582 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (RICHARDSON ROPER.) 



French coast, in Normandy and elsewhere, and his 

 " Cast Ashore," a body on the beach surrounded by 

 French officials and fishermen, received a second- 

 class medal at the Salon, where .Mr. Reinhart liv- 

 quently exhibited. This was one of several of his 

 pictures shown at the Columbian Exposition. In 

 water color also Mr. Keinhart did much excellent 

 and effective work. While he was not a writer, his 

 singular vividness as a story-teller so impressed his 

 literary friends that lie was induced to write one or 

 two favorite stories, which were received by readers 

 with a marked esteem that was quite independent 

 of the influence of the author's strong personal 

 popularity. He was a member of the National 

 Academy of Design and of the Salmagundi Club, 

 and also of the Century and Players' Clubs. 



Richardson, William Adams, jurist, born in 

 Tyngsboro, .Mass., Nov. 2, 1S21; died in Washing- 

 ton, D. V., Oct. 19, 1896. He was graduated at Har- 

 vard in 1843, and at its law school in 1846, and in 

 the last year was admitted to the bar and appointed 

 judge advocate of the .Massachusetts militia. In 

 1853-'54 he was President of the Common Council 

 of Lowell; in 1859 was elected President of the 

 \Vamesit Bank, and afterward was President of the 

 Middlesex Mechanics' Association. He spent 1N55- 

 '59 in revising the General Statutes of the Com- 

 monwealth, in conjunction with Joel Parker and 

 A. A. Richmond. In 1856 he was appointed judge 

 of probate for Middlesex County, and in 1868, when 

 the offices of judge of probate and judge of insol- 

 vency were consolidated, lie was appointed to the 

 new place, and held it till April, 1872. On the 

 completion of the revision of the General Statutes, 

 Judges Richardson and Sanger were appointed by 

 the Legislature editors of the annual supplement to 

 that work, and Judge Richardson discharged this 

 duty for twenty-two years. In 1869 he was ap- 

 pointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Two 

 years afterward he was sent abroad by the Govern- 

 ment as special financial agent, and negotiated the 

 first contracts entered into in Europe for the sale 

 of United States 4-per-cent. bonds. On March 17, 

 1873, Judge Richardson was appointed Secretary of 

 the Treasury, to succeed George S. Boutwell, elected 

 to the United States Senate. He held this office 

 till June, 1874, and during its tenure made the not- 

 able transfer of the Geneva award money ($10,500,- 

 000) from London to Washington. In June, 1874, 

 he resigned from the Treasury Department to ac- 

 cept a seat on the bench of the United States Court 

 of Claims, and from 1885 till his death he was chief 

 justice of that, court. He was a professor in the 

 law departments of Georgetown (D. C.) College and 

 Columbian University for many years, and received 

 the degree of LL. D. from the last in 1873. Judge 

 Richardson was the author of numerous publica- 

 tions dealing chiefly with financial subjects. These 

 included: "The Banking Laws of Massachusetts" 

 (Lowell, 1855); "Practical Information concerning 

 the Debt of the United States " (Washington, 1872) ; 

 " National Banking Laws" (1872); and a " History 

 of the Court of Claims" (1882-'85). Besides the 

 "Supplements" to the General Statutes of the 

 Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Boston, 1860- 

 '82), he prepared a " Supplement to the Revised 

 Statutes of the United States" (1881). 



Ripley, Philip, journalist, born in Hartford, 

 Conn., in 1828 ; died in New York city, Jan. 25, 

 1896. He was educated at Trinity College, Hart- 

 ford, and shortly after graduation engaged in jour- 

 , nalism in Washington, D. C. During the civil war 

 he was the correspondent in New Orleans of several 

 newspapers. Several years after the war he re- 

 moved to New York city, where he lived till his 

 death, working at different times on the principal 

 newspapers, writing editorials for " The Tribune," 



lecturing on war experiences, and contributing 

 short stories to periodical literature and articles to 

 cyclopaedias. 



Robinson, dleorge Dexter, lawyer, born in Lex- 

 ington, Mass.. Jan. 20, I8o4; died in Chic,. 

 Mass.. Feb. 22, 1896. He was graduated at Harvard 

 in 1856; taught in Chicopee for nine years; and 

 was admitted to the bar in 1866. In 1873 he was 

 elected to the lower house of the Legislature, and in 

 1875 to the State Senate. The following year tie 

 was elected to Congress as a Republican, lie was 

 re-elected for two successive terms, and after the 

 reapportionment was elected from the new 12th 

 District. Before taking his seat for tins last term 

 he was elected Governor of the State by a plurality 

 of 9,864 votes over Gen. Butler. His most impor- 

 tant service in Congress was in the Committee on 

 the Judiciary. In 1884 he was re-elected Governor 

 by 47.510 plurality, defeating William C. Endicott, 

 and in 1865 was again re-elected, defeating Fred- 

 erick O. Prince with a plurality of 21,897. 



Robinson. John Mitchell, jurist, born in Caro- 

 line County, Maryland, in 1828; died in Annapolis, 

 Md., Jan. 14. 1890. He was graduated at Dickin- 

 son College in 1S47. and was admitted to the bar in 

 IS I!). In January, 1851, he was appointed deputy 

 attorney-general for Queen Anne County, and in 

 November following was elected State attorney. 

 He was elected judge of the Circuit Court in 1864, 

 and judge of the Court of Appeals in 1867. Dur- 

 ing the thirty years he was on the appellate bench 

 he delivered upward of 400 opinions. In 1893, he 

 was appointed chief judge of the Court of Appeals, 

 and he held this place at the time of his death. 



Robinson, Theodore, artist, born in Irasburg, 

 Vi.. in 1852: died in New York city, April 2, 1896. 

 He studied painting with Carolus-Duran and Ge- 

 rome in Paris, and with Claude Monet, the impres- 

 sionist, and after opening a studio in New York 

 city, confined himself to figure and landscape work. 

 In 1890 he took the Webb prize of .$300 for his 

 "Winter Landscape "and the Shaw prize of $1,000 

 for the best single-figure composition in oil by an 

 American artist for a peasant-girl study entitled 

 " In the Sun." In the 1896 spring exhibition of the 

 Society of American artists he exhibited "Washing 

 Day," ""The Little Mill Autumn," "West River 

 Valley Yermont," "Vermont Hillside October 

 Afternoon," and " Correspondence." 



Roper, S. H.. mechanical engineer, born in New 

 Hampshire, in 1823; died in Cambridge, Mass., 

 June 1, 1896. He was brought up on a farm, from 

 which he went to a machine shop and made a 

 thorough study of mechanics. His inventive skill 

 was first shown in connection w r ith fine guns and 

 sewing machines, and it was said that it was his 

 invention on which Elias Howe obtained his sewing- 

 machine patent. Other of his inventions were the 

 first practical knitting machine used in Massachu- 

 setts, hot-air furnaces and ranges, and. in co-opera- 

 tion with his son, the machines in the Ilopedale 

 Screw Works. In 1869 he applied steam power to 

 an old-fashioned velocipede, but did not obtain the 

 speed anticipated. Nevertheless he continued ex- 

 perimenting, and on the introduction of the modern 

 bicycle applied himself almost wholly to the perfec- 

 tion of a steam cycle. On the day of his death he 

 took his invention to the new Charles river bicycle 

 track at Cambridge for a public trial. He arranged 

 with expert wheelmen in training there to race with 

 him, and the one chosen for the first run had all he 

 could do to keep up with the steam bicycle. The 

 inventor became excited over his victory, and set 

 out to spin around the track alone to make a record. 

 After making seven circuits and when within a few 

 yards of the grand stand he fell dead. He had 

 been going at the rate of a mile in two minutes. 



