Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 7).djvu/243

Rh tary for Xebraska and for a time acting governor. He was four times a candidate for governor, once for the U. S. senate, and twice for congress. In March, 1893, he was appointed by President Cleve- land commissioner of agriculture.

MOSES, John, historian, b. in Niagara Falls, Canada, 18 Sept., 1825. He removed to Naples, HI., in 1837, and was clerk of the circuit court of Scott county in 1856. and county judge in 1857-'61. He was private secretary of Gov. liiehard Gates from November. 18G1, tiil February, 1863, and as- sisted in organizing seventy-seven regiments of Tolunteers, but resigned to accept the appointment of assessor of internal revenue for the lOlh district of Illinois. He was a member of the general as- semblv, and from 1880 till 1883 secretary of the state board of railroad and warehouse commis- sions. In 1883-'5 he was in the otBce of the special agent of the treasury department, during which time he prepared an exhaustive " History of Illi- nois " (2 vols., Chicago, 1888). He became secretary and librarian of the Chicago historical society in November, 1886, on the resignation of A. D. Hager, and was succeeded in Mav, 1893, by Charles Evans, the present secretary. W'ith Joseph Kirk- lan<l he published in 1895 a " History of Chicago." MOSS, Frank, lawyer, b. in Cold Spring, N. Y., 16 Marcli, 18<i0. He received a common-school education, and studied in the College of the city of New York, but did not comiilcte his course there. He then took up the practice of law in New York city. Mr. Moss is counsel for the Society for the prevention of crime. During the liexow inves- tigation of Miunicipal affairs in New York city in 1895 he was assistant counsel to the investigating committee, and during a similar investigation in 1899, conducted by a committee of which Robert Mazet was chairman, .Mr. Moss acted as counsel in charge. In 1897 he was president of the New York board of jKjIice. He liius written a history of New York city in three volumes, entitled "The Amer- ican Metrowlis" (New York, 1897).

MOTT, Richard, congressman, b. in Maniaro- neek, Westchester co., N. Y., 21 July, 1804; d. in Toleilo, Ohio, 22 Jan., 1888. His parents were 4juakers. Kichard attended a Friends' Ijoardin^- school, went to New York city with his family iii 1815, in 1818 became clerk in a store, and in 1824 entereil a bank. In 1836 he became a merchant in Toledo, (Ihio, which was thenceforward his home. He assisted in building the first railroant, and in 1855-'9 was a member of congress, being chosen as an anti-Ne- braska candidate. Mr. Molt was also an adv<H'ale of woman suffrage. Mrs. Lucretia Mott was the wife of his elder brother. James.

MOWBRAY, Harry Siddons, artist, b. in Alex- andria, Egypt, 5 Aug., 18.58. He is a son of George M. Mowbray, an "expert in explosives," studied under Leon lionnat in Paris in 1879-'83, and has proiluceil some effective figure-pieces. among which are "The Alchemist "(1884); "LullaKoc.kh" (1885): "Rose Festival" (1887); and "Evening Breeze," which gained the Clark prize at the National aca<l- eniy in 1888 and his election toas.soclate member- ship. In 1886 he liecame a member of the .S(K;iely of .meric4in artists, and is at present instructor of the lifi- class at the Art students' league. Ml'IR, John, naturalist,!), in Dunbar, Scot- land, 21 April, 1838. His father, Daniel, was a grain merchant, and on the side of his mother, Anne Gilrye, be is descended from the ancient family of Gilderoy. When he was twelve years old, in 1850. he came to this country with his father, who settled in the wilderness near Fox river, Wis- consin. The boy worked on the farm, read, and studied out inventions such as mill-wheels and wooden clocks. He entered the University of Wisconsin in 1860, and there pursued a scientific course. At the end of his four years he set out on a botanizing tour, wandering in the southern states, in Cuba, and in California, where he settled in April, 1868. making the Yosemite his home. He had planned to explore the Amazon valley and to classify its flora, but malaria forced him to aban- don his purpose. Here he continued his studies in natural history, supporting himself by herding sheep or working in a saw-mill. He saved a few hundred dollars, and then devoted himself to a systematic survey of the Sierras. In 1876 he joined a party connected with the geodetic survey of the Great Basin, and three years later, in 1879, he made a tour of exploration in Alaska, where he discovered the great glacier that is now named after him. In 1881 he was one of the party on the "Corwin" in search of the crew of the lost "Jeannette." He was one of the first to make known the beauties of the Yosemite, and it was due in no small measure to his papers on "The Treas- ures of the Yosemite " in the" Century "for August and September, 1890, that the Yosemite national fwrk was established by the government. In 1896 he was made an honorary A. M. by Harvard. Mr. Muir has written for the " Atlantic," " Har- iK-r's," " Overland Monthly,"and " Scribncr's," and he published in book-form "The Mountains of California" (New York, 1894).

MUNDY, Johnson Man-hant, sculptor, b. near New Brunswick, N. J., 13 Mav, 1832; d. in Tarrytown, N. Y., 16 Aug., 1897. ' His boyhood was s|Hmt at Geneva, N. Y. He showed early a tendency toward copying nature, and at the age of twelve received his first instruction in the use of crayon. Not long after he secured employment with a marble-cutter in New York, and in the spring of 18.54 he ei.tered the studio of Henry K. Brown, of Newburg, who was working at that time upon the equestrian statue of Washington now in I'nion square. His first work in marble was a portrait bust of President Benjamin Hale, executed for the Geneva chaj)ter of A A ♦. which he began in 1860. Leaving Brown in 1861, he in 1863 settled in Kochester, where he established the first school in that city for instruction in drawing and in nKKlelling. During his twenty years' resi- dence in Rochester he executed many busts, statu- ettes, and medallions. From an early age, however, his eyesight had iK-en defective, and by 1883 his left eye had become entirely blind and the sight of his right eye serioiislv impaired. He removed to his sister's home at Tarrytown, and there, guided by the sense of touch alone, he modelled the statue for the soldiers' monument at Tarrytown. unveiled on Memorial day, 1890, and his statue of Washing- ton Irviiiir. which he comjiletcd in 1891.

'''MONROE. Charles Kirk''', author, b. in Racine, Wis., 15 .Sept., 1856. He was graduated at Har- vard, was editor of " Harper's Round Table," now discontinued, from 1879 to 1882. and founded the Ijcague of American wheelmen in 1880. Mr. Munroe. who married a daughter of Mrs. Amelia Edith Barr, the popular novelist (q. v.). an<l resides in Dalle county, Fla., has written many works, chleflv for the voting. Among them may be men- tioned "Wakulla" (New York. 1885): '"Life of Mrs. Stowe," with her sim (1886); "The Flamin- go Feather" (1887); "Derrick Sterling" (1888)?