648 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (POILLON POTTLE.) 



formed a law partnership with Judge Buggies, but in 

 1872 he was compelled to retire from practice by fail- 

 ing health, and then engaged in banking. In Janu- 

 ary, 1873, he was elected President of the Emporia 

 National Bank, and he held the office till 1877. He 

 advocated the election of Horace Greeley in 1872, and 

 was President of the State Republican Convention in 

 1876. In 1877 he was elected United States Senator, 

 and in 1883 and 1888 was re-elected, the last time for 

 the term ending March 3, 1895. At the time of his 

 death he was chairman of the Committee on Public 

 Lands and member of the standing committees on 

 Agriculture and Forestry, on A ppropriations, and on 

 the Organization, Conduct, and Expenditures of the 

 Executive Departments, and of the select committees 

 on transportation and sale of meat products and on 

 inquiry into the administrative service of the Senate. 

 Senator Plumb was an indefatigable worker and his 

 death was at least hastened by his intense activity. 



Poillon, Eichard) shipwright, born in New York city 

 in 1818, died there, July 4, 1891. He was a member 

 of an old French Huguenot family that had been en- 

 gaged in boat building at the foot of Bridge Street 

 tor more than a century, and entered the firm in 1840. 

 During the civil war he built several gunboats for 

 the Federal Government, and in 1872 he built the first 

 foreign-made naval cruisers for the Japanese Govern- 

 ment. Since 1864 he had given special attention to 

 the construction of yachts, his first noted success be- 

 ing the " Sappho," which was built on original lines, 

 and one of his last was the ocean prize winner " Cor- 

 onet," which defeated the " Dauntless." 



Polk, Sarah CMldress, mistress of the White House, 

 born near Murfreesborough, Tenn., Sept. 4, 1803 ; died 

 in Nashville, Tenn., Aug 

 14, 1891 She was the 

 daughter of Joel and 

 Elizabeth Childrcss, was 

 educated at the Moravian 

 Institute, Salem, N. C.. 

 and married James Knox 

 Polk, afterward eleventh 

 President of the United 

 States, in 1824. In the 

 year following his mar- 

 riage Mr. Polk was elect- 

 ed to Congress, and Mrs. 

 Polk accompanied him to 

 Washington. On March 

 4, 1845, on the inaugura- 

 tion of her husband as 

 President, she became 



mistress of the White House. It was soon observed 

 that she had determined to manage the presidential 

 mansion according to her own ideas of propriety 

 and the dignity of the place. She began holding 

 weekly receptions, but, to the surprise of those ac- 

 customed to participating in the formal life of the 

 White House, she abolished the custom of giving 

 refreshments to all guests and forbade dancing at 

 the receptions, saying that neither custom comported 



with the dignity of the official residence of the na- 

 tion's Chief Executive. In spite of these innovations 

 .she maintained her popularity, and, being a brilliant 



conversationalist, she was particularly esteemed by 

 the representatives of foreign governments. Since 

 the death of her husband she had lived quietly in 

 Polk Place, Nashville (see engraving), in the tore- 

 ground of which is the tomb of the ex-President, and 

 for several years had been receiving a pension of 

 $5,000 per annum from the Federal Government. 



Pomeroy, Samuel Clarke, legislator, born in South- 

 ampton, Mass., Jan. 3.. 1816; died in Whitensville, 

 Mass., Aug. 27, 1891. He was educated at Amherst 

 College, and after spending several years in New 

 York returned to Massachusetts and held various 

 public offices, including that of member of the Assem- 

 bly in 1852-'53. He was one of the organizers of the 

 New England Emigrant Aid Society, became its 

 financial agent, and in 1854 established a New Eng- 

 land colony at Lawrence, Kansas, of which city he 

 was elected mayor in 1859. Politically, he was a 

 member of the Iree State Convention at Lawrence in 

 1859, and was a delegate to the National Republican 

 Conventions of 1856 and 1860. During the famine in 

 Kansas, in 1860-'61, he was president of the relief 

 committee. In 1861 he was elected United States 

 Senator as a Republican, in 1867 was re-elected, and 

 in 1873 was defeated. In the Senate he was chair- 

 man of the standing Committee on Public Lands and 

 of the select Committee on Revision of the Rules, was 

 a member of the Committee on Post-Offices and Post- 

 Roads, and, from his general advocacy of subsidy 

 measures, received the sobriquet of " Subsidy Pom- 

 eroy." While he was a candidate for a third term, 

 charges of bribery were preferred against him in the 

 Legislature, which sent them to the United States 

 Senate. There a special committee reported that thev 

 were not sustained, and in the State courts a nolle 

 prosequi was entered on the ground that there was 

 not sufficient evidence to secure a conviction. But 

 the affair cost him a second re-election, and he after- 

 ward spent the most of his time in Washington. 



Potter, Platt, jurist, born in Galway, Saratoga 

 County. N. Y., April 6, 1800 ; died in Schenectady, 

 N. Y., Aug. 11, 1891. He was graduated at Schenec- 

 tady Academy in 1820, and was admitted to the bar 

 in 1824. He practiced in Minorville till 1833, then 

 returned to Schenectady and formed a law partner- 

 ship with Alonzo C. Paige, his former preceptor. In 

 1830 he was elected to the Assembly, from 1839 till 

 1847 he was district attorney of Schenectady County 

 and, for many years prior to the abolition ot the Court 

 of Chancery, in 1847, he was also a master and exam- 

 iner in that court. He was elected a justice -of the 

 New York Supreme Court in 1857, and was re-elected 

 without opposition in 1865. During his service on 

 this bench he was also a judge of the Court of Ap- 

 peals. In 1870 he caused the arrest of Henry Ray, a 

 member of the Assembly, for failing to answer a 

 subpoena, for which Judge Potter was charged with 

 a high breach of privilege and summoned before the 

 Assembly to answer. He there defended his course 

 with such clearness that he was acquitted of the 

 charge and his argument was published in a pam- 

 phlet. In the same year he was elected President ol 

 the State Judicial Convention in Rochester. Judge 

 Potter was chosen a trustee of Union College in 1865. 

 He published " Potter's Dwarris" (1871) ; an enlarge- 

 ment of John Willard's "Equity Jurisprudence" 

 (1875) ; and " Potter on Corporations" (1879). 



Pottlej Emory B., lawyer, born in Naples, Ontario 

 County, N. \., July 4, 1815; died there. April 18, 

 1891. He received a common-school and academical 

 education ; studied law in Springfield, 111., and was 

 admitted to the bar; was elected to the New York 

 Assembly as a Free -soil Whig in 1847, and was 

 elected to Congress in 1856 and 1858. In the latter 

 bodv he was a member of the committees on Naval 

 Affairs and on Expenditures in the Navy Department. 

 In 1867 he aided in preparing the wool and woolen 

 schedule incorporated in the tariff law of that year. 

 Mr. Pottle was for many years actively interested in 

 the vineyard and wool-growing interests of the coun- 

 try, and was President of the" State Grape Growers' 



