OBITUAKIES, AMERICAN. 



609 



Robertson, John, an American soldier, horn in 

 Scotland in 1814; died in Detroit, Mich., March 

 19. 1887. While a boy he took passage in a 

 sailing vessel for the United States, and on his 

 arrival in New York he inquired for the near- 

 est recruiting-station and promptly enlisted in 

 the regular army, serving a term of seven years. 

 When his time was out his regiment was sta- 

 tioned in Detroit, and there he engaged in the 

 commission business. In 1861 Gov. Blair com- 

 missioned him Adjutant- General of the State, 

 an office he held under every administration 

 since. He rendered invaluable service in rais- 

 ing and equipping troops for the field, and after 

 the war he charged himself with the duty of 

 collecting all available statistics that would il- 

 lustrate the part borne by the State of Michigan 

 in the great struggle. 



Rochester, Thomas Fortesene, an American phy- 

 sician, born in Rochester, N. Y., Oct. 8, 1823; 

 died in Buffalo, N. Y., May 24, 1887. He was 

 descended from colonial English settlers of Vir- 

 ginia, and grandson of Nathaniel Rochester, 

 deputy commissary-general in the Continental 

 army, after whom the city of Rochester is 

 named. He was graduated at Geneva College 

 in 1845, and received the degree of M. D. from 

 the University of Pennsylvania in 1848, con- 

 tinuing his medical studies in different coun- 

 tries of Europe. Returning to the United States 

 in 1851 he established himself in New York 

 city, where he continued two years, or till 

 June, 1853, when he removed to Buffalo, N. 

 Y., to take the chair of principles and practice 

 of medicine in the University of Buffalo. Since 

 1861 he had been consulting physician to the 

 Buffalo General Hospital, and from 1853 till 

 1883 was attending or consulting physician at 

 the Sisters of Charity Hospital. He was elected 

 a member of the New York Pathological So- 

 ciety in 1848, president of the Erie County 

 Medical Society in 1860, president of the New 

 York State Medical Society in 1875, and its 

 delegate to the International Medical Congress 

 at Philadelphia in 1876. During the civil war 

 he was appointed by President Lincoln an in- 

 spector of Union field-hospitals. Among his 

 works are : " The Winter Climate of Malaga," 

 "The Medical Society of Buffalo," "The Army 

 Surgeon," "The Mod'ern Hygeia." and "Medi- 

 cal Men and Medical Matters in 1876." 



Ross, William Henry Harrison, an American law- 

 yer, horn in Laurel, Del., June 2, 1814; died 

 in Philadelphia, Pa., June 29, 1887. He com- 

 manded a regiment of cavalry in the Mexican 

 War, was Governor of Delaware from 1851 till 

 1855, and represented the State in the National 

 Democratic Conventions of 1844, 1848, 1856, 

 and 1860. 



Ronqnette, Adrien, an American clergyman, 

 born in New Orleans, La., Feb. 26, 1813; died 

 there, July 15, 1887. He came of one of the 

 oldest and wealthiest Creole families in Louisi- 

 ana, and was brought up in luxury and the en- 

 joyment of the best society in New Orleans 

 and Paris. Most of bis boyhood days were 

 VOL. xxvn. 39 A 



passed among the Indians on Bayou La- 

 combe. He was educated in the preparatory 

 school of Transylvania University, in Ken- 

 tucky, the College Royal of Paris, the College 

 Royal of Nantes, and at Rennes, receiving his 

 baccalaureate in the latter place March 26, 

 1833. To gratify his family, who were eager 

 to separate him from his Indian associates, he 

 agreed to study law, and returned to Paris 

 for the purpose, making frequent trips, how- 

 ever, to New Orleans and Bayou Lacombe. 

 The law proved distasteful to him at the start, 

 and instead of .pursuing its study he abandoned 

 it for literature and poetry, till about 1842, 

 when he resolved to enter the priesthood of 

 the Catholic Church. Faithful to early asso- 

 ciations he passed his probation at Bayou La- 

 combe, and his novitiate in the seminary of 

 Assumption Parish. He was ordained as sub- 

 deacon in 1844, and as priest by Monsignor 

 Blanc, Archbishop of New Orleans, in 1845. 

 For fourteen years he was attached to the 

 cathedral as predicateur, and then, in the 

 spring of 1859, took the step that had been 

 his dream for years. This was to establish a 

 mission in the Indian village at the head- 

 springs of Bayou Lacombe, where the remnant 

 of the Chahtas, or Choctaws, had mainly set- 

 tled. On September 8, as a priest of the Cath- 

 olic Church, he first gathered his Indians 

 around him at Ravine aux Cannes, which he 

 had placed under the protection of Catherine 

 Tegehkwitha, the Indian saint of Canada. 

 From this time till within a year of his death 

 he lived and worked among the Indians, estab- 

 lishing several mission stations in St. Tam- 

 many Parish, to which he had gathered the 

 Choctaws, and acting as their temporal as well 

 as spiritual head, their devoted Chahta-Ima. 

 Father Rouquette possessed a thorough knowl- 

 edge of French, Italian, Spanish, English, and 

 Choctaw, besides the dead languages, and had 

 published books, the best known of which are : 

 "Les Savanes" (Paris, 1843); "Wild Flow- 

 ers" ; " La Thebaide," a prose poem in French ; 

 " L'Autoniade " ; "St. Catherine Tegehk- 

 witha"; and "LaNouvelle Atala" (1879. 



Rowett, Richard, an American soldier, born in 

 Cornwall, England, in 1830: died in Chicago, 

 111., July 13, 1887. He came to the United 

 States in 1851, and established himself on a 

 large farm near Carlinville, III., as a breeder of 

 thorough-bred horses. The success of his farm 

 and his connection with the turf gave him an 

 early reputation. At the outbreak of the civil 

 war he entered the service as a captain in the 

 Seventh Regiment of Illinois Infantry, and was 

 commissioned successively as major, lieuten- 

 ant-colonel, and colonel, and brevetted briga- 

 dier-general for special gallantry at the battle 

 of Allatoona in 1864. He served throughout 

 the war, receiving wounds in the battles of 

 Shiloh, Corinth, and Allatoona, and will be 

 popularly remembered as the "hero'' of the 

 latter engagement. At the close of the war 

 he returned to his stock-farm, and also began 



