Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/48

 MYER

MYERS

been entrusted with the experiments in tele- graphing and signalling the approach and force of storms, made his first observations which were received at twenty-four stations at twenty-tive minutes of eight in the morning and on Novem- ber 8, telegraphed his first storm warning to the stations on the Great Lakes. He represented the United States at the international congress of meteorologists in Vienna in 1873, and at tlie meteorological congress at Rome in 1879. He was promoted brigadier-general by congress, June 16, 1880, as a reward for his services. In 1873 he established a daily international bulletin and in 1878 a daily international chart in connec- tion with the signal service bureau ; a system of day and night signals for navigation, and a system of reports for the benefit of interior com- merce and for farmers. Hobart conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. in 1872 and Union that of Ph.D. in 1875. He is the author of Manual of Signals for the U.S. Army and Navy (1868). He died in Buffalo, N.Y. Aug. 24, 1880.

MYER, Isaac, lawyer and author, was born in Philadelphia. Pa., March .5, 1836 ; son of Isaac and Margaretta (Shade) Myer ; grandson of Ben- jamin and Sarah (Riggs) Myer and of Peter and Susannah (Warner) Sliade, and a descendant of Martin Janszen Myer and of Edward Riggs, whose son Sargeant, Edward Riggs, fought in the Pequot war with the men from Roxbury, and settled in Newark, N.J., in 1666. Martin Janszen Myer emigrated to America from Holland in 1653 or earlier, and was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, and Edward Riggs emigrated from Naz- ing parish, Waltham Abbey, Essex county, Eng- land, in the spring of 1633, and settled in Rox- bury, Mass. He was originally of the Anglican Church but emigrated as a Puritan. Isaac at- tended the academies of Philadelpliia, was grad- uated from the law department of the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania in 1857, and practised in Philadelphia and New Yi)rk. He was married in June, 1889, to Mary H. (Abbott) Sliarpsteen, then of New Y'ork. He was U.S. commissioner of western Pennsylvania in 1863 et seq. He was elected to membership in numerous societies, in- cluding the Numismatic and Antiquarian society ; the Royal Numismatic society of Belgium ; the New England society, the Holland society, the Society of Colonial wars, the Huguenot Society of America ; the American Oriental society ; the New Yorkand Pennsylvania historical societies,and the Society of American Authors. His library, which was rich in Oriental subjects and included many valuable manuscripts of his own, he bequeathed to the Lenox library. He devoted himself to literary and archseological work and is the autlior of : Presidential Power over Personal Liberty (1862) ; 27t€ Waterloo Medal (1885) ; The Qab-

halah : The Philosophy of Ibn Gebirol. or Avice- bron (1888); On Dreams by Synesius (1888); Scarabs (1894) ; The Oldest Books in the World; Taken from the Papyri and Monuments (1900). He died at Narragansett Pier, R.I., Aug. 2, 1902.

MYERS, Car^ Edgar, aeronautical engineer, was born at Fort Herkimer, N.Y\, March 2, 1842. son of Abram H. and Eliza Ann (Cristman) M3-ers ; and grandson of Michael Frederick and Margaret Myers and of Jacob and Mary Elizabeth (Small; Cristman. After attending the common schools he was employed as carpenter, mechanician, plumber, electrician and chemist, to 1864; banker, 1861-67 ; photograi)her, 1864-80 ; printer, 1870-86, and devoted his attention chiefly to aeronautical engineering after 1878. He became known as the inventor of new or improved systems for gen- erating gases, and as the constructor of hydrogen balloons and airships, including the aerial veloci- pede, gas kite, sky-cj'cle and electrical aerial tor- pedo. He married, Nov. 8, 1871, Mary Breed Hawley, the air current navigator " Carlotta." He wrote Aerial Adventures of /Carlotta (1883) and many contributions to periodicals.

MYERS, Edward Howell, educator, was born in Orange county, N.Y., in 1816. He removed to Florida with his parents and attended school there ; was graduated from Randolph-Macon col- lege, Va., 2d in the class of 1838, A.M., in 1841. He taught in the Georgia Conference Manual Labor school at Oxford, Ga., an institution which subsequently became Emory college. He was admitted to the Georgia conference of the Methodist Episcopal church in January, 1841, and was an itinerant preacher, 1841-45. He was pro- fessor of national science at the Wesleyan Female college, Macon, Ga., 1845-51, and presi- dent of the college, 1851-54 and 1871-74. He was editor of the Southern Christian Advocate, Charleston, S.C, 1854-71. He was pastor of Trinity church, Savannah, Ga., 1874-76; was ciiairman of the Southern commission that met at Cape May, N.J..in 1876 to bring about a reunion of the Northern and Southern Methodist Episcopal churches, and had about completed this mission when the yellow fever broke out in Savannah, and he immediately rejoined his congregation and died of fever in Savanah, Ga., Sept. 26. 1876.

MYERS, Henry van Schoonhoven, clergy- man, was born in New Y'ork city. May 27, 1842 ; son of James and Mary Skidmore (Wrigiit) Myers ; grandson of Peter Michael and Mary (Van Schoonhoven) Myers and of Benjamin and Martha (Herriman) Wright, and great-grandson of Michael Myers, a soldier in the Continental army, wounded at the battle of Johnstown. He prepared for college at the Polytechnic institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., was a student at the University of the City of New Y^ork, 1860-63, and was grad-