Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/463

 PUTNAM

PUTNAM

Biography"; by William Cutler (1846); by the Rev. Duncan N. Taylor, D.D. (1876), and by Wil- liam Farrand Livington (1901) which gives much new light on his pi'ivate and military life. In the election of namies for a place in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, New York university, Oc- tober, 1900, his name in " Class N, Soldiers and Sailors," received ten votes. He died in Brook- lyn, Conn., May 29, 1790.

PUTNAM, James Osborne, diplomatist, was born in Attica, N.Y., July 4, 1818; son of Harvey and Myra (Osborne) Putnam, and a descendant, in the eighth generation, of John and Priscilla Putnam, who emigrated from Buckinghamshire, England, in 1634, and settled in Salem, Mass. He passed his freshman and sophomore years in Ham- ilton college, 1837-38, and entered the Yale junior class of 1839, and was graduated as of that class in 1865, receiving his A.M. degree the same year. He studied law in his father's office; was ad- mitted to the bar in 1843; practised in Buffalo, N.Y., and was postmaster of that city, 1851-53. He was married, Jan. 5, 1842, to Harriet Foster, daughter of George and Harriet (Foster) Palmer of Buffalo; and secondly, March 15, 1855, to Kate F., daughter of the Rev, Worthington and Katherine (Green) Wright of Woodstock, Vt. He was a member of the New York state senate, 1854-55, where he originated the bill that be- came a law, requiring the title of church property to be vested in trustees. He was defeated as the American party nominee for secretary of state in 1857; was a presidential elector from the state- at-large on the Lincoln and Hamlin ticket in 1860; U.S. consul at Havre, France, 1861-66; U.S. minister to Belgium, 1880-82, and U.S. delegate to the International Industrial Property congress at Paris in 1881. He is the author of: Orations, Speeches and Miscellanies (1880). In 1903 he still held the position of chancellor of the University of Buffalo, which he had occupied for many years.

PUTNAM, Mary Traill Spence (Lowell), author, was born in Boston, Mass., Dec. 3, 1810; daughter of the Rev. Charles and Harriet Bracket (Spence) Lowell; granddaughter of Judge John and Rebecca (Russell) Tyng Lowell, and of Keith and Mary (Traill) Spence, and a descendant of Percefall Lowle, who emigrated from Bristol, England, to America, in the ship Jonathan in 1639, and settled in Newbury, Mass. She was a sister of James Russell Lowell. She received a liberal education, and was married, April 25, 1832, to Samuel Raymond, son of Judge Samuel (1768- 1853) and Sarah (Gooll) Putnam of Salem, Mass. Their son, William Lowell Putnam, of the 20th Massachusetts regiment, was killed at the battle of Bulls Bluff, Va., Oct. 21, 1861. She was emi- nent as a traveler, scholar and linguist; contri-

buted articles on Polish and Hungarian litera- ture, and the history of Hungary, published in the North American Review, 1848-50, and in the Cliristian Examiner, 1850-51; translated Fredrika Bremer's " The Handmaid," from the Swedish (1844), and is the author of: Records of an Ob- scure Man (1861); The Tragedy of Errors (1862); 77ie Tragedy of Success (1862), dramatic poems; Memoir of William Lou-ell Putnam (1862); Fifteen Days (1866); Memoir of the Rev. Charles Lou-ell (1885). She died in Boston, Mass., June 1, 1898.

PUTNAM, Rufus, soldier, was born in Sutton, Mass., April 9, 1738; son of Elisha and Susanna (Fuller) Putnam; grandson of Edward (half- brother of Joseph) and Mary (Hall) Putnam, and of Jonathan and Susan (Trask) Fuller; great- grandson of Thomas Putnam, and greats-grand- son of John and Priscilla (Gould) Putnam. His grandfather, Edward Putnam, and Gen. Israel Putnam's father, Joseph Putnam, were half brothers, Rufus Putnam's father died in 1745 and Rufus was taken into the family of his grand- father, Jonathan Fuller, who resided at Danvers, Mass., where he attended school two years. When his mother was mari-ied to Capt. John Sadler of Upton, he removed to the inn kept by his stepfather, where he had no school privileges, and when sixteen years old was apprenticed to a juilhvright in North Brookfield, from that time devoting his leisure to study. When nineteen years old, he enlisted in Capt. Ebenezer Leonard's company for service on the northorn frontier against the French and Indians, and reaching Fort Ed- ward in April, 1757, was made a scout in the company of Capt. Israel Putnam. He declined a lieuten- ant's commission in 1759 and returned to Massachusetts, set- tling in New Brain- tree, where he fol- lowed the occupa- tions of millwright and farmer. He was married in April, 1761, to Elizabeth, daughter of William Ayers of Brookfield; she died, 1762. He married secondly, Jan. 10, 1765, Persis, daughter of Zebulon Rice of Westboro, and they made a new home in North Brookfield. With Col. Israel Putnam and other officers of the Colonial army, he explored lands in East Florida granted by Parliament to Provin- cial officers and soldiers, and in January, 1773, surveyed the supposed grant, which proved to be of no value. He was made lieutenant-colonel of

^^1^ Siyd^C^:i4^