Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 09.djvu/381

 SIBLEY

SIBLEY

Texas, with which lie marcheil from Fort Bliss in January, 1862, and succeeded in forcing the national troops nndpr Col. E. R. S. Canby from Valverde, N.M., 21, 1862. He took possession of Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but was subsequently driven from Peralta and souglit refuge in Fort Bliss in April, 1862. He completed his service in the Confederate army under Gen, Richard Taylor and Gen. E. K. Smith ; served as a brigadier- general of artillery in the Egyptian army, 1869- 74, where he was active in building coast and river defences, and on his return to the United States, lectured on the working classes of Egypt. He was the inventor of a tent constructed upon the plan of Indian wigwams, for which he received letters-patent, and for the use of which the army made a contract. The terms of the contract, however, were never fulfilled, owing to alleged disloyalty on the part of General Sibley, and his claims, unsettled at tiie time of his death, were unsuccessfully brought forward by his friends in February. 1889. He died at Fredericksburg, Va., Aug. 23. 1886.

SIBLEY, Hiram, finajicier, was born in North Adams, Mass., Feb. 6, 1807; son of Benjamin Sibley, a millwright. He attended the public schools, became a shoemaker, and in 1823 re- moved to Lima, N.Y., where he followed his father's trade and subsequently that of a machin- ist and wool carder. He carried on factories for wool carding at Sparta and Mount Morris, N.Y., a machine shop at Mendon, N.Y., and in 1843 was elected sheriff of Monroe county. He estab- lished a bank at Rochester, N.Y., became in- terested financially in the development and introduction of the telegraph, with Ezra Cornell ; was influential in securing an appropriation from congress for this object, and was an organizer and stockholder in the Atlantic Lake and Missis- sippi Valley Telegraph company in 1851, which was consolidated through his efforts with the Western Union, in 1854, and in the New York, Albany, and Buffalo company, which also joined the Western Union, of which he was president, 1851-68. He constructed and financed an over- land line to San Francisco, in 1861, which was purchased by the Western Union Telegraph com- pany in 1864 ; next planned a line to Russia through Alaska via Behring strait and Siberia with P. McD. Collins, and built as far as the Sheena river in Alaska, where he was opposed and delayed by the Russian American Fur Co., until the laying of the Atlantic Cable made his scheme impracticable, after an expenditure of $3,000,000. He was one of the founders of the Southern Michigan and Northern Indiana rail- road of which he was managing director, and in- vested largely in various railroads and mines in Michigan, Illinois, and New York, in real estate,

and in the salt works at Saginaw, Mich. He establi-shed a nursery and seed business in Rochester in 1868, which was supplied by the Burr Oaks farm, Illinois, and the Hosvland Island farm, Cayuga county, N.Y. He amassed a for- tune of a least $48,000,000, from which he con- tributed generously to charitable and educational institutions ; founded the Sibley College of Me- chanical Engineering at Cornell university ; gave Sibley Hall to the University of Rochester, and built a church in his native town. He died in Rochester. N.Y., July 12, 1888.

SIBLEY, John Langdon, librarian, was born in Union, Maine., Dec. 29, 1804 ; son of Jonathan and Persis (Morse) Sibley ; grandson of Jacob and Anna (George) Sibley and of Obadiah Morse, and a descendant of Richard Sibley of Salem, Mass. He was fitted for college at Phillips aca- demy at Exeter, N.H. ; was graduated at Harvard, A.B., 1825, and S.T.B., 1828, and was assistant librarian in the Divinity school, 1825-26. He was ordained to the Congregational ministry at Stow, Mass., May 14, 1829, where he served as pastor of the First church, 1829-33, resigning in the latter year in order to give his entire atten- tion to literary pursuits, and settled in Cam- bridge, Mass. He was editor and publisiier of the American Magazine of Useful and Entertain- ing Knowledge in 1837, which periodical was established by the Bewick company of Boston ; editor of the Triennial and Quinquennial cata- logues of Harvard college, 18o9-85, and of the annual catalogues, 1850-70. In this capacity he made a special feature of the necrology and biography of graduates, first publishing the obit- uary dates in the triennial catalogue of 1845, and sketches of the graduates as complete as his per- sonal research could make them in the catalogue of 1849. He was assistant librarian at Harvard, 1841-55 ; librarian, succeeding Dr. Thaddeus William Harris, 1856-77, and librarian emeritus, 1877-85. During his term of active service he added 123,000 volumes to a library of 41,000 volumes, and an equivalent number of pamphlets, and was influential in securing a permanent fund of $170,000. He was married May 30, 1866, to Charlotte Augusta Langdon Cook, daughter of Samuel Cook, a Boston merchant. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences : of the Massachusetts Historic;al society, to which he left his collection of biographical data of the graduates of Harvard, and between 1862-85 gave Phillips academy at Exeter gifts aggregating $39,000, on the condition that the in- come should be devoted to aiding poor students, in recognition of the financial help which he had received during his attendance at that institu- tion. His portrait hangs on the Cliapel walls at Phillips, Exeter. He received the honorary degree