Pickering
Pickering names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Pickering TIMOTHY, an American statesman
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
TIMOTHY, an American statesman; born in Salem, Mass., July 17, 1745; was graduated at Harvard in 1763, and admitted to the bar in 1768. He participated in the battle of Lexington; in 1776 joined the Continental army in command of 700 men; was soon appointed adjutant-general by Washington; in 1780 was selected for the post of quartermaster of the army. Shortly after his resignation, he united with Patrick Henry and Alexander Hamilton in opposing the measure that drove the Tories from the country. He negotiated a treaty between the United States and the Six Nations in 1791, and being only absent from the Australian a month later was appointed Postmaster-General. He was Secretary of State under Presidents Washington and Adams, but was dismissed during the "X. Y. Z." papers dispute in 1800. He retired from politics for a time, but was elected to the United States Senate in 1804, and from that time continued actively in politics. He died in Salem, Jan. 29, 1829.
Pickering WILLIAM HENRY, an American astronomer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
WILLIAM HENRY, an American astronomer; born in Boston, Mass., Feb. 15, 1858; was graduated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1879; became assistant professor at the Harvard Observatory; and conducted several expeditions to observe the total solar eclipses in different parts of the Western Hemisphere in 1878- 1893. He established astronomical stations in Southern California in 1889; at Arequipa, Peru, in 1891; and at Mandeville, Jamaica, W. I., in 1900. He had a record as a mountain-climber, having ascended over 100 peaks. Among his astronomical works is "Visual Observations of the Moon and Planets."
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Timothy Pickering's life closed in 1829 and that half of the entry still stands, though modern historians put his 1800 dismissal down to Adams's fury at his High-Federalist obstruction of the peace mission to France rather than simply to the "X. Y. Z." affair, and they give more weight to his later flirtation with New England secession at the Hartford Convention of 1814-15. William Henry Pickering was still living when Collier's wrote in 1921 -- he died in Jamaica in 1938 -- and his reputation has since split in two. He is securely credited with finding Saturn's moon Phoebe in 1899, the first satellite ever discovered photographically, but his announced tenth satellite "Themis" was never confirmed and does not exist, and his readings of changing shadows on the Moon as vegetation and even moving swarms of insects were abandoned long before Apollo 11 landed in 1969. His calculations of an unseen trans-Neptunian planet, however, were among the predictions in the air when Pluto was found at the Lowell Observatory in 1930.
Written for this edition, 2026.