Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/89

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granddaughter of one of the founders of Winns- boro, S.C, who were gallant soldiers in the war of the Revolution. His ancestry was of mingled Scotch, English, Welsh and French. In 1837 his father removed his family to Talladega county, Ala. Jabez was graduated from the University of Georgia in 1843, and from Harvard law school in 1845. In 1846 he volun- teered in the Mexican war and having been disabled by illness he returned to Alabama in the following vear. He was a representa- tive in the state legis- lature, 1847^8, 1852- 53, and 1855-56. In 1856 he was a presi- dential elector on the Buchanan ticket. He was a representative in the 35th and 36th congresses, 1857-61, and a representative in the provisional and in the 1st Confederate congresses. In 1864 he entered the Confederate army as aid on the staff of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, and afterward, until the surrender, was lieutenant- colonel of cavalry, serving in the commands of Generals Wheeler and Forrest. In 1865 he en- tered the Baptist ministry, declining, however, to become pastor of any church. He was presi- dent of Howard college, Alabama, 1866-68, and in 1868 his connection began with Richmond col- lege, where, at different times, he was professor of English, philosophy, and constitutional and international law, and president of the. board of trustees, 1868-81. In February, 1881, ^he suc- ceeded Dr. Barnas Sears as general agent of the Peabody education fund. In 1885 he was ap- pointed by President Cleveland U.S. minister to Spain, where he negotiated a modus vivendi in reference to Cuban commerce, secured the acknowledgment of a heavy claim which had been jiending for years, was engaged in the pre- liminary international steps for the quadri-cen- tennial celebration of the discovery of America, and was actively instrumental, by procuring transcripts of documents from the archives, in aiding the historical and literary labors of his countrymen, Henry C. Lea, John Mason Brown, Alexander Brown, Francis Wharton and John Gilmary Shea. Resigning his diplomatic post in 1888, he resumed his duties as general agent of the Peabody education fund, and was made an honorary trustee of the board. In May, 1891, he was elected a member of the board of trustees of the John F. Slater fund, and was made chairman

of the educational committee and general man- ager of the fund. His annual reports of the Peabody and John F. Slater funds and his various addresses before institutions, associations, col- leges and legislatures, were published and con- tain a full record of educational progress at tlie south, and an able discussion of educational questions during the period of his official service. He served as moderator and as president of various Baptist conventions and associations. He received the degree of A.M. from the Univer- sity of Georgia in 1843; that of D.D. from the University of Rochester in 1872: and that of LL. D. from Mercer university in 1867, and from the University of Georgia in 1886. He published Establishment and Disestablishment, or Progress of Sold Liberty in America ; Constitutional Government in Spain (1889) ; William Ewart Gladstone, a Study (1891); The Southern States of the American Union Considered in Their Ilelations to the Constitution of the United States and to the Resulting Union (1894); and the History of the Pecibody Education Fund (1897). He died in .\sheville, N.C., Feb. 12, 1903. CURTIN, Andrew Gregg, governor of Penn- sylvania, was born in Bellefonte, Pa., April 22, 1815; son of Roland Curtin, who came from Ire- land in 1793 and in 1807 .started an iron foundry near Bellefonte. " His mother was a daughter of Andrew Gregg, representative and senator in congress from Pennsylvania. He was educated at Milton academj', studied law at Dickinson college, graduating in 1837, and was admitted to the bar in 1839. In 1840 he supported G-^-neral Harrison for the presidency and in 1844 canvassed the state for Henry Clay. He was on the Whig electoral ticket of 1848 and 1852. In 1852, as chairman of the state central committee, he con- ducted the gubernatorial canvass for James Pollock, and upon his inauguration as governor Mr. Curtin was appointed secretary of the com- monwealth. He officially encouraged the county superintendency of schools, then first inaugu- rated, and his report to the legislature led to the establishment of the normal schools. He was elected governor of Pennsylvania in October. 1860, by a majority of 32,000, after a spirited canvass that was looked uixjn throughout the country as an index to the presidential election to be held the next month. Governor Curtin called an extra session of the legislature to meet in April, 1861, to provide for the public defence, and when Pres- ident Lincoln called for volunteers, Pennsyl- vania, whose quota was 14,000 men, organized nearly 30,000 and had five companies in the field April 18, 1861, the first volunteer troops from any state to reach the national capitol. The celebrated Pennsylvania reserves were at this time regularly mustered and drilled by the state under direction of the governor, and his fore-