in 1798 sailed for Nova Scotia, to labor among the French Cana- dians and Indians, and took charge of the Acadians that had settled along Sisibout river. He was a man of extraordinary courage and activity, and with few resources built two large churches, St. .Mary, of Frenchtown, and St. Anne, of Argyle. He was regarded by the Acadians of the coast of St. Mary's bay as their father and protector, and the influence In- obtained over them was so great and so justly acquired that the English government of Halifax made him a judge, and delegated to him entire temporal authority over his flock. After this he erected a third church, in the village of Mountegan, to which the bishop of Quebec gave the name St. Maude, in his

SIGOURNEY, Lydia Huntley, author, b. in Norwich, Conn., 1 Sept., 17111 : d. in Hartford. Conn., 1(1 .lune, 1805. She was the daughter of K/.ekiel I luntley, a soldier of the Revolution. She read at the age of three, and at seven wrote simple verses. After receiving a superior education at Norwich and Hartford, she taught for five years a select class of young ladies in the latter city. In 1815, at the suggestion and under the patronage of Daniel Wads worth, she published her first volume, " Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse." In 1819 she became the wife of Charles Sigourney. a Hartford merchant of literary and artistic tastes. Without neglecting her domestic duties, she thenceforth devoted her leisure to literature, at first to gratify her own inclinations and subsequently, after her husband had lost the greater part of his fortune, to add to her income. She soon attained a reputa- tion that secured for her books a ready sale. In her posthumous " Letters of Life " (IISOO) she enu- merates forty-six distinct works, wholly or partially from her pen, besides more than 2,000 articles in prose and verse that she had contributed to nearly 300 periodicals. Several of her books also at- tained a wide circulation in England, and they were also much read on the continent. She re- ceived from the queen of the French a handsome diamond bracelet as a token of that sovereign's esteem. Her poetry is not of the highest order. It portrays in graceful and often felicitous lan- guage the emotions and sympathies of the heart, rather than the higher conceptions of the intel- lect. Her prose is graceful and elegant, and is modelled to a great extent on that of Addison and the Aikins, who, in her youth, were regarded as the standards of polite literature. All her writings were penned in the interest of a pure morality.and many of them were decidedly re- ligious. Perhaps no American writ- er has been more frequently called upon for gratui- tous occasional poems of all kinds. To these requests she generally acceded, and often greatly to her own inconvenience. But it was not only through her literary labors that Mrs. Sigourney became known. Her whole life was one of active and earnest philanthropy. The poor, the sick, the deaf-mute, the blind, the idiot, the slave, and the convict were the objects of her constant care and benefaction. Her pensioners were numerous, and not one of them was ever forgotten. During her early married life, she economized in her own wardrobe and personal luxuries that she might be able to relieve the needy, while later in her career she saved all that was not absolutely needed for home comforts and expenses for the same purpose. Her character and worth were highly appreciated in the city that for more than fifty years was her home. She never left it after her marriage, except when in 1840 she visited Euro] ie. a record of which journey she published in " Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands "