DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
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Henry Farnam 
 
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CONTENTS 
 
 I. To the Grandchildren of Henry 
 
 Farnam ...... 5 
 
 II. Memoir of Henry Farnam by Henry 
 
 W. Farnam : 
 
 1. Childhood and Early Life, 1803-1825 9 
 
 2. The Farmington Canal and the Canal 
 
 Railroad, 1825-1850 ... 18 
 
 3. Railroad Enterprises in the West, 1850- 
 
 1863. 34 
 
 4. Retirement, 1863-1883 ... 60 
 
 Appendix. 69 
 
 Notes ....... 90 
 
 III. Memorial Sermon by Rev. Newman 
 
 Smyth, D.D. ..... 95 
 
 IV. Extracts from New Haven News¬ 
 
 papers and Resolutions . . 113 
 
 3 
 
To the Grandchildren of Henry Farnam : 
 
 The sketch of the life of your grandfather 
 which fills the greater part of the present vol¬ 
 ume is written especially for you. Besides 
 his own children, who need no written record 
 to tell them what he was, none owe him a 
 greater debt of gratitude. Yet already his 
 character must appear to your eyes tradi¬ 
 tional and remote. The oldest of you was 
 but twelve years of age at the time of his 
 death; the youngest has never seen him. 
 Your knowledge of him must be derived 
 from others. Even his features would be for¬ 
 gotten by the younger of your number, if 
 you were not reminded of them by his por¬ 
 traits. 
 
 Thus, while you have the greatest possible 
 interest in knowing all you possibly can learn 
 about one who loved you so tenderly, and who 
 
did so much for you, you are at the same 
 time in the greatest need of such information 
 in a permanent form. 
 
 And yet I cannot but feel, that what I most 
 want to tell you is the very thing that I have 
 least succeeded in telling. For I am not con¬ 
 tent to give you an outline of the public events 
 of your grandfather’s life. What I want to 
 make you realize, and what I feel it impossible 
 to do justice to, is the character which lay back 
 of all these activities ; the strong moral force, 
 which would always have remained the same, 
 even if your grandfather had been prevented, 
 by some of those accidents to which great 
 commercial enterprises are exposed, from see¬ 
 ing the fruit of his labors. 
 
 It is this character which I would have you 
 understand. It is this character which, if you 
 can but make it your own, you will always 
 cherish as your grandfather’s most precious 
 legacy. H. w. F. 
 
 New Haven, July , 1889. 
 
MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 Henry Farnam 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY W. FARNAM 
 
HENRY FARNAM 
 
 i. 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE 
 
 1803-1825 
 
 D URING the last quarter of the last cen¬ 
 tury, probably between 1778 and 1780, a 
 small company of Connecticut farmers left the 
 pleasant valley of the Thames to settle in the 
 wilderness west of the Hudson. At that time 
 even the eastern part of the State of New 
 York was regarded as the Far West. Much 
 of the land was thickly wooded, and those who 
 made their homes there were true pioneers. 
 They had not only to clear the surface which 
 they expedited to till; they had to face, if neces¬ 
 sary, the attacks of the Indians. It is believed 
 that the emigrants originally intended to set¬ 
 tle in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, though 
 
the execution of any plans was dependent en¬ 
 tirely upon circumstances, and they soon found 
 that they were by no means masters of the sit¬ 
 uation. At one time, probably in Sullivan or 
 Delaware County, they were driven from their 
 homes and obliged to take refuge in a fort. At 
 another time, probably near Neversink, in Sulli¬ 
 van County, they were again brought to a halt 
 by the news that hostile Indians were in their 
 path. In this emergency, as my grandmother 
 used to relate, two of the party volunteered to 
 go on as scouts and verify the report, having 
 first agreed with their comrades that, if they 
 did not return by a certain time, the rest of the 
 company were to assume that they had fallen 
 and retreat. The scouts never came back, and 
 the pioneers were obliged to retrace their steps. 
 One of the two scouts was Joshua, the oldest 
 brother of my grandfather, Jeffrey Amherst 
 Famain. 
 
 His father, Eliab Farnam, had brought with 
 him from Preston, Connecticut, his wife and 
 children and, after a period of involuntary wan¬ 
 dering, had settled in Mount Hope, Orange 
 County, where he spent the remainder of his 
 days. He was joined here a few years after 
 his arrival by Benjamin Tracy of Norwich) 
 
with his wife and eight children, and by Abiel 
 Fry, with his family. The three families were 
 connected by marriage. Eliab Farnam’s wife, 
 Abigail Kellnm, was the sister of Olive Kel- 
 lnm, the wife of Benjamin Tracy, while Abiel 
 Fry’s wife was Abigail Tracy, the sister of 
 Benjamin Tracy. 
 
 The families united only to be soon separated 
 again. The Frys moved further west to Big 
 Flats, on the border line between Chemung 
 and Steuben Counties, while the Traeys moved 
 to the town of Scipio, in Cayuga County, and 
 bought a farm on Poplar Ridge. This sepa¬ 
 ration in space, however, did not mean a loss 
 of interest in one another or the severing of 
 family ties. The Frys took with them to Big 
 Flats Mercy Tracy, the fourth of Benjamin 
 Tracy’s children, and several years later Jeffrey 
 Faruam joined them and spent the years 1792 
 and 1793 with them, working on the farm in 
 summer and going to school in winter. He 
 and his twin brother, George Whitfield, had 
 been born in 1772 and belonged to a family of 
 fourteen children, of whom eight were older 
 and four younger. There soon grew up an in¬ 
 timacy between Jeffrey and his cousin Mercy, 
 and in 1793 they were married, he being then 
 
twenty-one years of age, and his bride, who 
 had been born in 1775, eighteen. The young 
 couple spent the first two years of their mar¬ 
 ried life in Big Flats, and it was here that their 
 oldest child, Lucinda, was born. In 1795 they 
 moved to the town of Scipio, where the rest of 
 their eleven children were born and brought 
 up, and where, in 1842, Jeffrey Farnam died. 
 
 The fragments of a diary, which he kept for 
 many years, enable us to form a pidture of the 
 life he led. It was mainly one of hard work 
 on his farm. The changes in the weather, the 
 condition of the crops, the health of his live 
 stock, are the topics most often mentioned. 
 He was a regular attendant at church. The 
 monotony of his life was occasionally varied 
 by a trip to Auburn or some more distant town 
 to sell produce, purchase supplies, or attend 
 court. This homely record of trivial events is 
 occasionally broken by a few lines from a favor¬ 
 ite hymn or a memorandum regarding the pay¬ 
 ment of interest on a loan. There is nothing 
 exciting in the narrative, but the fadt that it 
 should have been written at all is interesting 
 and significant. 
 
 In 1865 my grandmother removed to Pitts- 
 ford, near Rochester, where she lived with her 
 
son George Washington until her death in 
 1873. Even to the end of her life she was 
 noted for her memory, her clearness of mind, 
 her intelligent interest in public events, and 
 her uniform evenness of temper. When over 
 ninety years of age she would often relate 
 events which occurred in her childhood, recall¬ 
 ing every detail with marvellous accuracy. 
 She was as vigorous in body as in mind, and, 
 when sitting in a chair, never made use of 
 its back. 
 
 It was on the Scipio farm, November 9, 1803, 
 that Henry Farnam, the sixth in a family of 
 eleven children, was born. Hike his brothers, 
 he was possessed of considerable physical 
 strength and showed great fondness for music, 
 the singing in the village church being mainly 
 carried on by the various members of the Far¬ 
 nam family. He displayed, however, at an 
 early age a greater appetite for books and a less 
 eager devotion to boyish sports than the other 
 members of the family. The two subjects that 
 most attracted him were poetry and mathe¬ 
 matics. His memory, like that of his mother, 
 was singularly retentive. Even in his old age 
 he could repeat many verses which he had 
 
 committed as a boy, especially extracts from 
 13 
 
Cowper and Pope, who (perhaps from the acci¬ 
 dent that their works were most accessible to 
 him) were his favorite authors. His aptitude 
 for mathematics was such that, even with the 
 little instruction and the few text-books he was 
 able to command, he mastered the elements of 
 trigonometry and surveying before he was six¬ 
 teen. When President Day’s Algebra was first 
 put into his hands, he read it through with the 
 eager interest with which most boys read a 
 novel, so easy did it seem to him in compari¬ 
 son with the books that he had studied before. 
 Yet he was often obliged to pursue these studies 
 in the evening, when, to save the expense of a 
 candle, he worked by the light of the winter’s 
 fire. 
 
 Farm work was never congenial to him, and 
 while still a boy he was sent to live with Dr. 
 Phineas Hurd, a connection by marriage, with 
 the intention of studying medicine. What he 
 saw of the physician’s life did not, however, 
 arouse in him any ambition to pursue that 
 career, and he returned to his father’s farm to 
 occupy himself with manual labor, to finish his 
 schooling, and later to teach in the village 
 school himself. 
 
 The opportunity for a more profitable use of 
 
his talents soon came, and it is significant that 
 his first professional work was on the earliest 
 of those great highways of commerce between 
 the East and the West to which he was destined 
 in his later life to make such important addi¬ 
 tions. 
 
 The Erie Canal had been begun in 1817, and 
 the chief-engineer of the section west of Roch¬ 
 ester was David Thomas, a Quaker, with whom 
 my father had become acquainted through his 
 relative Davis Hurd, and to whom he applied 
 in 1821 for a place in his surveying party. 
 Mr. Thomas was a man of scholarly attain¬ 
 ments. He was particularly versed in pomo¬ 
 logy and horticulture, and his influence and 
 advice were of great assistance to my father, 
 who always entertained a warm affedtion and 
 respedl for both Mr. Thomas and his wife. 
 Eong after they were gone, he took pleasure in 
 seeing their strong but kindly faces look down 
 upon him from the walls of his study in New 
 Haven, and I remember with particular pleas¬ 
 ure a visit which I once made with him to Mrs. 
 Thomas at Union Springs, 011 Lake Cayuga. 
 Her kindly interest in all his doings, her quaint 
 humor, her lively sallies, and her keen com¬ 
 ments on all subjects, together with a certain 
 
balance of mind and sereneness of temper, fully- 
 explained my father’s regard for this excellent 
 lady. 
 
 My father found in Mr. Thomas a good 
 friend, but, when he sought employment in his 
 party, there was no vacancy excepting in the 
 position of camp cook. Mr. Thomas half jok¬ 
 ingly offered him this office, and to his surprise 
 it was at once accepted. My father knew well 
 that he would not have to fill it long. In a 
 short time he became rodman, and in three 
 months assistant engineer. 
 
 On the return of winter he came back to 
 teach school at Scipio, and in March, 1822, 
 again took his place in the field. An entry in 
 his father’s diary under date of June 11, 1822, 
 says : “ Heard from Henry for the first time 
 since he went away ; heard that he was sick of 
 a fever at Sandy Creek.” 
 
 The work was indeed unhealthy, especially 
 when in the fall of the year he was charged 
 with the construction of a canal connecting the 
 Tonawanda and Oak Orchard creeks. This 
 took him through what has since become one 
 of the most fertile spots in the State, but what 
 was then known as “ the Tonawanda Swamp,” 
 and the exposure to its miasmatic influences 
 
 16 
 
was all but disastrous to his health. When he 
 left the Erie Canal after its completion in the 
 fall of 1824, the malarial poison had so fastened 
 itself upon his system that his family almost 
 despaired of his life. 
 
 In order, if possible, to rid himself of this 
 complaint, he decided to try a change of air and 
 go back to the State from which his parents 
 had in their childhood emigrated. He was now 
 twenty-one years of age. Up to that time his 
 services had, of right, belonged to his father, 
 and he had been able to take the position of 
 engineer, only on the condition of employing a 
 substitute on the farm. He was now his own 
 master, and, after another winter of school¬ 
 teaching, he took advantage of the offer of a 
 position on the Farmington Canal, and moved 
 in the spring of 1825 to Connecticut. 
 
II. 
 
 THE FARMINGTON CANAL AND THE 
 CANAL RAILROAD 
 
 1825-1850 
 
 HE twenty-five years that followed were 
 
 years of great toil, heavy responsibility, 
 and small reward. They were the long appren¬ 
 ticeship of his life. Thejr were the period in 
 which he laid painfully and slowly the founda¬ 
 tions of character and experience upon which 
 his later success was to be built. 
 
 The Farmington Canal had been chartered 
 in 1822, but it was not put under construction 
 until 1825, when Davis Hurd was appointed 
 its chief-engineer. It was as his assistant that 
 my father came to New Haven. Upon the re¬ 
 tirement of Mr. Hurd in 1827 my father was 
 made chief-engineer, and held this office as 
 long as the canal was in operation. The 
 
Farmington Canal was really only the south¬ 
 ern part of a water line which was to extend 
 from Long Island Sound northward into Mas¬ 
 sachusetts and connect with the Connecticut 
 River. The Farmington Canal Company 
 operated the distance from New Haven to the 
 State line ; the Hampshire and Hampden Canal 
 Company operated the rest. The interests of 
 the two companies were thus identified, and 
 their stocks were accordingly united in 1826. 
 The canal was finished as far as Farmington in 
 1828, and in 1829 there was continuous naviga¬ 
 tion through the Hampshire and Hampden 
 Canal to Westfield. The line was finally car¬ 
 ried to Northampton in 1835. 
 
 Unfortunately the company did not prove 
 profitable. I11 1836, ten years after the con¬ 
 solidation, if was in such a condition that it was 
 willing to convey all of its rights and franchises 
 to another organization, known as the New 
 Haven and Northampton Canal Company, on 
 the condition that the latter should assume its 
 debts. The original stock was thus a total loss. 
 The new company put over $120,000 of new 
 capital into the business, but was no more 
 successful than the old ones had been. In 1840 
 the sum sunk by the three companies was esti- 
 
 19 
 
mated, according to a history of the canal pub¬ 
 lished in 1850, at $1,377,156.54. 1 
 
 In 1840 a further change was made in the 
 management of the canal through the efforts 
 of Mr. Joseph B. Sheffield, who had now become 
 a large stockholder, and who virtually con¬ 
 trolled the property for the next five years. 
 Mr. Sheffield had moved to New Haven from 
 Mobile in 1835, and was already a man of large 
 property and extensive business experience. 
 
 The plan for raising money which was now 
 put into operation was one originally proposed 
 by Seth P. Staples. The city of New Haven 
 had, in 1839, voted to loan the canal company 
 $100,000, secured by mortgage, and had made 
 a beginning in the execution of this vote by 
 issuing, in the spring of that year, $20,000 
 worth of bonds. The company now decided 
 to keep the remainder of the $100,000 for 
 extraordinary emergencies, and to meet its 
 ordinary needs by assessments on the stock¬ 
 holders. In default of payment the stock was 
 to be sold by the company. The city thwarted 
 the execution of this plan in the spring of 
 1840 by voting not to issue any more of its 
 bonds; but at a subsequent meeting, held in 
 June of the same year, it partly made up for 
 
this by voting to pay $3,000 a year for the use 
 of the water. 
 
 Means were thus provided for supplying the 
 canal with funds, but its balance-sheet still 
 showed losses. It was able to pay its ordinary 
 expenses out of its earnings, but its extraordi¬ 
 nary outlays necessitated assessments on the 
 stock. Many of the stockholders were unable 
 or unwilling to pay, and their stock was sold. 
 In this way Mr. Sheffield gradually acquired 
 more of it, and in time became almost the sole 
 owner of the canal. The extraordinary outlays 
 were most frequently caused by freshets, which 
 broke the banks and necessitated expensive 
 repairs. Once, however, in 1844, considerable 
 loss was caused by a drought, which suspended 
 navigation entirely. 
 
 Mr. Sheffield found little satisfaction in this 
 kind of business. In 1845 he sold the greater 
 part of his stock, and withdrew from the presi¬ 
 dency and directorate of the company. 
 
 During all this time my father aCted as chief- 
 engineer and superintendent. He was con¬ 
 stantly traveling up and down the line of the 
 canal in his buggy, called hither and thither 
 by sudden and unlooked-for emergencies. By 
 night and by day, in rain and in shine, he re- 
 
sponded promptly to whatever demands were 
 made upon him, and at the same time he was 
 often obliged to provide for raising the funds 
 needed to pay operating expenses. 
 
 The weight of the responsibility which rested 
 upon him and the anxious care with which he 
 bore it are illustrated by a curious fadl. In his 
 later years, long after he had given up adlive 
 business, if by chance his usually sound and 
 health}^ sleep was disturbed by a distressing 
 dream, his imagination almost always reverted 
 to the days of the canal. He would often say, 
 when he awoke in the morning after such a 
 night, “ I have been spending the whole night 
 repairing a breach in the old canal.” 
 
 Great efforts were made to maintain this 
 enterprise. Two of the New Haven banks, 
 the City Bank and the Mechanics’ Bank, had 
 received their charters as the price of their 
 support, and the most skillful and careful 
 management had been applied to the work. 
 Its failure seems to have been due to unavoid¬ 
 able natural causes. In the historical sketch 
 of the canal, published under Mr. Sheffield’s 
 direction in 1850, two fadls are advanced to ac¬ 
 count for the generally unprofitable character 
 of New England canals. One was that they 
 
could never get any large share of the passen¬ 
 ger travel; the other was that, as they never 
 carried on transportation themselves but sim¬ 
 ply collected tolls, it required a much larger 
 volume of business to pay dividends than 
 would be required by a railroad. Besides 
 these causes, the growing competition of the 
 railroads had, at the end of this period, its part 
 in preventing the canals from sharing in the 
 increasing business of the State. 
 
 The problem which confronted the stock¬ 
 holders of the canal in 1845 was, therefore, to 
 make some use of their property which would 
 prevent it from becoming a total loss, since 
 twenty years of experience had demonstrated 
 that a canal would not pay. The first sug¬ 
 gestion of a feasible plan for accomplishing 
 this end was made, according to Mr. Sheffield’s 
 statement, by my father, who proposed that a 
 railroad should be built along the line of the 
 canal, and the canal itself abandoned. This 
 measure would evidently save the expense of 
 acquiring the right of way and of doing a 
 great deal of the grading and would, at the 
 same time, substitute for the antiquated canal 
 a more efficient means of communication. 
 
 Mr. Sheffield brought this idea to public at- 
 
 23 
 
tention by an anonymous communication in 
 one of the New Haven newspapers in the 
 spring of 1845, his intention being to make 
 the road a new route to Hartford by waj^ of 
 Plainville. He was, at the time, actively en¬ 
 gaged in organizing the New York and New 
 Haven Railroad, but he was so much impressed 
 with the advantages of this plan for using the 
 canal that he bought back, at an enhanced 
 price, the stock which he had sold in 1845. 
 He again became president of the company, 
 and in February, 1846, the directors voted to 
 adopt the plan. My father continued to act 
 as chief-engineer and superintendent of the 
 company. Work was begun upon the rail¬ 
 road in January, 1847, an< ^ pushed rapidly for¬ 
 ward under his direction. In January, 1848, 
 the road was opened to Plainville, and in 
 1850, to Tariffville and Collinsville. Most of 
 the capital for this enterprise was furnished 
 by Mr. Sheffield. 
 
 The new road had, of course, to meet the 
 competition of the New Haven and Hartford 
 road, and the rivalry between the capitals of 
 the State led to some trying complications, 
 into the details of which it is needless to en¬ 
 ter. Suffice it to say that Mr. Sheffield leased 
 
the Northampton Railroad in 1850 to the New 
 York and New Haven Railroad, on the under¬ 
 standing that he was to extend the line north¬ 
 ward to Springfield, if desired. While the bill 
 for securing the necessary charter for the ex¬ 
 tension was before the Massachusetts legisla¬ 
 ture, and after the contract had been made for 
 building the road to the State line, the New 
 Haven and Hartford road succeeded in making 
 a contract with the New York road which 
 made all of Mr. Sheffield’s work unnecessary 
 and entirely blocked his plans. Disappointed 
 in those whom he had trusted, Mr. Sheffield 
 settled with his contractors, sold his stock in 
 the New York road, resigned from the direct¬ 
 orate, and gave up for the time all aCtive inter¬ 
 est in railroading in the Hast. At the same 
 time my father resigned his position in the 
 New Haven and Northampton Company, and 
 both men were now at liberty to turn their at¬ 
 tention to a field which offered a better oppor¬ 
 tunity for the use of their talents. 
 
 Though continuously employed by the 
 Northampton Company during a quarter of a 
 century, my father had found time to take an 
 adtive part in the inauguration of the road to 
 New York. The road from New Haven to 
 
 25 
 
Hartford had been chartered in 1833 and 
 opened to Hartford in 1839, bnt communica¬ 
 tion with the metropolis was still kept np by 
 means of steamboats. The first suggestion of 
 a road to New York seems to have been made 
 by Mr. Sheffield, who was a director in the 
 New Haven and Hartford road, and who pre¬ 
 sented the idea to his fellow-diredtor, Judge 
 Hitchcock. The latter regarded the scheme 
 as visionary bnt, at Mr. Sheffield’s solicitation, 
 obtained in 1844 a charter incorporating, 
 among other men, Mr. Sheffield and Mr. Far- 
 nam as a company to build the road. When 
 the books were opened for subscriptions, Mr. 
 Sheffield put down his name for one hundred 
 shares, Judge Hitchcock for ten, and my 
 father for twenty. Beyond this, not a single 
 share was taken; the plan was still regarded 
 by the mass of the people as visionary. After 
 further efforts to get support from capitalists, 
 and after subscribing more himself, Mr. Shef¬ 
 field went in 1845 to Europe, in order, if pos¬ 
 sible, to interest foreign capitalists, especially 
 the firm of Baring Bros., in the enterprise, 
 while my father was doing some preliminary 
 engineering work on the line. Mr. Sheffield 
 says in his memoranda : 
 
 26 
 
“In the meantime, my friend Mr. Henry Farnam, 
 with blank deeds (prepared by Judge Hitchcock), with 
 his accustomed zeal and energy, had taken Twining’s 
 Report, and with his own horse and buggy had travelled 
 the whole line and had successfully negotiated for the 
 right of way for about three hundred out of the four 
 hundred and twenty claims between West River at New 
 Haven and the State line ; the others were cases of 
 minors, non-residents, etc. For his own time and 
 services, not even for his own expenses, did Mr. Far¬ 
 nam make any charge whatever.’’ 
 
 Though prevented by his work on the canal 
 from taking any further part in the New York 
 road, my father had the satisfaction of having 
 been one of its original incorporators and of 
 having done much of the work preparatory to 
 its construction. 
 
 This period of my father’s life was beset 
 with many discouragements. He had to work 
 hard in the service of a company which was a 
 constant drain upon its owners and the cause 
 of much contention and complaint on the part 
 of New Haven people. He had done this with 
 no material reward beyond a small salary. As 
 Mr. Sheffield says, in speaking of the losses of 
 New Haven people by the canal: 
 
 “ No man in Connecticut lost as much as Mr. Far¬ 
 nam, for he lost not only all that he had invested in 
 
 27 
 
its stock (which was all he had saved of his hard earn¬ 
 ings in former years), but he lost ten or twelve years 
 of the prime of life, when he might elsewhere have 
 received large salaries as engineer.” 
 
 These years were hard, and yet they brought 
 some compensating advantages. In the first 
 place, my father won the esteem of all his ac¬ 
 quaintances for his skill as an engineer, for 
 his judgment in business, for his honesty and 
 nobility of character, and for his liberality. 
 His standing in the community is seen in the 
 following resolutions, that were passed at a 
 meeting of the stockholders of the New 
 Haven and Northampton Company, upon his 
 retirement in 1850: 
 
 “ Whereas, Mr. Henry Farnam has been employed 
 for the last twenty-five years in connection with the 
 works of internal improvement in the Farmington 
 Valley, first, for eleven years of this time, in the ser¬ 
 vice of the Farmington Canal Company, and for the 
 remainder as Superintendent and Chief Engineer of 
 the New Haven and Northampton Company, from its 
 organization in 1836 ; and 
 
 Whereas, having brought to a termination the 
 public works which have been constructing under 
 his supervision, he now tenders his resignation to 
 this Company : 
 
 28 
 
Be it resolved , That for the uniform fidelity with 
 which Mr. Farnam has performed all the duties de¬ 
 volving upon him ; for the unimpeachable integrity 
 with which the many thousand dollars, that have 
 passed through his hands, have been expended ; for 
 the unshaken confidence with which he carried for¬ 
 ward these works under very great difficulties ; and 
 for the heavy personal responsibility which he often 
 assumed to maintain the works, when otherwise they 
 would have been sacrificed, this Company entertain 
 the highest consideration, and that the President be 
 directed to express, in writing, to Mr. Farnam our 
 sentiments to this effeCt, together with our congratu¬ 
 lation upon the triumphant success of the enterprise 
 in which he has been so long engaged. 
 
 Resolved , That the President and Directors of the 
 New York and New Haven Company be requested to 
 furnish Mr. Farnam with a Director's ticket during 
 the continuance of their leases. 
 
 Resolved , That the President and Directors be au¬ 
 thorized and directed to procure some proper testimo¬ 
 nial of our sense of the services Mr. Farnam has 
 rendered this Company.” 
 
 The canal was also the means of bringing 
 him into close personal relations with a num¬ 
 ber of men npon whose friendship he looked 
 back in later years with unmixed satisfaction, 
 and whose example was undoubtedly of great 
 influence in molding his own character. 
 
 29 
 
Foremost among these was James Hillhouse, 
 whose ereCt carriage, straight nose, high cheek 
 bones, and swarthy complexion had made him 
 familiarly known as the Old Sachem. His 
 portrait hangs fittingly above my father’s in 
 Alumni Hall, and it was always a delight to my 
 father, that he should have built the home of 
 his old age upon the street which bears the 
 name of his early friend and benefactor. In the 
 year in which my father came to New Haven, 
 Mr. Hillhouse was the superintendent of the 
 Farmington Canal and one of its directors. 
 It fell to my father’s lot, therefore, to make 
 many journeys in his company, while the line 
 was being surveyed and the work pushed for¬ 
 ward. This contaCI in business soon grew into 
 a relation of mutual confidence and friend¬ 
 ship. Mr. Hillhouse was at that time in his 
 seventy-first year. He had sat in Congress, 
 he had been four times eleCted to the Federal 
 Senate, and he had earned a wide reputation 
 as a financier while aCting as Commissioner of 
 the Connecticut School Fund. He was, until 
 the day of his death, Treasurer of Yale Col¬ 
 lege. He has left a noble monument of his 
 public spirit and foresight in the inner row of 
 trees upon the Green, and in the avenue called 
 
 30 
 
by his name, which he cut through his farm 
 and planted with elms. He was universally 
 respedted and loved for his ability, his integ¬ 
 rity, and his public spirit. 
 
 Mr. Hillliouse died in 1832. My father en¬ 
 joyed his acquaintance, therefore, only seven 
 years; but the friendship of this noble man, 
 nearly fifty years his senior, was an inspira¬ 
 tion and a help throughout his life. 
 
 It was during this period, also, that my 
 father became acquainted with Joseph H- Shef¬ 
 field, whose name will occur frequently in 
 these pages. Mr. Sheffield was a man cast in 
 a classic mold ; a man of impressive appear¬ 
 ance, clean-cut, handsome features, vigorous 
 health, and a clear mind. He was a thorough 
 business man, skilled in the details of com¬ 
 mercial life, yet large in all his views, and en¬ 
 dowed with that rare faculty of being able to 
 grasp any business combination in its remoter 
 bearings. Mr. Sheffield and my father sup¬ 
 plemented each other admirably in the work 
 which they subsequently carried out, the for¬ 
 mer generally attending to all matters of 
 finance, the latter dealing with the practical 
 work in the field. The business relations 
 which had begun on the old canal were des- 
 
tined to grow into a partnership which led to 
 great enterprises and the handling of many 
 millions of dollars. Yet in all these compli¬ 
 cated and often trying affairs, no disagreement 
 ever seems to have arisen between the partners, 
 and to their commercial relations were added 
 an intimacy and friendship which nothing ever 
 marred. Even in the retirement of their de¬ 
 clining }^ears, this same harmonious eo-opera- 
 tion continued; both finally established their 
 homes upon the same street, and both found 
 one of their greatest pleasures in their bene¬ 
 factions to Yale College. 
 
 Their relations to one another are well epit¬ 
 omized by Mr. Sheffield in a letter dated July 
 9, 1855, enclosing a final settlement of the ac¬ 
 counts relative to the building of the Chicago 
 and Rock Island Railroad, in which he says: 
 
 “ In closing these accounts of millions between us, 
 it must be a pleasing reflection to you, as it is to me, 
 that we have worked together with mutual confidence, 
 faith and zeal, and that we amicably close them with 
 the same kind feeling, high respect, and confidence 
 with which we commenced, some dozen years ago.” 
 
 Finally it was during these years that my 
 father laid the foundations of that home in 
 which he found such solace and comfort, and 
 
 32 
 
in which his presence was a constant bless¬ 
 ing. 
 
 At the time of his marriage, in 1839, he was 
 thirty-six years old. My mother, Ann Sophia 
 Whitman, of Farmington, was thirteen years 
 younger. All of his five children were born 
 in the house on Chapel street into which he 
 moved soon after his marriage, and from which, 
 even in the many changes of residence which 
 he subsequently made, he never parted. 
 
 Though he possessed little in the way of 
 accumulated property at the time of his retire¬ 
 ment from the Northampton Company, and 
 though he had always been dependent upon a 
 small salary for his support, he was known, 
 even then, as one who gave as liberally to pub¬ 
 lic objects as his means would allow, and whose 
 hand was always open to help the poor. 
 
 33 
 
III. 
 
 RAILROAD ENTERPRISES IN THE 
 WEST 
 
 1850-1863 
 
 HE period that follows was in sharp cou- 
 
 A- trast with that just passed. Twenty-five 
 years had now been devoted to the service of 
 one company. During the next six years my 
 father had charge of the construction of four 
 railroads ; he designed and built the first bridge 
 over the Mississippi River; and he became the 
 president of the leading railroad system of the 
 North-west. 
 
 Quick to appreciate the importance which 
 railroads were to play in the economic develop¬ 
 ment of the country, he had given proof of his 
 foresight in being one of the incorporators of 
 the New York road, and in suggesting the New 
 Haven and Northampton Railroad as a substi- 
 
 34 
 
tute for the canal. He showed equal prescience 
 in seeing that the great field for building 
 railroads lay in the West, and that those who 
 wished to operate upon a large scale would find 
 there abundant opportunities. 
 
 His first visit to the West was made in the 
 fall of 1850, when he went out at the invitation 
 of Mr. William B. Ogden. Mr. Ogden was 
 president of the Galena and Chicago Union 
 Railroad, which was then in operation only as 
 far as Elgin, and he hoped to interest my 
 father in his enterprises. 
 
 Chicago was at that time a town of less than 
 30,000 inhabitants, but little larger than New 
 Haven, which had about 22,500. It had been 
 incorporated thirteen years before, when it was 
 a village of 4,000. It was even then an un¬ 
 substantial settlement, built on swampy land 
 about the almost stagnant strip of water known 
 as the Chicago River, admirably located for the 
 terminus of steamboat navigation on the lake, 
 but otherwise possessing few attractions. 
 
 The only railroad entering Chicago was the 
 fragment of the Galena and Chicago Union, 
 forty-two miles long. Since 1848, the Illinois 
 and Michigan Canal had connected the city 
 with the Illinois River at La Salle, and so put 
 
 35 
 
it into communication with the Mississippi, 
 before there was any railroad connection with 
 the seaboard. Those who visited the city 
 from the Bast could travel by rail no further 
 than New Buffalo, on Lake Michigan, about 
 forty-eight miles across the lake. The Michi¬ 
 gan Southern Railroad had proceeded no fur¬ 
 ther westward than Hillsdale, about one hun¬ 
 dred and sixty-seven miles from Chicago. 
 
 My father was much impressed with the 
 possibilities of the country that he saw. Before 
 committing himself to any projeCt, however, he 
 made a second visit in the same year, this time 
 in company with Mr. Sheffield, and now pushed 
 as far as Rock Island, on the Mississippi River. 
 Rock Island already boasted of being the ter¬ 
 minus of a railroad, the Rock Island and La 
 Salle, which had been chartered in 1847. But 
 the road existed only 011 paper. 
 
 Mr. Sheffield and my father saw at once that 
 it would be hopeless to make much of this road, 
 unless the charter were so amended as to allow 
 it to run through to Chicago, instead of stopping 
 at La Salle and there connecting with the 
 canal; but they at once agreed that, if a favor¬ 
 able amendment to the charter could be ob¬ 
 tained, they would contraCl to build the road. 
 
 36 
 
In looking back over this period, we are apt to 
 think it odd that a railroad was planned from 
 Rock Island to La Salle, before one was con¬ 
 structed from Chicago to La Salle, and that the 
 road from Chicago to Rock Island should have 
 been projected, before there was a single rail 
 connecting Chicago with the East. But the 
 idea seemed then to prevail that, where water 
 communication was possible, railroads were 
 unnecessary ; hence the road between La Salle 
 and Rock Island was regarded as a mere exten¬ 
 sion of the canal, while the road from Chicago 
 to Rock Island was a mere extension of the 
 water communication which Chicago had with 
 the East through the Great Lakes. We find 
 the same anomaly in Connecticut, where the 
 road from New Haven to Hartford was built 
 before the road from New York to New Haven, 
 and where Mr. Sheffield’s plan of running a 
 railroad to New York, parallel to the steamboat 
 route of the Sound, was regarded as visionary. 
 As matters finally turned out, Chicago did get 
 her railroad communication with the East, be¬ 
 fore the rails had connedled her with the Missis¬ 
 sippi, but this was almost bj 7 accident. 
 
 The Michigan Southern Railroad had come 
 to a standstill at Hillsdale; its financial con- 
 
 37 
 
dition was very weak, and but four miles of 
 road had been built in 1850. Mr. John B. 
 Jervis, who was then chief-engineer of the road, 
 wrote to my father on the 4th of December, 
 1850, offering him the position of superinten¬ 
 dent of that portion of the road which was 
 already in operation. Both the original letter 
 and my father’s reply have been preserved, and 
 they show that this was the beginning of the 
 acquaintance of the two men. My father’s 
 answer, which was brief, said that he could not 
 accept the post, but that he would explain his 
 reasons for declining, when he should see Mr. 
 Jervis in New York. The upshot of their con¬ 
 versation, when they met, seems to have been 
 that my father, while declining to superintend 
 the part of the road that was then built, said 
 that he was quite willing to build that portion 
 which was yet unfinished, and furnish the cap¬ 
 ital for doing it. The proposition was thought 
 to be a daring one, for, on the one hand, there 
 was a considerable jealousy of eastern men in 
 the West, which caused many obstacles to be 
 thrown in their path, and, on the other hand, 
 there was a great distrust of western enterprises 
 among eastern capitalists. Railroads which 
 are now regarded as sound and conservative 
 
investments were then considered wild specu¬ 
 lations. 
 
 The proposition, however bold, was too good 
 to be rejected. The contract was made with 
 the firm of Sheffield and Farnam, work was be¬ 
 gun, and in March, 1852, the first locomotive 
 entered Chicago from the Hast over the rails of 
 the Michigan Southern road. 2 
 
 Shortly afterward, the Michigan Central 
 Railroad, which had been racing with the Mich¬ 
 igan Southern, also entered the city, and under 
 the influence of this stimulus the population 
 increased, the price of real estate rose, and 
 Chicago was in a whirl of excitement. My 
 father used to say that building a railroad 
 into Chicago would be like “ tapping lake Erie 
 imder a forty foot head,” and his prediction 
 was amply verified. 
 
 The coustruCtion of the Michigan Southern 
 Railroad was but the preface to the main work 
 for which my father went to Chicago. The 
 task that now confronted him was, first to 
 build a road from Chicago to the Mississippi, 
 and then to carry it further, and open the way 
 for the first railroad across the continent. 
 
 The firm of Sheffield and Farnam had agreed 
 to build the road from Chicago to Rock Island 
 
 39 
 
and furnish the capital, provided the charter of 
 the Rock Island and La Salle Railroad could 
 be suitably amended. This was not easily ac¬ 
 complished, for the canal interests were strong 
 in the State, and naturally opposed a railroad 
 which would parallel the canal from La Salle 
 to Chicago. It was evident at an earl}r day, 
 that the charter could not be obtained without 
 some compromise. In a letter written January 
 22, 1851, to the Hon. James Grant, while the 
 bill was still before the legislature, my father 
 says : 
 
 ‘ 1 Be sure to get the charter to make the road on the 
 shortest route from L,a Salle to Chicago, even if they 
 insist 011 your paying tolls on freights taken from 
 points along the canal.” 
 
 Through the efforts of Judge Grant the char¬ 
 ter was finally obtained, though burdened with 
 the payment of tribute to the canal. During 
 the open season, when canal navigation was 
 carried on, the road had to pay tolls on all busi¬ 
 ness taken from or destined to any point on the 
 Illinois and Michigan Canal or twenty miles 
 west of its termination at La Salle. This was 
 subject to certain limitations. The road was 
 to be released, as soon as any other road carried 
 free of tolls, and it was also to be released, when- 
 
 40 
 
ever the interest on the State debt should be 
 provided for. On the other hand, the road was 
 to obtain the right of way through canal lands 
 and State lands, and its taxes were to be de¬ 
 ducted from its tolls. The charter once ob¬ 
 tained, in the beginning of 1851, the construc¬ 
 tion of the road was pushed with great energy. 
 The railroad was re-christened as the Chicago 
 and Rock Island Railroad. In April, 1851, 
 John B. Jervis was chosen its president, and 
 William Jervis, its chief-engineer. In August 
 the surveys had been completed ; before the 
 end of the month the terms of the contraCt with 
 Sheffield and Farnam had been agreed upon, 
 and on September 17th they were approved by 
 the Board of Directors. In the beginning of 
 the following spring, April 10, 1852, work was 
 begun ; on the 22d of February, 1854, the first 
 train passed over the rails from Chicago to 
 Rock Island, and on the 10th of July the road 
 was formally turned over to the company, some 
 eighteen months before the time specified in the 
 contraCt. 
 
 The terms of the contraCt are interesting as 
 showing, how lunch was done by the contractors, 
 and how little, comparatively, by the company. 
 The former agreed to bnild and equip the entire 
 
 4i 
 
line for the gross sum of $3,987,688. Of this 
 sum $2,000,000 were to be paid in seven per 
 cent, bonds at par, and $500,000 in cash at the 
 rate of $25,000 a month, while the balance of 
 $1,487,688 was to be paid in certificates of stock 
 at par, bearing ten per cent, interest and con¬ 
 vertible into stock on the completion of the 
 road. 
 
 The effedl of the opening of traffic was what 
 might have been expedted from the results seen 
 in the case of the Michigan Southern Railroad. 
 The rush of travel was so great that, even be¬ 
 fore the completion of the road, it was necessary 
 to increase the equipment. In this way the 
 final expense was brought to about $4,500,000. 
 
 The report of the directors for 1853, made 
 before the road was completed, says : 
 
 1 ‘ It was originally supposed that one daily through 
 train, with one additional train, between Chicago and 
 Peru, would accommodate the passenger business, and 
 that the same number of freight trains would do all the 
 freight business for the first year after the road was 
 completed, but there are two daily passenger trains 
 running between Chicago and Peru, and one to the end 
 of the track, one daily freight train to the end of the 
 track, and an extra train as often as the machinery can 
 be spared to run it, besides the regular construction 
 trains.” 
 
 42 
 
The original contract had provided for eigh¬ 
 teen locomotives of from sixteen to eighteen 
 tons each, twelve passenger cars, one hundred 
 and fifty covered freight cars, one hundred 
 platform cars, etc. But the rush of business 
 was so great that this allowance had to be con¬ 
 stantly exceeded, as the work progressed, and 
 on the ioth of July the road had twenty-eight 
 locomotives, twenty-four first-class passenger 
 cars, four second-class passenger cars, one hun¬ 
 dred and seventy covered freight cars, one hun¬ 
 dred and seventy platform cars, and other 
 things in proportion. In addition to this, the 
 president and executive committee had al¬ 
 ready contracted for ten additional locomotives, 
 while at the time of making the report, it was 
 proposed to buy eight more. The report well 
 says : 
 
 “ When it is recollected that three years ago, when 
 the road was located, a large portion of the line tra¬ 
 versed was then open prairie, and that even now only a 
 small part of the country along the line of the road is 
 under cultivation, and seeing the business already de¬ 
 veloped, it is almost impossible for any one who has 
 any regard for his judgment, to make an estimate suffi¬ 
 ciently large to meet the increase of business.” 
 
 43 
 
During the first half year from July io, 1854, 
 to January 10, 1855, the earnings exceeded the 
 running expenses by $270,894, or nearly nine 
 per cent, on the capital stock. During the five 
 months ending December, the road carried 168, 
 825 passengers and 49,735.82 tons of freight. 
 
 While the main line of the Chicago and Rock 
 Island Railroad was being constructed, my 
 father was engaged in pushing a branch south¬ 
 wards to Peoria. This branch was organized 
 as a separate corporation, the Peoria and Bu¬ 
 reau Valley Railroad, and joined the Rock 
 Island road at Bureau JunCtion. It ran through 
 a large portion of the fertile valley of the Illi¬ 
 nois River, and thus became a valuable feeder 
 to the Rock Island road, to which it Avas leased 
 in 1854. It was the intention from the begin¬ 
 ning to put the two roads under the same man¬ 
 agement, and it AA^as merely as a matter of con¬ 
 venience that a separate company was organ¬ 
 ized. This branch was pushed through with 
 the same rapidity that Avas shoAA’n in the con¬ 
 struction of the main line. The contraCt Avas 
 signed July 4, 1853, and in less than a year 
 the road Avas completed and turned over to the 
 lessor company. The firm Avhich undertook 
 this contraCt included, besides Mr. Sheffield, 
 
 44 
 
Mr. Farnam, Mr. William Walcott, and Mr. 
 T. C. Durant. Thus before the first six months 
 of 1854 had passed, a road had been constructed 
 from Chicago to the Mississippi, and a branch 
 had been run as far as Peoria in the central 
 part of the State. 
 
 The completion of this undertaking was 
 justly regarded as of the first importance to 
 the development, both of the State of Illinois, 
 and of the whole country, and was commem¬ 
 orated by two celebrations. The first, which 
 was a local affair, was conducted by the people 
 of Rock Island and took the form of an excur¬ 
 sion over the main line of the road on Febru¬ 
 ary 22, 1854. The guests, on arriving at Rock 
 Island, were received by the city council and 
 entertained at a banquet. A number of prom¬ 
 inent men, my father among the number, made 
 speeches on this occasion, and in the evening 
 there were fire-works and an illumination. 
 The following day the guests returned to Chi¬ 
 cago. 
 
 The other celebration, which took place in 
 June, was a national affair, and was managed by 
 the firm of Sheffield and Farnam on a scale 
 proportional to the magnitude of their achieve¬ 
 ment. The participants, to the number of 
 
 45 
 
about one thousand, came from all parts of 
 the country and were carried by the contractors 
 over the railroad from Chicago to Rock Island 
 and thence by steamboat up the Mississippi 
 to Fort Snelliug and back. Six large steamers 
 were barely equal to the accommodation of 
 the party, and six days were spent on the 
 excursion. 
 
 The details of both of these celebrations, 
 particularly of the second, which is still re¬ 
 membered with pleasure by many of those 
 who had the good fortune to take part in it, 
 are interesting, but to give them here would 
 fill a space out of all proportion to their im¬ 
 portance in my father’s 'career. A more cir¬ 
 cumstantial account of them will be found in 
 an appendix. 
 
 In those days my father had little time for 
 festivities of any kind. His vacations were 
 few, and there was so much work to be done 
 that every moment seemed precious. Before 
 the Rock Island Railroad had been completed, 
 he and his associates had already made their 
 plans, first for a bridge across the Mississippi 
 River, and then for a railroad to run through 
 the State of Iowa to the Missouri. The bridge 
 was built by an independent company, of which 
 
 46 
 
my father was president. He also designed 
 the bridge, and superintended its construction. 
 It was finished in April, 1855. The original 
 bridge, which was of wood and ran across the 
 middle of the island, has since been replaced 
 by an iron structure, which crosses its lower 
 point. 
 
 The execution of these projects was beset 
 with many difficulties, with more, in fact, than 
 had been met with in the construction of the 
 Rock Island Railroad. For the bridge, which 
 was the first to cross the Mississippi, at once 
 provoked that conflict of interests which has 
 been going on ever since. It also necessi¬ 
 tated the solution of some very important legal 
 problems. A glance at a map of the United 
 States shows that most of the large water¬ 
 ways run from North to South. Most of the 
 trunk railroads, however, follow the direction 
 of the migration of population along the par¬ 
 allels of latitude, and run from East to West. 
 The construction of a bridge across the Missis¬ 
 sippi River brought these two lines of travel 
 into open conflict, a conflict which was aggra¬ 
 vated by the faCt that they were respectively 
 championed by the two foremost cities of the 
 West, whose commercial rivalry has not yet 
 
 47 
 
ceased. The people of St. Louis were largely 
 interested in steamboat navigation, and at 
 once complained that the bridge was a great 
 hindrance to this traffic. The Chicago people, 
 on the other hand, felt that the growth of 
 their city depended upon their being the 
 gate through which all intercourse between 
 the western prairies and the East must be 
 conducted. 
 
 There soon began a series of persistent at¬ 
 tacks upon the bridge, made by those who were 
 interested in steamboat navigation. Steamers 
 would collide with the bridge and then claim 
 damages from the company. In May, 1856, a 
 boat ran into the bridge and set fire to it, burn¬ 
 ing away a considerable portion of the trestle 
 work, and it was strongly suspedled at the 
 time that the boat, which had already been 
 disabled by a collision with a ferry-boat, had 
 been run into the bridge intentionally in order 
 to injure it. 
 
 An article published in the Chicago Times 
 of May 22, 1859, thus describes the spirit of 
 the St. Louis people: 
 
 ‘ ‘ Her common council has made large appropria¬ 
 tions, her board of trade have added to these, and her 
 citizens have contributed time and money without 
 
 48 
 
stint to maintain the most vexatious suits in every 
 court jurisdiction against one of these railroad com¬ 
 panies ; she has kept in constant employment a corps 
 of engineers to survey and examine the Mississippi 
 at every point at which bridges have been pro¬ 
 posed, and she has paid out liberal fees to the most 
 conspicuous engineers of the country for opinions ad¬ 
 verse to these bridges in their plans, location, and sup¬ 
 posed effect upon the commerce of the river. Her 
 steamboat owners and pilots have been ready on 
 every occasion to furnish testimony against these 
 bridges. The Rock Island Bridge Company has been 
 left to fight the battle single-handed—-to fight the 
 battle against the capital, intellect, and party feeling 
 of her citizens, which have been concentrated upon 
 this single objedt.” 
 
 To these vexatious and annoying difficulties, 
 caused by the a&ion of the St. Louis people 
 and the river pilots, was added a legal compli¬ 
 cation of no small magnitude, for, while the 
 bridge was still under construction, the United 
 States government sued for an injunction 
 against it. The case was argued in the first 
 instance by the attorney - general of the 
 United States and Mr. Hoyne, district attor¬ 
 ney for the Northern District of Illinois, for 
 the complainants, and by Mr. Reverdy John¬ 
 son, Mr. Sergeant, and Mr. N. B. Judd for the 
 defendants. There were two points made by 
 
 49 
 
tlie United States in its complaint. One was 
 that the bridge traversed land reserved by the 
 government for military purposes, and that 
 the State of Illinois, therefore, had no right to 
 allow it to be condemned by a private corpora¬ 
 tion. The other was that the construction of 
 the bridge over the west channel of the river 
 would materially obstruct steamboat naviga¬ 
 tion. The first complaint, therefore, was 
 based upon the rights of the United States as 
 a proprietor, and the second, upon the power of 
 Congress to regulate inter-state commerce. 
 The case was ably argued on both sides, and 
 ended in 1855 in a verdiCt in favor of the 
 Bridge Company. Thus the legal rights of 
 the Bridge Company were maintained, but 
 it required constant vigilance for many years 
 to proteCt it against the attacks of its enemies. 
 
 The railroad through Iowa was also built 
 under great difficulties. It was first chartered 
 in February, 1853, as the Mississippi and Mis¬ 
 souri Railroad. It was from the outset a part 
 of the Rock Island system, and contraCts ex¬ 
 isted between it and the Bridge Company, as 
 well as between the Bridge Company and the 
 Rock Island Railroad, which made all three 
 
 corporations but links in one chain. The rail¬ 
 s' 5 
 
road was, however, a separate corporation, and 
 had as such to manage its own affairs. My 
 father was the leading spirit of this enterprise, 
 but unfortunately he could no longer command 
 the services of Mr. Sheffield, who felt that he 
 had arrived at a period of life at which he was 
 justified in retiring from adtive business, 
 though he continued to aid the enterprise lib¬ 
 erally by subscribing to its funds. Mr. Shef¬ 
 field had been an invaluable partner. His high 
 sense of honor, sound judgment, and financial 
 skill, gave my father perfedt confidence that 
 the purely financial part of their enterprises 
 would be well managed, and enabled him to 
 devote his undivided attention to the pradtical 
 work of construction. His partner in this new 
 undertaking was Mr. Thomas C. Durant, a 
 man with whom he had already been associated 
 in the construdtion of the Peoria and Bureau 
 Valley Railroad, but whose virtues were not 
 those for which Mr. Sheffield was conspicuous. 
 Other difficulties, which uo foresight could have 
 avoided, showed themselves at an early day. 
 It was expedted, that the counties through 
 which the new road passed would aid it by 
 issuing their bonds and subscribing to its stock. 
 Two obstacles, however, presented themselves 
 
to this mode of raising funds. In the first 
 place, there were rival companies, which were 
 seeking to gain the support of the people of 
 Iowa, and in the second place, the people them¬ 
 selves could not command much capital. The 
 correspondence of Mr. Hiram Price, who was 
 sent through the State in 1853 as general agent 
 of the railroad for the purpose of procuring the 
 right of way, obtaining subscriptions, and do¬ 
 ing any other business that might be necessary 
 in locating and establishing the line of the road, 
 gives us a graphic picture of the difficulties 
 of the task. 
 
 In his letter of September 3d, he says : 
 
 “ At Kanesville, found the people wild for a railroad, 
 but partially committed in favor of the Air Line. I 
 send you the resolutions. I spent two days among 
 them ; conversed full}' with all their prominent men ; 
 held a public meeting which was well attended. 
 
 They insist, and I suggest to you the propriety of a 
 survey at once. The Air Line has made a survey, and 
 promised them to commence work this fall. I am 
 satisfied, that this is all for effedt, but you have no idea 
 of the state of feeling through this country. The other 
 companies promise them everything. ... It will 
 be remembered, that every county between Iowa City 
 and Fort Desmoiues had pledged their support to the 
 Lyons, before I started from Davenport.” 
 
 52 
 
On the 20th of August he had reached Fort 
 Desmoines, from which he writes : 
 
 “ I have called public meetings in different places, 
 and succeeded in passing resolutions leaving a county 
 subscription to be applied to either road, as they may 
 deem best. This is all I could possibly accomplish, 
 and considering the rabid feeling that exists along the 
 line for the Lyons road and against ours, I think this 
 is much. . . . But to-night I am, as you see, at 
 
 Fort Desmoines, and a more crazy and unreasonable 
 people I have never seen than a majority of them are. 
 A few are with us, but the current sets strongly, often 
 
 irresistibly, the other way.The counties 
 
 between this and Iowa City are not able to take one- 
 third of the stock. The whole taxable property of 
 Iowa, Powashiek, and Jasper Counties is only $80,000 ; 
 the distance by a straight line through these counties 
 is seventy-eight miles.” 
 
 Iu a letter of September 20th, from Des- 
 ruoiues, he writes : 
 
 ‘‘The Polk County election is over and decided, so 
 far as that vote can decide, in favor of the Lyons road. 
 At your distance, you no doubt think it very strange 
 that men professing common sense should adt so, but 
 you talk to them, and you will receive for an answer, 
 
 ‘ I signed the petition ; I said I would vote for it, before 
 I heard of the Davenport road ; I believe the Lyons 
 road,’ and a score of other just such answers, some of 
 which displa} r not much sense, and some of them not 
 much honesty.” 
 
 S3 
 
These difficulties were gradual^ overcome, 
 and in May, 1855, the firm of Farnam and 
 Durant took the contrail for building the Mis¬ 
 sissippi and Missouri Railroad from Daven¬ 
 port to Iowa City, a distance of fifty-five miles, 
 together with a branch to Muscatine, all to be 
 finished and equipped by July 1, 1856. But 
 the troubles of the company were not yet ended. 
 There was a great stringency in the money 
 market, and, as Mr. Sheffield wrote in January, 
 1856, it was hard to get money, even in New 
 York, on better terms than fifteen per cent, per 
 annum. Mr. Durant, writing February 28, 
 1856, says: 
 
 “ We are paying one per cent, per month and a com¬ 
 mission for money. I am paying the same rather than 
 sell stock.” 
 
 Difficulty was also experienced in finding a 
 market for the securities of the road. A letter 
 of December 8, 1855, from Mr. Durant, states 
 that he had offered Ward and Co., brokers 
 of New York, a contract by which, if they dis¬ 
 posed of $250,000 worth of Mississippi and 
 Missouri bonds, in addition to those taken by 
 Mr. Sheffield and others, at $75, they would 
 realize a commission of $5,000 and a bonus of 
 
 54 
 
$25,000 in the stock of the company. Yet they 
 were not willing to accept the offer, and Decem¬ 
 ber 23, 1855, he writes that, though Ward 
 and Co. had been offered a commission of two 
 per cent., instead of one per cent, as at first, 
 they still hesitated. “ It is impossible to inspire 
 people with confidence,” he writes January 12, 
 1856, “in the enterprise.” 
 
 The condition of the bank money of the 
 country was also a serious obstacle. The banks 
 had issued such a large number of notes that it 
 was often difficult to secure currency for them. 
 In some cases the banks complained, that the 
 bank-notes which they had loaned had come 
 back to them in the original packages, and re¬ 
 fused to issue any more. 
 
 But a still graver danger presented itself. 
 My father’s partner had unfortunately yielded 
 to the general spirit of speculation which had 
 taken possession of so many of the railroad 
 men of that time. The result was that, when 
 the commercial crisis of 1857 came, it brought 
 the firm of Farnam and Durant to the very 
 brink of ruin. So near did the catastrophe 
 seem that my father actually wrote, in a letter 
 of August 29, 1857 : 
 
 55 
 
“ I thought a week ago that I was a rich man ; I 
 now find the concern so involved that we cannot possi¬ 
 bly go on, and the firm must make an assignment to¬ 
 night or Monday. The loss of property is nothing, if 
 I was only sure that I had enough for the support of 
 my dear wife and family ; to lose everything now is 
 rather more than I can bear.” 
 
 And a letter from Mr. Walcott, dated Sep¬ 
 tember i, 1857, speaks of breaking the news of 
 my father’s financial ruin to my mother. For¬ 
 tunately the necessity for an assignment was 
 overcome by the prompt and vigorous measures 
 taken by my father. He was able to avoid 
 failure, and ultimately to extend the road to 
 Grinnell, 120 miles from Davenport, though it 
 was not carried through to the Missouri, until 
 after he had retired from adlive business. 
 
 While all these cares were weighing upon 
 him, he was adting as president of the Chicago 
 and Rock Island Railroad, and was also, for a 
 time, president of the Merchant’s Loan and 
 Trust Company, a bank of which he was one 
 of the original stockholders. 
 
 He was also adtively interested in promoting 
 the plan for extending the railroad system 
 across the continent to the Pacific coast. It is 
 interesting to notice that as early as 1856, Mr. 
 
 56 
 
Sheffield, in one of his letters, speaks of the 
 desirability of getting a charter for a railroad 
 from the Mississippi River to San Francisco, 
 so that this was evidently a part of the original 
 plan of the far-sighted men who finished the 
 Michigan Southern road. When the time 
 seemed ripe for putting this plan into execu¬ 
 tion, my father became one of the incorporators 
 of the Union Pacific Company. Bnt he soon 
 found himself entirely out of sympathy with 
 the methods by which his associates proposed 
 to conduct the enterprise, and ceased to have 
 anything to do with it, after the first work of 
 incorporation had been accomplished. 
 
 In addition to this he began to feel that, for 
 personal reasons, it was desirable to throw off, 
 rather than to assume, responsibilities. He 
 was over-worked. He was anxious about the 
 health of his oldest son, whom a severe attack 
 of rheumatism had forced in December, 1861, 
 to take the sea voyage to San Francisco by the 
 way of Cape Horn. He began to feel that 
 what he might add to his means by further 
 years of hard work would be dearly bought at 
 the expense of his health and perhaps of his 
 life. Yet it was very hard to cut so many 
 ties at once. In a letter of April 17, 1862, to 
 
 57 
 
his friend Hon. N. B. Judd, who was then 
 United States Minister at Berlin, he writes, 
 after speaking of the plans of the family: 
 
 “ Mrs. Farnam and myself will keep house in Chi¬ 
 cago, and work for the poor wounded and sick soldiers. 
 You ask if I work as hard as ever. I never worked 
 as hard in my life as I have for the last year, and I 
 have of late been thinking how I could get out of it. 
 If I had not everything I am worth tied up in this 
 railroad, I would cut loose at once, and go to Europe, 
 and meet George B. on his way home. But to go 
 away now . . . would be equivalent to throwing 
 
 away everything. Still it would not be the most sur¬ 
 prising thing that ever happened, if I should get mad 
 some day, and jump from the train, even at some risk 
 of injury, and run off to Europe, though I can hardly 
 see my way clear just now.” 
 
 In tlie following year, however, he took the 
 salto mortale. He was now in his sixtieth 
 year. He had been at work continuously since 
 the age of sixteen, and felt the need of repose. 
 He was also anxious to see again my oldest 
 brother, who had by this time reached Europe 
 from the East on his journey around the world. 
 He was deeply interested in the war, but he 
 felt that at his age he could do more by his 
 financial support than by any form of personal 
 service, and he could not remain in this country, 
 
 58 
 
without becoming constantly involved in all 
 kinds of labors and responsibilities. 
 
 Everything pointed to a trip abroad as the 
 one thing needed. On June 4 he resigned the 
 presidency of the Rock Island Railroad, and 
 on August 5, 1863, he embarked from Boston 
 on the old Cuuard steamer Africa. 
 
 59 
 
IV. 
 
 RETIREMENT 
 
 1863-1883 
 
 O F the remaining twenty years of my 
 father’s life, five were spent mainly in 
 travel abroad, and fifteen, in his home in New 
 Haven. He took with him on the Africa 
 my mother and his three youngest children. 
 My brother George met us on the dock at 
 Liverpool. Leaving my sister and myself to 
 pursue our studies at Fontainebleau, the rest 
 of the party traveled during the winter of 
 1863-4 in Egypt and the Holy Land. They 
 ascended the Nile in a dahabeah as far as the 
 second cataradl, and returned to Europe by the 
 way of Syria and Constantinople. 
 
 Iu the autumn of 1864 my father came home 
 in order to vote for President Lincoln ; but in 
 the summer of 1865 he returned to Europe, and 
 
 60 
 
remained there three years, making Paris his 
 headquarters, but traveling from time to time 
 in various parts of Europe, and visiting Nor¬ 
 way, Germany, Spain, Russia, Italy, Switzer¬ 
 land, and the British Isles. My mother was 
 with him during the entire period, my brother 
 George, most of the time until 1867. My 
 sister was at school in Fontainebleau until 
 1867, when she joined my parents on some of 
 their excursions. In the summer of 1865, my 
 father enjoyed the pleasure of a re-union of all 
 his family at Paris, the first gathering of the 
 kind which had taken place since 1861. 
 
 In 1868 he returned to the United States, 
 and decided, largely on the advice of my brother 
 George, to take up his residence again in New 
 Haven, the city in which he had passed so 
 many years of abtive life, and in which all of 
 his children had been born. Many years be¬ 
 fore, he had bought a piece of ground on 
 Whitney avenue, to which he had subsequently 
 added a lot on Hillhouse avenue. On the 
 latter site, he built the home of his declining 
 years, which was finished in 1871 and which 
 he occupied at the time of his death. Before 
 the end of the year 1873, four of his children 
 had married, and all of them sooner or later 
 
 61 
 
made New Haven their home. The remainder 
 of his life was spent quietly and peacefully in 
 the management of his property, in adts of 
 public beneficence, and in the enjoyment of 
 his children and grand-children. He made 
 few j ourneys during this period. In February, 
 1877, however, he and my mother took his son 
 George to Europe, in order that he might use 
 the waters of Aix-les-Bains, which had greatly 
 benefited him several years before, but which 
 seemed now, unfortunately, to have lost their 
 efficac}^. In the autumn of the same year, they 
 accompanied him and his family to Nassau in 
 the Bahama Islands, and spent the winter there 
 with him. 
 
 Many quiet pleasures filled up these last 
 years of his life. At short distances from his 
 own home lived all of his children, who made 
 him daily visits, and were in the habit of tak¬ 
 ing tea in his house every Sunday evening. 
 He enjoyed to the full these family gatherings, 
 and joined with great pleasure in the singing 
 of hymns which usually occupied the early 
 part of the evening. Several of the neighbors, 
 particularly President Porter, Professor Fisher 
 and Professor Silliman, were to be found in his 
 library almost as regularly Sunday evenings 
 
 62 
 
as his own children, and the time passed pleas¬ 
 antly with stories, anecdotes, and the discus¬ 
 sion of the events of the day. Not infrequently 
 some of his friends from other cities would 
 visit him, and talk over old times, and thus he 
 maintained an ever fresh interest in the past 
 and in the present, in friends near at hand and 
 in friends far away. He was very fond of driv¬ 
 ing, and explored the beautiful roads about 
 New Haven in every direction. He generally 
 managed to so arrange his route that, either 
 going or coming, he could pass the house of 
 one of his children, and have a little chat with 
 the grand-children, who were always glad to 
 see his smiling face. 
 
 One of the chief pleasures of his life had 
 always been to do good to others. This was 
 so natural and so thoroughly a part of him¬ 
 self that it seems needless, and in truth it 
 would be impossible, to mention in detail his 
 adls of kindness and generosity. What he 
 gave was always given unostentatiously, and 
 without any desire for notoriety. In some 
 cases, however, his name became permanently 
 connected with the gifts. As early as 1863, he 
 gave $30,000 to Yale College, to be expended 
 in the eredlion of a new dormitory. At a 
 
later period, he added another $30,000, and the 
 building which this money made it possible to 
 ereCt in 1870, and which was the first struc¬ 
 ture of the new quadrangle, was called by the 
 corporation after his name. He frequently 
 gave smaller sums to the different depart¬ 
 ments of Yale College, particularly the Art 
 School, the Library, and the Divinity School. 
 His gift of the “ Farnam Drive ” to East 
 Rock Park connected his name with a feature 
 of the city in which all the people of New 
 Haven take a just pride. The hospital, too, 
 interested him constantly, and in addition to 
 numerous other gifts, he endowed one of its 
 free beds. The representatives of minor 
 charities and public institutions were fre¬ 
 quently seen in his house, and seldom went 
 away without some substantial expression of 
 his good-will. 
 
 His health was always robust. Even when 
 worn out with overwork, he was not subject 
 to any acute disease, and illness was some¬ 
 thing of which he had no experience from 
 the time of his recovery from the malarial 
 fever contracted in the Tonawanda Swamp 
 until the last few years of his life. In 1875, 
 however, he found himself failing in strength, 
 
and though the physicians were at first uncer¬ 
 tain as to the nature of the ailment, it was 
 finally found to be diabetes. Thanks to his 
 strong constitution, and to the judicious treat¬ 
 ment of Dr. William H. Draper, he was able 
 to recover from this disease, and again to 
 enjoy the good health to which he had always 
 been accustomed. The stroke of paralysis 
 which ended his life came without warning 
 on Saturday evening, the 30th of September, 
 1883, and he died peacefully, and apparently 
 without pain, on the morning of the 4th of 
 O&ober. 
 
 This imperfedt narrative of what my father 
 did gives us but a dim conception of what he 
 was. His character was marked by a singular 
 consistency. He was always the same. He 
 did not have one standard of condudt for the 
 counting-room and another for the home. He 
 did not stoop to practices in public life which 
 he would have scorned in his relations towards 
 his friends. He was always straightforward, 
 open, true. 
 
 His charadler was, however, a broad one, and 
 contained elements that are not always found 
 in harmonious co-operation. Thus his innate 
 kindness was not inconsistent with great 
 
strength of will. Indulgent as he was towards 
 the faults of others, and much as he shrank 
 from giving pain to any one, he did not allow 
 his feelings to stand in the way of his duty, and 
 when he had made up his mind to say No, was 
 immovable. 
 
 A letter, which happens to have been pre¬ 
 served among his papers, is so characteristic of 
 this trait that it deserves to be here reproduced. 
 It is addressed to one of the employes of the 
 Chicago and Rock Island Railroad. After 
 stating that the individual addressed had often 
 promised to abstain from intoxicating liquors, 
 but still persisted in drinking, the letter con¬ 
 tinues : 
 
 “You are aware that I have done all in my power 
 to reform you and make you useful to us and an orna¬ 
 ment to } 7 our profession, but I am satisfied that your 
 reformation is hopeless. You are therefore notified 
 that your services are no longer wanted.” 
 
 Even in this case, however, he did not want 
 to inflidt any unnecessary pain, and held back 
 the letter for some time after it was written, 
 because the man to whom it was addressed 
 was sick. 
 
 In all respeCIs his nature was singularly 
 
 well balanced. Thus, while setting up the 
 
 66 
 
highest standard of conduct for himself, he 
 was charitable towards the shortcomings of 
 others, and wdiile generous and open-handed, 
 he was never wasteful or extravagant. Busy 
 as he was during the greater part of his life, 
 he never allowed himself to become a slave to 
 his profession, and always took pleasure in 
 music, art, the drama, and nature. 
 
 In society he was full of pleasant talk. His 
 fund of anecdote was large, and his accurate 
 memory, his knowledge of men, his shrewd 
 observation, and his keen but never caustic 
 humor, made his conversation enjoyable. 
 
 His manners were marked by a courtesy 
 which knew no distinctions. To his inferiors 
 he was never condescending, to his equals, 
 never obsequious. His bearing was marked 
 by a natural dignity and a genuine self-respedt, 
 as far removed from self-assertion, on the one 
 hand, as from an affedted modesty, on the other. 
 Accustomed to treat others with consideration, 
 he never feared that he himself would be 
 treated otherwise. 
 
 Of an even, well-controlled temper, he was 
 neither soured by failure nor puffed up by suc¬ 
 cess. He preserved throughout his life an 
 almost child-like simplicity of thought and 
 
 67 
 
sentiment, and the manner of his death seemed 
 in perfect harmony with a character which, 
 throug'h the trials and temptations of the 
 w'orld, kept the heart pure and the mind 
 serene, and the memory of which is cherished 
 by all who knew him as at once an inspiration 
 and a benediction. 
 
 68 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF THE FESTIVITIES BY WHICH THE 
 COMPLETION OF THE CHICAGO AND ROCK 
 
 island railroad was celebrated. 
 
 The completion of the first railroad to the 
 Mississippi in 1854 was commemorated by two 
 celebrations. The first was held in Rock 
 Island immediately after the opening of the 
 road; the second was held four months later, 
 and took the form of a great excursion from 
 Chicago to St. Paul. 
 
 An outline of the former is contained in the 
 following handbill, printed at 'the time: 
 
 ORDER OF THE DAY. 
 
 RAILROAD FESTIVAL, 
 
 February 22 , 1854. 
 
 The First Train of Cars from Chicago 
 
 will arrive at Rock Island at 5 o’clock p. m., which 
 
 event will be heralded by the roar of artillery, the 
 69 
 
sounds of joyful music, and the acclamations of the 
 people. 
 
 At half-past four p. m., the President of the Day, 
 with the Committee of Reception, will be at the depot, 
 to welcome the guests whom the city authorities have 
 invited to the celebration. 
 
 At a quarter before five, the guests from the State of 
 Iowa are requested to assemble at the Rock Island 
 House, and march to the depot, conducted by Messrs. 
 William Bell and E. C. Cropper. 
 
 On the arrival of the cars, the guests will be received 
 into the depot by Messrs. M. B. Osborn and A. K. 
 Philleo. 
 
 Seats at the table will be indicated to each one of 
 the guests by Messrs. Bailey, Buttrick, Stoddard, Van- 
 sant, and Bolmer. 
 
 As soon as the guests from the cars are within the 
 depot, the citizens of Rock Island will be conducted 
 in by Mr. I. Negus and Dr. Brackett, in the following 
 order : 
 
 FIRST—THE CITY COUNCIL. 
 
 SECOND—THE REVEREND CLERGY. 
 
 THIRD—CITIZENS. 
 
 When the seats are all occupied, the music, the 
 firing, and the shouting will cease. The President of 
 the Day will call on all to rise, when 
 
 J. J. BEARDSLEY, ESQ., 
 
 who has been appointed to that office, will, in behalf 
 of the City of Rock Island, pronounce the 
 WELCOME. 
 
 70 
 
Seats will then be resumed at the dinner table ; after 
 the enjoyment of which, the 
 
 REGULAR TOASTS 
 
 will be read by the President; responses to which are 
 expected from the guests. 
 
 After the Regular Toasts, Volunteer Toasts, Senti¬ 
 ments, and Speeches will be in order. 
 
 At the close of the festivities, the guests will form 
 a procession and march, with music, down Illinois 
 street to the Court House Square to witness the illu¬ 
 mination, and return to the Rock Island House. 
 
 Before leaving the depot, each guest, by calling at 
 the office at the west end, will be furnished with a 
 ticket for lodgings by Mr. A. K. Philleo. 
 
 Coaches will be in readiness to carry the guests to 
 their lodgings, and to the cars on the following morn¬ 
 ing. 
 
 After the President of the Day leaves the depot, 
 Mr. Bailey will preside ; and the depot will be kept 
 open for the citizens as long as any of them may de¬ 
 sire. 
 
 N. B. BUFORD, 
 Preside7it of the Day. 
 
 The temporary building in which the guests 
 were entertained at dinner was constructed, it 
 is stated, in less than three days, and was one 
 hundred feet long and twenty feet wide. 
 
 The reception speech was made by J. J. 
 Beardsley, of Rock Island. The dinner was 
 
presided over by Colonel Buford, and among 
 the toasts responded to were the following: 
 
 “ The 22d of February , 1854. , the espousal day of 
 the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. May 
 no vandal hands ever break the connection.” 
 
 ‘ 1 The projectors of the C. & R. I. Railroad. Their 
 hearts rejoice in what their eyes behold. What was 
 conceived in weakness is this day brought forth in 
 strength.” 
 
 ‘‘ Messrs. Famam and Sheffield , the builders of the 
 C. & R. I. Railroad. They have demonstrated by 
 their fidelity and enterprise that a corporation may 
 have a soul. In their march to the Pacific, the bless¬ 
 ings of cities and States left behind will follow them.” 
 
 1 ‘ The President of the Day. The mantle of his an¬ 
 cestors’ liberality and regard for the public weal has 
 fallen upon him, and he does honor to its wearing. 
 At the nuptial feast of the proud Mississippi to the 
 giant Atlantic, he sheds additional luster on the occa¬ 
 sion in giving away the bride.” 
 
 In response to the toast in honor of Messrs. 
 Sheffield and Farnam, Mr. Farnam spoke some¬ 
 what reludlantly as follows: 
 
 ‘ ‘ As I have long since given you notice that a speech 
 was not included in my contract, you will not expedt 
 at this short notice a speech of any kind from me. I 
 
 72 
 
did not come here to make a speech, but to join in 
 your festivities, and to rejoice with you upon the com¬ 
 pletion of this work. Let us compare the past with 
 the present. It is less than one-quarter of a century, 
 and within the recollection of the most of you, that the 
 first locomotive made its appearance in the States. 
 Now, more than fourteen thousand miles of iron rails 
 are traversed by the iron horse with almost lightning- 
 speed. It is less than two years since the first train 
 of cars entered the State of Illinois from the Bast, then 
 connecting Bake Brie with Chicago. It is less than 
 one year since the first continuous line of road was 
 completed connecting New York with Chicago. Now, 
 there are two distinct lines the entire distance connect¬ 
 ing Chicago and the great prairies of the West with 
 New York and Boston. Two years ago, there was less 
 than one hundred miles of road in operation in the 
 State of Illinois, and most of that was what is called 
 the ‘strap rail.’ Now, more than twelve hundred 
 miles of road of the most substantial character is in 
 operation, eight hundred of which leads direCtly to the 
 city of Chicago. 
 
 To-day, we witness the nuptials of the Atlantic with 
 the Bather of Waters. To-morrow, the people of Rock 
 Island can go to New York the entire distance by rail¬ 
 road, and within the space of forty-two hours. 
 
 Gentlemen, I thank you for the compliment con¬ 
 tained in the sentiment just offered, and while I am 
 proud of the compliment, I am not so vain or so selfish 
 as to take the credit all to myself, and while I am 
 greatly indebted to the citizens generally of Illinois, I 
 
 73 
 
should do myself great injustice, if I were to omit 
 mentioning the names of those who have more imme¬ 
 diately aided me in carrying forward this great work. 
 It does not become me to speak of the officers of the 
 company ; their works are matters of history. Too 
 much praise cannot be bestowed upon them for their 
 energy and perseverance in prosecuting this work to 
 completion, but I shall be excused for mentioning the 
 names of those under whose judicious and skillful 
 management the labor has been executed. 
 
 Allow me to head the list with your own excellent 
 Governor Matteson ; and then come Gardner and 
 Goss, Crotty, Warner and Sherwin, Clark and Mann, 
 Killedea, Whitman and Boyle, Armour, Groendike, 
 Carmichael, Holmes, and others, whose names I can¬ 
 not now mention. 
 
 The beautiful and substantial bridges over which 
 we have this day passed were built by John Warner 
 and Co. and Stone and Boomer. 
 
 I will detain you with details no longer. I again 
 thank you for the kindness shown me on this occasion, 
 and I will ask to propose a sentiment—‘ The Citize?is 
 of Rock !s/and. May they ever cherish the bond 
 which this day binds them to the Atlantic cities.’ ” 
 
 The toasts were thirteen in all, and after the 
 regular exercises were over, those who re¬ 
 mained continued the entertainment by offer¬ 
 ing additional toasts, among which was the 
 following, proposed by E. T. Bridges : 
 
 74 
 
“ Henry Farnam, the embodiment of the age. We 
 honor him not less for his indomitable perseverance 
 and untiring energy than for his enlarged liberality 
 and courteous bearing.” 
 
 It was remarked that (in the language of 
 one of the reporters) alcohol was not suffered 
 to poison the union that was then effected be¬ 
 tween the waters of the Mississippi River and 
 Lake Michigan. No substitutes for either 
 were provided except simple tea and coffee, 
 and consequently among the sentiments was 
 one proposed by D. N. Burnhan, of Chicago : 
 
 “The temperance aspect of this elegant festival. May 
 your worthy example be followed all the country 
 throughout.” 
 
 After the dinner, the guests were provided 
 with accommodations by the citizens, and in 
 the evening Rock Island and Davenport were 
 illuminated. The following day, the whole 
 party returned to Chicago, making the trip in 
 seven hours and thirty minutes. 
 
 This celebration in Rock Island was infor¬ 
 mal and mainly confined to the people of the 
 locality. The partners who constructed the 
 road were, however, eastern men, and were 
 fully aware of the general ignorance that pre¬ 
 vailed in the Bast with regard to the West. 
 
 75 
 
They, therefore, conceived the idea of inviting 
 some of their eastern friends to an excursion, 
 and of taking them, not only over the line of 
 the new road, but also up the Mississippi 
 River to St. Paul, in order that they might 
 see with their own eyes the resources of the 
 New West. It was originally not intended to 
 make the excursion a large one, but as soon 
 as the plan became known, requests for invita¬ 
 tions poured in in such numbers that, what was 
 expedled to be a small party of friends, grew 
 into a throng which crowded six Mississippi 
 steamboats. 
 
 The excursion was carried out in a charac¬ 
 teristically liberal spirit, and many professions 
 and many cities were represented in it. 
 
 Among the representatives of the press were 
 Thurlow Weed, at that time of the Albany 
 Journal; Col. Fuller, of the Mirror; Epes 
 Sargent, formerly of the Boston Transcript; 
 Samuel Bowles, of the Springfield Republican ; 
 J. H. Sanford and W. C. Prime, of the New 
 York Journal of Commerce; N. W. T. Root, 
 of the New Haven Register; Chas. A. Dana, 
 at that time of the New York Tribune; James 
 M. Woodward, of the New Haven Courier , and 
 James F. Babcock, of the New Haven Pal la- 
 
dium. Among the other guests were Presi¬ 
 dent Fillmore, of Buffalo, Governor Baldwin, 
 Professors Fitch and Twining, the Misses 
 Gerry, Professor Benjamin Silliman, Prof, 
 and Mrs. Earned, Judge Boardman, James 
 Brewster, Dr. Leonard Bacon, and Ezra C. 
 Reed, of New Haven, Judge McCurdy and 
 daughter (now Mrs. Prof. Salisbury), of Lyme, 
 and many others, in all about a thousand gen¬ 
 tlemen and ladies. 
 
 At that time the West was so little known 
 to the East that the newspaper correspondents 
 who attended the excursion found it interest¬ 
 ing to their readers to describe all the towns 
 of importance that they went through. Of 
 Cleveland Mr. Babcock says in his letter of 
 June ist: 
 
 “ Tt has some resemblance to New Haven, and in 
 its general plan is equal to it, or would be, if its public 
 greens approached ours in size and beauty. Its streets 
 are magnificent and well ornamented with trees, and 
 there is much taste displayed here. The stores are 
 very spacious and rather elegant ; but Cleveland needs 
 the completion and perfection in detail, the finishing 
 off and sweeping up of some of the older cities of New 
 England, especially New Haven. These slight im¬ 
 perfections are, however, to be expeded in all new 
 towns and cities. The wonder is that there has been 
 
 77 
 
so much time and disposition here for the cultivation 
 of a taste for the beautiful, as evinced by the results 
 seen in all diredtions. The public edifices and private 
 dwellings of the better sort are generally very credita¬ 
 ble to the place, although generally wanting in the 
 admirable proportions and exquisite finish of the archi¬ 
 tecture of New Haven, which in this respedt excels 
 any other place I ever saw, of course excepting seledt 
 localities in some of the larger Eastern cities. The 
 two New Haven architedts would be able to make im¬ 
 portant improvements in some of the most costly 
 buildings here.” 
 
 Toledo was described, in a letter of June 3d, 
 as containing a population of about ten thou¬ 
 sand, “ nearly half of whom have accumulated 
 within two years.” But the author continues, 
 “ Like all the new and thriving western towns 
 it is unfinished.” 
 
 Chicago, however, was the city which natu¬ 
 rally excited the greatest amount of enthusi¬ 
 asm and comment. Mr. Babcock says, in his 
 letter of June 5th : 
 
 ‘‘It is wonderful for its capacities and resources, 
 but more wonderful for its rapid growth. Four years 
 ago, it was a mere village, and now it is a city of about 
 seventy thousand inhabitants, and having all the signs 
 of a proportionate increase during the next ten j y ears. 
 
 . The streets are generally planked, and as far 
 
 as the ej'e can reach they present a smooth surface, 
 
 78 
 
without a hole or hillock. The walks are about fifteen 
 feet wide and neatly planked. Timber, you know, is 
 here much cheaper than brick, and quite as good for 
 temporal use. . . . The oldest native inhabitant 
 
 of this place is a young lady twenty-two years of age. 
 She is a daughter of Col. R. J. Hamilton, and was 
 born in Fort Dearborn. 
 
 In 1818 there were but two white families here. 
 What a change has been wrought here since that 
 short period ! 
 
 Among the relics of the past is still preserved, on 
 the government reservation, the old blockhouse used 
 as a fortification against the hostile Indians. It is 
 about twenty feet square, built of hewn logs, with 
 a square doorway about three feet in dimensions. 
 Twelve or fourteen feet from the ground, the logs pro¬ 
 ject over the main building, so that it was almost im¬ 
 possible for an Indian to climb to the roof without the 
 aid of ladders. In the projecting story are small 
 openings for directing the aim of muskets upon the 
 besiegers. This was the first fortification of the kind 
 I had ever seen, and I was, of course, much interested 
 with it. A few rods from it is the old lighthouse, 
 now far inland, for large warehouses are built between 
 it and the lake. The Chicago River, a narrow stream, 
 but deep enough to float the largest steamers, runs 
 close by the lighthouse and through the center of the 
 city. The river is crossed here by a small ferry-boat, 
 worked by hand, or pulled by the aid of a rope fast¬ 
 ened to each bank. When vessels pass, this rope is 
 dropped well down into the water. The ferry is free 
 
 79 
 
to all who use it. A few rods above is a swinging 
 bridge, which is thrown open for vessels every few 
 minutes during the day, and long lines of vehicles 
 often stand in the streets on either side of the river, 
 waiting for the use of the bridge. Tp avoid these 
 annoyances, it is now seriously proposed to tunnel the 
 river’s bed.” 
 
 Those who know the Chicago of to-day will 
 be amused at the comparatively simple appear¬ 
 ance of the great metropolis of the West thirty 
 years ago; and yet, even at that time, it was 
 considered to be a marvel, and the features 
 which seem to us to prove its primitiveness 
 are precisely the ones which Mr. Babcock 
 picks out to show its progress. 
 
 The guests assembled in Chicago, and started 
 from there on the morning of Monday, June 
 5th, for Rock Island over the newly-finished 
 Chicago and Rock Island Railroad. There 
 were two trains of nine cars each, filled with 
 people, which moved out of the depot in the 
 presence of a large crowd of spectators. 
 
 Rock Island was reached at four o’clock in 
 the afternoon, and the passengers at once em¬ 
 barked on board six steamboats, which had 
 been engaged for the trip. The names of the 
 boats were the JVar Eagle , the Galena , the 
 
 80 
 
Lady Franklin, the Sparhawk, the Golden 
 Era , and the Jenny Lind. Each boat was 
 provided with a band, and as the little fleet of 
 steamers started np the Mississippi River, the 
 music on their decks was answered by the 
 cheers of the people on shore, and bon-fires 
 and fire-works illuminated their course. Rock 
 Island at that day contained about 4,500 in¬ 
 habitants, while Davenport contained 7,000. 
 On June 8th the steamboats reached St. Paul, 
 which was then the seat of the territorial gov¬ 
 ernment of Minnesota, and contained about 
 5,000 inhabitants. The city itself was then 
 about six years old. 
 
 St. Paul was reached somewhat sooner than 
 the people there had expedted, so that their 
 preparations for the reception of the excur¬ 
 sionists had not been fully made. Conse¬ 
 quently there was some confusion. Mr. 
 Babcock graphically describes the scene on 
 lauding: 
 
 “ All is bustle,” he says, “ and confusion on shore, 
 and all sorts of vehicles are coming down the bank. 
 There sit Governor Baldwin and Mrs. B. in high 
 backed chairs in a long lumber wagon, in company 
 with a dozen more on similar seats. There, in just 
 such a wagon, sit Mr. McCurdy and daughter, sur- 
 
 81 
 
rounded by other ladies and gentlemen. There are 
 Judge J. O. Phelps, C. B. Lines, and Mr. Woodward, 
 of the Journal, in a very handsome one-horse buggy. 
 They have not waited for the uncertain movements of 
 the committee, but have been to a stable and provided 
 for themselves. There is James Brewster and wife 
 in another similar carriage. There is the Rev. Dr. 
 Bacon, Rev. Mr. Eggleston, Rev. Dr. Fitch, and 
 others, in a lumber wagon. . . . It is now time to 
 
 enquire, as did Daniel Webster on an important occa¬ 
 sion, Where shall I go ? . . . A St. Paul man 
 
 told us to get a seat where we could ! . . . Here 
 
 is room, said Prof. Twining, come up here. We were 
 soon on the vehicle, and took position between Gov¬ 
 ernor Berrie, of Michigan, and Mr. Twining. On the 
 seat below was Mr. Bancroft, the historian, his son, 
 and the driver of the carriage, and back of all was 
 stretched out one of the editors of the New York 
 Times. ’ ’ 
 
 A slight mishap occurred here to Mr. Ban¬ 
 croft, the historian, which might have proved 
 a serious accident, for he lost his balance on 
 the top of the coach, and fell to the ground, 
 and for a time was in great danger of being 
 run over by the wheels ; but he was rescued 
 in time, and remounted without injury. 
 
 St. Paul was at that time a city of few at¬ 
 tractions in itself, but it boasted of one great 
 sight, the Falls of St. Anthony, nine miles 
 
 82 
 
distant. Accordingly the party were taken 
 there first of all. Having returned to St. 
 Paul, they then continued on the steamers 
 seven miles further to Fort Snelling. 
 
 Fort Snelling was at that time a fortifica¬ 
 tion large enough to contain several thousand 
 troops, and stood on a commanding site about 
 three hundred rods from the river. There 
 were seven buildings, connected with walls, 
 and forming an odtagon about as large as the 
 lower Green in New Haven. But it was one 
 of the relics of a past period, and had at that 
 time entirely lost its significance as a military 
 post, the Indians having receded from Minne¬ 
 sota, and the country being invaded only by 
 the peaceful immigrants of Germany, Scandi¬ 
 navia, and the Fast. 
 
 On their return from Fort Snelling, the 
 excursionists were entertained at St. Paul by 
 a reception in the great legislative hall. 
 
 “ The ladies of the party,” says Mr. Babcock, 11 and 
 the ladies of St. Paul are in full dress, and the scene 
 more resembles one often observed in the saloons of 
 New York than one which could have been anticipated 
 in any place in this new Territory.” 
 
 Governor Gorman, the Governor of the Ter¬ 
 ritory, received the guests, addressing Presi- 
 
 83 
 
dent Fillmore in particular, and welcoming 
 the projectors of the Rock Island Railroad, 
 the originators of the excursion, the members 
 of the press, and all present. 
 
 President Fillmore replied, and was followed 
 by Mr. Bancroft. The speeches of President 
 Fillmore and Mr. Bancroft are thus reported 
 by Mr. Chas. A. Dana, at that time of the New 
 York Tribune: 
 
 “ Mr. Fillmore replied at some length. He said he 
 claimed no honor on that occasion. He had come there, 
 expecting to travel altogether as a private person, with¬ 
 out being called upon to address his fellow citizens. 
 If any man should be especially honored there, it was 
 Mr. Farnam, who had conducted with such success an 
 entertainment for which history had no parallel, and 
 such as no prince could possibly undertake. The 
 governor had alluded with approval to his conduct in 
 a position it had been his fortune to hold in the Fed¬ 
 eral Government. He rejoiced at this unexpected 
 approval of the governor, and at that of this vast 
 audience. Next to the approbation of his own con¬ 
 science, he valued that of his fellow citizens. The adt 
 of his administration which had been so kindly singled 
 out (the Compromise of 1850) was a trying one. In 
 performing it, he was aware that he ran counter to the 
 feelings of many whose esteem he could not but desire 
 and value. But he trusted that all would now do him 
 the justice to believe that that adt was done honestly 
 
 84 
 
and fearlessly. Mr. Fillmore then went on to speak 
 at length of the important position of St. Paul as a 
 central point on one of the routes leading from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific, and to show how necessary it 
 is to build a railroad across the continent, if we would 
 preserve the States of the Pacific and more Eastern 
 States in one confederacy. His observations on this 
 subject were sound and clearly reasoned, and were 
 listened to with great attention. 
 
 Mr. Bancroft next spoke, and in behalf of the rail¬ 
 road directors responded to Governor Gorman’s wel¬ 
 come in one of those brilliant and facile improvisations 
 which the public sometimes have the fortune to hear 
 from his lips. He touched upon the kindly relations 
 that must exist between the people of Minnesota and 
 those who had opened to their use this new road on the 
 way to the great marts of our foreign commerce, the 
 unprecedented nature of this excursion in which so large 
 a number of persons were conveyed in so agreeable a 
 way, as the guests of the railroad company, a greater 
 distance than that from New York to Liverpool. I 
 do not attempt to follow Mr. Bancroft through his 
 rapid and salient address, every sentence as clear 
 cut as a finished statue, and delivered with admirable 
 point and distinctness. Every passage was applauded, 
 and when he concluded by bidding Minnesota to be 
 the north star of the Union, shining forever in un¬ 
 quenchable luster, there was a general burst of ap¬ 
 plause throughout the crowded room.” 
 
 After the reception was over, the excursion¬ 
 ists returned to their boats, and were soon on 
 85 
 
their way down the river to Rock Island. This 
 city was reached June ioth, and the party 
 there disbanded, some members returning to 
 the Hast, others continuing their trip in vari¬ 
 ous directions through the West. 
 
 The thing most complained of by the ex¬ 
 cursionists was the lack of room on the steam¬ 
 boats, which obliged many of the gentlemen 
 to sleep in the saloons and on tables, and 
 which overcrowded the staterooms. This was 
 due to the faCt that many people brought 
 more persons with them than their tickets al¬ 
 lowed. It was stated that there were several 
 cases in which single tickets were made to 
 serve for entire families and their friends. 
 Otherwise, however, the arrangements seem 
 to have been ample. Mr. Babcock says, in 
 describing the affair: 
 
 “We have had oysters and lobsters daily, though 
 
 two thousand miles from the sea. These, of course, 
 
 were brought in sealed cans. Hens, turkeys, and 
 
 ducks have given their last squeak every morning. 
 
 Two cows on the lower deck furnish us with fresh 
 
 milk twice a day. Beets are cooked, and every variety 
 
 of stuff, and the dessert consists of all kinds of fruits, 
 
 nuts, cakes, confe< 5 tion ices, and other things too 
 
 numerous to mention. Such is our daiR fare. Then 
 
 there are meats for supper, with tea and coffee, with 
 
 86 
 
toast, dry and wet, cold bread, warm bread, Indian 
 bread, biscnit, rolls, etc. The captain of our boat, 
 Persie, is a prince of a man, and a particular favorite 
 with all the ladies, as well as gentlemen. He gives 
 up his entire boat, even his office, to the use of the 
 passengers. Our friends on the other steamers boast 
 of being as fortunate, and even insist that theirs is the 
 lucky boat with the best company and the best cap¬ 
 tain. I, of course, go in for our boat, the Golden 
 Era, “our” captain, and our company; besides we 
 have on board the ex-President of the United States, 
 and Mr. Farnam, the master spirit of the expedition, 
 to whose kind offices we are all indebted more than 
 words can express. He is everywhere present, con¬ 
 tributing all his efforts to our instruction, amusement 
 and comfort.” 
 
 Before the party broke up, Mr. Faruani 
 brought on board Mr. Le Clerc, a half-breed 
 Indian, who was at that time a large owner of 
 real estate in Davenport. Mr. Babcock says 
 of him : 
 
 “ He was introduced to the passengers, and deports 
 himself like a gentleman, though he appears unable 
 to hold much conversation except in monosyllables. 
 He has a true Indian face, though his body is of enor¬ 
 mous size, his weight being two hundred and fifty or 
 three hundred pounds.” 
 
 Mr. Babcock’s letter of June 9th thus de¬ 
 scribes one of the final scenes of the excursion : 
 
 87 
 
“This business having been disposed of, it was re¬ 
 solved that the ceremony of presenting a golden cup 
 to Mr. Farnam’s well-behaved baby should take place 
 in anticipation of handing over the goblet itself, which 
 was yet to be made. Accordingly the Hon. John A. 
 Rockwell, of Norwich, Conn., was selected to make 
 the address to the infant, and Prof. A. C. Twining, of 
 New Haven, Conn., was chosen to respond in behalf 
 of the child. 
 
 Mr. Rockwell discharged the duty assigned him in 
 a very appropriate manner, to the great amusement of 
 the ladies and all present. 
 
 Mr. Twining replied, commencing with, ‘ I, Henry 
 W. Farnam, being young in years, and wholly unac¬ 
 customed to public speaking, feel incompetent to dis¬ 
 charge in suitable terms the duty imposed upon me 
 on this interesting occasion. When I came on board 
 this boat, it was farthest from my expectation to make 
 a speech. ‘ Man wants but little here below,’ and 
 babies still less. All my wants may be confined within 
 this little cup which you propose to give me. Its 
 contents are a baby’s world—his universe. ‘ Heaven 
 and earth and ocean plundered of their sweets ’ may 
 be compressed within the golden rim of this little 
 measure. Some babies might cry for joy over my 
 good fortune, but I am as unused to crying as to pub¬ 
 lic speaking. I give you my best smile of thanks for 
 your kindness, while I rely upon my interpreter for a 
 further and more mature expression of the grateful 
 emotions of my joyful little heart.’ I may not have 
 given you a very correCt report of this excellent speech 
 
 88 
 
on behalf of the baby ; it should have been heard to 
 be appreciated. It was an off-hand effort, and highly 
 delighted the crowd of listeners. 
 
 The baby was taken off and rewarded with kisses 
 for his excellent deportment during the trying occa¬ 
 sion of the presentation.” 
 
 Before landing in Rock Island the boats 
 were brought together, and a general meeting 
 was held to adopt resolutions expressing the 
 feelings of the party towards the projectors of 
 the excursion. Ex-President Fillmore pre¬ 
 sided at this meeting, while Dr. Bacon re¬ 
 ported the resolutions. 
 
 89 
 
NOTES 
 
 In the preparation of this sketch I have looked over all of my 
 father’s papers that I could get access to. Unfortunately they 
 do not furnish a continuous record of events. Most of them 
 were contained in two large pigeon-holed boxes, which were 
 formerly in the office of the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad 
 in Chicago, and were brought to New Haven with other pieces of 
 furniture in 1868. But while certain years were quite well 
 represented, others were missing altogether, and what additional 
 papers might have been found in the office of the company were 
 undoubtedly destroyed in the Chicago fire. I have derived great 
 assistance, however, from several files of letters written by Mr. 
 Sheffield, and from some memoranda which he made for the 
 benefit of posterity, and sent to my father a few years before his 
 death. Both the letters and the memoranda are written in his 
 own even hand, and expressed with characteristic clearness and 
 vigor. The publications that I have made use of include Presi¬ 
 dent Porter's sketch of my father printed in Men of Progress , An¬ 
 dreas’ History of Chicago , in three volumes (1884-1886), the files 
 of the New Haven newspapers, railroad reports, and an anony¬ 
 mous account of the Farmington Canal Co., printed in 1850. For 
 this pamphlet, as well as for valuable manuscripts of Mr. Sheffield, 
 I am indebted to his daughter, Mrs. John A. Porter, of this city. 
 
 I am also indebted for the loan of papers and for other informa- 
 
 90 
 
tiou to Mr. John E$- Henry, of Davenport, Iowa, to my aunt 
 Mrs. Pliilo Parks, of Grinnell, Iowa, and to the various members 
 of my immediate family. 
 
 The portrait which is bound with this volume is copied by the 
 photo gravure process of Goupil and Co. from a photograph 
 taken in 1880. 
 
 I have, in general, tried to avoid statements which were doubt¬ 
 ful, or which needed qualification. The two cases in which it 
 seemed necessary to depart from this rule are dealt with below. 
 
 1 (p. 20.) These figures are given on page 15, but they do 
 not agree with other figures given elsewhere in the pamphlet. 
 They probably should read #1,327,156.54. 
 
 5 (P- 39 -) The History of Chicago, Vol. I, page 259, gives Feb¬ 
 ruary 20 as the date. The report of the Michigan Southern road 
 of May, 1853, page 6, gives March as the time of its completion 
 to Chicago, and May 22 as that of the opening of the whole 
 road. 
 
 91 
 

 
 
 
MEMORIAL SERMON 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. NEWMAN SMYTH, D.D. 
 
A SERMON 
 
 Preached by Rev. Newman Smyth, D.D., 
 
 In Center Church, October 14, 1883. 
 
 Acts xx, 35. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he 
 himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. 
 
 In this sacred place, where human success must 
 own its nothingness before Almighty God, and our 
 human virtue confesses its need of forgiveness from 
 the charity of the Lord, I do not propose to pronounce 
 the eulogy of a man ; but from a life of good will, 
 finished in benevolence and peace, I may properly 
 take upon this Sabbath day a text. There is a hand¬ 
 writing of God for us to read for our profit in the 
 lives of all good men. St. Paul found an epistle of 
 Christ in the characters of his Christian friends in 
 Corinth, not indeed an infallible scripture, for there 
 were many blots upon those first fair pages of the new 
 Christian life in the world ; but, nevertheless, an epis¬ 
 tle of Christ which the large-hearted apostle loved to 
 read as he saw it written, not with ink, but with the 
 spirit of the living God ; not in tables of stone, but in 
 tables that are hearts of flesh. If the spirit of truth 
 and love still writes fresh scriptures in the lives of 
 good men, let us not dwell with contented criticism 
 
 upon their human frailties and faults, but sincerely 
 95 
 
desire rather to discover the finer writing of the spirit 
 written for our example in the lives of our friends. It 
 is one of the pleasant duties of the pulpit, not only to 
 hold up for admiration lofty Christian ideals of life, 
 but also to keep in honorable remembrance examples 
 of integrity and usefulness in the world. This obli¬ 
 gation of commending worthy ambition and honorable 
 success among men becomes more imperative, when we 
 consider how easily in this land unprincipled smart¬ 
 ness grasps golden prizes ; how strong is the tendency 
 to ingulf naturally noble men in the maelstrom of a 
 hopeless materialism ; and how sometimes even Chris¬ 
 tian communities may conveniently forget to keep in 
 perpetual contempt the success of wealth or office 
 gained at the price of honor. Should I begin, how¬ 
 ever, to preach a sermon in eulogy of our friend, Mr. 
 Henry Farnam, or even to give a complete sketch of 
 his long and useful life, those who knew him best in 
 his genial simplicity and modesty might grow con¬ 
 scious of an unpleasant discord between such public 
 speech of him and the unostentatious spirit of his life. 
 What an old English writer said of a completed day 
 of his life might better express all that a man of Mr. 
 Farnam’s mold would wish a pastor to say of him, 
 after he should be gone : 1 ‘ My desires I commit to 
 the imitation of the weak ; my adtions to the censures 
 of the wise and the holy ; and my faults to the judg¬ 
 ment and redress of a merciful God.” Not so much 
 of him, therefore, let me speak ; but rather from his 
 life let me draw some lessons which we can hardly 
 learn too much by heart. 
 
 96 
 
I wish among other objedls to avail myself of this 
 opportunity to remind you again of our indebtedness 
 to the godly mothers and the stalwart sons of a gen¬ 
 eration of men who are now almost all gone from us. 
 Trained in his youth by a devout mother, whom he 
 never ceased to revere, Mr. Farnam was one of a class 
 of men who went forth with good consciences and 
 good health, and purpose nerved by good principles, 
 to develop the resources of this country, to clear the 
 way through many difficulties for the flow of our in¬ 
 dustries, and to lay broad foundations upon which 
 other men should build. I rode last Wednesday 
 swiftly and in comfort up one of our fertile valleys, 
 past pleasant villages and prosperous farms, to the 
 inland town of Northampton. The gentleman who 
 sat with me told me of the young man who years ago 
 had often ridden in his buggy over every foot of that 
 country, careless of food or sleep, sparing not himself 
 in the attempt to keep an open channel of communica¬ 
 tion through that valley to the sea, and who after¬ 
 wards with others pushed the railroad through over 
 which, I dare say, the descendants of those earlier 
 farmers may now pass up and down, as we travel un¬ 
 thinking, east and west, taking the railways which 
 antedate our memory for granted as though, with the 
 stone fences and the old roads, they had always been 
 there, the natural adjuncts of the soil. But this coun¬ 
 try has had makers and builders to whom we owe our 
 ease and opportunity ; and another one of these has 
 just gone from among us. Honest work by honest 
 men and the sons of honest men, who went forth and 
 
 97 
 
did with their might whatsoever their hands found to 
 do, has rendered it possible for us, with half their 
 effort or their sacrifice, to make still larger gains in 
 ever}- department of industry, art, or science. It was 
 the same power of honest purpose working for the 
 future, w T hether in the study of a man like Moses 
 Stuart, as he pushed through an unknown language 
 determined in spite of suspicion and oppositions to 
 bring to his ledlure room the spoils of another literature, 
 or out in the world among the indefatigable pioneers 
 of the civilization which now sits rejoicing on the hill¬ 
 sides, and casting its line far and wide over the prairies 
 wdiich they made habitable. We need not only at 
 times to check our tendency to boastfulness by the 
 memory of our indebtedness to those self-made men 
 whose sagacious enterprise has rendered our recent 
 rapid progress possible ; but we need also, more than 
 this, to re-baptize the speculative spirit of our times 
 in the sober virtue which gave to those men their best 
 strength. I have heard Mr. Farnam relate with the 
 happy unconsciousness of an old man’s recollection 
 of a triumph of his earlier life, the surprise of the city 
 of Chicago when the locomotive entei'ed it over his 
 finished road ahead of time, and the East sent its mail 
 for the first time all the w^ay by steam to the up- 
 springing metropolis of the West. I have heard him 
 recount with the freshness of a still present pleasure 
 the story of that large excursion planned by his gen¬ 
 erosity, when his railroad had reached the banks of 
 the Mississippi, and he washed to give the East a 
 chance to feel the West. This chapter of his life be- 
 
 98 
 
longs to the history of the remarkable development of 
 our railway system, whose end is not yet; and it was, 
 so far as he added his part in it, a chapter of honesty. 
 This is the lesson which I would bring from that por¬ 
 tion of his life-work—the means which first brought 
 New York and Chicago together were the reward of 
 trusted integrity. Capital first reached Chicago over 
 a through railroad in charge of an honest man. 
 Honesty ran the first through locomotive into Chi¬ 
 cago. Sound business integrity, and the confidence 
 of capital in proved integrity, united the Mississippi 
 and the seaboard. Mr. Farnam never wrecked his 
 own railroad, or became receiver of his own trust. 
 There are men who succeed in making themselves 
 rich by leaving all with whom they do business poor. 
 This man helped others while he helped himself. He 
 had sagacity to seize his opportunity ; but his methods 
 of business never descended to small shrewdness. He 
 was trusted by others, and he trusted the men whom 
 he employed ; few men cared to presume upon his 
 confidence, and none more than once. There was an 
 upright and inflexible will behind his kindliness. Mr. 
 Farnam’s contempt for every kind, of jobbery, sharp 
 practice, or meanness, approached the perfedt hatred 
 of the Hebrew psalmist. 
 
 We have witnessed since his earlier enterprise a stu¬ 
 pendous development of our railway system and a 
 corresponding expansion of our industries. Faster 
 methods of financiering, as well as of travel, have 
 come into vogue. The facility with which capital can 
 now be transferred by telegraph to any point of work 
 
 99 
 
where it is needed, is without question a great gain 
 over the undeveloped banking system which made it 
 necessary for Mr. Farnam to carry time and again sums 
 of fifty thousand dollars in a trunk between New York 
 and Chicago. But our greatly increased facilities for 
 large business operations have brought with them also 
 tremendous temptations to jobbery and corruption. 
 Men make haste now to mortgage prospeCls where our 
 fathers mortgaged work. The speculative method of 
 smart financiering is nowadays to build a house by 
 giving a mortgage on the cellar, and that too before so 
 much as a hole has been dug. The principal thing in 
 much financiering now seems to be to get the money, 
 not to build the house, at least not thoroughly and well. 
 Modern gambling has outgrown the dice of the an¬ 
 cients and even the tables languidly prohibited bj r law 
 in our cities ; now whole industries, harvests, and rail¬ 
 roads are the counters in a game which a few may play 
 with the rights of men, and sometimes legislators seem 
 to be the not uninterested spectators. It would be 
 beyond my province and my understanding to discuss 
 the ominous social and political questions which the 
 growth of monopolies and the relations of gigantic 
 systems of private enterprise, like our railway lines 
 between the oceans, are thrusting upon the attention 
 of the country. I have noticed, however, that those 
 who have studied most deeply, and grasped most com¬ 
 prehensively, any social or political problem, are 
 usually the least forward in pressing for remedies 
 through some new prohibitions of legislation, and are 
 inclined to find in the natural aCtion and reactions of 
 
 IOO 
 
the forces of society, and in the gradual processes of 
 moral development, their hope for the remedy of evils 
 which at times seem to be stronger than our laws and 
 beyond our power of reform. But whatever legisla¬ 
 tion may, or may not, be necessary, there is one point 
 of light in these questions and discussions upon which 
 it is the proper province and one of the duties of the 
 pulpit to keep the popular eye fixed ; and that is this : 
 Capital and labor can hold right and prosperous rela¬ 
 tions only when both are honest; and the ultimate 
 solution of all social problems is an honest, God-fear¬ 
 ing community. Nothing short of that is or can be a 
 stable condition of society. And this ultimate princi¬ 
 ple of Christian political economy is in point in a dis¬ 
 course from the life of Mr. Farnam. Capital trusted 
 to his hand did no wrong to any man, but achieved 
 good for all classes when it entered on the first loco¬ 
 motive the city of Chicago, and passed on to touch the 
 bank of the Mississippi. Labor had its rights, and 
 was helped to help itself in honest work, when an 
 honest man, who loved his fellow-men, paid its wages. 
 And after all our discussions and projects of reform, 
 shall we not have to come back to the simple truism 
 at the basis of any lasting social and political pros¬ 
 perity, viz., the first necessity of true, honest, and 
 God-fearing men ? There was not only benevolence, 
 but the providence of a far-seeing statesmanship, in 
 the building of school houses and churches along the 
 advancing railroad by a timely aid whose extent 
 probably only the giver ever knew, much of which in 
 the after years he himself had probably forgotten. 
 
 IOI 
 
For Mr. Farnam, I must say it, had forgotten in his 
 life more adts of benevolence than many richer men 
 than he ever could have remembered. Such civiliza¬ 
 tion, intelligent and Christian, as that which he planted 
 and fostered along his railroad lines, shall yet prove, 
 if we succeed in advancing it, the peaceful solution of 
 those grave problems which are growing with the 
 greatness of the national development whose begin¬ 
 nings Mr. Farnam saw. 
 
 I turn now to another phase of Mr. Farnam’s life 
 from which as a pastor I may thankfully take a text. 
 The mere quantity of a man’s charity does not of 
 itself render liberality a praiseworthy virtue. Chris¬ 
 tian charity is a quality as well as a quantity. The 
 later Roman paganism knew how under certain cir¬ 
 cumstances to lavish gifts. The monumental inscrip¬ 
 tions of the Romans record the names of men who had 
 eredted public baths, given games, and bestowed lar¬ 
 gesses of corn and wine. But Pagan liberality never 
 learned the real spirit of Christian charity. Targe 
 bequests have sometimes in our day been given in 
 anything but the true spirit and under the higher 
 law of Christian charity. Mr. Farnam’s benevolence, 
 I can most truthfully say, was not merely a virtue of 
 quantity, but also of quality. Indeed, there were some 
 cliaradteristics in his manner of giving which for our 
 sakes should be commended. One of these happy 
 features of his benevolence was the timeliness of his 
 gifts. He believed in the self-multiplying power of 
 the help given at just the right time. This belief, 
 however, did not render him tardy with his benefac- 
 
 102 
 
tions as one waiting for the last moment with reluct¬ 
 ant gift ; but rather it made him watchful for oppor¬ 
 tunities of good. And when found, as they were 
 wherever he went, he was quick in meeting them. 
 Two instances of many I must give, which show, also, 
 that a man willing and ready to meet the providential 
 opportunities of his life will not confine his liberality 
 to a single worn channel, or to his own church or 
 neighborhood. While traveling abroad, as I happen 
 to have learned, he stopped in Beyrout, and attended 
 upon the Sabbath the exercises of one of those girls’ 
 schools which are the adornment of our Christian mis¬ 
 sions in the East. He saw the possibilities for larger 
 usefulness, and he took the need for granted. Stop¬ 
 ping our missionary, Dr. Thompson, at the close of 
 the service, he asked him, although it was Sunday, 
 to help him in a little matter of business. The dodtor 
 hesitated somewhat, doubtless fearing that he might 
 be asked to aid in collecting the draft of a stranger. 
 Mr. Farnam quietly handed him his check for the 
 benefit of the school, which, when Dr. Thompson 
 fairly took it in, caused him then and there to fall 
 upon his knees upon the floor and thank God for the 
 help for which with anxious hearts they had been 
 praying, and which proved to be just the help in time 
 of need to save the school. To another instance of 
 the same habit of seeing and adding at once upon the 
 needed opportunity, an instance of generosity nearer 
 home, let me refer. 
 
 I should state that the letters to which I now shall 
 allude have been furnished me at my own request by 
 
 I03 
 
gentlemen not in any way connected personally with 
 Mr. Farnam, and I assume the responsibilit)’ of mak¬ 
 ing this public reference to them. When in 1869 East 
 Divinity hall of the Yale seminary was in process of 
 erection, Mr. Farnam, without a word of solicitation 
 having been addressed to him, sent his check for five 
 thousand dollars to be applied to that department of 
 the college in the new building, or in an} r way its fac¬ 
 ulty might deem best. He drew his check, so he 
 wrote, just before leaving for the West, “ in case any 
 accident should befall me but he left directions not 
 to have it delivered until after the commencement 
 week should be over, as he wished to prevent its get¬ 
 ting into the newspapers. “And now,” so he con¬ 
 cluded the letter accompanying it, “I have only one 
 more request to make, and that is that it be kept out 
 of the newspapers.” I trust I do his memory no 
 wrong in breaking after his death this seal of silence 
 which he put upon a good deed done. Again in the 
 year 1881, learning that an effort was to be made to 
 increase the endowment of the theological department 
 of the college, without any diredt solicitation he wrote 
 that the friends of that institution could rely upon him 
 for ten thousand dollars for that purpose, an amount 
 which, he said, he would hand them in a few days in 
 cash or its equivalent. What the equivalent in cash 
 for that gift was in Mr. Farnam’s estimation, majr be 
 judged from the fact that when the few days had 
 elapsed his promise stood redeemed in ten bonds bear¬ 
 ing seven per cent, interest and worth at the time in 
 the market fifteen cents above par. I speak of these 
 
 104 
 
instances rather than of some of his well-known and 
 larger gifts to Yale College because they illustrate his 
 habit of looking for the aid at a given time most 
 needing to be rendered, and his promptness in doing 
 what he thought was for him to do. When Mr. 
 Farnam expedted to be absent for any length of 
 time from his place in this sandtuary, he would make 
 out beforehand and leave for colledtion his checks for 
 the several contributions which he knew would be 
 taken in his absence. So the servant ran to meet the 
 Lord’s will. 
 
 But I have not touched upon that which seemed to 
 me to be the best thing in Mr. Farnam’s manner of be¬ 
 nevolence. I think all of you recognized an appropri¬ 
 ateness to him in the words chosen for my text in his 
 memory ;—these words certainly those who knew him 
 well would be willing to leave written as his epitaph 
 until the Lord Christ’s judgment day; “It is more 
 blessed to give than to receive.” He had learned 
 early in life, and when he had but little to bestow, the 
 happiness of giving. He did not lose that joy as his 
 fortune grew. Riches are poverty, indeed, if when 
 they come the heart’s truest instindts and simplest 
 pleasures take wings and fly away. Mr. Farnam was 
 one of those benefadtors of their kind who cared little 
 for money as money. He loved all true and happy 
 and friendly uses for his money. His heart went with 
 his gifts. And so his was the happiness of giving. 
 We sometimes say to ourselves how much, if we had 
 the means, we should enjoy giving splendid gifts. 
 Perhaps we might; and perhaps we dream too much 
 
of finding happiness in the fame of giving ; whether, 
 if we had much, we could know the true happiness of 
 giving, depends upon the degree of pleasure we can 
 take in doing the small duty of ministering, or leaving 
 the little gift which we may bring. Men do not 
 usually in later life enter into the happiness of large 
 liberality if they have not known in their youth some¬ 
 thing of the joy of their Lord in doing good. But 
 one who can take pleasure in giving, not in the good 
 name of it, not in the honor of it, not wholly either 
 in the consequences of it, but in the act of it, he has 
 learned a rich secret of happiness ; he knows some¬ 
 thing of a kind of joy which our Lord himself called 
 blessedness. Would that we all knew more of it in 
 little things or large. And if one has not learned it, 
 if any one finds that the act of giving hurts him, and 
 he is a Christian, then by the Master’s own example 
 let me urge him to learn that rare secret of happiness 
 at any cost; perhaps only by some decisive adt of 
 benevolence which does cost, can the habit of benevo¬ 
 lence which is recognized as a duty be made a plea¬ 
 sure of the soul. I cherish in memory two minor 
 incidents which let me see the heartiness and simple 
 pleasure of Mr. Faruam’s kindness, and at the same 
 time his inability to love money for its own name’s 
 sake. One, a trifling thing, but characteristic, was 
 the amusement with which he told me how an early 
 acquaintance of his tried to make his will. After 
 slowly dictating to his lawyer a few small bequests, 
 he suddenly stopped short and said no more. At 
 length the lawyer ventured to suggest that he had 
 
 106 
 
not yet disposed of a tenth part of his property in his 
 will ; rising suddenly and pacing angrily the floor, 
 the man exclaimed, “I will keep the rest myself.” 
 Some may be living in this folly which they would 
 laugh at when thus spoken. Another illustration of 
 Mr. Farnam’s manner of giving, which I must be 
 excused for mentioning here, was the impression 
 which he made upon me one morning when I hap¬ 
 pened to be with him in his home while he answered 
 one of the many calls upon his benevolence. What 
 I noticed then, what lingers as a pleasant thought 
 in my memory, was the smile which went with his 
 money. He seemed in giving it to be doing a favor 
 to himself. Another memory abides with me, of an¬ 
 other man not living now, not known here, of ample 
 wealth, whose natural impulse of kindness had been 
 narrowed and made hard by the false, grasping 
 habit of his life. I remember his look when I asked 
 him to fulfill a promise which in an unguarded mo¬ 
 ment of generous impulse he had made to me of a 
 small sum to help a poor girl who was making a 
 heroic struggle for herself and others of her life. I 
 remember the word about ‘‘some other time;” I 
 remember how slowly from the unconverted pocket 
 of, I trust, a converted man that single bill came to 
 the light; I recall the thunder-cloud upon the face as 
 it passed from his hand away forever; followed, I 
 acknowledge, by a look as of some gleam of long for¬ 
 gotten happiness, when, after the deed was done, the 
 first impulse of generosity came for a moment to his 
 face before he closed against further appeal his gloomy 
 
 107 
 
bank-vault of a heart. Do you wonder that the Lord 
 loveth the cheerful giver ? Nor is it well for any of us 
 to put off until another world acquaintance with that 
 happiness of true benevolence which was the perfedt 
 joy of the Master on earth, who for our sakes, though 
 he was rich, became poor ; and which shall constitute 
 so much of the final blessedness of the city of God 
 that it is difficult to imagine how a man who has not 
 learned the secret of it here can feel at first in any way 
 comfortable in heaven. 
 
 As it has not been my purpose in this memorial dis¬ 
 course to sketch the life, or to give an exhaustive analy¬ 
 sis of the character of Mr. Famam ; as I have not al¬ 
 lowed myself to dwell upon the traits and habits of the 
 man which had endeared him to those who had enjoyed 
 his hospitality and which will form the more intimate 
 and sacred memories of his home ; I need not now, on 
 the other hand, seek to bring out the human frailty, or 
 to find the faults in one for whom, as for us all, Christ 
 the righteous died. My purpose has been to preach 
 from the truth of a life a sermon for our use and profit. 
 To all young men, especially to such as have the will 
 for work, I may bring from this man’s success a 
 friendly word of encouragement. Grant that he grew 
 up in times peculiarly fitted for the achievement of 
 success ; grant that he was fortunate in gaining early 
 the confidence of friends who helped him forward ; 
 still his successful life and honored age are proof of 
 the power of certain right principles which, if followed 
 out, under any circumstances, can hardly fail to make 
 in the end for any man friends and happiness. It is 
 
 108 
 
encouraging to refledt that a boy who went in his 
 eighteenth year from the farm with only himself with 
 which to win his way, and who dutifully gave to his 
 father a note for the remainder of his time until he 
 should be twenty-one ; who made up his mind what 
 work he wanted to do, and when he applied for a 
 position upon the corps of engineers on the Erie canal, 
 upon being told that the only position vacant was that 
 of cook, was not ashamed to say at once, “Then I 
 will take thatthe youth who upon his first small 
 salary helped another young man to gain a start ; and 
 who, as opportunity widened and prosperity advanced, 
 was careless of his own comfort and ease, of where he 
 slept or what he ate, so long as he did the work which 
 he was trusted by others to do ; — he has been fortunate 
 in his life, permitted by a kind providence to live to 
 enjoy with others the fruit of his toil, and to die in 
 peace, surrounded by friends, and with the good-will 
 of a city at his door. His last ride, the afternoon of 
 that day when death stole through the evening shadows 
 to lay its hand upon his lips, and with gentle touch to 
 take him in sleep away, his last look upon this city of 
 our homes was from that drive which bears his name ; 
 and not the cold marble nor the words graven upon 
 stone shall be the monument of his benignant age : 
 rather the happiness of children and youth let loose 
 among those trees ; the pleasure of many who from 
 the turns of that almost Alpine path shall catch views 
 of meadow and stream, and a city of homes among the 
 elms, and of the expanse of water and the sky beyond ; 
 this delight of ours and of our children’s children in 
 
the freshness of many springtimes and the colors of 
 many autumns to come, shall be the true memorial of 
 his life ; that path itself reminds us who knew him of 
 the life of him from whom it has its name—-a path rising 
 easily from the public highway, nowhere abruptly 
 broken or descending, yet having its obstacles to 
 turn and its difficulties to be surmounted, a narrow 
 way at times shut in on either hand, yet steadily 
 holding its determined course and going higher, with 
 broad, fair prospedt at the summit, above the city’s 
 stir, and nearer the peace of heaven. 
 
 Men and brethren, because this man has gone from 
 us, ours is a greater work to do. His work is done ; 
 ours remains yet a little while. From this pulpit, 
 built upon Puritan principle, let no man living or 
 among the dead be honored above his brethren, or 
 praised after he has gone hence, on account of his 
 birth, or his wealth, or his prosperity. As in the 
 Master’s presence, let the childlike spirit here be held 
 greatest of all. And he that is greatest among you 
 shall be your servant. In this spirit may God help 
 us all to use and to enjoy whatever we possess, and 
 to do happily without whatever we have not. May 
 our lives, following the example of the true men and 
 women who are going from us, so far as they have 
 followed Christ, and carrying on to still larger uses 
 whatever of good for their fellow men they have done 
 on earth, abound more and more in every good word 
 and work until the Master comes. 
 
 IIO 
 
ARTICLES 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE NEW HAVEN NEWSPAPERS 
 
 AND 
 
 RESOLUTIONS 
 
The following account of the funeral services was printed in the 
 Morning News of October 9, 1883. 
 
 Yesterday afternoon at 2 o’clock, the funeral services 
 over the remains of the late Henry Farnam were held 
 at his late residence on Hillhouse avenue. The casket 
 in which the remains were inclosed was richly covered 
 with black broadcloth and the silver plate bore the 
 inscription : 
 
 Born Nov. 9, 1803. 
 
 HENRY FARNAM. 
 
 Died Odt. 4, 1883. 
 
 Upon the casket were a wreath of ivy and autumn 
 leaves, a sheaf of wheat, and branches of palms. The 
 Center Church choir, consisting of Miss Z. Hazlett, 
 Miss Maggie Roberts, Mr. P. W. Bush, and Mr. G. 
 M. Bush, opened the services by singing the hymn, 
 “Thy Will Be Done,” after which the Rev. Dr. 
 Newman Smyth made a short address, as follows : 
 
 ‘ ‘ The messenger of the Lord has come to this house, 
 and now that God’s message has been heard we must 
 say, ‘ His will be done.’ We who are here, many of 
 us who are strangers to one another, know that he was 
 the friend of all of us. A part of Mr. Farnam’s life 
 belonged to the public. There are many lessons to be 
 drawn from his life as a citizen, a good citizen, and as 
 a public man, although he held no public station ; and 
 I shall avail myself of the opportunity in my own pulpit 
 to speak of these at another time. To-day we would 
 not in measured words speak the tribute of the man 
 who has passed away ; we mourn now with those who 
 
 “3 
 
mourn. Through his honored, useful life, many of 
 you have known him as a neighbor, have felt his 
 genial kindness, and have learned to love him for his 
 kindness and goodness. He was a friend and a father 
 to many. God be praised for this life of his ; God 
 be praised for all he has been in life. He was not a 
 man easily inclined to unveil his inner soul ; he was 
 a man of unobtrusive manners, of devout spirit, inter¬ 
 ested in all Christian work, in all Christian missions, 
 and with a love of all that is good. As a pastor, in 
 the name of my Master and his, I can repeat: 1 Inas¬ 
 much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
 my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.’ ” 
 
 ‘ ‘ God knows how hard it is to carry from our 
 homes those whom we love. As his nearest friends 
 return to his home, shall not the spirit of his life be 
 like a kindly, cheerful greeting here ? It is not gold 
 or silver that has made this home, but love. He 
 leaves with us a benediction of good cheer, and hope, 
 and love. We, as we go by this door, remembering him 
 as a friend of the city, may have our own lives inspired 
 by his usefulness. Shall we not find our burdens of 
 care become lightened, as we remember him whom we 
 have known, whom we love, and whom we hope to 
 meet again in the activities of eternal life?” 
 
 Prayer was offered by* President Porter of Yale 
 College. The interment was in the Grove street 
 cemetery. The bearers were President Woolsey, Pro¬ 
 fessor Twining, Dr. Robertson, ex-Governor James 
 E. English, G. W. Curtis, Eli Whitney, Richard S. 
 Fellowes and Professor Silliman. 
 
 U 4 
 
An article by Professor Fisher, printed in the Journal and Cou¬ 
 rier, October 5, 1883. 
 
 An honored citizen, whose physical presence, so 
 gracious in its simple dignity, was itself a benedic¬ 
 tion — a noble man, whom none who knew could fail 
 to love—has passed away. By a kind providence, 
 his closing days were, for the most part, free from 
 pain. His friends were spared the anguish of see¬ 
 ing him suffer, him whose heart was always ten¬ 
 derly alive with sympathy for others, and quick to 
 devise means for their relief. It was the privilege 
 of the writer of these paragraphs to spend with him 
 a portion of the evening previous to the attack of 
 illness which proved fatal. The same benignity 
 and gentleness, the same unaffected, genial courtesy 
 which always marked his manner, attended him to 
 the end. 
 
 Mr. Farnam was a man of strong understanding. 
 His intelligence was quick and penetrating. He 
 seized on the main points of any question that en¬ 
 gaged his attention. Not born to affluence, but 
 obliged in early life to earn his own livelihood, he, 
 nevertheless, availed himself to the full of the means 
 of intellectual improvement within his reach. Pas¬ 
 sages of good authors, like Cowper, whom he had 
 read in his earlier days, he retained in memory. In 
 an important degree he made himself what he was. 
 His prosperity was his own achievement. It was due 
 to his own manly energy, enterprise, perseverance, 
 and uprightness. But he had none of the faults and 
 
 Il 5 
 
foibles that are commonly attributed to self-made 
 men. No one could be more unaffectedly modest. 
 A self-respect, never obtrusively manifested, but serv¬ 
 ing as an effectual shield against aggression, accom¬ 
 panied that uniform consideration and regard for 
 others which were inbred in his character. He hon¬ 
 ored learning and institutions of learning. He in¬ 
 dulged in reminiscences of his own honorable career 
 without the least appearance of self-flattery, and no 
 farther than was natural to a man who was looking 
 back in a season of repose upon the events of a suc¬ 
 cessful and laborious life. His occupations had 
 brought him into close acquaintance with various 
 individuals of uncommon powers of mind, like James 
 Hillhouse. They had known how to value his worth, 
 and he in turn took pleasure in recalling his inter¬ 
 course with them. For the public men of a former 
 day, especially for Webster, the men whom he had 
 heard and admired, he had an enthusiastic, yet dis¬ 
 criminating admiration. 
 
 A large minded man, Mr. Farnam was marked out 
 for large undertakings. A work like that which he 
 accomplished in conjunction with Mr. Sheffield, of 
 connecting Chicago and the interior cities with the 
 Mississippi by a railway, was congenial, not only with 
 the business taste, and capacity, but, alst>, with the 
 generous patriotic sentiments which distinguished 
 him. It need not be said that in all his enterprises he 
 was governed by an integrity that could never be 
 tempted to infliCt a wrong. He instantly turned aside 
 from every scheme, however enticing from a pecuni- 
 
 116 
 
ary point of view, the moment he saw in it the least 
 taint of fraud. To enrich himself at the cost of other 
 men or of his country, would have given him no sen¬ 
 sation of pleasure. He might have added vast sums 
 to his worldly store, and, probably, without incurring 
 serious public reproach, had he been less scrupulous 
 in his judgment as to what stridt honesty demands of 
 business men. 
 
 Mr. Farnam has stood in this community for years 
 as an example of beneficence. It was unostentatious 
 beneficence. It embraced the entire circle of his 
 kinsfolk. But there it did not stop. It extended to 
 public institutions of education and charity, and to 
 families and individuals without number who were in 
 need. His generous gifts flowed out in an almost 
 incessant stream. One of his very last adts was the 
 procuring of drafts to be sent to persons at a distance 
 whom he wished to help. This was on the afternoon 
 just previous to his prostration by illness. But there 
 was no day of his life when death would not have 
 surprised him in the adt of doing good to his fellow 
 men. Giving, in the case of Mr. Farnam, fulfilled its 
 idea. It was not from vanity or for applause. It 
 was not even from the pressure of a sense of duty, 
 although conscience was the regulative principle to 
 which he was habitually loyal. Mr. Farnam was not 
 amenable to the censure which a poet (in the “ Vision 
 of Sir Faunfal ”) attaches to benevolence springing 
 from the constraint of obligation : 
 
 11 He gives nothing but worthless gold, 
 
 Who gives from a sense of duty. ’ ’ 
 
He gave out of a heartfelt sympathy. Love was 
 the animating principle. The gift seemed to be suf¬ 
 fused with the spirit of benevolence from which it 
 emanated. It was “twice blessed.” It made the 
 giver happy not less than the recipient. The service 
 rendered to a community by a man of this stamp is 
 far from being measured by the particular benefits 
 that result from his various benefactions. As an ex¬ 
 ample to others, as a living illustration of Christian 
 goodness, as inspiring men with a higher conception 
 of what human nature is capable of, as diffusing 
 abroad the joy which arises from a common admira¬ 
 tion of a noble and generous soul, the life of such a 
 man is of incalculable benefit. In the bestowal of 
 his charities, as in all his condudt, Mr. Farnam dis¬ 
 covered the innate refinement of his nature. He kept 
 himself in the background. He shunned all noise and 
 parade. Very much that he did was done silently, 
 and was known only within the limits of his own 
 household—the bereaved household where that ‘ ‘ good 
 gray head ” will no more be seen. 
 
 Mr. Farnam revered God. None who knew him 
 well could fail to discern that religious faith and love 
 were deep and controlling sentiments in his heart. 
 If he said little on these sacred themes, it was because 
 they were sacred. They pertained to the profound 
 experiences which it is more hard for some men than 
 for others to expose to the light. In the familiar 
 verses of Leigh Hunt, the angel had not found the 
 name of Abou Ben Adhem on his list of ‘ ‘ those who 
 Love the Lord.” Then 
 
“Abou spoke more low, 
 
 But cheerly still; and said, ‘ I pray thee then 
 Write me as one who loves his fellow men.’ 
 
 The angel wrote and vanish’d. The next night 
 It came again, with a great wakening light, 
 
 And show’d the names whom love of God had bless’d, 
 And, lo ! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.” 
 
 It has not been the design of the present writer to 
 delineate the charadter of Mr. Farnam. That is left 
 to other pens and voices. What is here said is but an 
 imperfedt expression of the sincere respedt and love of 
 one whose privilege it had been for a series of years 
 to enjoy the friendship of one of the noblest of men. 
 
 G. P. F. 
 
An article by President Porter, printed in The Palladium , 
 October S, 1883. 
 
 New Haven buries to-day one of its most conspicu¬ 
 ous and honored citizens. It is no exaggeration to 
 say that no man has of late been more generally es¬ 
 teemed and loved than Henry Farnam. The promi¬ 
 nent incidents of his life have already been given to 
 the public. It is thought that some notice of his per¬ 
 sonal character, as it was formed and developed by the 
 circumstances of his life, may not be uninteresting or 
 unprofitable. The writer has had unusual opportuni¬ 
 ties to know these circumstances and to estimate their 
 influence in forming a character of unusual strength 
 and attractiveness, as well as of distinguished useful¬ 
 ness and individuality. If he shall write with more 
 ardor than may seem to comport with the severity of 
 truth, he begs his critics to remember that he writes 
 from an intimacy of personal knowledge which war¬ 
 rants him in speaking with confidence. 
 
 Mr. Farnam’s birth and early training were in 
 western New York, before the Erie canal was finished, 
 and almost before it was projected. He knew much 
 of this region when it was an unbroken forest, more 
 of it when its wheat-fields and meadows were filled 
 with stumps and many of its roads were rough and at 
 times impassable, when produce was drawn to Albany, 
 and even to many of the nearest mills and market 
 towns, at an enormous cost, and when manifold incon¬ 
 veniences, as well as hardships, were familiar to the 
 daily life, even of the most prosperous. But he lived 
 in a community of aCtive-minded and strong-hearted 
 
 120 
 
men and women, who recognized duty to God and love 
 to man as controlling springs of action, and who valued 
 education and intelligence as of supreme importance. 
 The variety of the population brought in a certain 
 liberality which was strange to the traditionary New 
 England rigor, and the hope and elasticity peculiar to 
 a new country gave spring and elasticity to the 
 thoughts and feelings, even when they led them 
 astray. His education at home was fortunate. His 
 own mother was as remarkable in her way as was the 
 son in his—simple, self-relying, benevolent, and strong- 
 hearted, till her death in 1873, at the age of nearly 
 ninety-eight. He was a good student and an enthusi¬ 
 astic lover of mathematics, pure and applied. Early 
 in life, it was his good fortune to come under the influ¬ 
 ence of Mr. David Thomas, the county surveyor. Mr. 
 Thomas was a Quaker and a gentleman of the plain 
 and solid sort, full of love and shrewdness, who taught 
 him mathematics and surveying, and most of all ex¬ 
 emplified in his own household the dignity and beauty 
 of a truthful and loving life. Mr. Farnam never 
 wearied in recalling and relating the scenes and con¬ 
 versations which attended his opening youth and early 
 manhood, and it was evident that Mr. Thomas occu¬ 
 pied a prominent place in his love and memory. 
 Through influence of Mr. Thomas and Mr. Davis 
 Hurd, he was attached to the corps of engineers who 
 laid out and constructed the western portion of the 
 Erie canal, and found in this employment a congenial 
 field for the activities and tastes which determined the 
 destiny of his life. That he was able and faithful, was 
 
 121 
 
proved by his rapid promotion. That his mind was 
 stimulated by the society and attractions which were 
 incidental to this life, was proved by the astonishing 
 familiarity which he acquired with the history of the 
 political parties and the conspicuous men of New York, 
 in those exciting times of New York politics, all of 
 which he could recite with the utmost accuracy and 
 fullness. Even at that early age, he was no idle spec¬ 
 tator in political life, but was an ardent thinker and 
 personal aCtor in public affairs. 
 
 In 1825, at the age of twenty-two, he came to Con¬ 
 necticut as first assistant engineer in the laying out 
 and construction of the Farmington canal. In 1827 
 he became chief engineer, and from that time forward 
 was intrusted with the chief and almost sole responsi¬ 
 bility of constructing and managing and repairing the 
 same until 1846, when the railway took its place. 
 This canal was supported by the co-operation of a few 
 citizens, who gave cordially of their sympathy but 
 sparingly of their subscriptions. Conspicuous among 
 these friends was the Hon. James Hillhouse, who 
 seems from the first to have won his reverence and 
 his love to an extraordinary degree. The ardent and 
 public spirited old man not only believed in the suc¬ 
 cess of the canal, but was ready to give to it all his 
 time and his strength. By day and by night, in storm 
 and in sunshine, during summer’s heat and van ter’s 
 cold, he was with his young engineer in the field, en¬ 
 countering all sorts of inconveniences, equalty re¬ 
 gardless of them all. It is not surprising that, laden 
 with political honors and not forgetful of his federal 
 
 122 
 
principles, abounding with anecdotes of other men 
 and other times, and overflowing with enthusiasm, he 
 should have gained the confidence of such a young 
 man as was Mr. Farnam, and that Mr. Hillhouse 
 should till the day of his own death have felt toward 
 and talked of him as an adopted son. There were 
 also other good and eminent men whom Mr. Farnam 
 found in Connecticut, whom he learned to respedt and 
 honor. Mr. Hillhouse'died in 1832, the staunchest 
 and sturdiest supporter of the canal, leaving Mr. Far¬ 
 nam to bear the load of its responsibility for several 
 years. New Haven was a small city of some 8,000 to 
 10,000 inhabitants, with a limited back country with 
 by no means the most fertile soil, in imagined, if not 
 real, competition with Hartford, which was surrounded 
 by a rich agricultural region and commanded the rich 
 valley of the Connecticut. What was more annoying, 
 New Haven itself was discouraged and disunited in 
 respect to the canal, the responsibility for which was 
 devolved upon Mr. Farnam. How faithfully and 
 patiently he labored, by day and by night, in sun¬ 
 shine and in storm, his most intimate friends only 
 know. How quick he was to meet any summons of 
 duty at any place, how often he drove in his one- 
 horse wagon from New Haven to Northampton and 
 any place between to meet many a sudden exigency, 
 and how often that exigency involved a loss by flood 
 of thousands of dollars, no one but himself and his 
 family can tell. The end came at last, the poor canal 
 became in small part his property and a source of 
 some income beyond his salary. 
 
 
These details are recited, because they were to ex¬ 
 emplify Mr. Farnam’s character. During all this 
 period of struggle he was almost alone in labor, in 
 watchfulness, in self-denial and undaunted courage, 
 with a scanty salary, and no specially flattering pros¬ 
 pects for the future. His habits were frugal, and his 
 savings were moderate. He was, however, generous 
 from the first. This fact deserves special attention, 
 for the reason that an impression may have been 
 formed, that the abundant and willing liberality of 
 his later life began with the large increase of his 
 wealth, and that the generous gifts of his life were 
 simply the casual overflow of a superabundant income. 
 This was by no means true. Long before the Canal 
 railroad was ever thought of, while Mr. Farnam was 
 painfully travelling between New Haven and North¬ 
 ampton in his one-horse wagon, he had begun to evince 
 that generous and helpful spirit which was so con¬ 
 spicuous in the years that followed. Not a few of the 
 living and the dead could testify, that at that period 
 by his kindly help and his generous confidence he had 
 aided many to success in the early struggles of their 
 life, and set scores of men on the road to affluence. 
 One of the most loving of his friends, who very re¬ 
 cently died, was helped to the beginnings of a consid¬ 
 erable fortune by Mr. Famam’s generous assistance, 
 which was disposed of largely in benefactions, stimu¬ 
 lated, as he said, by Mr. Farnam’s example. “So 
 shines a good deed in a naughty world.’’ 
 
 Mr. Farnam’s subsequent career in enterprise and 
 acquisition and liberality needs only be referred to. 
 
 124 
 
The change in his circumstances made no change in 
 his character, except as his intellect was stimulated 
 by larger enterprises, his respeCt for great and good 
 men and his detestation of bad men were deepened, as 
 his acquaintance with both classes was enlarged, his 
 confidence in his own resources w’as strengthened, and 
 the confidence of the ablest and best men of the 
 country in his integrity and sagacity was more firmly 
 fixed. From the beginning to the end of his career 
 he has been the same self-relying, modest, affectionate, 
 true-hearted, generous man. His career has in many 
 respedts been brilliant for its enterprise and its success. 
 Many would say that the circumstances which favored 
 him have been extraordinary, but on a second view 
 of his career, it will be seen that these circumstances 
 have to a large extent been created by his own indi¬ 
 vidual force and goodness. His connection with Mr. 
 Sheffield, it is true, gave him access to the capitalists 
 of the country, but his own skill and integrity first 
 won for him the confidence of Mr. Sheffield, and both 
 together, with the experience of each in the railway 
 which was designed to conned New York with 
 Springfield and Boston, were needed to give effect to 
 Mr. Farnam’s forecast of what the railway would do 
 for the Prairie States ; to give him courage to finish 
 the first link, which had so long waited to conneCt 
 New York with Chicago, and which had waited so 
 long for a master to forge it, then to conneCt Chicago 
 with the Mississippi, next to finish this railway months 
 before the time agreed upon, to the well deserved 
 profit of the contractors, to set off toward the Pacific, 
 
 I2 5 
 
and last to designate him as one of the parties who 
 should be among the foremost in the first charter of 
 the Union Pacific Railway Company. It is worthy of 
 notice, that the reputation for integrity which had 
 contributed so largely to these splendid successes, did 
 not suffer in the bright noon of his splendid prosperity, 
 nor during the later years of a life which continued to 
 be successful to the end. That he should be prosperous 
 was a matter of course with his “troops of friends,’’ 
 to whom he had lent a helping hand, with his knowl¬ 
 edge of markets and of men, and the sagacity w r hich 
 comes from ‘ ‘ old experience, ’ ’ but his name was never 
 tainted with the suspicion of being a manipulating 
 director, who ‘ ‘ slaughtered his own railway in Wall 
 street,’’ ora “receiver,’’ who “wrecked’’ it for his 
 personal profit. Nothing w r as more noticeable than 
 the detestation in which he held practices of this sort, 
 and the mixture of simplicity and scorn with which he 
 looked upon manipulations of ever}' kind wdiich devi¬ 
 ated from the obvious rules of business sagacity and 
 forecast. Perhaps the most interesting trait of his 
 character was the unconscious combination of the 
 ‘ ‘ prophetic strain ’ ’ which came from his wise ex¬ 
 perience, and the artless simplicity of the open-hearted 
 childhood, which he never could outgrow. 
 
 His public spirit was a passion. Wherever he lived, 
 he became interested at once in the possible improve¬ 
 ment of the community, and he made it a matter of 
 personal enthusiasm. When his country was in dan¬ 
 ger, though eminently a man of peace, he threw him¬ 
 self into the conflict with the fire of excited personal 
 
 126 
 
feeling, and felt, as he often said, that he did not desire 
 to live, if disunion was to triumph. 
 
 We have already adverted to his open-handed liber¬ 
 ality, as begun in his early life and continued to the 
 end. The habit of helping his fellow men was formed 
 in his early business life, as could be shown by many 
 striking examples, and it was so cherished and ma¬ 
 tured as finally to become to him one of the chief 
 sources of occupation and enjoyment. His gifts dur¬ 
 ing his residence in Chicago, as his wealth increased, 
 were incessant and various, and took almost every con¬ 
 ceivable form of public and private benefactions, and 
 to the end of his life he continued to send westward 
 his liberal responses to the incessant applications 
 which were made to him. To how many churches 
 and colleges and seminaries he sent his benefactions, 
 no one could venture to reckon, nor how quickly he 
 anticipated some of their calls, as in the wise and lov¬ 
 ing telegraphic dispatch which he sent before the 
 fire in Chicago was extinguished. It would not be 
 easy to count how many subscriptions of $5,000 he 
 has given to astonished applicants. His large contri¬ 
 butions to Yale College have amounted, in one form 
 and another, to between $70,000 and $80,000. His 
 gift of the drive in the East Rock Park which is 
 known by his name was thoroughly characteristic, in 
 matter and in manner. He did not care to distinguish 
 himself early by singular or conspicuous generosity to 
 the park, for reasons that were obvious aud honorable 
 to himself. He was convinced that nothing but time 
 and trial would justify the purchase of the park and 
 
 127 
 
the expenditure upon it of any considerable sum. But 
 lie intimated more than once that some help would 
 sooner or later come, if it was likely to be needed. 
 When the time came, his gift was ready. He had ex¬ 
 pected that $5,000 would be all that would be required, 
 but when he found that twice the sum would be neces¬ 
 sary, he gave the whole with equal cheerfulness, and 
 the progress toward completion, with its evidence of 
 the pleasure and surprise which the use of the drive 
 furnished so many, was a perpetual delight for months 
 before his death. 
 
 To his friends and neighbors he abounded in kindness 
 and sympathy. In their joys and sorrows he was a 
 thoughtful, loving friend. His words and aCts were 
 kindness itself. To his own household he was ten¬ 
 der-hearted and overflowing with sympathy. Noth¬ 
 ing hindered the expression of his feelings to those 
 nearest and more remote, except the sensitive timidity 
 which was characteristic of the man. Even to his 
 own children his love was too sensitive and delicate 
 to bear expression by words. What was true of his 
 feelings towards man was evidently true of his feel¬ 
 ings towards God. These feelings were sensitively 
 cherished in his heart, but that they were cherished 
 most sacredly and uprightly there, we have abundant 
 evidence. The language of his heart was “O my 
 soul thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord. 
 My goodness extendetli not to Thee; but to the 
 saints that are in the earth, and the excellent in whom 
 is all my delight.” He loved Christian men and 
 Christian teachers, and devout and humble women, 
 
 128 
 
his own mother pre-eminently. He delighted in the 
 services and teachings of the Christian church, in 
 Christian song and prayer. He was steadfastly in¬ 
 terested in Christian missions at home and abroad, 
 contributing largely to the support of both. To his 
 own pastor and to the welfare of the Center church 
 he was always most loyal and friendly, and never 
 failed to be present in his place as a devout and at¬ 
 tentive worshipper. Many reasons from the history 
 of his early life might be given why he did not be¬ 
 come a communicant of the church, but that he not 
 only did justly and loved mercy, but walked humbly 
 with God, those who knew him most intimately be¬ 
 lieve most firmly. 
 
 His last days were days of eminent blessing and 
 peace. The evening of the closing events of his life 
 was singularly happy and complete. From Tuesday 
 till Friday previous, he had been in Farmington, where 
 he passed much of his time for the first fourteen years 
 of his residence in Connecticut, and where he married 
 his wife. On Saturday he traversed the Farnam 
 Drive to its termination, and enjoyed fresh and more 
 than usual gratification at the evidence that it was 
 giving delight to many. On his return he called at 
 the house of his daughter, Mrs. Whitney, to give his 
 blessing to his grandchildren there, then visited his 
 oldest son in his sick chamber, and greeted his chil¬ 
 dren after their recent return from their summer home. 
 After dinner he was solicitous punctually to despatch 
 his accustomed remittances to beloved relatives on 
 their appointed day, and was just prepared to enjoy 
 
 129 
 
his evening’s quiet, when he was summoned to the 
 rest which remaineth for the people of God. After 
 a brief paroxysm, he fell into an untroubled sleep, and 
 on Thursday at noon he passed from earth, which 
 is the poorer by the loss of a man whose life was full 
 of blessings and benefits to his kind ; leaving to his 
 family and to his friends his loving benedictions and 
 his blessed memory. p. 
 
 Yale College. 
 
 130 
 
An editorial from The Morning News , October 5, 1883. 
 
 New Haven has suffered within two or three years 
 the loss of several distinguished public benefactors. 
 No greater bereavement remained possible than that 
 which we are called on to announce to-day in the 
 death of Mr. Henry Farnam. The events of his use¬ 
 ful career may be read in a formal biographical sketch 
 in another column, but we cannot refrain from here 
 bearing witness to the peculiarly grateful estimation 
 in which he was held by high and low, as New 
 Haven’s most honored and representative citizen. 
 Along with his friends and associates, the Trow¬ 
 bridges and Sheffields, he will be remembered to all 
 future time, as one of the men who have made New 
 Haven what it is, the metropolis of literature, science, 
 and art, of this portion of New England. As the 
 writer of the obituary sketch truly remarks, it is not 
 alone by his benefadtions to Yale College, to the city 
 charities, and to works of public improvement and 
 adornment, that his memory will long be cherished by 
 hundreds of grateful hearts. 
 
 Charity stands at the head of the Christian roll of 
 virtues, yet there have been many great public and 
 private benefadtors who have not possessed that savoir 
 faire of the refined and polished gentleman whose loss 
 we deplore. The recipient of his bounty was not 
 made to feel himself a dependent, bound to a tribute 
 of recognition, but rather as a co-laborer and partner 
 in the work of advancing the objedt which had called 
 forth the contribution. “ He always seemed,” said 
 Professor Fisher many years ago, “ as if he was long- 
 
 13 * 
 
ing to offer you a check for five thousand dollars.” 
 This remark aptly illustrated the character of Henry 
 Farnam. To those who accepted the position of 
 trustees of his great public gifts, he felt a positive 
 gratitude, and to them, more than to himself, he 
 ascribed the merit of the foundations which will per¬ 
 petuate his name. 
 
 From another point of view his career was exceed¬ 
 ingly interesting and instructive. He was one of the 
 last remaining links connecting us with the heroic age 
 of American enterprise, with the builders of the Erie 
 Canal, the constructors of the first western railways, 
 and the localization of the great western centers of 
 population and traffic. His biograph}' should become 
 popularly known for the instruction and guidance of 
 the younger generation, and his statue should sur¬ 
 mount the highest point of that noble park of which 
 he was the chief promoter. 
 
Ail editorial from The Palladium , Odtober 5, 1883. 
 
 Nineteen months ago, the people of New Haven 
 were called upon to mourn the loss of an eminent cit¬ 
 izen, one to whom his day and generation owed much, 
 and whose name will ever be held in honored remem¬ 
 brance for the good he accomplished. Again the peo¬ 
 ple are called upon to mourn, another eminent citizen 
 is gone, and the name of Farnam is written beside that 
 of Sheffield in the list of the departed. Long asso¬ 
 ciated together in business life, the people will natu¬ 
 rally associate them together in death, as the two men 
 in this community who were always first in good 
 works, prominent above others in their public spirit 
 as well as their private benevolence. Elsewhere we 
 give a sketch of the principal events in the life of Mr. 
 Farnam, which imperfectly discloses something of the 
 character of the man. Reared under circumstances 
 far removed from affluence, necessity early compelled 
 him to make the most of the ability God had given 
 him. Mr. Farnam was what is popularly termed a 
 self-made man. That is, it was neither to favor nor 
 to fortune that he owed his success in life. He earned 
 it by his own unaided exertion. Beginning a humble 
 “rodman,” eking out his small salary by teaching 
 school in the winter season, he grew to become one of 
 the best known railway engineers of his day, amass¬ 
 ing a fortune in the process. But it is not as a great 
 railroad builder, or as a wealthy man merely, that 
 Mr. Farnam will be longest remembered. His public 
 spirit, his private benevolence, and his strict integrity 
 gained for him among his fellow citizens a reputation 
 
 133 
 
which any one might envy. It is as the man'who al¬ 
 ways stood ready to assist any enterprise intended for 
 the public good, whose purse was ever open to the 
 call of charity, whose name was universally recognized 
 as the very best indorsement that any project, public 
 or private, could have, that his loss will be most 
 deeply felt in this community, where the closing } r ears 
 of his life were so quietly spent. 
 
 •34 
 
From The Morning News of October io, 1883. 
 
 The annual fall parade and drill of the Second 
 Company Governor’s Horse Guards was held in this 
 city yesterday. At 10 o’clock the company headed 
 by the National Band, of Wallingford, marched to a 
 lot near Howard avenue grounds and they here spent 
 several hours in drilling. At 2 o’clock they partook 
 of dinner at the Grand Union Hotel. The tables were 
 elaborately spread, and the bill of fare was very ex¬ 
 tensive, comprising all the delicacies of the season. 
 It was after 4 o’clock when the guards paraded 
 through the principal streets. At the suggestion of 
 Mayor Uewis, the company escorted its invited guests 
 in carriages up Farnam Drive to the summit of East 
 Rock. The novel sight of soldiers on horseback 
 marching up the drive and the music of the band at¬ 
 tracted many visitors. When Major Strong, who was 
 in command, had marched his horsemen to the top, 
 and had faced them toward the city, ex-Quartermaster 
 John G. Nortli presented the following resolutions : 
 
 Resolved , That the late Henry Farnam, by his 
 munificent donation of this beautiful drive to East 
 Rock Park, has endeared himself to all who love New 
 Haven. 
 
 Resolved , That this company has made this informal 
 visit to dedicate this Drive to one who, though he has 
 gone from us, will be remembered and honored as 
 long as these rocks remain to bear up his handiwork. 
 
 Mayor Eewis, Postmaster Sperry, President Porter, 
 of Yale, Major-General William H. Russell, and 
 Major H. H. Strong, responded in words fitting to the 
 occasion. 
 
 >35 
 
Resolutions, adopted by the Common Council of the City of 
 New Haven, October 8, 1883. 
 
 The City of New Haven by its Court of Common 
 Council desires to place upon record its deep sense of 
 the great loss which this community has suffered in 
 the death of Henry Farnam. He has built for him¬ 
 self an enduring monument in his liberal gifts of time 
 and money to Fast Rock Park. Yet more lasting 
 will be the priceless memory of his incessant flow of 
 generosity to all charitable objedts, to the deserving- 
 poor, and in every direction where mankind could be 
 made happier or better. A peaceful death, closed a 
 life conspicuously filled with good works. The 
 Mayor is directed to express to Mrs. Farnam, in the 
 name of the city, the sorrow so universally felt. 
 
 136