Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/431

 BRIDGES.

BRIDGMAN.

to California, where he filled the office of appraiser-general at San Francisco, being at the head of the Pacific coast customs department. He was also commissioner, having charge of th6 erection of the custom-house and of the U. S. mint and Marine hospital at San Francisco. In 1871 he retired from public life, having become well known as an authority on all tariff and revenue matters. He accumulated a fortime. of which he gave generously for the public good. He gave to Harvard college the statue of John Bridge, the Pm-itan, Sept. 20, 1882, and that of John Harvard, founder of Harvard college, June 17, 1883. In 1880 Harvard conferred upon him the honorary degree of A.M. He was a member of the Harvard church society in Charlestown for nearly half a century, and was a wide traveller. He liberally endowed many educational institu- tions and helped many yoimg men through col- lege. He died Nov. 8, 1893.

BRIDGES, Fidelia, artist, was born at Salem, Mass. , May 19, 1835. She enjoyed the advantage of an excellent training under William T. Rich- ards, marine and landscape painter, and made her first appearance at the National academy of design in New York city, in 1869, with two oil paintings, "Winter Sunshine,"' and "Wild Flowers in Wheat." In 1870 she exhibited at the academy " Blackberry Bushes " and " Views on the Ausable " ; in 1873 " Thistles and Yellow Birds," and in 1874 "Cornfield" and "Salt Marshes." She was elected an associate aca- demician in 1873, and a member of the water- color society in 1874. In 1871 she turned her attention to water -color, and her success with that medium was so great that after 1874 she rarely used any other. Her " Flock of Snow Birds," " King Fisher and Catkins," and "Corner of a Rye Field, ' ' were exhibited in Philadelphia at the Centennial (1876) ; and a picture of spar- rows in the snow, entitled, " Crumbs of Com- fort," was sold at the Royal academy in London at the spring exhibition, 1879. Among her other works in water-color may be noted: " Daisies and aover" (1874); "Lily Pond" (1875); "Mouth of a River" (1876); "Rye Field" (1877); " Morning Glories " (1878) ; " East Hampton Pas- tures " (1884), and " Pastures by the Sea " (1885), the last two being painted during a visit to England in 1878-'79.

BRIDGES, George Washington, lawyer, was born at Athens, Tenn., Oct. 9, 1821. He received a classical education at the East Tennessee uni- versity, was admitted to the bar, and elected, in 1848, attorney -general of the state. To this office he was re-elected each year until 1859, when he resigned. In 1860 he was presidential elector on the Doiiglas and Johnson ticket. He was elected a representative to the 37th Congress in August,

1861, and started for Washington, but the Con- federates arrested hmi on his way, and he was for more than a year held captive in Tennessee ; man- aging to effect his escape, he took his seat Feb. 25, 1863; his term expiring March 3, 1863, a week later. He then entered the Federal army as lieutenant-colonel of the 10th Tennessee cavalry, and at the close of the war was elected a circuit judge. He died March 16, 1873.

BRIDGES, Robert, educator, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1806. He was graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1828, with the degree of M.D., and afterwards became assistant to Professor Bache in the Philadelphia college of pharmacy. From 1842 to 1879 he occupied the chair of chem- istry in that institution, and from 1879 to the time of his death was professor emeritus. He edited, "A ^lanual of Elementary Chemistiy, Theoretical and Practical," from the 10th revised and corrected English edition, by George Townes (1875); also "Wood and Bache's United States Dispensary," after Professor Bache's death in 1864; and assisted in editing the "American Journal of Pharmacy and Chemistry." He died in Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 20, 1882.

BRIDGMAN, Frederic Arthur, painter, was born at Tuskegee, Ala., Nov. 10, 1847. He was in the service of the American bank-note company in New York as an engraver, from 1863 to 1866, giving his leisure to the study of dra^^'ing and painting. He went to Paris in 1866, and became a pupil in the ecole des beaux arts, under direct tuition of the famous Gdrome ; the infiuence of the master on the pupil's style was for a long time very manifest. While a student at the beaux arts, Mr. Bridgman made frequent visits to Brittany, for sketching " nature and himian nature" in that picturesque province; later he made many sketching tours in the Pyrenees, in southeast Europe, in Algeria and elsewhere in Africa, in Egypt, etc. The first of his works to be exhibited was the " Jeu Breton," at the Paris salon, 1868. Besides his annual pic- ture at the salon, he was a frequent contributor to American art exhibitions. His trip to Algeria was made in 1872 ; in 1873 he visited Cairo, and went up the Nile to the second cataract. The fruit of these wanderings under southern skies was a change of style and color. His salon pictm-es for 1873 were " The Return from the Harvest -Field " and an "Arab Villa." In 1874 he exhibited: "A Diligence in the Pyrenees" (1873); "A Cahn Day in Upper Egypt," "A Nubian Story-TeUer at the Harem. Cairo," and the " Prayer in the Mosque " (1876) ; " Prepara- tions for the Departure of the Sacred Rug, Cairo " (1877) ; " Funeral of a Mummy " (1878) ; "Diversions of an Assyrian King" (1880);