Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/181

BADIN.BAGLEY. time he was made associate justice of the court of common pleas, which position he held until 1821, when he became high sheriff of Stafford county. He was elected governor of New Hampshire in 1833, 1834 and 1835. He died at Gilmanton, N. H., Sept. 21, 1852. BADIN, Stephen Theodore, missionary, was born in Orleans, France, in 1768. His parents were poor, and at much sacrifice gave him a classical education at the College Montagu in Paris, after which he entered the Sulpitian academy at Tours to be fitted for the priesthood. He immigrated to the United States in 1792, where he was ordained by Bishop Carroll, in the cathedral at Baltimore, Md., in 1793, the first ordination of a Roman Catholic priest in America. He studied English at the college in Georgetown, and was then given a mission in Kentucky, at that time in the diocese of Baltimore, that extended over a territory covering hundreds of miles, which, in the unsettled state of the country he was obliged to traverse on horseback. In 1796 he was proffered the rectorship of St. Genevieve, but it did not suit the good missionary to give up a life of hardship for one of ease while work remained to be done. He had been for three years the only priest in Kentucky, when Bishop Carroll, in 1797, appointed him vicar-general and gave him an assistant, who was taken from him by death in the following year. Other assistants given him either died or withdrew, and in 1803 Father Badin's work was rendered more arduous by the rapid increase of Catholic immigration. In 1805 he published "Principles of Catholics." In 1806 he inaugurated a mission at Louisville, and in 1811 he built the church of St. Louis in that city. In 1812 his Protestant friends were mainly instrumental in providing him with funds to erect the church of St. Peter in Lexington. A difference between himself and Bishop Flaget, in regard to the title of certain church property, in 1808, caused Father Badin to leave Kentucky in 1819. He spent nine years in Europe, and on his return again took up missionary work, this time in Michigan, under Bishop Fenwick, where he labored for more than a year among the new settlers, when he was sent to the Pottawatomie Indians on St. Joseph's river, Indiana, where he spent the years 1830 to 1836 in Christianizing and civilizing these primitive people. The remaining years of his life were spent in Cincinnati, where he lived with Bishop Purcell. Father Badin, during his missionary labors, travelled over one hundred thousand miles on horseback mostly through the wilderness. He wrote "Carmen Sacrum," the "Epicedium," and "Sanctissimæ Trinitatis Laudes et Invocatis," Latin poems in hexameter verse, all of which were translated and published. He died in 1853. BADLAM, Ezra, soldier, was born at Milton, Mass., May 25, 1746; brother of Stephen Badlam, a general in the revolutionary war. He served as a captain of artillery at the siege of Boston, fought at Trenton and Princeton, and fell into the hands of the British at White Plains in 1780. He was afterwards released and promoted to the rank of colonel at the end of the war. He took an active part in putting down Shays' rebellion. He died in Dorchester, Mass., April 5, 1788. BADLAM, Stephen, soldier, was born at Milton, Mass., March 25, 1748; brother of Ezra Badlam, revolutionary soldier. He entered the colonial service at the outbreak of the revolution, in 1775, and was given the rank of lieutenant of artillery. He was later assigned to duty in the department of Canada, as commander of artillery, with the rank of major. He took possession of the eminence opposite Ticonderoga on learning of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and named it Mount Independence. In August, 1777, he fought under Willet at Fort Stanwix, N. Y., and in 1799 was made a brigadier-general. He was a brave soldier and a man of sterling qualities, and a friend and confidant of General Washington and Alexander Hamilton. He died at Dorchester, Mass., Aug. 25, 1815. BAER, John Willis, secretary, was born on a farm near Rochester, Minn., March 2, 1861. The first eighteen years of his life were spent in Cleveland, Ohio, where he acquired a good elementary education. In 1879 he engaged in newspaper work in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and in 1881 was employed with the Van Dusen elevator company, Minneapolis. In 1890 he was elected to the secretaryship of the United States Society of the Christian Endeavor, and at the general convention at St. Louis in June, 1890, was largely instrumental in making the gathering a notable success. The secretary's office was established in the general rooms of the United States society at Boston. BAGBY, Arthur Pendleton, governor of Alabama, was born in Virginia in 1794. He was educated for the law, and in 1818 settled in Tuscaloosa, Ala. He was a representative in the state legislature and speaker of the house, 1820-24; governor of Alabama, 1837-41; and U.S. senator, 1841-48, elected to fill a vacancy, and then for a full term. He resigned June 16, 1848, to accept the office of U.S. minister to Russia, which position he resigned, May 14, 1849. He was a commissioner to codify the laws of Alabama. He died in Mobile, Ala., Sept. 21, 1858. BAGLEY, John Judson, governor of Michigan, was born at Medina, N.Y., July 24, 1832. He removed to Constantine, Mich., in 1840; attended the public schools; established a tobacco factory in Detroit in 1854. and held various public offices in that city and positions of trust in many large