Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/420

 LE FEVRE

I.EFFERTS

LE FEVRE, James, clergyman, was born at New Paltz, N.Y., Jan. 19, 1828 ; son of Nathanael and Magdalen (Hoornbeck) Le Fevre, and grand- son of Johannes and Elizabeth (DuBois) Le Fevre and of Cornelius and Mary (Graham) Hoornbeck. His first ancestor in America, Simon Le Fevre, emigrated from France, and was one of the twelve men who in 1663, purchased 144 square miles from the Indians on the banks of the Waalkill river, in Ulster county, N.Y., and es- tablished a " palatinate " which they called " New Paltz " and over which they and their successors ruled for over a hundred years. His ancestor, the Rev. James Le Fevre, was a fore- light of the reformation in France, whose philo- sopliical writings and translation of the New Testament gained for him the title " Light of his Age." James attended the district schools of New Paltz, attended academies in Poughkeepsie and Newburg, N.Y., and was graduated from Rutgers college in 1854, and from the Theologi- cal seminary at New Brunswick, N.J., in 1857. He was married, June 18, 1857, to Cornelia Has- brou("k. He was ordained to the ministry in 1857, and was pastor of the Reformed Dutch church at Raritan, 1857-75 ; and became pastor at Middlebush, N.J., in 1875. He was elected a member of the Huguenot Society of America in 1892. The honorary degree of D.D. was con- ferred on him by Rutgers college in 1893. He is the author of : History of the Reformed Church of Middlebush, N.J. (1884); and The Huguenot Pa- tentees of Neic Paltz (1896).

LEFEVRE, Peter Paul, R. C. bishop, was born at Roulers, Belgium, April 30, 1804. After he had finislied his studies in Paris, he removed to the United States in 1828 ; was ordained to the priesthood in St. Louis, Mo., by Bish- op Rosati, in 1831, and was assigned to the Cliurch of the hnmaculate Concep- tion, New Madrid, Mo., but in a few months was given charge of a mission embracing nortiiern Missouri, western Illi- nois, and southern Iowa, subsequently divided into four dio- ceses, Peoria, Alton, Davenport and part of the archdiocese of St. Louis. In 1841 he went to France to regain his health, greatly enfeebled by his ministration of so large a mission field with few means of travel save on foot or horse- back, and while in Europe he was nominated

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Bishop of Zela in partibus, and coadjutor and administrator of Detroit. He was consecrated by Bishop F. P. Kenrick, assisted by Bishops England and Hughes in St. John's church, Phila- delphia, Nov. 21, 1841. When he assumed charge of the diocese there were only two Roman Cath- olic churches in Detroit and twenty-five in all the diocese in which parts of the states of Wis- consin and Michigan were included. He secured the tenure of church property in the bishop of the diocese ; built the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, and secured church sites and other church property in newly settled localities where the- missions formed the nucleus of cities, and from which was realized in time a revenue sufficient to meet all the charitable work in the city. He established Indian missions in remote fields con- venient to the tribes and founded the Redemp- torist convent in Detroit and the American col- lege of Louvain, Belgium, in which to train priests for this work. He also introduced into his diocese the various religious orders for the^ purpose of maintaining and conducting Roman Catholic schools, orphan asylums and insane re- treats. During his administration the churches in Detroit increased from two to eleven, and those in the lower peninsula to one hundred sixty, and from eighteen priests to eighty-eight. He- attended the provincial councils of Baltimore and Cincinnati, and took a prominent part in the national council of 1852. He died in Detroit, Micii., March 4, 1869.

LEFFERTS, Marshall, inventor, was born in Bedford, Brooklyn, N.Y., Jan. 15, 1821 ; son of Leffert and Amelia Ann (Cozine) Lefferts ; grandson of John L. and Sarah (Cowenhoven)) Lefferts ; great grandson of Rem and Ida Cowen- hoven, and a descend- ant of Leffert Pieter- son van Haughwout of Holland, who set- tled in Flatbush. L.I., N.Y., before 1688. He received his educa- tion in the Brooklyn public schools ; and became a civil en- gineer and subse- quently an importer and manufacturer of galvanized iron ware. He was married, June 4, 1845, to Mary, daughter of Gilbert and Ann (Raymond) Allen. He joined the 7tl* regiment N.G.S.N.Y. in 1851 and in 1852 was^ made its lieutenant-colonel succeeding Abram Duryee as colonel in 1859. In the call for troops to defend the national capital in 1861 the 7th