Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/241

 DEPUE

DERBY

U.S. v., and colonel N.Y.V. by the state. In 1869 he was made attaclie to Daniel E. Sickles, U.S. minister to Spain. He was elected a trus- tee of the Society library, New York city, and in 1898 was elected its president. He served in the assembly in 1889 and again in 1890, and was presi- dent of his native village of Tivoli, N.Y., for several terms. He died in Tivoli. May 27, 1903.

DEPUE, David Ayers, jurist, was born in Mount Bethel, Pa., Oct. 27, 1826; son of Ben- jamin and Elizabeth (Ayers) Depue; grandson of Abraham and Susan (Hoffman) Dupue, and a descendant of Nicholas Dupui, a I'rench Hugue- not who settled in New York city in 1668. He removed to Belvidere, N.J., in 1840; was gradu- ated at the College of New Jersey in 1846, receiv- ing ins A.M. degree in course and was admitted to the bar in 1849. He practised law in Belvidere, N.J., 1849-66, and was justice of the supreme court of New Jersey, 1866-1901. He received the honorary degree of LL. D. from Rutgers in 1874, and from the College of New Jersey in 1880.

DERBIQNY, Peter, governor of Louisiana, was born in France and received the baptismal names, Pierre Auguste Charles Bourisgay. He fled during the revolution of 1789 to San Do- mingo and thence to the United States, living first at Pittsburgh, Pa., where he was married to a sister of Chevalier de Lozier ; then in Missouri, afterward in Florida, and finally in Louisiana. He was secretary to Mayor Bors§e of New Orleans in 1803, and the same year became inter- preter of languages for Governor Claiborne. In June, 1805, he was one of .the three delegates to petition the U.S. government for the admission of Louisiana as a state of the Federal union, and when in March of the same year the act was passed providing for the government of the terri- tory of Orleans, he, with the other agents, protested against the act as unjust to the inhabi- tants of Louisiana. In 1820, with Livingston and Moreau, he revised the laws of the state. He represented General Lafayette in New Orleans under a power of attorney transferred to his son, Charles Derbigny, in 1829. In 1828 he succeeded to the gubernatorial chair of the state and offi- cially welcomed General Jackson to that city Jan. 8, 1829. He died in New Orleans, La., Oct. 6, 1829.

DERBY, Elias Hasket, merchant, was born in Salem, Mass., Aug. 16. 1737; son of Capt. Rich- ard Derby (1712-83) ; and great-grandson of Roger Derby, who acquired wealth through trading in all parts of the world and whose business de- scended to his sons and grandsons. Elias H. greatly increased this trade and at the outbreak of the Revolutionary war owned seven large ves- sels and had accumulated a fortune of $50,000. He helped to equip the first colonial navy of 138 armed vessels against British commerce on the

high seas and he gradually converted the majority of his vessels into letters of marque. He estab- lished shipyards and built for the colonies their largest ships, fully able to cope with the British sloop-of-war. He extended his trade to Russia in 1784, to China in 1788, and did a large East Indian trade from 1788 to 1799, sending thirty-seven different vessels on one hundred and twenty-five voyages and increasing his property five-fold. His ships were the first to float the stars and stripes in the harbor of Calcutta and were the first American vessels seen at the Cape of Good Hope and the Isle of France and to carry cargoes of cotton from Bombay to China. He subscribed for $10,000 of the §74,700 of six percent stock issued at his suggestion to build for the U.S. sei'vice vessels for the new navy organized in 1798, and he built at his yard the frigate Essex, which upon being commissioned was placed in command of his nephew, Richard Derby. He built a palatial residence in Salem and is said to have acquired the largest fortune accumulated in America during the eighteenth century and to have advanced the interests of American sliip- ping and the extension of commerce to a greater degree than any other man of his time. He died in Salem, Mass., Sept. 8, 1799.

DERBY, Elias Hasket, merchant, was born in Salem, Mass., Jan. 10, 1766; son of Elias Has- ket and Elizabeth (Crowninshield), grandson of Richard and Mary (Hodges), great-grandson of Richard and Martha (Hasket), and great ^ grand- son of Roger and Lucretia (Hillman)Derb3-, who emigrated from England to Massachusetts. He was brought up in the shipping business and when quite young made very profitable voyages, one to the Isle of France, one to Naples, one to India, where he resided three years, and one to Mocha in the Red Sea. He succeeded to the occu- paticn of the home in Salem, Mass., built by his father, and after ten years of retirement was forced by reverses in business and the expenses incident to maintaining a princely establishment, to resmne trade. He imported a shipload of 1100 merino sheep from Lisbon in 1811, secured from a large flock driven by the French army across the mountains from Spain, which country pro- hibited their exportation. In 1812-13 he estab- lished the first broadcloth loom operated in Massachusetts, manufacturing cloth from the merino wool. He was married in 1797 to Lucy Brown. He %vas a member of the Massachusetts historical society. Harvard conferred on him the honorary degree of A.M. in 1803. He died in Londonderry. N.H., Sept. 16, 1826.

DERBY, Elias Hasket, lawyer, was born in Salem, Mass., Sept. 24, 1803; son of Elias Hasket and Lucy (Brown) Derby. He was graduated with honors at Harvard in 1824, studied law