570 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (CLEMENT COOKE.) 



ington was nominated for Congress, but he withdrew 

 in favor of George M. Chilcptt, who was elected. 

 Since then he had held various public oliices in 

 Colorado, the last one that of coroner of the city of 

 Denver, from which lie retired about two years ago. 

 He applied for a pension, but never received it, and 

 had a claim against the Government for over $30,000 

 for the loss of wagon trains and stock destroyed and 

 stolen by the Indians many years ago. 



Clement, John, jurist, born in Haddonfield, N. J., 

 Nov. 8, 1818; died there, Aug. 15, 1894. His father 

 was a surveyor and a member of the Council of Pro- 

 prietors of West New Jersey, who, resigning from the 

 council in 1851, was succeeded therein by his son. 

 John studied surveying, was associated with his 

 father for many years, and acquired exceptional fa- 

 miliarity with the history of titles to land in the 

 State. In 1854 he was appointed a judge of the Cam- 

 den County courts, and in 1860 was reappointed. 

 From 1864 till his death he was a judge of the New 

 Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals,' and, as such, a 

 member of the Court of Pardons. In 1877 Gov. Bedle 

 appointed him one of three commissioners to examine 

 into the prison system of the State, and to suggest 

 improvements ; in 1879 Gov. McClellan made him a 

 member of a commission to prepare a system of gen- 

 eral laws for the government of municipalities; and 

 in 1885 the Supreme Court of New Jersey chose him 

 as a commissioner to settle a uisputed line between 

 the counties of Burlington and Atlantic. For several 

 years he was President of the New Jersey Historical 

 Society. Judge Clement was the author of many 

 articles in magazines and newspapers on historical 

 .subjects, and of " The First Settlers of Newton" 

 (1877); "The First Settlers of Haddonfield Town- 

 ship" (1879); " Reminiscences of Old Gloucester 

 County in the Eevolution " ; and " The West New 

 Jersey Society." 



Coburn, Nathan P., manufacturer, born in Benton, 

 N. H., Feb. 6, 1817 ; 'died in Newton, Mass., Aug. 26, 

 1894. He entered the shoe manufactory of Lee Claflin, 

 father of ex-Gov. Claflin, in Hopkmton, Mass., in 

 1836 ; was admitted to the firm in 1854, when its 

 .style was changed to William Claflin, Coburn & Co.; 

 and continued active in business till 1892. Prior to 

 the civil war he represented Hopkinton in the Gen- 

 eral Court, and in the early part of the war he was 

 chairman of the committee to raise recruits for the 

 National army. Mr. Coburn acquired considerable 

 wealth and was liberal in benefactions. He gave 

 $100,000 toward the construction of the Eliot Church, 

 in Newton, and $50,000 for the establishment of a 

 library in Colorado College, at Colorado Springs. 

 His public bequests included $10,000 (to be added to 

 a previous gift of $5,000) for the support of the li- 

 brary of Colorado College, $20,000 to the Massachu- 

 setts Home Missionary Society, $20,000 to the Ameri- 

 can College and Education Society of Massachusetts, 

 $5,000 to the Eliot Religious Society of Newton, 

 $5,000 to the Kebecca Pomeroy Newton Home for 

 Orphan Girls, $2,000 to the Hopkinton Public Li- 

 brary, and $15,000 to the Newton Cottage Hospital a 

 total of $77,000. The will, which gave $120,000 to 

 his immediate relatives, was contested. 



Colquitt, Alfred Holt, lawyer, born in Walton County, 

 Ga., April 20, 1824; died in Washington, D. C., 

 March 26, 1894. He was a son of Walter T. Colquitt, 

 a judge and member of Congress, and was graduated 

 at the College of New Jersey in 1844. He was ad- 

 mitted to the bar at Columbus, Ga., in 1845, and 

 settled in Macon to practice. At the beginning of 

 the Mexican War he was appointed a major in the 

 army, and at Buena Vista was an aid to Gen. Taylor. 

 In 1852 he was elected -to Congr< ss as a Democrat, 

 serving with much promise, but declining a, renomi- 

 nation ; in 1859 was a member of the State Legisla- 

 ture ; in 1860 was a Breckinridge presidential elec- 

 tor and a member of the secession convention. At 

 the beginning of hostilities he entered the Confeder- 

 ate army as a Captain, and subsequently became 

 colonel of the 6th Georgia Infantry and major gen- 



eral. He took part in all the important movements 

 and battles in Virginia, distinguishing himself at the 

 Antietam and Petersburg, and winning the title of 

 " Hero of Olustee " by his conduct while in command 

 at the battle of Ocean Pond, or Olustee, Fla. After 

 the war he engaged zealously in efforts to promote 

 the prosperity of his native State, and in 1876 was 

 elected Governor of Georgia for four years. In 1880, 

 under the new Constitution, he was re-elected for two 

 years. At the expiration of his second term he was 

 elected United States Senator, and in 1888 was re- 

 elected for the term ending in 1895. At the time of 

 his death Senator Colquitt was chairman of the Com- 

 mittee on Post Offices and Post Eoads, arid a member 

 of the committees on private land claims, relations 

 with Canada (select), national banks (select), and the 

 quadro-centennial (select). 



Cooke, Josiah Parsons, chemist, born in Boston, Mass., 

 on Oct. 12, 1827 ; died in Newport, R. I., on Sept. 3, 

 1894. He was a son of Josiah P. Cooke, a distin- 

 guished lawyer, and for some years the oldest 

 member of the Suffolk County, Mass., bar. Asa boy 

 he attended the lectures 

 on chemistry delivered by 

 the elder Silliman before 

 the Lowell Institute, and 

 then obtained the first im- 

 pulses that gave him a 

 fondness for science. His 

 father fitted up a small lab- 

 oratory for him at home, 

 where he spent his leisure 

 in experimenting. Thus 

 the impulses of his youth 

 were wisely heeded by his 

 father, and the lad grew in 

 science as he advanced to 

 manhood. Meanwhile he 

 studied at the Boston Latin 

 School, and in time entered 

 Harvard, where he was 



fraduated in 1848. After a year abroad he returned to 

 larvard as a tutor in mathematics, and in 1850 was 

 made Ewing Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy, 

 which chair he continued to hold until his death. 

 What little instruction in chemistry that had been 

 given in Harvard had completely collapsed at the 

 close of the administration of Prof. John W. Webster, 

 and the entire course of instruction was planned and 

 developed by Prof. Cooke, until it was possible to 

 obtain instruction in every branch or chemical 

 science, including facilities for original investigation, 

 not excelled by any place in the United States. 

 Laboratory instruction, then unknown in the uni T 

 versities of this, country, was introduced by him as a 

 part of the undergraduate course in college instruc- 

 tion. To him, perhaps, more than any one'else, is due 

 the change from the older didactic methods of chem- 

 ical instruction to the exact and searching methods 

 resulting from a free use of the blackboard and 

 laboratory. While Prof. Cooke's work was largely, 

 that of an instructor, especially at Harvard, still he 

 gave frequent courses of popular lectures, notably in 

 Baltimore, Brooklyn, Lowell. Washington, and 

 Worcester, and also five courses at the Lowell Insti- 

 tute, in Boston. As director of the chemical lab- 

 oratory of Harvard College he published many con- 

 tributions to chemical science, most of which were 

 in a volume entitled "Chemical and Physical Re- 

 searches'" (1881). His investigation on the atomic 

 weight of antimony (1880) was one of the most 

 brilliant and perfect pieces of chemical work ever 

 executed in this country. It received the commenda- 

 tion of chemists both in the United States and 

 Europe, and its results have been definitively 

 accepted. Subsequently he began an investigation of 

 the atomic weights of oxygen and hydrogen, but the 

 announcement of a similar research by Edward W. 

 Morley led to a postponement of his publication of 

 the results that he obtained. His numerous mineral 

 analysis with descriptions of new species appeared 





