DE COSTA, Benjamin Franklin, clergyman, born in Charlestown, Mass.. 10 July 1831. He was graduated at the Biblical institute, Concord, New Hampshire, in 1856, and entered the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was rector at North Adams, Massachusetts, from 1857 till 1858, when he went to Newton Lower Falls, where he remained until 1860. During the civil war he was chaplain of the 5th and 18th Massachusetts infantry, and was in the battles of Bull Run and Yorktown. In 1863 he settled in New York and engaged in journalism. He was the editor of the "Christian Times" in 1863, of the "Episcopalian" in 1864, and of the "Magazine of American History" in 1882, and one of the founders of the Huguenot society of America. In 1884 he organized the first branch of the " White Cross Society," and is its president. He was also one of the original promoters and organizers of the Church Temperance Society, of which he was the first secretary. He is now (1887) rector of the Church of St. John the Evangelist in New York City, and, in addition to his religious work, is active in social movements, and has often addressed the workingmen upon the relations between capital and labor. The College of William and Mary conferred the degree of D. D. upon him in 1881. He is a member of various literary associations. He has published "The Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen" (Albany, 1869); "Sailing Directions of Henry Hudson, prepared for his Use in 1608" (1869); " The Northmen in Name (1870); The Moabite Stone" (New York, 1870); "The Rector of Roxburgh," a novel, under the nora de plume of William Hickling (1873); several monographs in regard to Mount Desert and Lake George; and "Cabo de Baxos" and "Cabo de Arenas," studies in cartology. He contributed to volumes iii and iv of the "Narrative and Critical History of America." He has edited White's " Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church" (1881).