Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 05.djvu/301

 HOAR

HOAR

He was president of the Massachusetts Republican state conventions of 1871, 1877, 1883 and 1885; a delegate to the Republican national conventions of 1876, 1880, 1884 and 1888, presiding over the convention of 1880, and serving as chairman of the Massachusetts delegations of 1880, 1884 and 1888. He succeeded George S. Bout well as U.S. senator, March 5, 1877, and was re-elected in 1883, 1889, 1895 and 1901. While a representa- tive Mr. Hoar was a member of the committee on education and labor, of the committee on election, of the committee on the judiciary, a manager of the impeachment of Secretary Belknap, and chairman of the special committee to investigate the claims of the rival state gov- ernments in Louisiana in December, 1876, and a member of the electoral commission of 1876. In the U.S. senate he was chairman of the committees on privileges and elections and the judiciary and a member of the committees on claims, civil service, engineering bills, library, Nicaragua claims and rules, and chairman of the select committees on woman suffrage and rela- tions with Canada. He served as a regent of the Smithsonian InstitutiT)n in 1880; president of the American Antiquarian society; trustee of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology; trustee of Leicester academy, of the Worcester Polyteclmic institute and of Clark university, and a member of the Massachusetts Historical societ}-, of the American Historical association, of which he was president, and of the New England Historic Gen- ealogical society. He was overseer of Harvard university, 1873-79; received the degree of LL.D. from William and Mary in 1873, from Amherst in 1879, from Yale in 1885, and from Harvard in 1886, and was president of the Alumni associa- tion of Harvard university in 1900. He was mar- ried in 1853 to Mary Louisa, davighter of Samuel D. Spurr, of AVorcester, Mass. She died in 18.59, leaving a daughter and a son. In 1862 he was married to Ruth Ann, daughter of Henry W. Miller, of Worcester. In 1898 President McKin- ley offered him the ambassadorship to England, to succeed Jolin Hay, which offer he declined.

HOAR, Leonard, educator, was born in Eng- land in 1030. He immigrated with his parents from London, England, to New England, where his father, a wealthy banker, soon died. He was graduated from Harvard college in 1650, and upon the execution of Charles I. went to England, where he was married to a daughter of John Lisle, the regicide. He took a course in medicine at Cambridge university, and received from that institution the degree M.D. in 1671. He took oi'ders in the established church and had a parish at Wanstead, E.ssex, until he was ejected for non- conformity in 1662. His mother died at Brain- tree, Mass., Dec. 21, 1664. He returned to New

England in 1673, bearing letters from several dissenting clergymen in England, recommending him to the vacant piesidency at Harvard. He preached in the South churcli, Boston, as an as- sistant to Thomas Tliatcher. He Avas made president of Harvard college, Sept. 10, 1672, and introduced a sys- tem of technical education before unknown in America. After an unsatisfactory ad- ministration, owing to the insubordination of the students, and the enmity of several of the influential patrons of the col- lege, he resigned his office, March 15, 1674. He died at Barnstable, Mass., Nov. 28, 1675.

HOAR, Samuel, representative, was born in Lincoln, Mass., May 18, 1788; son of Capt. Samuel Hoar, an officer in the American Revolution and representative in the general court of Massa- chusetts. He was graduated at Harvard, A.B., 1802; A.M., 1805. He was a tutor in the family of a Virginia planter, 1803-04; lawyer in Concord, Mass., 1805-45; delegate to the .state constitu- tional convention of 1820; a member of the state senate, 1835 and 1833, and a Whig representative in the 24th congress, 1835-37. In 1844 lie was employed by the legislature of Massachusetts to appear before the legislature of South Carolina to test the constitutionality of the laws of that state authorizing the imprisonment of free colored persons entering the state. He was expelled from the city of Charleston, Dec. 5, 1844, shortly after his arrival there, and on the same day the state legislature, assembled at Columbia, passed resolutions authorizing his expulsion from the state. He was a member of the American Bible society; of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the Massachusetts Historical society. He was married to Sarah, daughter of Roger Sherman, the signer. He received from Harvard college the degree of LL.D. in 1838, and was an overseer of the college, 1853-56. He died in Concord. 3Iass., Nov. 2, 1856.

HOAR, Sherman, representative, was born in Concord, Mass., July 30, 1800; son of Ebenezer Rockwood and Caroline (Brooks) Hoar; grandson of Samuel and Sarah (.Sherman) Hoar, and of Na- than and Caroline (Downes) Brooks, and great- grandson of Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was directly descended from Charles Hoar, whose widow, Johanna, with four children came to America from Gloucestershire, England, in 1640. He at- tended Phillijis Exeter academy, and was gradu- ated from Harvard in 1882, and from Harvard law school in 1885. He began to practise law in Boston in 1885, entered the firm of Storey, Thorndike & Hoar in 1886 and was a Democratic