Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/202

BALTIMORE.BANCROFT. BALTIMORE, Sir George Calvert, lord, was born in Kipling, Yorkshire, England, in 1582. When he was about fifteen years old he was graduated from Oxford university, and after spending a few years in travel he was made clerk of the privy council and later secretary of state. While holding the latter office he won the favor of James I., by whom he was made a knight in 1617, and later a peer of Ireland. It was also from the hands of this monarch that he received his grant of land in southern Newfoundland, where he founded a colony, which he visited, but did not remain on account of the extreme cold. After visiting the southern part of the American coast, he urged Charles I. to grant him another patent, consisting of the tract of land now covered by Maryland and Delaware. Lord Baltimore intended to found a state which should be governed by an assembly, and should have an hereditary landed aristocracy. See Winsor’s "Narrative and Critical History of America." Lord Baltimore died April 15, 1632. BANCROFT, Cecil Franklin Patch, educator, was born at New Ipswich, N. H., Nov. 25, 1839. He was graduated at Dartmouth college in 1860, and at the Andover theological seminary in 1867, and continued his studies in Germany. He was principal of Appleton academy, Mt. Vernon, N. H., 1860-’64: of a school in Tennessee, 1867-'72, and of Phillips Andover academy from 1873. He was married in May, 1869, to Fanny A., daughter of Capt. Timothy and Fanny March Kittredge of Mt. Vernon, N. H. She died, March 29, 1898. He received the degree of Ph. D., from the University of the State of New York in 1874, Litt. D., from Williams in 1874, and LL. D., from Yale in 1892. He was president of the Dartmouth alumni and of the Headmasters' association. He died at Andover, Mass., Oct. 4, 1901. BANCROFT, Edward, author, was born at Westfield. Mass., Jan. 9, 1744. Having a natural love for adventure, he left home at an early age, and shipped on a vessel. A second voyage took him to Guiana, where he engaged in the practice of medicine. He afterwards went to England where he devoted himself to literary work. Through the influence of Benjamin Franklin he became a writer on the Monthly Review. He was suspected of aiding in the attempt to burn the Portsmouth dock-yard and was obliged to take refuge in France, in 1777, where, through his acquaintance with Silas Deane, commissioner of the Continental Congress, he obtained intelligence about American Continental affairs of use to the British government, and he imparted his knowledge to the British ministry. He was in the employ of both the English and Continental governments as a spy. He accumulated a large fortune by securing patents from England and France for exclusive right to import yellow oak bark for dyeing purposes. He was a member of the Royal college of physicians in London, and a fellow of the Royal society. His publications include "Natural History of Guiana" (1769); "Remarks on the Review of the Controversy between Great Britain and Her Colonies" (1771); "Charles Wentworth"; "Experimental Researches Concerning Permanent Colors" (1794); "Philosophy of Permanent Colors" (2 vols., 1813), and many short articles. He died in England, Sept. 8, 1820. BANCROFT, Frederic, librarian, was born in Galesburg, Ill., Oct. 30, 1860. He was graduated from Amherst college in 1882, studied law and political science at Columbia college, and went to Europe, where he spent a semester in Göttingen university. After taking his degree he occupied two and a half years in the study of history, political economy and diplomacy at Berlin, Freiburg (Baden) and in the Ećole des Sciences Politiques at Paris. In Freiburg he was a special student in United States history of the historian Von Holst. In the spring of 1888 he was lecturing at Amherst college on the political history of the civil war and reconstruction, when he was appointed by Secretary Bayard the chief of the bureau of rolls and library in the department of state. In 1885 he printed for private circulation "The Negro in Politics, Especially in South Carolina and Mississippi." While in Berlin and Paris, he was the occasional correspondent of the New York Evening Post and the Epoch. In 1889 he won a prize lectureship in the Columbia school of political science, and lectured on the diplomatic history of the United States. Dr. Bancroft contributed to Harper's Weekly and to the Political Science Quarterly, and wrote a "Life of William H. Seward." He received the degrees of A. B., and A. M., from Amherst, that of Ph. D., from Columbia, in 1885, and LL. D., from Knox in 1900. BANCROFT, George, historian, was born at Worcester, Mass., Oct. 3, 1800, son of Aaron Bancroft, a Congregational-Unitarian minister and author of a "Life of Washington." His childhood was passed in an atmosphere of cultivation, and he early developed a love of study. Between the ages of eleven and thirteen he attended Phillips Exeter academy, and thence proceeded to Harvard, where, during his first year, he had Edward Everett for his tutor. Mr. Everett, being appointed professor, went to Göttingen to further fit himself for his office, and from there wrote to Harvard advising that some brilliant young man should be sent to Germany to study, in order that the teaching at Harvard might be strengthened. Young Bancroft, on his grad nation in 1817, was chosen and sent. At Göttingen he had Eichhorn, Blumenbach and Heeren