NORDHOFF, Charles, journalist, born in Erwitte, Westphalia, Prussia, 31 August, 1830. In 1835 he came with his parents to this country, and attended school in Cincinnati, where he was apprenticed to a printer in 1843. In 1844 he went to Philadelphia and worked in a newspaper office, but he soon shipped in the United States navy, where he served three years, making a voyage around the world. He remained at sea in the merchant, whaling, and mackerel fishery service until 1853, when he again became employed in newspaper offices, first in Philadelphia, and afterward in Indianapolis, Indiana From 1857 till 1861 he was editorially employed by a publishing-house in New York. From 1861 till 1871 he was on the staff of the New York "Evening Post," and he subsequently contributed to the "Tribune." He travelled in California in 1871-'2, and visited the Hawaiian islands in 1873. Since 1874 he has been the special Washington correspondent of the "New York Herald." He edited an American edition of Kern's "Practical Landscape Gardening" (Cincinnati, 1855), and is the author of "Man-of-War Life: a Boy's Experience in the United States Navy" (Cincinnati, 1855) ; "The Merchant Vessel" (1855) ; "Whaling and Fishing" (1856) ; "Nine Years a Sailor" (1857); "Stories from the Island World" (New York, 1857) ; "Secession is Rebellion : the Union Indissoluble" (1860); "The Freedmen of South Carolina: Some Account of their Appearance, Character. Condition, and Customs" (1863); "America for Free Working Men" (1865) ; "Cape Cod and All Along Shore," a collection of stories (1868) ; "California for Health, Pleasure, and Residence" (1872): "Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands" (1874) ; "Politics for Young Americans" (1875) ; "The Communistic Societies of the United States" (1875); "The Cotton States in the Spring and Summer of 1875" (1876); and "God and the Future Life" (1881).