Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/250

Merchants national bank, one of the board of overseers of Bowdoin college, president of the Maine historical society, the Portland public library, and the Portland publishing company. Throughout his active business life he found time to devote to study and authorship. His early contributions were to the New York Home Journal and other first-class publications. He became widely known as a lecturer, and several poems delivered by him on public occasions were widely published, including one delivered in 1882, on the occasion of the celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the birth of the poet Longfellow by the Maine historical society, and another on the celebration of the eighty-fourth anniversary of the birth of the venerable Professor Packard, Longfellow's tutor, at Bowdoin college. In 1889, on the occasion of the centennial celebration by the city of Portland of the adoption of the Federal constitution, he delivered the oration. At the World's congress in Chicago in 1893, he read before the American historical association a paper on "The Present Status of Pre-Columbian Discovery," which elicited warm commendation. He was elected mayor of the city of Portland in 1893, and to his administration Portland owes her model high school building, the introduction of manual training into her public schools, and many important reforms in municipal management. In 1881 Bowdoin college conferred upon him the honorary degree of A.M. His published books include: "Idyls of the Year, Poems" (1884); "George Cleeve and His Times" (1885); "The British Invasion from the North" (1887); "Documentary History of Maine" (1889); "Sir Ferdinando Gorges and His Province of Maine" (1890); "Christopher Levitt, the Pioneer Colonist of Casco Bay" (1893), and "The Pioneers of New France in New England" (1894).

BAXTER, John, jurist, was born in North Carolina in 1819. He practised law in North Carolina until 1857, when he took up his residence in Knoxville, Tenn. He was several times elected to the house of representatives of the state legislature, was speaker, and a judge of the supreme court. He was a firm Union man during the civil war, and a member of the Republican party. He acted as chairman of the judiciary committee of the state constitutional convention in 1870, and in 1877 was made a judge of the sixth judicial district by President Hayes. He died April 2, 1886.

BAXTER, Lydia, poet, was born at Petersburg, Rensselaer county, N.Y., Sept. 2, 1809. She is chiefly known as the author of "The Gates Ajar," and other Sunday-school hymns, which became widely known and very popular. In 1855 she published a book of poems, principally of a religious character, entitled "Gems by the Wayside." She died in New York city, Jan. 23, 1874.

BAXTER, Marion Babcock, lecturer, was born at Litchfield, Mich., April 12, 1850, daughter of A.E. Babcock, an Adventist preacher. Her mother was a woman of rare gifts and marked Christian character. At twenty years of age she delivered her first public address at Jonesville, Mich. It attracted wide and favorable attention, and fixed her vocation as a lecturer. From that time she was constantly before the public, speaking to large audiences in all parts of the country, temperance generally being her theme. She became a prominent member of the women's Christian temperance union, and also of the national W.C.T.U. lecture bureau. In 1891 she was elected state president of the White Rose clubs of Michigan, a partisan organization of women, for the support of the Prohibition party. She has written several poems.

BAYARD, George Dashiell, soldier, was born at Seneca Falls, N.Y., Dec. 18, 1835, son of Samuel J. Bayard. His parents removed to Iowa, and his early education was acquired at a military school in that state, where he became an expert swordsman under the instruction of