OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (MERGENTHALER MILKY.) 



miles on Saturdays to receive instruction in Latin, 

 logic, and physics from a clergyman in Canton. 

 He studied law, and was admitted to the bar at 

 Canton in 1840. After two years of practice at 

 New Philadelphia lie bought the Coshocton Re- 

 publican, a weekly Whig newspaper, and con- 

 ducted it for two years, when he decided to aban- 

 don the law for journalism. In 1851 he estab- 

 lished at Cleveland the Daily Forest City, and in 

 the following year united it with the Free Demo- 

 crat, under the new name of the Cleveland Leader. 

 He urged the organization of a new political party 

 for the express purpose of preventing the exten- 

 sion of slavery, and was one of twelve men who 

 were the nucleus of the Republican party in 

 Cleveland in 1854. In 1855 he sold his interest 

 in the paper and joined others in buying the Chi- 

 cago Tribune. Under his editorial direction this 

 journal soon became an aggressive antislavery 

 organ, exerting wide influence and achieving finan- 

 cial success. Throughout the civil war Mr. Medill 

 sustained the Administration with all his powers. 

 He urged the proclamation of emancipation long 

 before it was made. Later he opposed President 

 Johnson's scheme of reconstruction, defended the 

 impeachment proceedings, and supported the re- 

 construction acts of Congress. Early in 1868 he 

 began urging Gen. Grant for the presidency. In 

 1870 Mr. Medill was a member of the Illinois 

 Constitutional Convention, and in 1871 he was 

 appointed a member of the first Civil Service 

 Commission. He prepared a special report favor- 

 ing a single presidential term of six years, but 

 before he was able to urge his proposed reform 

 Chicago was devastated by the great fire, and he 

 was elected mayor of the stricken city. During 

 his tenure of this office he secured a new charter 

 tor the city, and had much to do with establish- 

 ing the Chicago Public Library and the city ex- 

 position building. He declined a renomination, 

 returned to journalism, and in 1874 bought a 

 controlling interest in the Chicago Tribune, and 

 became its editor in chief. In 1882-'S3 he inaugu- 

 rated the high license and local option movement 

 in Illinois, and in 1888-'89 carried on an agita- 

 tion for annexation to the city of its thrifty 

 suburbs. Both movements were successful. 



Mergenthaler, Ottmar, inventor, born in 

 Wiirtemberg, Germany, May 10, 1854; died in 

 Baltimore, Md., Oct. 28, 1899. He learned the 

 trade of watchmaker in his native place, and at 

 the age of eighteen came to this country, penniless 

 and friendless. His first work was in the service 

 of the Government in Washington. There he was 

 employed four years on the mechanism of clocks 

 and bells and signal service apparatus. His in- 

 ventive genius manifested itself in several im- 

 provements which he made in signal service ap- 

 paratus, and in 1876 he became connected with a 

 mechanical engineering firm in Baltimore, and 

 made his home in that city. The conception of 

 the linotype was due primarily to James O. Cle- 

 phane, a Washington stenographer, who had made 

 the study of writing and printing machines a 

 hobby for twenty years. Mr. Clephane employed 

 the Baltimore firm to make some models from 

 the drawings of a Western inventor, and Mr. 

 Mergenthaler, who showed much aptitude in the 

 work, took an interest in the idea of inventing 

 a typesetting machine, and began to make ex- 

 periments on his own account. For four years 

 he devoted all his spare time to the invention of 

 the machine. His first idea took the form of a 

 rotary machine, with keys for impressing fe- 

 male dies in a continuous strip of heavy paper, 

 which was cut into short lengths for adjustment 

 as the matrix of a column *bf type. This was 



superseded by a machine controlling a .scries of 

 sliding bars, each bearing on one edge all Ihe 

 characters and spaces. A key mechanism moved 

 these bars endwise, HO as to bring a selected char- 

 acter on any bar 

 in line with a se- 

 lected character 

 on any other, and 

 thus form the ma- 

 trix of a complete 

 line of casting. In 

 1880 he made a 

 complete change 

 of system, and 

 adopted the plan 

 that he brought 

 to perfection in 

 the linotype. Fi- 

 nally he had a 

 machine that, by 

 action of a key- 

 board something 

 like a typewriter, 

 would set a line of 

 key dies or types, 

 justify it to any exact width, and cast it 

 into a solid line of lead or type metal. Yet 

 his work was not done, for after he had ac- 

 complished all this and had secured his pat- 

 ents another obstacle seemed to baffle him. Men 

 of money discredited his machine even after 

 they had seen it work. Publishers said it was 

 impracticable. They were willing to try his de- 

 vice, but they did not care to take any risks. 

 He at last succeeded in organizing a company 

 with small capital, which in the next three years 

 was consumed in efforts to place the linotype in 

 the composing room of some daily news'paper. 

 The machine had a trial by the New York Trib- 

 une, but its work was still crude. It was not 

 until the linotype company bought the Rogers 

 spacer that the machine became a success. 



Merrill, Samuel, Governor, born in Turner, 

 Me., Aug. 7, 1822; died in Los Angeles, Cal., Aug. 

 31, 1899. He received a common-school education, 

 and in 1847-'56 was engaged in business in New 

 Hampshire and served two terms in the Legisla- 

 ture. In 1856 he went to Iowa, and in 1860 was 

 elected to the Legislature of that ' State. He 

 entered the National army as colonel of Iowa 

 volunteers in 1862, and served till seriously 

 wounded at Black River Bridge. J^i 1868-72 he 

 was Governor of Iowa. 



Miles, William Porcher, lawyer, born in 

 Charleston, S. C., in July, 1822; died in Burnside, 

 La., May 11, 1899. He was graduated at Charles- 

 ton College, and was for several years assistant 

 Professor of Mathematics there. In 1855, when 

 yellow fever was raging in Norfolk, Va., he vol- 

 unteered for relief work in that city, and on re- 

 turning to Charleston was elected mayor with 

 no opposition. He inaugurated a new police sys- 

 tem and the system of tidal drains. In 1856, 

 1858, and 1860 he was elected to Congress. He 

 was elected to the South Carolina convention 

 that adopted the ordinance of secession, and after 

 the convention he resigned his seat in the Federal 

 Congress, became a colonel in the Confederate 

 army, and was a member of the Confederate Con- 

 gress. After the war he lived in retirement till 

 1877, when he was chosen president of the Uni- 

 versity of South Carolina. He occupied this office 

 several years, resigning to take the management 

 of the large sugar plantation that had come to 

 his wife from her father. 



Miley, John David, military officer, born in 

 Illinois about 1864; died in Manila, Philippine 



