Pierre-Basile Mignault (1854 - 1945)

Canadian jurist. Member of the Supreme Court of Canada. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on September 30, 1854. While attending McGill University, he did the required legal clerkship in the law office of Mousseau, Chapleau et Archambault. He graduated with a B.C.L. degree in 1878 and was called to the bar the same year. In 1906 […]

Lyonel Feininger (1871 - 1956)

An American painter, he was born in the United States but active in Germany until persecution by the Nazis drove him back to the U.S. His gentle geometric style often featured sailboats and skyscrapers. He work can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art and the Met. (bio by: Rick Watson)  Family links:  Children: […]

Robert Reynold Merhige, Jr (1919 - 2005)

United States District Court Judge, he is mostly known for his rulings on desegregation. After receiving his law degree, he served in the Army Air Forces in World War II. In 1967 he was appointed as a Federal Judge by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Judge Merhige ordered dozens of school systems to desegregate. His rulings […]

Dan Farrell (1930 - 2015)

Photojournalist. During a storied career that spanned five decades at the New York Daily News, he will perhaps be best remembered for capturing John F. Kennedy, Jr., (“John-John”) saluting his father’s casket following President John F. Kennedy’s funeral mass on November 25, 1963. His iconic photograph was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize but lost to […]

David Henry Mercer (1857 - 1919)

US Congressman. Born in Benton County, Iowa, he admitted to the bar in 1882 and commenced law practice in Brownville, Nebraska. He served terms as city clerk, police judge and secretary of the Republican State central committee in 1896. In 1897, he was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-third Congress and to the four […]

Sarah Welles “Sally” James Farnham (1869 - 1943)

American sculptor. Best known for her equestrian statue of Simon Bolivar in New York City’s Central Park, and Will Rogers on his horse. (bio by: Laurie)  Family links:  Parents:  Edward Christopher James (1841 – 1901)  Sarah W. Perkins James (1841 – 1879)  Spouse:  George Paulding Farnham (1859 – 1927)*  Children:  James Paulding Farnham (1898 – […]

Theresa E. “Tessie” McNamara (1892 - 1971)

American Folk Figure. Acclaimed as the heroine of the Meadowlands Explosion, Tessie McNamara saved the lives of more than a thousand workers on January 11, 1917. During World War I she was employed as a telephone operator by the Canadian Car & Foundry Company, an arms manufacturer in the New Jersey Meadowlands near Lyndhurst. The […]

John Farleigh (1900 - 1965)

Artist. He was a painter of subject pictures as well as landscape and architectural scenes, particularly images of post-blitz London. Although often remembered for his engravings which appear in works by D.H. Lawrence and George Bernard Shaw, Farleigh also wrote on artistic technique and published an autobiography, “Graven Image” in 1940. He also painted the […]

William Jesse McDonald (1852 - 1918)

William Jesse Carter was the son of Enoch McDonald  (Killed in Civil War) and Eunice R Durham. Rhoda Isabel Carter and William Jesse McDonald were married January 1876 in Quitman,Texas.They had no children. In 1867 he moved to East Texas. In Mineola, Texas, he served as deputy sheriff, deputy US Marshall and Special Texas Ranger.This […]

Léon-Paul Fargue (1876 - 1947)

Poet.  Born in Paris, France on rue Coquilliére. Before reaching 20 years of age, Leon had already published his important poem Tancrède in the magazine Pan (1895; published in book form in 1911) and had become a member of the Symbolist circle connected with Le Mercure de France. His first collection of verse, Poèmes, was […]

Maurice Neal “Nick” McDonald (1928 - 2005)

Police Officer, Kennedy Assassintation Figure. He was the Dallas Police Officer who arrested Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas Theatre on November 22, 1963. While working crowd control outside the Texas School Book Depository immediately after the shooting of President John F. Kennedy, a radio call came in that patrol officer J.D. Tippit had been […]

Henri Fantin-Latour (1836 - 1904)

Painter. Born at Grenoble on the 14th of January 1836. He studied first with his father, a pastel painter, and then at the drawing school of [Horace] Lecoq de Boisbaudran, and later under Couture. He was the friend of Ingres, Delacroix, Corot, Courbet and others. He exhibited in the Salon of 1861, and many of […]

Lee Falk (1911 - 1999)

Cartoonist. Creator of the popular comic strips “The Phantom” and “Mandrake the Magician.” (bio by: Kenneth McNeil)

Wade Hampton McCree, Jr (1920 - 1987)

Alexandre Falguière (1831 - 1900)

Sculptor.  Born in Toulouse. A pupil of the École des Beaux-Arts,  he won the Prix de Rome in 1859; he was awarded the medal of honor at the Salon in 1868 and was appointed officer of the Legion of Honour in 1878. His first bronze statue of importance was the Victor of the Cock-Fight (1864), […]

William Mathewson (1829 - 1916)

American Frontiersman. Born in Triangle, New York, he was a daring explorer, hunter, Indian scout and fighter, and the first to be given the sobriquet, “Buffalo Bill”. In 1849, he was employed by the Northwestern Fur Company, traveling through the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, trading with the Indians and acquired his knowledge of Indian warfare. He […]

Janos Fadrusz (1858 - 1903)

Artist. A sculptor, The Crucifixion on his grave is his own work.

James Masterson (1855 - 1895)

Lawman. Born in Henryville, Iberville County, Quebec, Canada the third of Thomas Masterson and Catherine McGurk’s seven children. About 1861 the family moved from Canada to the United States. The family spent time in New York state, and Illinois before settling near Wichita, Kansas in 1871. Jim Masterson’s career began as a buffalo hunter, a […]

Moses Jacob Ezekiel (1844 - 1917)

Artist. He was born in Richmond, Virginia into a home with a strong Jewish-Spanish heritage. He attended the Virginia Military Institute, as a “student- soldier” fought at the Battle of New Market, and after graduation studied in Europe before eventually moving to Rome, Italy where he became a world famous sculptor. Among his many great […]

Bat Masterson (1853 - 1921)

American Western Frontier Figure, Journalist.  Born William Barclay Masterson the second of five children, his birthplace is recorded as being either Quebec, Canada or an unknown farm in Illinois. His youth was spent on various farms in the American Midwest and his education consisted of a basic frontier education in series of one room schools. […]

Reiji Ezaki (1970 - 1970)

Photographer. (bio by: Warrick L. Barrett)

Jack Martzell (1937 - 2007)

Attorney at Law. He was known for his trademark black cowboy hat and skill in representing high-profile clients. Among his notable clients are Muhammad Ali, U.S. Congressman Rick Tonry, fried-chicken magnate Al Copeland, Glenn Haydel, and Civil District Judge C. Hunter King. Martzell, who headed the New Orleans firm Martzell and Bickford, also won the […]

Wilson Eyre, Jr (1858 - 1944)

Architect. He was enrolled in the architectural program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then spent five years in the office of Philadelphia architect James Peacock Sims. He took over the office upon Sims’s death in May 1882. He was known for his picturesque assemblies of calculated asymmetries and his welcoming, informal planning. Eyre’s […]

Sir Edward Marshall-Hall (1858 - 1927)

Attorney. He was council for the defence in many notorious murder cases. He was educated at Rugby School and Cambridge, and intended to enter the priesthood. He soon decided to pursue a career as an actor, but was unable to memorize scripts and so instead trained in law, being called to the bar in 1888. […]

Minnie Evans (1892 - 1987)

Visionary Folk Artist. Recognized as one of the most important visionary folk artists of the 20th century, her work is highly collected by many museums and collectors all across the world. She began to draw and paint at the age of 43, creating her first pieces of artwork on a scrap of paper bag. Five […]

Peter Malkin (1927 - 2005)

Israeli Intellegence Agent. He was the veteran Israeli Mossad agent who in 1960 captured Adolf Eichmann, chief architect of the Holocaust, from a street outside Buenos Aires. So repulsed that he wore gloves, Malkin approached Eichmann, living under an assumed name, with the greeting “un momentito, señor” before wrestling him to the ground and into […]

William Etty (1787 - 1849)

Painter. Studying in England and Venice, Etty became famous for painting nudes (he was once considered the ‘first pornographer’!). His work is exhibited in many major British galleries and often incorporate mythological themes. Although much of his work was created in London, Etty later moved to York where a statue of the artist now stands […]

George Isaac Maledon (1830 - 1911)

Western Lawman and Executioner. He immigrated from Bavaria to America in 1859, settled in Fort Smith, Arkansas where he served as a policeman and deputy sheriff. During the Civil War he served in the Union Army as a member of 1st Battery Arkansas Light Artillery. After the war he signed on and worked in the […]

Antoine Etex (1808 - 1888)

Sculptor. Born in Paris, the son of a decorative sculptor, he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in 1824 as a pupil of Charles Dupaty, moving in 1825 to the studio of James Pradier Ingres who also took an interest in his education.  He first exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1833, his work including […]

Christian “Chris” Madsen (1851 - 1944)

Deputy US Marshal and Folk Figure. Little is known of his early life in Denmark, but before migrating to America, he was a member of the Danish Army. He served in the Danish-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars and served in the Foreign Legion in Algeria. Upon immigrating to the United States, he joined the Fifth Calvary […]