Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/445

 PRITCHARD

PRITCHETT

attracted attention. He went from England to France in 1776, and in 1778, Ralph Izard, U.S. commissioner to Tuscany, made him his secretary. He was admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1781, and practised law in Charleston, 1781-1843. He was a member and speaker of the house of assembly of Soutli Carolina, 1787-89; U.S. dis- trict attorney for South Carolina, 1789-93, and attorney-general of South Carolina, 1792-1808, declining the position of U.S. attorney-general in the cabinet of President Jefferson in 1835. He was president of the board of trustees of the College of Charleston, and of the Charleston Library society. He died in Charleston, S.C., March 17, 1843.

PRITCHARD, Jeter Connelly, senator, was born in Jonesboro, Tenn., July 13, 1857; son of William Hyder and Elizabeth L. (Brown) Pritch- ard. His paternal ancestors were from Wales and his maternal grandparents were natives of Ireland. Jeter C. Pritchard attended Martins Creek academy; learned the printer's trade in the Tribune-Herald office at Jonesboro, and removed to Bakersville, N.C., in 1873, where he was joint-owner and editor of the Roan Mountain Repiiblican, 1873-87; a presidential elector on the Garfield and Arthur ticket in 1880, and a representative from Madison county in the state legislature, 1884, 1886 and 1890. He was admitted to the bar in 1887 and settled in practice in Marshall, N.C.; was the Republican candidate for lieutenant-governor of the state in 1888, and the party nominee for U.S. senator in 1893. He was elected president of the North Carolina Protective Tariff league in 1891; was a delegate at large from North Carolina to the Re- publican national convention of 1892; a defeated candidate for representative in the 53d congress, and in April, 1894, was elected U.S. senator to fill the unexpired term of Z. B. Vance, deceased, and in 1897 was re-elected for the full term of six years expiring March 3, 1903. He was appointed chairman of the committee on patents and a member of six other important committees.

PRITCHETT, Carr Waller, educator, was born in Henry county, Va., Sept. 4, 1823; eldest son of Henry and Martha Myra (Waller) Pritchett; grandson of Joshua and Elizabeth (Cousins) Prit- chett and of Carr and Elizabeth (Martin) Waller; great-grandson of John Pritcliett of Lunenberg county, Va., and of Gen. Joseph Martin of Henry county, Va. The ancestors of the Pritchett family come from Wales early in the eighteentli century and settled in Virginia and North Caro- lina, the name being spelled both Pritchett and Pritchard in the old court records. His father removed with his family to Warren county, Mo., in 1835, where Carr attended the common scliool, and in 1844 he began to teach in private schools.

In 1846 he became a licentiate in the ministry of the Methodist church, and was for many ytars a member of the Missouri annual conference. He was married in Pike county. Mo., Oct. 17, 1849, to Bettie Susan, daughter of Byrd and Sarah Hatcher (Woodson) Smith of Danville, Ya.; she died at Glasgow, Mo., Nov. 27, 1872. He was an instructor in the Howard high school (subse- quently Central college), Fayette, Mo., up to the time of its suspension in 1864; was employed in the statistical department of the U.S. sanitary commission in Washington, D.C., 1864-66, and in 1866 founded the Pritchett School Institute at Glasgow, Mo., of which he was president until 1873, and which subsequently became Pritchett college against the written protest of Dr. Pritch- ett. In 1875 he became the first director of the Morrison Observatory (connected with the col- lege), which he was enabled to establish through the generosity of Miss Berenice Morrison. This position he still held in 1903. He received the honorary degree of A.M. from St. Charles college in 1850, and LL.D. fx-om Central college in 1885. He was a fellow of the Royal Astronomical so- ciety of London, 1879-99, and was made a mem- ber of theVirginia Historical society,

PRITCHETT, Henry Smith, educator, was born in Fayette, Mo., April 16, 1857; son of Carr Waller (q.v.) and Betty Susan (Smith) Pritchett. He was graduated from Pritchett School Institute, A.B., 1875, A.M., 1879, and studied under Asaph Hall atthe U.S. Naval observatory in 1876. He was assistant astronomer at the Naval observatory, 1878-80; assistant as- tronomer in the Mor- rison observatory, 1880-81; assistant professor of astron- omy at Washington university, St. Louis, Mo., 1881-82, and full professor, 1882- 97. He was the as- tronomer on the tran- sit of Venus expedi- tion to New Zealand in 1882; had charge of the government party to observe the eclipse of the sun in California in 1889; was president of the St. Louis Academy of Science, 1891-94; engaged in scientific work in Europe, 1894-95, and was appointed superintendent of the U.S. coast and geodetic survey in 1897, which office he resigned in 1900 to accept the presidency of the Massachu- setts Institute of Technology, Boston. He was .married in June, 1900, to Eva, daughter of Hall and Louise McAllister of San Francisco, Cal. He

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