The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1895-07-11
Obituary.

ter, England, OCTOBER Z, loU9. his
father, Robert Roberts, also born in
the city of Leicester, had his left arm
shot off in battle, in India, before he
was eighteen years old John G..
Roberts enlisted in the marine service
before completing his eighteenth year
and his oldest son, R. F. Roberts and
daughter, Mrs. L. E. Fairbanks, were
born while he was yet in the service
Soon after the birth of his daughter,
he bought his discharge, paying
twenty five pounds sterling for it, or
some over one hundred dollars. The
marine service gave him the oppor-
tunity of seeing many foreign countries
and people, and many interesting in
cidents are connected with it.. At the
time that Greece gained her independ-
ence the man Of war to which he was
assigned lay for some days in reach of
a Turkish fort. the decks cleared for
action and the guns shotted. The
fortress surrendered without firing a
shot and the Greek prisoners were
turned over to the British forces. In
1881 October 10, he was united in mar
rage to Lydia Faulkner in All Saints
church, Leicester, England. On April
|, 1874, he with his wife and five child
rem sailed for America, landing in Que
bee where he had English acquaint-
ances, about the last of May. His in
tention was to proceed to the United
States but an oily tongued emigrant
agent induced him to settle in Canada,
where he resided five years. The
ocean voyage consumed eight weeks
and three days and a son was born to
them when off the banks of Newfound-
land, the ship being surrounded with
fields of ice much farther than the eye
could see. Capt. Richard Arnold had
made thirty-nine trips across the At
lantic with his ship the Rainbow and
this was the first birth that had occur
red on her, though he had come within
one day of having a son of his own
born on board.
The sea born babe was taken the
next day to the cabin and was chris
tened in the Episcopal service Richard
Arnold Rainbow, after both captain
and ship, and the captain gave him a
handsome present. Arnold, as he was
always called in the family, fills an
honored soldiers grave in Memphis,
Tennessee, in the national cemetery
A tombstone is erected to his memory
in the Tarbell graveyard where his
younger sister lies and where now lie
both mother and father.
John G. Roberts enlisted in the vol
unteer service during the first year of
the war of the rebellion and was made
hospital steward of the Fifth Wisconsin
regiment of volunteer infantry. His
son William and son-in-laW, Sumner
Fairbanks, of the First Wisconsin, were
on the road home after their three
months campaign in Virginia as the
Fifth Wisconsin was on it's way to the
field of strife, the two trains passing
each other at some point in Ohio. The
Fifth Wisconsin was assigned to one OF
the divisions of McClellan's army be-
fore Richmond. At Newport News he
was seized with typhoid fever and alter
several weeks illness was given up to
die by the army physician. AS soon,
however, as the nurses ceased to ad-
minister medicines to him he began to
rally. AS soon as he became conva-
lescent he was removed to the army
hospital in New York where he quite
recovered his health. During his life
in England he was local, unpaid
preacher in the Wesleyan Methodist
denomination, and from the earliest
days of the temperance agitation in
Leicester was an earnest public tenn
perance, or rather total abstinence lee
turer and agitator, and has been q pop
ular lecturer in both Canada and Wis
consin. The ship Rainbow which bore
us safely across the Atlantic always re-
manned to us an object OF interest.
About ten years after the Rainbow was
making a trip to the East Indies, when
Capt. Arnold died before reaching port.
The first mate with the larger part of
the crew mutinied. The captains
daughter, girl not quite sixteen, took
command of the vessel. With pistol
in each hand and assisted by the Sec
ond mate, the leader of the mutineers
was placed in irons and was tulnedover
to the authorities as soon as port was
reached.
Father had several times said he
wanted to die without pain and almost
without knowing it and his wish was
granted. During the last two months
he had lost greatly in strength. Some
five or six days before the end he fell
on the floor while walking from his
chair to the lounge and had no strength
to rally from the shock. He rapidly
grew weaker, but suffered no pain.
Finally fell into a sleep as soft as that
of a babe and so passed away.
r. f. ROBERTS.
A-