OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. 



647 



Jan. 24. 1888. He studied law, and at Mansfield, 

 Richland County, where he settled to boy in practice, 

 he became acquainted with the Sherman family, and 

 married Frances, sister of Gen. William T. and Sen- 

 ator John Sherman. From Mansfield he went to To- 

 ledo, and formed a partnership with George K. Hayes. 

 In June, 1861, he was commissioned a captain and 

 quartermaster of Ohio Volunteers, and assigned to 

 duty under Gen. McClellan in western Virginia. He 

 al-.i >erved there under Gens. Reynolds, Fremont, 

 and Pope. In March, 1863, he was appointed lieu- 

 tenant-colonel in the regular army, and ordered to 

 Cincinnati as assistant to Quartermaster -General 

 Swords, where he had charge ot the purchasing of 

 all the supplies for the armies then operating under 

 Gens. Grant and Sherman. He was promoted colonel 

 in 1864, and had charge of the depot, where his ex- 

 penditures averaged 5,000,000 a month the year 

 round, and frequently amounted to $10,000,000 in a 

 single month, till the close of the war. He then re- 

 signed, and resumed the practice of law. first in Cin- 

 cinnati, and afterward in New York citv. He was 

 well versed in revenue, insurance, and admiralty 

 laws, and was counsel for the Government in eases in 

 Louisiana based on infractions of the revenue statutes. 



Mulford, Joseph L,, physician, born in Pemberton, 

 N. J., in 1S30 ; died m New Brunswick, N. J., Feb. 

 5, 1888. He was graduated at the Homoeopathic Med- 

 ical College^ Philadelphia, commissioned surgeon of 

 the Fortv-eighth New York Volunteers in October, 

 1861, and served till the autumn of 1864. He was en- 

 gaged in the Port Royal expedition, was assigned to 

 the staff of the brigade commander, and was promoted 

 to division surire >n. Most of the desperately wounded 

 men at Morris Island. Fort Wagner, and Cold Harbor 

 were placed under his charge, owing to his great skill 

 as an operator. In the autumn of 1864 he was assigned 

 to duty at the hospitals of the general army corps ; in 

 the following May he took charge of the Foster gen- 

 eral hospital at Newbern. N. ('., and was thence 

 transferred to Queensborugh. N. C.. where he was 

 discharged Au ' 25, 1865. After the war he prac- 

 ticed in New Brunswick till 1880 ; when he was ap- 

 pointed acting assistant surgeon m the army. He 

 spent three years with the army in Texas, then re- 

 signed, and was then appointed surgeon for the Metro- 

 politan Life-Insurance Company, New York. 



Neilson, Joseph, lawyer, born in Anryle, N. Y., in 

 1813; died in Brooklyn, N. Y., Jan. "26, 1888. He 

 was of Scotch-Irish lineage, studied law, and prac- 

 ticed in Oswego, N. Y., till 1844, when he removed 

 to New York city, and five years afterward to Brook- 

 lyn. He was chairman of the bar convention that drew 

 up the plan of reorganization of the city court, embod- 

 ied in the constitutional amendment which became 

 law in 18G9-'70, increasing the number of judges of 

 the court to three, was elected a judge of the court, as 

 a Democrat, for fourteen years in 1869, and was chosen 

 Chief-Justice by his associates on the retirement of 

 Judge Thompso'n in 1873. On Dec. 31, 1882, having 

 readied the constitutional limit of age, he retired. He 

 published " Reminiscences of Rufus Choate," and was 

 a contributor to periodicals. 



Nichols, James Robinson, inventor, born in We<t 

 Arnesbury (now Merrimac), Mass., July 18, 1819; 

 died in Ilaverhill. Mass.. Jan. 2, 1888. 'in 1836 he 

 became a clerk in his uncle's drug-store in Ilaverhill, 

 and while so employed devoted considerable atten- 

 tion to scientific reading, and in 1842 attended lect- 

 ures at the medical department of Dartmouth Col- 

 lege. He never practiced his profession, but in 1843 

 established a drug-store in Ha verb ill, and spent his 

 leisure in studying chemistry. In 1S57. having dis- 

 posed of his retail business, he removed to Boston, 

 where he began the manufacture of chemical and med- 

 ical preparations, then a comparatively new industry 

 in this country. In 1872 he retired, and in 1873 was 

 chosen president of the Vermont and Canada Railroad, 

 holding that place until 1878. He introduced new and 

 improved chemical and pharmaceutical compounds, 



and devised simple and economical methods and 

 machinery for their manufacture. His inventions 

 in other fields were numerous. All the modern 

 forms of soda-water apparatus, portable gas-machines, 

 and carbonic-acid fire-extinguishers, as well as the 

 leather-board industry, are based either upon his 

 original patents or inventions. An improved form of 

 hot-air furnace was devised by him in later vears, and 

 is extensively used. Aa an agricultural cnemist he 

 gained a high reputation in consequence of his in- 

 vestigations at Lakeside Farm, which he purchased 

 in 1865. and which was one of the earliest experi- 

 mental farms in the United Suites. He established 

 the " Boston Journal of Chemistry " in 1866, which, 

 in 1883, became ' The Popular Science News," ana 

 was its senior editor. Besides many scientific papers, 

 notably those on agriculture, he published " Chemis- 

 try of the Farm and the Sea" (Boston, 1867); "Fire- 

 side Science" (1869) ; and " Whence, What, Where? 

 a View of the Origin, Nature, and Destiny of Man" 

 (1882). He also issued Dr. James Hinton's ' Mystery 

 of Pain," with an introduction (1 s - 



Noble, Samuel, pioneer, born in Pennsylvania; died 

 in Anniston, Ala.. Aug. 14. 18S8. He was the son of 

 an iron-founder and machinery manufacturer, was 

 apprenticed to that trade, and after serving his time, 

 became his father's assistant. While the Kansa.-~-Ne- 

 braska troubles were at their height, the business was 

 removed to Rome, Ga. When the civil war broke 

 outj the Noble factories were the most extensive of 

 their kind south of Richmond, and during the war 

 they produced a vast quantity of material for the Con- 

 federate Government. In 1872 Gen. Daniel Tyler, a 

 veteran of the regular army, while visiting his son in 

 Charleston, became acquainted with Samuel Noble, 

 and expressed a desire to engage in his old business, 

 iron-manufacturing, if lie could find a suitable loca- 

 tion. Mr. Noble informed him of a place in Ala- 

 bama that answered all the conditions. The locality 

 was visited, the two men formed a company, pur- 

 chased land, and erected a charcoal-furnace at a cost 

 ot' x:>}0,000, and then began building a town. In 

 1879 the town was incorporated, and in 18S8 the 

 worn-out farm of 1872 had been transformed into the 

 citv of Anniston. (See AXNISTON. page . 



Norris, A. Wilson, lawyer, born in Lewiston, Pa., 

 in 1841 ; died in Philadelphia, Pa., May 21, 1888. He 

 was educated at Georgetown College, D. C.. and in- 

 tended studying law, but in November, 1861, he 

 joined the army as a lieutenant in the One Hundred 

 and Seventh Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers. 

 During the battle of Gettysburg.' July, 1863, he was 

 taken prisoner, and afterward was confined in Libby 

 Prison nearly two years. After the war he studied 

 law. was graduated at the law-school of the University 

 of Pennsylvania in 1867, and practiced in Philadel- 

 phia till 1872, when Gov. John F. Hartranft appoint- 

 ed him his private secretary. In 1 876 he was appointed 

 official reporter of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 

 and held the office till January, 1881, and tiien was 

 elected State Senator from the Sixth District. He was 

 appointed United States pension agent at Philadel- 

 phia in 1884, held the office till after the accession of 

 President Cleveland, and was elected Auditor-Gen- 

 eral of Pennsylvania as a Republican in 1886. 



Oakley, Lewis Williams, physician, born in New York 

 city, .Nov. 22. 1828; died in Elizabeth. N. J.. March 

 :;. l^ss. He was graduated at Princeton in 1*49, and 

 at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons 

 in 1852. At the outbreak of the civil war he was ap- 

 pointed assistant surgeon of the Second New Jersey 

 Infantry. May 21, 1861, commissioned surgeon of the 

 Fourth' Infantry in October following, transferred to 

 his former regiment in 1862, and retained his com- 

 mission there "till mustered out of the service in June, 

 In January, 1862, he was appointed sur_vn 

 of the New Jersey Brigade in the first division of the 

 Sixth Army Corps, and served upon the staffs of 

 Gens. Kearny and Tarbert. He was detailed to the 

 general hospital at Harrison's Landing later in the 



