Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/393

 BOYD.

BOYESEN.

BOYD, Sempronius Hamilton, diplomatist, was born in Williamson county, Tenn., May 28, 1828 ; sou of Marcus Boyd, who, in 1840, removed his family to Springfield, Mo., where the son re- ceived an academical education. He went to California, where he remained from 1849 till 1855, when he returned to Springfield, where he was admitted to the bar in 1857, was elected clerk of the city council, city attorney, mayor, clerk of probate and common pleas court, prosecuting attorney for the county, judge of the twenty-first judicial circuit of Missouri, and representative in the 38th and 40th congresses. During the civil war he, as colonel of the 24th Missouri infantry, " Lyon Legion," and then as colonel of the 46th Missouri infantry, served imder Generals Lyon, Sigel, Halleck, Rosecrans, Davidson and Curtis in Missouri. In 1890 he was appointed United States minister resident and consul-general to the court of the kingdom of Siam, by President Harrison, and in 1893 he returned home on sick leave, leaving his son, Dr. Robert M. Boyd, United States charge d'affaires to the same kingdom. He was founder and president of the First national bank of Springfield, Mo.

BOYD, Thomas Duckett, educator, was born in Wytheville, Va., Jan. 20, 1854; son of Thomas J. and Minerva (French) Boyd. He was gradua- ted from Louisiana state university in 1872 ; and remained there as adjunct professor of mathe- matics, 1873-'77 ; professor of English, 1877-83 ; commandant of cadets, 1875-'79 ; and professor of liistory and English literature, 1883-'88. He was president of the state normal school, Natchi- toches, La., 1888-'96, and was elected president of Louisiana state university in 1896. He re- ceived the degree LL.D. from Tulane in 1897.

BOYDEN, Seth, inventor, was born in Fox- borough, Mass.. Nov. 17, 1788. He was as a far- mer and blacksmith and in 1809 began to make machines, and in.proved a leather splitting ma- chine invented by his father. He estabUshed a leather business in Newark, N. J., with his brother Uriah A. (q.v.) in 1813, and made an improved patent leather in 1819. He manufactured malle- able-iron castings 1831 -"5, and important improve- ments to steam engines. He removed to Califor- nia in 1849, and returned to New Jersey in 1851 where he patented a hat-body doming machine. He died in Middleville, N.J., March 81, 1870.

BOYDEN, Uriah Atherton, inventor, was born at Foxborou-h, Mass., Feb. 17, 1804; brother of Seth Boyden, inventor. He learned his trade at a blacksmith's forge, and was afterwards em- ploj-ed in railroad construction. He removed td Lowell. Mass., wliere he studied hydraulic engi- neering, especially with reference to the con- struction of the turbine water-wheel then in use. He finally succeeded iu producing a wheel wast-

ing but five per cent, of the water, and it was largely adopted throughout the world. This achievement led him to acquire a thorough knowledge of chemistry and physics, and to this end he removed to Boston in 1850, where he pur- sued his studies. The Boyden library in his native town received from him a gift of one thousand dollars, and he also built there a soldiers' memorial building. He gave an equal sum to the Franklin institute, to be awarded to ' ' any resident of North America who should determine by experiment whether all rays of light or other physical rays were or were not transmitted with the same velocity."' He died in Boston, Mass., Oct. 17, 1879.

BOYESEN, Hjalmar HJorth, author and edu- cator, was born at Frederiksvaern, Norway, Sept. 23, 1848. He was educated at the Drammen Latin school and at Leipsic, Germany, and took his degree of B.A. at the University of Norway, Christiania, in 1868. The year following he came to the United States, where his father had set- tled two years before, and, after making a tour of the New England states, he became editor of the Fremad, a Scandinavian weekly, pub- lished at Chicago, 111. In 1870 he accepted a professorship of Greek and Latin at Urbana university, Ohio, mainly with the object of per- fecting himself in the language of his adopted country, and at that time commenced writing his first novel, ' ' Gunnar. ' ' He spent the year 1 872-' 73 at Leipsic in the study of philology, and in 1874 was given the chair of German litera- ture at Cornell university, which professorship he held tmtil his appointment in 1881 as in- structor in German at Columbia college. In 1883 he was promoted as Gebhard professor of the German language and literature, and in 1890 he was made professor of Germanic languages and literatures. His three sons were made wards of Columbia college, in recognition of distinguished educational services rendered by their father. He was a voluminous and versatile writer, his English being forcible and flexible ; nearly all of his books have been translated into German, and .some of them into French, Italian, and Danish. The following is a sequential list of his published works: "Gunnar" (1874); "A Norseman's Pil- grimage" (1875); "Tales from Two Hemi- spheres " (1876) ; " Falconberg " (1878) ; " Goethe and Schiller, Their Lives and Works, with a Com- mentary of Faust " (1878) ; " Ilka on the Hilltop " (1881); "Queen Titania " (1882); "Idyls of Norway "and other poems; " A Daughter of the Philistines" (1883); "The Story of Norway" (1886) : " The Modern Vikings " (1888) ; " The Light of her Countenance " (1889) : " Vagabond Tales" (1890); "The Mammon of Unrighteous- ness" (1891); " Boyhood in Norway " (1892);