416 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (CHANNING COLES.) 



(1886). He will probably be longest remembered 

 by the lines, from A Poet's Hope 



Hope hath happy place with me ; 

 If iny bark sink, 'tis to another sea. 



At his best Channing is stimulating and sugges- 

 tive, but his verse suffers much from^ wilful dis- 

 regard of the requirements of his art. 



Channing, William Francis, scientist, born 

 in Boston, Mass., Feb. 22, 1820; died there, March 

 20, 1901. He was a son of the elder William El- 

 lery Channing. He was graduated at Harvard in 

 1839, and took a course in medicine at the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania, receiving his diploma in 

 1844, but never 'practising his profession. Even 

 while pursuing these studies he was engaged in 

 1841 and 1842 on the first geological survey of 

 New Hampshire, and for the two years following 

 was associated with Dr. Henry I. Bowditch in the 

 editorship of the Latimer Journal in Boston. 

 With Prof. Moses G. Farmer Dr. Channing worked 

 for the ten years following 1841 in developing the 

 fire-alarm telegraph, and the apparatus, patented 

 in 1857, is still in general use. Nine years later 

 he patented a railroad for transporting ships 

 overland, and in 1877 invented the hand telephone- 

 receiver, which was subsequently purchased by 

 the Bell Telephone Company. He also invented 

 many appliances for use in medical electricity. 

 He was a frequent contributor to scientific jour- 

 nals on electrical subjects and wrote the first 

 books on electricity as applied to medicine. Dur- 

 ing the abolition movement Dr. Channing was a 

 leader among the agitators. 



Chenery, Leonard, naval officer, born in 

 Northampton, Mass., in 1846; died in New York 

 city, March 10, 1901. He was graduated at the 

 Naval Academy in 1865. He was attached to the 

 Swatara till 1867, part of the time in the West 

 Indies and part of the time on European sta- 

 tions. From 1867 till 1869 he was attached to 

 the Guerriere, the flagship of Rear-Admiral 

 Charles H. Davis, on the Brazilian station. He 

 was flag-lieutenant of the Pacific station on Com- 

 modore Stembel's staff from 1871 till 1872, and he 

 was attached to the Saranac from 1872 till 1874 

 on Pacific stations. From 1875 till 1877 he was 

 attached to the monitor Catskill, on the North 

 Atlantic station, and from 1879 till 1881 he was 

 stationed at Mare Island Navy- Yard. He was 

 commissioned lieutenant-commander in 1879. He 

 retired from active service Dec. 20, 1881. In the 

 Spanish-American War he volunteered his serv- 

 ices, and acted as recruiting officer for the navy 

 in the New York district. 



Cheney, Albert Nelson, fish-culturist, born in 

 Olens Falls, N. Y., May 3, 1849; died there, Aug. 

 17, 1901. He was educated at Glens Falls Acad- 

 my, Sedgwick School, Mass., and Abbott School, 

 Mass. He was commissioned captain in the 31st 

 New York Volunteers while still under age. In 

 1870 he began the study of pisciculture, and at his 

 death he was recognized as one of the highest 

 authorities in the subject. He was for nine years 

 a regular contributor to Forest and Stream, and 

 he was fishery editor of Shooting and Fishing, 

 conducted the Angling Notes in the American 

 Angler, and was a contributor to the London Fish- 

 ing Gazette and to other periodicals. He was 

 commissioned by the United States Fish Com- 

 mission to select waters and streams for stocking, 

 and in 1895 he was appointed State Fish Culturist 

 of New York, serving till his death. 



Cheney, Person C., ex-Governor of New Hamp- 

 shire, born in Holderness, N. H., Feb. 25, 1828; 

 died in Dover, N. H., June 19, 1901. At the age 

 of seventeen he took charge of his father's paper- 



mill, and in eight years built a larger one. He 

 represented Peterboro in the Legislature in 1853; 

 he was quartermaster of the 13th New Hampshire 

 Regiment from 1862 until 1863, and railroad com- 

 missioner from 1864 to 1867, after which time he 

 ^resided in Manchester. In 1871 he was elected 

 mayor of that city. In 1875 and 1876 he was 

 elected Governor of the State. In January, 1887, 

 he was appointed United States Senator to fill a 

 vacancy. In December, 1892, he was appointed 

 minister to Switzerland, where he served till June, 

 1893. 



Chisnell, Newton Clarence, actor, born in 

 Greensburg, Ohio, in 1857; died in Akron, Ohio, 

 April 10, 1901. His first engagement was with 

 Edwin Booth, although he had appeared previ- 

 ously in amateur performances. He afterward 

 appeared successively with Mary Anderson, Sal- 

 vini, and the French actress Aimee. He was for 

 several years a leading comedian in Hoyt's farces, 

 acting roles in A Trip to Chinatown, A Texas 

 Steer, and A Temperance Town. He also acted 

 with Frank Mayo in Puddin'head Wilson. His 

 last appearance was with Way Down East at the 

 New York Academy of Music, in 1900. 



Clarke, Thomas Curtis, engineer, born in 

 Newton, Mass., Sept. 16, 1827; died in New York 

 city, June 15, 1901. He was a younger brother of 

 the late Rev. James Freeman Clarke. He was grad- 

 uated at Harvard in 1848, studied engineering, and 

 devoted himself to railroad building. He later made 

 bridge engineering his specialty, and designed and 

 constructed some of the most remarkable bridges 

 and viaducts in the country. One of his earliest 

 works was the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy 

 bridge that spans the Mississippi at Quincy, 111. 

 This bridge Mr. Clarke built without the inter- 

 vention of contractors (except for the ironwork). 

 He designed the plant and all the machinery, and, 

 in spite of a season of unusually high water, he 

 opened the bridge for traffic in fifteen months 

 after beginning its construction. Mr. Clarke was 

 the senior partner in the firm of Clarke, Reeves 

 & Co., of Phoenixville, Pa., which afterward be- 

 came the Phoenix Bridge Company. The work of 

 this company comprised not only many of the 

 most important bridges that have been built, but 

 a considerable part of the elevated railroads of 

 New York. One of the famous works in which 

 he was specially interested while at Phoenixville 

 was the Kinzau Viaduct. In 1884 Mr. Clarke be- 

 came one of the original members of the Union 

 Bridge Company, which built in Australia the 

 famous Hawkesbury Bridge, considered one of the 

 most brilliant achievements of American engineers 

 in foreign lands, and the bridge across the Hud- 

 son at Poughkeepsie, the foundations of which 

 are 135 feet below the water. Of this Mr. Clarke 

 had especial charge. He was president of the 

 American Society of Civil Engineers in 1896, and 

 was Telford gold medalist of the Institute of 

 Civil Engineers of London, England. He wrote 

 many monographs on problems of engineering. 



Coles, C. C., inventor and weather-prophet, 

 born in Colesville, N. Y., in 1850; died in" Kings- 

 ton, Pa., Feb. 16, 1901. He was educated at 

 Mount Retirement Seminary. Early in life he 

 studied music, and his method of teaching music 

 by mail in ten lessons first brought him before 

 the public. He was much interested in astron- 

 omy, and said he had invented an " electric eye," 

 by which, with some sort of combined telescope 

 and electrical eyepiece, he was able to magnify 

 many hundred times more than the best micro- 

 scope, and to bring the heavenly bodies much 

 nearer than with the ordinary telescope. He was 

 best known as the publisher of Storms and Sig- 



