OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (ELLIS FERXALD.) 



445 



I 



Ellis, Howard, lawyer, born in Elkon, Md., 

 July 6, 1834; died in New York city, Dec. 24, 

 1902. He entered business life as a bank clerk 

 in Philadelphia, and later studied law. At the 

 outbreak of the civil war he, with his four broth- 

 ers, assisted in raising the 6th Pennsylvania Cav- 

 alry, with which he served till 1863, when he 

 retired with the rank of captain. He then re- 

 moved to New York, where he practised his pro- 

 fession. In 1875 he began the publication of the 

 New York Weekly Digest; later became editor 

 of The Law and Equity Reporter, with which he 

 remained for fourteen years, when he resigned to 

 become United States consul-general in Holland. 

 After his return from Rotterdam he acted as 

 counsel for several business concerns and wrote 

 on legal subjects, his last work in this line being 

 The Case Law. 



Emerson, William (William Emerson Red- 

 mond), familiarly known as "Billy" Emerson, 

 actor and minstrel performer, born in Belfast, 

 Ireland, in 1847; died in Boston, Mass., Feb. 22, 

 1902. He came to the United States when he 

 was a year old, and made his first appearance 

 as a " burnt-cork " negro minstrel when he was 

 a lad of eleven in the Sweeney Minstrel Com- 

 pany. As he grew up he became a favorite with 

 the public all over the country, for his sweet 

 singing and graceful dancing. He commanded 

 the highest salary ever paid to any minstrel per- 

 former, at one time receiving $1,000 a week. He 

 sang with Haverly's Minstrels for a long time, 

 and was once in partnership with Ben Cotton, one 

 of the noted minstrel singers in the palmy days 

 of that form of amusement. Emerson went to 

 San Francisco, and for ten years managed a 

 company of his own. He made three very success- 

 ful trips to Australia. In recent years he ap- 

 peared as a monologist in vaudeville entertain- 

 ments. His last appearance was at the Boston 

 Theater in May, 1901, with West's Minstrel Com- 

 pany. 



English, Thomas Dunn, author, physician, 

 and lawyer, born in Philadelphia, Pa., June 29, 

 1819; died in Newark, N. J., April 1, 1902. He 

 was graduated in medicine at the University of 

 Pennsylvania in 1839; but he immediately took 

 up the study of law, and was admitted to the bar 

 in Philadelphia in 1842. His tastes had been 

 strongly inclined toward literature from his early 

 youth, and in 1844 he became editor of a daily 

 paper in New York. In the following year he 

 began the publication of a literary magazine, The 

 Aris^tidean, of which only a single volume was 

 issued. In 1843 he was asked to contribute a 

 poem to the New York Mirror, and in the issue 

 of Sept. 25 appeared Ben Bolt, the poem that 

 made him famous. It won wide admiration in 

 this country, and was soon stolen by English 

 publishers and announced in England as the work 

 of a British poet. It was set to the familiar air 

 that accompanies it by Nelson Kneass in 1846, 

 and was sung by him in theaters all over the 

 United States. For many years the song dropped 

 out of memory, but interest in it was revived by 

 its use in George Du Maurier's novel Trilby. Soon 

 after the publication of Ben Bolt, President Tyler 

 offered a diplomatic post to the author, which 

 was declined. Dr. English settled in New Jersey 

 in 1859, making it his permanent home. He 

 served in the New Jersey Legislature in 1863 and 

 1864, and was sent to the Fifty-second and 

 Fifty-third Congresses as a Democrat. In 1876 

 he received the degree of doctor of laws from 

 William and Mary College, Virginia. Among his 

 writings, besides numerous poems and several 

 'lays and novels, are Walter Woolfe (1842); 



Ambrose Fecit, or the Peer and the Painter 

 (1864) ; American Ballads (1882) ; Book of Battle 

 Lyrics; and Jacob Schuyler's Millions (1886). 

 For a portrait of Dr. English, see frontispiece. 



Eytinge, Harry, actor, born in Philadelphia, 

 Pa., Oct. 30, 1822; died in Nyack, N. Y., Sept. 18, 

 1902. He made his first appearance in his twen- 

 ty-first year. Having a great liking for the sea 

 and belonging to a wealthy family, he had built 

 a merchant vessel and commanded it on a voyage 

 to Holland at the age of eighteen. His tastes 

 were varied and his talents versatile; besides 

 being a fine actor, he was an artist of much abil- 

 ity and a ship-builder, and he sp'oke several lan- 

 guages with perfect fluency. In the early days of 

 his theatrical life he played with Junius Brutus 

 Booth, Edwin Forrest, Charlotte Cushman, Edwin 

 Booth, and other famous actors. He appeared 

 at times in both tragedy and comedy, and man- 

 aged many different theaters and companies in 

 various cities of the United States. He played 

 important rOles in all the Shakespearian dramas 

 in the early days of his stage career, and in later 

 years supported Margaret Mather for several sea- 

 sons, besides other stars. He retired from public 

 life in 1893. Mr. Eytinge was a highly cultivated 

 man, of fine presence and distinguished manner, 

 an accomplished actor, and a favorite both pro- 

 fessionally and socially. 



Feehan, Patrick Augustine, clergyman, born 

 in Tipperary, Ireland, Aug. 29. 1829; died in Chi- 

 cago, 111., July 12, 1902. He was graduated at 

 Maynooth College in 1852, and soon afterward 

 came to the United States. He was ordained in 

 the Roman Catholic Church in Illinois; appointed 

 president of the Seminary of Carondelet; was 

 pastor of the Church of the Immaculate Concep- 

 tion in St. Louis, and was consecrated Bishop of 

 Nashville in 1865. In 1880 he was chosen first 

 Archbishop of Chicago. During his administra- 

 tion he created 9 new parishes in Chicago ; found- 

 ed a college of the Christian Brothers, a convent 

 and refuge of Sisters of the Good Shepherd, and 

 2 orphan asylums; and introduced into his dio- 

 cese the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of Charity, 

 and the Sisters of St. Joseph, all of whom he 

 placed in charge of academies and parochial 

 schools. 



Fenger, Christian, surgeon, born in Copen- 

 hagen, Denmark, Nov. 3, 1840; died in Chicago, 

 111., March 7, 1902. He was graduated at the 

 University of Copenhagen with the degree of 

 M. D. in 1864. He practised medicine in Copen- 

 hagen till the Franco-Prussian War broke out, 

 when he became a surgeon in the Red Cross Am- 

 bulance Corps and served till the close of the war. 

 He then lectured for a time in the University of 

 Copenhagen; went to Egypt as a member of the 

 Sanitary Council; and later was appointed sur- 

 geon of Khalifa Quarter, Cairo. In 1877 he re- 

 moved to Chicago, where he resided until his 

 death. In 1880 he became curator of Rush Medi- 

 cal College Museum, and in 1884 Professor of 

 Clinical Surgery at the College of Physicians and 

 Surgeons, going to the similar chair in Chicago 

 Medical College in 1893, and in Rush Medical 

 College in 1899. He was president of the Chicago 

 Medical Society and vice-president of the Amer- 

 ican Association of Surgeons; and at different 

 times was surgeon to the Cook County. Presby- 

 terian, Tabitha, Norwegian, Passavant Memorial, 

 Lutheran, German, and the German-American 

 Hospitals. He contributed more than 80 papers 

 on surgical subjects to American periodicals. 



Fernald, Orlando Marcellus, educator, born 

 about 1835. He was educated at Phillips Exeter 

 Academy, and was instructor there several years. 



