OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (BUTLER CASTNER.) 



the service. After the war he was engaged in the 

 manufacture of electrical supplies in New York 

 city. Mr. Bunnell was widely known as the 

 " lightning sender," because of his great feat in 

 1800, when he sent President Buchanan's message 

 from Pittsburg to Cincinnati, making an average 

 of 38 words a minute for two hours. 



Butler, William, clergyman, born in Dublin, 

 Ireland, Jan. 30, 1818; died in Old Orchard, Me., 

 Aug. 18, 1899. He was educated for the Wes- 

 leyan ministry at Didsbury. completing his course 

 in 1844, and joined the Irish Conference, in which 

 he preached six years. In 1850 he came to the 

 United States, and he labored in the New Eng- 

 land Conference till 185(5, when he went to India 

 as a missionary. After ten years of foreign serv- 

 ice, during which time he organized a Methodist 

 mission in the Ganges valley, he returned home 

 to assume the post of secretary of the American 

 and Foreign Christian Union. During the Sepoy 

 retail inn in India Dr. Butler escaped to the hills, 

 and was in hiding several months. There are now 

 100,000 Methodists in India as a result of his 

 labors. In 1872-79 he was engaged in organizing 

 Methodist missions in Mexico, and in 1880-'82 

 held a pastorate in Melrose, Mass. Among his 

 writings are Missionary Compendium, The Land 

 of the Vedas, and Mexico from the Conquest to 

 1880. 



Butterfield, Consul Willshire, historian, born 

 in Mexico, N. Y., July 28, 1824; died in South 

 Omaha, Neb., Sept. 25, 1899. He was of Leyden 

 Pilgrim ancestry and a brother of Emilie Butter- 

 field, now the wife of Charles Loyson, better 

 known as Pere Hyacinthe. When ten years old 

 he accompanied his parents to Ohio, where he 

 was chiefly self-educated, and engaged in teach- 

 ing. In 1848 he was appointed superintendent 

 of public schools in Seneca County, Ohio; in 1850 

 he went to California, where he was defeated 

 as an independent candidate for State Superin- 

 tendent of Public Instruction; and in 1851 he 

 began practicing law in Bucyrus, Ohio. He aban- 

 doned the legal profession in 1875 and removed 

 to Madison, Wis., remaining there till 1888, when 

 he settled in South Omaha. Mr. Butterfield pro- 

 duced many historical works of permanent value. 

 Besides contributing to a large number of city, 

 town, and county histories and biographical pub- 

 lications, he edited the Washington-Crawford 

 Letters (Cincinnati, 1877) ; the Washington-Irvine 

 Correspondence (Madison, 1882) ; A Short Biog- 

 raphy of John Leith (Cincinnati, 1883) ; and Jour- 

 nal of Capt. Jonathan Heart (Albany, 1885) ; and 

 was author of a History of Seneca County, Ohio 

 (Sandusky, 1848); An Historical Account of the 

 Expedition against Sandusky in 1782 (Cincinnati, 

 1873); The History and Biographical Annals of 

 the University of Wisconsin (Madison, 1879) ; 

 History of the Discovery of the Northwest by 

 John Nicolet (Cincinnati, 1881) ; History of Wis- 

 consin; History of the Girtys; and History of 

 Rrule's Discoveries and Explorations, 1610-1626, 

 his last work, published by the Western Reserve 

 Historical Society of Cleveland. 



Carpenter, Charles Carroll, naval officer, born 

 in Greenfield, Mass., Feb. 27, 1834; died in Bos- 

 ton, Mass., April 1, 1899. He was appointed a 

 midshipman in the navy, Oct. 1, 1850; was pro- 

 moted passed midshipman, June 20, 1856; master, 

 Jan. 22, 1858; lieutenant, the day following; 

 lieutenant commander, July 16, 1862; commander 

 Feb. 10, 1869; captain, March 25, 1880; commo- 

 dore, May 15, 1893; and rear admiral, Nov. 11 

 S94; and was retired, Feb. 27, 1896. He was on 

 sea duty seventeen years and seven months, and 

 on other duty eighteen years and eight months. 



His first service was on the sloop Portsmouth, 

 of the Pacific squadron, in 1851-'55, and after 

 leaving the Naval Academy he was on duty with 

 the home squadron on the frigates Merrimac, 

 Roanoke, Colorado, and Dolphin two years. 

 While he was on the Dolphin that vessel, assigned 

 to tracking American slavers, captured the Echo 

 with 300 slaves aboard. In 1858 he was attached 

 to the steamer Mohawk, which captured the 

 slaver Wildfire, off the coast of Cuba, with a 

 cargo of 500 slaves. After the outbreak of the 

 civil war the Mohawk was assigned to the Texas- 

 and East Gulf blockading squadron, and in 1862 

 Carpenter was transferred to the steamer Flag,, 

 of the South Atlantic squadron, and he was with 

 that ship when the steamers Anglia and Emily 

 were captured. In 1863 he was assigned to the 

 ironclad Catskill, and was on board of her dur- 

 ing the attacks on the defenses of Charleston 

 in April, July, and August of that year. The 

 same year he was ordered to duty at the Naval 

 Academy, where he remained two years, and then 

 spent a year on the steam sloop Hartford, flag 

 ship of the Asiatic squadron. His first sea com- 

 mand was the steamer Wyoming, of the same 

 squadron. In 1868-70 and for a short time in 

 1871 he was at the Portsmouth Navy Yard; in 

 1871-72 he commanded the Nantasket, of the 

 North Atlantic squadron; and in 1872-75 the 

 Huron. On receiving his commission of captain 

 he became equipment officer at the Boston Navy 

 Yard. In 1883, as commander of the Hartford, 

 he carried the American and English scientists 

 from Callao to Caroline atoll to observe the total 

 eclipse of the sun. He was commandant of the 

 Portsmouth Navy Yard in 1890-'94, and com- 

 manded the Asiatic squadron during the war be- 

 tween China and Japan. Although he was retired 

 from active service by age limit, at the declara- 

 tion of war against Spain Rear- Admiral Carpen- 

 ter promptly solicited active duty, and he received 

 command of his former post, the Portsmouth 

 Navy Yard, where he remained till the conclu- 

 sion of peace. 



Castner, Hamilton Young, chemist, born in 

 Brooklyn, N. Y., Sept. 11, 1859; died at Saranac 

 Lake, N. Y.. Oct. 

 11, 1899. He was 

 educated at the 

 Brooklyn Poly- 

 technic Institute, 

 and entered Co- 

 lumbia College 

 School of Mines, 

 where he com- 

 pleted the chem- 

 ical course with 

 the class of 1879. 

 Deciding upon 

 analytical chem- 

 istry as a profes- 

 sion, he opened 

 a laboratory in 

 New York city 

 for commercial 

 work, and was 

 very successful. 



He devoted his leisure to the study of means of 

 improving chemical processes, and soon patented 

 the first continuous process for the manufacture 

 of carbon, or bone black, which proved a scien- 

 tific success, but was not fortunate financially. 

 His next invention was a chemical process for 

 producing sodium from molten caustic soda by 

 introducing into the caustic soda carbon in the 

 form of a carbide that is, the carbon was mixed 

 with a sufficient quantity of iron in a fine state 



