Major James Rees, born in Philadelphia in 1766, died at Geneva, New-York, on the 24th of March. He was in his youth a confidential cleric to Robert Morris, the financier; during the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania, he was a Deputy Quarter-Master General under Washington, and he held the same office under Wilkinson and under Izard, in the war of 1812.
Mordecai M. Noah, who for nearly half a century had been eminent as a politician and a journalist, and who was one of the most distinguished Jews of the present age, died in New-York on the 2nd of March. He was born in Philadelphia on the 19th of July, 1785, and at an early age was apprenticed to a carver and gilder in that city; but a love of literature and affairs induced the abandonment of that vocation for the more congenial one to which he devoted the chief part of his life. His editorial career commenced in Charleston, S. C., and some interesting passages of his history there are given in the first volume of Thomas's Reminiscences. In 1811 Mr. Madison appointed him consul at Riga, but he declined the place. In 1813 he was appointed by Mr. Monroe consul to Tunis, with a mission to Algiers. On the voyage his vessel was captured by a British frigate and taken to Plymouth. His diplomatic position exempted him from imprisonment, but he was detained several weeks, and did not reach his destination until February, 1814. Having accomplished the object of his mission, he crossed the Pyrenees, and visited Paris. After a brief residence in that city, he proceeded to Tunis, where he remained until recalled, in 1816. In 1819 he published a book of Travels, containing the result of his observations in Europe and Northern Africa, during a three years' residence in those countries. He now became one of the editors and proprietors of the National Advocate, in which he published the Essays on Domestic Economy, signed "Howard," which were subsequently printed in a volume. The next paper with which he was connected was the Enquirer, afterwards Courier & Enquirer, in the management of which he was associated with Colonel Webb. The several papers of which he was at various times editor or proprietor, or both, were the National Advocate, Enquirer, Courier & Enquirer, Evening Star, Sun, Morning Star, and Weekly Messenger. His most successful journal was the Evening Star, but he was eminently popular at all times as an editorial writer, and was very fortunate when he had, as in the Evening Star, or the Sunday Times, judicious business partners. Soon after his return from Africa occurred his celebrated attempt to assemble all the Jews of the world on this continent, and build a new Jerusalem at Grand Island, in the Niagara River.
In 1821 he was elected sheriff of the city and county of New-York. During his term of office the yellow fever broke out, and he opened the doors of the prisons and let go all who were confined for debt—an act of generous humanity which cost him several thousand dollars. He was admitted to the bar of this city in 1823, and to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1829. In 1829 he was also appointed, by President dent Jackson, Surveyor of the Port of New-York, which office he shortly afterward resigned. In the political contest of 1840, he took part against Mr. Van Buren, whom he had long regarded with distrust, and voted for General Harrison. In 1841 he was appointed by Governor Seward, Judge of the Court of Sessions. He was probably the only Hebrew who occupied a judicial station in Christendom. During the same year he was made Supreme Court Commissioner. When a change in the organization of the Court of Sessions took place he resigned his seat on the bench, and soon returned to his old profession. In 1843 he became one of the editors and proprietors of the Sunday Times, with which he was connected when he died.
Major Noah was a very rapid and an industrious writer. Besides his Travels in England, France, Spain, and the Barbary States, in the Years 1813, 1814, and 1815, and the Howard Papers on Domestic Economy, he published several orations and addresses on political, religious and antiquarian subjects; edited The Book of Jasher, and wrote numerous successful plays, of which an account may be found in Dunlap's History of the Stage. The most prominent of them were, She would be a Soldier, or the Plains of Chippewa; Ali Pacha, or the Signet Ring; Marion, or the Hero of Lake George; Nathalie, or the Frontier Maid; Yusef Caramali, or the Siege of Tripoli; The Castle of Sorrento, The Siege of Daramatta, The Grecian Captive, and Ambition. He for a long time contemplated writing Memoirs of his Times, and he published in the Evening Star many interesting reminiscences intended to form part of such work.
Major Noah was a man of remarkable generosity of character, and in all periods of his life was liberal of his means, to Christians as well as to Jews: holding the place of President in the Hebrew Benevolent Society, and being frequently selected as adviser in other temporary or permanent associations for the relief of distress. As a politician he was perhaps not the most scrupulous in the world, but there was rarely if ever any bitterness in his controversies. In religion he was sincere and earnest, and the Hebrews in America we believe uniformly held his character in respect
John S. Skinner, who was for a long time editor of the Turf Register at Baltimore, and who more recently conducted the very able magazine The Plow, the Loom, and the Anvil, died from an accident, in Baltimore, on the 28th of March, aged about sixty years. He had held the appointment of Post-Master at Baltimore for a period of twenty years, though removed from it fifteen years ago, and he was afterward Assistant Post-Master General. Intending to hurry out from the Baltimore Post-Office—which he had entered for some business with his successor—into the street, he inadvertently opened a door leading to the basement of the building, and before he could recover himself, plunged head foremost down the flight of steps. His skull was fractured, and he survived in a state of insensibility for a few hours only.
Brevet-Major-General George M. Brooke, of the United States Army, died at San Antonio, Texas, on the ninth of March. General Brooke entered the army, from Virginia, on the third of May, 1808, as First Lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry. He had received four brevets during his military life, and at the time of his death he was in command of the Eighth Military Department, (Texas,) and engaged in planning an expedition against the Indians.