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Saint Marys

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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A city of Auglaize county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Saint Marys river and the Miami && Erie canal, about 85 m. W.N.W. of Columbus. Pop. (1910) 5732. Saint Marys is served by the Lake Erie & Western, the Western Ohio (electric), and the Toledo & Ohio Central railways. About 1 m. west is a feeding reservoir of the canal covering about 17,600 acres. Saint Marys is in the Ohio oil region. The city occupies the site of a former Shawnee village, in which a trading post was established in 1782 by James Girty,' from whom the place was for some years 1 James Girty (1743-1817) was one of the notorious Girty brothers, the sons of Simon Girty (d. 1751), an Irish immigrant. The brothers were taken prisoners b y the French and Indian force which in 1756 captured Fort Granville, in what is now Mifflin county, Pennsylvania. James was adopted by the Shawnees and lived among them for three years, after which he acted as an interpreter and trader; he frequently accompanied the Indians against the English settlers, and exhibited the greatest ferocity. He conducted a profitable trading business with the Indians at St Marys in 1783-1794, when he withdrew to Canada upon the approach of General Wayne, and again from 1795 until just before the War of 1812, when he again withdrew to Canada, where he died. His brother Simon (1741-1818), who lived with the Senecas for several years after his capture, was even more bloodthirsty; he served against the Indians in Lord Dunmore's War, and in 1776, during the War of Independence, entered the called Girty's Town. Fort St Marys was built in 1784 or 1785 by a detachment of General Anthony Wayne's troops, and in 1812 Ft. Barbee was erected at the instance of General W. H. Harrison by Colonel Joshua Barbee. During the War of 1812 the place was for some time the headquarters of General Harrison's army. St Marys was laid out as a town in 1823, and became a city in 1903 under the general municipal code which came into effect in that year.

A fresh-water lake of Selkirkshire, Scotland. It lies in the high land towards the western border, and is visited from Selkirk (16 m. E. by N.) or Moffat (15 m. S.W.). It is 814 ft. above the sea, is from 80 to 90 ft. deep, 3 m. long, about 1 m. wide at its widest, and has a shore-line of 72 m. A narrow isthmus divides its head from the small Loch of the Lowes (about i m. long), which is believed to have been once part of it, the difference of level being only r 5 in. St Mary's is emptied by the Yarrow, and its principal feeder is Megget Water, a noted angling stream. It takes its name from St Mary's Kirk, the ruins of which lie near the northern shore. From the 13th century, when the church is first mentioned, till its destruction in 1557, it was variously known as the Forest Kirk (in which William Wallace was elected Warden of Scotland), St Mary's of Farmainishope, an old name of the adjoining lands of Kirkstead, St Mary of the Lowes, and the Kirk of Yarrow. It had been partly restored, but gradually fell into decay, its place being taken by the church of Yarrow farther down the vale. In the graveyard was buried John Grieve (1781-1836), the Edinburgh hatter, a poet of some capacity, patron of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. At the head of the lake is the celebrated inn opened by Tibbie Shiel (Mrs Richardson, d. 1878), which was visited by many distinguished men of letters.

A south-eastern suburb of Paris, on the right bank of the Marne, 7 m. from the centre of the city. Pop. (1906), 28,016. St Maur and the residential district surrounding it cover a peninsula formed by a loop in the Marne, the neck of which is crossed by the canal of St Maur. In the reign of Clovis II. the monastery of Les Fosses was founded; the amplification of the name came when the body of St Maurus was brought there by the monks of St Maur-sur-Loire. About the same time was inaugurated the pilgrimage of Notre-Dame des Miracles, which still takes place annually. In 1465 a treaty of peace, putting an end to the "War of the Public Weal," was concluded between Louis XI. and his revolted barons at St Maur.

A village of western France in the department of Maine-et-Loire on the Loire about 15 m. below Saumur. Here St Maurus towards the middle of the 6th century founded the first Benedictine monastery in Gaul. About the middle of the 9th century it was reduced to ruins by the Normans; in anticipation of the disaster the relics of the saint were transferred to the abbey of Fosses (afterwards St Maur-des-Fosses: see above). St Maur-sur-Loire was afterwards restored and fortified; the extant remains consist of a part of the church (12th and 17th centuries) and buildings of _the 17th and 18th centuries.

ST Mawes, a small seaport in the St Austell parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, beautifully situated on an arm of Falmouth Harbour. Pop. (1901), 1178. The inlet admits only small vessels to the little harbour, but there is a considerable fishing industry. A large circular castle, vis-a-vis with that of Pendennis near Falmouth, and dating from the same period (Henry VIII.), guards the entrance. Near the shore of the inlet opposite St Mawes is the small church of St Anthony in Roseland, an excellent example of Early English work, retaining a good Norman doorway.

British service as an interpreter, and after the war instigated Indian attacks on the frontier and fought with the Indians against General Arthur St Clair and General Anthony Wayne. Another brother, George Girty (1745-c. 1812), lived among the Delawares for several years, was also a trader and interpreter, and was likewise a renegade. Thomas (1739-1820), though he associated much with the Indians, did not participate in their wars. See W. Butterfield's History of the Girtys (Cincinnati, 1890).

The history of St Mawes is simple. The saint of that name is said to have made the creek of the Fal a halting-place in the 5th century. The chapel of St Mawes, pulled down in 1812, was licensed by the bishop in 1381, and both chapel and village were situated within the manor of Bogullos, which in the 16th century belonged to the family of Wydeslade. In the 16th century John Leland speaks of the castle as lately begun and describes St Mawes as "a quarter of a mile from the castle, a pretty village or fishertown with a pier called St Mawes and there is a chapel of the saint and his chair of stone and hard by his well." The number of houses half a century later did not exceed twenty, and John Wydeslade, as lord of the manor of Bogullos, owned the village. For the part which he took in the rebellion of 1J4 9 Wydeslade was hanged and his lands forfeited, and in 1562 the manor was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Reginald Mohun of Hall. In the same year St Mawes was incorporated and invested with the right of returning two members to the House of Commons, a privilege which it enjoyed until 1832. In 1607 the portion of the manor of Bogullos which embraced St Mawes was sold by Sir Thomas Arundell, who had married a daughter of Sir William Mohun, to Thomas Walker, and by the latter it was resold to Sir George Parry, who represented the borough in parliament from 1640 to 1642. Sir George Parry sold St Mawes to John Tredenham, whose sons, Sir William and Sir Joseph, and Sir Joseph's son, John Tredenham, became successively its parliamentary representatives. On the death of the last named St Mawes passed by sale to John Knight, whose widow married Robert Nugent, afterwards Earl Nugent, and until the Reform Act of 1832 the Nugents controlled the elections at St Mawes. The corporation, founded in 1562, which consisted of a mayor, or portreeve, and other officers elected by about twenty free tenants, was dissolved under the Municipal Corporations Act in 1835. Its silver mace now belongs to the corporation of Wolverhampton, to whom it passed after the great sale of the effects of the duke of Buckingham at Stowe in 1848, the duke having obtained it as the heir of the Earls Nugent.

ST Michael'S ( Sao Miguel ), the largest island in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. Pop. (1900), 121,340; area, 297 sq. m. The east end of St Michael's rises from a headland 1400 ft. high to the inland peak of Vara (3573 ft.), whence a central range (2000 to 2500 ft.) runs westward, terminating on the south coast in the Serra da Agoa do Pau, about halfway across the island. The range gradually declines in approaching its last point, where it is not more than ioo ft. high. The middle part of the island is lower, and more undulating, its western extremity being marked by the conspicuous Serra Gorda (1572 ft.); its shores on both sides are low, broken and rocky. The aspect of the western portion of the island is that of a vast truncated cone, irregularly cut off at an elevation of about 800 ft., and falling on the north, south and west sides to a perpendicular coast between 300 and 800 ft. high. In the highest parts an undergrowth of shrubs gives the mountains a rich and wooded appearance. Like all volcanic countries, the island has an uneven surface with numerous ravines, and streams of semi-vitrified and scoriaceous lava which resist all atmospheric influences and repel vegetation. Heavy rains falling on the mountains afford a constant supply of water to four lakes at the bottom of extinct craters, to a number of minor reservoirs, and through them, to small rapid streams on all sides.

Hot springs abound in many parts, and vapour issues from almost every crevice. But the most remarkable phenomena are the Caldeiras (" Cauldrons"), or Olhos (" Eyes"), i.e. boiling fountains, which rise chiefly from a valley called the Furnas ("Furnaces"), near the western extremity of the island. The water rises in columns about 12 ft. high and dissolves in vapour. The ground in the vicinity is entirely covered with native sulphur, like hoar-frost. At a small distance is the Muddy Crater, 45 ft. in diameter, on a level with the plain. Its contents, are in a state of continual and violent ebullition, accompanied with a sound resembling that of a tempestuous ocean. Yet they never rise above its level, unless occasionally to throw to a small distance a spray of the consistence of melted lead. The Furnas abounds also in hot springs, some of them of a very high temperature. There is almost always, however, a cold spring near the hot one. These have long been visited by sufferers from palsy, rheumatism, scrofula and similar maladies. Bath-rooms and other buildings have been erected.

The plains of St Michael's are fertile, producing wheat, barley and Indian corn; vines, oranges and other fruit trees grow luxuriantly on the sides of the mountains. The plants are made to spring even from the interstices of the volcanic rocks, which are sometimes blasted to receive them. Raised in this manner, these fruits are of superior quality; but the expense of such a mode of cultivation necessarily restricts it. The western part of the island yields hemp.

The principal town and seaport is Ponta Delgada, with 17,675 inhabitants in 1900. The other chief towns are Arrifes (5644), Lagoa (7950), Povoacao (5093), Ribeira Grande (8496) and Villa Franca do Campo (8162). (See also [[Azores.) St Michael'S Mount]], a lofty pyramidal island, exhibiting a curious combination of slate and granite, rising 400 yds. from the shore of Mount's Bay, in Cornwall, England. It is united with Marazion by a natural causeway cast up by the sea, and passable only at low tide. If its identity with the Mictis of Timaeus and the Ictis of Diodorus Siculus be allowed, St Michael's Mount is one of the most historic spots in the west of England. It was possibly held by a body of religious in the Confessor's time and given by Robert, count of 1v10rtain, to Mount St Michael, of which Norman abbey it continued to be a priory until the dissolution of the alien houses by Henry V., when it was given to the abbess and Convent of Syon. It was a resort of pilgrims, whose devotions were encouraged by an indulgence granted by Pope Gregory in the ith century. The Mount was captured on behalf of Prince John by Henry Pomeroy in the reign of Richard I. John de Vere, earl of Oxford, seized it and held it during a siege of twenty-three weeks against 6000 of the king's troops in 1473. Perkin Warbeck occupied the Mount in 1497. Humphry Arundell, governor of St Michael's Mount, led the rebellion of 1549. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth it was given to Robert, earl of Salisbury, by whose son it was sold to Sir Francis Basset. Sir Arthur Basset, brother of Sir Francis, held the Mount against the parliament until July 1646. It was sold in 1659 to Colonel John St Aubyn and is now the property of his descendant Lord Levan. The chapel is extra-diocesan and the castle is the residence of Lord St Levan.

Many relics, chiefly armour and antique furniture, are preserved in the castle. The chapel of St Michael, a beautiful 15th-century building, has an embattled tower, in one angle of which is a small turret, which served for the guidance of ships. Chapel rock, on the beach, marks the site of a shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary, where pilgrims paused to worship before ascending the Mount. A few houses are built on the hillside facing Marazion, and a spring supplies them with water. The harbour, widened in 1823 to allow vessels of 500 tons to enter, has a pier dating from the 15th century, and subsequently enlarged and restored. Pop. (1901), III.

A town of north-eastern France, in the department of Meuse, on the right bank of the Meuse and the Canal de l'Est, 23 m. S. by E. of Verdun by rail. Pop. (1906) of the town, 5943 (not including a large garrison), of the commune, 9661.9661. St Mihiel is famous for its Benedictine abbey of St Michael, founded in 709, to which it owes its name. The abbey buildings (occupied by the municipal offices) date from the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, and the church from the 17th century. The latter contains a wooden carving of the Virgin by the sculptor Ligier Richier, born at St Mihiel in 1506. Other interesting buildings are the church of St Etienne, chiefly in the flamboyant Gothic style, which contains a magnificent Holy Sepulchre by Ligier Richier, and several houses dating from the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. On the road to Verdun are seven huge rocks, in one of which a sepulchre (18th century), containing a life-sized figure of Christ, has been hollowed. St Mihiel formerly possessed fortifications and two castles which were destroyed in 1635 by the royal troops in the course of a quarrel between Louis XIII. and Charles IV., duke of Lorraine. The town is the seat of a court of assizes, and has the tribunal of first instance belonging to the arrondissement of Commercy and a communal college.

A town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Loire-Inferieure, 40 m. W.N.W. of Nantes by rail and 29 m. by river. Pop. (1906), 30,345. St Nazaire, situated on the right bank of the Loire at its mouth, is a modern town with straight thoroughfares crossing one another at right angles. It possesses nothing of antiquarian interest except a granite dolmen 10 ft. long and 5 ft. wide resting horizontally on two other stones sunk in the soil, above which they rise 62 ft. The only noteworthy building is a modern church in the Gothic style of the 14th century. The harbour, which constitutes the outport of Nantes and is accessible to ships of the largest size, is separated from the estuary by a narrow strip of land, and comprises an outer harbour and entrance, two floating docks (the old dock and the Penhouet dock), three graving docks, and the extensive shipbuilding yards of the Loire Company and of the General Transatlantic Company whose steamers connect St Nazaire with Mexico, the Antilles and the Isthmus of Panama. Ships for the navy and the mercantile marine are built, and there are important steel-works, blastfurnaces, forges, and steam saw-mills. The town is the seat of a sub-prefect, and has a tribunal of first instance, a board of tradearbitration, an exchange, a chamber of commerce, a communal college, and schools of navigation and industry. Next to British and French, Spanish, Norwegian and Swedish vessels most frequent the port. In the decade1898-1907the value of imports greatly fluctuated, being highest in 1898 (f 2,800,000) and lowest in 1904 (i,688,000), the average for each of the ten years being 2,280,000. The value of the exports in the same period varied between £3,724,000 in 1899 and £1,396,000 in 1906, the average being £2,935,200. Imports include coal and patent fuel, iron ore and pyrites, timber, rice and hemp; exports include iron ore, coal and patent fuel, pit wood, sugar, garments and woven goods, preserved fish, and wine and spirits.

According to remains discovered on excavating the docks, St Nazaire seems to occupy the site of the ancient Corbilo, placed by Strabo among the more important maritime towns of Gaul. At the close of the 4th century the site of Corbilo was occupied by Saxons, and, their conversion to Christianity being effected one or two hundred years later by St Felix of Nantes, the place took the name of St Nazaire. It was still only a little "Bourg" of some 3000 inhabitants when under the second empire it was chosen as the site of the new harbour for Nantes, because the ascent of the Loire was becoming more and more difficult. In 1868 the sub-prefecture was transferred to St Nazaire from Savenay.

ST Nectaire (corrupted into Sennecterre and Senneterre), the name of an estate in Auvergne, France, which gave its name to a feudal house holding distinguished rank in the 13th century. The eldest branch of this family held the marquisate of La Ferte, and produced a heroine of the religious wars of the 16th century, Madeleine de St Nectaire, who married Guy de St Exupery, seigneur de Miremont, in 1548, and fought successfully at the head of the Protestants in her territory against the troops of the League. To the same house belonged the branches of the marquises of Chateauneuf, the seigneurs of Brinon-sur-Sauldre and St Victour, and the seigneurs of Clavelier and Fontenilles, all of which are now extinct. (M. P.*) ST Neots (pronounced St Neets), a market town in the southern parliamentary division of Huntingdonshire, England, on the right (east) bank of the Ouse, 511 m. N. of London by the Great Northern railway. Pop. of urban district, (1901) 3880. A stone bridge crosses the river, built in 1589 from the ruins of a former priory. The parish church of St Mary is a fine Perpendicular building of the later r 5th century. The original oak roof is noteworthy. Among other buildings may be mentioned the Victoria museum (1887), the library and literary institute, and the endowed school (1760). Paper-mills, breweries, flour-mills, and engineering works furnish the chief industries of the town.

The name of St Neots is derived from the monastery founded in the adjoining parish of Eynesbury in the reign of King Edgar (967-975). St Neot, a priest of Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset, became a recluse at a place which he named Neotstoke, near Bodmin in Cornwall, where he died about the end of the 9th century. His shrine at Eynesbury being threatened by the incursion of the Danes early in the r rth century, the relics were conveyed to Crowland Abbey, in Lincolnshire, of which he became one of the patron saints. But in 1112 the monastery was refounded from that of Bec in. Normandy. An Anglo-Saxon enamelled mosaic in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford is supposed to contain a portrait of St Neot. In 1648 a troop of Royalists under the command of Villiers, duke of Buckingham, was routed in St Neots by the Parliamentarians.

A town of Belgium in the province of East Flanders, about 12 m. S.W. of Antwerp. Pop. (1904), 32,767. It is the principal town of Waes, formerly a district of bleak and barren downs, but now the most productive part of Belgium. St Nicolas is the centre and distributing point of this district, being an important junction on the direct line from Antwerp to Ghent; it has also many manufactures of its own. The principal church dedicated to St Nicolas was finished in 1696, but the other public buildings are only of the r 9th century.

Or ST Nicolas DU PORT, a town of north-eastern France, in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, on the left bank of the Meurthe, 8 m. S.E. of Nancy by rail. Pop. (1906), 4796. The town has a fine Gothic church dating from the end of the 15th and the first half of the 16th century, and possessing a finger-joint of St Nicolas formerly the object of pilgrimages which were themselves the origin of well-known fairs. The latter became less important after 1635, when the Swedes sacked the town. There are important salt-workings in the vicinity; cotton spinning and weaving are carried on. Its port, shared with Varangeville on the opposite side of the river, has an active trade.

A town and fortress of northern Franc; capital -of the department of Pas-de-Calais, 42 m. W.N.W. of Lille on the railway to Calais. Pop. (1906), 17,261. At St Omer begins the canalized portion of the Aa, which reaches the sea at Gravelines, and under its walls it connects with the Neuffosse canal, which ends at the Lys. The fortifications were demolished during the last decade of the 19th century and boulevards and new thoroughfares made in their place. There are two harbours outside and one within the city. St Omer has wide streets and spacious squares, but little animation. The old cathedral belongs almost entirely to the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. A heavy square tower finished in 1499 surmounts the west portal. The church contains interesting paintings, a colossal statue of Christ seated between the Virgin and St John (13th century, originally belonging to the cathedral of Therouanne and presented by the emperor Charles V.), the cenotaph of St Omer (13th century) and numerous ex-votos. The richly decorated chapel in the transept contains a wooden figure of the Virgin (12th century), the object of pilgrimages. Of St Bertin, the church of the abbey (built between 1326 and 1520 on the site of previous churches) where Childeric III. retired to end his days, there remain some arches and a lofty tower, which serve to adorn a public garden, Several other churches or convent chapels are of XXIV. 2 interest, among them St Sepulchre (14th century), which has a beautiful stone spire and stained-glass windows. A fine collection of records, a picture-gallery, and a theatre are all accommodated in the town hall, built of the materials of the abbey of St Bertin. There are several houses of the rah and 17th centuries; of the latter the finest is the Hotel Colbert, once the royal lodging, and now occupied by an archaeological museum. Among the hospitals the military hospital is of note as occupying the wellknown college opened by the English Jesuits in 1592. The old episcopal palace adjoining the cathedral is used as a court-house. The chief statue in the town is that of Jacqueline Robin (see below). St Omer is the seat of a sub-prefect, of a court of assizes, of tribunals of first instance and of commerce, of a chamber of commerce, and of a board of trade arbitration. Besides the lycee, there are schools of music and of art. The industries include the manufacture of linen goods, sugar, soap, tobaccopipes, and mustard, the distilling of oil and liqueurs, dyeing, salt-refining, malting and brewing. The suburb of Haut Pont to the north of St Omer is inhabited by a special stock, which has remained faithful to the Flemish tongue, its original costume and its peculiar customs, and is distinguished by honesty and industry. The ground which these people cultivate has been reclaimed from the marsh, and the legres (i.e. the square blocks of land) communicate with each other only by boats floated on the ditches and canals that divide them. At the end of the marsh, on the borders of the forest of Clairmarais, are the ruins of the abbey founded in 1140 by Thierry d'Alsace, to which Thomas Becket betook himself in 1165. To the south of St Omer, on a hill commanding the Aa, lies the camp of Helfaut, often called the camp of St Omer. On the Canal de Neuf-Fosse, near the town, is the Ascenseur des Fontinettes, a hydraulic lift enabling canal boats to surmount a difference of level of over 40 ft.

Omer, bishop of Therouanne, in the 7th century established the monastery of St Bertin, from which that of Notre-Dame was an offshoot. Rivalry and dissension, which lasted till the Revolution, soon sprang up between the two monasteries, becoming especially virulent when in 1559 St Omer became a bishopric and Notre-Dame was raised to the rank of cathedral. In the 9th century the village which grew up round the monasteries took the name of St Omer. The Normans laid the place waste about 860 and 880, but ten years later found town and monastery surrounded by walls and safe from their attack. Situated on the borders of territories frequently disputed by French, Flemish, English and Spaniards, St Omer long continued subject to siege and military disaster. In 1071 Philip I. and Count Arnulf III. of Flanders were defeated at St Omer by Robert the Frisian. In 1127 the town received a communal charter from William Clito, count of Flanders. In 1493 it came to the Low Countries as part of the Spanish dominion. The French made futile attempts against it between 1551 and 1596, and again in 1638 (under Richelieu) and 1647. But in 1677, after seventeen days' siege, Louis XIV. forced the town to capitulate; and the peace of Nijmwegen permanently confirmed the conquest. In 1711 St Omer, on the verge of surrendering to Prince Eugene and the duke of Marlborough, owing to famine, was saved by the daring of Jacqueline Robin, who risked her life in bringing provisions into the place. St Omer ceased to be a bishopric in 180r.

See L. Deschamps de Pas, Hist. de la y ule de Saint-Omer (2nd ed., Arras,.1881). For a full bibliography of other works see U. Chevalier, Repertoire des sources hist. topo-bibliographie (Montbeliard, 1903), ii. 2743 seq.

Bibliography Information
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Saint Marys'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/​encyclopedias/​eng/​bri/​s/saint-marys.html. 1910.
 
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