Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/136

 TESLA

THAXTER

he was commissioned captain of Virginia cavalry, Confederate States army. He was promoted colonel and assumed command of the 24th Vir- ginia regiment. On May 16, 18C4, he led Kemper's brigade. General Ransom's division, Army of Northern Virginia, in the advance at Drewry's Blutf, serving with acknowledged gal- lantry in carrying the enemy's breastworks; was promoted brigadier-general. May 20, 18(U, and continued in command of Kemper's brigade, Gen. George E. Pickett's division, and at the battle of Five Forks, April 1, 1865, was posted on the ex- treme right in the intrenched line, with Corse, Steuart, Ransom and Wallace following to the left. General Terry was a state senator for sev- eral years; superintendent of the Richmond pen- itentiary, and of the Lee camp soldiers' home. He died in Cliesterfield county, March 28, 1897.

TESLA, Nikola, electrician, was born in Smil- jan, Servia, in 1857. He attended the public schools of Gospich, and graduated from Real Sclmle, Karlstadt, 187.3. His determination to Ixcome a professor of mathematics and physics conquered his father's wish that he enter the ministry of the Greek church, and he continued his studies with that in- tent at the Polytech- nic school at Gratz, changing to the en- gineering course in his second year, and later studied phil- osophy and languages at Prague and Buda- "" Pesth. He was as-

sistant in the gov- ernment telegraph- engineering department; was employed as an electrical engineer in Paris, and subsequently came to the United States, being connected with the Edison Works. He later became electrician to the Tesla Electric Light company, organized to put his own inventions into practical use, and established the Tesla laboratory in New York city for indep)endent research. His inventions include the modern principle of the rotary mag- netic field emlxjdied in the apparatus used in the transmission of power from Niagara Falls; new forms of dynamos, transformers, induction coils, condensers, arcs and incandescent lamps, and also the oscillator combining steam-engine and dynamo; his researches in the field of electrical oscillation creating a new field of investigation. He was called the father of wireless telegraphy, wliich theory he first described in a lecture before the National Electric Light association at St.

Louis, i\Io., March, 1893; his ideas being given practical demonstration by Marconi in 1902. The honorary degree of A.M. was conferred upon him by Yale and that of LL.D. by Columbia ui 1894. He is the author of: Experiment" u'ith Mternate Currents of High Potential and Hiijh Frequency (1892), and translated, with a prefatory note on Servian poetry, Robert U. Johnson's " Songs of Liberty and Other Poems" (1897). See: "Nik- ola Tesla; Inventions, Researches and Writings," by Thomas C. Martin (1894).

THACHER, George, representative, was born in Yarmouth, Maine, April 12, 1754. He was graduated from Harvard college, A.B., 1776; was admitted to the bar, 1778, and began practice in York, removing to Biddeford, 1782. He was a del- egate from Massachusetts to the Continental con- gress, 1787-88, atid was a representative from the Maine district in the lst-6th congresses, 1789-1801. He was a district judge in Maine, 1792-1800; judge of the supreme court of Massachusetts, 1800-20, and of the supreme court of Maine from its admission as a state in 1820 until his death, serving as a delegate to the Maine constitutional convention, 1819. He received the honorary de- gree of A.M. from Harvard in 1819. He died in Biddeford. Maine, April 6, 1824, THANET, Octave. (See Frencli, Alice.) THARP, William, governor of Delaware, was born near Farmington, Kent county, Del., Nov. 27, 1803; son of James and Eunice (Fleming) Tharp; grandson of William and Ruth (Clark) Tharp and of Beniah Fleming, and great-grand- son of John Tharp, or Tliorpe, who came from Sussex, England, and was one of the original settlers of Kent county, Md. He engaged in farming, and was a member of the general as- sembly. He was defeated as the Democratic candidate for state senator, and in 1844 for gov- ernor of Delaware, by Thomas Stockton (q.v), who died March 2, 1846, and whom he succeeded as governor, serving. 1847-51, and making his home in Milford, Del. His grandson, William Tharp Watson (q.v.) was governor of Delaware, 1895-97. Governor Tharp died in Milford, Del., Jan. 1, 1865.

THAXTER, Celia, poet, w-as born in Ports- mouth, N.H., June 29, 1836; daughter of Thomas B. and Eliza (Rymes) Laighton and grand- daughter of;Mark and Deborah Laighton and of Christopher Rymes. In 1839, her father having been appointed light-house keeper on White Island, she left Portsmouth for the Isles of Shoals. She received her early education from her father, and after the family removed to Appledore island, about 1847, she continued her studies under Levi Lincoln Thaxter of Watertown, Mass., who board- ed in the Laighton home, and to whom she was married in 1851. Of their three sons, Roland