instructor, and eventually as chief instructor of that institution, where she had for professors and, in time, for colleagues, Alexander Graham Bell, Charles A. Guilmette, Robert Raymond and Prof.
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MARY SOPHIA THOMPSON.
Hudson. At that time the doctrines and principles of Francois Delsarte were beginning to attract considerable notice, and Miss Thompson promptly threw herself into that art, in all its applications, with a zeal and an aptitude that insured success. Forming a partnership with Miss Genevieve Stebbins, who was at that time Mr. Mackaye's pupil, she went to New York, and they soon founded the first school of Delsarte in that city. From that time onward Miss Thompson's career has been successful. Hitherto the teachings of Delsarte had been regarded with suspicion, ridiculed by actors and doubted by the press, but in the famous Delsarte matinees, given by the women in the Madison Square Theater, the narrow provincialism which came to scoff found such genuine merit and sincere artistic enthusiasm and, above all, such exquisite performances, that its opposition was silenced, petty pique gave way to generous admiration, and now Delsarte is the fashion. Miss Thompson has taught in the schools of Mrs. Sylvanus Reed and of the Misses Graham. She is no specialist, in the narrower sense of the word, her achievements and performance ranging from the celebrated "bird notes," for which she has a national renown, to the delivery of a monologue, in which she is extremely successful. She has for some years contributed to various periodicals, mainly upon subjects to which she devotes her talents, and has recently published, in book form, "Rhythmical Gymnastics, Vocal and Physical."
THORP, Mrs. Mandana Coleman, patriot and public official, born in Karr Valley, Allegany county, N. Y., 25th January, 1843. She is the daughter of Colonel John Major. By her mother she is a descendant of Major Moses Van Campen, a Revolutionary patriot. She was brought up under the training of the most devoted mother and received a liberal education in Alfred University. The stirring events before and during the Civil War called out the sentiment of every patriotic person.
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MANDANA COLEMAN THORP.
The musical talents of Miss Major were actively enlisted from the echo of the first gun fired upon the national flag. The national airs and the stirring battle hymns were sung by her at nearly all of the meetings held in that part of the State. At the close of the first peninsula campaign, in the summer of 1862, President Lincoln requested the Governor of the State of New York to raise and equip two regiments at once for service in front of General Lee, whose forces were invading Pennsylvania. It was during the organization of those two regiments the patriotism of Allegany, Livingston and Wyoming counties was brought into activity. During the months of July and August, 1862, the loyal people of those communities filled the ranks of the 130th and 136th regiments, and after attending scores of war meetings, urging with song every stalwart yeoman to rally round the flag, Miss Major, on 6th September. 1862, at the military rendezvous on the banks of the Genesee in Portage. N. Y., was married in the hollow square of the 130th regiment by the Rev. Dr. Joel Wakeman, then a captain in the regiment in which her husband, Thomas J. Thorp, was lieutenant colonel, who had up to that time participated in every battle of the Potomac Army, and, although severely wounded at Fair Oaks and Malvern Hill, had refused to stay in the hospital. By permission of the Secretary of War, Col. Thorp was assigned to the new regiment, which became the famous First New York Dragoons, by an order of the War Department, after the battle of Gettysburg. During the years of the war Mrs. Thorp rendered devoted service in the ranks, with other noble women of that period, in their efforts, in gathering and distributing every
