AMONG the leading public men in the Senate of the United States, and now occupying a prominent position before the country, is this distinguished senator from California. Dr. Gwin was born on the 9th of September, 1805, in Sumner County, Tennessee. His father, Rev. James Gwin, was an eminent clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The field of the ministrations of this good man embraced all the western and south-western States: and the zeal and energy with which he performed the duties of his sacred office were chiefly instrumental in founding in that part of the Union, the denomination of which he was a constant and devoted advocate. His son William was placed at an early age in charge of Professor Thruston, an eminent scholastic of Kentucky, and being gifted with an active and vigorous mind,

and possessing extraordinary energy and perseverance, he soon became grounded in the elements of an English education, and devoted himself to the study of mathematics and the ancient languages. The severe mental training, which he received in the exact sciences, prepared him for any branch of learning, and perceiving intuitively its importance he cultivated his reasoning powers by familiarizing himself with geometrical discussions. From these he entered another field of inquiry, in the study of intellectual philosophy and the ancient classics, becoming well acquainted with the Roman language and literature, and attaining at the same time some proficiency in the more elegant and polished idiom of the Greek writers. This course of study under the direction of his father and preceptor developed his great mental vigor and acuteness. His predilection for the natural sciences led him to the study of medicine, with the purpose of following it as a profession. Having already gone through regular courses of chemistry and anatomy, he entered the Medical Department of Transylvania University, where he graduated with distinguished honor, and before he had attained his majority, commenced the practice of physic near the city of Nashville, Tennessee. The bent of his mind, however, was in a different direction. As a branch of liberal education, he entered upon a course of legal study and thoroughly read the great English and American commentators, attentively examining, at the same time, the institutions of our own country and of Great Britain, and was finally duly admitted to practise at the bar. The severe training he had received in his early education and his natural abilities enabled him, however deep the research or intricate the analysis, to give freshness and interest to any subject which engaged his attention in his new profession; while, at the same time, in its management, he ever kept in view its application to the real business and great end of life. In fact he was, unconsciously, preparing himself for another sphere of action, in which he has since figured among the most prominent and distinguished statesmen in the Union. Born and reared almost under the eye of Andrew Jackson, he became a favorite of that hero and statesman from early infancy. Even in boyhood he had mingled with men of no ordinary stamp-those men, indeed, whose energies

have vindicated the justice and security of popular government and spread its influence over the whole world—and they had taught him the habit of self-reliance and the value of our prevalent institutions. He knew, in fact, but one political creed, and that was the principles of the democratic party. Installed in such a church, from youth, he has ever been zealous and true to its faith.

President Jackson, appreciating his great energy of character and integrity of purpose, tendered him in the year 1833, the office of U. S. Marshal for the State of Mississippi. This position Dr. Gwin held, during that administration and throughout President Van Buren's. He discharged the responsible duties of the office with great delicacy and humanity. Indeed, his urbanity and kindness materially lessened the severity of judicial exactions and his private fortune was eventually ruined by his frequent assumption of the liabilities of others and his forbearance from enforcing the mandates of the law.

Upon the election of Gen. Harrison to the presidency, Dr. Gwin resigned the office of marshal and became a candidate for Congress on the democratic ticket. President Harrison had received a majority of 2500 in 1840 in that district, but mainly through the efforts of Dr. Gwin, the opposite party now triumphed by an equal number of votes, and he was chosen a member of the XXVIIth Congress. He at once gave evidence of his ability as a legislator and as a business member, devoting himself with untiring assiduity to all the numerous demands for his services. The diversified matters in which his State was concerned, and more particularly the landed interests of his constituents and the extension of the postal system, occupied his attention. At the close of his congressional term he was renominated by acclamation, but was compelled for a time to withdraw from public life, to attend to his private affairs, which had become embarrassed by reason of his leniency in the discharge of his duties as marshal, and of serious losses he had personally sustained, by receiving in payment of executions, the perishable paper currency of that day.

In 1847, during President Polk's administration, he was appointed Commissioner to superintend the erection of the U. S. Custom-House in New Orleans, the duties of which office he dis

charged with scrupulous fidelity, but which, on the accession of President Taylor, he resigned and emigrated for California.

His thorough knowledge of the institutions of the country, his great experience in public affairs and his popular address, at once commanded the attention and confidence of the medleyed public in this quarter, and he was chosen in the primary assembly of the people to represent them in convention to form a constitution for a State Government. He entered upon the duty with his usual energy, and no man labored more zealously to complete the work. He brought to bear, in the progress of the discussion, all the resources of his vigorous and cultivated mind and had the gratification of witnessing that instrument, which is now the fundamental law of the Pacific State, adopted and ratified by the people with singular unanimity.

The first Legislature under the State organization met in December, 1849, and Messrs. Gwin and Fremont were chosen United States Senators. His labors then, in behalf of California, began in earnest, and upon a new theatre. He was untiring in collecting and disseminating among the members of both Houses of Congress, information to enable them to understand the true condition of his State, and to legislate accordingly. During the turbulent agitation of the slavery question in the public councils and throughout the country, Dr. Gwin was incessant in his exertion to bring about the work of pacification and secure the admission of his State, and finally, on the 9th of September, 1850, had the gratification of perceiving the passage of the Act of Congress, declaring California to be one of the United States, and to be admitted into the Union on equal footing with her thirty elder sisters. He then took his seat in the National Senate, and from that day, that great body and the country at large have witnessed his statesmanlike course, and the unparalleled exertions he has made to elevate his State from the feebleness of political infancy to that commanding position which she now occupies in the American confederacy.

SELIM E. WOODWORTH, second son of the poet Samuel Woodworth, author of the "Old Oaken Bucket," was born in the city of New York, on the 27th of November, 1815. Having had from his earliest boyhood a strong desire to travel and "see the world," he began his career at twelve years of age, by leaving clandestinely his father's house, and with a rifle and knapsack commenced what he intended should have been a grand tour to the far, far west, across the prairies and Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. He had accomplished about three hundred miles of this journey and reached the western boundary of the State of New York, when, meeting with some relatives who had heard of his sudden departure from home and of the agonizing anxiety of his parents to learn his whereabouts, he was checked in the further prosecution of his intended tour and persuaded