Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/266

 PROMINENT PERSONS

215

Janney, Asa Moore, born in. Loudoun county, Virginia, September 18, 1802; was reared and educated in his native county, removed from there to Richmond in 1836, accompanying his family, and for a number of years assumed charge of Gallego Mills, one of the most extensive flouring mills in the South; returned to Loudoun county in i860 and resided there until 1869, in which year he was appointed agent for the Santee Sioux Indians in Nebraska, to which work he devoted himself assiduously, being largely instrumental in improving their moral and physical condition, and his wife and daughters also labored among the women of the tribe, their efforts proving of great benefit, alleviating the burdens and hardships they were called upon to bear; while there, he had a saw mill and flouring mill erected, lands were allotted to the In- dians in severalty, and about one hundred log houses erected; owing to impaired htalth. he resigned his commission and re- turned to Virginia; was a member of the Society of Friends, in which he held the office of elder; his death occurred in Lou- doun county. Virginia, April 30, 1880.

Beckwourth, James P., was born at Fred- ericksburg, Virginia, April 26, 1798. His father was a major in the revolutionary army, and his mother a negro slave. About the year 1805 he removed to St. Louis, Mis- souri, and settled on the spot afterwards known as "Beckwourth's Settlement." When young Beckwourth was about ten years old he was sent to St. Louis, where he attended school for four years, and was then appren- ticed to a blacksmith in that city. At the age of nineteen he joined an expedition of about one hundred men to go up the Fever river and negotiate a treaty with the Sac

Indians; and that being done, he remained in the vicinity for more than a year. He next became connected with General Ash- ley's Rocky Mountain Fur Company. In 1823 he carried important despatches to the mountains for Gen. Ashley. After terrible sufferings and many years spent among the Indians during which time he was made a chief of the Crows, he returned to his fam- ily at St. Louis, and later went to Florida, where he carried despatches for the United States, and was engaged in fighting the In- dians. He went to Mexico, and in 1844 ac- companied a trading expedition to Califor- nia. At the breaking out of the California revolution against Gov. Micheltorena, in 1845, he took an active part. He was en- gaged by the United States government to convey despatches to Chihuahua, and after- v/ards from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to California. Some time after 1849 he dis- covered a pass through the Sierra Nevada mountains, which was named **Beckwourth's Pass/* and in 1852 he became a trader in Bcckwourth's Valley. He died in 1867.

Greenhow, Robert, was born in Rich- mond, Virginia, in 1800, died in San Fran- cisco, California, in 1854. His father, Robert, was at one time mayor of Richmond. His mother, Mary Ann Wills, perished at the burning of the Richmond theatre in 181 1, and the son barely escaped with his life. He was graduated from William and Mary Col- lege in i8r6, and finished his education in New York, studying medicine with Dr. David Hosack and Dr. John W. Francis, and taking his degree at the College of Phy- sicians and Surgeons in 1821. He then visited Europe where he met Byron and other distinguished men, and on his return delivered lectures on chemistry before the

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