BENEDICT, GEORGE W. 



BERG, JOSEPH F. 



nary, 1825, and for the twenty-two years fol- 

 lowing he gave the prime of his life and the 

 best of his strength to that institution. Of 

 his service in it, President Wheeler, in the 

 historical discourse delivered at the semi- 

 centennial celebration of the university, in 

 1854, said: "He had been twenty-two years 

 in the institution. He had stood by the 

 smouldering ashes of the first college build- 

 ing. He had been the most active and ener- 

 getic man in completing the new. He was 

 teacher, he was agent, he was superintendent. 

 He planned the subscription of 1834, and was 

 the general agent in accomplishing it. He 

 was appointed treasurer, and brought light 

 out of darkness and order out of confusion. 

 He planned in a comprehensive manner for 

 the university, and he spent time and money 

 and strength without stint, for its interests." 

 Mr. Benedict left the university to avoid a 

 threatened breaking down of his health. 

 Seeking some occupation which would give 

 him more exercise in the open air, he was 

 engaged as an assistant by Ezra Cornell, who 

 was then, in the construction of the Troy and 

 Canada Junction Telegraph line, making the 

 beginning of the fortune which has since en- 

 abled him to found Cornell University. He 

 assisted Mr. Cornell in raising the stock and 

 in the construction of the line, and became 

 the first superintendent of the company. 

 John "W. Steward, Governor of Vermont, 

 and L. C. Dodge, mayor of Burlington, were 

 among the first operators under him. He 

 held this position but a short time, leav- 

 ing it to engage in telegraph-building on his 

 own account. He raised the capital stock 

 of the Vermont and Boston Telegraph Com- 

 pany, and was the contractor for the construc- 

 tion of the first line of that company from 

 Boston to Burlington, and of its extensions to 

 Montreal, Ogdensburg, and through the Con- 

 necticut River Valley. In 1853, in company 

 with his second son, he purchased the Bur- 

 lington Free Press, and devoted himself to it, 

 as editor and publisher, for fifteen years, till 

 in 1866 he sold his interest to his youngest 

 surviving son, and retired from active labor. 

 In 1854 he was elected State Senator from 

 Chittenden County, and was reflected in 1855. 

 He was an active and leading member of the 

 Senate, and was chairman of the committee 

 on education and of several important select 

 committees, and drew the report of the select 

 committee on the extension of slavery and the 

 right of a slave to his freedom when brought 

 into a free State, in 1855, which attracted 

 wide attention. Among his associates in the 

 Senate were ex-Governor Coolidge, Norman 

 Williams, John Pierrepont, Dudley C. Denison, 

 and other prominent citizens of Vermont. In 

 1857 he received the degree of LL. D. from 

 the University of Vermont. In every form 

 of activity and public enterprise by which he 

 could promote the interests of his adopted 

 State, Prof. Benedict was prominent ; its His- 



torical Society, of which he was long a vice- 

 president, its Editors' and Publishers' Asso- 

 ciation, its railroad enterprises, and above all 

 its university, with which he had been so long 

 identified, were all objects of constant thought 

 and interest to him. His death was occasioned 

 by ^a disease of the throat and lungs, from 

 which he had suffered for seven or eight years. 

 BENTLEY, ROBERT, F. R. C. S., F. L. S., an 

 English botanist, professor, and author, born 

 in London, in 1821 ; died there, September 13, 

 1871. He became a member of the Royal Col- 

 lege of Surgeons in 1847, but had turned his 

 attention mainly to botany and materia 

 medica, and had achieved such distinction in 

 these sciences that he was appointed many 

 years since Lecturer on Botany at the Medical 

 Colleges of the London, Middlesex, and St. 

 Mary's Hospitals; and had been for some 

 years Professor of Botany in King's College, 

 London, Professor of Materia Medica and 

 Botany in the Pharmaceutical Society of Great 

 Britain, and Professor of Botany in the Lon- 

 don Institution. He was also a Fellow of the 

 Linnasan Society, a member of the Council of 

 the Royal Botanic Society, President of the 

 British Pharmaceutical Congress in 1865 and 

 1866, and editor and a large contributor of the 

 Pharmaceutical Journal. He was also pro- 

 prietor and publisher of as well as contributor 

 to Temple Bar, a magazine of general literature. 

 Prof. Bentley had published a "Manual of 

 Botany," which had a high reputation, and, 

 with Dr. Farre and Mr. Warington, had edited 

 "Pereira's Manual of Materia Medica and 

 Therapeutics," the standard work on these 

 subjects. 



BERG, Rev. JOSEPH FREDERICK, D. D., LL. 

 D., a clergyman of the Reformed (Dutch) 

 Church, theological professor and author, born 

 in Antigua, in 1812 ; died in New Brunswick, 

 N. J., July 20, 1871. His father was a Mora- 

 vian missionary. His early education was 

 pursued in the Moravian schools in England. 

 In 1825 he came to this country, and continued 

 his studies at the Moravian school at Nazareth, 

 Pa. After completing the course, he remained 

 in that institution a few years as Professor of 

 Chemistry. Licensed to preach the gospel, he 

 accepted, in 1837, the pastorate of the Race 

 Street German Reformed Church in Philadel- 

 phia, in which relation he continued until 1852, 

 when Le transferred his connection, and be- 

 came the pastor of the Second Reformed Dutch 

 Church in that city. In 1861 he was elected, 

 by the General Synod of the Reformed Church 

 in America, Professor of Didactic and Polemic 

 Theology in the Theological Seminary at New 

 Brunswick a position which he held until his 

 death. Dr. Berg was eminently successful as 

 a preacher ; in the early part of his ministry 

 he preached without notes, and such was the 

 effect of his thrilling eloquence and his pointed 

 appeals, that two hundred persons applied for 

 membership in his church at one time. He 

 was said to have been more successful in 



