OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (GARLAND GILL.) 



603 



ceived the degree of D. D. from Williams College 

 in 1865. Dr. French was one of the earliest sup- 

 porters of the Young People's Society of Chris- 

 tian Endeavor, and was elected president of the 

 New Jersey societies six times successively. 



Garland, Augustus Hill, lawyer, born in 

 Covington, Tenn., June 11, 1832; died in Wash- 

 ington, D. C., Jan. 26, 1890. His parents removed 

 to Hempstead County, Arkansas, in the year fol- 

 lowing his birth, and he was educated at St. 

 Mary's and St. Joseph's Colleges in Lebanon and 

 Bardstown, Ky. He studied law, taught school, 

 and, after a post-graduate course at St. Joseph's, 

 was admitted to the bar in Washington, Ark., 

 in 1853. Three years later he settled in Little 



Rock. Early in 

 his political ca- 

 reer he was a 

 Whig. In 1860 he 

 was a presiden- 

 tial elector on the 

 Bell and Everett 

 ticket, and in 1861 

 he was elected to 

 the State conven- 

 tion that adopt- 

 ed the ordinance 

 of secession as 

 a pronounced op- 

 ponent of nation- 

 al disruption. He 

 made a strong 

 fight for the 

 maintenance of 

 the Union, but after the convention had passed 

 the ordinance he acquiesced in the result. Dur- 

 ing the civil war he was a member of both 

 the provisional and permanent Confederate Con- 

 gresses. After the war he returned to law 

 practice at Little Rock. He had been admit- 

 ted to practice before the United States Su- 

 preme Court in 1860, and now undertook to re- 

 sume that practice, but was not permitted to 

 do so, as he had not taken the oath prescribed 

 by Congress in 1862. He thereupon instituted a 

 case in his own behalf to test the constitution- 

 ality of the act in so far as it required all at- 

 torneys and counselors before that court to take 

 the oath. After a personal argument the ques- 

 tion that he had raised was decided in his favor 

 in December, 1867. In 1866 he Was elected United 

 States Senator for the term beginning March 4, 

 ]867, but was not permitted to take his seat. 

 He served a short time as acting Secretary of 

 State of Arkansas in 1874, and the same year was 

 elected Governor under the neAV Constitution. In 

 January, 1876, he was again elected United States 

 Senator, and this time was seated. He was re; 

 elected in 1883, and served till March, 1885, when 

 lie was appointed Attorney-General of the United 

 States. In 1889 he resumed practice. He was 

 stricken with apoplexy while arguing a case be- 

 fore the Supreme Court, and died within ten 

 minutes. 



Geiger, Hezekiah Ruebush, educator, born 

 in Greencastle, Pa., Jan. 10, 1820; died in Spring- 

 field, Ohio, July 18, 1899. In .1831 his father's 

 family settled in Holmes County, Ohio. He was 

 graduated at Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, 

 in 1846, and was at once elected Professor of 

 Mathematics, Physics, and the Natural Sciences 

 in the newly established Wittenberg College, at 

 Springfield, Ohio, which chair he held until 1873, 

 from which time he taught the natural sciences 

 only. He traveled extensively for the purpose 

 of making original investigations. In 1874 he 

 Tisited the Rocky mountain districts, the Pacific 



coast, and the Sandwich Islands. His Hawaiian 

 trip resulted in the collection of important data 

 of great scientific interest obtained by original 

 surveys of the volcanic craters of the islands and 

 other investigations. The incidents and results 

 of this trip were published in an interesting vol- 

 ume. In 1882 he resigned his professorship, and 

 in 1883 accepted a place on the United States 

 Geological Survey, in charge of the Blue Ridge 

 division. His investigations extended through 

 Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. While 

 engaged in this work " he advanced and proved, 

 "in opposition to all previous theories, the true 

 theory of the geological construction of the en- 

 tire Blue Ridge system, as now accepted and 

 recognized by scientists and Government authori- 

 ties." For several years he was editor of the 

 Lutheran Evangelist and of an agricultural jour- 

 nal. Shortly after his removal to Springfield he 

 was ordained to the office of the ministry in the 

 Lutheran Church, and in 1869 he received the 

 degree of Ph. D. from Pennsylvania College. 



Gemiinder, George, violin maker, born in 

 Ingelfingen, Wtirtemberg, April 13, 1816; died in 

 Astoria, Long Island, N. Y., Jan. 15, 1899. He 

 was one of three sons of a noted maker of vio- 

 lins. August (see obituary in Annual Cyclo- 

 paedia for 1895) and George followed their fa- 

 ther's trade, and Albert became equally famous 

 as an organ builder. On the death of the father, 

 in 1835, George studied and worked successively 

 in Vienna, Munich, Presburg, and Strasburg, and, 

 having become the equal of his masters in these 

 cities, went to Vuillaume, the violin maker of 

 Paris. There he won the regard of the master 

 to such an extent that when, in 1845, Ole Bull 

 took his wonderful " Gaspar di Salo " to Vuil- 

 laume to be repaired the latter, despite the pro- 

 test of Ole Bull, placed the instrument in George's 

 hands, declaring that his assistant could do the 

 work better than himself. In 1847 George joined 

 his two brothers in Springfield, Mass. In 1852 

 he established himself in New York city. While 

 working with Vuillaume he became noted for 

 reproducing the works of the old masters. In 

 1851 he sent to the London Exhibition several 

 instruments in which he had imitated the work 

 of Stradivarius, Guarnerius, and Nicholas Amati, 

 and for them he received a special award. His 

 greatest triumph in this line was his " Kaiser " 

 violin, sent to the Vienna Exhibition in 1873. 

 This was an imitation of a Guarnerius, but the 

 jury of awards declared it to be an original in- 

 strument, on the ground that it was impossible 

 to produce so fine a tone on a new instrument. 

 George's workshop was visited by many great 

 violinists, and not one failed to be deceived when 

 a Gemiinder imitation and an original instru- 

 ment were placed before him for trial. After mak- 

 ing the invariable mistake, Ole Bull declared that 

 " no man in the world but Gemiinder can do 

 that." Mr. Gemiinder published Progress in Vio- 

 lin Making (Astoria, 1881). 



Gill, Joseph Pearson, civil engineer, born near 

 Trenton, N. J., about 1820; died in New York 

 city, Jan. 9, 1899. He entered the navy and 

 became an assistant paymaster. When the Mexi- 

 can War broke out he was on duty at Hawaii, 

 whence he was ordered to the frigate Savannah, 

 on which he took part in the occupation of Mon- 

 terey. He made a close study of mathematics 

 and engineering, and attained a proficiency there- 

 in which made him an invaluable officer, as pro- 

 fessional engineers were then unknown in the 

 service. At the close of the war he resigned. 

 After a course of advanced study in Philadel- 

 phia, he established himself as a civil engineer, 



