1919 
September 26 , 
CHARLES L, FREER 
Gave Art Collection and Mil¬ 
lion for Building to Smith- ! 
sonian Institution. 
Officials of the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion today received word of the death 
1 at New York last night of Charles 
Lang Freer, capitalist and art con- 
I noisseur, who presented to the Smith- 
| sonian Institution his art collection 
and $1,000,000 for a building to house 
the collection. 
Word of Death Brings Sorrow 
Mr. Freer died following an app- 
pletic stroke, according to dispatches' 
1 from New York. His death brought 
sorrow to offic ials o f the Smithsonian 
Institution, who had been looking for¬ 
ward to his presence at the dedica tion 
of the Freer Art Gallery shortly. The 
Smithsonian Institution will be rep¬ 
resented at tlie funeral services, and ; 
will take appropriate action on th.j i 
death of Mr. Freer. j 
The new Freer Art Gallery is located 
at 12th and B streets southwest, and 
is of granite. The building, although 
long delayed in construction by the 
war, is practically finished. It will 
house solely the collection of art 1 
works left to the Smithsonian Institu- j 
tion by Mr. Freer. The collection was j 
to come to the gallery upon Mr. , 
Freer’s death, and will be brought to 
Washington from the Freer home in 
Detroit. 
The Freer collection is said to con- ; 
tain the finest collection of the works 
of Whistler extant. Its other treas- , 
ures make it one of the finest collec- j 
tions in tlie world, ' 
Binds Manuscripts of Gospels. 
Several years ago Mr. Freer discov¬ 
ered in Egypt manuscripts of the 
gospels. The papyrus rolls dated 
either from the fourth or fifth cen- : 
tury and contained much new mate¬ 
rial particularly on the texts of St. 
John, St. Luke and St. Mark’s gos¬ 
pels. Hitherto unknown sayings of 
Christ were declared recorded in 
them. Copies were given to the Brit¬ 
ish Museum and to the Vatican. 
Mr. Freer, who was unmarried, was 
L born in Kingston, N. Y., in 1856. He 
j was engaged for many years in rail- 
I way work and manufacturing at De- 
’) iroit, where he collected his art treas¬ 
ures. He was a member of the Gro- 
! tier and Players’ clubs of New York. 
Charles G. Abbot, acting secretary 
of the Smithsonian Institution, was 
today selected to represent the insti¬ 
tution at the funeral services for Mr. 
Freer, which are to be held Monday 
afternoon at 2 o’clock at Kingston, 
N. Y. Dr. Walcott of the institution 
was unable to be reached, as he is in 
the Canadian Rockies, 
