The Foreign Service Journal, November 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2020 71 issues. President Benjamin Harrison nominated him for the overseas diplomatic position on Aug. 16, 1890, but Clark died in Liberia less than a year later. In addition to Edward Ely, dysentery claimed the lives of James Thornton, chargé d’affaires in Callao, Peru, on Jan. 25, 1838; Alexander McKee, consul in Panama, on Sept. 3, 1865; Edward Conner, consul in Guaymas, Mexico, on July 16, 1867; Hiram Lott, consul in Managua, on June 15, 1895; and John Carter Ingersoll, consul in Colón, Panama, on June 6, 1903. Cholera felled William Venable, minister to Guatemala, on Aug. 27, 1857; vice consul John Amory in Calcutta (Kolkata) on July 1, 1860; consul William Irvin in Amoy (now Xiamen), China, on Sept. 9, 1865; and vice consul Jose Casagemas in Barcelona in early November 1865. Typhoid fever killed Daniel Brent, consul in Paris, on Jan. 31, 1841. And smallpox ended the lives of John T. Miller, vice consul in Rio de Janeiro, on July 28, 1887; Thomas Gibson, consul in Beirut, on Sept. 20, 1896; and Thomas Newson, consul in Málaga, Spain, on March 30, 1893. Turning to those who met a watery demise, we find that, unfortunately, Robert Sterry is not the only overlooked con- sul to die in a shipwreck. James Holden, commercial agent at Aux Cayes (now Les Cayes), Haiti, was lost at sea in 1827. John Miercken, consul in Martinique, boarded the Lafayette in Sep- tember 1832, but the ship never arrived at its destination and was presumed sunk. Isaiah Thomas III, appointed as consul to Algiers, departed New York on the Milwaukee on Feb. 21, 1862, after being nominated by President Lincoln. Thomas, who had previously edited the Cincinnati American , and three of his children were lost at sea. AFSA has undertaken a project to recognize these individu- als and other diplomats whose death in the line of duty has not been acknowledged. In August 2020, the AFSA Governing Board approved funding to inscribe the names of the early diplomats and consular officers on new plaques in the C Street lobby, hopefully in time for the association’s annual memorial cer- emony in May 2021. With that, their service to their country will finally be recognized, and we will no longer have to refer to them as “overlooked.” n