Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 07.djvu/425

 MITCHELL

MITCHELL

and in 1864, serving as chairman of the judi- ciary committee and the last three terms as presiding officer of the senate. He was married Feb. 25, 1863, to Mattie E. Price of Portland, Ore. He was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the Home Guards in 1865. He was a candidate for the caucus nomination for U.S. senator in 1866, when but thirty-one years of age, but was defeated in the caucus by one vote. He was professor of mwdical jurisprudence in the Willamette univer- sity, Salem. Ore., 1867-71 ; was a Republican U.S. senator from Oregon, 1873-1879, and was defeated for re-election in 1878, the legislature being Democratic. In 1883 he was the caucus nominee of his party but was defeated by a bolt. He was again elected to the U.S. senate in 1885, and re-elected in 1891, serving continuously, 1885-97. In the cau- cus of the Republican members of the legislature, Jan. 10, 1897, there being forty-eight members present, two more than a majority of the whole legislature, he was unanimously declared the nominee of the Republican party for U.S. senator to succeed himself; twenty-eight members of the House, however, refused to take the oath of of- • fice during the entire session, thus destroying a quorum and preventing a vote for senator, and also preventing the passage of any appropriation or otiier acts during the entire session. During his service of three terms he was chairman at different tines of the committees on privileges and elec- tions, claims, mines and mining, and transporta- tion routes to the seaboard, and a member of the judiciary, joint library and other committees. He succeeded in obtaining appropriations of nearly $3,000,000 for the construction of a system of canal and locks at the Cascades on the Columbia and secured the passage of a bill through the senate making an appropriation of $3,600,000 to build a ship railway at The Dalles of the Colum- bia, which failed in tlie house. After March 3, 1897, he continued his law practice as counsel for large railroads and other corporations in Port- Imd, Ore. He was, on Feb. 33, 1901, elected for the fourth time to the U.S. senate for a full term, to succeed George W. McBride, his name being first presented on the fifty-third ballot, when he was elected.

MITCHELL, John Inscho, senator and jurist, was born in Tioga township. Pa., July 88, 1838; son of Tiiomas Kinney and Elizabeth Ann (Roe) Mitchell, and grandson of Richard and Ruby (Kinney) Mitchell, who remove<l from Hartford Conn., to Tioga county. Pa., in 1793. He attended the public schools of Tioga county and the Uni- versity of Lewisbnrg, 1857-59 ; taught school, 1859-61, and in 1863 enlisted in the 136th Penn- sylvania regiment and was commissioned cap- tain. He was admitted to the bar in September, 1864, and practised in Tioga county. He was

district attorney of the county, 1868-72 ; edited the Tioga County Agitator, 1870, and was a rep- resentative in the state legislature, 1873-76. He was twice married, first in October, 1860, to Jeannette Baldwin, who died in 1869, and sec- ondly in February, 1871, to Mary Alice Archer. He was a Republican representative in the 45th and 46th congres-ses, 1877-81 ; was U.S. senator, 1881-87 ; president judge of the court of common pleas, fourth district of Pennsylvania, 1888-99, and in 1900 was elected a judge of the superior court of Pennsylvania for the term ending in 1910.

MITCHELL, John Kearsley, physician, was born in Shepherdstown, Jefferson county, Va.,

May 13, 1798 ; son of Dr. Alexander and

(Kear.sley) Mitchell. Dr. Alexander Mitchell came from Scotland to Virginia in 1786, and died in 1806. John Kearsley Mitchell attended the colleges of Ayr and Edinburgh, Scotland, 1806- 16 ; studied medicine with Dr. Nathaniel Chap- man in Philadelphia, 1816-17, and was graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1819. To recuperate his health he shipped as surgeon and made Uiree voyages to China and the East Indies. In 1833 he began prac- tice in Philadelphia. He was lecturer on the in- stitutes of medicine and physiology at the Phila- delphia Medical institute, 1834-36 ; professor of chemistry there, 1836-33 ; professor of chemistry at the Franklin Institute, 1833-41, where he de- livered a course of lectures on chemistry as ap- plied to medicine and the arts, 1833-38, and was professor of the theory and practice of medicine at Jefferson Medical college, 1841-58. He was married to Sarah Matilda, daughter of Alexander Henry, and had eight children, one of whom was Silas Weir Mitchell (q.v.). He was also visiting physician to the Pennsylvania hospital and to the City Hospital of Philadelphia during two epi- demics. He is the author of : Saint Helena, a Poem by a Yankee (1831) ; On the Wisdom, Good- ness and Power of Ood as Illustrated in the Prop- erties of Water (1834) ; Indecision : a Tale of the Far West, ami other Poems (1839) ; On the Cryp- togamous Origin of Malarious and Epidernc Fevers (1849), and Five Essays on Various Chem- ical and Medical Subjects (1858). He died in Philadelphia, Pa., April 4, 1858.

MITCHELL, John Lendrum, senator, was born in Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 19, 1843; son of Alexander (q.v.) and Martha (Reed) Mitchell, and grandson of John Mitchell, a farmer of Aberdeen- shire, Scotland, and of Seth Reed, a native of New England, and one of the earliest settlers of Milwaukee. He attended the public schools of Milwaukee, the military school at Hampton, Conn., and the universities of Dre.sden, Munich and Geneva. He was appointed 2d lieutenant in