Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/235

 DENNIS

DE NORMANDIE

Jersey, but was not graduated. He became a lawyer and for two terms represented his county in the state legislature. He was a Whig repre- sentative in the 25th and 26th congresses, 1837-41, and a member of the state constitutional conven- tion of 1850. He was married to Sally, daughter of Col. Arnold Elzey Jones. He died at " Beck- ford," Somerset county, Md., Nov. 1, 1859.

DENNIS, Littleton Purnell, representative, was born at " Beverly," Worcester county, Md., July 21, 1786; son of Henry and Mary (Purnell) Dennis ; and grandson of Littleton and Susanna (Upshur) Dennis. He was educated at Washing- ton academy, was graduated at Yale in 1803, and became a lawj^er. He was a representative in the state legislature for several terms and a rep- resentative in the 23d congress, 1833-34. He died in Washington, D.C., April 14, 1834.

DENNISON, William, governor of Ohio, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Nov. 23, 1815; son of William Dennison, a prosperous business man. He was graduated at Miami university in 1835, studied law in Cincinnati and practised his profession in Columbus until 1848, when he was elected as a Whig a state senator in the Ohio legislature from Franklin and Delaware counties, 1848-50. He was president of the Exchange bank of Columbus and of the Columbus & Xenla railroad company, 1852-59 ; was a delegate to the Pittsburg convention of 1856 which inaugurated the Republican party, and to the Philadelphia convention of the same year which Bominated John C. Fremont for President. He was elected governor of Ohio in 1860, serving 1861-63. Upon the President's call for volunteers in 1861 Governor Dennison, satisfied that the 11,000 men asked for was not adequate to the emergency, offered to raise 30,000 men and sent agents to Washington to urge their accept- ance. He took possession of the railroads and telegraph lines in the name of the state and did other ultra-official acts demanded by the exigen- cies of the time and not provided for by the existing law. Through his assurances of support to the Unionists in western Virginia, that section of the Old Dominion was saved to the Union, and Ohio troops directed by Governor Dennison drove the Confederates from the section in 1862. He was a delegate to the Republican national convention of 1864 and presided over that body. In 1864, when Postmaster- General Montgomery Blair resigned his seat in President Lincoln's cabinet, Mr. Dennison was appointed his suc- cessor and he resigned from President Johnson's cabinet in July, 1866, when that official an- nounced his policy of reconstruction. He was a delegate-at-large from Ohio to the Republican national convention of 1880, where he strongly supported the candidacy of John Sherman, and

the same year was before the state legislature as a candidate for U.S. senator, when James A. Garfield was the successful candidate. He was a patron of educational institutions of Ohio, and received the degree of LL.D. from Marietta in 1860. He died in Columbus, Ohio, June 15, 1882.

DENNY, Collins, educator, was born in Win- chester, Va., May 28, 1854; eldest son of CoL William R. and Margaret (Collins) Denny; grandson of William Denny, born near Lancaster, Pa., and of the Rev. Joseph S. Collins, born in Sussex county, Del. ; and a descendant of Joseph Denny of the Revolutionary army under Gen. Daniel Morgan, and of Dr. Frederick Siegle, surgeon in the Virginia line. He received his elementary training in his native town, and was graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1876. He was graduated from the law depart- ment of the University of Virginia in 1877, and began at once the practice of law in the courts of Baltimore, Md., and in the U.S. courts of Virginia. He continued practice for nearly three years. In 1880 he entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church, south. In 1886 he was appointed by the college of bishops to ac- company Bishop Alpheus W. Wilson in his travels in Asia for the purpose of insj^ecting the missionary interests of the church. He visited Japan, China, India, Palestine and the countries of Europe. In 1889 he was elected chaplain to the University of Virginia, a position which he filled for two years. In June, 1891, he accepted the chair of mental and moral philosophy in Vanderbilt imiversity. In 1894 he was made a member of the General conference of the M.E. church, south, and was acting secretary of that body. In 1898 he led the Baltimore conference delegation as a member of the General confer- ence. He was elected a member of the book committee of the M.E. church, south, in 1894, and became its chairman in 1898.

DENNY, Harmar, representative, was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1794. He was graduated at Dickinson college in 1813 and practised law in his native place. He was an anti-Mason repre- sentative in the 21st, 22d, 23d and 24th con- gresses, serving 1829-37. He died at Pittsburgh, Pa., Jan. 29, 1852.

DE NORMANDIE, James, clergyman, was born in Newport, Pa., June 9, 1836; son of James and Sarah (Yardley) De Normandie; grandson of Jaques De Normandie, and descended from an ancient French family, his first American ances- tor being AndrS De Normandie, who settled in Bristol, Pa., in 1706. His maternal ancestor, William Yardley, emigrated from England to America in 1682 with William Penn. James entered Antioch college (Ohio) the year of its opening and was graduated in 1858. In 1858-59