OBITUARIES, UNITED STATES. 



627 



Aug. 26. PHELPS, NOAH A., a prominent 

 political leader in Connecticut ; died in Sims- 

 bury, aged 84 years. He was born in Sims- 

 bury, October 16, 1788, graduated at Yale Col- 

 lege in 1808 ; studied law, and was admitted 

 to the bar about 1811. He served in the Demo- 

 cratic interest in the State Legislature and 

 Senate ; was Sheriff of Hartford County, from 

 1820 to 1828 ; Collector of Customs at Middle- 

 town from 1829 to 1841, under the Adminis- 

 trations of Jackson and Van Buren ; and Sec- 

 retary of State of Connecticut in 1843 and 

 1844. About the year 1845 he compiled and 

 published, at great labor and expense, a " His- 

 tory of Simsbury, Granby, and Canton, from 

 1642 to 1845," a work replete with facts and 

 incidents worthy of preservation. 



Aug. 27. STEWAET, REID T., second-lieu- 

 tenant Fifth Cavalry, U. S. A. ; was killed by 

 the Apache Indians, aged 22 years. He grad- 

 uated the first in his class of seventeen in the 

 High School of Philadelphia, in June, 1867. 

 Soon after, he entered the Military Academy 

 at West Point, from the Erie District, Pa., and 

 graduated No. 8 in a class of forty-three in June, 

 1871, and was assigned to Company F, Fifth 

 Cavalry. He joined his regiment on the march 

 to Arizona, November 30, 1871. He was trans- 

 ferred to Company M, and at last reports was 

 at Canip Crittenden, some sixty miles from the 

 post of Tucson, and in the absence of the cap- 

 tain and first-lieutenant had charge of the 

 company. His last letters from this extreme 

 outpost of our Army spoke of our scarcity of 

 troops, and of the proximity of the savages 

 of that region. Lieutenant Stewart was a 

 young man of remarkable talent, and a future 

 apparently full of promise and hope. 



Aug. 27. WILLIAMS, Colonel MADISON JACK- 

 SON, a prominent citizen and journalist of Ala- 

 bama ; died at Shelby Springs. He was born 

 in Greenville, Butler County, Ala., in 1835. In 

 1854 he removed to Selma, where he was first 

 employed in the office of the Selma Reporter^ 

 a newspaper owned and edited by Colonel 

 N. G. Shelley, but of which in a short time he 

 became part owner, and after Colonel Shelley's 

 death sole proprietor. After the war he estab- 

 lished the Selma Daily Times, which he edited 

 and conducted with marked ability until the 

 year 1870, when he disposed of it to its pres- 

 ent management. In 1866 he was elected 

 Mayor of the city of Selma, and subsequently 

 on two or more occasions served as a member 

 of the Council of that city a position of 

 honor and trust that he held at the time of 

 his death. In February, 1871, he purchased 

 the Montgomery Mail, which paper was soon 

 after consolidated with the Advertiser. 



Aug. 31. PHELPS, GEORGE D., an eminent 

 merchant and philanthropist of New York 

 City; died in Simsbury, Conn., aged 69 years. 

 He was a brother of the Hon. Noah A. Phelps, 

 whose death occurred five days previous. The 

 subject of this sketch was a man of active 

 Christian benevolence, and was one of the 



founders of several of our national benevolent 

 societies. In 1831 he was the first President 

 of the New York Young Men's Society, which 

 was the precursor of the Young Men's Chris- 

 tian Associations. 



Aug. . BROWN, Rev. THOMAS B., a vener- 

 able Baptist clergyman of Ray County, Ind., 

 for more than fifty years in the ministry ; died 

 in that county, aged 85 years. He had been a 

 soldier in the War of 1812. 



Aug. . CRAIG, JOHN, a wealthy and be- 

 nevolent citizen of Rochester, N. Y., who, be- 

 sides liberal gifts during his life, bequeathed 

 $105,000 to various educational institutions of 

 the Universalist denomination ; died in Roch- 

 ester. 



Aug. . GROVES, JOHN, a centenarian of 

 Portland, Me. ; died there, aged 113 years. He 

 was a native of Martinique, W. I., came to 

 Maine while a boy, before the Revolutionary 

 War, and was converted to Christianity when 

 ninety-eight years of age. 



Aug. . JONES, Rev. JOHN TECUMSEH, a 

 Baptist clergyman, a converted Ottawa Indian, 

 educated at the Hamilton Literary and Theo- 

 logical Institution (now Madison University) ; 

 died in Kansas, aged 59 years. He left his en- 

 tire property, amounting to $60,000, to aid in 

 founding a theological department in Ottawa 

 University, Kan. 



Aug. . WHITNEY, ASA, an enterprising 

 and energetic merchant, for many years resi- 

 dent in New York, whose attention was early 

 called to the necessity and feasibility of a 

 Pacific Railroad, and who by public addresses, 

 and earnest appeals and petitions to Congress, 

 succeeded in procuring the appropriations for 

 the first explorations and surveys, which made 

 its necessity apparent; died in Washington, 

 D. C., aged 75 years. 



Sept. 3. DE LEON, DAVID CAMDEIT, M. D., a 

 surgeon in the U. S. Army ; died at Santa F6, 

 New Mexico, aged 50 years. He was born 

 and educated in South Carolina ; graduated at 

 the Medical School in Philadelphia, and entered 

 the U. S. Army as assistant surgeon. After 

 passing through the Seminole War, he was sta- 

 tioned for several years on outposts of the 

 Western frontier. At the breaking out of the 

 Mexican War he went with General Taylor to 

 the Rio Grande, was present at most of the 

 battles which led the victors to the gates of 

 Mexico, and entered that city when it surren- 

 dered, riding at General Scott's left hand. For 

 these services, as well as for gallantry in action 

 (when commanding officers were killed or 

 wounded and he took their place), Dr. De Leon 

 twice received the thanks of Congress, but was 

 again assigned to frontier duty in Mexico, on 

 the ground of his great energy and hardihood. 

 At the outbreak of our civil war he resigned 

 his commission, and was placed at the head 

 of the Medical Department of the Confederate 

 army. At the close of the war he went to 

 Mexico, but after a year's residence in that 

 country he returned to New Mexico, where he 



