JOHN ERICSSON. 383 



hundred pounds, he thought he overstrained himself, and he 

 ascribed to it certain pains in his back from which he suf- 

 fered. 



He participated eagerly in physical sports, was expert in 

 Swedish gymnastics, was one of the best shots, the best leaper, 

 and the champion wrestler in his regiment, and was famed as 

 an athlete, skater, and swimmer. Mr. E. H. Stoughton, for- 

 merly minister to Russia, is said to have surprised him once 

 at sixty years of age standing on his head, to prove that he 

 had not lost his agility. He was a man of unbounded benevo- 

 lence, and never refused the petitions of those who came to 

 him in need. 



Domestic life was not for him, but his passion for work so 

 absorbed him that he did not regret this. In the course of his 

 brief service in the Swedish army he contracted a union with 

 a Jemtland girl of good family, by whom he had a child. The 

 union was dissolved, and for forty-eight years Ericsson held 

 no communication with his only son, for whom, nevertheless, he 

 seems to have made provision as soon as his circumstances 

 permitted. In 1833 he made a second matrimonial venture, 

 marrying an English lady named Amelia Byam. She came to 

 America with him, but not liking the country, and having little 

 companionship with her husband, she soon returned to Eng- 

 land, and died without ever seeing Ericsson again. There was 

 probably no ill feeling between them, for when the Monitor 

 made Ericsson famous the wife wrote him of her gratification 

 at his triumph. 



It was a notable coincidence that Ericsson died on the 

 anniversary of the Monitor's famous fight. In the year follow- 

 ing his death, on August 23, 1890, his body was taken on board 

 the United States ship Baltimore and conveyed to Sweden. 

 All the United States naval vessels available were assembled 

 in New York harbour and took part in the ceremonies attend- 

 ing the shipment of the remains, each firing a national salute 

 as the Baltimore passed it on the way out to sea. Arrived in 

 his native land, Ericsson's body was placed in a chapel that 

 had been erected for it in the cemetery at Filipstad. 



A bronze statue, of Ericsson, eight feet high, standing on 

 a granite pedestal of the same height, was placed in Battery 

 Park, by the city of New York, in April, 1893. The unveiling, 

 which took place on the 26th day of the month, was accom- 



