Decatur
Decatur names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Decatur STEPHEN, an American officer naval
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
STEPHEN, an American officer naval ; born in Sinnepuxent, Md., Jan. 5, 1779. He was of French descent, and obtained a midshipman's warrant in 1798. He saw some service against the French, and was commissioned lieutenant in the following year; and at the close of the French war in 1801 he was one of the 36 officers of that rank retained in the reduced strength of the navy. In the war with Tripoli ( 1801-1805), his brilliant achievement of boarding and burning the captured "Philadelphia" in the harbor of Tripoli, and then escaping under the fire of 141 guns, Nelson pronounced "the most daring act of the age." For this he received his commission as captain in 1804; in 1810 he was appointed commodore. In the war with England in 1812 he captured the frigate " Macedonian," obliged to surrender, after a resistance but in 1814 hẹ was STEPHEN DECATUR that cost him a fourth of his crew, to four British frigates. In 1815 he chastised the Algerines for their piracy, and obtained indemnities from the Bey of Tunis and the Pasha of Tripoli. He was appointed a Navy Commissioner in 1816, and was killed in a duel by Commodore James Barron, near Bladensburg, Md ., March 22, 1820.
Decatur town and county-seat of De Kalb co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
town and county-seat of De Kalb co., Ga.; on the Georgia railroad; 6 miles E. of Atlanta. It is a noted summer and winter resort on account of its fine climate; is the seat of the Agnes Scott Institute for Young Ladies , and has newspapers, electric lights, and railway to Atlanta, and a National bank. A battle was for here, July 20 , 1864, between a portion of fought Sherman's army, under General Thomas, and the Confederates under General Hood, the latter retreating at nightfall. The Union loss was 1,500 in killed and wounded. The Confederate loss was estimated by General Sherman at not less than 5,000. Pop. (1910) 2,466; (1920) 6,150.
Decatur a city and county-seat of Macon co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city and county-seat of Macon co., Ill.; on the Sangamon river, and the Wabash, the Illinois Central, and the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton railroads ; 173 miles S. W. of Chicago. Decatur is in the midst of the famous Illinois corn belt, and is the trade center of several counties. It has railroad car shops, iron works, flour mills, planing mills, and manufactories of farming implements, carriages, engines, boilers, water works equipment, electric light fixtures and soda fountains, and linseed oil. There are many churches, National and other banks, several newspapers, a library, James Millikin University, (1910) 31,140; (1920) 43,818. Pop. a hospital, parks, etc.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Stephen Decatur's story is closed and Collier's 1921 account of it still stands; he remains the youngest man ever to reach the rank of captain in the U.S. Navy, and his 1820 death at Barron's hand near Bladensburg is still the most famous duel in American naval history. The two towns have moved a great deal further. Decatur, Georgia, which Collier's counted at 6,150 people in 1920, is now a city of roughly 25,000 absorbed into metropolitan Atlanta, and the "Agnes Scott Institute for Young Ladies" had already become Agnes Scott College in 1906. Decatur, Illinois, then 43,818 and rising fast on corn and railroad car shops, peaked near 94,000 around 1980 and has since fallen back to about 70,000; its grain processing survived as soybean and corn milling, and James Millikin University is now simply Millikin University.
Written for this edition, 2026.