Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/352

 LANMAN

LANMAN

of Congress (1858); Life of William Wooclbridge (1867); Red Book of Michigan (1871); Resources of America, compiled for the Japanese govern- ment (1872); Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States (1876, revised 1887); Life of Octavius Perinchief {1879); Curious Characters and Pleasant Places {1881); Leading Men of Japan (1883); Farthest North (1885); Haphazard Personalities (1886); Novelties of American Character; Evenings in my Library. He edited The Prison Life of Alfred Ely {1862); Sermons of the Rev. Octavius Perinchief (1869). He died in Wasliington, D.C., March 4, 1895.

LANMAN, Charles Rockwell, Orientalist, was born in Norwich, Conn., July 8, 1850; son of Peter and Catharine (Cook) Lannian and great- grandson of Governor Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut. He was graduated at the Norwich Free academy in 1867 and at Yale, A.B., 1871, Ph.D., 1873. He continued the study of Sanskrit and linguistic science in Germany at the Univer- sities of Berlin (under Albrecht Weber), Tubin- gen (under Roth) and Leipzig (under Curtius and Lcskien), 1873-76. He accepted the chair of Sanskrit at Johns Hopkins vmiversity at the ^opening of that institution in 1876, and resigned in 1880 to become professor of Sanskrit at Harvard university. He was secretary of the American Philological association, 1879-84, and its president 1889-90: corresponding secretary of the American Oriental society, 1884-94; was elected an lionorary member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1896; foreign member of the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences, Prague, in 1897; delivered the lec- tures of the Percy Trumbull Memorial Lecture- ship of Poetry at Johns Hopkins university, 1898, his subject being "The Poetry of India"; lec- tured on the same subject before the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., 1898; and was U.S. dele- gate to the International Congress of Orientalists at Rome, Italy, 1899. He was married, July 18, 1888, to Mary Billings Hinckley, a lineal descend- ant of Govei'nor Thomas Hinckley (q.v.). In 1888-89 he travelled in India whei'e he acquired a valuable collection of books and about 500 manu- scripts (Sanskrit and Prakrit) for the library of Harvard university. He is the author of: Noun- inflection in the Veda (1880); A Sanskrit Reader loith Vocahvlary and Notes (1888); edited five volumes of Transactions of the American Philo- logical association (1879-1884), and the Harvard Oriental Series with the co-operation of various Oriental scholars (5 vols. 1897-1900), and contrib- uted noteworthy articles to scientific periodicals. LANJIAN, James, senator, was born in Nor- wich, Conn., June 13, 1769. He was graduated from Yale, A. B., 1788, A.M., 1791, studied law and began to practise in Norwich in 1791. He was state's attorney for New London county, 1814-19;

was a representative in the state legislature in 1817 and in 1832; was a delegate to the conven- tion that framed the first state constitution in 1818, and was elected a state senator in 1819. He was U.S. senator, 1819-25, serving as chair- man of the committee on post-offices and post roads and of the committee on contingent ex- penses; was judge of the supreme court of Con- necticut, 1826-29, and mayor of Norwich, 1831- 34. He died in Norwich, Conn., Aug. 7, 1841.

LANMAN, James Henry, author, was born in Norwich, Conn., Dec. 4, 1812; son of James Lanman, U.S. senator. He attended Washington college, Hartford, Conn.; studied law at Har- vard; was admitted to the bar and practised suc- cessively at Norwich and New London, Conn., and at Baltimore, Md. He subsequently removed to New York city and devoted himself to literary work. He is the author of: History of Michigan, Civil and Topographical (1839); afterward pub- lished as History of Michigan, from its Earliest Colonization to the Present Time (1842). He con- tributed to the National Portrait Gallery (1861), and to the North American Revietv, the American Quarterly Review and the Jurist. He died in Norwich, Conn., Jan. 10, 1887.

LANMAN, Joseph, naval officer, was born in Norwich, Conn., July 11, 1811. He entered the U.S. navy from Connecticut as a midsliipman, Jan. 1, 1825; was promoted passed midshipman, June 4, 1831; lieutenant, March 3, 1835; and com- mander, Sept. 14, 1855. He was on duty at the Wash- ington, D.C., navy yard, 1855- 59; commanded the U.S. steamer Michigan on the great lakes, 18- 59-61, and was "■' '" 't^?^^^?^ tr:" -- -^^^ promoted cap- U.S.S. MINNESOTA, tain, July 16, 1862. He commanded the sloop Saranac of the Pacific squadron in 1862, was promoted commodore, Aug. 29, 1862, and com- manded the Lancaster of the Pacific squad- ron in 1863. He commanded the Minnesota of the North Atlantic blockading squadron, and had charge of the operations of the second divi- sion of Admiral Porter's fleet in the two attacks on Fort Fisher, December, 1864, and January, 1865, and was especially commended for this serv- ice in the admiral's official report. He was pro- moted rear-admiral, Dec. 8, 1867; commanded the U.S. navy yard at Portsmouth, N.H., 1867-69, and the South Atlantic squadron on the coast of Brazil, 1869-72. He was placed on the retired list July 18, 1872, and returned to his home in Norwich, Conn., where he died, March 13, 1874.