Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/318

DOVENER, Blackburn Barrett, representative, was born in Cabell county, Va., April 20, 1842. He raised a company of loyal Virginians and served in the U.S. volunteer infantry, 1861-65. He was admitted to the bar in 1873 and practised in Wheeling, W.Va. He was elected a member of the state legislature in 1883; was an unsuccessful candidate for representative in the 53d congress; and a Republican representative from West Virginia in the 54th, 55th, 56th, 57th and 58th congresses, 1895-1905.

DOW, Lorenzo, pioneer Methodist, was born in Coventry, Conn., Oct. 16, 1777; son of Humphrey B. and Tabitha Dow. His education was limited to the instruction received at a district school. His early religious convictions led him to embrace the doctrines of the Methodists, although he was opposed by his parents in this as well as in his determination to become a preacher. In 1796 he applied for admission to the Connecticut conference, but was refused. The conference, however, received him in 1798, and in 1799 he was sent to Cambridge, N.Y., and after a few months was transferred to Pittsfield, Mass., and from there to Essex, Vt., all within one year. His conviction of a divine call to preach to the Roman Catholics in Ireland impelled him to visit that country and he sailed late in 1799. On his appearance in Ireland his eccentricities in dress and speech led hundreds to hear him and he was jeered and in many ways severely persecuted. He returned the next year to America, preaching in New York, Alabama and at Louisville, Ky., but in 1805 revisited both England and Ireland, where he instituted the camp-meeting. This custom was such an innovation that it led to controversy, resulting in the organization of the Primitive Methodists in England. After he left the first time for Ireland he severed his official connection with the ministry of the Methodist church, but continued to promulgate the prominent doctrines of Methodism throughout his life. His crusade against Roman Catholicism was especially directed against the Jesuits, whom he denounced as enemies to pure religion and to republican government. The prevalent opinion that he was of unsound mind detracted from the effect of his eloquence, and he was familiarly known as "Crazy Dow." He was, nevertheless, a powerful orator, speaking to men unaccustomed to listen to ordinary preaching and reaching out to the utmost borders of civilization in the south and west, where he awakened much controversy and serious thought. His wife, Peggy, to whom he was married in 1804, was his constant travelling companion. She died at Hebron, Conn., Jan. 6, 1920. In the same year he married Lucy Dolbeare. He was a voluminous writer and among his published books are: Polemical Works (1814); A Stranger in Charleston, or The Trial and Confession of Lorenzo Dow (1822); A Short Account of a Long Travel, With Beauties of Wesley (1823); Journal and Miscellaneous Writings, edited by John Dowling (1836); and History of a Cosmopolite, or Writings of the Rev. Lorenzo Dow, Containing His Experience and Travels in Europe and America up to Near His Fiftieth Year, also His Polemic Writings (1851), with numerous new editions. He died in Georgetown, D.C., Feb. 2, 1834.

DOW, Louis Henry, educator, was born in Lowell, Mass., April 1, 1872; son of Thomas E. and Mary J. (Burbeck) Dow; and grandson of Thomas E. and Frances (Brown) Dow, and of Samuel Noyes and Eliza Jane (Irving) Burbeck. He was prepared for college at the Lowell high school and was graduated at Harvard, A.B., 1890, and A.M., 1894. He was an instructor in Greek at Dartmouth, 1895-96, and a student at the Sorbonne, France, 1896-97. In 1896 he accepted the chair of the French language at Dartmouth. He was married, July 16, 1896, to Rebecca Rum- rill of Springfield, Mass.

DOW, Neal, temperance reformer, was born in Portland, Maine, March 20, 1804; son of Josiah and Dorcas (Allen) Dow. His ancestors on both sides were members of the Society of Friends. His first ancestor in America, Henry Dow, came from Norfolk county, England, and settled in An image should appear at this position in the text. Hampton Falls, N.H., in 1637. Neal was educated at public and private schools, at the Portland academy, and at the Friends' academy, New Bedford, Mass. He entered his father's tannery in 1819 and in due time was admitted to partnership in the business, in which he remained until the death of his father in June, 1861. In early life he became interested in the temperance cause and later devoted himself to the work of changing the public opinion of the state upon the subject of suppressing the liquor traffic. For several years he made tours through the state delivering lectures on prohibition. In 1851 he was elected mayor of Portland and in May of that year he secured the passage of an anti-liquor bill in the Maine legislature. Within three years the meas- ure was adopted in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and New York, and within a year or two more, in Connecticut and in some of the western states. In 1855 he was again elected mayor. In 1853 the United Kingdom