652 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. 



signed to the Sixth Infantry at Benicia, Cal. ; and on 

 Feb. 20, 1862, was placed on the retired list in conse- 

 quence of disabilities incurred in the service. Though 

 unable to perform field duty, he was anxious for mili- 

 tary employment during the civil war, and after his 

 official retirement was chief mustering and disbursing 

 officer of Kentucky 1862-' 63, and of the Department 

 of the Pacific 1863-'64, was acting assistant provost- 

 marshal in San Francisco 1865-'66, was hrevetted 

 brigadier-general. United States Army, March 13, 

 lS'15, and was fully retired in March, 1869. 



Seay, William A.,' lawyer, born in Burkville, Ya., in 

 1831 ; died at Sbreveport, La., Dec. 21, 1888. He was 

 graduated at Princeton College in 1850, subsequently 

 went to St. Louis, became editor of the u Journal^" a 

 Democratic paper, and joined the "Kaw" Society 

 during the Kansas troubles. Removing to Louisiana, 

 he became a teacher in the State Military Academy, 

 and during the civil war was a staff officer, and sub- 

 sequently lieutenant of engineers. He was admitted 

 to the bar, removed to Kapides, and entered upon 

 practice. He served as a Democratic presidential elect- 

 or in 1876, and as district judge and member of the 

 Legislature. He was appointed chairman of the com- 

 mission to revise the statutes of the State, and soon 

 after the completion of this work, he was sent us 

 minister resident to Bolivia. The climate disagree- 

 ing with him, he resigned^ and returning to Louisiana, 

 resumed the practice of his profession at Shreveport. 



Settle, Thomas, jurist, born in Rockingham County, 

 N. C., Jan. 23, 1831 ; died in Raleigh, N. C., Dec. 1, 

 1883. He was graduated at the University of North 

 Carolina in 1850, and soon afterward began the study 

 of law. He became in 1854 a member of the State 

 Legislature, in which he served till 1859, being Speaker 

 of the House during the latter year. He opposed the 

 secession movement, but entered the Confederate 

 Army as captain in the Third North Carolina Regi- 

 ment, and having served one year, returned to the 

 practice of his profession. In 1865 he joined the Re- 

 publican party, and was that year elected to the State 

 Senate, over which he was called to preside. From 

 IS'iS till 1871 he was a judge of the Supreme Court of 

 North Carolina, and from that place was called by 

 President Grant to be United States minister to Peru, 

 in which country he remained but a few months on 

 account of feeble health. In June, 1872, he presided 

 over the National Republican Convention. In 1877 

 he was appointed United States District Judge for the 

 Northern District of Florida. 



Sewall, Samuel Edmund, lawyer, born in Boston, 

 Nov. 9, 1799; died there Dec. 20, 18S8. He was 

 graduated at Harvard in 1817, and at the Law School 

 in 1821, and was admitted to the bar. The anti- 

 slavery cause received from its infancy his most act- 

 ive support, and he was frequently called upon to 

 defend fugitive slaves who were arrested, and threat- 

 ened with a return to captivity. He was himself once 

 arrested for the part lie took in rescuing one of these 

 unfortunates. \V illiam Lloyd Garrison early enlisted 

 him as a supporter, and his pecuniary aid enabled 

 Garrison to establish the "Liberator" and continue 

 it through the first year, and even up to its last vol- 

 ume. He prepared the arguments ana assisted by his 

 counsel and suggestions at the trial of John Brown. 

 For several years he was the Liberty party's candi- 

 date for Governor of Massachusetts. He "is said to 

 have introduced and secured the passage of more bills 

 for the benefit of women than any other man in Mas- 

 sachusetts. Grateful women placed a marble bust of 

 him in Memorial Hall, at Lexington, and a marble 

 tablet beneath it bears a poetic tribute from his inti- 

 mate friend. John G. Whit-tier. 



Sheridan, itary Miner, pioneer, born in Cavan County, 

 Ireland, April 16, 1801 ; died in Somerset, Ohio, June 

 12, 1888. She married John Sheridan, a native of the 

 same county, in 1824 ; removed to Quebec, Canada, 

 in 1829; to Albany, N. Y., in 1830; and to Somerset 

 a few years afterward. While she was living in Al- 

 bany, her oldest child, Philip Henry Sheridan, the 



future General of the Army of the United States, was 

 born, March 6, 1831. She was a woman of remarka- 

 ble courage, pertinacity, and benevolence, was greatly 

 attached to her children, and after their happiness and 

 the discharge of her household duties, found her great- 

 est delight in ministering to the sick and needy of her 

 neighborhood. She became a widow in 1875. 



Sheridan, Philip Henry, soldier, died in Nonquitt, 

 Mass., Aug. 5, 1888. His birthplace has been sup- 

 posed to be Somerset, Ohio, but it was recently as- 

 certained to be Albany, N. Y. (For a full sketch of 

 his career, with a portrait on steel, see the "Annual 

 Cyclopaedia" for 1883. page 497.) During his last ill- 

 ness, a bill was passea by Congress and signed by the 

 President, restoring the grade of full general in the 

 United States Army, and Gen. Sheridan was ap- 

 piiiutx-d to that rank and immediately confirmed. 



Sibley, Hiram, financier, born in North Adams, Mass., 

 Feb. 6, 1807 ; died in Rochester^ N. Y., July 1-j. 1888. 

 At an early age he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, 

 but the trade was displeasing to him, and he set out, 

 on completing his seventeenth year, tor Lima, N. Y., 

 where lie found employment in a cotton - factory. 

 Here he remained until the age of twenty-one, when 

 he established a machine-shop at a place now called 

 Sibleyville, in Monroe County. At the end of ten 

 years he had established a business which he sold out 

 for a sum that enabled him to remove to Rochester 

 and there open a banking-house. Within five years 

 he was elected sheriff of Monroe County. In 1854 he 

 became associated with Ezra Cornell, and with him 

 was largely interested in telegraph companies and 

 grants under the Morse patent. Together they ab- 

 sorbed and brought into one large company twenty 

 others, in which about $7,000,000^ had been invested, 

 and thus organized the Western Union Telegraph 

 Company, which was chartered by the Legislatures of 

 Wisconsin and New York hi 1856. ( >f this company 

 he was the first president, and so remained till 1866, 

 when failing health compelled him to retire. In 1860 

 he undertook his transcontinental telegraph, for the 

 promotion of which Congress passed an act granting 

 an annual subsidy for ten years of $40,000. Soon 

 afterward the Ove'rland Teleirraph Company was or- 

 ganized in San Francisco, and subsequently the Sib- 

 ley and Overland interests were united under the 

 name of the Pacific Telegraph Company. Five years 

 afterward telegraphic communication from ocean to 

 ocean was at the service of the public. Mr. Sibley's 

 next project was to establish telegraphic communica- 

 tion with Europe by way of Asia, across Behring 

 Strait. Wires were actually strung in Siberia and in 

 Alaska, but the successful laying of the Atlantic cable 

 put an end to this enterprise. After retiring from the 

 Western Union Company, he established a seed and 

 nursery business in Rochester, for which he bought, in 

 various parts of the country, 57,000 acres of land. He 

 entered also into mining operations. Notwithstand- 

 ing all his business cares he was public spirited, and 

 spent large sums of money in philanthropic and char- 

 itable objects. He founded the Sibley College of Me- 

 chanical Arts nt Cornell University, built and pre- 

 sented Sibley Hall" to the University of Rochester; 

 built a church in his native town, North Adams ; con- 

 tributed largely to the charitable institutions of Roch- 

 ester ; and performed a thousand charitable deeds that 

 will never be publicly known. 



Simpson, Edward, naval officer, born in New York 

 city, March 3, 1824; died in Washington, D. C., Dec. 

 2, 1888. He entered the naval service Feb. 11, 1840, 

 and was in the steamer " Vixen," on the coast of Mexi- 

 co, during the Mexican War, taking part in the attacks 

 upon the forts of Alvarado and Taoasco, and in the 

 capture of Tampico. In 1856 he joined the sloop 

 " Portsmouth," and was engaged in the bombardment 

 and capture of the Barrier Forts in Canton river, 

 China. Returning home, he entered upon duty at the 

 Naval Academy as instructor in naval gunnery and 

 commandant of midshipmen. In 1862 he was com- 

 missioned lieutenant-commander, and while in com- 



