OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (ABBOTT ANDERSON.) 



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OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. Abbott, Benja- 

 min Vaughan, lawyer, born in Boston, Mass., June 4, 

 1830; died in Brooklyn, N. Y.. Feb. 17, 1890. He 

 was a son of Jacob Abbott, author of many popular 

 books for the young. He was graduated at the New 

 York University in 1850, and was admitted to the 

 bar in 1852. After spending some years in general 

 practice, in partnership with his brother Austin, he 

 applied himself to legal work, and wrote or compiled, 

 alone or in conjunction with his brother Austin, 

 nearly 100 volumes of digests, reports, treatises, and 

 other legal works. Early in his career he was asso- 

 ciated with his brothers Austin and Lyman in writ- 

 ing "Cone-Cut Corners" (1855), and ''Matthew 

 Caraby " (1858). His earliest reports and digests 

 covered the laws of New York State, and his first im- 

 portant appointment was to the secretaryship of the 

 New York Code Commissioners, who reported the 

 draft of a penal code to the Legislature in 1865, which 

 was the basis of the present code. This draft was 

 prepared by him under the direction of the commis- 

 sioners, and was warmly commended by the bench 

 of the State. His second and most notable appoint- 

 ment was by President Grant in 1 870, as one ot three 

 commissioners to revise the statutes of the United 

 States. With the assistance of Charles P. James and 

 Victor C. Barringer, the other commissioners, he 



rnt three years in condensing sixteen volumes of 

 laws of the United States into one volume, a task 

 displaying much energy and ripe judgment. His 

 other publications include " Reports of Decisions of 

 Circuit and District Courts of the United States " (2 

 vols., New York, 1870-'71 ) ; A Digest of Decisions on 

 Corporations from I860 to 1870" (1872); "A Treatise 

 on the Courts of the United States and their Practice " 

 (2 vols., 1877); "Dictionary of Terms in American 

 and English Jurisprudence" (2 vols., 1879); " Judge 

 and Jury " and " Traveling Law School and Famous 

 Trials" (1880); and the ' ? National Digest" (1889). 

 'The last work contained in five volumes the most 

 important acts of Congress and decisions of the 

 United States courts, the Circuit and District courts, 

 Court of Claims, and others, from the organization of 

 the Government till December, 1888. It was said of 

 his works that they had greatly simplified the study 

 of law and increased the pleasure of practicing it. 



Acheson, Alexander Wilson, lawyer, born in Philadel- 

 phia, Pa., June 14, 1809; died in Washington, Pa., 

 Julv 10, 1890. He was graduated at Washington 

 College in 1827, and admitted to the bar in 1832 ; was 

 deputy attorney-general for Washington County. Pa., 

 in 1835, 1836, 1839, 1845, and 1846 ; and was president 

 judge of the Twenty-seventh Judicial District of Penn- 

 sylvania from 1866 till 1877. He received the degree 

 LL.D. from Parson's College, Iowa, in 1885. 



Allen, John Henry, mariner, born in St. Andrews, 

 West Indies, in 1836 ; died at sea, presumably in 

 January. 1890. When a child he was taken to Yar- 

 mouth, Nova Scotia, and, at twelve years of age be- 

 gan his career as a seaman. He was rapidly pro- 

 moted, and became master of a vessel at an unusually 

 early age. At the beginning of the civil war he 

 entered the United States navy as ensign, and soon 

 rose to be acting master. He was an officer on the 

 " Portsmouth," of the Western Gulf blockading 

 squadron, was engaged in the battle of Mobile Bay 

 on the " Lackawanna," and for his services there 

 was given command of the United States steamer 

 "Selma." In 1866 he resigned from the navy, and 

 re-entered mercantile life as a shipmaster, eventually 

 becoming a large ship owner. Since 1880 he had 

 made his home in Brooklyn, N. Y. He sailed thence 

 Dec. 8, 1889, in the ship " Bridgewater," of which 

 he was owner and master, for Queenstown, and 

 neither he, his crew, nor his vessel has been heard 



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from since. He published "The Decline of Ameri- 

 can Shipping, its Cause and Remedy" (New York, 

 1882) ; a pamphlet in opposition to the proposed 

 Spanish-American reciprocity treaty (1884); and ' The 

 Tariff and its Evils ; or, Protection which does not 

 Protect" (1888). 



Anderson, Martin Brewer, educator, born in Bruns- 

 wick, Me., Feb. 12, 1815 ; died at Lake Helen, Fla., 

 Feb. 26, 1890. He was the son of a ship-builder. 

 His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, served 

 in the War of 1812, Revolution, and French War, 

 respectively. He was graduated at Waterville Col- 

 lege, Me., in 1840. He 

 studied theology for a year 

 at Newton, Mass., and then 

 was appointed tutor in Lat- 

 in, Greek, and mathematics 

 at Waterville. Subsequent- 

 ly he became Professor of 

 Rhetoric there, and he also 

 organized and taught the 

 course in modern history. 

 In 1850 he resigned his 

 professorship, and became 

 editor and proprietor of the 

 New York "Recorder," a 

 weekly Baptist journal. In 

 1853 he became President 

 of the University of Roches- 

 ter, N. Y. This was a new 

 institution, established in 

 1850 under Baptist auspices, which had elements ot 

 unusual strength in its faculty. Chester Dewey,an 

 authority in botany, was at the head of the Depart- 

 ment of Natural History ; Asahel C. Kendrick was 

 Professor of Greek ; John H.Raymond (afterward 

 President of Vassar College) was Professor of Belles- 

 Lettres ; John F. Richardson was Professor of Latin ; 

 and Isaac F. Quinby, a graduate of West Point (after- 

 ward a general officer in the national service) was 

 Professor of Mathematics. At the head of such a 

 faculty, strengthened by other professors of note, Dr. 

 Anderson, exerting enormous personal energy and 

 executive ability, soon gave the college a prestige alto- 

 together unusual for an institution so young. He 

 himself taught the Department of Psychology and 

 Political Economy. Eight years after he assumed the 

 presidency the first of the college buildings was com- 

 pleted on a fine plot of twenty acres in the eastern 

 part of the city, and was named Anderson Hall in his 

 honor. On the breaking out of the civil war, in 1861, 

 he became one of the most earnest and effective advo- 

 cates of the national cause, and made public addresses 

 that materially assisted in the work of enlisting and 

 forwarding troops. In the autumn of 1862 failing 

 health made a cessation of work necessary, and he 

 then spent a year in European travel, assisting some- 

 what in England to a better understanding there of 

 the American question. On returning he resumed 

 his place as president of the University, which he re- 

 tained until his final retirement in 1888. Nothing 

 was more noticeable in his teachings than the con- 

 stant inculcation of loyalty to the National Govern- 

 ment and to the principles of universal liberty on 

 which it is founded. He was a member of the New 

 York State Board of Charities for thirteen years, and 

 one of the commissioners of the State reservation at 

 Niagara Falls. He had delivered many addresses, 

 and published essays on educational and other topics, 

 and these at the time of his death he was preparing 

 for publication, but the task was not complete. His 

 wife, Elizabeth Gilbert, who had been his constant 

 counselor in all his work, died a few days before him. 

 They had no children, and his estate, about $46,000, 

 he bequeathed to the University of Rochester. 



