Obituaries. E. ELLERY ANDERSON. Elbert Ellery Anderson, long known in New York city as a lawyer and leader in independent Democratic politics and tariff reform, died suddenly February 23, 1903, of heart disease at his residence No. 11 West Thirtyeighth street. Mr. Anderson is survived by a widow, who was Miss Augusta Chauncey, daughter of the late Rev. Dr. P. S. Chauncey, of St. James' Church, and two sons, J. Chauncey and Henry J. Anderson, who were associated with him in the law firm of Anderson, Pendleton & Anderson, of the Broad-Exchange Building. Mr. Anderson was born in New York city October 11, 1833. His father was professor of mathematics in Columbia College. His early education was gained in Europe, and he traveled extensively there. On the return of the family here he entered Harvard and was graduated there in 1852. Two years later he was admitted to the Bar. In the spring of 1862 he volunteered with the Twelfth New York militia regiment, after the retreat of General Banks in the Shenandoah Valley, and went to the front with that command as major. He was captured by Stonewall Jackson just before the battle of Antietam, at Harper's Ferry, but was immediately released on parole. After the war he resumed the practice of law, as a member of the firm of Anderson & Man, which continued until 1890. In 1871 he was identified with the Committee of Seventy that overthrew the Tweed ring. In 1879, when John Kelly bolted the nomination of Lucius Robinson at the Saratoga convention and withdrew the seventy-two Tammany delegates, Mr. Anderson alone denounced the resolution approving the course and left the Tammany organization. An original member of the Reform Club, he served for several terms as its President, and was devoted to the advocacy of tariff reform and prominent in the movement against the free silver heresy. At one time he was mentioned as a candidate for Mayor, and last year was boomed for the nomination for State Comptroller. He was appointed a School Commissioner in 1896. President Cleveland made him one of the Commissioners to investigate the Union Pacific Railway Company in 1887. He was a member of the New York State Bar Association, the Metropolitan, Reform, Democratic, University, Harvard and New York Whist Clubs and the American Museum of Natural History. The funeral took place on February 26, 1903, from the Church of Transfiguration. Mr. Anderson was elected a member of the New York State Bar Association in 1903. WILSON S. BISSELL. [Reprinted by permission from the address of Mr. George Gorham, at the Memorial Meeting of the Erie County Bar Association in December, 1903.] The Bar of Erie county has suffered many grievous. losses; some fresh in the memory of those now in active practice; many more whose name and reputation only have survived. Hall, Laning, Babcock, Haven, Ganson, Talcott, Daniels, Masten, Sprague, Verplanck, Clinton, Rogers, Bass, Bowen and a score of others attained great eminence at this Bar and died, almost all of them in the prime of life or with their faculties unimpaired and in the full measure of their usefulness. In this brilliant array of talent and legal acquirements Wilson S. Bissell had taken his place and held rank with the best, and no man in the list won more respect or greater love or higher position than did our friend whose early death we mourn. Mr. Bissell was brought to Buffalo when a small boy, and this had been his home for fifty years. Here he grew to manhood and entered upon his career which was so honorable, so enduring and so successful. He was a counselor in the best sense of the word, and he was the trusted adviser of great corporations and of men engaged in great enterprises, and clients who seek only the very best advice. The lawyer who has such clients has great responsibilities, and it is upon his wise counsel that the very existence of great enterprises depends. · It is he who must start them right, must steer them on the correct course, and avoid the perils of litigation and ensure success. He must be honest, and yet shrewd; farseeing, of good judgment, and, withal, he ought to be a good business man as well as a well-balanced lawyer. The fact that Mr. Bissell was the trusted adviser of such men and corporations is evidence that he possessed all these qualities. He began his career at the Bar with Lyman K. Bass, a man of great brilliancy, whose memory is fresh in this community, and there was soon added to this partnership Grover Cleveland, whose wonderful rise from Mayor to Governor and then to President is familiar to us all. He very early took high rank in his profession, and his progress was continuous and uninterrupted until, at the time of his death, he had attained the position of a leader at the Bar of this State. He was a man of rare personal attraction, of a genial, generous nature, full of kindliness, manhood and warm impulses; ever ready to assist his friends with his influence and with his purse, and, asking no favors for himself, he strove to make himself a useful member of society. He held many positions of trust, confidence and honor, and, although on great occasions he was active and most influential in politics, he neither sought nor held public office until he became the trusted adviser of President Cleveland and a member of his cabinet. As Postmaster-General he was indefatigable and untiring, and he gave two years of his life to the service of the Government and to the honest administration of his department with great success and with lasting results. In our own city he was active in the affairs of our public library, our university, our clubs and in his church, in each of which he held the highest positions, where his advice and counsel were eagerly sought. In every position he gave his time and his thought and he was always to be depended upon to do even more than his share of the work which was to be accomplished. He shirked no work, he spared no pains in investigation, and in any report he had to make he stated the situation so clearly and concisely that there was never a dissent to his conclusions, and his suggestions were practical and bore examination and criticism. Mr. Bissell was a graduate of Yale College in the Class of 1869, and his learning, his ability and his high position |