Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 02.djvu/402

 COOPER

COOPER

first lieutenant and was aid to Gen. Alexander Macomb, 1828-36. He was then promoted cap- tain and was on staff duty as assistant adju- tant-general until 1841, serving as chief of staff to Col. W. J. Worth in the Seminole war in Flor- ida, 1836-37. He was in Washington on special dutj' at the war department, 1842-52, was brev- etted colonel and served as adjutant-general of the U.S. army, 1852-61, with the rank of colonel of staff, and for a time was secretary of w^r ad interim. The outbreak of civil war in 1861 de- termined him to join his fortunes to the seceding states and he resigned his commission in the U.S. army in March, 1861, and was appointed by Jefferson Davis adjutant and inspector-general of the Confederate armj', and ranking officer of the new army. He wrote A Concise System of In- structions and Berjnlations for the Militia and Vol- unteers of the United. States (1836). He died in Cameron, Va., Dec. 3, 1876.

COOPER, Samuel Bronson, representative, was born in Caldwell, Ky., May 30, 1850. He was taken to Woodville, Tyler county, Tex., in his infancy and there acquired a district school education. He became a clerk in a store in 1866 and in 1872 was admitted to the bar. He was county attorney, 1876-80, state senator, 1880-84, collector of internal revenue in 1885. and a repre- sentative from Texas in tlie 53d. 54th, 55tli, 56tl). 57th and 58tli congresses, 1893-1905. He served on the standing committee on mileage.

COOPER, Susan Feniinore, author, was born on the Angevine farm in Scarsdale, N.Y.. April 17, 1813; daughter of James Fenimore and Susan Augusta (de Lancey) Cooper. She acted as her father's amanuensis during the latter years of his life and after his death became an author, also devoting herself to charitable works. She founded the Orphan House of the Holy Saviour in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1873, and per- sonally superintended the institution for many years, conducting it from the beginning in a small house with five inmates, to extensive buildings erected in 1883 sheltering and furnish- ing a thorough education and good homes to nearly one hundred orphaned boj-s and girls. This charity suggested the "Girls' Friendly So- ciety in America," made up of women of standing and means, patrons of orphanages, each pledged to receive into her family one of the girls and to make her the special object of motherly care. Her home at Cooperstown was built from the ruins of "Otsego HalV the ancestral mansion, within whose walls her youth had been chiefly spent. Her published works include : Rural Hours (1850) ; The Shield (1852) ; Country Rambles (1853) ; Rhyme and Reason of Country Life (1854) ; Rural Rambles (1854) : Mt. Vernon ; a Letter to the Children of Amenca (1859) ; and William West Skiles, a

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Sketch of Missionary Life at Valle Crucis, in Western North Carolina, 1S42-1862 (1890). She also edited Pages and Pictures from the icritings of James Fenimore Cooper (1861) ; and Appleton's Illustrated Almanac for 1870 (1869). She died in Coopers- town, N.Y., Dec. 31, 1894.

COOPER, Thomas, educator, was born in Lon- don, England, Oct. 22, 1759. He was graduated from Oxford in 1781, and took a post-graduate course in law, medicine and the natural sciences. As a member of the Democx-atic club he was sent to France in 1789 as a delegate to similar clubs there, and also with a government commission to study chemistry and dyes; and there he discovered how to make chlorine from common salt. He re- mained in France five months. His sympa- thy with the Giron- dists provoked the censure of Edmund Burke in the House of Commons, and Coop- er's repl}', in a pam- phlet, was suppressed by the attornej' -gen- eral, except in expen- sive bindings, for fear of its effect upon the populace. In 1795 he immigrated to the United States and practised law in Northumberland, Pa. His attack on the administration of John Adams led to his being fined 8400 and imprisoned six months for libel. He fought this fine twenty years, and finally won his case for its return with interest. He was land commissioner and judge, but was removed from the bench in 1811 for tyrannical ruling. He was professor of chem- istry in Dickinson college at Carlisle, Pa., 1811- 14, and held the chair of chemistry in the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, 1816-19. He was then noniinated by Thomas Jefferson for president of the young University of Virginia, but the tenets were too orthodox and he declined. He accepted the temporary professorship of chemistry in the South Carolina college in 1819; the next year he was elected president pro tempore, to succeed Jonathan Maxcj-; and in 1821 was elected per- manent president. This post he filled until 1834, holding meanwhile the chairs of chemistry and political economy. His liberal religious views and utterances caused his resignation in 1834. He was then appointed to revise the statutes of the state. Dr. Cooper was an ultra state -right advocate, a free thinker, and in philosophy a materialist. He edited in Pliiladelphia: The Emporium of Arts and Science (1812-14) ; and Tliomson's System of Chemistry (4 volumes, 1818)-