OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (MATHER MONTEITH.) 



655 





service. In late years, having lost his fortune, he 

 made a scant living in connection with the civil court. 

 His wife died in New York city, on Feb. 21, 1890. 



Mather, Richard Henry, scholar, born in Binghamton, 

 N. Y., Feb. 12, 1835; died in Amherst, Mass., April 

 16, 1890. He studied at Amherst in the class of 1856, 

 left college at the close of his junior year, spent a 

 year in traveling through Europe and the East, and 

 then joined the class of 1857. After his graduation 

 at the head of his class, he returned to Europe, and 

 studied philology at Berlin. From 1859 to 1861 he 

 was instructor in Greek at Amherst, and he continued 

 in the service of the college until his death. He was 

 made assistant Professor of Greek in 1861, and Pro- 

 fessor of Greek and German in 1864. Soon after 1870 

 Prof. Mather became interested in the tine arts, and 

 in 1879 he dropped German and was made Lecturer 

 on Sculpture. An art museum was opened in Willis- 

 ton Hall in 1874, Prof. Mather having visited Europe 

 to make a selection of casts, engravings, photographs, 

 etc. This museum supplemented the art lectures and 

 became a notable factor in the training of the stu- 

 dents. The museum contains casts of most of the 

 famous antique marbles, as well as specimens of the 

 work of Michael Angelo and many of the old mas- 

 ters. It also contains tine specimens of mediaeval and 

 modern statuary and antique busts ; and the collec- 

 tion of bas-reliefs is exceptionally good. The miscel- 

 laneous casts include the Rosetta stone, the vase of 

 candelabrum from the Appian Way, the Bacchanalian 

 vase, a well-executed plan of the Acropolis, and the 

 newly acquired statue of Minerva, which is claimed 

 to be a truthful representation of the statue in ivory 

 and gold in the Parthenon. Prof. Mather went abroad 

 again in 1888, when he prepared a course of lectures 

 on Greek life, taking occasion to add to the art collec- 

 tion such specimens as would illustrate the subject. 

 Prof. Mather prepared several college text-books, 

 which include selections from Herodotus and Thucy- 

 dides, the " Electra " of Sophocles, a manual of sculp- 

 ture, the "Prometheus bound" of J^schylus, and 

 lectures on sculpture. He received the degree of D. D. 

 from Bowdoin College in 1879. He was never settled 

 as a pastor, but frequently filled pulpits in Boston 

 and and New York, and was well known for his ora- 

 torical powers. 



Miles, William E., clergyman born in Jackson, Miss., 

 in 1848 ; died in New Orleans, La., Sept. 14, 1890. 

 He was educated at Spring Hill College, Mobile, 

 and in religious colleges in France and Spain. He 

 entered the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus in 1866, 

 and settling in New Orleans, became president of the 

 Jesuit College and pastor of the Church of the Im- 

 maculate Conception there. He was an eloquent and 

 learned man, and master of several languages. 



Miller, Samuel Freeman, iurist, born in Richmond, 

 Ky., April 5, 1816; died in Washington, D. C., Oct. 

 13, 1890. He was graduated at the medical depart- 

 ment of Transylvania University in 1838 ; practiced a 

 short time in his native town and for eight years in 

 Barbourville ; and then abandoned the practice of 

 medicine, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 

 1847. In the following 5 ear he was active in the po- 

 litical canvass, and bold in his denunciation of slavery. 

 His sympathy with the anti-slavery movement made 

 him unpopular in his native State, and induced him 

 to remove to Keokuk, Iowa, in 1850. There he be- 

 came more aggressive than before, and soon was recog- 

 nized as a leader among the men who four years after- 

 ward organized the Republican party. With all his 

 activity in public life he declined public office. When 

 the reorganization of the United States Supreme Court 

 was suggested by President Lincoln in 1861, many 

 lawyers, judges, politicians, and citizens in the West- 

 ern States united in a petition to the President to ap- 

 point Mr. Miller to one of the judgeships. The Presi- 

 dent complied, the Senate confirmed the nomination 

 without reference, and Judge Miller's commission 

 was issued July 16, 1862. He held this office till his 

 death, and for many years was the senior justice of 

 the court. Among his notable official acts were the 



opinions on tho Louisiana slaughter-house cases in 

 which he defined the differences between the rights 

 of the Government and those of the States, and on 

 the Kilbourn-Thompson case, where the constitutional 

 authority of Con- 

 gress as a co-or- 

 dinate branch of 

 the Government 

 was for the first 

 time defined and 

 limited ; and the 

 motion before the 

 Electoral Com- 

 mission in 1877, 

 which led to the 

 judgment that 

 Congress had no 

 authority to go 

 behind the re- 

 turns of the le- 

 gal officers of a 

 State. He was 

 also selected by 

 his associates oh 

 the commission 

 to prepare the re- 

 ports to Congress explaining the position assumed by 

 the majority on each point that arose for decision. At 

 the centennial celebration of the adoption of the Fed- 

 eral Constitution, in Philadelphia, in September, 1887, 

 he was the principal orator. Judge Miller had re- 

 ceived the degrees of LL. D. and D. C. L. from sev- 

 eral colleges. 



Mitchell, Charles Le Moyne, manufacturer, born in 

 New Haven, Conn., Aug. 6, 1844 , died in New York 

 city, March 1, 1890. He was graduated at Cheshire 

 Academy in 1863; spent two years traveling in 

 Europe, Asia, and Africa ; and on his return entered 

 a manufacturing firm in New Haven. In 1877 he was 

 a member of the State House of Representatives ; in 

 1882 he was elected to Congress from the 2d Connecti- 

 cut District as a Democrat ; and in 1884 was re-elected. 

 In 1886 he removed to New York city, and became a 

 member of the firm of Mitchell, Vance & Co. While 

 in Congress he served as a member of the standing 

 Committee on Patents, and of the select committee on 

 reform in the civil service. 



MofFat, James Clement, educator, born in Glencree, 

 Scotland, May 30, 1811 ; died in Princeton, N. J., 

 June 8, 1890. He was apprenticed to the printer's 

 trade, and while following it pursued a regular course 

 of study with such diligence that in 1833, after being in 

 the United States one year, he entered Princeton Col- 

 lege, where he was graduated in 1835. He then took 

 a post-graduate course in Yale College of two years, 

 and returned to Princeton in 1837 as a tutor in Greek. 

 In 1839 he was appointed Professor of Greek and 

 Latin in Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. , in 1841^0- 

 fessor of Latin and Modern History in Miami Univer- 

 sity, Oxford, Ohio ; and in 1852 Professor of Greek 

 and Hebrew in Cincinnati Theological Seminary. 

 The following year he became Professor of Latin and 

 History at Princeton, and a year later took the chair 

 of Greek and Church History there. From 1861 till 

 1887 he was Professor of Church History in Prince- 

 ton Theological Seminary, also teaching Greek Liter- 

 ary History till 1877. He received the degree of D. D. 

 from Miami University in 1853. His publications 

 comprise "Life of Dr. Chalmers" (Cincinnati, 1853); 

 " Introduction to the Study of ^Esthetics " (1856 ; 

 new edition, 1860) ; " Comparative History of Re- 

 ligions" (New York, 1871-'73); " Song and Scenery" 

 (1874); "Alwyn," poem (1875); "The Church in 

 Scotland" (Philadelphia, 1882); and "Church His- 

 tory in Brief" (1885). 



Monteith, James, geographer, born in Strabane, 

 County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1831 ; died in New York 

 city, Sept. 11, 1890. He came to New York city in 

 1835, received a common-school education, and was 

 appointed a teacher in Public School No. 13 in 1852. 

 Early in his career he recognized the inadequacy of 



