

OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (EMERSOX FAIRBANK.) 



539 



city, June 14, 1898. lie was educated in London 

 under Randegger and Balfe, and began his profes- 

 sional career when about twenty-one years old. He 

 achieved a wide reputation as a baritone concert 

 singer ; was a member of the choir of the Temple 

 Church in London ; and was the first vocalist to 

 take the baritone part in Sir Arthur Sullivan's 

 oratorio "The Prodigal Son," at the Crystal Palace, 

 London. In company with Mme. Patey, Mine. 

 Edith Wynne, and the baritones Santley and Maas, 

 he made several singing tours of Great Britain. 

 In 1884 he came to the United States. For a year 

 he was Professor of Singing in the University of 

 South Carolina. Afterward he was choirmaster of 

 the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Ascension 

 in Baltimore, and Professor in the New York Con- 

 servatory of Music. For some time he had charge 

 of the musical work of the New York City Mission- 

 ary Society. His widow was Maria Strindberg, a 

 po'pular Swedish pianist. 



Emerson, George H., clergyman, born in Rox- 

 bury Highlands, Mass., in 1823; died in Salem, 

 Mass., March 24, 1898. He received a common- 

 school education, and, after spending some time in 

 a store, was taken under the tutelage of the late 

 Rev. Abel C. Thomas, of Lowell, who prepared 

 him for the ministry. For several years preceptor 

 and student traveled together through Kentucky 

 and Ohio, organizing religious societies and build- 

 ing churches. In 1856 Mr. Emerson returned to the 

 East and organized the First Universalist Society 

 in Somerville, Mass. Afterward he held pastorates 

 in Xeedham and in Huntington, Long Island, N. Y. 

 While stationed in Iluntington he was called to the 

 editor's chair of the "Embassador," a religious 

 periodical subsequently known as the " Christian 

 Leader," with which he had a continuous service 

 of more than thirty-five years. He was the oldest 

 editor of a religious periodical in Boston. He was 

 a frequent contributor to magazines, and had pub- 

 lished several books, including " Probation," " The 

 Life of Barnum," and '' The Life of Dr. Miner." 



Emerson, Jesse Milton, author, born in Me- 

 thuen, Mass., in 1818 ; died in Plainfield, N. J., Dec. 

 20, 1898. Early in life he was in business in New 

 Orleans, but he afterward removed to New York 

 city, where he resided until 1894. He conducted a 

 publishing business, and was the author of these 

 works : " New York to the Orient," " Stimulants," 

 and " European Glimpses and Glances." 



English, Mrs. Jane (Western), actress, born in 

 Philadelphia, Pa., in 1825 ; died there, Oct. 24, 1898. 

 She was known in her early career as Mrs. Jane 

 Western, having married a comedian who was com- 

 monly known as " the Great Western." Lucille and 

 Helen Western, the well-known actresses, were the 

 children of this marriage. Mrs. Western made 

 her first appearance on the stage at the Adelphi 

 Theater, Boston, in 1846. She became a member of 

 the stock company of the National Theater in Bos- 

 ton, and was very popular in soubrette roles. On 

 the death of her first husband, in 1858, she married 

 William English, a manager. She occupied places 

 in different stock companies in New York, Phila- 

 delphia, and Baltimore, and was very highly es- 

 teemed as a vivacious and attractive comedienne. 

 In 1880 she retired from the stage and entered the 

 Edwin Forrest Home, Philadelphia. 



Euo. Amos Richards, capitalist, born in Sims- 

 bury. Conn., Nov. 1, 1810 ; died in New York city, 

 Feb. 21, 1898. He received a common-school edu- 

 1 cation in his native town, and was sent to Hartford 

 i to learn the dry-goods business. While there he 

 ' had for fellow-clerks the late Gov. Edwin D. Mor- 

 ?an, of New York, and Junius S. Morgan, the 

 banker of New York and London. He established 

 himself in the wholesale dry-goods business in New 



I uirnse 



York city in 1833, and continued active in it till 

 1857, when he turned his attention wholly to real- 

 estate operations. Three years before making this 

 change he bought the land at Fifth Avenue and 

 Twenty-third Street, on which Franconi's Hippo- 

 drome had stood, and began building the fifth 

 Avenue Hotel. At that time this site was so far 

 uptown that the venture was derisively spoken of 

 as " Eno's Folly," and it was with difficulty that 

 Mr. Eno secured a manager for the hotel in the per- 

 son of the late Paran Stevens, then a successful 

 hotel manager in Boston. The new hotel was opened 

 in 1859. Mr. Eno retained the ownership oi this 

 property till his death. He was remarkably suc- 

 cessful in all his real-estate operations, was con- 

 ceded to be one of the first experts in New York 

 realty valuations, and was a man of the strictest 

 integrity. He was one of the founders and princi- 

 pal stockholders of the Second National Bank, of 

 which one of his sons was made president in 1881. In 

 1884 financial circles in New York were startled by 

 the announcement that the bank had been ruined 

 by the private speculations of its president. Mr. 

 Euo declared at once that the bank would not be 

 allowed to fail, and that every obligation would be 

 paid in full. It was reported at the time that the 

 saving of the bank cost him between $3,000,000 and 

 $4,000,000. (See GIFTS AND BEQUESTS.) 



Evans, Joseph, painter, born in New York city, 

 Oct. 29, 1857; died there, April 23, 1898. He re- 

 ceived his art education in the schools of the Na- 

 tional Academy of Design and the Art Students' 

 League in New York and at the Ecole des Beaux 

 Arts in Paris, and while in Paris worked in the 

 studio of Gerome. On his return to New York he 

 applied himself to landscape work and was a fre- 

 quent exhibitor, especially at the annual exhibitions 

 of the Society of American Artists. He was for 

 three years president of the Art Students' League, 

 and for the same time secretary of the Society of 

 American artists. He was deeply interested in pub- 

 lic education, and had served one term and part of 

 another as a school inspector. 



Fail-bank. Calvin, clergyman, born in Pike, 

 N. Y., Nov. 3, 1816 ; died in Angelica, N. Y., Oct. 

 12, 1898. When twelve years old he attended a 

 Methodist quarterly meeting and listened to a re- 

 cital of the hardships of an escaped slave and his 

 family. This made such 

 a deep impression on the 

 boy that it shaped the 

 whole course of his life. 

 His work of rescuing 

 slaves began in 1837, 

 while he was rafting 

 lumber down the Ohio 

 river; and within two 

 years thereafter he had 

 freed 23 slaves. His 

 method was to ferry 

 them across the river 

 on rafts or logs, or in 

 rowboats, and deliver 

 them to trusted friends 

 in Ohio or Indiana. 

 According to his own 

 statement he freed 47 



slaves by his personal exertions, and he was instru- 

 mental in freeing many more. He entered the semi- 

 nary at Lima, N. Y., in 1839, and soon afterward 

 became a student at Oberlin College, from which in- 

 stitution he was graduated in 1844. During his col- 

 lege days he made the acquaintance of Gerrit Smith, 

 Joshua R. Giddings, Theodore Parker, and other 

 leaders of the abolitionists ; adopted their ideas as 

 to the unconstitutionality of slavery, and worked 

 harmoniously with them in many ways. While a 



