Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/381

 POMEROY

POMEROY

Mercer university, 1893-96, and became president of the university in 1896, as successor to Dr. J. B. Gambrell, resigned ; meanwhile, in 1894, declin- ing the office of state superintendent of educa- tion for Georgia. He was married, Nov. 24, 1895, to Eva, daughter of George Cowan and Mary (Briscoe) Selman of Monroe, Ga. He served as chairman of the executive committee of the Georgia Baptist State convention in 1900, 1901 and 1902, and of the Georgia Baptist Education commission in 1901 and 1902. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Richmond col- lege, Va., in 1893.

POMEROY, Benjamin, clergyman, was born in Suffield, Conn., Nov. 19, 1704; son of Joseph and Hannah (Seymour) Pomeroy ; grandson of Medard and Experience (Woodward) Pomeroy of Northampton, Mass., and of Richard Seymour of Hartford, Conn., and great-grandson of Eltwed Pomeroy, who came from Devonshire, England, to Dorchester, Mass., about 1632; settled in Northampton, Mass., about 1635, and later re- moved to Windsor, Conn. Benjamin Pomeroy was graduated at Yale, A.B., 1733, A.M., 1736, and was one of the first Yale graduates to claim the Bishop Berkeley scholarship for the classics. He was married, Oct. 24, 1734, to Abigail, daughter of Ralpii and Ruth (Huntington) AVheelock of AVindham, Conn. He was ordained at Hebron, Conn., Dec. 16, 1735; was active in the revival of 1840, and after being tried for " disorderly conduct" in preaching at Stratford, was acquit- ted. At a second trial in 1744, he was found guilty and compelled to pay the costs of prosecu- tion. About this time he preached in Colchester without consent from the resident minister, and this act cost him seven years' salary. He was chaplain in the British army during the French and Indian war, and in the Continental army during the Revolution. He was active in the establishment of the Indian Charity school, was a trustee of Dartmouth, 1769-84, and received the degree D.D. from there in 1774. He died in Hebron, Conn.. Dec. 22, 1784.

POMEROY, Mark Mills, journalist, was born in Elmira, N.Y., Dec. 25, 1833; son of Hunt and Orlina Rebecca (White) Pomeroy, and a lineal descendant of the Pomeroy family of Devon- shire, Eng. He was brought up by his maternal uncle, Seth Marvin White, a farmer and black- smith near Elmira ; attended the common schools, and in 1850 obtained employment in Corning, as an apprentice in the printing office of the Jour- nal. In 1854 he established a printing office, and bought out an advertising paper, called the Sun, which became the Corning Democrat in 1855. In that year, removing to Athens, Pa., he started the Gazette, and the following year set- tled in Horicon, Dodge county. Wis., whei-e he

established the Argus, and was appointed U.S. marshal for the state. He was city editor of the Milwaukee Daily News, 1858-59, and in 1859 en- gaged in newspaper and political work in Wash- ington, D.C. In 1860 he purchased the La Crosse Democrat, in which he set forth the dangers to the government from increasing the national debt, and from the corruptions in political office. In 1868 he went to New York, where he established Pomeroy's Democrat, but as it conflicted with the Tweed Ring, he removed the publication to Chicago in 1875, where he joined the Greenback movement, and served as chairman of a com- mittee appointed by the national convention held in Chicago to organize greenback clubs. He was married in 1876, to Emma Idalia Stim- son of Michigan. In 1880 he went to Colorado for his health, engaging in the practice of law, and editing The Great West. He originated a scheme for tunnelling the Rocky Mountains, organizing the Atlantic-Pacific Railway Tunnel company with a capital of $7,000,000 ; but after cutting for nearly a mile on each side of the mountains, he abandoned the project through failure to secure govei'nment aid. In 1887 he returned to New York citj', where he conducted Pomeroy s Advance TItought, a monthly maga- zine, 1887-96. He is the author of : Sense (1868) ; Nonsense (1868) ; Gold Dust (1872); Brick Dust (1872); Our Saturday Night (1873); Home Har- monies (1874); Perpetual Money (1878). He died in Brooklyn, N.Y.. May 30, 1896.

POMEROY, Samuel Clarke, senator, was bt)ra in Soutiiampton, Mass., Jan. 3, 1816. He attended Amherst college, Mass., and after residing for several years in New York city, returned to Southampton. He was a representative in the state legislature, 1852-53 ; was an organizer and the financial agent of the New England Emigrant Aid company, and in 1854 established a colony in Lawrence, Kan. He removed to Atchison, Kan., and was elected mayor of the city in 1859 ; was a member of the Free State convention that met in Lawrence in 1859, and during the famine in Kansas, 1800--61, he was president of the relief committee. He was a delegate to the Repviblican national conventions of 1856 and 1860, and a Republican U.S. senator from Kansas, 1861-73. By reason of his advocacy of subsidy measures while in congress, charges of bribery were pre- ferred against him in 1873, and he was defeated for re-election that year, but after a careful in- vestigation the charges were not sustained. He resided in Washington, D.C, for several years and died in Whitinsville, Mass., Aug. 27, 1891.

POMEROY, Seth, soldier, was born in North- ampton, Mass., May 20, 1706. He was a gun- smith in his youth and became a captain in the colonial militia in 1744 He held the rank of