Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/494

 YALE

YANCEY

YALE, Elihu, fouiuler of Yale college, was born luar Boston. Mass., April 5, 1G49; son of Daviil Yale. lie was taken to England in 1G52, where he remained until 1678, when he visited the East Indies and for five years was governor of a settle- ment at Madras, be- coming very wealthy. Upon his return to England, at the sug- gestion of Mr. Duni- nier of London, he presented the Colle- giate School of Con- necticut with a li- brary of rare books, a portrait of George I., and with goods that sold for more than £2500. In 1718 the school moved from Saybrook to New Haven, and the name was then changed to Yale college. A large portrait of Elihu Yale hangs in Alumni Hall. Yale university New Haven, Conn. He died in England, July 8, 1721.

YANCEY, William Lowndes, orator and Confederate States senator, was born at the Falls of the Ogeechee, Warren county, Ga., Aug. 10, 1814; son of Benjamin Cudwortli and Caroline (Bird) Yancey; grandson of Maj. James Yan- cey, a Revolutionary officer in Virginia and South Carolina, who later settled in Laurens, S.C., where he was a lawj-er and member of the legislature, and whose wife was a Miss Cud worth, of an English family, who had settled in Massachu- setts and later in Charleston, S.C.; also a grand- son of William Bird, of the " Aviary," Warren county. Ga., whose familj- had removed thither from Birdsborough, Pa. His Yancey ancestors were of Welsh origin, early seated in Virginia. Benjamin Cudworth Yancey, a lawyer in Abbe- ville. S.C, who later removed to Charleston, where he Vjecame associated with Judge Daniel E. Huger. died in 1817, age thirty-four years, a lawyer of the higliest rank. William L. Yancey matriculated at Williams college, Mass., but did not continue to graduation owing to a reduced condition of his finances. Returning to Georgia at the age of eigliteen years, he read law for a short time at Sparta, and then entered the law office of Benjamin F. Perry at Greenville, S.C,, where he remained two years, during which time he edited for six months the Greenville Mount- aineer, the only Union paper in the mountain region of South Carolina. On Aug. 13. 1H.3."), he married Sarah Caroline, daugliter of George

Washington and Elizabeth R. (Earle) Earle, of Greenville, S.C. and granddaugliter of John and Thomasine (Prince) Earle. and of Col. Eiias (q.v.) and Frances W. (Robinson) Earle, of South Carolina. In the winter of 1836 he removed with his family and the slaves of his wife to the vic- inity of Cahawba, Ala., to enter upon life as a cot- ton planter, having given up the law; while there he edited the Cahawba Democrat and the Cahawba Gazette two weekly newspapers; in 1839 removed to Wetumpka. Cossa count}- (now Elmore) and entered on the practice of the law in copartnership with Sampson W. Harris; was the editor and proprietor of the Wetumpka Argtcs, a large and influential weekly paper; elected to the Alabama legislature in 1841, and in 1843 de- clined a re-election; elected to the state senate in 1843, from which he resigned in 1844, in which year he was chosen at a special election to com- plete the term of Hon. Dixon H. Lewis in the 28th congress, taking his seat Dec. 2, 1844: re- elected to the 29th congress, but resigned in August, 1846, and removed to Montgomery, Ala., when he became the law partner of the Hon. John A. Elmore. In 1848 he wrote and secured the passage, through the Democratic convention, of the " Alabama Platform; " led the delegation in the Democratic national conventions of 184S, and 1856, and was an elector on the Buchanan and Breckinridge ticket in 1856. In 1860 he was selected as an elector from the state at large and in the campaign which followed he delivei'ed povrerful speeches in Cooper Union hall. New Y'ork city, and in other of the large cities of the north, making an appeal to the people of the north to maintain constitutional government in all the states and territories and to protect the property of all citizens as provided in that in- strument. At the Charleston Democratic na- tional convention of 1860, where he was a delegate, he took the lead in support of the policy of Presi- dent Buchanan and in opposition to " Squatter Sovereignty " as unconstitutional, which led to the disruption of the party and the nomination of an ultra Southern candidate in opposition to Stephen A. Douglas. He supported the candi- dacy of Breckinridge. He was a member of the Alabama state constitutional convention that met at Montgomeiy, Jan. 7, 1861, and he reported the ordinance which declared for secession. He re- signed from that body to accept from the provis- ional President of tiie Confederate States govern- ment the appointment as head of the commission sent to Europe to present the Confederate cause to the governments of England and France, the other members of the commission being A. Dud- ley Mann of Virginia and A. P. Rostof Louisiana.