Charles Garnier (1825 - 1898)

Architect.  Born Jean-Louis Charles Garnier in Paris. His father was originally from Sarthe, and had worked as a blacksmith, wheelwright, and coachbuilder before settling down in Paris to work in a horse-drawn carriage rental business. He married Felicia Colle, daughter of a captain in the French Army. Famed as the creator of the Paris Opera […]

Charles Alexander Shibell (1841 - 1908)

Western Lawman. He headed west to California in 1860 and in 1862 he was a teamster employed by the California Infantry which took him across Arizona. He began ranching near Sonoita, Arizona and lost a number of stock to the Indians. During this time, he was also engaged in mining and some freighting. Later, he […]

Alexander Gardner (1821 - 1882)

Civil War Photographer. He was born in Paisley, Scotland, and was reared in poverty, and left school at 14 to work as a jeweler’s apprentice. To further his education, he took evening classes at the Glasgow Athenaeum, studying astronomy, optics, physics and chemistry. At 21 he joined the Glasgow Sentinel as a reporter. By the […]

William Shea (1907 - 1991)

Lawyer. He is best known for his role in the expansion of Major League Baseball and the existance of the New York Mets franchise. In 1957 New York Mayor Robert Wagner asked him to head a committee to return the National League back to the city. After several attempts to lure an established franchise failed, […]

Émile Galle (1846 - 1904)

Artist. He studied philosophy, botany, and drawing and from 1864-1866 was enrolled at a private art school in Weimar. In 1867 he completed his practical training at the glassworks in Meisenthal which is in the northern part of the Lorraine region. From 1871-72 he studied in Paris and London where he was exposed to Japanese […]

Susie Marshall Sharp (1907 - 1996)

The first woman state Supreme Court Chief Justice in the United States. The first woman Superior Court Judge in North Carolina. Susie Sharp attended Reidsville Public Schools, North Carolina College for Women, and the University of North Carolina Law School. In 1928 she became licensed to practice law and joined her father, James Sharp, in […]

Sears Gallagher (1869 - 1955)

Artist. He was recognized as one of America’s leading watercolorists and etchers during the early twentieth century. His style of art is a variety of themes, ranging from European subjects to New England scenery.  (bio by: Laurie)

Samuel E. Sewall (1652 - 1730)

Printer, Merchant, Legislator, Judge, Chief Justice. He arrived in the colonies as a child, his education was towards becoming a minister, having earned several degrees in theology from Harvard College Cambridge. However, his marriage to the daughter of a prosperous Boston family, changed those plans and he would instead become a wealthy and highly respected […]

Thomas Gainsborough (1727 - 1788)

Artist. An English portrait and landscape painter, in 1740 he went to London and became the assistant and pupil of the French engraver Hubert Gravelot. He is celebrated for the elegance, vivacity, and refinement of his portraits, which were greatly influenced by the work of Van Dyck. Outstanding among his well-known works are Perdita, The […]

Manuel Gago García (1925 - 1980)

Comic Book Artist. He was born in Valladolid (Castilla y León, Spain) and died in Valencia. He is fondly remembered for his comic “El Guerrero del Antifaz,” a story about a warrior during the Spanish Reconquest. Others works are “El Pequeño Luchador,” “El Hombre de Piedra,” “El Espadachín Enmascarado,” “Puños de Hierro,” “El Corsario sin […]

John Henry Selman (1839 - 1896)

Folk Figure. ‘Old John’ Selman was an American frontier character who spent time on both sides of the law. He was an outlaw in the John Larn gang in Shackelford County, Texas, barely escaping with his life after Larn was dispatched by vigilantes. Old John later served as a city constable in El Paso, Texas, […]

Carl Frederick Gaertner (1898 - 1952)

Artist, Author. Through his entire adult life, Gaertner was both a painter and a teacher. His work was represented by the Macbeth Gallery in New York. In the Cleveland tradition. Gaertner painted both in oil and watercolor. His pictures address a variety of subjects but his scenes of industrial Cleveland and Pittsburgh are among his […]

Gilbert Hilton Scribner (1831 - 1910)

Hon. Gilbert Hilton Scribner, Lawyer, author and former Secretary of State of New York. Republican member of the New York State Assembly, Westchester Co., first district in 1869 and in 1870 became Secretary of State, which office he held until 1873. Was President of the Belt Line Street Railroad of New York. Was a writer […]

Patricia Gadea (1970 - 2006)

Artist. She was born in Palencia, Castilla-León, Spain. She began her work in the late 70s, with paintings in Pop-art style. She triumphed in the 80s during the period known as La Movida. In this period, she moved to New York and founded the group Estrujenbank along with the artist Juan Ugalde. In her works, […]

Fred Joseph Scolari (1922 - 2002)

Professional Basketball Player. A native of San Francisco, California, he entered the National Basketball Association in 1946. Known as “Freddie” and  “Fat Freddie”, he played the position of Guard for the Washington Capitols from 1946 to 1950, Syracuse Nationals from 1949 to 1952, Baltimore Bullets from 1951 to 1952 (of which he also coached), Fort […]

Frank Furness (1839 - 1912)

Civil War Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient, Architect. Served as Captain and commander of Company F, 6th Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry (“Rush’s Lancers”). He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery at the Battle of Trevailian Station, Virginia on June 12, 1864. His citation reads “Voluntarily carried a box of ammunition across an […]

Kickham Scanlan (1864 - 1955)

Lifelong Republican Judge Scanlan, a lifelong Republican, had been a judge of the Circuit court since his first election in 1909. He had been reelected in 1915, 1921, 1927, 1933, 1939, and 1945. By appointment of the Illinois Supreme court he had sat in the Appellate court for many years. Mr. Scanlan was born in […]

Ernesto Furió Navarro (1902 - 1995)

Painter and Engraver. He was born in El Canyamelar (Valencia) and died in Valencia. He studied in Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Carlos with teachers as Josep Renau and Rafael Rubio. In 1921, he moved to Madrid and later, to Paris, where he extended his knowledgements about engravement. In 1934, he obtained the First […]

Samuel Locke Sawyer (1813 - 1890)

Graduated Dartmouth College in 1833; admitted to the Bar in Amherst, NH in 1836; moved to Lexington, MO in 1838; elected circuit attorney of the sixth judicial circuit of Missouri in 1848; reelected in 1882; delegate to the MO Constitutional Convention in 1861; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1868; elected judge of the […]

Robert Fulton (1765 - 1815)

Inventor, Artist. While not the inventor of the steamboat, he was very instrumental in constructing a steamboat named the “Clermont”,and parlaying it into a commercial success with the first permanent commercial route in history on the Hudson River. Chancellor Robert R. Livingston backed the venture with his financial and political influence.  He was born near […]

Sam Morris Russell (1889 - 1971)

U.S. Representative, Judge. Born on a farm near Stephenville, Texas. A graduate of John Tarleton College. He taught school in Erath County, Texas from 1913 to 1918. During World War I he served as a private in the Forty-sixth Machine Gun Company, United States Army, in 1918 and 1919. Once he returned he began to […]

R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)

R. Buckminster Fuller Inventor, architect, engineer, mathematician, poet and cosmologist. He was awarded 25 U.S. patents, authored 28 books, received 47 honorary doctorates in the arts, science, engineering and the humanities. He received dozens of major architectural and design awards including, among many others, the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects and the […]

George Lewis Ruffin (1834 - 1886)

Pioneer Jurist. He was the first African-American to graduate from Harvard Law School in 1869, to serve on the Massachusetts state legislature as a Republican (1869-71), to serve on the Boston City Council (1876-78), and as Boston’s first black municipal judge. He was of African descent, but of free parentage, and was educated in the […]

Loïe Fuller (1862 - 1928)

Dance Innovator. Born Marie Louise Fuller in Fullersburg, Illinois, she made her stage debut in Chicago at the age of four. For more than twenty years she then toured with stock companies, burlesque shows, vaudeville, and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Legend has it that while rehearsing the play ‘Quack, M.D.’ in 1891, she was […]

Roman Andrejewich Rudenko (1907 - 1981)

Rudenko was one of main chargers (together with one American, French and English judge) at the international military court against the Nazis in Nuremberg (Germany) in the years 1945-1946, after the World War II . He was also in the years 1953-1974 General State Lawyer of U. S. S. R.  Family links:  Spouse:  Maria Fedorovna […]

Heihachiro Fukuda (1970 - 1970)

Painter. He was a member of the Rikucho-kai artists’ group and a professor at what is now the Kyoto City University of Arts. For his achievements, he was awarded the Order of Culture recognition. His paintings, which depicted almost exclusively flowers, bamboo, birds, fish and inanimate objects, are described to show an independent style based […]

Dr Earl Rose (1926 - 2012)

JFK Assassination Figure. A forensic pathologist, he is remembered for his unsuccessful attempt to retain the President’s body in Dallas for autopsy. Raised on the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation in western South Dakota he attended one room Indian schools then during World War II joined the US Navy and served aboard the submarine “USS […]

Bernie Fuchs (1932 - 2009)

American Artist and Illustrator. He is probably best known for painting portraits of several U.S. Presidents, including John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. Born Bernard Fuchs (pronounced fewks) his ambition when growing up was to become a trumpet player. However, an industrial accident in the summer after he graduated […]

Samuel Romilly (1757 - 1818)

Samuel Romilly was born in Frith Street, Soho, London, of Huguenot parents. His sister, Catherine, went on to become the mother of Peter Mark Roget (q.v.). He learned very little at school and was almost entirely self-educated. After some years in which he worked in his father’s watchmaking and jewellery shop, and as a lawyer’s […]

Othon Friesz (1879 - 1949)

Artist. An early Impressionist style French painter, he was later converted to Fauvism, a painterly (visible brushstrokes) style of strong color, a movement led by artists Henri Matisse and Andre Derain, that lasted only briefly in the early 1900s. Born Achille-Emile Othon Friesz in Le Havre, France, he came from a family of shipbuilders and […]