Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/303

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VIRGIXIA BIOGRAPHY

in the office of William Wirt, who had married his sister Mildred; practiced with success at Winchester and in the neighbor- ing counties, and in 1818 removed to Rich- mond as a more enlarged and ambitious field. Here he worked laboriously and was one of the leading lawyers. But he was essentially a student and he loved dearly literature and the finer arts. It was about this time that he wrote his "Sketches of American Orators," in which he touched oflE with very happy eflFect the eloquence of William Pinkney. Littleton Waller Taze- well. William Wirt and others. In 1820 he wrote a short treatise on "Usury," which re- ceived high commendation from Jeficrson, Madison and John Randolph. He took much interest in the establishment of the Univer- sity of Virginia and was offered by Mr. Jef- ferson the post of professor of law. This he declined, but he was subsequently pre- vailed upon by him to go to England and select the first professors. This mission he executed in a manner most honorable to himself and the university. On his return he was again tendered the chair of law, and on account of his health, which unfitted him for the strenuous work of practicing, he accepted. He never delivered a lecture, but died on February 25. 1826, in the thirty- sixth year of his age, at the home of his uncle, George Divers, in Albemarle county His letters, written in England during his mission, were published by William P. Trent, under the title of "English Culture in Virginia/' in the Johns Hopkins University publications on historical and political science. There also exist in MSS. some of his letters to his nephew. Governor Thomas Walker Gilmer, in whose education he took much interest.

Taylor, Edward Thompson, born in Rich- mond, Virginia, December 25, 1793. He fol- Iciwed the sea in early life ; was captured on the privateer Black Hawk in 1S12, taken to England, and while in prison at Dartmouth acted as chaplain to his fellow prisoners. In 1819 he was ordained to the Methodist ministry. In 1828 he was a missionary to the Seaman's Bethel in Boston, Massachu- setts. He was familiarly known as "Father Taylor," and his discourses commanded wide attention by reason of his remarkably vivid use of nautical terms, and his wonder- ful descriptive powers. In 1832 he visited Lurope. Palestine in 1842. and in 1840 was chaplain on the United States frigate Mace- douian, on its voyage to Ireland with provi- sions for its famine-stricken people. His elo- quence commanded the admiring attention 01 such writers as Miss Martineau, Charles Dickens and Miss Bremer. He died in Bos- ton, Massachusetts, April 6, 1871.

Collier, Henry Watkins» born in Lunen- burg county, Virginia, January 17, 1801, and was less than a year old when his father re- moved with his family to the Abbeville Dis- trict, South Carolina, where he received his preparatory education. They removed to Madison county, Alabama, in 1818, and he studied law at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and at Huntsville, Alabama, being admitted to legal practice in the latter city. He became a resident of Tuscaloosa in 1823, and was there elected district judge in 1827. Hav- ing been appointed associate justice of the supreme court of Alabama in 1836, he was made chief justice the following year, and remained the incumbent of this office until 1849, when, without opposition, he was elected governor of the state. His support

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