OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. 



643 



railroad matters enabled him to obtain impor- 

 tant legislation on the subject, and also to se- 

 cure the passage of an act incorporating a com- 

 pany to construct the " Ohio and Pennsylvania 

 Railroad " from Pittsburg to the State line. He 

 became chief-engineer of this road and its ex- 

 tension in 1848, and in April, 1853, saw it com- 

 pleted to Crestline for which town, and for 

 that of Alliance, he selected both site and 

 name. He remained with the company until 

 1856 as general superintendent, when he re- 

 signed and moved to Philadelphia, from Pitts- 

 burg, to accept the post of chief-engineer and 

 general superintendent of the North Pennsyl- 

 vania Railroad, which then extended only to 

 Gwynedd. In July of 1857 he had it completed 

 to Bethlehem, and thereafter devoted himself 

 to the care of its constantly increasing business, 

 refusing at various times the proffered presi- 

 dency of other railway schemes. In July, 1875, 

 he was one of the board nominated by the 

 Franklin Institute, at the request of Mayor 

 Stokely, to consider "the entire subject of the 

 present and future water-supply of Philadel- 

 phia." 



RUDEESDOBFF, EMMA MANSFIELD, bom at 



Ivanowsky, in the Ukraine government in Rus- 

 sia, in 1822 ; died in Boston, Mass., 1882. Her 

 father was a distinguished violinist. Madame 

 Rudersdorff was a soprano singer of great suc- 

 cess, making her first appearance professional- 

 ly in Leipsic, in 1840, and subsequently filling 

 engagements in opera in all the prominent cities 

 of the Old World. 



RYEESON-, ADOLPHTJS EGEBTON, born at Char- 

 lotteville, in the present Province of Ontario, 

 Canada, March 24, 1803 ; died at Toronto, Ont., 

 1882. Rev. Mr. Ryerson, D.D., LL. D., was 

 the son of a loyalist of the American Revolu- 

 tion, who settled in New Brunswick, and af- 

 terward in Upper Canada. He received a good 

 classical education, became a Wesleyan minis- 

 ter in 1825, and founded in 1829 the " Guard- 

 ian" newspaper, the organ of the Canadian 

 "Wesleyans. He was a delegate to the British 

 Wesleyan Conference in 1833 and 1886 ; was 

 appointed in 1841 Principal of Victoria Col- 

 lege, Coburg, Ont., and in 1844 Superintend- 

 ent of Public Schools for Upper Canada. In 

 that capacity he made an extensive tour of 

 observation in the United States and Europe, 

 and published an elaborate report on methods 

 of education in 1847, with a plan for the reor- 

 ganization of the Canadian schools, which he 

 labored for many years to improve. Mr. Ry- 

 erson wrote largely on educational topics, and 

 maintained warm controversies with the oppo- 

 nents of the system he advocated. He was au- 

 thor of a " History of Canada " and of a " His- 

 tory of the United Empire Loyalists." 



SAWYEE, GEOBGE Y., died June 15, 1882, in 

 Boston, Mass. He was a classmate in Bowdoin 

 College of William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine; 

 Henry W. Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 

 Franklin Pierce, and other distinguished gen- 

 tlemen. In 1839-1841 he represented Nashua, 



N". H., in the Legislature, and, in one of the 

 exciting political campaigns of that decade, he 

 was the Whig candidate for Congress, falling a 

 few votes short of the election. He was Judge 

 of the Court of Common Pleas from 1851 to 

 1854, and of the Supreme Judicial Court from 

 1855 to 1859. Judge Sawyer declined an offer 

 by President Pierce of the governorship of one 

 of the Territories, and devoted himself, to with- 

 in a few years, to an extensive law practice, 

 being, in 1865, one of the commissioners that 

 revised and codified the statute laws of the 

 State. 



SCHEM, ALEXANDEE JACOB, a German- Amer- 

 ican scholar, born in Wiedenbruck, Westpha- 

 lia, March 16, 1826 ; died at West Hoboken, 

 N. J., May 21, 1881. He studied theology and 

 philology in the Universities of Bonn and Tu- 

 bingen, and came to the United States in 1851. 

 In 1854 he was appointed Professor of Ancient 

 and Modern Languages in Dickinson College, 

 Carlisle, Pa., but left this position in 1860 to 

 devote himself entirely to literature. While in 

 Carlisle, he edited, together with Rev. George 

 R. Crooks, a Latin-English Dictionary (Phila- 

 delphia, 1857). In 1860 he went to New York, 

 where he received an appointment on the staff 

 of the " New York Tribune." He was particu- 

 larly noted for his encyclopedic and statistical 

 labors, which he began in 1859 as a regular con- 

 tributor to the "American Cyclopaedia," for 

 which he furnished a large number of articles. 

 He was also a regular contributor to the " An- 

 nual Cyclopaedia " since the publication of the 

 first volume in 1861, in the foreign and reli- 

 gious departments. He also wrote a large num- 

 ber of articles for McClintock and Strong's 

 " Cyclopaedia of Theological, Biblical, and Ec- 

 clesiastical Literature." He published the 

 "American Ecclesiastical Year-Book (1860), 

 and in 1868 and 1869 an "Ecclesiastical Al- 

 manac," besides contributing to numerous other 

 almanacs and year-books. In 1869 he severed 

 his connection with the "Tribune," and as- 

 sumed the editorial charge of the " Deutsch 

 Amerikanisches Conversations-Lexicon," which 

 was completed in 1874. He also published sev- 

 eral editions of " Schem's Statistics of the 

 World," a comparative statistical table similar 

 to Hubner's Tables. In 1874 he was elected an 

 assistant superintendent of public schools in 

 New York city, which position he retained 

 up to the time of his death. In this, as well 

 as in his previous positions, he did much to 

 promote among Americans a better understand- 

 ing of German literature and science, and as 

 assistant superintendent particularly, to pro- 

 mote the study of the German language in the 

 Eublic schools. Together with Henry Kiddle, 

 e edited a " Cyclopaedia of Education " (New 

 York, 1877), which was followed by two an- 

 nual supplements under the title of "Year- 

 Book of Education" (New York, 1878 and 

 1879). 



SMITH, IDA GEEELEY, born in New York 

 city, 1850 ; died at Chappaqua, N. Y., 1882. 



