628 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. 



mercantile navy at the close of the war, and in 1869 

 retired to become a short hand reporter and engage in 

 journalism. In the following year he was appointed 

 nautical editor of the New York " World," and held 

 that place till death. Besides special reports on 

 yachting events, he published " The Queen's Cup," 

 ''Old Sailors' Yarns," and " Archibald the Cat." 



Collins, Richard Henry, historian, born in Maysville, 

 Ky., in 1824; died in Louisville, Ky.. Jan. 1. 1888. 

 He was son of Judge Lewis Collins, the first histo- 

 rian of Kentucky, and was editor and publisher of 

 the Maysville "Eagle" for many years. He iwiscd 

 and greatly enlarged his father's history of Kentucky. 

 He led a very secluded lite, if not one of actual want. 

 He was an accomplished writer, excessively modest, 

 and had received the degree of LL. D. 



Colyer, Vincent, artist, born in Bloomingdale, N. Y., 

 in 1825 ; died on Contentment Island, Conn., July 12, 

 1888. He studied painting with J. K. Smith, arid in 

 the school of the National Academy of Design, and 

 began exhibiting at the Academy in 1848. His early 

 work was on portraits and ideal heads in crayon, but 

 these were soon superseded by portraits in 'oil. He 

 remained in New York city till the outbreak of the 

 civil war, then removed to Rowayton, Conn., origi- 

 nated the Christian Commission, and rendered valu- 

 able services to the soldiers at home, in hospitals, and 

 on the field, till the close of the war. He was after- 

 ward appointed a member of the Board of Indian 

 Commissioners, and elected a member of the Con- 

 necticut Legislature. He was elected an associate of 

 the National Academy of Design in 1849, and was a 

 founder of the Artists' Fund Society, and its first 

 secretary. His paintings include "A Loyal Ref- 

 ugee" (1863); ' f A Soldier's Widow," " Dariensbire. 

 Conn.," " A Rainy Day on the Connecticut Shore," 

 and "Winter on the Connecticut Shore" (1867); 

 "Johnson Straits, British Columbia"; "Home of 

 the Yalhamas, Oregon " ; " Spring Flowers " (1885) ; 

 " Moonlight on the Grand Canal, Venice," and " Val- 

 ley of the Lauterbrunnen, Bridal Veil Fall, Switzer- 

 land (1886) ; and " Lake Maggiore, Italy " (1888). 



Corcoran, William Wilson, philanthropist, born in 

 Georgetown, D. C., Dec. 27, 1798; died in Washing- 

 ton, D. C., Feb. 24, 1888. He received a collegiate 

 education in his native place, and carried on a com- 

 bined dry-goods, auction, and commission business, 

 with two brothers from 1815 till 1823, when the strin- 

 gency of the financial market led to their suspension. 

 He then became a clerk first in a local bank of which 

 Gen. John Mason was president, and in the Wash- 

 ington branch of the United States Bank, where he 

 was placed in charge of its real estate. He began the 

 banking business for himself in 1837, and formed a 

 partnership with George W. Riggs, whose father, Eii- 

 sha Riggs, had greatly aided both Mr. Corcoran and 

 George Peabody m their first business efforts in 1840. 

 In the following year he was appointed financial agent 

 of the State Department, and laid the foundation of 

 his great wealth by taking $5,000,000 of Government 

 bonds at 101 and floating them after other agents had 

 failed to secure the money the Government then great- 

 ly needed. His success m this operation induced the 

 Government to offer him the first opportunity to nego- 

 tiate the bonds issued at the beginning of the Mexican 

 War, and he quickly disposed of from $45,000,000 to 

 $50.000,000 of them, in London. In 1848 he again went 

 to London, and placed a large block of a further loan, 

 and on his return was given a great reception by the 

 bankers and capitalists of New York. In 1854 he re- 

 tired from the banking business, with a la_rge fortune, 

 which was subsequently augmented by investments 

 in real estate. In 1857 he conceived the idea of his first 

 great and enduring public benefaction. He had pre- 

 sented to his native city a plot of ten acres on the 

 Heights for the now beautiful Oak Hill Cemetery, to- 

 gether with a liberal endowment ; had sent $5,000 to 

 Ireland to relieve sufferers by famine ; and had fur- 

 nished the means of transporting a large body of Hun- 

 garians from New York to homes in the West. He 



now began erecting the grand art gallery bearing his 

 name, and had scarcely finished the exterior when the 

 civil war broke out, and the Government took the 

 elegant building for military purposes, and converted 

 his suburban residence into a liospital. After the war 

 he resumed work on the art gallery, and it was opened 

 to the public in 1874. The building cost him $200,000 ; 

 he endowed it with $900,000, and began its prieeks.-j 

 collections with statuary and paintings from his Wash- 

 ington mansion, worth $100,000. His next work was 

 the erection of a memorial to his dead wife and daugh- 

 ter, which took the form of the Louise Home for In- 

 digent Gentlewomen, and cost him $200,000 for the 

 building and $250,000 for an endowment, besides the 

 ground. He gave $250,000 to Columbian University, 

 of Wa>hington, richly endowed several chairs in the 

 University of Virginia, and put William and Mary 

 ( 'ollcge oil a solid financial basis ; and had the remains 

 of John Howard Payne, author of "Home, Sweet 

 Home," transferred from Tunis to Oak Hill Cemetery, 

 and erected a suitable monument over them. Trie 

 value of his public, educational, and charitable bene- 

 factions was estimated at from $3,000,000 to $5,000,- 

 000 ; and he bequeathed $100,000 to the art gallery, to 

 which he had already given $1,500,000; 50, 



the Louise Home, which had bad $500,000; .">. > 



each to three orphan asvlums in the District of Co- 

 lumbia ; and $3,000 to the Little Sisters of the Poor. 



Corliss, George Henry, inventor, born in Easton, N. Y., 

 July 2. 1817 ; died in Providence, R. 1., Feb. 21, 1888. 

 He was the son of Dr. Hiram Corliss, and in 1825 re- 

 moved to Greenwich, N. Y., where he attended school. 

 After serving for several years as clerk in a cotton- 

 factorv he spent three years in the academy at Castle- 

 ton, Vt., and in 1838 he opened a store in Greenwich. 

 His mechanical skill was first shown in temporarily 

 rebuilding a bridge that had been washed away by 'a 

 freshet, after it had been decided that such a struct- 

 ure was impracticable ; and soon afterward he devised 

 a machine for stitching leather, before the invention 

 of the original Howe sewing-machine. In 1844 he 

 removed to Providence, R. I., where he organized the 

 firm of Corliss, Nightingale & Co., and in 1846 began 

 his improvements in steam-engines which he patented 

 in 1849. In these inventions, uniformity of motion 

 was secured by connecting the governor with the cut- 

 off. The governor had previously been made to do 

 the work of moving the throttle-valve, the result be- 

 ing an imperfect response and a great loss of power. 

 By his improvement, the governor did no work, but 

 simply indicated to the valves the work to be done. 

 This arrangement also prevented waste of steam, and 

 rendered the working of the engine so uniform that if 

 all but one of a hundred looms in a factory were sud- 

 denly stopped, that one would continue working at 

 the same rate. It is said that his improvements revo- 

 lutionized the construction of the steam-engine. In 

 introducing the new engines, the inventor and manu- 

 facturers adopted the plan of offering to take as their 

 pay the saving of fuel for a given time. In one case, 

 the saving in a year is said to have been $4,000. It 

 required a legal contest extending over fifteen years, 

 and an expense of over $100,000, to obtain a decla- 

 ration that this invention was new and patentable. 

 In 1856 the Corliss Steam-Engine Company was incor- 

 porated, and he became its president. The works 

 erected during 1848-'oO occupy nine acres, and are the 

 most extensive of the kind in the world. An order 

 for an engine of 350 horse-power, including boilers 

 and all the appurtenances, has been executed in sixty 

 days. During the past twenty years Mr. Corliss pat- 

 ented many other important inventions connected 

 with the steam-engine, including an improved boiler 

 with an apparatus for condensing and using over again 

 the waste steam, thus obviating the necessity of em- 

 ploying salt-water in marine engines. His greatest 

 achievement was the mammoth steam-engine used in 

 Machinery Hall at the World's Fair held in Philadel- 

 phia in 1876, of which he was the designer and build- 

 er. It was of 1,400 horse-power, and, although used 



