Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 07.djvu/203

 Maclean

McLean

MacLEAN, James A., educator, was born in Mayfair, Ort., Aug:. 2, 1868 ; son of Alexander MacLean. He attended the Collegiate institute at Sirathroy, Ont., and was graduated from the University of Toronto in 1892. He studied law, 1892-94 ; was professor of political science at the University of Colorado, 1894-1900, and waselected president of the University of Idaho in Septem- ber, 1900. He was a university fellow at Colum- bia, 1893-94, receiving the degree of A.M. in 1893 and that of Ph.D. in 1894. He is the author of essays on the Financial History of Canada (1894).

MACLEAN, John, chemist, was born in Glas- gow, Scotland, March 1, 1771 ; son of Dr. John and Agnes (Lang) Maclean, and grandson of Archibald Maclean, minister of the parish of Kilfinichen. He was left an orphan and became the ward of George Macintosh, and when thirteen years old was admitted to the University of Glas- gow, where, in addition to the arts, he pursued a course in chemistry and in 1786-87 attended the lectures of Dr. Alexander Stevenson on anatomy, midwifery and botany. He went to Edinburgh in 1787 to hear Dr. Black on chemistry ; studied surgery in London and Paris; received his M.D. degree in Glasgow in 1791 and practised there as a member of the faculty of physicians and sur- geons, 1792-95. He immigrated to America in April, 1795, and settled in Princeton, N.J.,on the advice of Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, and became a partner of Dr. Ebenezer Stockton. He delivered a course of lectures on the Lavoi- sierian theory of chemistry at the College of New Jersey ; was professor of chemistry and natural history there, 1795-97 ; professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, 1797-1804 ; pi'ofessor of natural philosophy and chemistry, 1804-08 ; and professor of mathematics, natural philosophy and chemistry, 1808-12. He was married, Nov. 7, 1798, to Phoebe, eldest daughter of Absalom and Mary (Taylor) Bairibridge of Middletown, N.J., and sister of Commodore William Bainbridge, U.S.N. He was professor of natural philosophy and chemistry at the College of William and Mary in 1812-13, but was compelled to resign in 1813 on account of ill health, caused by bilious fever, from which he never recovered. His chem- ical instructions included the practical application of chemistry to agriculture and manufac^ture, and his chair at Princeton was the first chair of chem- istry in the United States. He was elected a member of the Academy of Medicine of Philadel- phia in June, 1799, and a member of the American Philosophical society in January, 1805. He was admitted to American citizenship in December, 1807. He is the author of Lectures on Combus- tion (1797), and many articles on the philogis- tic theory of combustion in the New York Medical

Repository, in controversy with Dr. Joseph Priest- ley. See ** Memoir " by his son, Dr. John Mac- lean (1876). He died in Princeton, Feb. 17, 1814. McLEAN, John, jurist, was born in Morris county, N.J., March 11, 1785; son of Fergus and Sophia (Blockford) McLean. His father, a weaver by trade, emigrated from Ireland to New Jersey, removed to Morgantown, Va., in 1789, to Jessamine, Ky., soon after, to May slick, Ky., in 1793, and to Lebanon, Ohio, in 1799, where he died in 1839. John attended school as the oppor- tunity presented it- self, and in 1801 he had earned enough money to pay for private tuition. In 1803 he went to Cin- cinnati and obtained employment in the office of the clerk of Hamilton county. He

studied law with Arthur St. Clair, was admitted to the bar in the fall of 1807 and practised in Lebanon, Ohio. He was a representative in tlie 13th and 14th congresses, 1813-17 ; was a firm supporter of President Madison ; advocated the war against England ; was a member of the com- mittee on foreign relations and of the committee on public lands. He was appointed by joint bal- lot of the legislature, judge of the supreme court of the state of Ohio in 1816 and served until 1822 when he was appointed by President Monroe com- missioner of the land office and in 1823 post- master-general, which office lie also held through President J. Q. Adams's administration. Upon the election of President Jackson, President Adams appointed him a justice of the U.S. su- preme court and he was assigned to the seventli circuit, which at that time embraced the districts of Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. He held the justiceship, 1829-61, and until the last two years of his life was never absent from his duties a single day. He was opposed to slavery but was impartial in his decisions on the question. In his opinions on the Dred Scott decision, he said : " If a citizen of a free state shall entice or enable a slave to escape from the service of his master, the law holds him responsible for the loss of that slave, and he is guilty of a misdemeanor, and I am bound to say that I have never found a jury in my circuit that have not sustained that law." In 1831, at the Anti-Masonic national convention held in Baltimore in September, his name was suggested for the candidacy for President but he declined in favor of William Wirt, and in 1836 he