644 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (MOWBRAY NORTON.) 



the office of Sprague & Gray, in Boston ; and was ad- 

 mitted to the bar of Suffolk County in 1841. He 

 practiced in Boston till 1850, and then settled per- 

 manently in Andover. In 1853 lie was a member of 

 the State Constitutional Convention, and in 1858 was 

 a member of the Massachusetts House of Representa- 

 tives and chairman of the Committee on Elections. 

 In April, 1858., he was appointed a justice of the Su- 

 perior Court of Suffolk County, and in the following 

 year, on the reorganization of the judicial system of 

 the State, he was appointed a justice of the Superior 

 Court, After a service of ten years he was promoted 

 to the bench of the Supreme Court, succeeding his 

 father, who had sat on the same bench for fifteen 

 years. In January, 1882, on the resignation of Chief- 

 Justice Gray, Judge Morton was appointed chief 

 justice, and he held the office till November, 1890, 

 when failing health led him to resign. 



Mowbray, Q-eorge Wi, inventor, born in Lewes, Eng- 

 land, in 1815 ; died in North Adams, Mass., June 21, 

 1891. He was educated for a chemist, and came to 

 the United States in 1853. After spending five years 

 at the California gold mines, lie was employed as 

 chemist in the Pennsylvania oil region till 1868, and 

 then removed to North Adams. There he invented 

 the commercial form, of nitro-glycerin and superin- 

 tended its manufacture and use for the construction 

 of the Hoosac Tunnel. After the completion of the 

 tunnel he continued the manufacture of the explosive 

 at North Adams, and made experiments that resulted 

 in the invention of a smokeless powder, the improve- 

 ment of nitro-glycerin for general blasting, and of 

 an improved method of insulating electric wires. For 

 several years he had been consulting chemist of the 

 Maxim and Nordenfeldt Arms Company of London, 

 and since 1885 had been chemist of the Zylonite 

 Company of North Adams. 



Murdock, Samuel IL, actor, born in Philadelphia, Pa., 

 in February, 1816; died there, Dec. 15, 1891. He 

 was a younger brother of James E. Murdock, the 

 actor, was graduated at Jefferson Medical College, 

 and was elected brigadier-general of Pennsylvania 

 militia in 1849. In 1850 he went to California, and 

 for a time practiced medicine, then became a miner, 

 and afterward a merchant in San Francisco. While 

 there he adopted the stage as a profession, and 

 on Jan. 16, 1852, he made his first appearance as 

 Pierre in "Venice Preserved," at the Jenny Lind 

 Theatre. During Anna Bishop's operatic engage- 

 ment he supported her in the German language. In 

 1855 he appeared as Pierre to his brother's Jaffier, 

 at the Baltimore Museum, and on April 23 of the 

 same year he made his first appearance in Philadel- 

 phia as St. Pierre in " The "Wife," at the City Mu- 

 seum. He served in the national army through the 

 civil war, then resumed his profession, and, retiring 

 from the stage in 1867, established a school of elocu- 

 cution in Philadelphia. 



Mulford, Prentice, journalist, born in Sag Harbor, 

 Long Island, N. Y., in 1834: died in Sheepshead 

 Bay, N. Y., in May, 1891. After attending the vil- 

 lage school, he aided his father, who owned the Sag 

 Harbor Hotel, on whose death he succeeded to the 

 business and held it till 1853. In 1856 he shipped as 

 a common sailor on a clipper ship bound for China, 

 but left it on reaching San Francisco, and, after re- 

 maining there a short time, again went to sea in a 

 whaling schooner as cook. This trip was of short 

 duration, and, returning to California, he spent sev- 

 eral years in placer mining in the wildest part of the 

 gold fields. Not meeting the success he desired, he 

 opened a school in a Tuolumne County mining camp, 

 but in the early part of the copper excitement in 

 Stanislaus County, in 1866-'63, he joined the throng 

 and staked a (claim in the short-lived townofCop- 

 peropolis. Thi'nce he followed the rush to the Ne- 

 vada silver mines, where he again failed of success, 

 and determined to return to the Sonora region. On 

 the way he was lost and nearly perished in the Sierra 

 mountains. Failing in all his mining -schemes, he 

 became an itinerant comic lecturer, till he deter- 



mined to try journalism. He had written for the 

 " Union Democrat" in 1860, and now began follow- 

 ing it more closely. In 1864 he was defeated as a 

 candidate for the Legislature ; in 1865 he became as- 

 sociate editor of the San Francisco " Golden Era"; 

 in 1867-'68 he was editor of a daily paper in Stockton, 

 and also wrote for various publications ; and about 

 1870 he came to New York. He then made a trip on 

 foot through the French provinces, wrote for several 

 new_spapers and magazines from the Philadelphia, 

 Paris, and Vienna exhibitions ; returned to San i'ran- 

 cisco and edited the ' % Overland Monthly " and the 

 San Francisco "Chronicle"; and about 1886 came to 

 New York again, and held editorial places on the 

 "Daily Graphic "and the "Star." In the last few > 

 years of his life he was interested in the study of 

 spiritualism and metaphysics. He built himself a 

 lonely hut on the shore of Staten Island, where he 

 lived winter and summer ; spent much time in pleas- 

 ant weather in his canoe " White Crow," on Sheeps- 

 head Bay, and became editor of " The White Cross 

 Library." He was found dead and alone in his canoe 

 in the lower part of Sheepshead Bay on May 30, with 

 several sheets of manuscript beside him, dated May 

 25, which read as if dictated by a spiritual medium, 

 but which was claimed bv his publisner as part of an 

 expected article for the " "White Cross Library." Mr. 

 Mulford was the author of several books, including 

 " The Swamp Angel " (New York, 1888) and " Life 

 by Land and Sea" (1889). 



Nelson, Homer Augustus, lawyer, born in Poughkeep- 

 sie, N. Y., Aug. 31, 1829 ; died there, April 25, 1891. 

 He received a public-school education, was admitted 

 to the bar in 1855, and practiced his profession till 

 his death. He was elected county judge of Dutch- 

 ess County in 1855, and served till November, 1862, 

 when he was elected to Congress as a Democrat. He 

 sat in that body one term, and also served as a mem- 

 ber of the committees on Indian Affairs and on Unfin- 

 ished Business. At the close of his term, during 

 which he was known as a war Democrat, he declined 

 a diplomatic appointment. In 1867 he was a dele- 

 gate-at-large to the State Constitutional Convention, 

 where he opposed the form adopted, which was re- 

 jected by the people ; and in the same year he was 

 elected Secretary of State of New York, serving till 

 the close of 1871. He then declined a nomination 

 for the State Senate, and confined himself wholly to 

 his law practice till 1881, when he accepted a nomi- 

 nation tor the State Senate and was elected. In 



1890 he was appointed a member of the comrnissic 

 to report a revision of the judiciary article in the Stal 



ion 



in the State 



Constitution. Judge Nelson was engaged as counsel 

 in notable suits, including the Vassar will contest 

 and the trial of Jacob Sharp. 



her first public appearance in one of the Schubert 

 Society's concerts in that city, and after further study 

 became a popular opera singer. After singing with 

 success in the Royal Albert Hall, the London Opi-ra 

 House, and Covent Garden, she made a tour through 

 the provinces with Charles Santley. She then re- 

 turned to the Royal Albert Hall and appeared in 

 " Parsifal," and at the close of that engagement made 

 a tour with the Grand English Opera Company. Aft- 

 er coming to the United States sne sang in the eon- 

 certs of the New York Symphony and Oratorio Socie- 

 ties, the Archer concerts, and others, and also traveled 

 with her husband, John H. Norman, the organist, as- 

 sisting him in his organ recitals with vocal selections. 

 Norton, Charles B,, journalist, born in Hartford. 

 Conn., July 1, 1825; died in Chicago, 111., Jan. 29, 

 1891. In 1850 he came to New York city and estab- 

 lished himself in the publishing and book-selling 

 business, subsequently making a specialty of collect- 

 ing for libraries. In 1852 he began publishing fort- 

 nightly "Norton's Literary Gazette and Publishers' 

 Circular," and he did much to establish book-trade 

 journalism. He removed to Clinton Hall in 1855, and 



