Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/444

 PRINCE

PRINGLE

his company from Coombs. England, with lier brother ami friends, and their son. Thomas (1722- 48), was graduated from Harvard in 1740. and founded and id i ted Christian History (1744-46). He commenced the collection of manuscript documents of the early history of New England in 170:}. and later the writings of early New England clergymen, which he left to the Old South church at his death. These were partly destroyed by the British in 177.5-76; but those saved, togi'lher with his library which he began to accumulate as early as 1697. of both of which a catalogue was published by William H. Whit- more in \S6S, and a second one with portrait in 1870. are now a part of the Boston public library. He became eminent as a preacher, linguist and scliolar. according to the opinion of Dr. Charles Chauncey being second only to Cotton Mather in New England. He published twenty-nine single sermons between 1717 and 1756, several of which were republisiied by the Massachusetts Historical society, and six of his manuscript dis- courses were published by Dr. John Erskine, 1785, He is the author of : An Account of a Strange Appearance in the Heavens (1719); Earthquakes the Works of God (1727); A Sermon on the- Death of Cotton Mather (1728J ; Memoirs of Eager Clap of Dorchester (1731); A Vade Mecnm for America: a Companion for Traders and Travelers (17^2); an edition of John Mason's History of the Pequot War, with introduction and notes (1736) ; A Thanksgiving Sermon occasioned by the Capture of Lnuishurg (1745); The New England Psalm- Book Revised and Improved (1758). He left a diary, and a work entitled : ^1 Chronological His- tory of New England in the Form of Annals (vol. I., 1736; two numbers of Vol. H. 1755), followed by limited editions with memoir (1826), reprinted in London and Edinburgh. His complete bibli- ography, giving 121 titles, is given in " History of the Old South Church, Boston," Vol. H. (1890). He (iu<\ in Brt and Mary (Burgess) Prince, and a de- scendant of John Prince, who emigrated from England to America about 1670, and settled in Boston, Mass. William Prince attended schools at Jamaica and Flushing, and assisted his father, who was a horticulturist and proprietor of the first nursery established in America, known as the " Old American Nursery," started in 1725. In 1793 he bought eighty acres of adjacent land and established the Linnaean nurseries, which continued till 1870. He was married, Dec. 24, 1794, to Mary, daughter of Eli- phalet and Mary (Vaienton) Stratton. He intro- duced many varieties of fruits into the United

States, sent many trees and plants from America to Europe and systematized tiie nomenclature of American fruits, including the Bartlett pear and Isabella grape. He was a corresponding member of the Linnaean society of Paris, the horticul- tural societies of London and Paris, and the Imperial Society of Georgofili at Florence. The London horticultural society named the " Wil- liam Prince "apple in his honor. A meeting of the most prominent foreign and American socie- ties met at his home in Flushing in 1823, when Gov. DeWitt Clinton crowned the bust of Lin- naeus. He is the author of : A Treatise on Horti- culture (1828), the first work of its kind published in the United States, and Treatise on the Vine (with his son, William R., 1830). He died in Flushing. L.I.. N.Y.. April 9, 1842.

PRINCE, William Robert, horticulturist, was born at Flushing, L.I., N.Y., Nov. 6. 1795 ; son of William (q.v.) and Mary (Stratton) Prince. He was educated at Jamaica academy, L.I., and at Boucherville, Canada, and engaged in con- ducting the Linnaean nurseries with his father, until 1842, and subsequently alone. He was married, Oct. 2, 1826, to Charlotte Goodwin, daughter of Charles and Lydia (Bradford) Col- lins. He imported the first merino sheep into the United States in 1816, and introduced silk culture and the morus multicaulis for feeding silk worms in 1837, wherein lie lost a large for- tune owing to a change in the tariff, which des- troyed the industry. He was a delegate to the Whig national convention at Harrisburg, Pa., in 1848 ; went to California in 1849 ; was a founder of Sacramento, and traveled in Mexico in 1851. He introduced the cultivation of osiers about 1835, of sorghum and the Chinese yam in 1854-55. He received the degrees M.D. and LL.D. about 1866. He was a member of the American Insti- tute, the National Poniological society and many other scientific societies, and is the author of : Treatise on the Vine (with his father, 1830) ; Pomological Manual (2 vols., 1832); Manual of Roses (1846) ; also numerous pamphlets on the mulberry, strawberry, dioscorea, and on medical botany, and about 200 descriptive catalogues of trees, shrubs, vines, plants and bulbs. He died at Flushing, L.I., March 28, 1869.

PRINQLE, John Julius, statesman, was born in Charleston, 8.C., July 22, 1753; son of Judge Robert and Judith (Mayrant) Bull Pringle. Robert Pringle (1702-1776), born in Scotland, was a merchant in Charleston, S.C.. 1730-76, and as- sistant justice of the court of common pleas for South Carolina, 1760-69. John Julius Pringle studied law in the office of Chief-Justice John Rvitledge in Charleston, and at the Temple in London, England, and while in England pub- lished articles in defence of colonial rights which