Biography

"PIKE, James Shepherd, journalist, born in Calais, Maine, 8 September, 1811 ; died there, 24 November, 1882. He was educated in the schools of his native town, entered mercantile life in his fifteenth year, and subsequently became a journalist. He was the Washington correspondent and associate editor of the New York "Tribune" in 1850-'60, and was an able and aggressive writer. He was several times a candidate for important offices in Maine, and a potent influence in uniting the anti-slavery sentiment in that state. In 1861-'6 he was United States minister to the Netherlands. He supported Horace Greeley for the presidency in 1872, and about that time visited South Carolina and collected materials for his principal work, " A Prostrate State" (New York, 1876). He also published "The Restoration of the Currency" (1868) ; "The Financial Crisis, its Evils, and their Remedy" (1869) ; "Horace Greeley in 1872" (1873); "'The-New Puritan" (1878); and "The First Blows of the Civil War" (1879)--His brother, Frederick Augustus, congressman, born in Calais, Maine, 9 December, 1817; died there, 2 December, 1886, spent two years at Bowdoin, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1840. He served eight terms in the Maine legislature, was its speaker in 1860, and was elected to congress as a Republican, retaining his seat in 1861-'9, and serving for six years as chairman of the naval committee. He was active in his efforts for emancipation and for necessary taxation, and the closing sentence of his speech in congress in 1861" Tax, fight, emancipate " -became a watchword of his party. He was in the legislature in 1870-'1, and was defeated as a candidate of the Liberal Republican party in 1872. In 1875 he was a member of the Maine constitutional convention. He retired from the practice of law after his congressional service. Mr. Pike was an early and active Abolitionist, a friend of education, and for many years an eminent member of the bar.--Frederick's wife, Mary Hayden Green, born in Eastport, Maine, 30 November, 1825, was graduated at Charlestown female seminary in 1843, and married Mr. Pike in 1846. She published her first book--" Ida May," a novel, dealing with slavery and southern life among the wealthier classes (Boston, 1854)--under the pen-name of " Mary Langdon," and 60.000 copies of the book were sold in eighteen months. She must not be confounded with the writer of a song entitled "Ida May," published simultaneously with the novel, who subsequently issued numerous books as the "author of Ida May." Mrs. Pike's other works are " Caste," under the pen-name of "Sidney A. Story, Jr." (1856), and "Agnes " (1858)."