Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/309

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

and lawyer in Richmond about 1804, and William, and a daughter Maria, first wife of Judge John Coalter.

Paradise, John, son of Peter Paradise, was born at Thessalonica, where his father, a Greek, was British consul. He removed to London, where he was a friend of Sam- uel Johnson, and member of the ''Literary Club." He is mentioned by Boswell in his "Life of Johnson." He came to Virginia about 1783, and became a citizen of that state and was a member of the board of visitors of William and Mary College. After 1788 he returned with his wife to London, where he died in 1795. His wife v/as Lucy Ludwell, youngest daughter of Hon. Philip Ludwell, and she returned from London to V'irginia in 1805. Paradise had two daughters, Portia and Lucy, which last married Count Philip J. Barziza, of Venice, whose son of the same name settled in Wil- liamsburg, married Cecilia Belette, and had ten children. The last was named Decimus Ultimus Barziza. When Mrs. Paradise re- turned to Virginia, after the death of her husband, she brought among other house- hold treasures, her dining table, around which the Literary Club had so often been entertained. This table is now the property of Miss Mary J. Gait, of Williamsburg.

Rumsey, James, born at Bohemia Manor, Cecil county, Maryland, about 1743; he was a machinist and boat builder, and his most notable invention, the steamboat, was constructed at Shepherdstown, Virginia, and was used upon the Potomac river, at that place. In 1784 he exhibited to Washington the model of a boat for stemming the cur- rent of rivers, by the force of the stream acting upon setting poles. This he patented

in several states, and in March, 1785, he ob- tained from the Pennsylvania assembly an exclusive ten years' right **to navigate and build boats to work with greater care and rapidity." Later he launched upon the Po- tomac river a boat provided with a steam engine and machinery of his own construc- tion that propelled the vessel by the force of a stream of water thrown out by a pump at the stern. He made a successful trial trip in December, 1787, which was witness- ed by a large concourse of people, and he was granted the rights of so navigating the streams of Xew York, Maryland and Vir- ginia. The Rumsey Society, of which Ben- jamin Franklin was a principal member, was founded in Philadelphia in 1788, for the pur- pose of furthering his enterprise. He then went to England, where a similar society v.as organized, and he obtained patents for his inventions in Great Britain, France and Holland. At London, a boat and" machinery were built for him, and a successful trial trip v/as made on the Thames in December, 1792, and he died while preparing for a second experiment, December 23, same year. He rose to address a large audience in London and fell dead. He published "A Short Treatise on the Application of Steam," which involved him in a controversy with John Fitch. In 1839 the Kentucky legisla- ture presented to his son a gold medal, "commemorative of his father's services and high agency in giving to the world the bene- fits of the steamboat."

Braidwood* John, son of John Braidwood. of Edinburgh and London. His father was founder of a school in London, for the in- struction of the deaf and dumb. The son came to "Cobb's," Goochland county, Vir-

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