410. 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (BLAISDELL BOUTELLE.) 



father's farm to carry on his studies, earning the 

 money for tuition and books by teaching. Hard 

 work and study soon broke down his health, and 

 in 1835, having become deeply interested in the 

 slavery question, he accepted the office of general 

 business manager, publishing agent, and assistant 

 treasurer of the New York Antislavery Society, 

 and assistant editor of The Friend of Man, an 

 antislavery paper published in Utica. He removed 

 to Boston in 1842, and in 1844 was admitted to 

 the bar. He practised for a time, but the suc- 

 cess of his Commentaries on the Law of Marriage 

 and Divorce and Evidence in Matrimonial Suits 

 (1856), influenced him to devote his entire time 

 to the writing of law-books. The honorary degree 

 of Doctor Juris Utriusque was conferred by the 

 University of Bern, Switzerland. He was a 

 trustee of the Social Law Library from 1844 to 

 1871, and in the early fifties he was tendered the 

 appointment of Chief Justice of the Hawaiian 

 Islands by King Kamehameha III. He never 

 held public office. His other important law 

 treatises are: Marriage, Divorce, and Separation; 

 Commentaries on Criminal Law (2 vols., 1856- 

 '58); New Criminal Law; Criminal Procedure; 

 First Book of the Law; The Law of Married 

 Women; Statutory Crimes; Law of Contracts; 

 The Written Laws; Directions and Forms; Non- 

 Contract Law; New Criminal Procedure. He also 

 wrote Thoughts for the Times; The Law of Nolle 

 Prosequi in Criminal Cases; Secession and Sla- 

 very; Strikes and their Related Questions; and 

 Common Law and Codification. He was also an 

 occasional contributor to periodicals. 



Blaisdell, Elijah W., politician, born in Mont- 

 pelier, Vt., in 1826; died in Rockford, 111., Jan. 

 14, 1901. In 1853 he settled in Rockford, 111. He 

 purchased the Rockford Forum, changed its name 

 to The Republican, and began an agitation 

 against slavery. He advocated forming a party 

 that should stand against the extension of human 

 bondage. He called a mass meeting of the citi- 

 zens of his congressional district and offered a 

 resolution that a new party should be formed to 

 be known as " the Republican party," and it was 

 passed without a dissenting voice. Shortly after- 

 ward Mr. Blaisdell attended the convention in 

 Springfield and listened to the great antislavery 

 speech of Abraham Lincoln. The trend of the 

 speech led the editor to urge Lincoln for the presi- 

 dential nomination of the Republican party, then 

 forming. 



Blodget, Lorin, statistician and economist, 

 born near Jamestown, N. Y., May 25, 1823; died 

 in Philadelphia, Pa., March 24, "1901. He was 

 educated at Jamestown Academy and at Geneva 

 (now Hobart) College. In November, 1851, he 

 was made an assistant in the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution. His earliest work was researches in 

 climatology. His papers on atmospheric physics 

 were among the first published in this country, 

 and performed an important part in establishing 

 the science in the United States. From 1852 till 

 1856, in the employ of the War Department on 

 the Pacific Railway survey, he directed the deter- 

 mination of altitudes and gradients by means of 

 the barometer. In 1863 he took charge of the 

 financial and statistical reports of the Treasury 

 Department, and was connected with that depart- 

 ment till his resignation from Government service 

 in 1877, He was appraiser-at-large of customs 

 from 1865 till 1877, and special assistant of the 

 Treasury Department in 1874 and 1875. He was 

 secretary of the Philadelphia Board of Trade from 

 1858 till 1865; editor of the Philadelphia North 

 American from 1859 till 1864; and four times was 

 in charge of the industrial census of Philadelphia. 



His writings, besides editorials, amount to 150 

 volumes and 350 pamphlets. His Climatology 

 of the United States, and of the Temperate Lati- 

 tudes of the North American Continent (1857) 

 was highly praised by Humboldt, and reached a 

 large circulation both in America and abroad. 

 His Commercial and Financial Resources of the 

 United States (1864) sold more than 30,000 copies, 

 was reprinted in Nuremberg, and did much to 

 sustain American credit in Europe. 



Bolton, Charles Edward, lecturer and author, 

 born in South Hadley Falls, Mass., May 16, 1841; 

 died in East Cleveland, Ohio, Oct. 23, 1901. After 

 graduation at Amherst College in 1865 he en- 

 gaged in business in Cleveland, and patented sev- 

 eral inventions. He traveled extensively in 

 America and Europe, and took a deep interest in 

 economic problems, to the study of which he 

 devoted much time in his later years, giving talks 

 to the workmen in the various workshops of 

 Cleveland in furtherance of his plans for educa- 

 tional improvement. He founded the Cleveland 

 Educational Bureau, which for several seasons 

 gave educational entertainments to large audi- 

 ences. He was several times mayor of East Cleve- 

 land, a locality which he described in an article 

 in the Review of Reviews for November, 1899, 

 under the heading A Model Village. He pub- 

 lished Notes from Letters (1892), A Few Civic 

 Problems of Greater Cleveland (1897), and A 

 Model Village and Other Papers (1901). 



Boutelle, Charles Addison, Congressman, 

 born in Damariscotta, Me., Feb. 9, 1839; died in 

 Waverly, Mass., May 21, 1901. His father was a 

 shipmaster, and after giving his son such educa- 

 tion as could be obtained in the public schools of 

 Brunswick and at Yarmouth Academy, allowed 

 him to choose his own profession. Young Bou- 

 telle went to sea at the age of fifteen and followed 

 a seafaring life till the close of the civil war. He 

 became a master in 1860, and returning from a 

 foreign cruise in 1862, promptly offered his skill 

 and experience in the naval service of his coun- 

 try. He was commissioned acting master in the 

 navy, and served in the North and South Atlantic 

 squadrons and the West Gulf squadron, taking 

 part, on the gunboat Paul Jones, in the blockade 

 of Charleston and Wilmington,, in the Pocotaligo 

 expedition, the capture of St. John's Bluff, and the 

 occupation of Jacksonville, Fla. He was de- 

 tached June 28, 1863, but returned to duty Aug. 

 27 of the same year. While an officer of the 

 United States steam gunboat Sassacus he was ap- 

 pointed to the grade of acting volunteer lieu- 

 tenant for gallant conduct in the engagement with 

 the Confederate ironclad Albemarle on May 5, 

 1864. As commander of the United States steam- 

 ship Nyanza he served under Farragut, participat- 

 ing in the battle of Mobile Bay, and receiving the 

 surrender of the Confederate fleet. He was also 

 for a time in command of the naval forces in Mis- 

 sissippi Sound. He was honorably discharged 

 from the service at his own request, Jan. 14, 1866. 

 For a short time he was the captain of a steamer 

 running between New York and Wilmington, and 

 afterward he engaged in the commission business 

 in New York city. In 1870, at the suggestion of 

 James G. Elaine,* he was chosen managing editor 

 of the Bangor Whig and Courier, Bangor, Me. In 

 May, 1874, he became its proprietor, and re- 

 mained its owner till his death. His editorial 

 articles at once brought him conspicuously be- 

 fore the community, and he soon became recog- 

 nized as a factor in the political life not alone 

 of Maine, but of all the Eastern States. He held 

 prominent places in the delegations to the Re- 

 publican National Conventions of 1876, 1880, 1884, 



