Former Dickinson College president Jeremiah Atwater dies, aged eighty-five

Jeremiah Atwater, who had been the third president of Dickinson College between 1809 and 1815, died from the continuing effects of a series of strokes, aged eighty-five. An honor graduate of Yale University and a Presbyterian minister, he had previous to arriving at Dickinson been Middlebury College's first president. (By John Osborne)
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Samuel Eli Cornish, pioneer black journalist and abolitionist, dies in Brooklyn

Samuel Eli Cornish, who had co-founded the nation's first black newspaper in 1827, called Freedom's Journal, and served as the vice president of African Missionary Society for the previous decade, died at his home in Brooklyn, New York, aged sixty-three. Born a free black in Delaware, he had been ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1822 in New York City. He was a founder member of the American Anti-Slavery Society and had been an influential voice in the New York City area for decades. (By John Osborne)
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Thomas B. Cuming, twice governor of Nebraska Territory, dies in office aged thirty.

Thomas B. Cuming, twice governor of the Nebraska Territory, the first time when he was only twenty-five years old, dies in Omaha. Originally from New York, he had been educated at the University of Michigan, served in the Mexican War, and edited a Democratic newspaper in Keokuk, Iowa. He gained a post as secretary to the new Territorial Governor of Nebraska, Francis Burt. Soon after, Burt died and the young Cuming became acting governor and then governor. He served again as the fourth governor between 1857 and his death. (By John Osborne)
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Augustus Drum, former congressman from Pennsylvania, dies at his home in Westmoreland County

Former Pennsylvania representative to Congress Augustus Drum dies at his home in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, aged forty-three. A lawyer, he had served as a Democrat in the Thirty-third Congress between 1853 and 1855 but was defeated for re-election and returned to his law practice. (By John Osborne)
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William Fitzhugh Gordon, former Congressman from Virginia, dies in Albemarle County, Virginia

William Fitzhugh Gordon, who had represented Virginia in the Congress during the 1830s, died at age seventy-one on his plantation in Albemarle County, Virginia. A veteran if the War of 1812, he had risen to major-general in the Virginia militia. (By John Osborne)
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William Guerrier of the Ward and Guerrier Company dies in an explosion in Wyoming

William Guerrier dies spectacularly when sparks from his pipe ignite a barrel of gunpowder at one of his trading camps in Wyoming. An early pioneer who had worked for William Bent, he had founded a company with Seth Ward that had gained the exclusive sutler's franchise at Fort Laramie. He is also said to be the first rancher in Wyoming. His only son Edmund, born of his Cheyenne Indian wife, will become a respected scout and interpreter in the post-Civil War years. (By John Osborne)
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William Graham, former U.S. Congressman, dies at his farm near Vallonia, Indiana

William Graham, former U.S. Congressman from Indiana, dies at his farm near Vallonia, in Jackson County, Indiana. Originally from Kentucky, he was a Whig, an influential state legislator, and he had served one term in the Twenty-Fifth United States Congress. He was seventy-six years old. (By John Osborne)
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