OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (WHITEHEAD YEOMAN.) 



483 



Whitehead, William Riddick, physician, 

 born in Virginia about 1832; died in Denver, 

 Col., Oct. 13, 1902. He was graduated at the 

 Virginia Military Institute in 1851, and studied 

 medicine at the Universities of Virginia and 

 Pennsylvania, and subsequently in Paris and 

 Vienna. While in Vienna he was appointed a 

 surgeon in the Russian army, was ordered to the 

 Crimea, and was stationed at Sebastopol during 

 the siege of that city. For his services he was 

 made a knight of the Imperial Order of St. 

 Stanislaus. He resigned his post of staff surgeon 

 in the Russian army after five months' service; 

 returned to Paris to resume study in the hos- 

 pitals ; and settled in New York, where he became 

 Professor of Clinical Medicine in New York Med- 

 ical College. In 1861 he entered the Confederate 

 army, and was commissioned chief division sur- 

 geon. After the war he returned to New York 

 city to practise, and later removed to Denver, 

 Col. He established the department of medicine 

 in the Universities of Colorado and Denver. 



Whittle, Francis McNeeee, clergyman, born 

 in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, July 7, 1823; 

 died in Richmond, Va., June 18, 1902. He was 

 graduated at the Theological Seminary at Alex- 

 andria in 1847, and in 1848 was ordained priest. 

 He was rector of Kanawha Parish in what is 

 now West Virginia in 1847-'49; of St. James's 

 Northam Parish, Goochland County, Virginia, in 

 1849-'52; of Grace Church, Berryville, Va., in 

 1852-'57; and of St. Paul's, Louisville, Ky., in 

 1857-'68. In 1868 he was consecrated Assistant 

 Bishop of Virginia, and he became bishop of the 

 diocese in 1876, on the death of Bishop Johns. 

 When the diocese of Western Virginia was set off 

 from Virginia in 1877, Bishop Whittle chose to 

 remain in charge of the eastern diocese, which in 

 1892 was still further reduced by the organization 

 of the diocese of Southern Virginia. At his death, 

 however, the diocese, even with the loss of two- 

 thirds of its former territory, was far stronger 

 than at the time of his consecration. Bishop 

 Whittle received the degree of D. D. from the 

 Theological Seminary of Ohio in 1867, and LL. D. 

 from William and Mary College in 1878. In his 

 theology the bishop was strongly evangelical. 



Williamson, James A., lawyer, born in Adair 

 County, Kentucky, Feb. 8, 1829; died in James- 

 town, R. I., Sept. 7, 1902. He was educated at 

 Knox College, Illinois, studied law, and was ad- 

 mitted to the bar. In 1861 he enlisted in the 4th 

 Iowa Infantry as 1st lieutenant and adjutant; 

 was promoted lieutenant-colonel, March 9, 1862; 

 colonel, March 18, 1862; and brigadier-general, 

 Jan. 13, 1865; and was brevetted major-general 

 of volunteers, March 13, 1865. He participated 

 in the battles of Pea Ridge and Chickasaw 

 Bayou, the siege of Vicksburg, and the capture 

 of Savannah. After the capture of Savannah he 

 received command of the military district of 

 Missouri, where he remained till the surrender 

 of Gen. Lee's army. After the war he resumed 

 law practise; was commissioner of the United 

 States General Land Office from 1876 till 1881; 

 and afterward land commissioner and general 

 solicitor of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad 

 Company and its president. 



Wilson, Joseph Miller, engineer, born in 

 Phoenixville, Pa., June 20, 1838; died in Phila- 

 delphia, Pa., Nov. 24, 1902. He was graduated 

 at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1858, was 

 appointed an assistant engineer of the Pennsyl- 

 vania Railroad in 1860, and was connected with 

 that road till 1886, during which time he served 

 as resident engineer and as engineer of bridges 

 and buildings. In 1876 he was associate engineer 



and architect on the designing and construction 

 of the Main Exposition Building and Machinery 

 Hall for the Centennial Exposition. He served 

 on the commission that condemned the Washing- 

 ton Aqueduct, and on the one that recommended 

 the underground-railroad system now under con- 

 struction in New York city. He was president of 

 Franklin Institute several years and author of 

 many technical and scientific papers and reports. 



Wilton, Ellie (Mrs. Thomas C. Doremus), 

 actress, born in Albany, N. Y., in 1852; died in 

 Whitestone, Long Island, July 20, 1902. Her 

 father, John Leonard, moved to San Francisco 

 while she was very young, and when she was 

 only fourteen years old she joined a traveling 

 theatrical company, where her talent and per- 

 sonal . beauty soon won her advancement to im- 

 portant rSles. She made an extended tour 

 through the West, playing principal parts in 

 mining-camp theaters long before she was 

 twenty years old, and after a few seasons of 

 that hard experience she was engaged as leading 

 lady in the California Theater, San Francisco, 

 where she remained seven years, winning great 

 popularity and appearing in support of most of 

 the celebrated actors of that time who visited 

 the West. At the end of this long engagement 

 she went to Europe to study, remaining there 

 two years; on her return to the United States 

 she was engaged by Manager A. M. Palmer for 

 his Union Square Theater Company, and she 

 made her first New York appearance in that 

 theater in the comedy called French Flats. She 

 was a member of this company several sea- 

 sons, and left it to play leading support to the 

 Italian tragedian Tommaso Salvini, with whom 

 she traveled two seasons. She appeared in Char- 

 ley's Aunt during its long run at the Standard 

 Theater, New York city, and after that she joined 

 the Frohman forces and played in one or an- 

 other of their companies till 1900, when she origi- 

 nated the r6le of Queen Margaret in A Royal 

 Family, with Annie Russell as the star, at the 

 Lyceum Theater. During that season she in- 

 jured her foot and was compelled to leave the 

 company. She never again appeared on the 

 stage, but lived at her Long Island home until 

 her death. 



Winner, Septimus, composer and publisher of 

 music, born in Philadelphia, May 11, 1827; died 

 there, Nov. 23, 1902. He composed the famous 

 song Listen to the Mocking-Bird, which was a 

 great favorite for many years, and also What 

 is Home without a Mother? which was almost 

 equally popular. He wrote a song entitled Give 

 us back our Old Commander, which made a great 

 sensation when it appeared, and very nearly 

 involved the author in trouble with the Gov- 

 ernment, as it referred directly to the removal 

 of Gen. George B. McClellan from his command 

 of the Army of the Potomac in 1862. The War 

 Department issued an order forbidding actors or 

 any other persons to sing it in public, on pain of 

 imprisonment; and Mr. Winner, who asserted his 

 innocence of intending anything treasonable in 

 writing the song, was notified that his further 

 publication of it would result in his confinement 

 in Fort Lafayette. Besides his songs, he wrote 

 and published numerous books of technical in- 

 struction for various musical instruments. In his 

 earlier years he was a frequent contributor of 

 verse to the American literary magazines, and he 

 was also the founder of the Musical Fund Society 

 of Philadelphia. His last work was The Cogita- 

 tions of a Crank. 



Yeoman, George F., jurist, born in Andes, 

 N. Y., Oct. 29, 1846; died in Rochester, N. Y., 



