Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/441

 PRIME

PRIME

(1809); The Pernicious Effects of Intemperance, a sermon (1812); An Address to the Cambridge Branch of the Moral Society of Washington County (1815); A Plan for the More Successful Management of Domestic 3Iissions (1816); Divine Truth, the Established Means of Sanctification, a sermon (1817); A Familiar niustration of Chris- tian Baptism (1818); The Year of Jubilee but not to Africans (1825); History of Long Island (1845). He died in Mamaroneck, N.Y., March 27, 1856.

PRIME, Samuel Irenaeus, editor, was born in Ballston, N.Y., Nov. 4, 1812; son of the Rev. Nathaniel Scudder and Julia Ann (Jermain) Prime. He was graduated at Williams col- lege, 1829; taught in Washington academj' and at Mount Pleasant, Sing Sing, N.Y., 1829-32, and attended Princeton Theological seminary, 1832-33. He was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Bedford in 1833; was principal of the academy at Weston, Conn., 1833-35, and was ordained by the presbytery of Albany, June 4, 1835. He was married first, Oct. 15, 1833, to Elizabeth Thornton, daughter of Edward Kemeys of Sing Sing, N.Y., and secondly, Aug. 17, 1835, to Eloisa Lemet, daughter of Moses Williams of Ballston Spa, N.Y. He was pastor at Ballston Spa, 1835-36; principal of the academy at Newburgh, N.Y., 1836-37, and pastor at Matteawan, N.Y., 1837-40. He was editor of the New York Observer, 1840-49 and 1851-85, and proprietor, 1858-85; visited Europe, Palestine and Egypt, 1853-54; made a second visit to Europe in 1866, and a third in 1876, and in all liis travels wrote weekly contributions to the Observer, under the signature " Irenaeus." He was secretary of the American Bible society in 1849, and editor of the Presbyterian at Philadel- phia, Pa., in 1850. He resided in Newark, N.J., Brooklyn, N.Y., and New York city. He was a delegate to the fifth general conference of the Evangelical alliance at Amsterdam in 1867; cor- responding secretary of the American alliance, 1867-84; a vice-president and director of the American Tract society, and of the American and Foreign Christian union, and a founder and

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president of the New York Association for the Advancement of Science and Art. He was also president of Wells college for women at Aurora, N.Y., 1869-73; a trustee, 1870-85; trustee of

Williams college, 1869-85, and a member of various religious, benevolent and literary societies. He received the degree D.D. from Hampden- Sidney college in 1854. He contributed to Harrier's Magazine for more than twelve years, and is the author of: The Old fMiite Meeting-House (1845); Life in New York (1845); Annals of the English Bible (1849); Tlioughts on the Death of Little Children (1852; 2d ed., 1805); Travels in Europe and the East (2 vols., 1855); The Power of Prayer, translated into French and Tamil (1858); The Bible in the Levant; American Wit and Humor (1859); Letters from Switzerland (1860); Memoirs of Rev. Nicholas Murray, D.D. (1862); Kirwan {18G2); Memoirs of Mrs. Joanna Bethune (1863); Five Years of Prayer and the Answers (1864); Fifteen Years of Prayer (1872): Walking with God (1872); The Alhambra and the Kremlin ( 1873); Songs of the Soid (1874); Life of S. F. B. Morse, LL.D. (1875); Irenceus Letters (1st sen, 1880; 2d ser., 1885); Prayer and its Ansicer (1882). He died in Manchester, Vt., July 18, 1885.

PRIME, William Cowper, journalist, was born in Cambridge, N.Y., Oct. 31, 1825; son of the Rev. Nathaniel Scudder and Juha Ann (Jer- main) Prime. He was graduated at the College of New Jersey, A.B., 1843, A.M., 1846; was ad- mitted to the bar in 1846, and practiced law in New York city, 1846-61. He was married. May 1, 1851, to Mary, daughter of the Hon. Gurdon Trumbull of Stoniugton, Conn. He was part owner and one of the managers of the New York Journal of Commerce, 1861-84, and its editor-in- chief, 1861-69. He traveled in Europe and the Holy Land, 1855-56 and 1869-70, and studied the art of book illustration, making a collection of the woodcuts of the 15th and 16th centuries. He was elected first vice-president of the Metro- politan Museum of Fine Arts in 1874; received the degree of LL.D. from the College of New Jersey in 1875, and presented the art department of that institution with a very complete collection of pottery in memory of his wife. He was elected professor of the history of art in the College of New Jersey in 1884, having been influential in establishing that chair. He contributed to mag- azines and reviews, including a weekly letter to the Journal of Commerce from 1846, and is the author of: The Owl Creek Letters and Other Cor- respondence (1848); The Old House by the River (1853); Later Years (1854); Boat Life in Egypt and Nubia (1857); Tent Life in the Holy Land (1857); Coins, Medals and Seals, Ancient and Modern (1861); O Mother Dear, Jerusalem; The Old Hymn with its Origin and Genealogy (1865); I go afishing (1873); Holy Cross (1877), and Porcelain of All Times and Nations (1878). He also edited " McClellan's Own Story," (1886) and wrote the biographical sketch attached.