OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (MASON MEDILL.) 



Government, handling about $27.000.000, and as 

 Adjutant General he instituted many needed re- 

 forms in the National Guard. At the expiration 

 of his term he engaged in banking in New York. 

 In 1874 he removed to Troy, and in 1S75 lie or- 

 ganized the Albany and Rensselaer Iron and Steel 

 Company, becoming its secretary and treasurer. 

 At the time of his death he was president of the 

 Albany City Savings Institution and of the Hud- 

 son River Telephone Company and a member of 

 the State Hoard of Charities. 



Mason, Theodorus Bailey Myers, naval of- 

 ficer, born in New York city. May 8. 1848; died 

 in Saugerties, N. Y.. Oct. 1.1, 1809, from causes 

 incident to exposure while on the active list. He 

 was baptized Theodorus Bailey Myers, but was 

 adopted by his maternal grandfather, Sidney 

 Mason, a New York merchant, and took his name. 

 He was appointed a midshipman from Florida, 

 Sept. 20, 18(4: was graduated at the Naval 

 Academy in 18(58: promoted ensign, April 19, 

 18WI: master, duly 20. 1870: lieutenant, Nov. 20, 

 1872: lieutenant commander, Jan. 23, 1894. He 

 served with distinction on the South Atlantic and 

 Pacific stations; was executive officer of the 



Atlanta, of the 

 home squadron ; 

 was detached and 

 assigned as execu- 

 tive officer to the 

 New York, then 

 building at 



Cramp's shipyard, 

 Philadelphia, to 

 supervise her com- 

 pletion and went 

 to sea on her in 

 that capacity. On 

 July 19, 1894, con- 

 demned by medi- 

 cal survey on ac- 

 count of illness in- 

 curred by excess- 

 ive work on the 

 New York, he was 

 ordered home, and 



on Dec. 8, 1894, was retired. He organized 

 the office of naval intelligence, and brought 

 it to a high state of efficiency. He was naval 

 aid to Presidents Grant and Arthur and Sec- 

 retary Robeson, and naval secretary to Secre- 

 taries Whitney and Tracy. On May 11, 1876, 

 he was detailed as instructor in ordnance and 

 light artillery at the Naval Academy, and in 

 1879 was assistant inspector of ordnance at the 

 West Point foundry. He commanded the light 

 artillery in a naval expedition to the Isthmus of 

 Panama in 1885. He volunteered for the Greely 

 search expedition, the Chilian imbroglio, and the 

 Spanish-American War, and bore a conspicuous 

 part in suppressing several isthmian ententes 

 threatening the interests of the Panama Rail- 

 road. For saving two of the ship's crew from 

 drowning in the harbor of Rio Janeiro in 1869 

 he received a gold medal from the New York 

 Benevolent and Life Saving Institution and the 

 decoration of the Order of the Rose from the 

 Emperor of Brazil, and in 1873 he received a sil- 

 ver medal from the King of Italy in recognition 

 of his distinguished bravery in the harbor of 

 Callao, Peru, for saving the burning Italian bark 

 Detaid, laden with powder. He w^as accredited 

 in 1878 to different legations in Europe for facili- 

 ties to report on naval matters; was made life 

 follow of the Society of Civil Engineers of France, 

 22, 1878; acted as aid to President 

 McMahon of France at the grand review and 



manoeuvres closing the exposition, in Paris, of 

 1878: and was elected a life fellow of the Ameri- 

 can Geographical Society, Dec. 13, 1878. Sept. 14, 

 1883, he was ordered by the President to meet 

 and accompany the first embassy from Korea to 

 the United States, and on April 29, 1884, was 

 ordered on the same duty with the first embassy 

 from Siam to this country. In 1891 he received a 

 commendatory letter from the Secretary of the 

 Navy for his bravery and energy during a heavy 

 gale in suppressing a fire on the Atlanta, occa- 

 sioned by an explosion in the paint, room, which 

 blew off the hatch, destroyed the bulkheads, and 

 ignited the woodwork, while the ship was in 

 danger of foundering. He made important re- 

 ports on the war between Peru, Bolivia, and Chili. 

 He also w r rote the text-book for Naval Artillery 

 Drill and other professional works of merit, and 

 was untiring in advancing the interests of the 

 service in which he was one of the brightest mem- 

 bers. 



Mathews, Felix A., consular officer, born in 

 Tangier, Morocco, in 1834; died there, April 17, 

 1899. He went to California when eight years 

 old, and when fourteen entered the United States 

 navy. After serving on the Constitution and at 

 the Mare Island Navy Yard till 1857, he became 

 United States marshal for the northern district 

 of California. At the outbreak of the civil war 

 he organized the 1st California Cavalry, of which 

 he was commissioned colonel. He was United 

 States consul to Tangier in 1869-'87, was reap- 

 pointed in 1890, and the same year was promoted 

 to consul general, and resigned in 1893. 



May, Samuel, clergyman, born in Boston, 

 Mass., April 11, 1810; died in Leicester, Mass., 

 Nov. 24, 1899. He was graduated at Harvard 

 College in 1829, in the class with Oliver Wendell 

 Holmes and James Freeman Clarke, and at the 

 Divinity School, Cambridge, in 1833. From 1834 

 to 1846 he was pastor of the Unitarian Church in 

 Leicester, but he resigned in the latter year, his 

 strong antislavery principles not being acceptable 

 to some of his parishioners. He, however, con- 

 tinued to make Leicester his home for the rest 

 of his long life. From 1847 to 1865 he was gen- 

 eral secretary of the Massachusetts Antislavery 

 Society, and for several years held the same of- 

 fice in the American Antislavery Society. He 

 was a contributor to the Liberator and the Anti- 

 slavery Standard, and his activities in behalf of 

 reform were unbounded. He was the last sur- 

 vivor of the earlier generation of antislavery lead- 

 ers, and remained to the close of his career keenly 

 alive to questions bearing upon reform. His 

 only published work was The Fugitive Slave Law 

 and its Victims. 



Maynard, Emngham, publisher, born in 

 Massachusetts in 1830; died in Saratoga Springs, 

 N. Y., Nov. 19, 1899. He removed to New York 

 city when young and found employment in a 

 publishing house. Later he entered business for 

 himself, and about 1890, when several publishing 

 houses consolidated their schoolbook ..lists ancl 

 formed the American Book Company, Mr. May- 

 nard refused to enter the combination. About 

 this time he became associated with Edwin C. 

 Merrill in the Maynard-Merrill Company, pub- 

 lishers of schoolbooks. At the time of his death 

 he had been president of the company several 

 years. 



Medill, Joseph, journalist, born in St. John, 

 New Brunswick, April 6, 1823; died in San An- 

 tonio, Texas, March 10, 1899. In 1831 the family 

 removed to Massillon, Ohio, and engaged in farm- 

 ing. Joseph worked on the farm several years, 

 spending his leisure in study, and walking 9 



