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| The Jersey Shore water route of the Underground Railroad. From William Still, Underground Rail Road Records (Philadelphia: William Still, 1886; Rev. Ed.), 482. |
John Nelson Still was born to Charity and Leven Still of eastern Burlington County on January 8, 1815.[1] One of eighteen children, his older brother James went on to local renown as the celebrated “Doctor of the Pines,”[2] and his youngest brother William to even greater renown as the first prominent chronicler of the underground railroad.[3] His parents had been enslaved in Maryland until his father purchased his own freedom and his mother escaped, moving together to New Jersey.[4] The family was very impoverished, but John eventually managed to prosper as a businessman, moving to Brooklyn by around 1840 and there growing and running a thriving “tailoring shop, … second-hand clothing store, and … barber supply business,”[5] and becoming one of the most successful Black businessmen in the city.[6]
While based in Brooklyn, Still also developed a reputation as a community leader, intellectual, and political activist in the Black Nationalist movement.
During the early 1850’s, Still advocated a program of racial unity and economic nationalism as the keys to black advancement. He urged blacks to form their own businesses, financial institutions, press, and artisans unions as a means of improving the situation of the race. He promoted these ideas through black newspapers, at black state and national conventions, and as a member of the New York State Council of the Colored People. Still—a correspondent, financial backer, and agent for five black newspapers—thought the press would be the most effective tool in rallying blacks behind his program.[7]
He regularly served with Frederick Douglass on the National Council of the Colored People,[8] was a regular contributor to Fredrick Douglass’ Paper, among other periodicals, and had “joined David Ruggles in calling for the National Reform Convention of Colored Citizens at Hartford in 1840.”[9] Moreover, like other members of his family, during his time in Brooklyn “He became a key figure in the local underground railroad and publicly urged blacks throughout the state to resist the [Fugitive Slave Law] by whatever means necessary.”[10]
His opinions on business theory and racial uplift were well-known among Black intellectuals.[11] He “believed in the power of black ownership of the means of [production],”[12] arguing that “social advancement would be impossible… without changing economic goals.”[13] In a 1852 letter to Henry Bibb, the editor of Voice of the Fugitive, Still wrote:
I think [your paper] aims more directly at what we need than any paper we have had yet, I mean the investigation and introduction of practical moneymaking operations. We want more financiers and not so many ministers, at least not ‘of the same sort.’ Heretofore we have been principally engaged in building churches and making ministers; we have but few producers, but few manufacturers, and I may say, no financiers… If some of those gentlemen who have roamed the country arguing theoretical questions, in the pay of our friends, the abolitionists, had been half the time investigating practical moneymaking questions, we think they would have… in the main, done more good. It is strange, but true, that all the institutions we have formed[14] and made so much ado about, consume a great deal, but produce nothing… their principles are all good, the same to be found in any church, but they occupy a great deal of time and consume a great deal of means, and leave us but little… better off. I am convinced that our reading, writing, thinking, talking and lecturer, and conventions, must be directed more to practical operations[15]
While clearly committed to advocacy, Still had personally seen the pragmatic benefits of success in business and the possible pro-social effects of ownership of the means of production, particularly when put in service to improvement of Black life.
Among the necessary approaches Still saw for improving Black life in the United States were not just business ownership and finance, but Black land ownership. While living in New York, he sought to support the formation of the Black settlement of Weeksville in Brooklyn,[16] and an initiative in the Adirondacks prioritizing Black land grants.[17] “But worsening race relations and the ineffectiveness of integrationist leaders moved him”[18] over time to support proposals advocating for large-scale Black emigration to Canada.[19] In 1854 “he signed the call for the first National Emigration Convention… [and] He later attended the 1856 National Emigration Convention in Cleveland but soon abandoned his advocacy of the movement,”[20] in part as a result of pushback from other Black leaders.
His advocacy took other forms as well. In the 1850’s he produced and toured with a large-scale, moving, slave narrative panorama (or diorama),[21] based in-part on his own family’s experience which he claimed was the basis for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.[22] The panorama also“ illustrated scenes… from Afro-American history—including black military service in the American Revolution and War of 1812, the Haitian Revolution, and contemporary black leaders.”[23]
All of his efforts as a Black Nationalist were focused, at root, in advocacy for Black community organizing.[24] To this end, he began to sell his businesses in the 1850s[25] and transition to teaching. He taught in Brooklyn briefly,[26] before moving to the township of Shrewsbury, New Jersey.[27] He urged like-minded Black people to join him there in the free Black settlement of Macedonia, “to locate in rural New Jersey and to adopt an agrarian life-style.” [28]
While some accounts suggest that “He had retired from public life by the beginning of the Civil War,”[29] it is more accurate to say that he retired from business and from national-scale organizing and advocacy. But it is in his, so-called, “retirement” in New Jersey where he became involved with the Episcopal mission[30] in the free Black settlement of Macedonia associated with the Christ Church, Shrewsbury “parish school for coloured children.”[31] Still is the first teacher mentioned in diocesan records of the school,[32] and under his supervision the number of students grew dramatically.[33]
At this time Still served as a lay reader for the Black Episcopal mission congregation at Macedonia, likely the first Black man in the diocese to hold such an office,[34] and was soon approved as a Candidate for Holy Orders. He was certainly the first Black man to have been so approved in the Diocese of New Jersey.[35] And in his plans to become a priest, it seems likely that he envisioned becoming a priest “not of the same sort”[36] as those that had preceded him. That is to say, he clearly planned to be a priest who was deeply committed to the practical training and success of Black people.
As with many of his previous endeavors, the school at Macedonia and the mission associated with it did very well with Still at the helm. Between 1857 and 1862 regular attendance at the school was over one hundred students.[37] There was a service every Sunday at the mission[38] and Episcopal visits that had occurred for confirmations under Bishop Doane continued under Bishop Odenheimer.[39] In spite of Bishop Doane’s apparent excitement over the success of the mission,[40] it does not appear that the Diocese directly supported it financially. Rather it seems that the school and mission were funded by donations from Christ Church, Shrewsbury and through the labor (and probably the financial support) of Still and other Macedonians, with “oversight” from the Christ Church rector, Rev. Harry Finch. In diocesan records the success of the school and mission are attributed to Finch, though it is unlikely that he did more than officiate at services in order to allow for a eucharist to be celebrated.[41]
In spite of the dramatic success of the school and mission in Macedonia, and Still’s faithful, and almost certainly unpaid, labor there, his ordination candidacy was never advanced. At a time when most white candidates were advanced to ordination to the priesthood within three years of their being approved candidates, diocesan authorities allowed Still to linger on the “Candidates for Holy Orders” list, neither outright rejecting him, nor ordaining him a deacon for at least nine years.
Ultimately, Still stepped down as the parish school teacher, and the teaching responsibility was passed to others.[42] The last time Still is listed as a candidate for Holy orders is in 1864,[43] and extant Diocesan records do not explain why his candidacy was ended. However, it is abundantly clear that he was repeatedly passed over for ordination in spite of his successful ministry in Macedonia, serial business successes, intellectual standing, high-profile political advocacy, and hard work. No white candidates for the priesthood in the diocese at this time could point to anything close to John N. Still’s achievements, dedication, and mission support, and yet dozens of them were ordained, while he was not. Still’s experience is indicative of the state of race relations in the diocese at the time: a few white leaders were, at times, willing to affirm some modest forms of Black leadership in Black ministries, especially when it resulted in increased numbers of confirmands at a low cost, but a full affirmation of Black excellence was not forthcoming. Still was one of the most accomplished Black men in America at this time. He gave over a decade of service to the Episcopal Mission at Macedonia, and the Diocese never ordained him.
After Still’s candidacy ended and he retired from the Macedonia Mission, it appears that support for the work was withdrawn by Christ Church Shrewsbury within a couple of years. The size of the mission dwindled in the coming decades, until eventually in the late 1880s it appears to have ceased. In its later years the mission produced another likely candidate for the priesthood, but, perhaps as a result of Still’s experience, he moved to North Carolina for further training and support.[44]
John N. Still deserves to be remembered as an accomplished intellectual, abolitionist, teacher, political activist, businessman, and candidate for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church; a man who sought to affirm and nurture Black excellence and flourishing in the church, but whose gifts and service the Diocese of New Jersey never fully affirmed or supported.
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
[1] “Family record ("Catalogue of Children of Leven Still and Charity his wife"),” Peter Still Digital Edition: https://stillpapers.org/items/show/57.
[2] Dr. James Still Historic Office Site and Education Center, “Life of Dr. Still,” http://www.drjamesstillcenter.org/drjamesstill/LifeDrStill.html.
[3] William Still, Still’s Underground Rail Road Records, Revised Edition. With A Life of the Author. (Philadelphia: William Still, 1886).
[4] James Still, Early Recollections and Life of Dr. James Still (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1877), 13.
[5] C. Peter Ripley, ed., The Black Abolitionist Papers, Vol. IV, The United States, 1847-1858 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 111n3.
[6] Ripley, The Black Abolitionist Papers, 4.111n3.
[7] Ripley, The Black Abolitionist Papers, 4.111n3.
[8] See e.g.: Frederick Douglass’ Paper 8.22 (18 May 1855): 1, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/sgp/sgpbatches/batch_dlc_goldenrod_ver01/data/sn84026366/print/1855051801/0001.pdf.
[9] Ripley, The Black Abolitionist Papers, 4.111n3.
[10] Ripley, The Black Abolitionist Papers, 4.111n3.
[11] E.g. Samuel Ringgold Ward, Autobiography of A Fugitive Negro (London: John Snow, 1855), 231.
[12] Beverly Tomek, “Moderate, Radical, and Militant Abolition,” pages 62-71 in Encyclopedia of American Social Movements, Vol. 1, edited by Immanuel Ness (New York: Routledge, 2015), here 70. See also Derrick R. Spires, The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture in the Early United States (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), 288n83: “John N. Still… argued that black-owned banks or investment firms would at least allow ‘our cooks, stewards, whalemen, and others’ to make their earnings productive in ‘corporate bodies’ dedicated to the benefit of the community... Still suggests that so-called unproductive labor, like domestic or service work, could become productive through the investment of wages.”
[13] Ripley, “John N. Still to Henry Bibb: 3 February 1852,” pages 108-111 in The Black Abolitionist Papers, Vol. IV (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), here 108.
[14] Here he means, generally speaking, fraternal organizations.
[15] “John N. Still to Henry Bibb: 3 February 1852.” First published in Voice of the Fugitive, 26 February 1852.
[16] Judith Wellman, Brooklyn’s Promised Land: The Free Black Community of Weeksville, New York (New York: NYU Press, 2014), 102.
[17] Amy Godine (The Black Woods: Pursuing Racial Justice on the Adirondack Frontier [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023], 183, here quoting Still from “J. N. Still to Editor,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, 22 April 1852) refers to an initiative promoted by Gerrit Smith in the Adirondacks which Still had supported: “J. N. Still, who hoped he’d organize a gathering of Smith grantees at a World’s Fair in Brooklyn to revive public interest in the undersettled lands [wrote]… ‘Shall such a good opportunity for sowing and reaping be allowed to pass?’”
[18] Ripley, The Black Abolitionist Papers, 4.111n3.
[19] See Wellman, Brooklyn’s Promised Land, 102-103: “In essays for the Provincial Freeman, John N. Still, who owned a secondhand clothing store in Brooklyn, advocated strongly for emigration. In May 1854, he reported a story about ‘a large tract of land sold a few days ago in the neighborhood of the colored settlement, called Wiessvile [Weeksville], adjacent also to their cemetery.’ The sellers, however, ‘most abruptly refused to sell to colored persons. . . . Heretofore we have had no resort but to grin and bear it, but now that we have begun to move, it will cause a change of feeling with them. I mean the whites.’ A local white gentleman, never before interested in ‘colored people,’ had recently asked Still for letters of introduction to ‘respected colored fugitives’ in Canada, specifically so that he could investigate their living conditions. ‘I know of nothing that is doing more good than the general stir about emigration,’ Still concluded. ‘It is indicative of enterprize, say the whites, and they seem doubly willing to do something for us. They are satisfied that we now mean something more than talk, and that we are really dissatisfied and mean to better our condition’ (Provincial Freeman, May 6, 1854). On May 30, 1854, Brooklyn African Americans held an informational meeting about Canadian emigration, chaired by Francis Champion, with John N. Still as secretary (Provincial Freeman, July 15, 1854). ‘We have been and are still being ousted from many of the domestic occupations which custom had consigned us to,’ Still argued in January 1855. ‘Men say we must stay here and bear it, stay here and help to fight for the slave. Bless your dear soul, my considerate friend, do you not know that a half a dozen black “merchant princes,” plying between the city of New York and Canada, clothed with all the rights of the British subject, would be more help to the slave than a whole State full of such defenceless and unprotected menials as we are here’ (Provincial Freeman, January 27, 1855).”
[20] Ripley, The Black Abolitionist Papers, 4.111n3.
[21] Teresa A. Goddu, Selling Antislavery: Abolition and Mass Media in Antebellum America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), 176.
[22] See Allan D. Austin “More Black Panoramas: An Addendum,” The Massachusetts Review 37.4 (1996): 636, 638-39. See, e.g., J. N. Still “Exhibitions and Lectures,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper 8.20 (4 May 1855): “The undersigned proposes exhibiting the DIORAMA OF UNCLE TOM’S CABIN in the principal cities, towns, and villages in the Northern States and Canada and to accompany them with abundant evidence as to the truthfulness of the facts assumed by the author…”
[23] Ripley, The Black Abolitionist Papers, 4.111n3.
[24] Willie J. Harrell, Jr., Origins of the African American Jeremiad: The Rhetorical Strategies of Social Protest and Activism, 1760-1861(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011), 223, here quoting “John N. Still to Frederick Douglass,” The Black Abolitionist Papers, Vol. IV, The United States, 1847-1858, ed. C. Peter Ripley et al. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 214-219: “Community building and social cohesiveness were important aspects of the rhetoric; this consciousness had to be manifested in some ideological form. John N. Still, in an 1854 letter to Frederick Douglass’ Paper, encouraged blacks to build communities and organize associations for the express ‘purpose of placing yourselves in a responsible relation to the National and State Council, or their officers.’ Still believed that if such displays among blacks were… made, thousands ‘will know more about our movements five years hence, than they did five years ago’ (214-215).”
[25] See e.g. the classified advertisement Still placed entitled “To Colored Men of Business,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper 7.14 (24 March 1854).
[26] Ripley, The Black Abolitionist Papers, 4.111n3.
[27] Some accounts suggest that this was not until 1861 (Ripley, The Black Abolitionist Papers, 4.111n3), but it is likely more accurate to say that he moved fully to Shrewsbury by 1861. Diocese of New Jersey convention journals provide evidence that he was already living, at least part-time, and teaching in Shrewsbury in the mid-1850s, likely as early as 1854 (Diocese of New Jersey, The Episcopal Address, to the Seventy-First Annual Convention, in Grace Church, Newark, Wednesday, May 31, 1854; By The Rt. Rev. George Washington Doane, D.D., L.L.D., Bishop of the Diocese [Burlington: Printed at the Gazette Office, 1854], 13).
[28] Ripley, The Black Abolitionist Papers, 4.111n3.
[29] Ripley, The Black Abolitionist Papers, 4.111n3.
[30] Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, “The Episcopal Mission at the Free Black Settlement of Macedonia, NJ: 1853-1887,” DNJRJR (26 May 2025): https://dionj-racialjusticereview.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-episcopal-mission-at-free-black.html.
[31] The school was also known as the “African School in the Pines.” Rev. Finch and two other White members of Christ Church were appointed trustees of the school in 1852 (James Steen, History of Christ Church, Shrewsbury, New Jersey [Shrewsbury, NJ: Christ Church, Shrewsbury, 1972], 82). The parish school is not actually mentioned in any diocesan journal parochial reports before 1854. The first mention is in the list of offerings in the parochial report of Christ Church Shrewsbury: Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Seventy-First Annual Convention; Held in Grace Church, Newark, on Wednesday, 31st of May, MDCCCLIV (Burlington: Printed at the Gazette Office, 1854), 23: “Parish School, (African,) Christ Church, Shrewsbury, $14.48.” See also Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy Third Annual Convention; Held in Grace Church, and in Trinity Church, Newark, on Wednesday, 28 May, MDCCCLVI (Burlington: Samuel C. Atkinson, 1856), 19: from the parochial report for Christ Church Shrewsbury: “Parish School, for coloured children, has been established several years, and numbers about 80.”
[32] Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Convention; in St. Mary’s Church, Burlington, on Wednesday, 27 May, MDCCCLVII (Burlington: F. Ferguson, 1857), 58.
[33] By 1856 the school was serving eighty students (Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy Third Annual Convention, 19), by 1857 it boasted 108 (Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Convention, 58), and in 1858 it had swelled to 120 (Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy-Fifth Annual Convention, in Trinity Church, Newark, on Wednesday, 26 May, MDCCCLVIII [Burlington: Franklin Ferguson, 1858], 32).
[34] No formal diocesan records of this office were kept until later on, and it is possible that a member of St. Philip’s, Newark preceded him, but St. Philip’s records have been lost and no confirmation can be made. In extant records Still is the first mentioned African American lay reader in the diocese. Elias Ray of St. Philip’s and Daniel Landin, who succeeded Still in this capacity at the Macedonia mission, are the first documented licensed lay readers listed in diocesan convention journal records. For Ray see Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Eighty-Second Annual Convention Held in St. Mary’s Church, Burlington, on Wednesday, May 31st 1865 (Philadelphia: J. B. Chandler, 1865), 154. For Landin see Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Eighty-First Annual Convention Held in Grace Church, Newark, on Wednesday and Thursday, May 25th and 26th 1864 (Philadelphia: J.B. Chandler, 1864), 73. See also Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, “The Earliest (Formal) Black Church Leadership in the Diocese of New Jersey,” DNJRJR (12 December 2023): https://dionj-racialjusticereview.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-earliest-formal-black-church.html, and Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Anglican Slavery in New Jersey: An Initial Accounting (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2025), 106-107.
[35] Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Convention, 58. The date of his approval (May 7, 1856) is listed in Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy-Sixth Annual Convention, in St. Mary’s Church, Burlington, on Wednesday, May 25, MDCCCLIX (New York: Pudney & Russell, 1859), 41. He is first listed as a candidate in Diocese of New Jersey, The Episcopal Address, the Twenty-Fourth, to The Seventy Third Annual Convention, in Trinity Church, Newark, Wednesday, May 28, 1856: By The Rt. Rev. George Washington Doane, D.D., L.L.D., Bishop of the Diocese (Burlington: Samuel C. Atkinson, 1856), 36, mistakenly entered as “J. M. Still.” In this action Still was shifting his denominational affiliation. According to Ripley (The Black Abolitionist Papers, 4.111n3) he had been a founder of Siloam Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, while according to Diocesan records in New Jersey it was thought that he had formerly been a Methodist (Doane, The Episcopal Address to the Seventy-First Annual Convention, 13).
[36] “John N. Still to Henry Bibb: 3 February 1852.”
[37] As reported in diocesan convention journals for those respective years. For 1857, 112 students: Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Convention, 58; For 1858, 120 students: Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy-Fifth Annual Convention, 32; For 1859, 123 students: Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy-Sixth Annual Convention, 67; For 1860, 123 students: Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Seventy-Seventh Annual Convention, in Trinity Church, Newark, on Wednesday and Thursday, June 30 and 31, MDCCCLX (Jersey City: John H. Lyon & Co., 1860), 47; For 1861, 120 students: Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Seventy-Eighth Annual Convention, in St. Mary’s Church, Burlington, on Wednesday and Thursday, May 29 & 30, MDCCCLXI (Philadelphia: J.B. Chandler, 1861), 64; For 1862, 104 students: Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy-Ninth Annual Convention in Grace Church, Newark, on Wednesday and Thursday, May 28 & 29, MDCCCLXII (Philadelphia: J.B. Chandler, 1862), 74.
[38] Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy-Ninth Annual Convention, 74.
[39] Odenheimer continued to perform confirmations there every year (a similar pace as Doane) between 1861 and 1865, including seven confirmations in 1862 and eight in 1864. See Diocese of New Jersey, The Episcopal Address, the Third, to the Seventy-Ninth Annual Convention, in Grace Church, Newark, Wednesday, May 28, A.D. 1862; By The Rt. Rev. W.H. Odenheimer, D.D., Bishop of the Diocese (Philadelphia: Chandler, 1862), 9; Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Eighty-First Annual Convention, 44.
[40] In 1854 he wrote: “On Wednesday, [April] 19 [, 1854]… in the evening, in the Methodist Meeting House, at Macedonia, the Rev. Mr. Finch, the Rector of the Parish [CC Shrewsbury], read prayers, and I preached, and confirmed eight persons. This was a service of peculiar interest. Macedonia is a settlement of African descendants, within the extensive boundaries of the Parish of Shrewsbury. Mr. Finch, in the midst of his abundant labours, has paid much attention to these people. His pains are well rewarded, by these seals of his ministry. One of them… is, now, a lay reader, under Mr. Finch’s direction; and may become a candidate for orders. It was a very dark night. The building stands on the edge of a forest. The approach to it, as the lights glimmered through the pines, was a picturesque, as the scene was impressive. Some of the good people of Shrewsbury, bad as the roads were, had ‘come over, to Macedonia, to help us’ on.” Doane, The Episcopal Address to the Seventy-First Annual Convention, 13.
[41] Doane, The Episcopal Address to the Seventy-First Annual Convention, 13.
[42] Briefly to Charles Rodgers (Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Eightieth Annual Convention Held in St. Mary’s Church, Burlington, on Wednesday and Thursday, May 27th and 28th. MDCCCLXIII. [Philadelphia: Chandler, 1863], 143), and then Daniel Landin (Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Eighty-First Annual Convention, 133), also sometimes spelled “Landen”. This change came immediately after the retirement of the long-serving, and supportive Finch in 1862 (Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Eightieth Annual Convention, 143). Finch was succeeded at Christ Church by the Rev. Thomas J. Taylor who did not take over significant responsibility for the Macedonia mission. See Pruszinski, “The Episcopal Mission at the Free Black Settlement of Macedonia, NJ: 1853-1887.”
[43] Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Eighty-First Annual Convention, 9.
[44] Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the One Hundred and Eleventh Convention, Being the Ninety-Eighth Year of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the Diocese of New Jersey, Held in St. Paul’s Church, Camden, Tuesday, May 8th, and Wednesday, May 9th, MDCCCLXXXIII (Princeton: Robinson & Co., 1883), 131.
