Note (return) — Chapter IX

Joseph James Cheeseman (1892-November 15, 1896) was a Whig. He conducted what was known as the third Grebo War and labored especially for a sound currency. He was a man of unusual ability and his devotion to his task undoubtedly contributed toward his death in office near the middle of his third term. As up to this time there had been no internal improvement and little agricultural or industrial development in the country, O.F. Cook, the agent of the New York State Colonization Society, in 1894 signified to the legislature a desire to establish a station where experiments could be made as to the best means of introducing, receiving, and propagating beasts of burden, commercial plants, etc. His request was approved and one thousand acres of land granted for the purpose by act of January 20, 1894. Results, however, were neither permanent nor far-reaching. In fact, by the close of the century immigration had practically ceased and the activities of the American Colonization Society had also ceased, many of the state organizations having gone out of existence. In 1893 Julius C. Stevens, of Goldsboro, N.C., went to Liberia and served for a nominal salary as agent of the American Colonization Society, becoming also a teacher in the Liberia College and in time Commissioner of Education, in connection with which post he edited his Liberian School Reader; but he died in 1903.148