Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/427

 PRENDERGAST

PRENTISS

William P. Preble was graduated from Harvard, A.B., 18U6. A.M., 1809, and remained as tutor in mathematics, 1809-11. He was admitted to the Maine bar ; practised law in York and Alfred, 1812, in Saco, 1813-18, and in Portland, 1818-57. He was U.S. district attorney for Maine, 1814-18 ; a mem- ber of the state constitutional convention of 1819 ; judge of the supreme court of Maine, 1820-28 ; U.S. minister to the Netherlands, 1829-31, and represented the United States in the northeastern boundary dispute. He was a trustee of Bowdoin college, 1831-42, and received the degree LL.D. from Bowdoin in 1829. He was married first, Sept. 7, 1810, to Nancy Gale, daughter of Joseph and Mary (Stone) Tucker of York, and secondly, to Sarah A., daughter of Thomas Forsaith of Portland. He died at Portland, Me., Oct. 11, 1857. PRENDERGAST, Edmund Francis, R.C. bishop, was born at Clonmel, county Tipperary, Ireland, May 3, 1843. He came to the United States in 1859 ; was educated at the College of St. Charles Borromeo, Philadelphia, Pa. ; was ordained priest, Nov. 17, 1865, by Bishop Wood ; served as assistant pastor of St. Paul's, Philadel- phia, and of St. John's, Susquehanna ; was rector of St. Mark's, Bristol, Pa., of the Immaculate Con- ception at Allentown, Pa., and of St. Malachy 's, Philadelphia, in 1874. He was a member of the

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board of diocesan consultors of Philadelphia ; was made vicar-general of the arch-diocese in 1895 ; was appointed auxiliary bishop of Phila- delphia, and consecrated titular bishop of "Scillio," Feb. 24, 1897, by Archbishop Rj^an, assisted by Bishops Horstman of Cleveland and Hoban of Scranton, Cardinal Gibbons and Bishops O'Hara, McGovern, Northrop and Allen being present.

PRENTICE, George Denison, journalist, was born in Preston, Conn., Dec. 18, 1802; son of Rufus and Sarah (Stanton) Prentice ; grandson of Eleazer and Sarah (Stanton) Prentice, and a descendant of Valentine Prentise, who emigrated from England to Roxbury, Mass., with his wife Alice and son John in 1631. He tauglit school as early as 1817 ; was graduated at Brown university,

A.B., 1823, A.M., 1826, and was admitted to the bar in 1829, but did not enter the legal profession. He edited the Connecticut Mirror, 1825-28 ; the Haverhill Gazette, and the New England Weekly Revieiv, Hartford, Conn., 1828-30, and in 1830 was succeeded by John Greenleaf W^hittier, and removed to Kentucky to collect historical data for a life of Henry Clay. He was married in 1835 to Henrietta, daughter of Joseph Benham of Louisville, Ky. He was editor of the Louis- ville Journal, a Whig publication, 1830-60 ; re- mained a contributor to its columns until 1868, when it became known as the Courier- Journal, and was also a regular contributor to the New York Ledger. These contributions established his reputation as a humorous writer. He received the honorary degree A.M. fi-om Trinity college in 1828. He is the author of: Life of Henry Clay (1831 ) ; Prenticeana ; or Wit and Humor in Para- graphs (1859, 2d ed., with biography by Gilderoy W. Griffin, 1870), and a volume of poems, collected after his death, and published with a biography by John James Piatt (1875). He died in Louis- ville, Ky., Jan. 22, 1870.

PRENTISS, Albert Nelson, educator, was born in Cazenovia, N.Y., May 22, 1836. He studied in Cazenovia seminary, and was graduated from Michigan Agricultural college, A. B., 1861, A.M., 1864. He served as a private under Gen. John C. Fremont in Missouri, 1861-62 ; was as- sociate principal of the high school at Kalamazoo, Mich., 1863-65 ; instructor and professor of botany and horticulture in Michigan Agricultural college, 1865-68, and professor of botany, horticulture and arboriculture at Cornell university, N.Y., 1868-96. He conducted the Cornell expedition to Brazil in 1870, and studied in Kew Gardens, England, and in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in 1872. He earn- ed a world-wide reputation as a botanist, and in 1872 received the Walker prize of the Boston Society of Natural History for his essay on the " Natural Distribution " of plants. He published several botanical papers, a monograph on the hemlock, and contributions to scientific periodi- cals. He died in Ithaca, N.Y.. Aug. 14, 1896.

PRENTISS, Benjamin Maybury, soldier, was born in Belleville, Va., Nov. 23. 1819 ; son of Henry L. Prentiss, a farmer. He removed to Missouri in 1835, and to Quincy, 111., in 1841, where he conducted a rope-walk. He was 1st lieutenant of the Quincy Rifles, raised to drive the Mormons from Hancock, 111.. 1844; was under Colonel Hardin in the Mexican war as captain and adjutant of the 1st Illinois volunteers, receiving lionorable mention at Buena Vista, and on returning to Quincy engaged as a commission merchant. He was the unsuccessful Republican candidate from the fifth Illinois district for representative to the 37th congress in 1860. and