John Needels Chester collection, 1703-1939.

Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier, marquis de, 1757-1834

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w68m82zx (person)

Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette was born at Chavaniac, Auvergne, in 1757, to an old, illustrious family of the provincial and military nobility. He lost both his parents early: his father was killed by the British at the Battle of Minden when Lafayette was two years old (1759), and when he was thirteen and attending the prestigious Collège de Plessis in Paris both his mother and grandfather died (1770). The latter's death left Lafayette with a si...

Grant, Ulysses Simpson, 1822-1885

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r60gqx (person)

Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant, April 27, 1822, Point Pleasant, Ohio-died July 23, 1885, Wilton, New York) was the 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. As president, Grant was an effective civil rights executive who worked with the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction to protect African Americans, created the Justice Department, and reestablish the public credit. Promoted lieutenant-general, in 1864, Grant led the Union Army in winning the American Civ...

Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gn9004 (person)

James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century. His historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries created a unique form of American literature. He lived much of his boyhood and the last fifteen years of life in Cooperstown, New York, which was founded by his father William Cooper on property that he owned. Cooper became a member of the Episcopal Church shortly befo...

Irving, Henry, Sir, 1838-1905

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6s57hh8 (person)

Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905) was a British actor-manager. Born Feb. 6, 1838, in Keinton Mandeville, Somerset, Eng., he died Oct. 13, 1905, in Bradford, Yorkshire. Irving's original name was John Henry Brodribb. He achieved early success and began to play leading roles throughout London, often with Ellen Terry. In 1878, he took over the Lyceum Theatre and hired Terry as the company's leading lady. This partnership lasted for 25 years and was reknowned throughout England and the United States. Bra...

Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, 1808-1873

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6679496 (person)

Napoleon III (born Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, 20 April 1808, Paris, France – died 9 January 1873, Chislehurst, Kent, England), the nephew of Napoleon I and cousin of Napoleon II, was the first president of France, from 1848 to 1852, and the last French monarch, from 1852 to 1870. First elected president of the French Second Republic in 1848, he seized power in 1851, when he could not constitutionally be re-elected, and became the emperor of the French. He founded the Second French Empire ...

Napoléon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w69x15nw (person)

Napoleon Bonaparte was a general of the French Revolution (1789-1799); the ruler of France as First Consul of the French Republic from November 11, 1799, to May 18, 1804; Emperor of the French and King of Italy under the name Napoleon I from May 18,1804, to April 6,1814; and briefly restored as Emperor from March 20 to June 22, 1815. He conquered much of Europe but lost two-thirds of his army in a disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. After his final loss to Britain and Prussia at the Battle of...

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6qp6xrj (person)

Holmes (Harvard, M.D. 1836) was Parkman Professor of Anatomy at Harvard Medical School from 1847 to 1882, dean of the Medical School from 1847 to 1853, and a noted essayist and poet. A paper on the contagiousness of puerperal fever, presented at an 1843 meeting of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, was his most famous contribution to medicine. His indictment of physicians for their role in causing and spreading the fever was one of the most controversial treatises of the time...

Madison, Dolley, 1768-1849

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hj78hp (person)

Dolley Madison, the fourth First Lady of the United States, is widely remembered as the most lively of the early First Ladies. As a prominent entertainer and hostess, she helped shape the role of First Lady and served as the model for every future First Lady to come. Dolley Payne was born on May 20, 1768, in Guilford County, North Carolina. She was the fourth of eight children born to John and Mary Payne. The family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1783. In 1790, Dolley Payne married la...

Frémont, John Charles, 1813-1890

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6zt3kwm (person)

John Charles Frémont (January 21, 1813 – July 13, 1890) was an American explorer, military officer, and politician. He was a US Senator from California, and in 1856 was the first Republican nominee for President of the United States. A native of Georgia, Frémont acquired male protectors after his father's death, and became proficient in mathematics, science, and surveying. During the 1840s, he led five expeditions into the Western United States and became known as "The Pathfinder". During the...

Sherman, William T. (William Tecumseh), 1820-1891

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ck93n8 (person)

Sherman was born in 1820 in Lancaster, Ohio, near the banks of the Hocking River. His father, Charles Robert Sherman, a successful lawyer who sat on the Ohio Supreme Court, died unexpectedly in 1829. He left his widow, Mary Hoyt Sherman, with eleven children and no inheritance. After his father's death, the nine-year-old Sherman was raised by a Lancaster neighbor and family friend, attorney Thomas Ewing, Sr., a prominent member of the Whig Party who served as senator from Ohio and as the first S...

Lee, Robert Edward, 1807-1870

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sk28nd (person)

Robert Edward Lee (1807-1870) served as General of the Confederate Army in the U.S. Civil War and was president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia from 1865 to 1870. Lee spent the first twenty-three years of his military career in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. From 1837 to 1841 he was superintending engineer for the harbor of St. Louis and the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Robert E. Lee was a United States Army officer, 1829-1861; commander of Virginia forces in the ...

Davis, Jefferson, 1808-1889

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6xk8d2z (person)

Mary Ann Lamar Cobb (1818-1889), wife of Gen. Howell Cobb (1815-1868). From the description of Letter to Mary Ann Lamar Cobb, 1888 Oct. 2. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 38476494 Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) was born in Kentucky. He attended Transylvania University for a short time before enrolling at West Point in 1824, at the age of 16. He graduated in 1828 and immediately joined the First Infantry. His regiment was engaged in the Blackhawk War of 1831. In 1833, he became a...

Knox, Henry, 1750-1806

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6h995df (person)

American revolutionary officer. From the description of Autograph letter signed : [n.p.], to Thomas Jefferson, 1793 Apr. 1. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270596665 From the description of Autograph letter signed : [n.p.], to General Henry Jackson, 1796 Oct. 26. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270596669 From the description of Autograph letter signed : Westpoint, to Colonel Pickering, Quartermaster General, 1782 Sept. 15. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270598200 ...

Joachim Murat, King of Naples, 1767-1815

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w62n5n6f (person)

Joachim Murat married Napoleon's sister Caroline in 1800 and was appointed King of Naples by Napoleon in 1808. From the description of [Letter, 1808?] juil. 19 [to] Monsieur le Ministré / Joachim Napoleon. (Smith College). WorldCat record id: 298954565 Epithet: King of Naples 1808 British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000985.0x000184 Marshal of France. From the description of Letter ...

Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, 1769-1852

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ks6q2w (person)

English field marshal. From the description of Autograph letter signed : London, to Jameson Tennent, 1835 Jan. 30. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270856519 British statesman and army officer. From the description of Papers, 1819-1904; (bulk 1819-1850). (Duke University Library). WorldCat record id: 20273724 British general and statesman. From the description of Autograph letters signed (2) : to Messrs. Jones & Co., 1806 Feb. 25-1806 Mar. ...

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60863v9 (person)

Poet, from Cambridge (Middlesex Co.), Mass. From the description of Papers, 1859-1874. (Duke University Library). WorldCat record id: 19903002 American author and poet. From the description of A psalm of life, fourth verse, 1850. (Maine Historical Society Library). WorldCat record id: 274069802 American teacher, translator, and poet. From the description of Letter, Nahant, Mass., to Mrs. T.B. Lawrence, Newport, 1872 July 20. (Boston Athenaeum...

Bonaparte family.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w62322nk (family)

Rochambeau, Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, comte de, 1725-1807

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w62n5cqv (person)

Count Rochambeau was Commander of the French troops during the American Revolution. From the description of LS, 1782 May 17 : Williamsburgh, to [General Washington?]. (Copley Press, J S Copley Library). WorldCat record id: 13880974 Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (July 1, 1725 – May 10, 1807) was a French aristocrat, soldier, and a Marshal of France who participated in the American revolution. From the guide to the Rochambeau Speech in Willi...

Necker, Jacques, 1732-1804

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w61z46b8 (person)

Necker, a Swiss born, Protestant French statesman, was the finance minister of France (1776-1781). Necker played an important role in assisting the American Revolution of 1776, by providing finances for the American cause. From the description of [Letters, 1779-1789] / Necker. (Smith College). WorldCat record id: 301351545 ...

Chester, John Needels, 1864-1955

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6h748tg (person)

Engineer, manuscript collector, and alumnus of the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign campus). Born 24 Sept. 1864 in Groveport, Ohio, to Hubert Chester and Melvina Sophia Needels, John Needels Chester moved to Champaign County, Ill., with his family in 1865. He graduated from the University of Illinois 1891 with a degree in engineering, earned his professional degree in civil engineering in 1909, and his master's degree from the University of Illinois in 1911. Ches...

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6fp1w71 (person)

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley (b. 30 August 1797, Somers Town, London-d. 1 February 1851, London, England) was an English novelist, best known as the author of Frankenstein. She also wrote short-stories, poetry, biographies, journal articles, reviews, and edited the works of her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley....