Important Events, 16th Administration.

1877 Jan. 4. Death of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Railroad King-aged 82.

Jan. 26 The Electoral Commission bill passes the

House by a vote of 191 to 86.

March 2. The Electoral Commission Count completed after a two months' session, and the election of Hayes and Wheeler formally declared.

March 4-Sunday. R. B. Hayes, the 19th President, took the oath, and was publicly inaugurated Monday, the 5th. July 21. The great railroad strike and riot throughout the United States.

Aug. 30.

Gen. Miles, with a loss of 26 killed and 47 wounded, kills 17 and wounds 40 Nez Perces Indians, at Bear Paw Mountain.

Dec. 28.

Gloucester Fishing Fleet lose 37 lives and

several vessels.

1878 Feb. 13. Judgment entered in New York against Wm.

M. Tweed for $10,851,196.

April 12. Wm. M. Tweed dies in Ludlow Street Jail.

July 12.

York.

July

Nov. 6.

vault. Dec. 18.

Wm. Cullen Bryant dies at his residence, New Age, 84.

Yellow Fever rages at Vicksburg, Memphis, etc.

The body of A. T. Stewart stolen from family

Gold at par for the first time since 1862. 1879 Jan. 1. Specie payment resumed by act of Congress. Gold at par, and no run upon the Treasury or banks. March 1. President Hayes vetoed the Anti-Chinese Bill. Veto sustained in the House by 95 to 109 for the bill. March 18. 46th Congress met in extra session; Samuel J. Randall, Democrat, chosen Speaker of the House by

144 votes, to 125 for J. A. Garfield, Republican; 13 for H. B. Wright, National Greenback, and 1 for W. D. Kelley.

April 26. President Hayes issued a proclamation warning settlers not of the Indian race from the Indian Territory.

July 1. Yellow Fever at Memphis-Southern ports quarantined.

July 21. United States Government orders 1,500 tents and rations for 10,000 people to Memphis, in aid of sufferers from yellow fever.

July 9. James Gordon Bennett, of the New York Herald. sends the steam yacht Jeannette to discover the North West Passage.

Sept. 20. Gen. Grant reaches San Francisco homewardbound on his two years and a half tour around the world. Nov. 15. The French (7th) Trans-Atlantic Cable landed at North Eastham, Mass. (Cape Cod), from Brest, France.

1880 June 8. The Republican National Convention, at Chicago, on the 36th ballot, nominated J. A. Garfield for President, and C. A. Arthur, of New York, for Vice-President.

June 11. Steamers Stonington and Narragansett collided in Long Island Sound-the latter burned and sunk; 48 lives lost.

June 23. The Democratic National Convention, at Cincinnati, nominated W. S. Hancock for President, and Wm. H. English for Vice-President.

July 19. Steamer Dessoug arrives in N. Y. Harbor with Cleopatra's Needle, for Central Park; 69 ft. 6 in. high and 196 tons weight. Presented by the Khedive of Egypt to NY City.

CABINET OFFICERS, 16TH ADMINISTRATION-1877-1881.

WILLIAM M. EVARTS, of New York, Secretary of State. JOHN SHERMAN, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury. GEORGE W. MCCRARY, of Iowa, Secretary of War. RICHARD W. THOMPSON, of Indiana, Sec. of the Navy. CARL SCHURZ, of Missouri, Secretary of the Interior.

DAVID M. KEY, of Tennessee, } Postmaster-General.

66

CHARLES DEVENS, of Massachusetts, Attorney-General.

JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD, the Twentieth President of the United States, was born November 19th, 1831, about fifteen miles south-east of Cleveland, in Orange, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio. He came of plain New England stock, his father, Abram Garfield, being a farmer in very moderate circumstances, who died in 1833. James was the youngest of a family of four. With an absorbing ambition to secure an education;-by his activity and perseverance on the farm, in the carpenter shop as driver and boatman on the canal, and in the shipyard of Captain William Treat, near Cleveland, he

earned a living, he secured a district school education during winters. In the spring of 1849, James entered Geauga Academy, where, by industry, he paid his way and graduated at Williams College in 1856.

The next year, being twenty-six years old, he was made a teacher and subsequently principal of the College at Hiram, Ohio, which place he held, until entering the army in 1861. Having raised a company in the College and was assigned the rank of Colonel, under command of General Buell, and brevetted Major-General for meritorious conduct at Chickamauga. In 1863 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives from what was familiarly known as the "Giddings District;" and was continuously re-elected from the same district by overwhelming majorities. He was a representative type of the American Statesman, a man of the people, devoted to the public good, with an honesty of purpose that won the confidence of his fellows.

His eloquence was impressive; a notable instance is that of his address to an excited audience in Wall street, New York, on the morning after the assassination of President Lincoln ;-"God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives" are memorable words. He was selected in the winter of 1877 as a member of the Electoral Commission and at the elevation of Mr. Blaine to the Senate, the acknowledged leader of the Republican party in the House of Repre