175 Calendar

July 10: Abraham Jacobi, pioneering pediatrician for whom Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx is named, died on this date in 1919.

July 9: Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine, was born on this date in 1819.

July 8: On this date in 1835, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt was born; she died on Valentine’s Day in 1884, unaware that her son Theodore would become President of the United States.

July 7: On this date in 1859, Townsend Harris opened the first United States Legation in Japan.

July 6: On this date in 1845, Samuel Akerly, who developed instruction for deaf-mutes and the blind, died.

July 5: Henry Cruse Murphy was born on this date in 1810; he would be known as “The Moses of the Brooklyn Bridge” because of his involvement in the building of that wonder was cut short on December 1, 1882, when he died, just months before the grand opening of the bridge, just before the bridge reached the Promised Land.

July 4: On this date in 1839, “a winding road traversing the cemetery, and passing through its most interesting parts,” 4 1/2 miles long, opened at Green-Wood; it would soon become known as “The Tour.”

July 3: On this date in 1863, the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg culminated with Pickett’s Charge, during which the Confederates were repulsed with great losses; Captain William Wheeler and his 13th New York Independent Battery helped meet that attack and turn the tide of battle in favor of the Union.

July 2: John Thomas Underwood, who pioneered the visible typewriter, allowing typists to see what they were typing, greatly improving accuracy and speed, and created a typewriter-manufacturing empire, died on this date in 1937.

July 1: Irish Patriot and Civil War General Thomas Meagher, serving as the territorial governor of Montana, disappeared on this date in 1867; his body has never been found and a cenotaph to him stands next to his widow’s Green-Wood grave.