550 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (CASWELL CHILD.) 



engineers, and engaged in the construction of a 

 wagon road from Vancouver, Wash., to Cowlitz 

 river, Oregon, and the important duty of selecting 

 surveying military reservations on Puget Sound. 

 From' duty as assistant engineer at Fort Monroe, 

 Va., on the staff of the commanding general of the 

 Department of Vir- 

 ginia, he was ordered 

 in 1861 to that of su- 

 perintending engineer 

 of the permanent de- 

 fenses and field forti- 

 fications on the coast 

 of Maine. In 1864 he 

 was on special duty with 

 the North Atlantic 

 squadron in the first 

 expedition against Fort 

 Fisher. Meanwhile he 

 passed through the 

 grades of lieutenant and 

 captain and reached 

 that of major. He was 



brevetted in March, 1865, lieutenant colonel and 

 colonel for faithful and meritorious services dur- 

 ing the civil war. In 1868 he was ordered to 

 Washington and given charge of one of the prin- 

 cipal departments in the office of the chief of 

 engineers, in which place he remained until 1877, 

 having, however, in 1873, been sent to Europe 

 on professional services, and in 1874 he was made 

 lieutenant colonel. In 1877 he was placed in 

 charge of the erection of the State, W r ar, and 

 Navy buildings, of the office of Public Build- 

 ings and Grounds, and of the W T ashington Aque- 

 duct. The State Department building was com- 

 pleted in 1888, the State Department wing and a 

 portion of the Navy Department wing having been 

 erected before he took charge of it. He laid out 

 the walks and drives of the White Lot, and built 

 the pedestal for the statue of Gen. Thomas and the 

 White House Conservatory, and later had charge of 

 the construction of the Army Medical Museum and 

 Library, the erection of the monument over the 

 grave of President Jefferson, the one at Washing- 

 ton's headquarters in Newburg, N. Y., the one to 

 mark the birthplace of Washington, and the Gar- 

 field statue and pedestal. In 1878 he was given 

 charge of the completion of the Washington Monu- 

 ment, which had then been standing in an unfin- 

 ished condition for a quarter of a century. The 

 engineering problems connected with its comple- 

 tion were unique in magnitude and character. 

 They consisted not only of the erection of the 

 greater part of the marble and granite shaft, but of 

 strengthening the foundations so as to render safe 

 beyond question the entire shaft, weighing 32,000 

 tons, standing at that time. It was also necessary 

 for Gen. Casey to construct a suitable terminal or 

 pyramidion for the shaft, and this was successfully 

 accomplished and the capstone placed in position 

 Dec. 6, 1884. He was President of the Board of 

 Engineers for fortification and other public works 

 at New York from 1886 to July 6, 1888, when he 

 was appointed brigadier general and chief of en- 

 gineers, United States army. Gen. Casey was 

 charged by act of Congress, in October, 1889, with 

 the construction of the Congressional Library 

 building, and in appreciation of his ability Con- 

 gress continued him after retirement in charge of 

 the work. In 1890 he was elected to the National 

 Academy of Sciences. He was also a member of 

 the American Society of Civil Engineers and an 

 officer of the Legion of Honor in France. 



Caswell, Oliver, blind and deaf-mute, born in 

 Connecticut, near Newport, R. I., in 1829; died 

 there April 13, 1896. Excepting Laura Bridgman, 



he was the most widely known blind mute in the 

 country. Early in life he was sent to the Perkins 

 Institute for the Blind, in Boston, where he at- 

 tracted the attention of Dr. Samuel G. Howe, who 

 undertook to educate him. With the assistance of 

 Laura Bridgman. Dr. Howe taught him to read and 

 to converse with his fingers, and, becoming con- 

 vinced that he had both the capacity and inclina- 

 tion to learn, placed him under the care of an 

 expert instructor. When Charles Dickens visited 

 the Perkins Institute Oliver was thirteen years old, 

 and just beginning to show results of Dr. Howe's 

 preliminary instruction. The novelist was particu- 

 larly interested in the lad, and in his "American 

 Notes" devoted many pages to his condition and 

 the method of his education. The triple affliction 

 was the result of an attack of scarlet fever when 

 Oliver was a little over three years old. 



Catlin, George Lynde, journalist, born on Staten 

 Island, N. Y., Feb. 13, 1840 ; died in New York city, 

 Dec. 14, 1896. He was graduated at Yale in 1860; 

 enlisted in the 5th New York Volunteers in 1861 ; 

 and subsequently served with the 101st New York 

 Regiment, having the rank of lieutenant at the end 

 of the war. On his retiirn he became an editorial 

 writer on the "Commercial Advertiser" of New 

 York, and also wrote the " Personal " column for 

 that paper. About 1877 he entered the United 

 States consular service, in which he remained till 

 about a year before his death, serving at La Rochelle, 

 France, Limoges, Stuttgart, and Zurich. While 

 in Europe he contributed verse to various periodic- 

 als and published anonymously a book entitled 

 " Bietigheim," which purported to narrate the de- 

 tails of a battle fought at a place of that name be- 

 tween the armies of France, Great Britain, Italy, 

 Spain, Turkey, and the United States on one side, 

 and those of Germany, Russia, and Austria on the 

 other. This work was in the nature of a prophecy, 

 and it is said that the German authorities, after its 

 publication, recognized the value of Bietigheim as 

 a strategic point and fortified it. In 1888 he pub- 

 lished " The Presidential Campaign of 1896," in 

 which, among other events, he detailed the election 

 of John W. Griggs as Governor of New Jersey in 

 that year, which occurred. Mr. Catlin resided in 

 Paterson, N. J., where he had served as President of 

 the Board of Education and for many years as 

 superintendent of a large Sunday school. 



Chambers, Talbot Wilson, clergyman, born in 

 Carlisle, Pa., Feb. 25, 1819 ; died in New York city, 

 Feb. 3, 1896. He was graduated at Rutgers Col- 

 lege; studied theology in the Reformed Church 

 Seminary there and at Princeton College ; was 

 licensed to preach at Clinton, Miss., in 1838; and 

 was pastor of the Second Reformed Church, Somer- 

 ville, N. J., in 1839-'49. In the latter year he was 

 installed one of the pastors of the Collegiate Dutch 

 Church in New York city, and remained in associa- 

 tion with the Middle Dutch Church congregation 

 till his death. He received the degree of S. T. D. 

 from Columbia College in 1853, and that of LL. D. 

 from Rutgers College in 1885. He was the Vedder 

 lecturer at New Brunswick in 1875 ; chairman of 

 the Committee on Versions of the American Bible 

 Society for many years; and a member of the Old 

 Testament company of the American Bible Revi- 

 sion Committee. He published " The Noon Prayer 

 Meeting in Fulton Street" (New York, 1857); 

 " Memoir of Theodore Frelinghuysen " (1863) ; " Ex- 

 position of the Book of Zechariah " in " Lange's Com- 

 mentary" (1874): "The Psalter a Witness to the 

 Divine 'Origin of the Bible " (Vedder lectures, 1875) ; 

 and "Companion to the Revised Version of the 

 Old Testament" (1885). 



Child. Francis James, scholar, born in Boston, 

 Mass., Feb. 1, 1825 ; died there Sept. 11, 1896. He 



