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Russell Sturgis (1805–1887)
Russell Sturgis (July 7, 1805 November 2, 1887) was a Boston merchant active in the China trade, and later head of Baring Brothers in London. Early life Sturgis was born Nathaniel Russell Sturgis Jr., in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 7, 1805. He was a son of Nathaniel Russell Sturgis (1779–1856) and his wife, Susannah Thomsen (née Parkman) Sturgis. His younger brother was fellow merchant Henry Parkman Sturgis (father of author Maria Trinidad Howard Sturgis Middlemore), who served as United States Consul to the Philippines. His paternal grandparents were the merchant Russell Sturgis (1750-1826) and Elizabeth (née Perkins) Sturgis (a sister of merchant Thomas Handasyd Perkins), both of Boston Brahmin families. Through his great-uncle Thomas Sturgis (the younger brother of his grandfather Russell), he was a second cousin of architect and art critic Russell Sturgis (1836-1909), who married Sarah Maria Barney, a daughter of Danford Newton Barney, a president of Wells Fargo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna Lea Merritt
Anna Massey Lea Merritt (September 13, 1844 – April 7, 1930) was an American artist from Philadelphia who lived and worked in Great Britain for most of her life. A printmaker and painter of portraits, landscapes, and religious scenes, Merritt's art was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites. Merritt was a professional artist for most of her adult life, "living by her brush" before her brief marriage to Henry Merritt and after his death. Life Anna Massey Lea was born in 1844 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of an affluent Quaker couple, Joseph Lea and Susanna Massey, and the eldest of six sisters. She studied anatomy at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. In 1865, the family moved to Europe, where she took art lessons from Stefano Ussi, Heinrich Hoffman, Léon Cogniet and Alphonse Legros. They moved to London in 1870 to escape the Franco-Prussian War, and in 1871 she met Henry Merritt (1822–1877), a noted art critic and picture conservator,Oxfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maria Trinidad Howard Sturgis Middlemore
Maria Trinidad Howard Sturgis Middlemore (also wrote as Mrs. S. C. G. Middlemore and M. H. Sturgis; née Sturgis; July 26, 1846 in Manila – February 11, 1890 in Malvern, England) was an American-Filipina author. She is notable for her collection and translation of Spanish-language folktales into English. Writing Her first work ''Round a Posada Fire: Spanish Legends'' appeared in 1881. In the preface, she declares that her intention is to introduce her readers to an overlooked element of Spanish culture: that of peasant folktales. "There is hardly a more superstitious creature on the face of the globe than the Spaniard. He delights in everything ghostly and supernatural ..." she declares. She also notes that most of the stories have already been published in American journals, but adds the new "Lovers of Teruel," about a pair of star-crossed lovers who die from thwarted love. In 1885, her ''Spanish Legendary Tales'' was published. It contained thirty folktales from northern Spain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Perkins Cushing
John Perkins Cushing (April 22, 1787 – April 12, 1862), called "Ku-Shing" by the Chinese, was a wealthy American sea merchant, opium smuggler, and philanthropist. His sixty-foot pilot schooner, the ''Sylph'', won the first recorded American yacht race in 1832. The town of Belmont, Massachusetts is named after his estate. Early life John Perkins Cushing was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Robert Cushing and his wife Ann Perkins Maynard. His father's Cushing ancestor had emigrated to Hingham, Massachusetts, during the early years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Cushing's sister, Nancy, later married Henry Higginson (1781-1839). When his mother died of smallpox, Cushing was raised by his uncle, slave and opium trader Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764–1854). Cushing was reportedly very fond of the Perkins family and very often brought them house-warming gifts such as large boxes of the finest available white sugar. He was said to have spent a lot of time at their house, often ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opium
Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and other synthetic opioids for medicinal use and for the illegal drug trade. The latex also contains the closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, and non-analgesic alkaloids such as papaverine and noscapine. The traditional, labor-intensive method of obtaining the latex is to scratch ("score") the immature seed pods (fruits) by hand; the latex leaks out and dries to a sticky yellowish residue that is later scraped off and dehydrated. The word '' meconium'' (derived from the Greek for "opium-like", but now used to refer to newborn stools) historically referred to related, weaker preparations made from other parts of the opium poppy or different species of poppies. The production methods have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kong and north of Macau, Guangzhou has a history of over 2,200 years and was a major terminus of the maritime Silk Road; it continues to serve as a major port and transportation hub as well as being one of China's three largest cities. For a long time, the only Chinese port accessible to most foreign traders, Guangzhou was captured by the British during the First Opium War. No longer enjoying a monopoly after the war, it lost trade to other ports such as Hong Kong and Shanghai, but continued to serve as a major transshipment port. Due to a high urban population and large volumes of port traffic, Guangzhou is classified as a Large-Port Megacity, the largest type of port-city in the world. Due to worldwide travel restrictions at the beginni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Pasig, Showing Russell And Sturgis's Former Office (Manila, 1900)
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of water. Small rivers can be referred to using names such as creek, brook, rivulet, and rill. There are no official definitions for the generic term river as applied to geographic features, although in some countries or communities a stream is defined by its size. Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location; examples are "run" in some parts of the United States, "burn" in Scotland and northeast England, and "beck" in northern England. Sometimes a river is defined as being larger than a creek, but not always: the language is vague. Rivers are part of the water cycle. Water generally collects in a river from precipitation through a drainage basin from surface runoff and other sources such as groundwater recharge, springs, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
