Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 07.djvu/369

 MERIWETHER

MERRIAM

ami taken to .s.mta i i*. where he was accused of being an Anu'ricaii spy ami iinprisoneil in the governor's ixilace for a month. In 1821 he re- signed his |K>sitiun with the American Fur com- pany, worke<l on his father's farm, was admitted to the bar and practised hiw in Kentucky; was a Democratic represcMitative in the Kentucky legis- lature thirteen terms; a member of the Kentucky constitutional convention of 1849, and was ap- pointed by Governor Powell U.S. senator to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Henry Clay, anti served from July 15 to Dec. 20, 1852. He was appointed governor of New Mexico in 1853 by President Pierce, and occupied the palace where he had been imprisoned. At the close of Pierce's administration, he returned to Kentucky and was a representative in the Kentucky legis- lature, 1858-85, and speaker of the house in 1859. He died near Louisville, Ky., April 4, 1893.

MERIWETHER, Lee, social reformer, was born in Columbus, Miss., Dec. 25, 1862; son of Minor and Elizabeth (Avery) Meriwether. His father was a lawyer and his mother the author of ••The Master of Red Leaf," " Black and White," "The Ku Klux Klan,' "My First and Last Love," and other books. He was educated in the public schools of Memphis, Tenn., to which place he had removed with his parents in child- hood, and in 1880 established with his brother, Avery Meriwether, the Free Trader at Memphis, which they conducted until 1883. In 1885-86 he visited Europe, and toured the country from Gibraltar to the Bosphorus on foot for the pur- pose of studying the condition of workingmen and the effect of the protective tariff. He was appointed by Secretary of the Interior Lamar to write a report on the " Condition of European Labor," which was published in the annual re- port of the U.S. bureau of labor in 1886. He served as a special agent of the U.S. interior de- partment, 1886-89, and was employed in collect- ing data concerning labor in the United States and Hawaiian Islands, and in 1891 in visiting the island prisons of the Mediterranean. He studied law in the office of his father at St. Louis, Mo., 1890-91; was admitted to the bar in 1892, and settled in practice in St. Louis in 1893. He was labor commissioner of Missouri, 1889-90, and again, 1895-96. He was married, Dec. 4, 1895, to Jessie, daughter of A. F. Gair, of Brooklyn, N.Y. He wtis the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for mayor of St. Louis in 1897, and in 1901 he was the candidate of the Public Ownership party for the office. He claimed to have been counted out by means of a partisan election law, and he was credited with 31,000 votes, as against 83.000 for the Republican nominee. He is the author of: A Tramp Trip: How to See Europe on Fifty Cents a Day (1887): Afloat and Ashore on

the Mediterranean: Tht- liuntp at Home; A Lord's Courtship; An American King; Miss Chunk, and various reiKirts.

MERRELL, Edward Huntington, educator. was born at New Hartford, N.Y., April 15. Ibli'i; son of Hiram H. and Maria (Nichols) Merrell; grandson of Jacob and Annie Merrell and of John and Eliztibeth (York) Nichols, and a descendant of the Merrells of West Hartford, Conn. He prepared for college at Whit«'.stown seminary; was graduated at Oberlin college. Ohio. A.B., 1859, A.M., 1862, and B.D., 1868. He was prin- cipal of the Hartford high school near Oberlin, 1859-61; tutor in Latin and Greek in Oberlin academy, 1861-62; principal of the preparatory department of RifMrn college. Wis., 1862-03; pro- fessor of Greek, 186:j-69, and of Greek language and literature there, 1869-76. He was acting president of the college, 1875-76, and in 1876 be- came president and professor of mental and moral science. He voluntarily resigned the presidency in 1891, and devoted himself to his professorship. He was influential in placing Ripon college on a firm" foundation with a large endowment. He

was ordained to the Congregational ministry in 1869, and held pastorates at West Rosendale and Princeton, Wis. He was married, Sept. 7, 1898, to Julia Hosford, daughter of William Hosford. of Olivet, Mich., and on July 7, 1880, to Ada, daughter of George M. Clark, of CJovington, Ky. He received the degree of D.D. from Lawrence university in 1877. and that of LL.D. from Middle- bury college in 1892. He is the author of fre- quent contributions to periodicals, and became editor of 77ie ^4dwance, Chicago, in 1901. having for several years previous been an editorial con- tributor. He published: An Htstorical Sketch of Rijxyn College, and other pamphlets.

MERRIAM, Augustus Chapman, educator, was lK>rn at Locust Grove, Lewis county, N.Y., May 30, 1848. He was graduated at Columbia college, A.B., 1866, A.M., 1869; was a teacher in Columbia grammar school, 1867-68; tutor in Columbia college, 1868-80; adjunct professor of the Greek language and lit^erature, 1880-89, and professor of Greek archaeology and epigraphy, 1889-95. He was also the senior active professor