OBITUARY NOTICES. IX 



a fine character, and, having these better things, he had no cause 

 to envy people who have wealth and nothing more. 



In the later years of his life Mr. Fraley had to endure the physi- 

 cal infirmities of old age in diminished powers of locomotion and 

 in defective eyesight, amounting almost to blindness. He bore his 

 trials patiently and bravely, and he was spared the more distressing 

 infirmities of old age, for he retained his clearness of mind to the 

 last hour of his conscious existence. 



It is not surprising that Mr. Fraley should have lived to years far 

 beyond the period of the life of most men, for he inherited from 

 his sturdy ancestry a vigorous constitution, he led a regular and 

 a temperate life, without excesses and without undue restraint upon 

 enjoyment, he never gave way to anger or to vain repinings, and he 

 was uniformly cheerful and hopeful. 



Mr. Fraley was born in the last year of President Jefferson's first 

 administration and he died after President Roosevelt had succeeded 

 to office. During his lifetime the railway, the steamship, the tele- 

 graph, and the telephone have revolutionized civilized existence ; 

 villages have grown to be great cities ; our country has survived 

 the shock of foreign and of civil war ; its States, which had been 

 separated by distance and by time, and which had been united 

 only in name, have been welded into a nation which is to-day one 

 of the great empires of the world. In other countries ruler after 

 ruler has ascended the throne and has in his turn passed away ; 

 frontiers of kingdoms have been obliterated and new frontiers 

 created ; and the map of Europe, of Asia, and of Africa has been 

 changed again and again. 



To have lived through the period when these momentous events 

 were happening, and after ninety-seven years to have died in the 

 unimpaired enjoyment of his mental faculties, would have made 

 any man remarkable ; but Frederick Fraley, as he was known to the 

 men who were closest to him, was remarkable not only because of 

 his long life and not only because of the century, through almost 

 the whole of which he had lived, but also and chiefly because of 

 his varied knowledge, his power of expression, his steadfastness of 

 purpose, and his many attractive qualities. 



It can be said of Frederick Fraley, as of few men, that he never 

 shrank from the performance of any duty, that he was faithful to 

 every trust, that his continued living was a pleasure and his death 



a personal loss to all who knew him. 



C. Stuart Patterson. 



