HARPERS' ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF UNITED STATES HISTORY Taft, ALPHONSO, jurist; born in Townshend, Vt., Nov. 5, 1810; graduated at Yale College; admitted to the bar in 1838; practised in Cincinnati, O.; and was judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati in 1866-72. He was made Secretary of War in March, 1876, and in May of the same year was transferred to the Attorney-Generalship, serving till March, 1877; was United States minister to Austria in 188284; was then transferred to Russia, where he served one year. He died in San Diego, Cal., May 21, 1891. T. First District of Ohio in 1882; practised law in 1883-87; judge of the Superior Court of Ohio in 1887-90; Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati in 1896-1900. In the latter year he was made president of the United States Philippine Commission, and on June 5, 1901, was appointed the first civil governor of the Philippine Islands. Tailfer, PATRICK, physician; lived in the eighteenth century. He emigrated to the colony of Georgia, and, becoming dissatisfied with the conduct of affairs, he left the colony in 1740 and went to Charleston, S. C., where, with Hugh Anderson and David Douglass he printed d True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia in America from the First Settlement thereof until the Present Period (1741). Talbot, JOHN, colonial bishop; born in Taft, LORADO, sculptor; born in Elmwood, Ill., April 29, 1860; graduated at the University of Illinois in 1879; student at the École des Beaux Arts, Paris, in 1880-83; instructor at the Chicago Art Institute since 1886; and lecturer on art in the University of Chicago since 1893. He has produced several busts and medallions of prominent Americans; a statue Wymondham, England, in 1645; was of Schuyler Colfax; reliefs for the Michigan monument on the Gettysburg battlefield; and a statue of General Grant for Fort Leavenworth, Kan. He was the decorator of the Horticultural Building in the World's Columbian Exposition; and is a member of the American Sculpture Society and the Western Society of Artists. chaplain of the British ship Centurion, which in 1702 brought the first foreign missionaries to Virginia. He soon afterwards left the service of the admiralty and became a missionary among the Indians, sometimes travelling 500 miles on horseback to attend to their spiritual wants. Satisfied that the Church of England needed a bishop in America, he frequently spoke of it. In 1703 he was made rector of St. Mary's Church, New Brunswick, N. J. The next year the clergy of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, petitioned for a bishop, and Talbot was persuaded to carry the petition to London himself. He was favored by Queen Anne in his efforts to have the prayer of the petition granted, but failed to obtain the appointment of a suffragan, and he resolved to ask for consecration for himself by nonjuring bishops. This was done by two bishops, and in 1722 he returned to America and assumed episcopal authority. The governor of Pennsylvania (Keith) complained of him to the Lords of the Privy Seal, and he was summoned to England, but did not go. He died in Burlington, N. J., Nov. 29, 1727. Talbot, SILAS, naval officer; born in Dighton, Mass., in 1751; was captain in a Rhode Island regiment at the siege of Boston; accompanied the American army to New York; and, for skilful operations with fire-rafts against the British shipping there, received from Congress the commission of major. In the summer of SILAS TALBOT. 1776 he accepted the command of a fire brig on the Hudson. By orders of Washington, after gaining Harlem Heights (Sept. 15), Talbot attempted the destruction of the British vessels of war lying off the present 124th Street, New York City. At 2 A.M. on the 16th, when it was dark and cloudy, Talbot left his hidingplace under the Palisades, 3 or 4 miles above Fort Lee, ran down the river with a fair wind, and, grappling the Romney, set his brig on fire. The crew of the brig 2 escaped in a boat, and the Romney soon freed herself without injury. The other war-vessels fled out of the harbor in alarm. Talbot received a severe wound in the defence of Fort Mifflin, and gave material aid to General Sullivan on Rhode Island in 1778. A few weeks later he captured a British floating battery anchored in one of the channels commanding Newport, and for this exploit was commissioned captain. In his prize (the Pigot) he cruised off the New England coast, capturing several prizes. In 1780 he was captured and confined in the prison-ship Jersey, removed to England, and exchanged in 1781. After the war he purchased the confiscated estate of Sir William Johnson, near the Mohawk River: served in the New York Assembly, and was a member of Congress in 1793-94. He was employed in 1794 to superintend the construction of the frigate Constitution, which, in 1799, was his flag-ship in a cruise to the West Indies. He resigned Sept. 21, 1801. He died in New York City, June 30, 1813. Talcott, ANDREW, civil engineer; born in Glastonbury, Conn., April 20, 1797; graduated at the United States Military Academy, and commissioned second lieutenant in the engineer corps in 1818; served for a year on construction duty; then accompanied Gen. Henry Atkinson as engineer on the expedition to establish military posts on the upper Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. On his return he was engaged on the construction of the defences of Hampton Roads, Va., till 1835. He resigned his commission in 1836. He devised the Talcott method for determining territorial latitudes by observations of stars near the zenith. He died in Richmond, Va., April 22, 1883. Talcott, GEORGE, military officer; born in Glastonbury, Conn., Dec. 6, 1786; joined the army in 1813; promoted first lieutenant in March, 1814; served through the Mexican War, being promoted colonel and chief of ordnance in March, 1848. On Nov. 6, 1850, he sent a letter without the knowledge of the Secretary of War to Colonel Huger, commandant of the arsenal at Fort Monroe, respecting the purchase of ammunition, on the receipt of which Colonel Huger made a contract to buy a large quantity of shot and shell. |