262 Charles Whittlesey.— A. Winchell. 
great as to demonstrate the practicability of canals across the 
various separating ridges ; and colonel Whittlesey's determi- 
nations have been relied upon by the advocates of an exten- 
sive system of inland navigation in the region of the sources 
of the Mississippi. 
After so diversified a career, it yet remained for colonel 
Whittlesey to enter upon an undertaking destined to insure 
most completely the grateful remembrance of his fellow citi- 
zens of Cleveland and northern Ohio. In 1867 he devoted his 
great energy and large experience to the building up of the 
"Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society." In 
this service he labored indefatigably during the remainder of 
his life. "All looked to him to lead the movement, and none 
other could have approached his efficiency or ability as presi- 
dent of the Society." He commenced immediately the prepa- 
ration of his valuable work on "The Early History of Cleve- 
land." He never ceased to gather important material for the 
archives of the Society, and contributed its most important 
publications. His most valuable work, however, was least 
conspicuous. It consisted in the constant and indefatigable 
zeal with which from 1867 to 1886, he promoted its prosperity. 
For twenty years the welfare of the Society was at all times 
his business and was never off his mind. 
Infirmities crowded upon him — many of them the ulterior 
results of hardships and exposures in his northern work — but 
he did not as yet regard his labors as finished. During the 
last few years of his life, his thoughts ranged to an unusual 
extent, over religious themes, and the relations between science 
and religion. The themes were not new to him, but he now 
arranged his views in more systematic shape, and supplied 
numerous contributions for the press. Now. at length, he 
pronounced his life-work completed. He had but a few weeks 
to wait. On Sunday morning, October 17, 1886, he was seized 
with a chill, and on the following day he passed from life. 
The career of colonel Whittlesey, as appears from this sur- 
vey, was shaped entirely by the circumstances which arose 
around him. If at any period of his life he deliberately 
selected a vocation for himself, his choice was suggested by the 
events of the time, and when the events were of a diff'erent 
tenor, he changed his mode of intellectual life. In this way 
he suited hiseff'orts to the present opportunities and demands, 
