OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (AN ZANDT WELLING.) 



605 



N. J., Dec. 26, 1894. He was brought up on a farm ; re- 

 ceived a public-school education ; studied law, and 

 was admitted to the bar in 1852. He removed to 

 Flemington, N^J., to practice; was a Republican 

 candidate for presidential elector in 1872 ; was ap- 

 pointed Vice-Chancellor of the New Jersey Court of 

 Chancery in 1875, 1882, 1887, and 1894, and was vice- 

 ordinary of the court from 1880 till his death. He 

 acquired a law library remarkable for the complete- 

 ness of its sets of rare works. He had a high reputa- 

 tion as an equity judge. 



Van Zandt, Charles Collins, lawyer, born in Newport, 

 R. I., Aug. 10, 1830 ; died in Brookline, Mass., June 4, 

 1894. He was graduated at Amherst College in 1851 ; 

 admitted to the bar in 1853 ; was clerk of the State 

 Assembly in 1855-'57 ; Speaker of the House in 1858- 

 '59, 1866-'69, and 1871-'73 ; State Senator from New- 

 port and chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 

 1873, and Lieutenant- Governor and President of the 

 Senate in 1873-'75. In 1877 he was elected Governor 

 of Rhode Island, and served for three years. He was 

 nominated to be United States minister to Russia in 

 1880, but declined the office. In politics he was 

 originally a Whig, but had belonged to the Repub- 

 lican party since its organization, and in 1868 and 1876 

 was chairman of the Rhode Island delegations to the 

 national conventions. 



Walters, William Thompson, art collector, born in a 

 logging town on the Juniata river, Pennsylvania, May 

 23, 1820 ; died in Baltimore, Md., Nov. 22, 1894. He was 

 educated for a civil engineer, was placed in charge of 

 an iron furnace at Farrandsville, Lycoming County, 

 when eighteen years old, and there superintended 

 the manufacture of the first iron produced in the 

 United States by the use of mineral coal. Subse- 

 quently he demonstrated that iron could be made by 

 the use of anthracite coal at Pottsville. In 1841 he 

 removed to Baltimore and engaged in the commission 

 business, afterward making a large fortune as a whole- 

 sale liquor merchant. He became interested in many 

 railway and steamship lines, and acquired control of 

 several short lines of railway, which he merged into 

 the Atlantic Coast line, extending from Baltimore 

 into Florida. He was also the pioneer in the importa- 

 tion of Percheron horses, but it was as a collector of 

 works of art that he was best known. In his house 

 in Baltimore he brought together the largest and cost- 

 liest collection of art works in the United States, and 

 when his treasures overflowed one building he bought 

 another and connected them. He was an enthusiastic 

 and discriminating collector for fifty years, and during 

 the last eleven years that he had given annual exhibi- 

 tions of his gallery more than $30,000 was paid by 

 visitors, all of which he gave to the poor of the city. 

 The bronzes that adorn the four public squares in 

 Baltimore near the Washington Monument were pre- 

 sented to the city by him. He was one of the United 

 States Art Commissioners to the Paris Expositions of 

 1867 and 1878 and the Vienna Exposition of 1873, a 

 trustee of the Corcoran Art Gallery, in Washington, 

 D. C.. and a trustee of the Peabody Institute. Mr. 

 Walters was a liberal patron of struggling artists of 

 merit. His collections, which had Been valued by 

 experts at $1,000,000, were bequeathed to his two 

 children. He also bequeathed $10,000 to the Mary- 

 land Institute for the Blind. 



Waterbury, Nelson Jams, jurist, born in New York 

 city, in July, 1819 ; died there, April 22, 1894. He 

 educated himself, studied law, became managing 

 clerk to his preceptors, and formed a law partnership 

 with Samuel J. Tilden in 1842. In 1845 he was 

 appointed judge of the Marine Court in New York 

 city ; in 1850 he was legislated out of office ; in 1855 he 

 was appointed first assistant postmaster, and while in 

 the office established the first subpostal station in the 

 city; and in 1858 he was elected district attorney. 

 He was defeated for re-election, and at the end of h'is 

 first term was appointed judge-advocate general of 

 the State. In 1868 he was appointed a member of a 

 commission to revise the State statutes, and he com- 

 piled the u Code of Civil Procedure " now in use. 



Watkins, Henry, actor, born in New York city, Jan. 14, 

 1825; died there, Feb. 5, 1894. He made his first 

 appearance on the stage in 1839, at Fort Snelling, as 

 Jaffler in " Venice preserved," and his first in New 

 York on June 14, 1850, at the Chatham Street Thea- 

 ter as Edward Middleton in " The Drunkard," with 

 Joseph Jett'erson associated in the cast. In 1857 he 

 and Edwin L. Davenport opened Burton's Chambers 

 Street Theater under the name of the American Thea- 

 ter. The same year he managed for Mr. Burton at his 

 Philadelphia and Baltimore theaters, and in Novem- 

 ber he became director of amusements at Barnum's 

 Museum. In 1860 he went abroad and played in 

 London and elsewhere for three years, and on his re- 

 turn to New York presented the Pepper ghost exhibi- 

 tion at Wallack's Theater. He made his last appear- 

 ance in Philadelphia in September, 1893, in his own 

 play of" Trodden Down." Mr. Watkins was author 

 of many plays besides the popular u Trodden Down," 

 among which were " The Bride of an Evening," " The 

 Hidden Hand," "A Life worth having," "Molly 

 Bawn," "A Game of Chess," '"New York after 

 Dark," "Set in Gold," "Queen of the Brigands," 

 " Slaves of the Counter," and " Pride of Kildare." 



Weed, Ella, educator, born in Newburg, N. Y., in 

 January, 1854; died in New York city, Jan. 10, 1894. 

 She was graduated at Vassar College in 1873 ; aided 

 in establishing a school for girls in Springfield, Ohio, 

 and taught there till 1880 ; and was a teacher in Miss 

 Annie Brown's school for girls in New York city from 

 1884 till her death. When Barnard College was es- 

 tablished in connection with Columbia College, Miss 

 Weed was one of the first women called on to give 

 practical form to the idea. She became a member of 

 the executive committee, and chairman of the academic 

 committee of the board of trustees, and during the 

 formative period of the institution she acted as its 

 executive head, advising the students, consulting with 

 the parents, selecting the corps of instructors, and 

 arranging the courses of study. She was a trustee of 

 the Associated Alumna? of Vassar College, and of the 

 Vassar Students' Aid Society. 



Welling, James Clark, educator, born in Trenton, 

 N. J., July 14, 1825; died in Hartford, Conn., Sept. 4, 

 1894. He* was graduated at Princeton in 1844 ; began 

 studying law ; became associate principal of the New- 

 York Collegiate School in 1848 ; and was connected 

 with the "^National Intelligencer" in Washington, 

 D. C. (most of the time as chief political writer), from 



COLUMBIAN UNIVERSITY. 



1 850 till 1865. In 1867 he was elected President of St. 

 John's College, Annapolis, Md. ; in 1870 became Pro- 

 fessor of Belles-Lettres at Princeton ; and in 1871 was 

 chosen President of Columbian College (now Univer- 

 sity), in Washington, D. C., which under his admin- 

 istration greatly prospered, was enlarged, and erected 

 a fine new building in Washington. He held the last 

 office till his death, but had tendered his resignation, 

 to take effect on Oct. 1, 1894. From 1877 he was Pres- 

 ident of the Board of Trustees of the Corcoran Art 

 Gallery, in whose interest he visited the principal 

 artists of Europe in 1887, and from 1884 he was a re- 

 gent and Chairman of the Executive Committee of 



