462 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (REVELS ROE.) 



articles to magazines. At the convention of 

 telegraphers in Pittsburg in 1886 he received a 

 gold medal in consideration of his services, and 

 he received in 1899 a similar honor from the 

 New York Telegraph Club. Mr. Reid was United 

 States consul at Dunfermline, Scotland, from 1889 

 to 1897. 



Bevels, Hiram B., Senator, born in Fayette- 

 ville, N. C., Sept. 1, 1822; died in Aberdeen, Miss., 

 Jan. 16, 1901. He was a quadroon, the son of 

 free colored parents, and was educated in the 

 Friends' Seminary, in Liberty, Ind. He was^ or- 

 dained a minister in the African Methodist Epis- 

 copal Church, lectured throughout the North, and 

 became a leader among the negroes of Ohio, Illi- 

 nois, Indiana, and Mississippi. During the civil 

 war he assisted in organizing colored regiments 

 in Maryland and in St. Louis, Mo., and followed 

 the Federal army to Jackson, Miss., preaching 

 to the emancipated slaves. In the years follow- 

 ing the war he was one of the 'most influential 

 of his race. He was elected to the State Senate 

 in Mississippi in 1869, and in February, 1870, was 

 sent to the United States Senate from that State 

 and served till March 4, 1871. For many years 

 he was president of Alcorn Agricultural Univer- 

 sity for Negroes, at Rodney, Miss., and at the 

 time of his death he was presiding elder of the 

 Holly Springs District Conference of his Church. 



Biggs, Elias, missionary and linguist, born 

 in New Providence, N. J., Nov. 19, 1810; died in 

 Scutari, Turkey, Jan. 17, 1901. He was gradu- 

 ated at Arnherst College in 1829, and at Andover 

 Theological Seminary in 1832. He was a mission- 

 ary of the American Board in Athens and Argos 

 from 1832 to 1838; in Smyrna, from 1838 to 1853; 

 and in Constantinople, from 1853 till his death. 

 He returned to the United States only once in 

 1856 and being delayed by the publication of his 

 Armenian Bible, taught Hebrew in Union Theo- 

 logical Seminary in 1857 and 1858. His transla- 

 tions of the Bible into Armenian and Bulgarian 

 are the standard editions. He assisted largely 

 in the revision of the Turkish Bible in Arabic 

 and Armenian characters in 1873 to 1878 and in 

 1883 to 1886. Dr. Riggs was the author of A 

 Manual of the Chaldee Language; Chrestomathy, 

 and a Vocabulary (1832); The Young Forester: 

 A Memoir of the Swedish Missionary Fjelstedt; 

 Grammatical Notes on the Bulgarian Language 

 (1844); Grammar of the Modern Armenian Lan- 

 guage (1847) ; Grammar of the Turkish Language 

 as Written in the Armenian Character (1856); 

 Translation of the Scriptures into the Modern 

 Armenian Language (completed with the aid of 

 native scholars in 1853) ; Translation of the Scrip- 

 tures into the Bulgarian Language (completed 

 with the aid of native scholars in 1871); Notes 

 on Difficult Passages of the New Testament; A 

 Harmony of the Gospels, in Bulgarian; a Bible 

 Dictionary, in Bulgarian; and many tracts and 

 hymns in Greek, Armenian, and Bulgarian. 



Boberts, James Booth, actor, born in New- 

 castle, Del., 1 Sept. 27, 1818; died in Elizabeth, 

 N. J., Sept. 14, 1901. He made his first appear-, 

 ance at the Walnut Street Theater, Philadelphia, 

 as Richmond in Richard III, Junius Brutus 

 Booth playing Richard. After this engagement 

 he devoted himself for two years to the study of 

 dramatic art, and then appeared again at the 

 same theater in an unimportant role, supporting 

 Edwin Forrest. For the next eight years he 

 played minor roles in various stock companies, 

 but during this period he was gradually making 

 a prominent place for himself in the profession. 

 On Feb. 12, 1847, he made his first appearance 

 in New York, at the old Chatham Street Theater, 



as Richard III, and during one week he played 

 the leading roles in a repertoire that included 

 The Iron Chest, The Stranger, Othello, Hamlet, 

 and Macbeth. This engagement was so success- 

 ful that he appeared again in New York, playing 

 the characters of Romeo, Shylock, Jaffier, St. 

 Pierre, and Rolla. Soon after this he made a 

 tour of the United States, appearing in classic 

 roles. In 1856 he went to England, making his 

 first appearance at Drury Lane Theater, London, 

 Sept. 21, as Sir Giles Overreach in A New Way 

 to Pay Old Debts, after which he played in Liver- 

 pool, Manchester, Dublin, Limerick, and Belfast, 

 covering a period of eighteen months. He then 

 returned to America and wrote an English adap- 

 tation of Goethe's Faust, which he produced in 

 Philadelphia, playing the character of Mephis- 

 topheles. Some time after this he appeared as 

 Hertzog in the famous spectacular production 

 known as The Black Crook, in which role he made 

 a great success. He traveled for many seasons 

 throughout the United States, playing Mephis- 

 topheles in his adaptation of Faust until 1876, 

 when he practically retired from the stage, de- 

 voting himself thereafter to teaching elocution 

 and dramatic art. Mr. Roberts was one of the 

 first native-born American actors, and was one 

 of the founders of the Shakespeare Birthday Club 

 of New York. He was never married. 



Boberts, Lewis A., publisher, born near Bal- 

 lington, England, Dec. 6, 1833; died in Lakewood, 

 N. J., Jan. 23, 1901. He removed to the United 

 States about 1840 with his father, who settled on 

 a large country place near New Bedford, Mass. 

 In 1849 young Roberts went to Boston, where he 

 first engaged in trade, and in 1859 established the 

 firm of. Roberts Brothers, bookbinders, photo- 

 graph-album makers, and book-publishers, which 

 within five years became one of the largest in the 

 country. The brother, who was the first partner, 

 retired within two years after the founding of 

 the firm, and Lewis Roberts was its sole owner 

 till 1872, when he admitted his brother-in-law, 

 Thomas Niles, as a partner. Mr. Niles died in 

 1894, and Mr. Roberts continued at the head of 

 the business till compelled by failing health to 

 resign in 1899. Mr. Roberts studied landscape 

 painting under Oudinet, and was a man of broad 

 literary culture. The publications of his house 

 were of the highest order, and the larger part of 

 his ventures were eminently successful. One of 

 his greatest successes was the series of children's 

 books by Louisa M. Alcott. Other authors that 

 he did much toward introducing to the American 

 public are Edward Everett Hale, Helen Hunt 

 Jackson (H. H.), Olive Schreiner, Robert Louis 

 Stevenson, Mrs. Ewing, William Morris, George 

 Meredith, Dante G. Rossetti, Christina G. Ros- 

 setti, Sir Edwin Arnold, Philip G. Hamerton, and 

 Jean Ingelow. 



Boe, Francis Asbury, naval officer, born in 

 Elmira, N. Y., Oct. 4, 1823; died in Washington, 

 D. C., Dec. 28, 1901. His great-grandfather was 

 Benjamin Roe, who was killed near Lake Cham- 

 plain in 1756 while serving in the French, and 

 Indian War; his grandfather, John Roe, was a 

 minuteman in the New York line, and later a 

 quartermaster in the 1st Regiment of the Suffolk 

 County Militia during the War of the Revolu- 

 tion, and his father was Isaac Roe. who was a 

 sergeant in the New York State Militia during 

 the War of 1812. His early years were spent in 

 Elmira, where his father possessed a large estate. 

 On Oct. 19, 1841, he entered the United States 

 navy as acting midshipman, serving on the John 

 Adams and the Yorktown at various stations 

 until 1846, when he was ordered to the Boston, 



