~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ADRAIN, GARNETT BOWDITCH
(1815 -- 1878)
Contributed by Anna Newell
ADRAIN, Garnett Bowditch, a Representative from New Jersey;
born in New York City December 15, 1815; moved with his parents to New Brunswick,
N.J.; attended the public schools; was graduated from Rutgers College, New
Brunswick, in 1833; studied law in the office of his brother; was licensed
as an attorney in 1836 and as a counselor in 1839; commenced the practice
of law in New Brunswick, N.J.; elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-fifth
Congress and as an Anti-Lecompton Democrat to the Thirty-sixth Congress (March
4, 1857-March 3, 1861); chairman, Committee on Engraving (Thirty-fifth and
Thirty-sixth Congresses); was not a candidate for reelection in 1860; resumed
the practice of his profession; died in New Brunswick, Middlesex County,
N.J., August 17, 1878; interment in Van Liew Cemetery.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
BELL, Charles H.; rear-admiral U. S. navy, was born in New York, Aug. 15, 1798. He was appointed midshipman in 1812, and served under Decatur and Chauncey during the second war with England. In 1815 he was attached to the Macedonian and took part in the war with Algiers. He was promoted to be lieutenant in March, 1820, and in 1824, while commander of the Ferret, was capsized in the West Indies, but after remaining twenty-one hours on the wreck was rescued with a portion of his crew. In 1829, while an officer of the Erie, cruising in the West Indies, he aided in taking the pirate schooner Federal from under the guns of the forts at Guadeloupe. After performing varied duties at sea and on shore he was, in 1839, assigned to the command of the Dolphin, and made two cruises to the coast of Africa. He was promoted to be commander Sept. 20, 1840, and in 1844 as commander of the Yorktown was again dispatched to the African coast, where he remained two years, capturing three slavers and freeing many hundreds of slaves. He was commissioned as captain in 1854. and at the opening of the civil war was in command of the Mediterranean squadron. He was at once ordered home, and after the capture of the Trent was sent to Panama to take command of the Pacific squadron, which position be retained for nearly three years. In 1864 and 1865 he was stationed in the James river. In 1865 he became commander of the Brooklyn navy yard and served in that capacity until May, 1868, when after fifty-six years of service, forty-four of which were passed at sea, he was placed on the retired list. He was raised to the rank of commodore July 16, 1862, and to that of rear-admiral July 25, 1866. His last years were spent in New Brunswick, N. J., where he died Feb. 19, 1875.
{Source: The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume 2; Publ. 1892, by James T. White & Co., N. Y.; Transcribed and submitted by Andrea Stawski Pack.}
[Source: The Book of Detroiters. Edited by Albert Nelson Marquis, Copyright, 1908 - Contributed by Christine Walters]
THE REV. GANO'S
EXTRAORDINARY PASS :
1755
By REBECCA SMITH LEE (NGSQ, December 1961,
Vol. 49,
#4)
When the Reverend John Gano (1727-1804)
in his old age set down his Memoirs, he wished that he had spent his life
more faithfully in the services of. . . God, and society both civil and sacred.
He need have had no regrets.
As a youth he joined the Baptist congregation in his home community of Hopewell,
New Jersey, and within a decade made three long evangelizing journeys into
Virginia and the Carolinas. He then served as pastor of the First Baptist
Church of New York City for 36 years, and assisted in the founding of Rhode
Island College, later Brown University.
On 1 January 1776, he enlisted as
Chaplain of the 19th Continental In-fantry following the lead of his second
son Daniel, who at eighteen was already a lieutenant in the 1st New York
Regiment. Chaplain Gano was under fire with his brigade at White Plains and
accompanied it on the expedition under General Sullivan against the Northern
Indians. He was in his fifty-fourth year when he left the army in
1780.
The Reverend Gano was not ready, however, to settle down in New York City to enjoy his prestige as a member of the Society of the Cincinnati and a Trustee of King s College. Friends in frontier Kentucky urged upon him the necessity of an old experienced minister to take care of a church there, and in 1787 he took his own large family and a number of others down the Ohio on flatboats to settle in the new country. He preached the Gospel diligently to little congregations in Lexington and Frankfort al-most to the end of his life, sometimes speaking as he lay supported in bed.
His Memoirs, completed and published by one of his sons in 1806, relate his youthful missionary journeys in considerable detail and include a quaint souvenir of his travels which he preserved carefully for the rest of his days. It is a traveler s pass that he carried in his wallet on his first independent preaching mission in 1755. He journeyed south that year to assist a little Baptist congregation at Opocken (Opequon) in Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia), at the northern approach to the Shenandoah Valley. There, as he tells us, he received a pressing request from one Mr. Numan, left with some acquaintance in Opocken, urging the visiting minister to continue his mission on up the Valley and into Carolina to aid the Jersey Settlement of brethren on the Tar River. The request pointed out that if he took the road above the mountain he would pass near the Newman homestead, and invited him to stop over for a season of preaching there. Samuel Newman and his wife Martha, who had settled about a decade earlier in the vicinity of the North Fork of the Shenandoah, in what is now Rockingham County, Virginia, were the first Baptists to come to that region. He was a man of means and culture, and an earnest Christian.
When Gano finally reached the Newman house, after being delayed by "a great freshet" in the "first fork of the Shenandoah,: his host sent word around the countryside for people to come and hear the Lord's messenger from New Jersey. The preaching went on, with intermissions, for several days, and "the congregations continued to increase."
Samuel was mightily impressed by the gifts of the young missionary and also much concerned that he was proceeding on a long and dangerous journey without a proper letter of identification and introduction. Such apprehensions were well founded. Not only were the unorthodox sects sometimes treated harshly by the authorities in Virginia but the French War was in progress, and there was real danger that Gano might be taken for a French spy because of his name.
To forestall, if possible, any such hardships, Mr. Newman wrote out a pass for his new friend and, being of a poetic turn, made it elaborate enough to be worthy of "sweet Gano." Then, while he had his pen in hand, he indited also a hymn in Gano's honor, set to easy 8-8 meter, and presented a copy to his departing guest. The Reverend John esteemed it so highly that on his deathbed half a century later he requested that it be sung at his funeral, which was accordingly done by his afflicted widow and a devoted daughter.
Mr. Newman's elegant pass seems worth rescuing from the Appendix of Gano's now rare autobiography chiefly for the light it sheds on mid-eighteenth century travel in America. Its literary merits are slight, but it does enjoy the distinction of being on of the few such documents ever composed in rhyming couplets.
The Following Pass Was Composed by Mr. Newman, on Mr. Gano, when on a journey to Carolina.
Go, go, sweet youth, go spread thy
master s theme
For well thou st learnt his attributes and name;
Go, in his strength, no cold will thee annoy,
Go, make the hills and valleys echo joy.
Proclaim the Saviour, this is all thy theme,
Jesus, the Lord, and his blest Gospels scheme:
Go, sound the trump, for well thou can st it blow,
Jesus, the Lord, and his blest merits show.
Lift up his ensign, show his purple gore,
That from his side, for sinners, out did pour:
O! let them, waving in the wind, appear,
Shew them their sins, the cruel sword or spear
That pierced his side to make this crimson dye,
Perhaps they ll tremble, and their sins destroy;
And own the Lord and his compassions sweet,
And fall before him, victims at his feet.
O! let, also, the blazing ensign fly,
Awaken sinners, tell them they must die.
O! sound the dreadful thunders of the law,
Which pleads perfection, and without a flaw.
The soul that sins, or breaks the law must die,
And damn'd must be to all eternity.
They must, they must, I tremble
for to tell,
They must endure the scorching flames of hell.
Go, then, sweet GANO, in thy master s name,
These glorious truths most boldly to proclaim:
Fear not the wicked, nor the serpent s rod,
Thou hast for strength, an omnipotent God.
O! precious GANO, here thy comfort stands,
Thou rt in the way, obeying his commands:
Rejoice, sweet saint, the ways with pleasure crown,
Till he thy soul with living pleasures
drown;
And Christians all of high or low degree,
For Jesus sake, this I demand of thee.
Stop not the bearer, through any vain pretence,
Nor use unto him any insolence.
Rather protect him from the base design
Of hellish men, that should against him join.
A subject true he is to George our King,
O! join with him, to Jesus praises sing.
Ye magistrates, who love sweet Jesus name,
Ye need not fear to sign the very same.
I, as your brother, under George our King,
Do sign this pass, and seal it with my ring.
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