OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (NICOLAY NORDHOFF.) 



life-saving service, planning the system and intro- 

 ducing the bill that resulted in its establishment 

 in 1848. The first test was on the New Jersey 

 coast, between Sandy Hook and Toms River. He 

 also invented the system of securing connection 

 with a wrecked vessel by means of a shot attached 

 to a line and fired from a mortar. Other impor- 

 tant public works that were due to his labors or 

 his suggestion were the building of the Delaware 

 breakwater; the establishment of the United 

 States Agricultural Bureau (later made the De- 

 partment of Agriculture) ; and the purchase of 

 the Mount Ver'non estate for agricultural pur- 

 poses. He was Governor of New Jersey from 

 1857 to 1859. He was inaugurated in the midst 

 of a heavy snowstorm that obstructed the roads, 

 but, accompanied by a colored servant, he walked 

 from Allentown to Trenton, 18 miles, in order not 

 to postpone the ceremony. In his term the Demo- 

 cratic Senate refused to confirm his appointment 

 of Henry W. Green as Chancellor, and for a year 

 the State was without a Chancellor. He was su- 

 perintendent of the life-saving service in New Jer- 

 sey from 1860 to 1864. He was again a candidate 

 for Governor in 1876, but was defeated by Gen. 

 George B. McClellan. He was Governor of Wash- 

 ington Territory from 1880 to 1884, and in the 

 latter year was made Indian inspector. He served 

 as resident surgeon of the Soldiers' and Sailors' 

 Home, State of Washington, from 1894 to 1898. 



Nicolay, John George, author, born in Essin- 

 gen, Bavaria, Feb. 26, 1832; died in Washington, 

 D. C., Sept. 26, 1901. The family emigrated to 

 the United States in 1838, going first to Cincinnati 



by way of New Or- 

 "! leans and the Mis- 

 | sissippi river, and 

 1 afterward succes- 

 ! sively to Indiana, 

 Missouri, and Pike 

 County, Illinois, 

 where the father 

 J| I rented and repaired 



an old grist-mill, 

 and went into busi- 

 ness with his sons. 

 In these wander- 

 ings young Nicolay 

 v9m. spent about two 



months in the pub- 

 lic schools of Cincin- 

 nati and St. Louis. 

 Thrown on his own 

 resources at the age 

 of fourteen, he lived for a while with an older 

 brother and clerked in a store in Whitehall, 111., 

 and when about sixteen he secured a place in the 

 office of the Pike County Free Press, in Pittsfield, 

 111. He remained with this paper till 1856, and 

 was successively journeyman, partner, publisher, 

 editor, and proprietor. As an editor he soon be- 

 came a political power in the State. He refused nat- 

 tering offers from the newspapers of Chicago and 

 St. Louis, and took an active part in the formation 

 of the Anti-Nebraska and Republican parties. 

 At the close of the Fremont campaign in 1856 Mr. 

 Nicolay sold his paper and became a clerk in the 

 office of the Secretary of State at Springfield, 111. 

 When Lincoln was nominated for the presidency 

 he appointed Nicolay his private secretary. After 

 the election the correspondence of Mr. Lincoln in- 

 creased so much that it was necessary to appoint 

 an assistant, and Mr. Nicolay chose for this place 

 John Hay, the present Secretary of State, who was 

 then a young law student in Springfield. During 

 the first presidential term Nicolay and Hay occu- 

 pied the same room at the White House together, 



performing the laborious and often delicate duties 

 that fell to them, and enjoying the closest confi- 

 dence of President Lincoln. During this time they 

 formed the plan, with the approval of Mr. Lincoln, 

 of writing his biography, which design they car- 

 ried out later in collaboration. Shortly before his . 

 assassination, the President appointed Mr. Nicolay 

 United States consul at Paris, and appointed Mr. 

 Hay secretary of the American legation there. 

 Mr. Nicolay held that office until the spring of 

 1869. Upon his return to Washington he lived 

 in retirement until 1872, when he was appointed 

 marshal of the Supreme Court of the United 

 States, and he held that office fifteen years. Mr. 

 Nicolay and Mr. Hay began the active work of 

 writing their biography of Lincoln in 1874; they 

 had spent six years in gathering and arranging 

 their material. Its serial publication was begun 

 in the Century Magazine in November, 1886, and 

 continued until February, 1890. In the latter year . 

 the complete work, with many important chap- 

 ters not included in the serial publication, was 

 issued in ten volumes. Messrs. Nicolay and Hay 

 also collected, catalogued, and edited Abraham 

 Lincoln's Complete Works (1894). In addition, 

 Mr. Nicolay wrote in 1881 The Outbreak of the 

 Rebellion, the first volume of a series entitled 

 Campaigns of the Civil War. Mr. Nicolay also 

 wrote the article on President Lincoln in the En- 

 cyclopaedia Britannica, and contributed numerous 

 articles to American magazines. He was a lover 

 of art and music, and a poet of unusual merit, 

 and received many patents. 



Ninde, William Xavier, Methodist Episcopal 

 bishop, born in Cortland, N. Y., June 21, 1832; 

 died in Detroit, Mich., Jan. 3, 1901. He was 

 graduated at Wesleyan University, Middletown, 

 Conn., in 1855, and from that institution received 

 the degree of D. D. in 1874, and from Northwest- 

 ern University the degree of LL. D. in 1892. He 

 taught in Rome Academy during the year after 

 his graduation, and was then ordained to the 

 Methodist ministry. He joined the Rock River 

 Conference, and in 1861 was transferred to the 

 Cincinnati Conference. In 1870 he was trans- 

 ferred to the Detroit Conference and stationed 

 at the Central Methodist Episcopal Church, in 

 Detroit, where he served till 1873. In the latter 

 year he was elected to the chair of Practical 

 Theology in Garrett Biblical Institute, in Evans- 

 ton, 111., and in 1879 he became president of that 

 institution. In May, 1884, he was elected to the 

 Board of Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal 

 Church by the General Conference. 



Nordhoff, Charles, author, born in Erwitte, 

 Westphalia, Prussia, Aug. 31, 1830; died in San 

 Francisco, Cal., July 15, 1901. He came with his 

 parents to America in 1835, and attended school 

 in Cincinnati, where he was apprenticed to a 

 printer in 1843. In 1844 he went to Philadelphia 

 to work in a newspaper office, but soon snipped 

 in the United States navy and served three years, 

 making a voyage round the world. He remained 

 at sea in the merchant, whaling, and mackerel 

 fishery service till 1853, and was afterward em- 

 ployed in newspaper offices in Philadelphia and 

 Indianapolis. From 1857 till 1861 he was an 

 editor in a publishing house in New York. From 

 1861 till 1871 he was on the staff of the New 

 York Evening Post, and subsequently he contrib- 

 uted to the New York Tribune. He traveled in 

 California and Hawaii in 1871-73, and after 1874 

 was a special correspondent of the New York 

 Herald. He edited an American edition of Kern's 

 Practical , Landscape Gardening (1855), and was 

 the author of the following books: Man-of-War 

 Life (1855); The Merchant Vessel (1855); Whal- 



