Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 07.djvu/93

 LYON

LYON

under General Montgomery in Canada in the fall of 1775. Warner was commissioned lieutenant- colonel in command of the Green Mountain Boys in July, 1776, and Lyon a second lieutenant in the regiment. He was cashiered by General Gates, Oct. 16, 1776, because his company, ordered to remain at Jericho, deserted their post and forced the officers, two captains and one lieutenant be- sides Lyon, to accompany them. General St. Clair who presided at the court-martial recom- mended Lyon to General Schuyler and obtained for him a commission as paymaster with the rank of captain in the Continental regiment com- manded by Seth Warner. He led a detachment in the fight at Hubbardton, July 7, 1777, and acted as guide to General St. Clair in his masterly march to join General Schuyler at Fort Edward, July 12, 1777. He served in the battles of Ben- nington and Saratoga and resigned from the army in the spring of 1778. He served the state as a member of the council of safety, captain in the militia, paymaster-general, deputy secretary to Governor Chittenden and his council, assistant to the treasurer, and colonel of militia. He rep- resented Arlington (to which place he had re- moved from Wallingford in 1777 and where his wife died in 1782), in the state legislature, 1779- 83, and Fair Haven for ten years between 1783 and 1797. He was the founder of Fairhaven in 1783, where he built saw and grist mills, estab- lished an iron foundry, manufactured paper from bassvvood pulp, established a printing office in 1793 and published The Farmer^ s Library, a newspaper which became the Fairhaven Gazette, and in 1798, while a candidate for representative in congress, commenced the publication of The Scourge of Aristocracy, a semi-monthly magazine. In October, 1798, he was indicted for writing a letter criticising the President for his part in pro- curing the passage of the alien and sedition acts, which letter was printed in the Windsor, Vt., Journal. He was imprisoned in Vergennes, Vt., for four months and paid a fine of $1000 and while in prison his constituents re-elected him to con- gress. He was married secondly in 1783 to Beu- lah, daughter of Gov. Thomas Chittenden and widow of George Galusha, and of their nine chil- dren, four were sons ; Chittenden, Matthew, Noah C, and Giles. He w^as the unsuccessful anti-Federalist candidate for representative in the 2d, 3d, 4th and 5th congresses, 1791-99, and was elected by his party in 1798 and 1800, serving in the 6th and 7th congresses, 1799-1801. His first speech in congress was in support of his motion '•'that such members as do not choose to attend upon the President, to present the answer to his speech shall be excused." His words served to excite the Federalists and strengthen the deter- mination of the Anti-Federalists who were op-

posed to aristocratic usage. On Jan. 30, 1798, an altercation on the floor of tlie liouse led to the following resolution offered by Representative Samuel Sewall of Massachusetts: "Resolved. that Matthew Lyon, a member of the House, for a violent attack, and gross indecency committed upon the person of Roger Griswold, another member, in the presence of this House, whilst sitting, be, for this disorderly behavior, expelled therefrom." The matter was caricatured and made ridiculous by the public press, but caused a clash of factions and the leaders on both sides have left record of their views in their published papers. He was not expelled as foity-four repre- sentatives voted against the resolution. When he cast the vote of Vermont in the 6tli congress which elected Jefferson to the Presidency in 1801 he considered himself avenged. He removed from Vermont to Kentucky the same year, largely through the advice of Andrew Jackson, and he there founded the town of Eddy ville. He declined the position of commissary-general of the western army offered him by President Jefferson ; was a representative in the Kentucky legislature from Livingston county, 1802, and a representative in the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th congresses, 1803-11. He made a notable speech in reply to John Ran- dolph of Roanoke, who had attacked Gideon Granger, postmaster-general, which is given in the annals of the 8th congress. He warned Jack- son against the secret operations of Burr and Wilkinson in the southwest. He opposed the second war with England and this cost him his seat in the 12th congress, but he engaged in building gunboats for the navy at his ship-yards in Eddyville. He became bankrupt about this time through the embargo act, and the loss of a valuable vessel, and in 1818 applied to his polit- ical friends in Washington for office. He was appointed U.S. factor to the Ciierokee nation in Arkansas Territory by President Monroe in 1820, and settled at Spadra Bluff. He was elected the second delegate to congress from Arkansas, but did not live to take his seat. See " Mattliew Lyon, tlie Hampden of Congress, a Biography," by J. Fairfax McLauglilin, LL.D. (1900). He died at Spadra Bluff, Ark., Aug. 1, 1822.

LYON, Nathaniel, soldier, was born in Ash- ford, Conn., July 14, 1818 ; son of Amasa and Kezia (Knowlton) Lyon, and grandson of Epliraira Lyon, a farmer and lawyer of Ashford, and of Lieut. Daniel Knowlton, an officer in the French and Indian and Revolutionary w%'irs. Nathaniel was graduated from the U.S. Military academy in 1841 and was 2d lieutenant of the 2d in- fantry. He served in the Seminole war, 1841-42 ; was in garrison at Sacket Harbor, N.Y., 1842-46, and at Fort Columbus, N.Y., in 1846. Hp was promoted first lieutenant, Feb. 16, 1847, and took