Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/228

 PROMIXEXT PERSONS

183

7. 1792, and in December was assigned to the fourth sub-legion. He was appointed adjutant and quartermaster, in September, >793> served against the Indians and under Gen. Wayne, and in July, 1796, resigned, owing to ill health. He subsequently re- gained his health by turning trapper and hunter. About 1804 William Clark removed to St. Louis, Missouri, and in March Presi- dent Jefferson commissioned him second lieutenant of artillery, ordering him to join Capt. Meriwether Lewis in an exploring expedition from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia river. This expedition lasted two years and was the first to the Pacific coast. The success of the explorations, at- tended by incredible privations and hard- ships, where no white man ever set his foot before, was in large measure due to Capt. Clark's knowledge of Indian character and habits. He was military director of the ex- pedition, and kept a journal, subsequently published by the United States government. On September 23, i8of), the expedition re- turned to St. Louis, and Capt. Clark went to Washington. Congress granted him 1,000 acres from the public domain, and on May 2. 1807, he resigned from the army, having been nominated to be governor of Louisiana territory a few days before. His commis- sion for the latter office was dated March 3, 1807, and about the same time he was ap- pointed a general of the territorial militia and Indian agent. In the latter office he remained until July i, 1813, when he was appointed governor of the Missouri terri- tory, by President Madison. When Mis- souri applied for admission into the Union in 1818, a controversy followed whether it should be a free or slave state. In antici- pation of the admission of the state an

election was held August 28, and Clark was defeated for governor by Alexander Mc- Nair. In May, 1822, he was appointed su- perintendent of Indian affairs at St. Louis by President Monroe. He held this office until his death, in St. Louis, Missouri, Sep- tember I, 1838. Clark's Fork, an important branch of the Missouri, was named in his honor, and Lewis and Clark county, Mon- tana, is in joint remembrance of the two explorers.

McDowell, Ephraim, was born in Rock- bridge county, Virginia, November 11, 1771, son of Samuel and Mary (McClung) Mc- Dowell, and grandson of Ephraim McDow- ell, who with his brothers, James and John, emigrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania. Ephraim and John settled in Rockbridge county, in 1737. He removed with his par- ents to Danville in 1783 ; attended a classical school at Georgetown, and studied medi- cine under Dr. Humphreys of Staunton, and at the University of Edinburgh, 1793- 94. He practiced medicine and surgery in Danville. 1785-1830. He was married, in 1802, to Sallie, daughter of Gov. Isaac Shel- by of Kentucky. He was elected a member of the Medical Society of Philadelphia in 1817. The honorary degree of M. D. was conferred upon him by the University of Maryland in 1825. He was the first surgeon successfully to perform the operation known as ovariotomy, and a description of his first cases was published in the Eclectic Reper- tory and Analytic Review, Philadelphia, 1817. His successful operations appeared incredible at the time, and he became known among the profession as the '^father of ovariotomy." He was one of the founders of Center College at Danville, and an orig- inal trustee, 1819-23. In 1879 a monument

Digitized by

Google