OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. 



627 



of its managers, and completed the work in 1844. He 

 '/.i-d the first steamboat-line on that river, 



and the first transportation-line across the mountains ; 

 consolidated all the Adams Express lines between 

 Boston, Richmond, and St. Louis, and was < 

 president of the consolidated company in 135' 



-Merit of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Rail- 

 road Company in 1856, and of the organizations that 

 consolidated under the name of the Jflttsbuig, 

 Wayne, and Chicago Railway Company in 1357, hold- 

 ing 'the latter office twenty-six years; and was Presi- 

 :' the Northern Pacific Railroad Company from 

 187-2 till 1-77. 



Cathcart, Charles W., farmer, born in the Island of 

 Madeira, in I-' 1 ','; died in Michigan City, Ind.. A,i_'. 



-. He followed the sea for several years, stud- 

 ied mechanics, settled in La Porte, Ind.. in 1331. be- 

 came a Government land-surveyor, and engaged in 

 farming. After serving two terms in the - 



lature. he was elected a member of Congress in 1844 

 and 1346, and in 1849 was appointed United 

 Senator. He retained the oflice till 1853, and then 

 resumed farming. 



Cheever, Byron William, scientist, born in Ellisburg. 

 Jefferson County. N. Y.. Sept. 17. 1841 ; died in Ann 

 Arbor, Mich.. March 6, 1888. He was graduated at 

 the Univer>ity of Michigan with the degree of A. B. 

 . and with that of M. D. in 1867. ' During the 

 interval of his courses in arts and medicine, he ap- 

 plied himself to chemical work, partly in Philadel- 

 phia and partly in the West Indies. After receiving 

 his medical diploma 2 he was t-n_r:;_:ed as an analytical 

 and consulting chemist in Philadelphia two years, and 

 was then employed in professional work in the Rocky 

 mountain mining-region till 1872. He then returned 

 to Ann Arbor, somewhat broken in health. Fearing 

 the effects of further work in a chemical laboratory, 

 he studied law, but still applied the greater part ot his 

 time to chemical work till 1^73, when he became in- 

 structor in quantitative analysis in the chemical lab- 

 oratory of the University of Michigan. In 1881 his 

 duties' were enlarged, and he was appointed to the 

 chair of Metallurgy. 



Chonteau, Berenice, pioneer, born in Kaska-kia, 111., 

 : : died in K Mo., Nov. 20. 1888. She 



laughter of Col. Peter Menard, first Territorial 

 Governor "of Illinois, received a good education, and 

 when eighteen years old married Francis F. Chouteau. 

 whose family were noted French fur-traders, and 

 founded and managed for many years the American 

 Fur Company. She made her wedding-journey on a 

 flat-boat up the Missouri river to Black Snake Hills, 

 afterward the site of the city of St. Joseph, and after 

 living there two years accompanied her husband to 

 the present Kansas City, where he established the 

 first tradiug-post in that section and built a log-house 

 in the woods where the Union Railroad station now 

 stands. In 132'), and again in 1844. her husband lost 

 nearly all his land and property, but, acquiring nr^t 

 of the valuable farming-land in the vicinity of the 

 mouth of the Kansas river, he subsequently became 

 wealthy. She was very liberal with the large fortune 

 Liven her by her husband, was a devout Roman Cath- 

 olic, and built the first church in Kansas City. The 

 city is built upon a portion of her property, and other 



acts are occupied by people who 'derive their 

 title from squatter settlers. A few years ago she 



a, involving more than 

 -.ncl two weeks before her death the courts 

 decided that she had lost all claim to the property, 

 through the statute of limitation. 



Christman, Joseph Alonzo, lawyer, born in Evansburg, 

 Montgomery County, Pa., 6 "...din ParK 



France, April 5, 1S58. He was graduated at Yale in 

 ud afterward taught in the Smith till the be- 

 ginning of the civil war. He served during the war on 

 the start' 01 Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, and at the battle 

 of Pea Ridge, Ark., was severely wounded. At the 

 close of the war he removed to Louisville, Ky., was 

 admitted to the bar, and began practice in St. Louis. 



In 1867 he was appointed United States District- Attor- 

 ney for California. He re.-umed practice in St. 

 at the expiration of Ins term, and remained there till 

 1^7'!. when his health uave way. He then went to 

 Paris, and with several aco uaintances established a 

 banking house, with which lie was connected till 

 death. He left a valuable estate, out of which he be- 

 queathed $60,000 T iversity, and 10,000 to 

 St. James's Church at Evansburg. 



Clarke, James Freeman, an American clergyman, born 

 in Hanover, N. II., April 4. 1810; died "in Jamaica 

 Plain, Mass., June 8, 1888. He was a gran, 

 the Rev. James Freeman, the first clergyman in the 

 United States that preached Unitarian doctrines, with 

 whom he spent the first ten years of his life. He was 

 graduated at Harvard in 1829, at the Cambridge Divin- 

 >ol, in 1533. and accepted a call from the Uni- 

 tarian Church in Louisville, Ky., where he preached 

 till 1840, and edited the " Western Messenger." He 

 returned to Boston in 1841. and became a founder and 

 the pastor of the Church of the Disciples iu April of 

 that year, and i excepting an interval, l&50-'53; held 

 that office continuously till his death. The pastor 

 and his congregation made the church absolutely free 

 to all, and combined in their service the forms of wor- 

 ship in the Protestant Episcopal and Congregational 

 Churches with those of the Friends. Mr. Clarke was 

 an intimate friend of Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo 

 Emerson, and William Ellery Channing, an overseer 

 of Harvard University for many years, and one of the 

 first advocates of the movement for the admission of 

 women to the full privileges of study there ; an early 

 promoter of the anti-slavery cause ;'a friend of every 

 practical scheme to advance the moral and material 

 welfare of humanity ; a voluminous writer, apart from 

 his sermons; and an eloquent pulpit and platform 

 orator. During his long pastorate he also neld the 

 offices of Secretary of the American Unitarian Asso- 

 ciation. 1859-' 62; Professor of Natural Theology and 

 Christian Doctrine in Harvard. 1&']7-'71 ; lecturer 

 on ethnic religion in Cambridge Divinity School, 

 77 : and State Commissioner of Education, 

 1863-*70. His published works embrace a translation 

 of De Wette's " Theodore ' (Louisville, 1840) ; " Serv- 

 ice and Hymn Book for the Church of the Disci- 

 ples" (Boston, 1844) : History of the Campaign of 

 131-2. and Defense of Gen. William Hull for the Sur- 

 render of Detroit" (New York, 1848); "Christian 

 Doctrine of Forgiveness of Sin '' flSoii ; " Christian 

 Doctrine of Prave. " Orthodoxy : its Truths 



and Errors" (1866); "Steps of Belief," or Rational 

 Christianity maintained against Atheism, Free Relig- 

 ion, and Romanism " (1870) ; " Ten Great Religions" 

 ' -3 1 : " Exotics : Attempts to domesticate them" 

 (1876) ; " Essentials and Non-Essentials in Religion " 

 (1878); "Memorial and Biographical Sketches" 



ual of Unitarian Belief " (1884); " E very-day Relig- 

 ion" (1886 1 : and "Vexed Questions "' (1&S6;. fie 

 received the degree D. D. from Harvard in 1863. 



Coffin, Eoland Folger, journalist, born in Brooklvn, 

 N. Y.. Mar .led at Prospect, Shelter Isl- 



and Heights, July 16. 18&8. He came of old English, 

 sea-farina: stock, and for more than two centuries his 

 family had lived on Nantucket Island. At the time 

 of his birth his father was captain of a large mer- 

 chantman plying between Liverpool and New York. 

 He became a clerk in New 1 ork : in Is46 he shipped 

 before the ma-t. and after making several voyages 

 was taken by his father aboard his own vessel, on 

 which he became first mate. When the elder Coffin 

 retired, the son took command of a merchantman and 

 handled it so skillfully that he found stvady employ- 

 ment afterward and succeeded his father as captain. 

 At the outbreak of the civil war he enlisted in the 

 United States Navy, >erved on the " Monitor" in her 

 famous fight with the Merrimac," and was subsquent- 

 ly master of the " Ericsson." He returned to the 



