CanÌƒon City record. [volume] (CanÌƒon City, Colo.) 1883-192?, 1909-01-14
PASSED PEACEFULLY AWAY
ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON

Harry WOODS Emmerson, Oldest
son OF Mr.. and Mrs. E. w. Emmerson.
died at the family home, 425 Pike
avenue at 2:45 o'clock Thursday after
noon from the effects of lingering
illness, aged fifty-one years, nine
months and twenty-eight days.
| Deaceased was born at Albion, ILL.,,
and was educated in the public
schools of that place. His father was
a farmer, and he early rebelled
against the monotony and hum-drum
of agricultural life and started out in
the world as sort of knight errant
in search of a more congenial occupa-
| ton. Through the offices of some in
| fluential friends he obtained in 1876
from General Grant, who was then
president of the United States, an ap-
pointment to a cadetship in the mill
tary academy at West Point. He failed,
however, to pass the physical exami-
nation required for admission to that
institution and the next year matricu-
lated as a student at Wabash college,
at Charlottesville, Indiana, but never
1 graduated.
In 1878 he went to California and
for few years engaged in orange cul-
ture and truck farming near Sacra-
mento Later he went to the Hawaiian
Islands, then under a monarchal sys-
tenn of administration with King Kala-
kaua at its head. He held a position
with the government for a number of
years. resigning to enter the employ
of Hackfeld & Company of Hamburg,
| Germany, which at that time held a
practical monopoly of the trading bus
| mess among the equatorial islands of
the Pacific ocean from about the one
hundred and fiftieth meridian west
ward to the Philippines and the south
! ern coast of Asia
AS a trader Mr.. Ememrson visited
nearly all of the islands of the South
seas and acquired knowledge of
most of the kanaka languages of Poly
nesia. He went to Manila in 1SSS
| where he engaged in railroad building
| and had charge of the grade construc-
ton of the first railroad in the Philip
pine islands, a line extending from
| Manila to Dagupan. Subsequently he
followed the same line of employment
in Siam. the Straits Settlement. Ton
quin. China and Siberia. He was mas
ter of maintenance of way of the Inn
perial road between Pekin and Tient-
sin, China. for several years and was
one of the pioneers in railroad build
ing in that country.
The deceased was sort of soldier
of fortune, and. during his Asiatic ex-
periences, which extended from CAL
cutta to Port Arthur, was partici-
pant in several wars. notably in the
French war in Siam and the Boxer
war in China. When the latter trouble
broke out he was at Nieuchwang,
Manchuria, and for assisting in the
defense of English property there,w
voted the sum of one hundred pounds
by the British parliament, which was
conveyed TO him through the English
ambassador at Washington.
The Boxer war so unsettled things
in North China that Mr.. Emmerson
returned to the United States, after
an absence of twenty-four years. Re
naming only a short time he pro-
ceeded to Mexico: going first to Vera
Cruz. thence successfully to the City
of Mexico, Acapulco and chihuahua.
h2 l,,, ,Nra
about four months ago. He went to
Cuba about three years ago and for a
few months was employed in railroad
building in the eastern end of the is
land. but was taken sick at Santiago
and short time later returned to Chi
huahua-
Deceased Joined the Masonic order
at Tientsin, China, but transferred his
membership to Washington Hidalgo
Lodge No. ., A. F. & A. NJ. at Chi
huahua, from which he was Identified
on coming to Colorado.
He was unmarried and leaves, in
addition to numerous relatives and
friends in the eastern states, his faith
er and mother, four brothers and
other family connections in this city
to mourn his demise
The funeral will be private one
and will take place from the parental
home, 425 Pike avenue, at 10 O'Clock
Saturday morning. followed by inter
ment in Lakeside cemetery. The obse-
quies will be conducted by Rev, ].
l.. Wilkinson, pastor of the congrega-
ton of the First Christian church