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OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (PRATT RANDOLPH.) 



mission business in Baltimore. Subsequently he 

 founded the wholesale iron house of Pratt & Keit h 

 and the house of Enoch Pratt & Brother. He also 

 became President of the Farmers' and Planters' 

 Bank and an official in several steamboat and rail- 

 road companies. His business enterprises yielded 

 him large returns, and enabled him to acquire a 

 fortune estimated from $3.000,000 to $5.000,000. 

 Throughout his long life he took a deep interest in 

 educational enterprises, and was noted for his dis- 

 criminating benefactions. He founded the House 

 of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Chil- 

 dren at Cheltenham, Md., to which he gave 750 

 acres of his farm as a site ; established the Mary- 

 land School for the Deaf and Dumb at Frederick ; 

 endowed an academy in his native town with $30,- 

 000 ; presented the Academy of Sciences of Balti- 

 more a new building ; and made other liberal gifts 

 to public institutions and to churches. His great- 

 est gift was the free public library in Baltimore. 

 On Jan. 21, 1882, he gave notice to the city govern- 

 ment that he would establish such an institution 

 under conditions that the city accepted. He offered 

 to give the land and the principal building, valued 

 at $250,000 ; $50,000 for four branch libraries ; and 

 $833,333.33 in cash, the last to be invested and al- 

 lowed to accumulate till the income amounted to 

 $50,000 per annum, providing the city would create 

 an annuity of $50,000 forever for the support of 

 the institution. The five buildings were completed 

 and conveyed to the city July 2, 1883, and all were 

 formally opened Jan. 4, 1886. At the time of his 

 death the endowment amounted to $1,174,100. Mr. 

 Pratt bequeathed the statues the " Shepherd Boy " 

 and " Campaspe " to the Peabody Institute ; the re- 

 version of $100,000 to Meadville (Pa.) Theological 

 School ; $5,000 to the Congregational church at 

 North Middleboro, Mass.; $10,000 for the endow- 

 ment of the public library in that town ; $10,000 to 

 the Boys' Home in Baltimore ; and the residue of 

 his estate to the Sheppard Asylum, Baltimore, on 

 conditions that the name of the institution be 

 changed to the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospi- 

 tal, that the income of the fund be used to com- 

 plete the present buildings and grounds and erect a 

 new building, and that the remaining fund be used 

 for the care of indigent insane free of cost. 



Pratt, Nathaniel William, engineer, born in 

 Baltimore, Md., in 1852 ; died in Brooklyn, N. Y., 

 March 10, 1896. The first successful dynamite gun 

 was constructed from his designs and patents, and 

 he became consulting engineer of the Dynamite 

 Gun Company. He was President of the Babcock 

 and Wilcox Company. 



Prentiss, Albert Nelson, educator, born in Caze- 

 novia, N. Y., May 22, 1836 ; died in Ithaca, N. Y., 

 Aug. 14, 1896. He was graduated at Michigan 

 Agricultural College in 1861, was appointed Profess- 

 or of Botany there in 1865, and on the opening of 

 Cornell University, in 1868, was called to the chair 

 of Botany, Horticulture, and Arboriculture, which 

 he occupied till his death. In 1870 he conducted the 

 Cornell expedition to Brazil, and in 1872 studied in 

 the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, England, and 

 in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris. Prof. Prentiss 

 was known throughout the scientific world as one 

 of the foremost botanists, and in 1872 received the 

 Walker prize of the Boston Society of Natural His- 

 tory for his essay on the mode of the natural distri- 

 bution of plants. 



Piilford, John, military officer, born in New 

 York city, July 4, 1837 ; died in Detroit, Mich., July 

 11, 1896. When thirteen years old he removed 

 with his parents to Detroit, where he was educated 

 and admitted to the bar. He entered the National 

 army as 1st lieutenant, 5th Michigan Infantry, Aug. 

 28, 1861 ; was promoted captain. May 15," 1862 ; 



major, Jan. 1, 1863 ; lieutenant colonel, May 3 fol- 

 lowing ; and colonel, July 12,1864; and was mus- 

 tered out of the volunteer service July 5. 1865. In . 

 the regular army he was commissioned both 2d and 

 1st lieutenant, 19th Infantry, Feb. 23, 1866; was 

 transferred to the 37th Infantry Sept. 21 following; 

 and was retired with the rank of colonel Dec. 15, 

 1870. On March 13, 1865, he was brevetted briga- 

 dier general of volunteers for " good conduct and 

 meritorious services during the war." Gen. Pul- 

 ford probably received and survived more serious 

 wounds than any other officer during the war. At 

 Malvern Hill a cannon ball fractured his temporal 

 bone and broke his lower jaw and collar bone ; at 

 Chancellorsville he received a wound across the ab- 

 domen, but would not leave the field nor his com- 

 mand ; at Gettysburg he was wounded in the right 

 hand and thigh ; in the battles in the Wilderness 

 his back was broken and both arms were partially 

 disabled from an injury to the brachial plexus and 

 loss of part of the first and second dorsal vertebra3 ; 

 and at Boydton plank road, Oct. 27, 1864, he was 

 severely wounded in the right knee. He is men- 

 tioned thirteen times in the "War of the Rebellion 

 Records" in connection with important move- 

 ments. His entire service during the war was 

 with the Army of the Potomac, excepting a few 

 days in New York city and Troy, N. Y., during the 

 draft excitement in 1863. After the war and his 

 appointment to the regular army, he was engaged 

 in Gen. Hancock's expedition against hostile In- 

 dians, and with the troops assigned to guard the 

 United States mail route from Fort Aubrey to Fort 

 Lyon, Kansas, against the Indians in 1867, and 

 thence till his retirement was on reconstruction and 

 recruiting duty. His retirement was on a record of 

 six wounds received in action. 



Quint. Alonzo Hall, clergyman, born in Barn- 

 stead, N. H., March 22, 1828 ; died in Boston, Mass., 

 Nov. 4, 1896. He was graduated at Dartmouth 

 College in 1846 ; studied medicine ; and afterward 

 took a course in theology at Andover. In 1853 he 

 was ordained pastor of the Central Congregational 

 Church at Jamaica Plain, Mass. ; in 1861 became 

 chaplain of the '2d Massachusetts Volunteers; in 

 1864 went to the North Congregational Church in 

 New Bedford, in 1881 to Somerville, Mass., and in 

 1886 became pastor of Alston Congregational 

 Church. He received the degree of D. D. from 

 Dartmouth College in 1866. Dr. Quint was editor 

 and proprietor of the " Congregational Quarterly " 

 in 1859-'76 ; secretary of the Massachusetts General 

 Association of Congregational Churches for twenty- 

 five years ; was foremost in organizing the National 

 Council of the Congregational Churches of the 

 United States, of which he was secretary from 1871 ; 

 and was for many years editor of " The Congrega- 

 tional Yearbook." He was widely known as a 

 genealogist and church statistician. 



Randolph, Anson Davies Fitz, publisher, born 

 in Woodbridge, N. J., Oct. 18, 1820 ; died in West 

 Hampton, Long Island, N. Y., July 6, 1896. When 

 ten years old he went to New York city, where he 

 became an errand boy in the depository of the 

 American Sunday-school Union, and remained 

 there in various capacities for twenty-one years. 

 In 1851 he established himself as a bookseller and 

 publisher, and personally sold books from house to 

 house in the country, carrying his stock on a canal 

 boat, and made local deliveries with a wheelbarrow. 

 From the first he made a specialty of religious pub- 

 lications, much against the judgment of his friends. 

 One of his early ventures was the republication of 

 a small book entitled " Hints to Christians " (origi- 

 nally published in Philadelphia about 1826). This 

 book is still in print and commands a good sale. 

 During the civil war Mr. Randolph did a large 



