OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (SEDGWICK SILL.) 



467 



and The Blue and the Gray. Several of his paint- 

 ings are in the Boston Museum of Art; among 

 others, The Song of the Ancient People, in 11 

 water-color paintings. 



Sedgwick, Deborah Gannett, born in Cam- 

 bridge, Mass., June 2, 1825; died in Syracuse, 

 N. Y., Jan. 22, 1901. She was the daughter of 

 the Rev. Thomas Brattle Gannett, a Unitarian 

 clergyman, and at the age of sixteen she went 

 to Brook Farm, where she remained two years. 

 She then went to Syracuse to teach, and there 

 married, June 22, 1847, Charles Baldwin Sedg- 

 wick, a prosperous lawyer of that city. Mrs. 

 Sedgwick enjoyed the personal friendship of Haw- 

 thorne, Emerson, John S. Dwight, George William 

 Curtis, Ellen Slade, Louisa M. Alcott, Charles A. 

 Dana, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, and 

 Wendell Phillips, and she corresponded with most 

 of them long after Brook Farm was discontinued. 

 She published an interesting reminiscence of the 

 life of the community in the Atlantic Monthly 

 for March, 1900. 



Sewell, William Joyce, Senator, born in Cas- 

 tlebar, Ireland, Dec. 6, 1835; died in Camden, 

 N. J., Dec. 27, 1901. He came to the United 

 States when eleven years old, and for a time was 

 a sailor before the mast. Later he was employed 

 in banking with his brother, and was in charge 

 of a branch office in Minnesota. This bank failed, 

 and he returned to New York, where for a time 

 he was employed in a dry-goods house. At the 

 outbreak of the civil war he was commissioned 

 a captain in the 5th New Jersey Volunteers, Aug. 

 28, 1861. He participated in all the engagements 

 in which his regiment took part to the battle of 

 Spottsylvania, and was wounded at Chancellors- 

 ville and Gettysburg. He was promoted lieuten- 

 ant-colonel in July, and colonel in October, 1862. 

 In September, 1864, he became colonel of the 38th 

 New Jersey Volunteers, with which he served 

 till the close of the war. He was brevetted briga- 

 dier-general and major-general. After the war 

 he became connected with the railroads in New 

 Jersey, branches of the. Pennsylvania Railroad 

 system. He was elected State Senator in 1872, 

 reelected in 1875, and again in 1878, and was 

 president of that body in 1876, 1879, and 1880. 

 In 1881 he was elected to the United States Sen- 

 ate, and he was again elected to that body in 

 1895. In 1877 he was made brigadier-general of 

 the New Jersey National Guard, and in 1899 was 

 appointed its major-general. 



Shanks, John Peter Clever, lawyer, born in 

 Martinsburg, W. Va., June 17, 1826; died in Port- 

 land, Ind., Jan. 23, 1901. He studied law in In- 

 diana and began its practise there in 1850. In 

 1853 and 1854 he was a member of the Indiana 

 Legislature. In 1860 he was elected to Congress. 

 In 1861, after the battle of Bull Run, he entered 

 the National army, and later served in Missouri 

 as a member of Gen. Fremont's staff. He was 

 again elected to Congress, serving from the For- 

 tieth to the Forty-third. In Congress he was 

 chairman of the Committee on Union Prisoners. 

 Later he was appointed an Indian agent. 



Shaw, Albert Duane, soldier, born in Lyme, 

 N. Y., Dec. 27, 1841 ; died in Washington, D. C., 

 Feb. 10, 1901. He was educated at Belleville 

 Union Academy and Canton University. When 

 the civil war broke out he enlisted in the 35th 

 New York Volunteers. With this regiment he 

 took part in the battles of Rappahannock Sta- 

 tion, Bull Run, Chantilly, South Mountain, An- 

 tietam, and Fredericksburg. During the latter 

 part of the war he was special agent of the War 

 Department in the office of the provost-marshal 

 at Watertown, N. Y. He was graduated at Law- 



rence University in 1807, and in 1S08 was a mem- 

 ber of the New York Assembly. While serving 

 in this capacity he was also appointed colonel 

 of the 36th Regiment, National Guard. He re- 

 signed late in the same year to become United 

 States consul at Toronto, Canada, where he re- 

 mained ten years. In 1878 he was promoted to 

 the consulship of Manchester, England, from 

 which post he was removed in 1885 by Presi- 

 dent Cleveland. In 1900 he was elected to Con- 

 gress. 



Shaw, Thomas, inventor, born in Philadelphia, 

 Pa., April 5, 1838; died there, Jan. 19, 1901. In 

 1858 he secured his first patent, and after that 

 date perfected many contrivances, among them 

 an apparatus for automatically testing gases in 

 mines, improvements in the power-hammer and 

 steel gage, a mercury steam-gage, a noiseless 

 steam-exhaust, and a pump valuable for its abil- 

 ity to pump mud and sand. He was the first 

 man in America to roll steel tires. In 1880 he 

 built the wharf at the League Island Navy-Yard, 

 employing one of his inventions, the gunpowder 

 pile-driver. 



Shepherd, Russell Benjamin, manufacturer, 

 born in Fairneld, Me., Sept. 14, 1829; died in 

 Skowhegan, Me., Jan. 1, 1901. He was graduated 

 at Colby University in 1857. At the outbreak 

 of the civil war he enlisted in the 18th Maine 

 Volunteers; he was made adjutant, and later pro- 

 moted colonel and brevet brigadier-general. He 

 was president of the Skowhegan Pulp Company. 



Sidman, Arthur, actor, born in Homer, N. Y., 

 Aug. 3, 1863; died at Higgins Beach, Me., Aug. 

 12, 1901. He learned the printer's trade in the 

 office of the Homer Republican; afterward he 

 worked as a reporter on the paper, and was 

 finally associated with the late Frank R. Slayton 

 in editing the Tully, N. Y., Times. In Tully Mr. 

 Sidman organized an amateur dramatic club that 

 met with such success in its initial performance, 

 Foiled, that he took the piece around a circuit 

 of the neighboring towns, and finally he aban- 

 doned newspaper work to go about the State or- 

 ganizing amateur performances. In 1887 he be- 

 gan starring in his own play, Uncle Reub. In 

 1891 he married Ella M. Brooks, of Hornellsville, 

 who afterward appeared with him. Squire Has- 

 kins and A Summer Shower were added to their 

 repertoire. In 1892 Mr. and Mrs. Sidman entered 

 vaudeville in Mr. Sidman's very humorous char- 

 acter sketch, A Bit of True Life, in which they 

 continued successfully till Jan. 5, 1899, when at 

 Wilmington, Del., they produced Mr. Sidman's 

 Back Home. His impersonation of the shrewd, 

 keen, big-hearted rustic placed him among the 

 foremost of American character actors. He ap- 

 peared as Myron Cooper, the old organ-builder, 

 in a successful trial tour of his drama York State 

 Folks, in the spring of 1901. 



Sill, John Mahelm Berry, educator, born in 

 Black Rock, N. Y., Nov. 23, 1831; died in De- 

 troit, Mich., April 6, 1901. In 1854 he was gradu- 

 ated at the Michigan Normal School at Ypsilanti, 

 and was immediately appointed Professor of Eng- 

 lish in that institution; for several years he was 

 principal of the school. Later he was superin- 

 tendent of the public schools of Detroit. In 1890 

 he was ordained a minister of the Protestant 

 Episcopal Church. In 1893 he was appointed 

 minister resident and consul-general for the Uni- 

 ted States in Korea. He was the author of Syn- 

 thesis of the English Sentence (1856) and Les- 

 sons in English (1879). He received the degree of 

 A.M. from the University of Michigan in 1871, 

 and Master of Pedagogics from the Michigan 

 State Normal College in 1892. 



