John Pierpont Morgan, died March 31, 1913

His house on Madison Avenue was the first electrically lit private residence in New York. 

Morgan Mansion on Madison Avenue

He was known to dislike publicity and hated being photographed; as a result of his self-consciousness of his rosacea, all of his professional portraits were retouched.

 

Morgan was scheduled to travel on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic in April 1912, but canceled at the last minute, choosing to remain at a resort in Aix-les-Baines, France.

Morgan at White Star Pier

White Star Line, Titanic's operator, was part of Morgan's International Mercantile Marine Company, and Morgan was to have his own private suite and promenade deck on the ship.

RMS Titanic

The Pujo Committee was a United States congressional subcommittee which was formed between May 1912 and January 1913 to investigate the so-called "money trust", a community of Wall Street bankers and financiers that exerted powerful control over the nation's finances. After a resolution introduced by congressman Charles Lindbergh, Arsene Pujo of Louisiana obtained congressional authorization to form a subcommittee of the House Committee on Banking and Currency.  The report revealed that no less than eighteen different major financial corporations were under control of a cartel led by J.P Morgan, George F Baker and James Stillman. These three men, through the resources of seven banks and trust companies (Banker’s Trust Co., Guaranty Trust Co., Astor Trust Co., National Bank of Commerce, Liberty National Bank, Chase National Bank, Farmer’s Loan and Trust Co.) controlled an estimated $2.1 billion. The report revealed that a handful of men held manipulative control of the New York Stock Exchange and attempted to evade interstate trade laws.  The findings of the committee inspired public support for ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, passage of the Federal Reserve Act that same year, and passage of the  Clayton Antitrust in 1914. They were also widely publicized in the Louis Brandeis book, Others People's Money--and How the Bankers Use It.

J.P. Morgan with his son-in-law, Herbert Saterlee and his daughter, Louisa Saterlee, accompanying him to testify at the Pujo Committee Hearings

House of Morgan partners blamed the March 1913 death of J.P. Morgan on the stress of testifying in the Pujo hearings, though other health factors were certainly involved.

Shortly after testifying in the Pujo hearings in 1912, Morgan left with friends and family on a trip to Egypt. During his trip he became nervous and slipped into depression. An Egyptian doctor examined him and pronounced him well. His condition continued to decline, however, as the party traveled to Rome.

On March 31, 1913, just shy of his seventy-sixth birthday, Pierpont Morgan died in his sleep at the Grand Hotel.

Grand Hotel, Rome, Italy

Nearly four thousand condolence letters were received there overnight and flags on Wall Street flew at half-mast. The body was taken by train to Paris and Le Havre, and Morgan's daughter Louisa and son-in-law Herbert Satterlee followed the casket as it was loaded onto the ship.  Upon returning to New York, Morgan's body was laid out in his Library.

Morgan's Coffin being taken from Morgan Library, where it had been lying in state

Wall Street's stock market closed for two hours when his body passed through.

J.P. Morgan Hearse

Morgan Funeral at St. George Episcopal Church

For decades, J.P. Morgan was senior warden at St. George's Episcopal Church and the most influential parishioner.  The church was colloquially referred to as "Morgan's Church".  His funeral was held there on April 14, 1913.

Morgan Funeral leaving St. George's Episcopal Church

Photographers arrested during Morgan's Funeral

His remains were interred in the Cedar Hill Cemetery in his birthplace of Hartford, Connecticut.

Morgan Grave

At the time of his death, he held an estate worth $68.3 million ($1.39 billion in today's dollars), of which about $30 million represented his share in the New York and Philadelphia banks. The value of his art collection was estimated at $50 million.  He left his fortune and business to his son, John Pierpont "Jack" Morgan, Jr.

John Pierpoint Morgan, Jr.

He bequeathed his mansion and large book collections to the Morgan Library & Museum in  New York City.

Morgan Mansion

Morgan's library, as it was known in his lifetime, was built between 1902 and 1906 adjacent to his New York residence at Madison Avenue and 36th Street. His son, J.P. Morgan, Jr., made the Pierpont Morgan Library a public institution in 1924 as a memorial to his father and kept Belle da Costa Greene, his father's private librarian, as its first director.

Morgan Library

Interior of Morgan Library

Belle da Costa Greene

Matilda Joslyn Gage, died March 18, 1889

 

When Matilda’s husband, Henry, died in 1884, winters alone in the large Gage Home in Newe York were expensive and lonely, so every winter for the next fourteen years until her death, Matilda closed up her Fayetteville home and lived with her daughter, Maud, and son-in-law, L. Frank Baum.  

L. Frank Baum

She died of a stroke while visiting the Baum home in Chicago, Illinois in 1898, at the age of 72.

Matilda Gage Memorial Stone

 

Though Gage was cremated, there is a memorial stone at Fayetteville Cemetery that bears her motto, "There is a word sweeter than Mother, Home or Heaven. That word is Liberty."

George Henry Thomas, died March 28, 1870

In November 1860, Thomas requested a one-year leave of absence from the army. His career had been distinguished and productive, and he was one of the rare officers with field experience in all three combat arms—infantry, cavalry, and artillery. On his way home to Virginia, he suffered a mishap in Lynchburg, falling from a train platform and severely injuring his back. As he was 44 years old, this accident led him to contemplate leaving military service and caused him pain for the rest of his life. 

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, 19 of the 36 officers in the 2nd U.S. Cavalry resigned, including three of Thomas's superiors—Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert El Lee and William Hardee.  Many Southern-born officers were torn between loyalty to their states and loyalty to their country. Thomas struggled with the decision but opted to remain with the United States. His Northern-born wife probably helped influence his decision. In response, his family turned his picture against the wall, destroyed his letters, and never spoke to him again. 

Thomas stayed in the Union Army with some degree of suspicion surrounding him. 

His former student and fellow Virginian, Confederate Col.  J.E.B. Stuart, wrote to his wife, "Old George H. Thomas is in command of the cavalry of the enemy. I would like to hang, hang him as a traitor to his native state."

Thomas was promoted in rapid succession. In the First Bull Run Campaign, he commanded a brigade. On January 18, 1862, he defeated Confederate generals Crittenden and Zollicoffer at Mill Srpings, gaining the first important Union victory in the war, breaking Confederate strength in eastern Kentucky, and lifting Union morale.  

At the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19, 1863, he once again held a desperate position against General Braxton Bragg's onslaught while the Union line on his right collapsed. Thomas rallied broken and scattered units together on Horseshoe Ridge to prevent a significant Union defeat from becoming a hopeless rout. Future president James told General   Rosecrans that Thomas was "standing like a rock." After the battle he became widely known by the nickname "The Rock of Chickamauga", representing his determination to hold a vital position against strong odds.

Thomas succeeded Rosecrans in command of the Army of the Cumberland shortly before the Battle for Chattanooga (November 23 – November 25, 1863), a stunning Union victory that was highlighted by Thomas's troops storming the Confederate line on Missionary Ridge.

During General Sherman's advance through Georgia in the spring of 1864, the Army of the Cumberland numbered over 60,000 men, and Thomas's staff did the logistics and engineering for Sherman's entire army group. At the Battle of Peachtree Creek (July 20, 1864), Thomas's defense severely damaged General Hood's army in its first attempt to break the siege of Atlanta. At the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864, a large part of Thomas's force dealt Hood a strong defeat and held him in check long enough to cover the concentration of Union forces in Nashville. Thomas attacked on December 15, 1864, in the Battle of Nashville and effectively destroyed Hood's command in two days of fighting.  Thomas also received another nickname from his victory: "The Sledge of Nashville".

Shortly after Lee's surrender, Union general John Gibbon had heard that the Thomas sisters were suffering, and sent them a wagonload of supplies as a token of his friendship for their brother. Judith Thomas would not accept, insisting she had no brother George, that he had died on the day Virginia seceded.

After the end of the Civil War, Thomas commanded the Department of the Cumberland in Kentucky and Tennessee, and at times also West Virginia and parts of Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama, through 1869. During th Reconstruction period, Thomas acted to protect free black people from white abuses. He set up military commissions to enforce labor contracts since the local courts had either ceased to operate or were biased against blacks. Thomas also used troops to protect places threatened by violence from the Ku Klux Klan.

President Andrew Johnson offered Thomas the rank of lieuntenant general, with the intent to eventually replace Grant, a Republican, with Thomas as general in chief—but the ever-loyal Thomas asked the Senate to withdraw his name for that nomination because he did not want to be party to politics. 

In 1869 he requested assignment to command the Military Division of the Pacific with headquarters at the Presidio of San Francisco.

Presidio Officer Quarters

He died there on March 28, 1870,  of a stroke while writing an answer to an article criticizing his military career by his wartime rival John Schofield. He was 53 years old.

He was the first high-ranking Union general to die after the Civil War, and his coffin was greeted by crowds throughout its transfer back East.

His widow was Frances Kellogg Thomas, to whom he had been married for 18 years.  They had no children.

Both Sherman and Grant attended Thomas's funeral, and were reported by third parties to have been visibly moved by his passing. 

None of his blood relatives attended his funeral as they had never forgiven him for his loyalty to the Union and not Virginia. 

Over 10,000 mourners, including many senior government officials, attended a large public funeral at Thomas' wife's church in Troy, New York.  He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Troy.

Thomas Grave

His gravestone was sculpted by Robert Launitz and comprises a white marble sarcophagus  topped by a bald eagle.

Plaque in front of grave

Thomas has generally been held in high esteem by Civil War historians; Bruce Catton and Carl Sandburg wrote glowingly of him, and many consider Thomas one of the top Union generals of the war. But Thomas never entered the popular consciousness like some of the other men. The general destroyed his private papers, saying he did not want "his life hawked in print for the eyes of the curious." Beginning in the 1870s, many Civil War generals published memoirs, justifying their decisions or refighting old battles, but Thomas, who died in 1870, did not publish his own memoirs. In addition, most of his campaigns were in the Western theater of the war, which received less attention both in the press of the day and in contemporary historical accounts.

Grant and Thomas also had a cool relationship, for reasons that are not entirely clear, but are well-attested by contemporaries. When a rain-soaked Grant arrived at Thomas's headquarters before the Chattanooga Campaign, Thomas, caught up in other activity, did not acknowledge the general for several minutes until an aide intervened. Thomas's perceived slowness at Nashville—although necessitated by the weather—drove Grant into a fit of impatience, and Grant nearly replaced Thomas. In his Personal Memoirs, Grant tended to minimize Thomas's contributions, particularly during the Franklin-Nashville Campaign, saying his movements were "always so deliberate and so slow, though effective in defence." Grant, however, also took painstaking care to praise Thomas's abilities. He openly and fully acknowledged in the event of Nashville that Thomas's success obviated all criticism. 

Sherman, who had been close to Thomas throughout the war, also repeated the accusation after the war that Thomas was "slow".  Sherman concluded that Grant and Thomas were "heroes" deserving "monuments like those of Nelson and Wellington in London."

Fort Thomas, Kentucky

A fort south of Newport, Kentucky was named in his honor, and the city of Fort Thomas now stands there and carries his name as well. 

Statue of Thomas in Thomas Circle

In 1879, veterans of the Army of the Cumberland dedicated an equestrian statue of Southampton's most distinguished son in Washington's Thomas Circle. Thomas's legendary bay horse, Billy, bore his friend Sherman's name.

Thomas Circle

Bust of Thomas in Grant's Tomb

A bust of Thomas is located in Grant's Tomb in New York City.

Thomas Sword

In the 1840s, the citizens of Southampton County, presented Thomas with an 1840 pattern sword and scabbard for gallantry in Florida (the Seminole War) and the Mexican War.   Thomas is known to have worn the sword only once, at his wedding on November 7, 1852, to Miss Frances Kellogg. Afterward, perhaps because the Thomases moved from post to post, he left the sword in the safekeeping of his sisters. 

However, when in 1861 he refused an offer to become Confederate Chief of Ordnance and remained loyal to the Union, his sisters returned his letters unopened, and his appeals for the sword ignored.  When the last sisters died in 1900—Judith E. Thomas and Fanny C. Thomas—the sword was bequeathed to the Virginia Historical Society. 

Valentine Eisenhuth, died March 28, 1893

Valentine Eisenhuth died of cerebral apoloxy on March 28, 1893 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was 56 years old.

William Chester Minor, died March 26, 1920

After returning to the United States in 1910 in the custody of his brother, Alfred, William Chester Minor spent nine years at St. Elizabeth's hospital for the criminally insane in Washington, D.C.  It was the same asylum where he had resided 42 years earlier.  His delusions worsened, as did his health. In 1918, Minor was diagnosed with dementia praecox, which is now called paranoid schizophrenia.

St. Elizabeth's Hospital for the Criminally Insane

In his last year, he lived at the Hartford Retreat for the Elderly Insane hospital in Connecticut, near the rest of his family.  He was no longer considered dangerous to himself or others, and the director at the new facility allowed Minor to walk the grounds.

Hartford Retreat for the Elderly Insane

One day after a walk on a particularly stormy day, Minor caught a cold that developed into pneumonia. He died on March 26, 1920 at the age of 86.  He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, New Haven, Connecticut.

Grave of William Chester Minor

Walt Whitman, died March 26, 1892

In 1873, Walt Whitman suffered the first of several strokes, which he called "whacks".  Whitman was induced to move from Washington to the home of his brother, George Washington Whitman, in Camden, New Jersey.  George was the brother Whitman had nursed during the Civil War.

George Washington Whitman in uniform during the Civil War

His mother, having fallen ill, was also there and died that same year, in May 1873. Both events were difficult for Whitman and left him depressed and he would remain at his brother's home until buying his own.  While iliving at his brother's, he was very productive, publishing three versions of Leaves of Grass among other works. He was also last fully physically active in this house, receiving both Oscar Wilde and Thomas Eakins. His other brother, Edward, an invalid since birth, also lived in the house.

In 1884, when his brother and sister-in-law were forced to move for business reasons, he bought his own house at 328 Mickle Street (now 330 Mickle Street).  First taken care of by tenants, he was largely confined to home for most of the years he lived there. 

Mary Oakes Davis at 328 Mickle Street

Shortly after moving in, he began socializing with Mary Oakes Davis, the widow of a sea captain. She was a neighbor to him, boarding with a family in Bridge Avenue just a few blocks from Mickle Street. She moved in with Whitman on February 24, 1885, to serve as his housekeeper in exchange for free rent. She brought with her a cat, a dog, two turtledoves, a canary, and other assorted animals. During this time, Whitman produced further editions of Leaves of Grass in 1876, 1881, and 1889.

Whitman sitting at window in Mickle Street, 1887

He suffered his second stroke in 1888. As the end of 1891 approached, he prepared a final edition of Leaves of Grass, an edition which has been nicknamed the "Deathbed Edition". He wrote, "L. of G. at last complete—after 33 y'rs of hackling at it, all times & moods of my life, fair weather & foul, all parts of the land, and peace & war, young & old". 

Handwritten note from Whitman in 1889

Preparing for death, Whitman commissioned a granite mausoleum and visited it often during construction. Whitman's $4,000 tomb was built to his specifications on a 20' x 30' plot of land gifted by the Harleigh Cemetery Association. Whitman ordered the construction of the "plain massive stone temple" with an iron gate and large bronze lock, inspired by an etching called "Death's Door" by William Blake. 

"Death's Door", William Blake

The roof was a foot and a half thick and some of the blocks weighed 8 to 10 tons. Whitman watched its construction, sent photos to friends, and proudly reported it as a celebration of his personality. Friends thought it a bit outrageous and accused the contractors, Reinhalter and Company of Philadelphia, of swindling the elder poet. Whitman himself only paid $1,500 of the cost; a friend settled the rest of the bill. The result was, he wrote, "the rudest most undress'd structure... since Egypt, perhaps the cave dwellers."  

Whitman's Tomb

On December 17th, 1891, Whitman was bedridden with pneumonia, and remained in bed until his death.  

Whitman's Bedroom

In the last week of his life, he was too weak to lift a knife or fork and wrote: "I suffer all the time: I have no relief, no escape: it is monotony—monotony—monotony—in pain."

Whitman with his nurse, Warren Fitzsinger

Whitman died at 6:43 p.m. on the evening of  March 26, 1892 at the age of 72.  According to his physician, the end was very peaceful.  His last words, about twenty minutes before his death, were "Warry, shift",  asking his nurse, Warren Fitzsinger to turn him over.  His housekeeper, Mary Davis, was also present, as well as his lawyer.

After Whitman's death, his friend Thomas Eakins and an assistant created his death mask as well as a plaster cast of the poet's hand. 

Whitman Death Mask by Eakins

An autopsy was performed, despite objections from brother Geroge Whitman, but following the request of the poet himself.   The autopsy revealed his lungs had diminished to one-eighth their normal breathing capacity, a result of bronchial pneumonia, and that an egg-sized abscess on his chest had eroded one of his ribs. 

Whitman's Parlor

Whitman's funeral was held March 30, 1892.  His polished-oak casket was displayed in the parlor of his home. The public viewing was from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. and drew at least a thousand visitors, including neighborhood friends and curious laborers on their lunch break. A police officer was stationed at the door to direct traffic.

A carriage then took Whitman's body to his final resting-place at Harleigh Cemetery. 

Funeral Mourners at Whitman's Tomb

Thousands lined the streets to watch the procession. A ceremony featured speakers from Whitman's cadre of disciples; readings came from Confucious, Buddha, Plato, the Koran, and the Bible. 

The only blood relative in attendance was his brother, George.

Whitman's friend, the orator Robert Ingersoll, delivered the eulogy.

"He was the poet of Life. It was a joy simply to breathe.

He loved the clouds; he enjoyed the breath of morning, the twilight, the wind, the winding streams. He loved to look at the sea when the waves burst into the whitecaps of joy. He loved the fields, the hills; he was acquainted with the trees, with birds, with all the beautiful objects of the earth. He not only saw these objects, but understood their meaning, and he used them that he might exhibit his heart to his fellow-men."

Robert Ingersoll

Later, the remains of Whitman's parents and two of his brothers and their families were moved to the mausoleum.