OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Spofford, Harriet Prescott

Edition of 1900.
SPOFFORD, Harriet Prescott, author, b. in Calais, Me., 3 April, 1835. She is the daughter of Joseph N. Prescott and elder sister of Mary N. Prescott. She was taken in youth by her parents to Newburyport, Mass., which has ever since been her home, though she has spent many of her winters in Boston and Washington. She attended the Putnam free school in her adopted city, and later the Pinkerton academy at Derry, N. H., where she was graduated at seventeen years of age. At Newburyport her prize essay on Hamlet drew the attention of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who soon became her friend, and gave her counsel and encouragement. Her father was attacked with slow paralysis about 1850, which rendered him incapable of exertion during the remainder of his life. This misfortune preyed upon the mind of her mother, and rendered her a confirmed invalid. As Harriet was the eldest child, she felt the need of making her talents available, and began courageously to work, contributing to the story-papers of Boston, earning small pay with a great deal of labor. She once wrote fifteen hours a day, and continued her toil for years. These early stories have never been acknowledged or collected. In the “Atlantic Monthly,” in 1859, appeared a sparkling story of Parisian life, bearing the title “In a Cellar.” James Russell Lowell, then editor of the magazine, admired it, but refrained from publishing it, under the belief that it must be a translation from the French, until he was assured that it was written by Harriet Prescott. The story made her reputation, and she became from that day a welcome contributor, both of prose and poetry, to the chief periodicals of the country. Her fiction has very little in common with what is regarded as representative of the ​New England mind. It is ideal, intense in feeling, and luxuriant in expression. In her descriptions and fancies she revels in sensuous delights and every variety of splendor. In 1865 she married Richard S. Spofford, a lawyer of Boston, cousin of Henry M. Spofford, mentioned below. Their home is now on Deer island, in Merrimack river, in the suburbs of Newburyport. Mrs. Spofford's books are “Sir Rohan's Ghost” (Boston, 1859); “The Amber Gods, and other Stories” (Boston, 1863); “Azarian” (1864); “New England Legends ” (1871); “The Thief in the Night” (1872); “Art Decoration applied to Furniture” (New York, 1881); “Marquis of Carabas” (Boston, 1882); “Poems” (1882); “Hester Stanley at St. Mark's” (1883); “The Servant-Girl Question” (1884); and “Ballads about Authors” (1888).
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Knight, Edward Henry

Edition of 1892.
​KNIGHT, Edward Henry, mechanical expert, b. in London, England, 1 June, 1824; d. in Bellefontaine, Ohio, 22 Jan., 1883. He was educated at the Friends' school in England, and in 1845 came to the United States, having previously taken a course in surgery, and learned the art of steel-engraving. In 1846 he settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was a patent attorney for seven years, and then followed agricultural pursuits until 1863, when he was called to Washington for service in the preparation of the annual reports of the U. S. patent-office, also acting as surgeon under the Christian commission. The meagre reports that were then issued at governmental expense for gratuitous distribution were replaced by him in 1871 by the “Official Gazette of the United States Patent-Office,” which has since been issued as a profitable weekly publication. He also organized the classification of inventions, under which the work of the patent-office has since been carried on. Mr. Knight was a member of the international juries at the World's fairs in Philadelphia in 1876 and in Paris in 1878, and at the Atlanta exhibition of 1881, and was U. S. commissioner at the World's fair in Paris in 1878, receiving the appointment of chevalier of the Legion of honor from the French government in recognition of his services. His brain was found to weigh 64 ounces, being the second largest on record, that of Cuvier weighing 64½ ounces. He was a member of scientific societies both in the United States and abroad. He received the degree of LL. D. in 1876 from Iowa Wesleyan university. He edited the “Reports of the Paris Exposition,” and contributed the chapters on “Agricultural Implements” and “Clocks and Watches,” and, besides other official reports, he compiled “A Library of Poetry and Song” (New York, 1870; revised ed., 1876); “American Mechanical Dictionary” (3 vols., 1876); and the “New Mechanical Dictionary” (Boston, 1884).
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Kneeland, Samuel (printer)

Edition of 1892.
​KNEELAND, Samuel, printer, b. in Boston, Mass., in 1696; d. there, 14 Dec., 1769. He was apprenticed to Benjamin Green, and for many years was printer to the government and council, printing also the laws and journals of the house of representatives. Besides many religious books and pamphlets, he published “The Gazette” from 1727 till 1741, and “The New England Weekly Journal” from 1741 till 1752.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Knapp, Jacob

Edition of 1892.
​KNAPP, Jacob, clergyman, b. in Otsego county, N. Y., 7 Dec., 1799; d. in Rockford, Ill., 2 March, 1874. He was educated at Madison university, was ordained to the Baptist ministry in 1825, and settled in Springfield, N. Y., where he began to preach, and at the same time engaged in farming and business, and became so successful that he was accused of want of zeal in his profession. In 1830 he removed to Watertown, N. Y., and in 1832 gave up secular employment and began to labor as an evangelist on his own responsibility, preaching first in barns and school-houses. In his revival work he visited New York, New England, and the western states, including California, preached about 16,000 sermons, led 200 young men to become clergymen, and baptized 4,000 persons. Vast numbers attended his meetings, and such excitement prevailed that mobs often threatened him and his hearers, and the protection of the police was called for to prevent serious disturbances. His preaching was characterized by fiery metaphors and denunciation of sin, his energy increasing with his excitement, so that, to quote his own words, "he was able to shake sermons from his sleeves." He left his property to his church. He published a few sermons, and wrote an autobiography which was never printed.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Kneass, Strickland

Edition of 1892.
​KNEASS, Strickland, civil engineer, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 29 July, 1821; d. there, 14 Jan., 1884. His father, William Kneass, was for many years engraver of the U. S. mint. The son was graduated at Rensselaer polytechnic institute, Troy, N. Y., in 1839. From that time until 1855, when he was chosen chief engineer and surveyor of the consolidated city of Philadelphia, he was employed in his profession in various important works. He served with ability in the office of chief engineer of Philadelphia until 1872, when he resigned to accept the post of assistant to the president of the Pennsylvania railroad. He afterward became president of the Pennsylvania and Delaware and other railroads.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Kneeland, Abner

Edition of 1892.
​KNEELAND, Samuel, printer, b. in Boston, Mass., in 1696; d. there, 14 Dec., 1769. He was apprenticed to Benjamin Green, and for many years was printer to the government and council, printing also the laws and journals of the house of representatives. Besides many religious books and pamphlets, he published “The Gazette” from 1727 till 1741, and “The New England Weekly Journal” from 1741 till 1752.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Knapp, Jacob Hermann

Edition of 1892.
​KNAPP, Jacob Hermann, b. in Dauborn, Prussia, 17 March, 1832. His father, John, was a member of the Prussian house of representatives and the German reichstag. The son was educated in Germany, France, and England, was graduated in medicine at Giessen, Germany, in 1854, and in 1860-'8 was professor and lecturer on ophthalmology in the University of Heidelberg. At the latter date he resigned, and, removing to the United States, settled in New York city. He founded the New York ophthalmic and aural institute in 1869, and since that date has been its surgeon. He was also surgeon to the New York charity hospital in 1872, the same year was consulting oculist to the department of public charities, and in 1876 became lecturer on eye and ear diseases in the New York college of physicians and surgeons. He founded in 1869, with Prof. Moos, of Heidelberg, "The Archives of Ophthalmology and Otology," an international scientific monthly (Wiesbaden and New York). In 1874 he was president of the New York pathological society. His publications include "Curvature of the Cornea of the Human Eye" (Heidelberg, 1859): "Intraocular Tumors" (Carlsruhe, 1868; New York, 1869); "Cocaine and its Use in Ophthalmic and General Surgery" (New York, 1885); "Investigations on Fermentation, Putrefaction, and Suppuration" (1886); "Cataract Extraction without Iridectomy" (1887); and reports on "A Series of One Thousand Successive Cases of Cataract Extraction without Iridectomy" (1887).
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Knapp, Samuel Lorenzo

Edition of 1892.
​KNAPP, Samuel Lorenzo, author, b. in Newburyport, Mass., 19 Jan., 1783; d. in Hopkinton, Mass., 8 July, 1838. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1804, studied law with Chief-Justice Theophilus Parsons, and attained to eminence in his profession. During the war of 1812 he commanded a regiment of militia on the coast defences. He became editor of the "Boston Gazette" in 1824, also conducting the "Boston Monthly Magazine," and in 1826 he established the "National Republican," on the failure of which, two years afterward, he removed to New York city, and returned to the practice of his profession. His works, which are chiefly biographical, include "Travels in North America by Ali Bey" (Boston, 1818); "Biographical Sketches of Eminent Lawyers, Statesmen, and Men of Letters" (1821); "Memoirs of Gen. Lafayette" (1824); "The Genius of Freemasonry" (Providence, 1828); "Discourse on the Life and Character of De Witt Clinton" (1828); "Lectures on American Literature" (New York, 1829); "Sketches of Public Characters by Ignatius Loyola Robertson, LL. D. " (1830); "American Biography" (1833); a revised edition of John Hinton's "History of the United States" (1834); "Life of Thomas Eady" (1834); "Advice in the Pursuit of Literature" (1835); "Memoir of the Life of Daniel Webster" (1835); "Life of Aaron Burr" (1835); "Life of Andrew Jackson" (1835); "The Bachelor, and Other Tales" (1836); and "Female Biography" (Philadelphia, 1843). He edited "The Library of American History" (New York, 1837).
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Knight, Sarah

Edition of 1892.
KNIGHT, Sarah, teacher, b. in Boston, Mass., 19 April, 1666; d. near Norwalk, Conn., 25 Dec., 1727. Her father, Capt. Thomas Kemble, was a merchant of Boston, and she married Richard Knight, who died about 1703. In 1706 she opened a school in Boston for children, and numbered among her pupils Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Mather. She is described as “excelling in the art of teaching composition,” and, as a mark of respect, was called “Madam Knight.” In 1713 she removed to Norwalk, Conn., and in the town-record is named as “taxed twenty shillings for selling strong drink to the Indians,” but it is added “Madam Knight accuses her maid, Ann Clark, of the fact.” Madam Knight's “Journey from Boston to New York in the Year 1704, from the Original Manuscript, including the Diary of the Rev. John Buckingham of a Journey to Canada in 1710” (New York, 1825; Albany, 1865), is a record from a diary in the author's own handwriting from notes recorded on the way. It is valuable as a history of the manners and customs of the time, and is full of graphic descriptions of the early settlements in New England and New York.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Knapp, Mathias

Edition of 1892. No confirmation of this person's existence outside of Appletons' and derived sources has as yet been located, but there is also no verifiable source which states the person is one of Appletons' fictitious entries. Use this information with extra caution. Suspicious due to a spelling error in the title of one alleged literary work, and a grammaticial error in the the title of another alleged literary work, while a third literary work refers to chemistry, which is a remarkable disconnect with the subject's supposed profession of explorer. The subject is also referred to as being appointed professor of natural history in the College of Erlangen at the age of 24.
​KNAPP, Mathias, German explorer, b. in Werden in 1752; d. in Fulda, Hesse-Cassel, in 1814. He was educated in Munich, appointed in 1776 professor of natural history in the College of Erlangen, and was called to fill the same chair at the University of Munich in 1782. In the following year he was chosen president of the scientific expedition that was sent to South America by the Duke of Bavaria. He made a thorough survey of the Andes, visited Brazil in its most remote parts, resided in Venezuela in 1787-'9, studying the ethnography of that country, and afterward visited the Guianas, Peru, Chili, the Andes, Patagonia, and the Argentine Republic. He returned in 1792, and, resigning his professorship, devoted his time to the publication of the materials he had collected during his ten years' travels through South America. He afterward removed to Fulda, where he resided till his death. Among his works are "Origines gentis Americanorum" (Munich, 1795); "De usu et ratione experimentorum in perficienda historia naturalis" (Dresden, 1796); "Versuch über die Zeitrechnung der Vorwelt"(Leipsic, 1796); "Reisen im Südwesten von Brazilien" (2 vols., 1797); "Geschichte der Entdeckung Amerikas" (3 vols., 1798); "Reisen nach Amerika" (3 vols., 1801); "Guianische Skizzen" (Dresden, 1804); "Reise durch Peru und Chile" (2 vols., Leipsic, 1805); and "Die Chemie und ihre Anwendung auf das praktische Leben" (Dresden, 1808).
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Kneeland, Samuel (naturalist)

Edition of 1892.
​KNEELAND, Samuel, naturalist, b. in Boston, Mass., 1 Aug., 1821. He was graduated at Harvard in 1840, and at the medical department in 1843, taking the Boylston prize for his thesis on “Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever,” and again, in 1844, for his essay on “Hydrotherapy.” Subsequently he spent two years in professional studies in Paris, and then began the practice of his profession in Boston, meanwhile serving as demonstrator of anatomy in Harvard medical school during 1845-7, and as physician to the Boston dispensary. He then passed some time in Brazil, and also visited the Lake Superior copper region. During the civil war he entered the army as acting assistant surgeon from Massachusetts, was assigned to duty with Gen. Burnside, and accompanied the expedition to New Berne in March, 1862, after the capture of that place being assigned to duty at the Craven street hospital in New Berne, and at the hospital in Beaufort, N. C. In October, 1862, he was commissioned surgeon of the 45th Massachusetts regiment, and served in that capacity in New Berne till the regiment was discharged in July, 1863. He then entered the corps of surgeons of volunteers, and was placed in charge, successively, of the University hospital in New Orleans, and of the Marine hospital in Mobile. In 1866 he was mustered out of the service with the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel. He then returned to Boston, and became associated in the work of the Massachusetts institute of technology, holding the office of instructor in 1867-'9 and professor of zoölogy and physiology in 1869-'78, also acting as secretary of the corporation in 1866-'78, and of secretary of the faculty in 1871-'8. Dr. Kneeland then returned to literary work and lecturing, which he has since followed in Boston and to the Philippine islands. He has travelled extensively in search of information concerning earthquakes and volcanic phenomena, having made visits to the Hawaiian islands and to Iceland in 1874, at the time of its millennial celebration, for this purpose. He is a member of numerous scientific societies, and has held the office of secretary to the American academy of arts and sciences, and to the Boston society of natural history. Dr. Kneeland has contributed largely to current medical literature, and was the author of many articles, mostly on zoölogical and medical subjects, in the “American Cyclopædia.” He edited the “Annual of Scientific Discovery” (1866-'9); a translation of Andry's “Diseases of the Heart” (Boston, 1847); and Smith's “History of the Human Species” (1852). His own works include “Science and Mechanism” (New York, 1854); “The Wonders of the Yosemite Valley and of California” (Boston, 1871); and “An American in Iceland” (1876).
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Zogbaum, Rufus Fairchild

Edition of 1889.
​ZOGBAUM, Rufus Fairchild, artist, b. in Charleston, S. C., 28 Aug., 1849. He received his art education at the Art students' league, New York, in 1878-'9, and during 1880-'2 under Léon J. F. Bonnat in Paris. He has studied many of the great armies of Europe in field and garrison, and is known as a delineator of military subjects. He is a member of the American water-color society. In 1884 there appeared in “Harper's Monthly” the first of a series of military articles written and illustrated by himself, and he has since published “Horse, Foot, and Dragoons” (New York, 1887).
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Zorrilla, Francisco

Edition of 1889.
​ZORRILLA, Francisco (thor-ril'-yah), Spanish administrator, b. in Murcia about 1490: d. in Santiago, Guatemala, in 1546. He was a knight of the order of Santiago, and, after serving as chief clerk in the office of the council of the Indies, was promoted treasurer of the city of Santiago de Guatemala, and sailed with Pedro de Alvarado, arriving in 1530. He became regidor of Santiago in 1534, and, during the absence of Alvarado, in 1540 was appointed a member of the council of government, which elected Beatriz de la Cueva regent. After the death of the latter, 11 Sept., 1541, Zorrilla assisted Bishop Francisco Marroquin in the government of Santiago and in rebuilding the city, which had been totally destroyed by volcanic eruptions, in which Doña Beatriz perished. Zorrilla left a valuable manuscript, which is preserved in the archives of the Indies at Seville and which is ​soon to be published by the Spanish government. It is entitled “Historia del descubrimiento, de la conquista, y de la administración de la provincia de Santiago de Guatemala.” The recent state publication, “ Cartas de Indias” (Madrid, 1872), contains also several interesting memoirs of Zorrilla upon the administration of Pedro de Alvarado, the Indians of Guatemala, and the intestine divisions among the early conquerors.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1st edition)/Platt, Thomas Collier

Edition of 1891. The 1900 edition is slightly updated: he was re-elected to the U. S. Senate, and it no longer mentions his presidency of a railroad.
PLATT, Thomas Collier, senator, b. in Owego. N. Y., 15 July, 1833. He left Yale in his sophomore year in 1853 on account of failing health, but received the honorary decree of M. A. in 1876 from that college. He entered mercantile life, became president of the Tioga, N. Y., National bank, and engaged in the lumber business in Michigan. He was elected to congress as a Republican in 1872, re-elected in 1874, and on 18 Jan., 1881, was chosen U. S. senator to succeed Francis Kernan, but resigned, 16 May of the same year, with his colleague, Roscoe Conkling (q. v.) on account of a disagreement with the executive regarding New York appointments. He returned home, was a candidate for re-election, and after an exciting canvas was defeated. He became secretary and a director of the United States express company in 1879, and since 1880 has been
its president. He was appointed commissioner of quarantine of New York city in 1880, became president of the board, and held office till 14 Jan., 1888, when he was removed by proceedings instituted on account of his alleged non-residence in New York city. He was a member of the National Republican conventions in 1876, 1880, and 1884, and for several years of the Republican national committee. He is now (1888) president of the Southern Central railroad.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/van Loot, Gerard

Edition of 1900. No confirmation of this person's existence outside of Appletons' and derived sources has as yet been located, but there is also no verifiable source which states the person is one of Appletons' fictitious entries. Use this information with extra caution. There is a marked incompability in that the subject was supposedly Dutch, but the titles of the alleged literary works are written in German.
​LOOT, Oerard yan (lote), Dutch naturalist, b. in Muyden in 1705; d. in Breda in 1761. He ob- tained employment in the Indian company, and re- sided most of his life in Java and Dutch Guiana, retiring in 1753 and settling in Breda. He pub- lished " Anweisung wie man die Breite und Lange der Flilsse aus gemeinen Landkarten erforschen konne"(2 vols., Breda, 1754); " Guiana geognostisch und geologisch dargestellt " (1755) ; " Grundlehren der Anatomie und Physiologic der amerikanischen Pflanzen " (1757) ; " Naturen Bloeme " (1757) ; " Historia generalis plantarum guianarum in quae famili;e per tabulas disponuntur" (2 vols., 1758); "Die Naturgesehichte von Amerika " (1760); " Handbuch tiir den Kaufmann in Guiana" (1760) ; and several other works.