Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/282

 VILLARD

VILLERE

married, Jan Dr. William

grathiated from the Albany Law school, LL.B.. 1860; admitted to the bar in New York, and also in Wisconsin, and commenced practice in Madi- son in June. 180. In June and July, 1863, he re- cruited Company A., 2od Wisconsin volunteers, _ of which he was ap-

pointed captain, an<l ordered to join Gen- eral Sherman; was promoted major and lieutenant-colonel of his regiment, which lie commanded

through the Vicks- burg camjiaign and in the subsequent pursuit of Johnston, and in August, 186;?, resigned his commis- sion, and resumed practice in Madison, Wis., where he was 3. 1866, to Anna M., daughter of H. and Cornelia (Averill) Fox of Fitchburg. Wis. He was professor of law and instructor in evidence and pleadings in the Uni- versity of Wisconsin, 1868-85, and professor of law from 1889; was engaged in the revision of the general statutes of Wisconsin, 1875-78; a repre- sentative in the state legislature of 1885, until Marcli 7, 1885, when he became post-master- general in President Cleveland's cabinet, holding the iKisition until his appointment as successor to Lucius Q. C. Lamar, secretary of the interior, serving. Jan. 16, 1888-^Iarch 6, 1889. He was a delegate to the Democratic national conventions of 1876, 1880, 1884, 1892 and 1896. serving as per- manent chairman of that in 1884. and also as chairman of the committee on notification, and was a member of the Democratic national com- mittee. 1876-86. He was U.S. senator from Wis- consin. 1891-97, and chairman of the committ^ee on resolutions at the Democratic national con- vention of 1896. held at Chicago, 111. He served as regent of the University of Wisconsin, 1881-85. and 1898-1903, and received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University in 1885. He edited, with Edwin E. Bryant, " W^isconsin Supreme Court Reiw)rts" (vols. 1, 2, 4, 6, 7 and 20). VILLARD, Henry, financier, was born in Si»eyer, Bavaria. April 11, 1835; .son of Gustav Hilgard, judge of the district court of ]Miinich. He attended the University of Munich and Wurz- burg: emigrated to the United States in 1835, changing his name to Villard. and resided first in New York anlitical cor- respondent of the eastern press; resided in

Wasliington, D.C., and served as war corre spondent in the field, 1861-64. He was married, Jan. 3, 1866, to Fanny, daughter of William Lloyd and Helen Eliza (Thurber) Garrison, and went to Europe as correspondent of the New York Tribune, residing in Germany during the Franco-German war; again visited Germany in 1870, and became the representative of Gernia'i bondholders of the Oregon and California rail- road company. He was secretary of the Ameri- can Social Science association, 1868-71, and sub- sequently president of the railroad, and in 1875 of the Oregon steamship company. He was re- ceiver of the Kansas Pacific railroad. 1876-78, and in 1879 formed an American syndicate, purchasing the Oregon and San Francisco steam- ship line. He merged the three companies that he controlled into the Oregon Railway and Nav- gation company, which, after his acquisition of the Northern Pacific property, became the Ore- gon and Transcontinental company. He was elected president of the Northern Pacific railway, Sept. 15, 1881, but lost his fortune in the financial panic of 1883, and was obliged to resign. He traveled in Europe, 1883-86: was appointed a director of the Northern Pacific railway, and president of the Oregon Transcontinental com- pany, June 21, 1888. He organized the Edison Electric company, and was its president for two years; purchased the Evening Post and the Nation in 1881; was a generous contributor to the universities of Oregon and Washington; es- tablished and maintained an industrial art school in Bavaria, and a hospital and school for nurses at Speyer, Germany. He is the author of: TJie Pike's Peak Gold Region (1860), and of his auto- biography, published privately in 1897. He died at Dobbs Ferry. N.Y., Nov. 11, 1900.

ViLLERE, James Philip, governor of Louisi- ana, was born in Louisiana in 1760; son of Joseph Roy and of Louise ^Marguerite (de la Chaise) de Villere; grandson of Etienne Roy de Villere, who had accompanied d'Iberville in his first voyage to the Mississippi, and of the Cheva- lier d'Arensbourg. His father, naval-secretary of Louisiana under Louis XV., met his death at the hands of Count O'Reilly, and as reparation, Philip Villere demanded an education at the expense of Louis XVI., receiving from the latter an appoint- ment as 1st lieutenant of artillery in a regiment at St. Domingo, 1780. He resigned the com- mission in a few years and returned to Louisi- ana, where he was married in 1784 to the daugh- ter of Gabriel Fazende, a member of the fir.st colonial council, and retired to his plantation near New Orleans, devoting himself to the cultivation of sugar. He was a member of the state constitu- tional convention of Louisiana in 1812. When Packenham's army encamped on his plantation,