596 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. 



that, conjointly with the English committee, 

 revised the translation of the Bible, and of 

 the Pan-Anglican council that met in London, 

 England, in 1873. 



Lent, Lewis Benjamin, an American showman, 

 born in Somers, Westchester County, N. Y., in 

 1814; died in New York city May 26, 1887. 

 He entered the show business at the age of 

 nineteen, his father having bought " Bett," be- 

 lieved to be the first elephant exhibited in the 

 United States, and several trick -horses, and 

 formed a company to take the wonders about 

 the country. Lewis accompanied the show for 

 two seasons, and then, anxious for a larger field, 

 induced his father to buy him an interest in 

 Brown & Fogg's Circus. This circus soon be- 

 came known as the Zoological Institute, other 

 shows being consolidated with it, but under the 

 new title it met with failure. Young Lent then 

 formed the firm of Sands & Lent, and took his 

 show all over the United States, and subse- 

 quently to England. In 1852 he purchased 

 an interest in Franconi's Hippodrome, located 

 where the Fifth Avenue Hotel now stands, 

 with which Messrs. P. T. Barnum and Avery 

 Smith were connected, and later joined Mr. 

 Barnum in the management of his traveling 

 managerie. At the beginning of the war, Mr. 

 Lent went with E. P. Christy to the West In- 

 dies with the National Circus, and exhibited 

 there for two seasons. On his return to New 

 York city, he took Wallack's old theatre, and 

 used it as a circus till October, 1865, when he 

 opened a circus in the u Hippotheatron," on 

 Fourteenth Street, opposite the Academy of 

 Music. He managed this successfully till Au- 

 gust, 1872, when he sold out to Mr. Barnum, 

 and went on the road with the traveling New 

 York Circus. During the season of 1873 he 

 managed a circus and menagerie in Madison 

 Square Garden, New York city. In 1882 Mr. 

 Lent closed his career as a showman, with 

 Frank A. Robbins's circus and managerie, and 

 from that time led a comparatively quiet life. 

 He had been connected, as partner, director, 

 or manager, with every circus of note in the 

 United States since 1833, and, though he accu- 

 mulated and lost several fortunes, died rich. 



Leray, Francis Xavier, an American clergyman, 

 born near Rennes, Brittany, France, April 20, 

 1825; died there in September, 1887. He was 

 educated by the Eudist fathers, and accompa- 

 nied a missionary party of that order to the 

 United States in 1843, settling with them in 

 Vincennes, Ind. After nine years of mission- 

 ary work, he completed his theological course 

 in St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, Md , and 

 was ordained priest at Natchez, Miss., March 

 19, 1852. On the death of Bishop Chauche he 

 was sent to Jackson, Miss., where he labored 

 with great zeal during the yellow-fever epi- 

 demics of 1853 and 1854, administering to the 

 comfort of the victims in Vicksburg and Bran- 

 don as well in the latter year. He was sent to 

 Vicksburg in 1857, find was just getting his 

 l.irge parish into effective working order when 



the civil war began. Shortly after its close 

 the city was visited by cholera, and for two 

 years the priest labored among his stricken 

 flock with little save his sense of duty to en- 

 courage him. On the death of the Rt. Rev. 

 Dr. Martin, he was selected to succeed him 

 as bishop of Natchitoches. He was conse- 

 crated in the cathedral of Rennes April 23, 

 1877. In October, 1879, he was transferred to 

 the see of Janopolis, and made coadjutor of New 

 Orleans, retaining also the care of the diocese 

 of Natchitoches as administrator-apostolic, and 

 in December, 1883, on the death of Archbishop 

 Perche, he became apostolic administrator of 

 the diocese of New Orleans, being thus invested 

 with the care of the whole State of Louisiana. 

 Soon afterward he was appointed Archbishop 

 of New Orleans. At the time of his death he 

 was visiting relatives at his birthplace. 



Linsly, .la ml, an American physician, born in 

 Branford, Conn., Oct. 30, 1803; died in North- 

 ford, Conn., July 12, 1887. He was educated 

 at Bacon Academy, Colchester, Conn., and at 

 Yale, being graduated in 1826. In 1827 he re- 

 moved to New York city, and began the study 

 of medicine in the office of Dr. John C. Chees- 

 man, also entering the College of Physicians 

 and Surgeons, from which he received his de- 

 gree in 1829. During the next two years he 

 served in the surgical department of the New 

 York Hospital, and throughout the cholera 

 epidemic of 1832 was attached to the Cholera 

 Hospital. He first formed a partnership with 

 Dr. William Miner, and in 1834 with Dr. 

 William Baldwin, which continued till the 

 latter's death in 1841. During his lone practice 

 he was seldom absent from New York city, ex- 

 cept for occasional visits to his homestead, and 

 during the year 1853, when he and his wife 

 were guests of the late Cornelius Vanderbilt 

 on the noted trip of the steam-yacht " North 

 Star " to England, Russia, and the Mediter- 

 ranean. He was Mr. Vanderbilt's physician, 

 and attended him till death. Dr. Linsly was 

 a trustee of the College of Physicians and 

 Surgeons, and of the New York Ophthalmic 

 and Aural Institute, physician of the charity 

 committee of the New England Society of the 

 City of New York, and consulting physician of 

 the New York Asylum for Lying-in Women, 

 of the New York Dispensary, and of the Lenox 

 Presbyterian Hospital. From his student days 

 Dr. Linsly took a keen interest in the welfare 

 of Yale College. An uncle, Noah Linsly, who 

 was graduated there in 1791, and died in 1814, 

 made a bequest to the college for its general 

 purposes ; this endowment was increased by 

 Dr. Linsly, and is now known as " The Noah 

 and Jared Linsly Fund." The income from 

 the sum is applied, at Dr. Linsly's desire, to 

 the purchase of books for the department of 

 modern languages in the college library. 



Lord, .Ian is, an American banker, born in 

 Ballston, Saratoga County, N. Y., Feb. 10, 

 1816; died in Pittsford, N. Y., July 24, 1887. 

 He received a common-school education, and 



