Page:Men of Mark in America vol 2.djvu/471

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ELIPHALET WHITTLESEY
395

to 1881, and secretary of the board, 1881-99. He is a corporate member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions; a member of the National Geographic Society; a companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States; a comrade of the Grand Army of the Republic and a member of the National Forestry Association. His advice to young men is to adopt the motto on the Whittlesey coat of arms, Animo et Fide; and the influences that proved of the greatest help in his lifetime were those of home and contact with public men in Washington, "especially with Senator Dawes."

He was married October 31, 1854, to Augusta, daughter of George F. and Hannah Patten of Bath, Maine; and of their five children three are living in 1906, and with their children were present at the "Golden Wedding" anniversary of General and Mrs. Whittlesey, October 31, 1904.

General Whittlesey received the honorary degree of D.D. from Howard university in 1882; and that of LL.D. from Yale university in 1902. His long and useful life has included four years as a teacher in the South, ten years as a preacher of the Gospel, ten years as a college professor, five years in the United States army, and over twenty-six years in the civil service of the United States as an advocate and defender of the rights of the Indian to a home, to education, to protection from his greatest enemies (intoxicating liquor and the post trader) and to instruction and pastoral care from christian missionaries.

The action of the Board of Indian Commissioners in accepting in 1899 his resignation as secretary expresses their sense of the value of his services to the Indians.

"General Eliphalet Whittlesey having retired from the position of secretary of this board, his fellow-members of the board desire to spread upon their minutes some expression of their esteem for the character and the personal qualities which have made his work as secretary so valuable to the cause for which this board labors, and have endeared him personally to each member of the board. As secretary since 1881, and before that date assistant secretary for six years, it is the conviction of this board that his knowledge of Indian affairs, full and exact, and his sympathy with Indians, always sincere and heartfelt, have prompted efforts for the welfare of the Indians, so wise and just that not even his deep feeling for these