Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 02.djvu/357

 COMMONS

COMSTOCK

U.S. minister at Hawaii, 18TT-82, then removed to Toledo, Ohio, where he edited the Commercial, 1882-87. He died at Toledo, Ohio, July 26, 1887.

COMMONS, John Rogers, political econo- mist, was born in Darke county, Ohio, Oct. 13, 1862; son of John and Clara (Rogers) Commons. He was educated at Winchester high school, learned the printer's trade, and was graduated at Oberlin college in 1888, receiving the degree of A.M. in 1890. He pursued a post-graduate course at Johns Hopkins university, 1888-89; was tutor in political economy at Wesleyan univer- sity, 1890-91, associate professor of political economy in Oberlin college, 1891-92, professor of economics and social science, Indiana university', 1892-95, and professor of sociology at Syracuse university, 1895-99. He was associated with Prof. G. W. Knight of Ohio state university in the authorship of the History of Higher Education in Ohio (1890); and also published, besides numer- ous magazine articles, The Distribution of Wealth (1893); Social Reform and the Church (1894); Pro- portional Hejiresentation (1896); and the chapter on Electric Lighting in Bemis's Municipal Monopolies (1898).

COMPTON, Barnes, representative, was born at Port Tobacco, Md., Nov. 16, 1830. He was graduated at the College of New Jersey in 1851; was a member of the house of delegates from Charles county, Md., 1860-61; a member of the state senate, 1867, 1868, 1870 and 1872, serving as president in 1868 and 1870. He was state tobacco inspector, 1873-74, and state treasurer, 1874-85. In 1884 he was elected from the 5th district of Maryland, as a Democrat, a representative in the 49th congress, but his seat was successfully con- tested by H. B. Holton. He was re-elected to the 50th, 51st, 52d and 53d congresses, resigning in 1894. He died at Laurel, Md., Dec. 2, 1898.

COMSTOCK, Anna Botsford, artist, was born in Otto, Cattaraugus county, N.Y., Sept. 1, 1854; daughter of Marvin S. and Phebe (Irish) Bots- ford, granddaughter of Daniel and Polly (Foote) Botsford and of Job and Anna (Southard) Irish, and a descendant of the Botsfords who came from England, 1630-40, and settled in Milford and Windsor, Conn. Both her grandfathers were pioneers from New England to western New York, and her grandfather Botsford fought in the war of 1812. She attended the common schools until 1870, when she entered the Chamberlain in- stitute at Randolph, N. Y., and she was graduated in the college preparatory course in 1873. She completed a special course in history and political science at Cornell university in 1876, and a course in natural history and science at the same insti- tution in 1885, receiving the degree of B.S. She was married Oct. 7, 1878, to Prof. John Henry Comstock of Cornell, and began her career as an

artist and engraver for the purpose of assisting her husband in his scientific publications. She began work as a natural history artist in 1880, and as an engraver in 1886. She was elected a member of the committee for the promotion of agriculture in New York state, and from 1896 was employed by Cornell university as a univer- sity extension instructor in introducing nature- stud}' into the common schools of New York state. She was associated with her husband as an artist in several reports of the United States depart- ment of agriculture, and in many of his scientific publications.

COMSTOCK, Anthony, reformer, was born in New Canaan, Conn., March 7, 1844; son of Thomas A. and Polly Ann (Lockwood) Com- stock; grandson of Major Samuel Com.stock, who was twice commissioned by Governor Trumbull; grand-nephew of Jonathan Clock of Stamford, who enlisted in the Continental army in 1775 for one year, re-enlisted in 1776 and served under General Schuyler in the expeditions of Lake George and Lake Champlain; and a descendant on his mother's side of the Rev. Thomas Hanford, the immigrant, who fled from persecution in Eng- land and died in Connecticut in 1693. He was educated at the New Britain high school and en- listed in the 17th Connecticut regiment in 1863 to fill the place of his brother Samuel, fatally wounded at Gettysburg, and served with the regiment until the close of the war. He was sent as a steward by Christopher R. Robert to help transform Lookout Mountain barracks at Chatta- nooga, Tenn., into a college, and in 1867 located in New York city, where he found work in a wholesale dry goods house, serving as porter, stock-keeper and salesman. In March, 1872, he determined to devote himself to the suppression of vice as affecting j'oung men and women, and almost single handed he began a reform that extended throughout the city. In April, 1872, he interested Morris K. Jessuji, William E. Dodge, Jr., Samuel Colgate, and other wealthy New York philanthropists, who secured from the legislature of New York state a charter for the New York society for the suppression of vice in May, 1873, and Mr. Comstock became its secretary and chief agent. He systematically ferreted out the haunt.s of evil, personally supervising the arrest of over 2270 law breakers; destroj^ed over seventy-three tons of indecent printed matter and contraband goods; and shut and barred the doors of liun- dreds of gambling rooms, including incorporated and legalized lotteries. His use of strategy to cap- ture and conqvier the enemy was at times criti- cised and condemned by the public press, but the higher courts invariably sustained him whenever his cases came up on appeal before them. His published works include frauds Exposed (1880);