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OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. 



ing known all over the country as " General 

 Pratt, the Great American Traveler." For 

 nearly fifty years he thus went from place to 

 place, often making long journeys and subsist- 

 ing on what was given him in charity as a re- 

 turn for the amusement that his eccentricities 

 afforded. He made regular tours of the col- 

 leges, especially of those in New England, and 

 his arrival was always the signal for uproarious 

 merriment on the part of the students. He 

 was usually attired in semi-military garb, and 

 wore enormous shoes filled in with straw, 

 while his breast displayed a curious array of 

 burlesque decorations. His lectures, which 

 usually treated of some gigantic invention he 

 had just perfected, were an interminable string 

 of high-sounding but meaningless sentence". 



Pratt, James T., an American politician, born 

 in Middletown, Conn., in 1805; died in Weth- 

 ersfield, Conn., April 11, 1887. He was bred 

 a farmer, and subsequently engaged in the dry- 

 goods business in Hartford. He served in the 

 State Legislature in 1850 from Rocky Hill, and 

 represented the First Senatorial District, which 

 included Hartford, in 1852. In the autumn of 

 that year he was elected a member of Con- 

 gress from the First Connecticut District, and 

 was an earnest advocate of Franklin Pierce in 

 the national canvass. In 185'J he was an un- 

 successful candidate for Governor against 

 William Buckingham. He was a delegate to 

 the Peace Congress in 1861, and a staunch sup- 

 porter of the Union cause during the civil war, 

 and served a second term in the State Legisla- 

 ture in 1870-'71, designating himself an "old- 

 school " Democrat. At one time he was in 

 command of the State militia, and he obtained 

 his title of general from that service. 



Preston, David, an AmeHcan banker, born 

 in Harmony, N. Y., Sept. 20, 1826; died in 

 Detroit, Mich., April 24, 1837. He was a son 

 of the Rev. David Preston, a Methodist clergy- 

 man, and was educated at Westfield Academy. 

 In 1848 he removed to Detroit and entered the 

 employ of a banker, with whom he remained 

 for four years. He then established himself in 

 similar business as David Preston & Co., and 

 soon afterward extended his relations by open- 

 ing a branch establishment in Chicago. During 

 the panic of 1873 he was compelled to close 

 his doors for two days, and, although advised 

 to make an assignment for the benefit of his 

 creditors, he refused to do so, and public con- 

 fidence in him was so great that he was per- 

 mitted to manage his own affairs. His busi- 

 ness increased with great rapidity, and at the 

 time of his death he was head of the Preston 

 Bank of Detroit, and was a large stockholder 

 in the Metropolitan National Bank of Chicago. 

 He was prominent in the formation of the 

 United States Christian Commission, organized 

 during the civil war, and his name stood first 

 among the directors. Mr. Preston was like- 

 wise active in the Methodist Episcopal Churcli. 

 Through his influence a large sum of money 

 was raised as an endowment fund for Albion 



College, toward which he gave $60,000, and 

 he was a trustee of that institution from 1862 

 until his death. He expended upward of 

 $200,000 in various charities during his life- 

 time. In 1876 he was a delegate to the Gen- 

 eral Conference of the Methodist Church, and 

 also in 1884 a delegate to the Centenary Con- 

 ference of Methodism held in Baltimore. He 

 was president of the Detroit Young Men's 

 Christian Association in 1869-'70, and was an 

 active member of the Prohibition party, by 

 which he was nominated for Governor in 1884. 

 A collection of his letters, written for various 

 papers during his travels in Europe in 1881 

 and 1886, has been privately printed. 



Preston, John, an American centenarian, born 

 in England Dec. 20, 1782 ; died near Brown- 

 town, Madison Township, N. J., May 23, 1887. 

 He came to the United States in 1797 with his 

 parents, and lived in New York city for many 

 years, removing thence to Philadelphia, where 

 he remained till 1837, when he settled on the 

 farm in New Jersey. He attended to all the 

 business of the farm when he was over one 

 hundred years old, and was frequently seen, as 

 late as three years ago, miles away from home, 

 on horseback, looking after his affairs with all 

 the vigor of a man of fifty. Two years before 

 his death he cut a cord of wood, as an exhibi- 

 tion of his strength. He was a superior horse- 

 man. In politics he was first a Whig and then 

 a Republican, and never missed an election 

 after he became a citizen. 



Preston, William, an American lawyer, born 

 near Louisville, Ky., Oct. 16, 1816; died in 

 Lexington, Ky., Sept. 21, 1887. He was edu- 

 cated in St. Joseph's College, Kentucky, and at 

 Yale and Harvard, and was graduated from the 

 law-school of the latter in 1838. Two years 

 later he began the practice of his profession in 

 Louisville, remaining there till the opening of 

 the Mexican War, when he went to the field as 

 a lieutenant-colonel of Kentucky Volunteers. 

 He was elected a member of the Legislature in 

 1850-'51, presidential elector in 1852, and a 

 Representative in Congress in 1852 for the un- 

 expired term of Humphrey Marshall, resigned, 

 and in 1853 for a full term. He was a member 

 of the Cincinnati Convention of 1856, which 

 nominated James Buchanan, and was appointed 

 United States Minister to Spain in 1858. On 

 his return to Kentucky in 1861, he was ap- 

 pointed colonel on the staff of his brother-in- 

 law, Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, in the Con- 

 federate service, and took part in the Kentucky 

 campaign, and in the actions at Bowling 

 Green, Nashville, Fort Donelson, Corinth, 

 Shiloh (where Gen. Johnston died in his arms), 

 and Murfreesboro'. After the war he returned 

 to his home, was again elected a member of 

 the Legislature in 1867, and a delegate-at-large 

 to the convention that nominated Gen. Han- 

 cock for the presidency. 



Qninn, William, an American clergyman, born 

 in the County Donegal, Ireland, May 21, 1821 ; 

 died in Paris, France, April 15, 1887. He was 



