Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 05.djvu/512

 IRVING

IRVING

St. Amhew's, Kichmoiul. S.I.; of the A.scension, West New Brigliton. S.I., ami took cluirge, as rector, of a school for young ladies in New York city in 1874. He received the lionorary degree of A.M. from Columhia in 1837, and that of LL.D. from Union in 1851. He is the author of: The Conquest of Florida by Hernando de Soto (1835); TJie Fountain of Living Waters {ISU}', Tiny Footfalls (1869); More tluin Conqueror (1873). lie died in New York city, Dec. 20, 1880.

IR\ING, Washing:ton, author, was born in New Ywrk city. April 3, 1783; the youngest son of William and Sarah (Sanders) Irving, and grandson of ]ilagnus and Catharine (Williamson) Irving and uf John and Anne (Kent) Sanders. 11 is father was a na- tive of the island of Shapinsay, Scotland, a descendant of Will- iam de Irwj'n, secre- tary and armor-bear- er to Robert Bruce, and during the latter part of the French •war was employed on board of a British armed packet ship plying between Fal- mouth, England, and New York city. While at Falmouth he met, and on May 18, 1761, was married, to Sarah Sanders, the granddaughter of the Kev. Mr. Kent, an English curate, of Cornwall, England. In July, 1763, the newly- married couple came to New York, where William Irving established himself in busi- nes.s as a mercliant. When the British army occu[)ied the city he was obliged, by his op- position to the ruling authorities of the city, to leave his business and take refuge with his family at Rjihway, N.J., where he remained two years. On his return to the city his business was ruined, and his family ill from malarial fevers contracted in New Jersey. He at once re- established bu.siness with such success as to be able to purchase for £2000 an estate on William street, where Wasliington was born, the youngest of eleven children. When President Washington vi.sited New York to be inaugurated in 1789, he chanced to meet the six-year-old boy on the street, and on learning that the chiM was his namesake, he blessed him. This benediction AVashington Irving believed attended him through life. His home training was of the Puritan order, and he afterward confessed that he liad Ijeen led to believe that everything pleas- ant was wicked. His mischievous propensities were a source of anxiety to his father and mother.

and the latter, to whom he was much attached, would at times, in the midst of one of his effusions of wit and drollery, look at him with lialf- mournful admiration and exclaim, '• Oh, Wasli- ington, if you were only good! " Reading was with liim a passion from early childhood. Among his favorites, a translation of " Orlando Furioso," "Robinson Crusoe" and " Siiidhad the Sailor" aroused in him a longing for the sea, which liis father took care did not ripen into action. He was sent, in 1787, to a school kept by Mrs. Ann Kilmaster, and was transferred in 1789 to a school for both sexes kept by Benjamin Romaine, a soldier in the Revolution. He next attended Josiah A. Henderson's school in John street, in the spring of 1797, and in the following Decem- ber another conducted by Jonathan Fiske. with whom he studied Latin. This was his nearest approach to a classical education. Besides Latin, he took lessons in music, and furtively in dancing, to which his father, who was a somewhat stern Presbyterian, was averse. In 1799, at the age of sixteen, he began the study of law in the office of Henry Masterton, where he remained for two j-ears, but made little headway in mastering the technicalities of the law. A trip up the Hudson in 1800 was his first voyage of any importance, and a little later in life he first wrote of the beauties of this river. He entered the law office of Brockholst Livingston in 1801, and in 1802 continued his law clerkship with Josiah Og- den Hoffman. About this time, under the pen- name " Jonathan Oldstyle," he commenced a series of humorous contributions to the Chronicle, of which his brother Peter was proprietor and editor. In 1804 he evinced tendencies to pulmon- ary consumption and was sent abroad at his brother's expense. He sailed for Bordeaux, May 19, 1804, and was so weak that he had to be helped on shipboard. He travelled in France, Italy, Sicily, Germany and England, and on cross- ing from Genoa to Messina the vessel in which he was a passenger was captured by a privateer, searched, stripped of its valuables and allowed to proceed on its way. In Rome he made the ac- quaintance of Washington Allston, who almost persuaded him to become an artist. He had an eye for color and believed that he might have succeeded in landscape painting. On liis return to New York after an absence of two years he resumed his law studies, was admitted to the bar, Nov. 21, 1800, and settled in practice at No. 3 Wall street, sharing the office of his brother John. He was retained by the defence in the trial of Aaron Burr at Richmond, Va., in 1807. Shortly after this, with James K. Paulding and his brother, William Irving, he established a fortnightly mag- azine called Salmagundi. The first number appeared Jan. 27, 1807, and the magazine was