LAWRENCE, AMOS ADAMS (18141886)

This article appears in Volume V16, Page 305 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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LAWRENCE, AMOS ADAMS (18141886) , American philanthropist, son of Amos Lawrence, was born in Groton, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on the 31st of July 1814. He graduated at Harvard in 1835, went into business in

Lowell

, and in 1837 established in Boston his own counting-

house

, which from 1843 to 1858 was the firm of Lawrence & Mason, and which was a selling agent for the Cocheco mills of Dover, New

Hampshire

HAMPSHIRE (or COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON, abbreviated HANTS)

, and for other textile factories. Lawrence established a hosiery and knitting mill at Ipswichthe first of importance in the countryand was a director in many large corporations. He was greatly interested in the claims of Eleazer Williams of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and through loans to this " lost dauphin " came into possession of much land in Wisconsin; in 1849 he founded at Appleton, Wisconsin, a school named in his honour Lawrence university (now Lawrence college). He also contributed to funds for the colonization of free negroes in

Liberia

LIBERIA

. In 1854 he became treasurer of the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company (reorganized in 1855 as the New England Emigrant Aid Company), which sent 1300 settlers to Kansas, where the city of Lawrence was named in his honour. He contributedpersonally for the famous

Sharp

rifles, which, packed as " books " and " primers," were shipped to Kansas and afterwards came into the hands of John Brown, who had been a protege of Lawrence. During the contest in Kansas, Lawrence wrote frequently to President Pierce (his mother's nephew) in behalf of the free-state settlers; and when John Brown was arrested he appealed to the

governor

GOVERNOR (from the Fr. gouverneur, from gouverner, O. Fr. governer, Lat. gubernare, to steer a ship, to direct, guide)

of Virginia to secure for him a lawful trial. On Robinson and others in Kansas he repeatedly urged the necessity of offering no armed resistance to the Federal government; and he deplored Brown's fanaticism. In 1858 and in 186o he was the Whig candidate for

governor

GOVERNOR (from the Fr. gouverneur, from gouverner, O. Fr. governer, Lat. gubernare, to steer a ship, to direct, guide)

of Massachusetts. Till the very outbreak of the Civil War he was a "law and order" man, and he did his best to secure the adoption of the Crittenden compromise; but he took an active part in drilling troops, and in 1862 he raised a battalion of cavalry which became the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment of Cavalry, of which Charles Russell

Lowell

was colonel. Lawrence was a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church and built (1873188o) Lawrence

hall

, Cam-bridge, for the Episcopal theological school, of which he was treasurer. In 18571862 he was treasurer of Harvard college, and in 18791885 was an overseer. He died in Nahant, Mass., on the 22nd of August 1886.
See William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence, with Extracts from his Diary and Correspondence (Boston, 1888).
His son, WILLIAM LAWRENCE (1850 ), graduated in 1871 at Harvard, and in 1875 at the Episcopal theological school, where, after being

rector

RECTOR (Lat. for " ruler," " guide," &c., from regere, " rule ")

of Grace Church, Lawrence, Mass., in 18761884, he was professor of homiletics and natural theology in 18841893 and dean in 18881893. In 1893 he succeeded Phillips Brooks as Protestant Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts. He wrote A Life of Roger Wolcott, Governor of Massachusetts (1902).

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