Page:Stryker's American Register and Magazine, Volume 6, 1851.djvu/221

Rh some unsuccessful speculations rendered the firm of which he was a member insolvent, and one of the creditors had him incarcerated, but so strong was the sympathy for him, on account of his great age and upright conduct, that the Legislature of Lower Canada passed an act, especially designed for his benefit, that no debtor over seventy years of age should be imprisoned.

3d. In Virginia, aged 87, Hon., for thirty years Judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia. He was born at Smithfield, near Fredericksburg, on the 27th August, 1763; and in 1780 he was appointed a First Lieutenant in Gen. Harrison's Regiment of Artillery. His first campaign was under Lafayette in 1781; and he afterwards joined the southern army under Gen. Greene. On the close of the war, he returned to his native State, and studied medicine for a year. Afterwards, by the advice of his brother Robert, he turned his attention to law, and was admitted to the bar in 1788. He practised for some time at Northern Neck, with Bushrod Washington, who was afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was successively member of the House of Delegates and the Senate of Virginia. He was elected Judge of the Court of Appeals in 1811, and was President of that court for eight years. He was re-elected to the same office in 1831, under the revised Constitution of the State, and held the office till the time of his death.

6th. At St. Louis, Mo., Capt., for nearly forty years connected with the commerce of the West. During the administrations of J. Q. Adams, Jackson and Van Buren, he was United States Superintendent of Western River Improvements. He started flat-boats in 1808, and continued in the business until 1814, when he took charge of a steamboat, and proceeded with her from Pittsburg to New Orleans, performing the passage in fourteen days. He was the first that ever accomplished an upward trip, although two steamers had sailed down the Mississippi before his. He contributed much to the safety of commerce on the western waters by the invention of the steam snag-boat; and he was the means of destroying the Fulton and Livingston monopoly. He served under Gen. Jackson in the New Orleans campaign in 1814 and '15; and he manned one of the field-pieces which destroyed the advancing column under Gen. Kean, in the battle of the 8th of January. He also did good service by conveying troops and supplies with his steamer to the relief of Fort St. Philip.