Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/441

 BROCKLESBY.

BRODHEAD.

BROCKLESBY, John, educator, was born at West Bromwich, England, Oct. 8. 1811. In his childhood he wa.s brought to America, where he was educated, receiving his diploma from Yale college in 1835. He accepted a position as tutor at Yale in 1838, and remained there until 1840. In 1843 he was Called to the chair of mathe- matics and natural philosophy at Trinity college, Hartford, which he held for more than thirty years, and for the following ten years was pro- fessor of astronomy and natural philosophy in %he same institution, and was acting president of the college five times between 1860 and 1874. Hobart college conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. in 1868. His published works include: " Elements of Meteorology " (1848) ; " Views of the Microscopic World" (1850); "Elements of Astronomy " (1865) ; " Elements of Physical Geography" (1868), and "The Amateur Micro- scopist " (1871). He died June 21, 1889.

BROCKWAY, Zenas R., penologist, was born at Lyme, Conn., in 1837. From 1848 to 1851 he was a clerk at the Connecticut state prison ; from 1851 to 1854, a warden's assistant at the Albany penitentiary, and from 1854 to 1861, manager and superintendent of the Monroe county (N. Y.) penitentiary. The eleven years following were spent in prison management in Detroit, where he completed, opened, and superintended the house of correction. In 1876 he laid before the New York prison commission an original plan for the reform of criminals, and when it was presented to the legislature, that body at once appropriated funds sufficient to establish a reformatory on the lines proposed. The result of this appropriation, the Elmira reformatory, became a model for similar institutions, while the Brockway system of dealing with criminals was adopted in prisons both in America and in Europe.

BRODERICK, Case, representative, was born in Grant county, Ind., Sept. 33, 1839. In 1858 he removed to Douglas, Jackson county, Kansas, and engaged in farming. He enlisted in the 8d Kansas battery in 1863, and was mustered out of the volunteer army in August, 1865. He was elected probate judge of Jackson county in 1868, and was twice re-elected. In 1870 he was ad- mitted to the bar at Holton, and in 1876 was elected county attorney of Jackson countj', to which office he was re-elected in 1878. In 1880 he was made state senator, and in March, 1884, was appointed by President Arthur associate justice of the supreme court of Idaho for the term of four years. On his election to this office he removed to Boisd City, Idaho, and at the expira- tion of the term returned to Holton. In 1890 he was elected a representative from the first Kansas district to the 52d Congress, and was re-elected to the three succeeding congresses.

BRODERICK, David Colbreth, senator,- was born in Washington, D. C, Feb. 4, 1830. He was taken by his parents to the city of New York when three years of age, and there obtained his education at the public schools, after which he learned his father's trade of stone cutting. His connection with the volunteer fire department brought him into contact with political men, and he was an imsuccessful Democratic candidate for representative to Congress in 1846. In 1849 he removed to California, where he served the same year as a member of the state constitu- tional convention. He was elected as a state senator in 1850, and was president of the .senate in 1851. He was elected to the United States senate in 1856, where he acquired a national reputation as a debater. He severed his con- nection with the Democratic party on the slavery issue, and when the admission of Kansas as a state was proposed, under the Lecompton con- stitution, he vehemently opposed it in the senate. A political quarrel between Mr. Broderick and David S. Terry, chief ju.stice of the supreme court of California, in which both parties were equally to blame, resulted in a duel with pi.stols, in which Broderick fell mortally wounded, Sept. 16, 1859.

BRODHEAD, Daniel, soldier, was born in Virginia in 1736. He was a lineal descendant of Capt. Daniel Brodhead, a British officer in the famous expedition against the New Netherlands in 1664. He was elected as a deputy from Berks county. Pa., to a provincial meeting which met at Philadelphia, July 15, 1774, and served on a committee which reported sixteen resolves, one of which recommended the calling of a Continental Congress. He was chosen by the Pennsylvania assembly in May, 1775, to the command of the 8th regiment of Pennsylvania riflemen. In June, 1778, with his regiment he rebuilt Fort Muncy, which had been destroyed by the Indians. On March 5, 1779, he was ap- pointed by General Washington military com- mandant of the western department, with head- quarters at Fort Pitt, Pa. In this capacity he conducted several successful campaigns against the Indians, and made numerous treaties with them. His services extended throughout the entire revolutionary war, and at its close he was selected by the officers as.sembled at the " Can- tonments of the American Army on Hudson River, May 10, 1783," as one of a conunittee to prepare the necessary papers for the incorpora- tion of "The Society of the Cincinnati." On Nov. 3, 1789, he was elected oy the general as- sembly of Peimsylvania, surveyor-general of the commonwealth, and was continued in that office for about twelve years. His death occurred at Milford, Pa., Nov. 15, 1809.