Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 02.djvu/378

 CONWAY

CONWELL

governor of Pondicherry and the French settle- ments in Hindustan. His quarrel with Tippoo Saib is said to have damaged greatly the prospects of French acquisitions in India. In 1792 he was given command of the royalist troops in the south of France but fled tlie country during the revolu- tion and died about 1800.

CONWAY, Thomas William, reformer, was born in County Clare, Ireland, March 25, 1840. He was graduated at Madison university, became a Baptist minister and was pastor of a church at Tottenville, N.Y., until 1861, when he went into the volunteer army as chaplain of the 9th New York regiment. In 1864 he was made chaplain of the 79th U.S. colored infantry and served under General Butler at New Orleans. In an action he led a brigade to victory and gained the rank of brigadier-general. He was made assistant commissioner for freedmen in Louisiana and subsequently state superintendent of schools, establishing \rithin eleven years 1500 schools for the education of the freedmen. In 1873 he was assistant to the Rev. Justin D. Fulton in Brook- lyn, N.Y. After two years" pastoral service he organized the New York anti-saloon league and a temperance insurance company and was sec- retary of the New York state temi:)erance league. He died in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 6, 1887.

CONWAY, William B., jvxrLst, was born in Green county, Tenn., about 1806; fifth son of Thomas and Ann (Rector) Conway. He was educated at Bardstown, K3\, studied law under John J. Crittenden and practised at Elizabeth- town, Ky. In 1840 he removed to Arkansas, where his brothers, James Sevier and Elias Nel- son, held high official positions, and he became judge of the 6th circuit. He served on this circuit from Dec. 19, 1840, to Nov. 15, 1844, and on the third circuit to December, 1846, when he was made associate justice of the supreme court. He died in Little Rock, Ark., Dec. 29, 1852.

CONWELL, Henry, R.C. bishop, was born in the Parish Moneymore, Drogheda, County Derry, Ireland, probably in 1745. He was ordained a priest either at Paris or Armagh in 1776, and labored in his native country for forty years, having been made vicar-general of Armagh. In 1820 he accepted the appointment of bishop of Philadelphia and was consecrated in Londr n, England, in Bishop Poynter's private chapel, Sept. 24, 1820, immediately embarking for Amer- ica, where he found his usefuhiess greatly im- paired through dissensions in his diocese begun before his time. He was forced to leave the cathedral and make St. Joseph's church his official home. The other prelates in the United States not being able to settle the difficulty, Bishop Conwell in 1828 went to Rome for instruc- tions and was advised not to return to the United

States, but fearing lest he should be detained in Rome, the aged and timorous bishop fled to France where the papal nuncio also endeavored to dissuade him from leaving Europe. The bishop, however, returned to Philadelphia and in 1829 attended the council at Baltimore, where he was induced to accept a coadjutor, with whom he left the charge of his bishopric. He became blind in August, 1832, and died a't Phila- delphia. Pa., April 22, 1842.

CONWELL, Russell Herrman, clergyman, was born in South Worthington, Mass., Feb. 15, 1843; son of Martin and Miranda (Wickham) Conwell ; grandson of Martin Conwell of Salem, Md., and a descendant of the Baltimore branch of the Conwell family which came to Maryland with Lord Baltimore. He was brought up on a farm near ' ' The Eagle's Nest," South Worthington, Mass., studied at the Wilbra- ham academy ; taught school, and spent two years at Yale in the law department, leav- ing college in 1862 to enter the army as captain in the 46th Massachusetts in- fantry in the civil war. He reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel, serving for a time on the staff of General McPherson. While in the army he was correspondent of the Boston Trav- eler. He was graduated at the Albany law school in 1865 and established a law office in Minneapolis. Minn. He was appointed by Gover- nor Marshall emigration agent to Germany and was abroad, 1866-67. He made a tour of the world as correspondent of the Boston Traveler and New York Tribune, 1870-72, lecturing in India and in England. He was a travelling com- panion of Bayard Taylor. He practised law in Boston, Mass., 1872-79, and in 1879 entered the Baptist ministry, taking a neglected and decay- ing church in Lexington, Mass., and rejuvenating both church edifice and people by his personal physical, as well as mental effort. He left a prosperous society in November, 1882, to accept the pastorate of The Baptist Temple, Philadel- phia, Pa., which society was made up of ninety- seven church members, and which he built up in ten years to one of the largest and most pros- perous in the city, with a Temple having a seating capacity of four thousand. He founded in 1887 The Temple college, which enrolled in 1899 over five thousand students. In 1890 he founded the Samaritan hospital of Philadelphia. He lectured