Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 07.djvu/206

 McLENE

McLURE

1783-86; of the board of property, 1786-87; and of the second state constitutional convention in 1790 and justice of the peace of Franklin county, 1800-06. He died in Antrim, Pa., March 13, 1806.

McLENE, Jeremiah, representative, was born in Cumberland county, Pa., in 1767. He served in the American army during the Revolutionary war and in 1790 removed to Ohio, settling in Chil- licothe. He was a representative in the state legislature, 1807-08, and secretary of the state, 1808-31. He removed to Columbus, Ohio, in 1816, when that city became the state capital. He was a Democratic elector from Ohio, in the elec- toral college of 1833 and a Democratic represent- ative from Franklin county in the 23d and 34th congresses, 1833-37. He died in Washington, D.C., March 19, 1837.

McLEOD, Alexander, clergyman, was born ill the Island of Mull. Scotland, June 12, 1774; son of the Rev. Niel McLeod. He was prepared for college in Scotland, immigrated to the United States and was graduated from Union college, N.Y., in 1798. He was installed as pastor over Reformed Presbyterian churches in Wallkill, N.Y., and in New York city in 1799. He soon after gave up the charge at Wallkill devoting his whole time to the First Reformed Presbyte- rian church in New York, which he served up to the time of his death. The honorary degree of A.M. was conferred on him by the Collegeof New Jersey in 1802 and that of D.D. by Middlebury college, Vt., in 1809. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of London; was an editor of the Christian Magazine for a number of years, and is the author of: Negro Slavery Unjusttijiahle (1802); The Messiah (1803); Ecclesiastical Catechism (1807); On the Ministry (1808); Lectures on the Principal Prophecies of the Revelation (1814); Vietv of the La/e Uar (1815); The Life and Power of True Godliness (1816), and The American ChHstian Expositor (2 vols., 1832-33). See "Memoir" by Rev. Dr. Samuel B. Wylie (1855). He died in New York city, Feb. 17, 1833.

McLURE, William, geologist, was born in Ayr, Scotland, in 1703; son of David and Ann McLure. He was educated in Ayr, under the tuition of a Mr. Douglass, and in 1782 visited the United States, on mercantile business. As partner in the firm of Miller, Hart & Co., London, he acquired a large fortune. He came to the United States in 1796, but in 1803 returned to Europe, having l)een appointed with John Fenton Mercer and Cox Barnet commissioners to settle the French spoliation claims. On his return to America he began a geological survey of the United States, and for this purpose crossed the Alleghany mountains fifty times, and made ob- servations in almost every ntate and territory from the St. Lawrence river to the Gulf of Mex-

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ico. In 1809 he presented his observations to the American Philosophical society and they were printed that year in the Transactions. He ex- tended and completed his geological survey, which he presented to the Philosophical society. May 16, 1816. This gained for him the title of " father of American geology." He was elected a member of the Aca- demy of Natural Sciences of Philadel- phia, soon after its organization in 1812, and served as its pres- ident, 1817-40. Under his auspices the Jour- nal of the Academy was inaugurated, and he continued to direct its policy and to make fre- quent contributions to its columns during his life- time. Prior to 1819, he presented the library of the institution with nearly fifteen hundred vol- umes, the larger part of Ins library collected m Europe. He visited the West Indies during the winter of 1816-17, and the results of his obser- vations were published in the Journal of the Acad- emy on his return. He went to Europe in 1819, and after visiting France proceeded to Spain, where he established an agricultural school for the benefit of the poorer classes on 10,000 acres of government land near Alicant which he pur- chased for this purpose, but when the Constitu- tional government was overthrown, his land reverted to the church from which it had been confiscated. He returned to the United States in 1824, and purchased extensive tracts of land at New Harmony, Ind., for the purpose of carrying out his agricultural system in the United States. The school did not fulfil the expectations of its founder, and he relinquished it in 1827 and went to Mexico. On Nov. 17, 1828, he presided at a meeting held in New Haven, Conn., by the American Geo- logical society of which he had been president many years. He spent the remainder of his' life in Mexico. In 1834 he gave to the Acad- emy of Natural Sciences a second library of nearly 2500 volumes and in 1837-38 the sum of $20,000, with which the society built a new fire- proof building. The American Geological sotMety also benefited by his gifts of books and specimens. He contributed to the American Journal of Science and to the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and is the author of: Observations on the Oeology of the United States of America urith some Remarks on the Nature and Fertility of Soils (IHIl), and Opinions on Various Subjects (2 vols., 1837). He died at San Angel, Mexico, March 23, 1840.