Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/224

 TUOMEY

TUPPER

borough Tunnell. who settled in Virginia. He attended the public scliools at Milfordand Lewes, Del.; engaged as a nieiciiant in Blackwater; was a member of the state legislature, 1871, and re- moved to Lewes, 1872, where lie was interested in the drug and subsequently the hardware business. He never married. He was clerk of peace for Sussex county, 1885-90: the unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1894, and governor of Delaware, 1897-1901. He became president of the Farmers' liank of Delaware, and a director of the Dela- ware. Maryland and Virginia railroad.

TUOMEY, Michael, geologist, was born in Cork, Ireland, Sept. 29, 1805; son of Thomas and Nora (Foley) Tuomey. His father was a highly respectable man of industrious habits and of no inconsiderable mechanical skill, and his mother was descended from a noble family. He immi- grate<l to the United States at an early age; en- gaged in farming, and subsequently taught school in Somerset county, Md. He was gradu.ated from Kensselaer Polytechnic institute, Troy, N.Y., B.N.S., 1835, and was for a time a civil engineer in North Carolina. He married in 1837, Sarah E. Handy of Maryland. He was state geologist of Soutli Carolina, 1844-47; professor of geology, mineralogy and agricultural chemistry in the University of Alabama, 1847-54, and of chemistry, mineralogy and geology, 1856-57. In 1848 he be- came state geologist of Alabama, and in 1854 he resigned his professorship to devote himself wholly to the survey. This he did until the leg- islative apiiropriation was exliausted, when here- turned to his professorsliip. He received the hon- orary degree of A.M.; was a member of the Boston Society of Natural History, and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. With Francis S. Holmes, he is the author of: Pleiocene Fossils of South Carolina (18.").5-.j7). He published the following reports, besides a number of sei)arate articles: Geological and Agricultural Survey of the State of South Carolina (1844); Geology of South Carolina (1848); First Biennial Report of the Geology of Alabama (18.50). and a Geological Map of Alabama (1853). His Second Biennial Report of Alabama, edited by John W. Mallet, was published (1858). He died in Tuscaloosa. Ala., March 30, 1857.

TUPPER, Benjamin, .soldier and pioneer, was born in .Stouglit<jn, Mass., March 11, 1738; son of

Thomas and (Perry) Tup|)er; grandson of

Thomas and Mary Tupper; a descendant of Thomas Tupper (born in Sandwich, England, June 28, 1578), who came to America as early as 1035, possibly in 1G24. resided in .Saugus (Lynn), Ma.ss., previous to 1037, where, with nine others, he settled Sandwich on Cape Cod, where he died, March 28, 1070; and maternal descendant of Ezra Perry of Sandwich, Mass. His father liav-

died when he was quite young, he served an ap- prenticeship to a tanner in Dorchester, Mass., and about 1754 went to live with Joshua Howard, a farmer at Easton. He served as a private in the company of his maternal uncle, Capt. Nathaniel Perry, during the French and Indian war; was clerk of a company in the eastern army, in the winter of 1756-57; was promoted corporal in 17.57, and sergeant in 1759. He tauglit a dis- trict school in Easton, 1761; was married, Nov. 18, 1762, to Huldah White of Bridgewater (who died in Putnam, Ohio, 1812), and removed to Chesterfield, Mass., where as lieutenant of militia he dispersed the supreme court of the crown at Springfield, Mass. He was commissioned major of Colonel Fellow.s' regiment at Roxljury; took part in the Battle of Bunker Hill, and in July, 1775. led an expedition to Castle Island, Boston Harbor, burning the light-house, and carrying off much property. When the British attempted to rebuild the light-house, Major Tupper attacked the guard, killed the officers and four privates, captured the rest of the troops, the total killed and captured being .53, and demolished the works, which act of gallantry won liim the thanks of Washington in general orders and caused Jeflfer- son to characterize the affair as an instance of " the adventurous genius and intrepidity of New Englanders." The British Admiral said that no one act in the siege caused so much chagrin in London as the destruction of the light-house. Tupper was sent to Martha's Vineyard to capture two vessels in August. 1775; made an expedition to Governor's Island, Boston liarbor, in Sejjtem- ber, and commanded a number of gunhoatson the Hudson river in August, 1776, participating in an engagement near Fort Washington. He served as lieutenant-colonel of Colonel Bailey's regiment in the northern army under Gates in 1777, be- coming colonel of the 11th regiment of Continen- tal troops in July, 17-77; was at Valley Forge, 1777-78; engaged in the battle of ]Monmouth, June 28, 1778, where his horse was killed under him; was appointed inspector in General Robert Pat- terson's brigade in September, 1778; served as aide to Washington; superintended the .stretching of a chain across the Hudson river at West Point in 1780, and toward the close of the war was bre- vetted brigadier-general. He was subsequently a member of the Mas.sachusetts legislature, and a justice of the peace; was one of the signers of the petition of Continental oflficers for the laying out of a new state " westward of the Ohio," June 16, 1783, and in 1785, o>ving to Gen. Rufus Put- nam's resignation as surveyor of the northwestern lands, accepted tiie vacancy, and in connection with General Putnam called a convention at Boston, Mass., March 1, 1786, which organized the Ohio company of Associates. General Tup-