Evening star., 1901-12-23
A Brilliant Newspaper Man Claimed
by Death.
END OF A LONG PERIOD OF SUFFERING
Brief Sketch of His Active and
Varied Career.
FUNERAL ROW

After many months of acute suffering,
which was borne with unfailing patience
and which was not permitted to interrupt
his work until the last, Stephen Cluskey
Cromwell, one of the most capable and
widely known newspaper men in Washing
ton, died Sunday morning. He had been
unwell for about two years. Excepting his
brain and his heart every organ of his
body had become diseased About month
ago his various complications made it i'm
possible for him to continue his brave
struggle to work in spite of his illness,
and he succumbed to their combined effects.
He was treated first at his home, No. 3017
o street northwest, and later at Providence
Hospital, where the end of his suffering
came at o'clock yesterday morning.
Interment of the body will be made at
Mount Olivet cemetery tomorrow after
noon, and the services at the cemetery will
be private. The funeral will take place
from st. Patricks Church at IL o'clock to-
morrow morning. This service will be open
to Mr.. CremweEs practically unnumbered
friends, and will doubtless be largely at
tended.
Rev. Father F. G. Mcclure of St.
Peters Church, who administered the ex-
treme JUNCTION and the last sacrament to
Mr.. Cromwell at the hospital, will officiate
at the funeral, and will be assisted by Rev
DR.. D. J. Stafford, pastor of st. Patrick's s
Church, who will deliver the address on
Mr.. Cromwell's life The pallbearers have
been chosen from the intimate friends and
associates of the deceased, as follows: Mr..
Rudolph Kaufman, Mr.. Thomas G. Noyes,
Mr.. James F. Oyster, Mr.. Robert S. VIII
lett Mr.. ]. Henry Small and General Geo.
H. Harries.
Those who survive Mr.. Cromwell are his
mother whose only child he was; Mi $.
Cromwell, to whom he was married six
nd m his hOyhoO6 sweet
heart, and son, named after his father
and now four years old. These three, with
an aunt Mrs. Wall, and Father MCGUIRE
were at Mr. Cromwells bedside when he
passed away. Mrs. Cromwell was a native
of Rockville, Nd, and the two made their
home in that town until the husbands fail
ing health compelled him to remove to
Washington for the winters
sketch of His Career.
Mr. Cromwell was born in Washington
July o. 1860. He was the grandson of the
late Charles Blaney Cluskey and the lineal
descendent, in the seventh generation, OF
Sir Oliver Cromwell of Hinchinbrook Cas-
tie, England, whose son Henry and grand
son William were members of the London
Company, which undertook the colonization
of Virginia. William Cromwell eventually
settled in Maryland under grant from the
crown, made in the early part or the sew
enteenth century. His grandson, Major
Stephen Cromwell of the Maryland Line in
the revolutionary war, was the great
grandfather of the deceased. On the ma
ternal side Mr.. Cromwell was of Irish de-
scent having inherited the blood of the
old clans of O'Connell and Walsh To this
Irish stock was always accredited his warm
and poetical temperament and his ready
wit.
His professional career began when he
was only sixteen years old. He had ac-
quired the education offered by the public
schools, and interrupted his course at
Georgetown Collegesto accept position as
a reporter on the staff of the National
Union. Two years later, when only eigh-
teen years old, he became city editor of the
short-lived National Standard. He served
also as assistant to Col. Edward Brady IN
the early history of the Hatchet and on
the Critic of later days. In 1884 he was in
vited to assume the desk of the literary ed
itor of the New York Sunday Mercury. He
became the Washington correspondent, first
of the Memphis Scimitar and subsequently
of the Memphis Avalanche, in the five years
which followed his service for the Mercury,
and remained in the press galleries at the
Capitol through the session of 1889 and
$780,
A long tour of the west filled the succeed
ing two years. He became first the city
editor of the Denver Republican, then one
of the editors of a paper in Boise, Idaho;
then an editor on the Seattle Post-Intelli-
gencer; then one Of the chief writer's on the
Portland Oregonian, and, lastly, an editor
of one of the papers in Helena, Mont. The
became managing editor of the Washington
Sunday Herald, but left that paper to work
as reporter for the Evening News, Of
which publication he was subsequently,
made city editor For two years he was
employed by the Washington Post. He
then became one of the reporters for The
Star, and remained in the service of that
paper until his death.
High Literary Attachments.
Many men who knew both writer's COM
pared Mr.. Cromwell with Eugene Field. His
work was certainly fully as varied and of
as high literary order. To nearly all Of
the papers by which he was employed he
contributed exceptionally pleasing verse
some Of it humorous but more of it as
tender and poetic as Fields Little Boy
Blue" He wrote great deal Of humor for
the Hatchet and established a consider
able reputation by that service. Much Of
his serious prose was written on an excep-
tionally high plane, and was unusually
pure and forceful in its tone. But his forte
was descriptive writing. In every phase Of
newspaper work he employed his pen to in
dite the most graphic and sententious de-
scriptions. 1t was this side Of his profess
sional nature which first made him promi-
nent. He was assigned to report the trial
OF Charles Guiteau for the old National
Republican, and his record Of those proceed
ings awoke In the author an ever-increasng
and widening interest.
Mr.. Cromwells newspaper work was most
pleasing when 1t most truly reflected his
personality. He was a man of warm, gen.
erous and impulsive heart. He was intel
lectually brilliant. He was a man of strong
and firm opinions, which he advocated fear
lessly. but which We're never permitted to
bias his newspaper writing. AS q raconteur
he had hardly an equal in the capital. His
bearing and manner were those of the gen.
tleman born and bred. 1t was probably
these qualities manifest in his work which
established so firmly his position as one Of
the most valuable newspaper men in the
country. They contributed also to give him
a remarkably wide and helpful acquaint-
ance with men notable in national life and
prominent residents Of his native city.
They led to his election as president of The
Washington Star Club and other similar
organizations, and during the last two
years Of his illness they evoked hundreds
OF Inquiries daily as to his health and
chances for recovering In his private life
he was known as thoughtful and loving
son, a gentle husband and watchful and
tender father to the one child who bore his
name.
Threatened His Wife.
James r. Redmond pleaded not guilty In