OBITTJAEIES, AMERICAN". 



609 



when they i cached Honolulu. Mr. and Mrs. 

 Lyman were assigned to the station at Hilo, 

 then one of the remotest of the group, now a 

 beautiful and thriving town. Here the young 

 couple began their life-work. A few converts 

 had been made by preceding missionaries, but 

 the tasks of education and of preaching were 

 scarcely yet begun. Mr. Lyman, even before 

 he had fairly learned the native language, in 

 which the missionary work was done, was 

 placed in charge of the Hilo church, and of its 

 extensive outlying dependencies in the districts 

 of Hilo and Puna; and here he preached, 

 taught, and traveled incessantly, and with the 

 most promising results. Tn 1836 two co-labor- 

 ers arrived, Titus and Fidelia Coan. The grow- 

 ing pastoral charge was assigned to Mr. Coan, 

 while Mr. Lyman's remarkable ability and suc- 

 cess as a teacher led the mission to engage him 

 in founding an academy for native young men. 

 Fifty or sixty of the brightest pupils were se- 

 lected from the primary schools ; they received 

 careful instruction in geography, history, and 

 algebra; while Mrs. Lyman taught them in 

 household arts and in music, instructing the 

 young men even in the making of clothes and 

 in sewing, arts for which the Hawaiian women 

 have never shown a marked inclination. The 

 school was admirably disciplined, and was 

 made self-supporting. A farm was cultivated 

 under Mr. Lyman's energetic supervision, and 

 the pupils were supplied with food mainly 

 through their own labor. Mr. Lyman's time 

 and services were devoted to the establishment 

 of the Hilo boarding-school, which he adminis- 

 tered with zeal, tact, and unbroken success; 

 and in addition to this work, the pastoral duty 

 of the Hilo church also fell to him during Mr. 

 Conn's frequent tours through his extended 

 field. These arduous labors were continued as 

 long as physical strength remained to Mr. Ly- 

 man. On his retiring, in 1873, from his more 

 active service, he divided the care of the acad- 

 emy, which remains in flourishing existence, 

 among younger men. The length of Mr. Ly- 

 man's uninterrupted service on a single field 

 has very seldom been equaled in missionary 

 records; it covered a period of fifty-two years, 

 unbroken by any vacation, or indeed by any 

 absence other than that which was required 

 by attendance upon the missionary meetings 

 in Honolulu. He was buried by the side of 

 his beloved fellow-worker, Titus Coan. A 

 more faithful, active, and honored man has 

 seldom gone out to mission-fields. Mr. Lyman 

 had six children, of whom Prof. Henry M. Ly- 

 man, of Chicago, is the eldest. 



McCormick, Cyras Hall, an American inventor 

 and manufacturer, born in Walnut Grove, Va., 

 Feb. 15, 1809; died in Chicago, 111., May 13, 

 1884. His father was a large owner of mills 

 and machine-shops, and, having a talent in that 

 line, invented a reaping-machine. But he did 

 not succeed in perfecting it. This important 

 result was accomplished by his son Cyrus, who 

 in 1834 secured a patent for the invention. 

 TOL. xxiv. 39 A 



The reaping-machine was placed in the mar- 

 ket in 1840, and five years later Mr. McCor- 

 mick moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and patented 

 various improvements. In 1847 he removed to 

 Chicago, and the next year began building his 

 machines in his own shops. He made a large 

 fortune through his reaping-machines, received 

 numerous prizes and medals, and used his wealth 

 liberally in the cause of education. 



McDowell, Katherine S. (Boimer), an American 

 author, born in Holly Springs, Miss., Feb. 26, 

 1849; died there, July 22, 1884. She received 

 her education at seminaries in Mississippi 

 and Alabama, the family moving from one 

 place to another before the advance of the 

 national forces. The most vivid of her early 

 memories were scenes in the civil war, when 

 she witnessed the passing and repassing of 

 portions of either army. With a zealous per- 

 sonal devotion to the South as her home, she 

 had a hatred of slavery, and a natural affinity 

 with the intellectual activity of the North. In 

 1870 she married Edward McDowell, a young 

 man of good family in Holly Springs, who 

 had been educated in England. They had one 

 child, a daughter. In 1872 business called Mr. 

 McDowell to Texas, and Mrs. McDowell car- 

 ried out her long-cherished purpose of visiting 

 Boston. There she became a member of the 

 family of Nahum Capen, Esq., and soon made 

 the acquaintance of the best-known literary 

 people. For two or three years, during the 

 winter months, she was private secretary to 

 the poet Longfellow, who took pleasure in in- 

 troducing her to his friends as one destined to 

 make a name in literature. A personal friend 

 says : " She was of distinguished personal ap- 

 pearancetall, willowy, graceful, and of the 

 fairest complexion, with hair of a rich gold- 

 en auburn color, that almost touched the car- 

 pet when unloosed, and eyes of ever-changing 

 brilliance, that sparkled with the sunniest hu- 

 mor and animation whenever they relaxed from 

 their usually almost austere dignity of expres- 

 sion." Her first contribution to the Boston 

 press that attracted attention was a satirical 

 poem entitled " The Radical Club." It was said 

 to have killed that club, which had been called 

 the " Den of the Unknowable " and the " Cave 

 of the Unintelligible." Subsequently, under the 

 pen-name of " Sherwood Bonner," she pub- 

 lished "Like unto Like" (1881), a novel of 

 Southern life during the reconstruction period, 

 and "Dialect Tales" (1884). It is said that 

 all of these sketches are close studies from life. 

 In 1878, when yellow fever was raging in the 

 lower Mississippi valley, she left her home in 

 Boston and went to Holly Springs, where she 

 nursed her father and brother till they died. 

 Her own death, which followed eight months of 

 suffering, was caused by cancer in the mouth. 



Marsh, Sylvester, an American engineer, born in 

 Massachusetts in 1803 ; died in Concord, N. H., 

 Dec. 30, 1884. He went to Chicago in 1834, 

 when that city was only a hamlet. In 1852 

 he was lost on Mount Washington, and then 



