Deering, William
manufacturer, financier, philanthropist, was born April 24, 1826, in Oxford county, Maine. Controlling a good patent and pushing his business with spirit, he found himself, in 1880, compelled to move the works to Chicago and build a larger plant. In 1894 the old firm of William Deering and Co. took out a charter as the Deering Harvester Co., of which he is controlling proprietor. DE FONTAINE, FELIX, journalist, author, was born in 1832 in Massachusetts. He was a journalist of Charleston during the civil war, but subsequently, and for the greater part of his career, on the staff of the New York Herald. He was the author of Gleanings from a Confederate Army Notebook; Army Letters of Personne, 1861-1865; and News from the Front. He died in 1896.
DE FOREST, HENRY W., railroad president, was born Oct. 29, 1855, in New York city. In 1889 he became president of the New Jersey and New York railroad.
DE FOREST, JESSE, was born about 1575 in France. He was the first settler of New Amsterdam, now New York city.
He died about 1626.
DE FOREST, JOHN WILLIAM, soldier, author, was born March 31, 1826, in Seymour, Conn. He is a novelist of New Haven who was a federal officer in the civil war. He is the author of History of the Indians of Connecticut to 1850; Oriental Acquaintances, or Travels in Asia Minor; European Acquaintances; Witching Times; The Lauson Tragedy; Seacliff, Miss Ravenal's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty; Overland; Kate Beaumont; Honest John Vane; The Bloody Chasm; The Wetherel Affair; Justine Vane; Irene the Missionary; and Playing the Mischief.
DE FOREST, ROBERT E., lawyer, jurist, state senator, congressman, was born Feb. 20, 1845, in Guilford, Conn. In 1874 he was elected by the legislature of Connecticut judge of the court of common pleas for Fairfield county, which position he held for three years. In 1878 he was elected mayor of Bridgeport; in 1880 was elected to the legislature; and in 1882 was elected to the state senate. He was corporation counsel for the city of Bridgeport; and was elected mayor in 1889, and re-elected in 1890. He was elected to the fifty-second and re-elected to the fiftythird congress as a democrat.