OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (GRAHAM- 



429 



Graham, Robert, educator, born in Liverpool, 

 England, Aug. 14, 1822; died in Pittsburg, Pa., 

 Jan. 20, 1901. He was brought to thn United 

 States when a boy, and united first with the 

 Methodist Church in Pittsburg, und afterward 

 with the Disciples or Christian denomination, 

 founded by Alexander Campbell. \Vliile working 

 at his apprenticeship as carpenter he devoted his 

 leisure time to study, and so soon as he became 

 of age he entered Bethany College, West Virginia, 

 of which Alexander Campbell was then president. 

 He was graduated in 1847, and made a tour of 

 the Southern States in the interest of the college. 

 He settled as pastor in Fayetteville, Ark., in 

 1848, and there founded Arkansas College, and 

 was its president from 1850 till 1859. He was 

 then elected to the chair of English History and 

 Literature in Kentucky University, Lexington. 

 During the war he went to Cincinnati, and was 

 pastor of a Christian church there till 18G4, when 

 he went to San Francisco and founded a church 

 of his denomination. In 18GG he was elected 

 president of the College of Arts of Kentucky 

 University. He was at the head of this and 

 afterward of the Bible College of the same insti- 

 tution, save for six years, when he was president 

 of the Hamilton Female College, in the same city, 

 till June, 1898. 



Gray, Elisha, inventor, born in Barnesville, 

 Ohio, Aug. 2, 1835; died in Newtonville, Mass., 

 Jan. 21, 1901. As a boy he worked at black- 

 smithing, carpentry, and boat-building. At the 

 age of twenty-one he entered Oberlin College, 

 where he studied five years, devoting his time to 

 the physical sciences, and making much of the 

 apparatus used in class-room experimentation. 

 In October, 1867, he obtained a patent for an 

 automatic self-adjusting telegraph relay, the first 

 of a long series covering his many inventions, 

 chiefly in connection with the development of the 

 telegraph and the telephone. He established him- 

 self as a manufacturer of electrical apparatus in 

 Cleveland in 1869, and in 1872 organized the 

 Western Electric Manufacturing Company, from 

 which he retired in 1874 to go to Europe to 

 perfect himself in the study of acoustics. He 

 was for many years electrician to the Western 

 Electric Manufacturing Company, and later he 

 established the Gray Electric Company at High- 

 land Park, 111. He was the organizer and chair- 

 man of the Congress of Electricians held in Chi- 

 cago in 1893. Prof. Gray invented a telegraphic 

 repeater, a telegraphic switch, an annunciator for 

 liotels, and a type-printing telegraph. In 1877 

 he received patents for a multiplex telegraph. 

 His system is " based upon the ability to trans- 

 mit a number of tones simultaneously over the 

 same wire, and analyze them at the receiving end, 

 so that each tone will be audible on a particular 

 instrument which is tuned to it, but no other." 

 He succeeded in sending 8 messages in this way 

 over one wire. In 1893 he patented his telauto- 



fraph, for transmitting writing or sketches. At 

 is death he was experimenting upon a system 

 of underwater fog-signals, using the sea as the 

 connecting medium; and he had succeeded in 

 transmitting signals by a bell, rung electrically 

 under water, more than 12 miles. However, Prof. 

 Gray's fame rests upon his early experimentation 

 with, and his claim io, the discovery of the tele- 

 phone. He found, when an end of a secondary 

 coil was connected with the zinc lining of a dry 

 bath-tub, that when he held the other end of the 

 coil in his left hand, and touched the lining of 

 the tub with his right hand, it would glide along 

 the side for a short distance in making contact, 

 giving rise to a sound that had the same pitch 



and quality us 1h;it oi it;u-t- 



breakcr. After luitln-r * ,. jj|,.,j 



a caveat in Washington, h-h :, ,),,. 



expectation of perfect m<j i.hr 

 vocal sounds telegraphic;) 1 1 \ 

 broad patent for speaking-tcli 

 ing some of Prof. Gray':-, i<i< -.>-. 

 Prof. A. Graham Bell. Both nun H 

 in the invention, and after t.wcni 

 litigation the courts awarded the Wed n . i 

 Bell, and in the opinion of many Prof. <:,.< 

 deprived of the rightful credit for a gre.il in 

 tion. Sensational disclosures were made through 

 affidavits of a patent-examiner named Wilbur, 

 which convinced Prof. Gray that his caveat in the 

 Patent Office had been revealed to the Hell people, 

 and that they \vere thus enabled to make the 

 instruments for which they received their patents. 

 Prof. Gray was not able to put in any legal claim 

 for rights himself because his patent rights were 

 merged with the Bell patents by a deal between 

 the Western Union Telegraph Company, which 

 controlled the Gray patents, and the Bell com- 

 pany. By this merger the Western Union com- 

 pany received a yearly royalty of several hundred 

 thousand dollars for staying out of the" telephone 

 field. Of this money Prof. Gray got but a small 

 share. A further claim for $12,000,000 was de- 

 cided against the Western Union company by the 

 courts in 1900, and this gave to Bell practically 

 the credit for priority. Prof. Gray died poor. 

 He had received comparatively large sums from 

 time to time from his inventions, but he invari- 

 ably used the money in expensive experiments 

 tow r ard new discoveries. He published Experi- 

 mental Researches in Electro-Harmonic Telegra- 

 phy and Telephony, and Elementary Talks on 

 Science. 



Gray, William Cunningham, editor, born in 

 Butler County, Ohio, Oct. 17, 1830; died in Oak 

 Park, 111., Sept. 29, 1901. His boyhood was spent 

 in farm work, and his youth in teaching. While 

 working in the woods at night, caring for the 

 sugar-kettles, he wrote for his own amusement 

 on pieces of shingle. Some of these writings 

 found their way into the village newspaper, and 

 this encouraged him to make an effort for a 

 higher education. He secured admission to Gen. 

 Samuel Gary's Academy at College Hill, near 

 Cincinnati, in 1841, was graduated at Belmont 

 College in 1849, and was admitted to the bar in 

 1852, but never practised. He became editor of 

 the Miami Democrat in 1852, was editor of the 

 Scott Battery, for the campaign of 1852, and in 

 1853 established the Tiffin (Ohio) Tribune. After 

 one year as editorial writer on the Cleveland 

 Herald, he became, in 1863, editor of the Newark 

 American, continuing at its head till 187 1, when 

 he became editor of The Interior, Chicago, in 

 which his Camp-fire Musings and editorials were 

 widely read. He received the degree of Ph. D. 

 from Wooster University, and that of LL. D. 

 from Knox College. He was the author of Camp- 

 fire Musings and Clear Creek. 



Green, Lillian, singer, born in New York city, 

 in 1876; died there, July 20, 1901. She sang first 

 in the chorus and later in the title role of Little 

 Christopher at the Garden Theater, New York. 

 After a wide experience in standard and comic 

 opera with the Murray-Lane company, she left 

 the operatic stage and appeared as Mrs. Bagot 

 in the first presentation of Trilby. Later she sang 

 with the Casino company and with the summer 

 opera companies. Her last important impersona- 

 tions were the leading role in My Lady at the 

 Victoria Theater, New York, in 1900. and Viola 

 in King Dodo, in Chicago, in 1900-1901. 



