Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/74

ALEXANDER.ALEXANDER. which office he filled until he was appointed assistant pastor of the church of Minerva in Rome; here he remained until 1841, when he joined the American mission. The first years of his missionary work were spent in Nashville and Memphis, Tenn. In 1847 he was made provincial of the order of Dominicans in the state of Ohio. In 1850 his abilities attracted the attention of the papal court during his presence at the general chapter of the order, and he was consecrated bishop of Monterey by Cardinal Franzoni in the church of San Carlo. Leaving Rome immediately, he brought to his new see religious of both sexes, with whose aid he founded various institutions of learning in California. In 1853 he was elevated to the see of San Francisco as its first archbishop. In 1883 he resigned his office and retired to a convent in Valencia, Spain, intending to devote the remainder of his life to the rehabilitation of the Dominican order in Spain, and died there April 14, 1888. He wrote a "Life of St. Dominick." ALEXANDER, Abraham, statesman, was born near Raleigh, N. C., in 1718. He was a member of the colonial legislature before 1775, and when that year the royalist governor attempted to oppose the people in their right of free speech, he was elected president of an indignation meeting held in the court house at Charlotte, at the call of Col. Thomas Polk. He was made permanent chairman of the subsequent meeting held May 31, 1775, that issued the Mecklenburg declaration of independence, providing for a republican form of government, and renouncing allegiance to Great Britain. This was nearly a year before the Declaration signed at Philadelphia, July 4, 1776. This document was transmitted to Philadelphia in August, 1775, by a special messenger, after having been read in mass meetings to the people in different parts of the state. Mr. Alexander died at Charlotte, N. C, April 23, 1776. ALEXANDER, Archer, hero, was born near Richmond, Va., about 1810, a slave, and in 1831 was taken to Missouri by his master. In 1861, at the breaking out of the civil war, he performed a very heroic deed. Learning that a detachment of Federal troops was to pass over a railroad bridge, the timbers of which he knew to have been cut in order to wreck the train, Alexander, at the hazard of his life, gave the information to a prominent Union man, thus preventing disaster to the detachment. He was suspected of doing this, and was taken prisoner by a committee of Confederate sympathizers, but escaped, fleeing to St. Louis, where he obtained employment under protection of the Federal provost-marshal. In the bronze group, "Freedom's Memorial," in the capitol grounds in Washington, he was the model of Thomas Ball the sculptor, from which "The Freedman" in the group was made. See "The story of Archer Alexander." He died in St. Louis, Dec. 8, 1879. ALEXANDER, Archibald, educator, was born in Rockbridge county, Va., April 17, 1772, son of William Alexander, a farmer of means, who gave him an academic education under William Graham in the celebrated school founded by his great-uncle, Robert Alexander in 1749, and then known as "Liberty Hall." This school was the germ of Washington and Lee university. During the great revival of 1789-'90 Archibald turned his attention to religious study, was ordained by the presbytery of Hanover, and preached several years as an itinerant pastor over several churches in Charlotte and Prince Edward's counties. He was elected president of Hampden-Sidney college in 1796, serving until a revolt among the students forced him to retire in 1806. In 1802 he was married to Janetta, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Waddel, the blind preacher, immortalized by William Wirt. He acted as pastor of the old Vine street Presbyterian church of Philadelphia from 1807 to 1812, when he became leading professor in Princeton theological seminary, the first theological professor elected by the general assembly of the Presbyterian church. He opened the seminary with three students, and in a few years, as the number of professorships increased, he was able to confine his work to didactic and polemic theology. He had been moderator of the general assembly in 1808, and in his annual sermon before that body had advised the establishment of a theological seminary. This led to the foundation of the seminary at Princeton in 1812. There he founded the chair of Christian ethics and apologetics, and after his retirement it became known as the Archibald Alexander chair. For nearly forty years he labored in this field, shaping the views and character of hundreds of preachers. He possessed extraordinary powers as a pulpit orator and in polemics, so popular in his day. His first published work was, "A Brief Outline of the Evidences of the Christian Religion" (1823), widely translated and largely used as a text-book. He prepared a pocket edition of the Holy Bible in 1831. In 1833 he followed it with: "The Canons of the Old and New Testament Ascertained;" "Lives of the Patriarchs" (1835); "Essays on Religious Experiences" (1840); "Evidences of the Authenticity and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures," 5th ed. (1836); "History of African Colonization" (1846); "History of the Log Cabin" (1843); "History of the Israelitish Nation" (1852); "Outlines of Moral Science" (1858); and minor works. He died at Princeton, N.J., Oct. 22, 1851. ALEXANDER, DeAlva Stanwood, representative, was born in Richmond, Maine, July 17, 1846; son of Stanwood and Priscilla (Brown)