CLASS OF 1871
Reverend Francis Merton Munson, A. B. Dartmouth. 1871; A. M. Dartmouth, 1890; LL.D. St. Johns College, Md., 1896, died Thursday afternoon. May 2, 1907, in the Presbyterian Hospital, Philadelphia, where he had been taken, as a last resort, from his home in Newcastle, Del., to undergo a surgical operation, from which he failed to rally.
Doctor Munson was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, August' 26, 1848, and was in his fifty-ninth year. His father, Samuel Bishop Munson. and his mother, Hannah Sellew, were both of old New Haven, Conn., families and were of French Hnguenot stock. He was educated in the public schools of Cincinnati, graduating from the high school; he also studied at Marietta College, Ohio, and after graduation at Dartmouth in 1871, spent one or two years of study abroad, in German universities. In 1883 he entered actively upon the work of the Christian ministry, in the Protestant Episcopal church, and served as rector of churches in Circleville, Marion, and Cleveland, Ohio. In 1894 he acoepted a call to the old Immanuel Church, of Newoastle, Del., where he continued to serve until his death, esteemed and loved, not only by his own parishioners, but, in truth, by the whole community. In 1901 he represented the Diocese of Delaware in the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal church held at San Francisco, and for many years, in addition to his manifold duties, he was editor-in-chief of the DelawareChurchman, and his work in this connection gave him a wide acquaintance among laymen as well as the clergy of his denomination.
In 1877, Doctor Munson was married to Miss Sallie Lamar, daughter of the late "William W. Lamar, one of Kentucky's distinguished families, and his domestic life was a happy one. He is survived by Mrs. Munson and three children, viz.: Francis Merton Munson, A.B., M.D., surgeon U. S. Navy; Dudley Lamar Munson, A. B., M.D., a practicing physician of Wilmington, Del., and Genevieve Elsa Munson; also by one brother, William Sellew Munson, of New York City.
In 1895, Doctor Munson was commissioned by the governor of the state of Delaware, chaplain of the First Infantry Regiment, Delaware National Guard, with the rank of captain, and he served as such in the field with his regiment during the Spanish-American War of 1898, his two sons serving also in the same regiment. He continued to the day of his death to serve his regiment in these capacities, and was buried by it, with military honors, in the churchyard of his old church at Newcastle, at 1.45 o'clock p. m., on Saturday, May 4, 1907,
The following, taken from the BostonGlobe, is self-explanatory- The inscription on the monument is as follows:
''A martyr to duty. Erected by the postal employees of the United States to the memory of
Eben Brewer,
first mail agent of the United States to Cuba, who died July 14, 1898, aged fifty years."
A monument to a hero of the mails was dedicated in the city of Erie last week. It was erected by the subscriptions of the postal employees of the country, and is in the form of a statue of Eben Brewer, a Vermonter born and a graduate of Dartmouth, who set up a post office for the soldiers of the American army within forty-eight hours of their landing on Cuban soil in the war with Spain.
Before dark, on the first day that the office was opened, this postmaster in the field started 8000 letters on their way to the United States from the soldiers, and at day-break of the following day he started 4000 more. He opened a money order office and helped the men to forward their wages home; $600 was sent the first day. He carried the mail to the front, staggering under the tropic sun, and struggled on with the problem of shipping his pouches to the United States after all his assistants had dropped from exhaustion.
No man in the ranks of the army did his duty more valiantly than this un-uniformed servant of the nation, who battled alone with no cheering comrades around him and no bugles to urge him forward. And he died at his post, a victim of yellow fever.
Secretary, Prof. Marvin D. Bisbee, Hanover, N. H.
