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Kings of Fortune 
 
 OR 
 
 THE TRIUMPHS MD ACHIEVEMENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 NOBLE, SELF-MADE MEN, 
 
 Whose brilliant careers have honored their calling, blessed humanity, 
 and whose lives furnish instruction for the young, enter¬ 
 tainment for the old, and valuable lessons for 
 the aspirants of fortune, 
 
 • EDITED BT 
 
 WALTER R. HOUGHTON A. VI, 
 
 IiATE PROFESSOR POLITICAL SCIENCE, INDIANA UNIVERSITY, FELLOW AMERICAN 
 GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, AUTHOR OF WALL CHART OF UNITED STATES HISTORY, 
 LITERATURE AND GEOGRAPHY, CONSPECTUS OF THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL 
 PARTIES, MAP OF UNITED STATES HISTORY, HISTORY OF AMERICAN 
 POLITICS, WHEELS OF STATE AND NATIONAL GOVERNMENT, 
 
 POLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR ISSUES, BIOORAPHIES 
 OF PRESIDENTLAL CANDIDATES, ETC,. ETC,, ETC 
 
 ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 A. E, DAVIS & CO. 
 
 1886 . 
 
OOPYBIGHT, 
 
 A. E. DAVIS & CO, 
 188 +. 
 
^ACi.O'JS 
 H t ^ Z K 
 
 “The physical industries of this world have two relations in 
 them: one to the actor, and one to the public. Honest business 
 is more really a contribution to the public than it is to the manager 
 of the business himself. Although it seems to the man, and 
 generally to the community, that the active business man is a 
 self-seeker, and although his motive may be self-aggrandize¬ 
 ment, yet, in point of fact, no man ever manages a legitimate 
 business in this life, that he is not doing a thousand-fold more 
 for other men than he is trying to do even for himself. For, 
 in the economy of God’s providence, every right and well 
 organized business is a beneficence and not a selfishness. And 
 not less is it so because the merchant, the mechanic the 
 publisher, the artist, think merely of their profit. They are in 
 fact working more for others than they are for themselves. 
 
 
 * 
 
 ^ 1 
 
 
- lit 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 The chief glory of America is, that it is the country in which 
 genius and industry find their speediest and surest reward. 
 Fame and fortune are here open to all who are willing to work 
 for them. Neither class distinctions nor social prejudices, neither 
 differences of birth, religion, nor ideas, can prevent the man of 
 true merit from winning the just reward of his labors in this 
 favored land. We are emphatically a nation of self-made men, 
 and it is to the labors of this worthy class that our marvelous 
 national prosperity is due. 
 
 This being the case, it is but natural that there should be 
 manifested by our people a very decided desire to know the 
 history of those who have risen to the front rank of their 
 respective callings. Men are naturally cheered and encouraged 
 by the success of others, and those who are worthy of a similar 
 reward will not fail to learn valuable lessons from the examples 
 of the men who have preceded them. 
 
 With the hope of gratifying this laudable desire for informa¬ 
 tion, and encouraging those who are still struggling in the lists 
 of fame and fortune, I offer this book to the reader. I have 
 sought to tell simply and truthfully the story of the trials and 
 triumphs of our self-made men, to show how they overcame where 
 others failed, and to offer the record of their lives as models 
 worthy of the imitation of the young men of our country. No one 
 
 5 
 
6 
 
 PRETACE. 
 
 can hope to succeed in life merely by the force of his own genius, 
 any more than he can hope to live without exerting some degree 
 of influence for good or evil upon the community in which his 
 lot is cast. Success in life is not the effect of accident or of 
 chance: it is the result of the intelligent application of certain 
 fixed principles to the affairs of every day. Each man must 
 make this application according to the circumstances by which 
 he is surrounded, and he can derive no greater assistance or en¬ 
 couragement in this undertaking than by informing himself how 
 other men of acknowledged merit have succeeded in the same 
 departments of the world’s industry. That this is true is shown 
 by the fact that many of the most eminent men attribute their 
 great achievements to the encouragement with which the perusal 
 of the biographies of others inspired them at critical periods of 
 their careers. It is believed that the narrations embraced in 
 these pages afford ample instruction and entertainment to the 
 young, as well as food for earnest reflection on the part of those 
 who are safelv advanced upon tlieir patliway to success, and that 
 they will prove interesting to all classes of intelligent readers. 
 
 Some explanation is due to the reader respecting the title that 
 has been chosen fur the work. The term “ Kings of Fortune” is 
 not used here to designate pecuniary success exclusively. A few 
 of the men whose lives are herein recorded never amassed great 
 wealth. Yet they achieved the highest success in their vocations, 
 and their lives are so full of interest and instruction that this 
 work must have been incomplete and unsatisfactory had they 
 been passed over in silence. The aim of the writer has been to 
 present the histories of those who have won the highest fame and 
 achieved the greatest good in their respective callings, whether 
 that success has brought them riches or not, and above all, of 
 those whose labors have not only opened the way to fortune for 
 themselves, but also for others, and have thus conferred lasting 
 benefits upon their country. ‘ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 7 
 
 In short, I have sought to make this work the story of the 
 Genius of America, believing as I do that he whose achievements 
 have contributed to the increase of the national wealth, the de¬ 
 velopment of the national resources, and the elevation of the 
 national character, though he himself be poor in purse, has in¬ 
 deed won a great fortune, of which no reverse can ever deprive 
 him. 
 
 The Author. 
 
 0 
 
r 
 
 'i 
 
 
 i 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. 
 
 MERCHANTS. 
 
 Stephen Gfirard.. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ___ 15- 42 
 
 John Jacob Astor. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 ______ 43- 79 
 
 Alexander T. Stewart... 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 _______ 80-100 
 
 Amos Lawrence_ 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 _ 101-115 
 
 Andrew V. Stout_ . 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 _____ 116-123 
 
 Jonas Chickering.__ 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 _ __ 124-137 
 
 Nicholas Longworth_ 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ___ _ _ 138-153 
 
 George Peabody.. .. . 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ___ 157-170 
 
 Philip D. Armour _ .. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 _ 171-181 
 
 Marshall Field_ 
 
 CHAPTER X, 
 
 ____ 185-189 
 
 9 
 
10 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 II. CAPITALISTS. 
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 Cornelius Vanderbilt_ 193-211 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 George M. Pullman-._!_212-220 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Cyrus W. Field_ 223-250 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Wilbam H. Vanderbilt_ 253-258 
 
 .CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Jay Gould_ 261-274 
 
 III. INVENTORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Robert Fulton_ 275-301 
 
 Cn4PTER XVII. 
 
 Charles Goodyear_ 302-328 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Eh mitney_ 329-339 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Elias Howe, Jr_ 343-353 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Richard M. Hoe_ 354-362 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 Samuel Colt_ 363-373 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Samuel F. B. Morse_ 377-389 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Cyrus H. McCormick_ 393-405 
 
 lY. EDITORS. 
 
 __ • 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 James Gordon Bennett_ 407-426 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Robert Bonner_ 427-436 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 11 
 
 V. LAWYERS. 
 
 CHAPTEK XXVI. 
 
 John Marshall_ ' ___ 437^56 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 James T. Brady___ 459-473 
 
 VI. ARTISTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Benjamin West_ 475-488 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 John Rogers_ 489-498 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Hiram Powers_ 501-519 
 
 VII. DIVINES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 David Swing_ 521-629 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Peter Cartwright_ 530-568 
 
 VIII. AUTHORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow_ 569-583 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 587-598 
 
 IX. ACTORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 Edwin Booth- 599-608 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 Joseph Jefferson_611-621 
 
4. i I 
 
I. 
 
 MERCHANTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 STEPHEN GIRARD. 
 
 NE May morning, in the year 1776, the month 
 of tlie Delaware Bay was shrouded in a dense 
 fog, which cleared away toward noon, and revealed 
 several vessels jnst off the capes. From one 
 of these, a sloop, floated the flag of France 
 and a signal of distress. An American ship ran alongside 
 the stranger, in answer to her signal, and found that the 
 French captain had lost his reckoning in a fog, and was in 
 total ignorance of his whereabouts. His vessel, he said, was 
 bound from New Orleans to a Canadian port, and he was 
 anxious to proceed on his voyage. The American skipper in¬ 
 formed him of his locality, and also apprised him of the fact 
 that war had broken out between the colonies and Great Brit¬ 
 ain, and that the American coast was so well lined with British 
 cruisers that he would never reach port but as a prize. 
 
 “ What shall I do?” cried the Frenchman, in great alarm. 
 
 “Enter the bay, and make a push for Philadelphia,” was the 
 teply. “ It is your only chance.” 
 
 The Frenchman protested that he did not know the way, 
 
 15 
 
16 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 and had no pilot. The American captain, pitying his distress, 
 found him a pilot, and even loaned him five dollars, which the 
 pilot demanded in advance. The sloop got under weigh again, 
 and passed into the Delaware, beyond the defenses which had 
 been erected for its protection, just iii time to avoid capture by 
 a British war vessel which now made its appearance at the 
 mouth of the bay. Philadelphia was reached in due time, and, 
 as the war bade fair to put an end to his voyages, the captain 
 sold the sloop and her cargo, of \vhich he was part owner, and, 
 entering a small store in Water Street, began the business of a 
 grocer and wine-bottler. His cajiital was small, his business 
 trifling in extent, and he himself labored under the disadvan¬ 
 tage of being almost unable to speak the English language. 
 In person he was short and stout, with a dull, repulsive coun¬ 
 tenance, which his bushy eyebrows and solitary eye (being 
 blind in the other) made almost hideous. He was cold and 
 reserved in manner, and was disliked by his neighbors, the 
 most of whom were afraid of him. 
 
 This man was Stephen Girard, who was afterward destined 
 to play so important a part in the history of the city to which 
 the mere chances of war sent him a stranger. 
 
 He was born at Bordeaux, in France, on the 21st of May, 
 1750, and was the eldest of the five children of Captain Pierre 
 Girard, a mariner of that city. His life at home was a hard 
 one. At the age of eight years, he discovered that he was blind 
 in one eye, and the mortification and grief which this discovery 
 caused him appear to have soured his entire life. He afterward 
 declared that his father treated him with considerable neglect, 
 and that, while his younger b rothers were sent to college, he 
 was made to content himself with the barest rudiments of an 
 education, with merely a knowledge of reading and writing. 
 M hen he was quite young, his mother died, and, as his father 
 
STEPHEN GIRARD. 
 
 17 
 
 soon married again, the severity of a steji-mother was added to 
 his other troubles. When about thirteen years of age, he left 
 home, with his father’s consent, and began, as a cabin-boy, the 
 life of a mariner. For nine years he sailed between Bordeaux 
 and the French AYest Indies, rising steadily from his position 
 of cabin-boy to that of mate. He improved his leisure time at 
 sea, until he was not only roaster of the art of navigation, but 
 generally well informed for a man in his station. His father 
 ])ossessed sufficient influence to procure him the command of a 
 vessel, in spite of the law of Franee which required that no man 
 should be made master of a ship unless he had sailed two cruises 
 in the royal navy and was twenty-five years old. Gradually 
 Girard was enabled to amass a small sum of money, which he 
 invested in cargoes easily disjwsed of in the ports to which he 
 sailed. Three years after he was licensed to eommand, he made 
 his first appearance in the port of Philadelphia. He was then 
 twenty-six years old. 
 
 From the time of his arrival in Philadelphia he devoted him¬ 
 self to business with an energy and industry which never failed. 
 He despised no labor, and was willing to undertake any honest 
 means of increasing his subsistence. He bought and sold any 
 thing, from groceries to old “junk.” His chief profit, however, 
 was in his wine and cider, which he bottled and sold readily. 
 His business prospered, and he was regarded as a thriving man 
 from the start. 
 
 In July, 1777, he married Mary Lum, a servant girl of great 
 beauty, and sometliing of a virago as well. The union was an 
 unhappy one, as the husband and wife were utterly unsuited to 
 each other. Seven years after her marriage, Airs. Girard showed 
 symptoms of insanity, which became so decided that her hus¬ 
 band was compelled to place her in the State Asylum for the 
 Insane. He appears to have done every thing in his power to 
 
18 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 restore her to reason. Being pronounced cured, she returned 
 to her home, but in 1790 he was compelled to place her per¬ 
 manently in the Pennsylvania Hospital, where, nine months 
 after, she gave birth to a female child, which happily died. 
 Mrs. Girard never recovered her reason, but died in 1815, and 
 was buried in the hospital grounds. 
 
 Girard fled from Philadelphia, with his wife, in September, 
 
 1777, at the approach of the British, and purchased a house at 
 Mount Holly, near Burlington, Xew Jersey, where he carried 
 on his bottling business. His claret commanded a ready sale 
 among the British in Philadelphia, and his profits were large. 
 In June, 1778, the city was evacuated by Lord Howe, and he 
 was allowed to return to his former home. 
 
 Though he traded with the British, Girard considered him¬ 
 self a true patriot, as indeed he was. On the 27th of October, 
 
 1778, he took the oath of allegiance required by the State of 
 Pennsylvania, and renewed it the year following. The war al¬ 
 most annihilated the commerce of the country, which was slow 
 in recovering its former prosperity ; but, in spite of this discour¬ 
 aging circumstance, Girard worked on steadily, scorning no em¬ 
 ployment, however humble, that would yield a profit. Already 
 he had formed the plans which led to his immense wealth, and 
 he was now patiently carrying out the most trying and disheart¬ 
 ening preliminaries. Whatever he nndertook prospered, and 
 though his gains Avere small, they Avere carefully husbanded, 
 and at the proper time inA’ested in such a manner as to pro¬ 
 duce a still greater yield. Stephen Girard knew the A’aliie of 
 little things, and he kneAV hoAV to take advantage of the most 
 trifling circumstance. His career teaches AAdiat may be done 
 Avith these little things, and shoAvs hoAv eA'en a feAV dollars, 
 properly managed, may be made to produce as many thou¬ 
 sands. 
 
STEPHEN GIRARD. 
 
 19 
 
 In 1780, Mr. Girard again entered upon the New Orleans 
 and St. Domingo trade, in which he was engaged at the break¬ 
 ing out of the Revolution. He was very successful in his ven¬ 
 tures, and was enabled in a year or two to greatly enlarge his 
 ojierations. In 1782, he took a lease of ten years on a range 
 of frame buildings in Water Street, one of which he occupied 
 himself, with the privilege of a renewal for a similar period. 
 Rents were very low at that time, as business was prostrated 
 and people were despondent; but Girard, looking far beyond 
 the present, saw a prosperous future. He was satisfied that it 
 would require but a short time to restore to Philadelphia its 
 old commercial importance, and he was satisfied that his leases 
 would be the best investment he had ever made. The result 
 proved the' correctness of his views. His profits on these leases 
 were enormous. 
 
 About this time he entered into partnership with his brother. 
 Captain John Girard, in the West India trade. But the 
 brothers could not conduct their affairs harmoniously, and in 
 1790 the firm was dissolved by mutual consent. Stephen 
 Girard’s share of the profits at the dissolution amounted to 
 thirty thousand dollars. His wealth was greatly increased by 
 a terrible tragedy which happened soon afterward. 
 
 At the outbreak of the great insurrection in St. Domingo, 
 Girard had twm vessels lying in one of the ports of that island. 
 At the first signal of danger, a number of planters sent their 
 valuables on board of these ships for safe-keeping, and went 
 back to their estates for the purpose of securing more. They 
 never returned, doubtless falling victims to the fury of the 
 brutal negroes, and when the vessels were ready to sail there 
 was no one to claim the property they contained. It ■was 
 taken to Philadelphia, and was most liberally advertised by 
 Mr. Girard, but as no owner ever appeared to demand it, it 
 
20 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 was sold, and the proceeds—about fifty thousand dollars— 
 turned into the merchant’s own coffers. This was a great as¬ 
 sistance to him, and the next year he began the building of 
 those sj)lendid ships which enabled him to engage so actively 
 in the Chinese and East India trades. 
 
 His course was now onward and upward to wealth. At 
 first his ships merely sailed between Philadelphia and the port 
 to which they were originally destined ; but at length he was 
 enabled to do more than this. Loading one of his ships with 
 grain, he would send it to Bordeaux, where the proceeds of her 
 cargo would be invested in wine and fruit. These she would 
 take to St. Petersburg and exchange for hemp and iron, which 
 were sold at Amsterdam for coin. From Amsterdam she 
 would proceed to China and India, and, purchasing a cargo of 
 silks and teas, sail for Philadelphia, where the final pur¬ 
 chase was sold by the owner for cash or negotiable paper. His 
 success was uniform, and was attributed by his brother mer¬ 
 chants to luck. 
 
 Stephen Girard had no faith in luek. He never trusted 
 any thing to chance. He was a thorough navigator, and was 
 perfect master of the knowledge required in directing long 
 voyages. He understood every department of his business 
 50 well that he was always prepared to survey the field of 
 commerce from a high stand-point. He was familiar with the 
 ports with which he dealt, and was always able to obtain such 
 information concerning them as he desired, in advance of his 
 competitors. He trusted nothing of importance to others. His 
 instructions to the commanders of his ships were always full 
 and precise. These documents afford the best evidence of the 
 statements I have made concerning his system, as the follow¬ 
 ing will show: 
 
STEPHEN GIRARD. 
 
 21 
 
 Copy of Stephen Girards Letter to Mr. -, Commander and Supercargo 
 
 of the ship -, bound to Batavia. 
 
 Philadelphia,-. 
 
 Sir— I confirm my letters to you of the — ult., and the — inst. 
 
 Having recently heard of the decease of Mr. -, merchant at 
 
 Batavia, also of the probable dissolution of his house, under the firm 
 
 of Messrs.-, I have judged it prudent to request my Liverpool 
 
 correspondents to consign the ship-, cargo, and specie on board, 
 
 to Mr.-, merchant at Batavia, subject to your control, and have 
 
 requested said Liverpool friends to make a separate invoice and bill 
 of lading for the specie, which they will ship on my account, on board 
 
 of the ship -, and similar documents for the merchandise, which 
 
 they will ship in the same manner; therefore, I request that you 
 will sign in conformity. 
 
 I am personally acquainted with Mr. -, but not with Mr. 
 
 -, but I am on very friendly terms with some particular friends 
 
 of the latter gentleman, and consequently I give him the preference. 
 I am sorry to observe, however, that he is alone in*a country where 
 a partner appears to me indispensable to a commercial house, as well 
 for the safety of his own capital as for the security of the interests 
 of those who may confide to them property, and reside in distant parts 
 of the globe. 
 
 The foregoing reflections, together with the detention of my ship 
 
 V-, at Batavia, from June last, epoch of her arrival at that port, 
 
 until the 15th of September, -, when she had on board only 
 
 nineteen hundred peculs of coffee, are the motives which have 
 compelled me to request of my Liverpool friends to consign the 
 specie and goods, which they will ship on my account, on board of 
 
 the ship -, under your command, to said Mr. -, subject to 
 
 your control. 
 
 Therefore, relying upon your activity, perseverance, correctness, 
 zeal, and attention for my intere.st, I proceed in pointing out to 
 you the plan of conduct which I wish you to pursue on your arrival 
 at Batavia, and during your stay at that or any port of that island, 
 until your departure for Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, to await my 
 subsequent orders. 
 
22 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 First. On your arrival at Batavia, you are to go on shore and 
 
 ascertain Mr.-’s residence, and, if you have reason to believe that 
 
 he is still considered at that place as a man of good credit, and merits 
 full confidence, you are to dehver to him my Liverpool consignees’ 
 letters to his address, and also the goods which you have on board, 
 in such proportion as he may request, except the specie, which is to 
 continue on board, as mentioned in the next article. 
 
 Second. The specie funds of the ship -, which will consist of 
 
 old Carolus dollars, you are to retain on board untouched, and in the 
 said boxes or packages as they were in when shipped from Liverpool, 
 well secured, and locked up in your powder magazine, in the after 
 run of the said ship under the cabin floor. 
 
 The bulkhead and floor of said magazine, scuttle, iron bar, staples, 
 etc., must be made sufficiently strong, if not already so, while you 
 are at Liverpool, where you are to procure a strong padlock and key, 
 for the purpose of securing said specie in the most complete and safest 
 manner; and when you have the certainty that it is wanted to pay 
 
 for the coffee purchased on account of the ship-, then you are to 
 
 receive the said^ coffee, and pay or deliver to your consignee Spanish 
 dollars to the amount of said purchase, and no more, having due regard 
 to the premium or advance allowed at Batavia on old Spanish dollars; 
 and in that way you are to continue paying or delivering dollars as fast 
 as you receive coffee, which is not to exceed the quantity which 
 
 can be convenientlj' stowed on board said ship -, observing to 
 
 take a receipt for each payment, and to see that the net proceeds 
 of the goods, which will have been shipped at Liverpool, must be 
 invested in coffee, as far as the sales will permit, and shipped on 
 board of said ship. 
 
 Should it happen that on your arrival at Batavia you should find 
 that death, absence, etc., should deprive you of the services of ilr. 
 
 -, or that, owing to some causes before mentioned, it would be 
 
 prudent to confide my interests elsewhere, in either case you are to 
 
 apply to Messrs. -, merchants of that place, to communicate your 
 
 instructions relative to the disposal of the Liverpool cargo, on board 
 
 of the ship -, the loading of that ship with good merchantable 
 
 coffee, giving the preference to the first quality whenever it can be 
 purchased on reasonable terms for cash, or received in payment for 
 
STEPHEN GIRARD. 
 
 23 
 
 the sales of the said Liverpool cargo, or for a part thereof, observing 
 that I wished said coffee to be purchased at Samarang, or any other 
 out-port, if practicable; and in all cases it must be attentively exam¬ 
 ined when delivered, and put up in double gunny bags. 
 
 If the purchase of said cargo is made at an out-port, the ship - 
 
 must proceed there to take it in. 
 
 On the subject of purchasing coffee at government sales, I have 
 no doubt that it is an easy way to obtain a cargo, but I am of opinion 
 that it is a very dear one, particularly as the fair purchaser, who has 
 no other objbct in view but to invest his money, does not stay on the 
 footing of competitors, who make their payments with Netherland bills 
 of exchange, or wish to raise the jjrices of their coffee which they may 
 have on hand for sale. 
 
 Under these impressions, I desire that all the purchases of coffee 
 on my account be made from individuals, as far as practicable, 
 and if the whole quantity necessary to load the ship can not be 
 obtained at private sale, recourse must then be had to government sales. 
 
 In many instances I have experienced that whenever I had a vessel 
 at Batavia, the prices of coffee at the government sales have risen from 
 five to ten per cent., and sometimes higher. 
 
 On the subject of coffee I would remark that, owing to the increase 
 of the culture of that bean, together with the immense imports 
 of tea into the several ports of Europe, the price of that leaf has 
 been lowered to such a degree as to induce the people of those coun¬ 
 tries, principally of the north, to use the latter article in preference to 
 the first. 
 
 That circumstance has, for these past three years, created a gradual 
 deduction from the consumption of coffee, which has augmented the 
 stock on hand throughout every commercial city of the northern part 
 of the globe, so as to present a future unfavorable prospect to the im¬ 
 porters of that article. Indeed, I am convinced that, within a few 
 months from this date, coffee will be ten per cent, cheaper in the United 
 States than what it has been at Batavia for theke two years past; never¬ 
 theless, being desirous to employ my ships as advantageously as circum¬ 
 stances will permit, and calculating also that the price at Java and 
 other places of its growth will fall considerably, I have no objection to 
 adventure. 
 
24 
 
 KINGS OF FOETUNE. 
 
 Therefore, you must use every means in your i)o\ver to facilitate the 
 success of the voyage. 
 
 Should the invoice-cost of the entire cargo of coffee shipped at Java, 
 
 on board of the ship-, together with the disbursements of that ship 
 
 (which must be conducted with the greatest economy), not amount to 
 the specie funds and net proceeds of her Liverpool cargo, in that event 
 you are to deliver the surplus to your consignee, who will give you a 
 receipt for the same, with a duplicate, expressing that it is on my ac¬ 
 count, for the purpose of being invested on the most advantageous terms, 
 in good dry coffee, to be kept at my order and disposal. 
 
 Then you will retain the original in your possession, and forward to 
 me the duplicate by first good vessel to the United States, or via Europe, 
 to care of my correspondents at Liverpool, London, Antwerp, or Am¬ 
 sterdam, the names of whom you are familiar with. 
 
 If you should judge it imprudent, however, to leave that money at 
 Batavia, you are to bring it back in Spanish dollars, which you will re¬ 
 tain on board for that purpose. 
 
 Although I wish you to make a short voyage, and with as quick dis¬ 
 patch at Java as practicable, yet I desire you not to leave that island 
 unless your consignee has finally closed the sales of the Liverpool cargo, 
 so that you may be the bearer of all the documents, and account-cur¬ 
 rent, relative to the final transactions of the consignment of the ship 
 -and cargo. Duplicate and triplicate of said documents to be for¬ 
 warded to me by your consignees, by the two first safe conveyances for 
 the ports of the United States. 
 
 Being in the habit of dispatching my ships for Batavia from this port, 
 Liverpool, or Amsterdam, as circumstances render it convenient, it is in¬ 
 teresting to me to be from time to time informed of the several articles 
 of produce and manufactures from each of those places which are the 
 most in demand and quickest of sale at Java. Also of the quantity of 
 each, .size of package, and the probable price which they may sell for, 
 cash, adding the Batavia duty, charges for selling, etc. Please to com¬ 
 municate this to your Batavia consignee. 
 
 The rates of commission I will allow for transacting the business rela¬ 
 tive to the ship and cargo at Java are two and a half per cent, for sell¬ 
 ing, and two and a half per cent, for purchasing and shipping coffee and 
 other articles. 
 
STEPHEN GlRAED. 
 
 25 
 
 The consignees engaging to place on board of each prow one or two 
 men of confidence, to see that the goods are safely delivered on board of 
 the ship, to prevent pilfering, which is often j^racticed by those who con¬ 
 duct the lighter. 
 
 I am informed that the expenses for two men are trifling, compara¬ 
 tively, to the plunder which has been committed on board of the prows 
 which deliver coffee on board of the ships. 
 
 No commissions whatever are to be allowed in the disbursements of 
 my ships, whenever ship and cargo belong to me, and are consigned to 
 some house. 
 
 While you remain at Batavia, I recommend you to stay on board of 
 your ship, and not to go on shore except when the business of your ship 
 and cargo may render it necessary. 
 
 Inclosed is an introductory letter to-, which I request you to de¬ 
 liver, after you have made the necessary arrangements with Mr.- 
 
 for the consignment of the ship and cargo, or after the circumstance 
 aforementioned has compelled you to look elsewhere for a consignee. 
 
 Then j'ou are to call upon said Messrs.-, deliver them the aforesaid 
 
 letter and the consignment of the ship- and cargo, after having 
 
 agreed with them in writing, which they will sign and deliver to you, 
 that they engage to transact the business of the ship and cargo on the 
 terms and conditions herein stated; and when that business is well un¬ 
 derstood and finally closed, you are to press them in a polite manner, so 
 that they may give you a quick dispatch, without giving too great a 
 price for the coffee, particularly at this present moment, when its price 
 is declining throughout those countries where it is consumed. 
 
 Indeed, on the subject of purchasing coffee for the ship -, the 
 
 greatest caution and prudence should be exercised. Therefore, I request 
 that you will follow the plan of conduct laid down for you throughout. 
 Also, to keep to yourself the intention of the voyage, and the amount 
 of specie you have on board; and in view to satisfy the curious, tell 
 them that it is probable that the ship will take in molasses, rice, and 
 sugar, if the price of that produce is very low, adding that the whole 
 will depend on the success in selling the small Liverpool cargo. The 
 consignees of said cargo should follow the same line of conduct, and if 
 properly attended to by yourself and them, I am convinced that the 
 cargo of coffee can be purchased ten per cent, cheaper than it would be 
 
26 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 if it is publicly known there is a quantity of Spanish dollars on board, 
 besides a valuable cargo of British goods intended to be invested in 
 coffee for Stephen Girard, of Philadelphia. 
 
 During my long commercial experience, I have noticed that no advan¬ 
 tage results from telling one’s business to others, except to create jeal¬ 
 ousy or competitors when we are fortunate, and to gratify our enemies 
 when otherwise. 
 
 If my remarks are correct, I have no doubt they will show you the 
 necessity of being silent, and to attend with activity, perseverance, and 
 modesty, to the interests of your employer. 
 
 As my letters of instruction embrace several interesting objects, I re¬ 
 quest you to peruse them in rotation, when at sea in fine climates, dur¬ 
 ing your voyage to Batavia, and to take correct extracts, so as to ren¬ 
 der yourself master of the most essential parts. I conclude by direct¬ 
 ing your attention to your health and that of your crew. 
 
 I am yours, respectfully, Stephen Girard. 
 
 Mr. Girard was not only rigidly precise in his instruction!;, 
 but he permitted no departure from them. He regarded it as 
 dangerous to allow discretion to any one in the execution of his 
 plans. Where a deviation from his instructions might cause 
 success in one case, it would cause loss in ninety-nine others. 
 It was understood among all his employes that a rigid obedi¬ 
 ence to orders, in even the most trifling particulars, was 
 expected, and would be exacted. If loss came under such cir¬ 
 cumstances, the merchant assumed the entire responsibility for it. 
 
 Upon one occasion one of his best captains was instructed 
 to purchase his cargo of teas at a certain port. Upon 
 reaching home he was summoned by the merchant to his 
 presence. 
 
 “Captain-,” said Mr. Girard, sternly, “your instructions 
 
 required you to purchase your cargo at- 
 
 “That is true, Mr. Girard,” replied the Captain, “but upon 
 
 reaching that port I found I could do so much better at-, 
 
 that I felt justified in proceeding to the latter place.” 
 
STEPHEN GIRARD. 
 
 27 
 
 “ You should have obeyed your orders, sir,” was the stern 
 retort. 
 
 “ I was influenced by a desire to serve your interests, sir. 
 The result ought to justify me in my act, since it puts many 
 thousands more into your pocket than if I had bought where 
 I was instructed.” 
 
 “Captain-,” said Girard, “I take care of my own inter¬ 
 
 ests. You should have obeyed your orders if you had broken 
 me. Nothing can excuse your disobedience. You will hand 
 in your accounts, sir, and consider yourself discharged from 
 my service.” 
 
 He was as good as his word, and, though the captain’s diso¬ 
 bedience had vastly increased the profit of the voyage, lie dis¬ 
 missed him, nor would he ever receive him into his service 
 again. 
 
 To his knowledge of his business Mr. Girard joined an unu¬ 
 sual capacity for such ventures. lie was, it must be said, hard 
 and illiberal in his bargains, and remorseless in exacting the last 
 cent due him. He was prompt and faithful in the execution 
 of every contract, never departed in the slightest from his 
 plighted word, and never engaged in any venture which he 
 was not perfectly able to undertake. He was prudent and 
 cautious in the fullest sense of those terms, but his ventures 
 were always made with a boldness which was the sure fore¬ 
 runner of success. 
 
 His fidelity to his word is well shown by a circumstance 
 which had occurred long after he was one of the “money 
 kings” of the land. He was once engaged with his cashier in 
 a discussion as to the length of time a man would consume in 
 counting a million of dollars, telling out each dollar separately. 
 The dispute became animated, and the cashier declared that 
 he could make a million of dots with ink in a few hours. 
 
28 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 “ I ’ll tell you what I ’ll do,” said Girard, who was thor¬ 
 oughly vexed by the opposition of the other, “I’ll wager five 
 hundred dollars that I can ride in my gig from here to my 
 farm, spend two hours there, and return before you can make 
 your million of dots with ink.” 
 
 The cashier, after a moment’s reflection, accepted the wager, 
 and Mr. Girard departed to his farm. He returned in a few 
 hours, confident that he had won. The cashier met him with 
 a smile. 
 
 “Where is my money?” asked Girard, triumphantly. 
 
 “ The money is mine,” replied the cashier. “ Come and 
 see.” 
 
 He led the merchant to an unused room of the bank, and 
 there, to his dismay, Girard saw the walls and ceiling covered 
 with spots of ink, which the cashier had dashed on them with 
 a brush. 
 
 “Do you mean to say there are a million of dots here?” he 
 cried, angrily. 
 
 “ Count them, and see,” replied his subordinate, laughing. 
 “ Yon know the wager was a million of dots with ink.” 
 
 “ But I expected you would make them with the pen.” 
 
 “ I did not undertake anv thing: of the kind.” 
 
 The joke was too good, and the merchant not only paid the 
 amount of the wager, but the cost of cleaning the walls. 
 
 In 1810 the question of renewing the charter of the old Bank 
 of the United States was actively discussed. Girard was a 
 warm friend of that institution, which he believed had been the 
 (^use of a very great part of the prosperity of the country, and 
 was firmly convinced that Congress would renew the charter. 
 In this belief he ordered the Barings, of London, to invest all 
 his funds in their hands in shares of the Bank of the United 
 States, which was done, during the following year, to the 
 
STEPHEN GIRARD, 
 
 29 
 
 amount of half a million of dollars. When the charter ex¬ 
 pired, he was the principal creditor of that institution, which 
 Congress refused to renew. Discovering that he could pur¬ 
 chase the old Bank and the cashier’s house for one hundred and 
 twenty thousand dollars, he at once secured them, and on the 
 12th of IVIay, 1812, opened the Girard Bank, with a capital of 
 one million two hundred thousand dollars, which he increased 
 the next year by one hundred thousand dollars more. He 
 retained all the old officers of the Bank of the United 
 States, especially the cashier, Mr. Simpson, to whose skill 
 and experience he was greatly indebted for his subsequent 
 success. 
 
 Finding that the salaries which had been paid by the Gov¬ 
 ernment were higher than those paid elsewhere, he cut them 
 down to the rate given by the other banks. The Avatchman 
 had always received from the old Bank the gift of an overcoat 
 at Christmas, but Girard put a stop to this. He gave no gra¬ 
 tuities to any of his employes, but confined them to the com¬ 
 pensation for Avhich they had bargained; yet he contrived to get 
 out of them service more devoted than Avas receiA^ed by other 
 men Avho paid higher Avages and made presents. Appeals tc 
 him for aid AA’ere unansAvered. No poor man ever came full¬ 
 handed from his presence. He turned a deaf ear to the en¬ 
 treaties of failing merchants to helji them on their feet again. 
 He Avas neither generous nor charitable. When his faithful 
 cashier died, after long years spent in his service, he manifested 
 the most hardened indifference to the bereavement of the family 
 of that gentleman, and left them to struggle along as best they 
 could. 
 
 Yet from the first he was liberal and sometimes magnificent 
 in the management of his bank. He Avould discount none but 
 good paper, but it Avas his policy to grant accommodations to 
 
30 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 small traders, and thus encourage beginners, usually giving 
 the preference to small notes, by this system doing very much 
 to avert the evils that would of necessity have sprung from the 
 suspension of the old Bank of the United States. The Gov¬ 
 ernment credit was almost destroyed, and money was needed 
 to carry on tlie war. He made repeated advances to the treas¬ 
 ury, unsolicited by the authorities, and on more than one occa¬ 
 sion kcj)t the Government supplied with the sinews of war. 
 In 1814, when our prospects, both military and financial, were 
 at their lowest ebb, when the British forces had burned Wash¬ 
 ington and the New England States were threatening to with¬ 
 draw from the Union, the Government asked for a loan of five 
 millions of dollars, with the most liberal inducements to sub¬ 
 scribers. Only twenty thousand dollars could be obtained, and 
 the project seemed doomed to failure, when it was announced 
 that Stephen Girard had subscribed for the whole amount. 
 This announcement at once restored the public confidence, and 
 Mr. Girard was beset with requests from persons anxious to 
 take a part of the loan, even at an advanced rate. They were 
 allowed to do so upon the original terras. When the Gov¬ 
 ernment could not, for want of funds, pay the interest on its 
 debt to him, he wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury : 
 
 “ I am of opinion that those who have any claim for interest 
 on public stock, etc., should patiently wait for a more favor¬ 
 able moment, or at least receive in payment treasury notes. 
 Should you be under the nece.ssity of resorting to either 
 of these plans, as one of the public creditors, I shall not 
 murmur.” 
 
 “ A circumstance soon occurred, however, which was a source 
 of no little discomfiture to the financial arrangements of his in¬ 
 dividual institution. This fact was the suspension of specie 
 payments by the State banks, resulting from the non-inter- 
 
STEPHEN GIRARD. 
 
 31 
 
 course act, the suspension of the old bank, and the combined 
 causes tending to produce a derangement of the currency of the 
 country. It was then a matter of great doubt with him how 
 he should preserve the integrity of his own institution, while 
 the other banks were suspending their payments; but the credit 
 of his own bank was elFectually secured by the suggestion of 
 his cashier, Mr. Simpson, who advised the recalling of his own 
 notes by redeeming them with specie, and by paying out the 
 notes of the State banks. In this mode not a single note 
 of his own was suffered to be depreciated, and he was thus 
 enabled, in 1817, to contribute effectually to the restoration 
 of specie payments.” 
 
 He was instrumental in securing the establishment of the 
 new Bank of the United States, and was its largest stockholder 
 and one of its directors. He even offered to unite his own in- 
 stitution with it upon certain liberal conditions, which were 
 refused. Yet he was always a firm friend to it. 
 
 “One of the characteristics of Mr. Girard was his public 
 spirit. At one time he freely subscribed one hundred and ten 
 thousand dollars for the navigation of the Schuylkill; at an¬ 
 other time he loaned the company two hundred and sixty-five 
 thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars. IVhen the credit of 
 the State of Pennsylvania was prostrated by what was believed 
 to have been an injudicious system of internal improvement, 
 and it was found expedient for the Governor to resort to its 
 metropolis in order to replenish its coffers, he made a volun¬ 
 tary loan to Governor Shultz of one hundred thousand dollars. 
 So far was his disposition to promote the fiscal prosperity of 
 the country manifested, that, as late as 1831, when the country 
 was placed in extreme embarrassment from the scarcity of 
 money, he perceived the cause in the fact that the balance of 
 trade was against us to a considerable extent, and he accord- 
 
32 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 ingly drew upon the house of Baring Brothers & Co. for bills 
 of exchange to the amount of twelve thousand pounds sterling, 
 which he disposed of to the Bank of the United States at an 
 advance of ten per cent., which draft was followed up by an¬ 
 other for ten thousand, which was disposed of in like manner 
 to other institutions. This act tended to reduce the value of 
 bills, and the rate of exchange suddenly fell. The same spirit 
 which he manifested toward the national currency he exhibited 
 to the corporation of Philadelphia, by erecting new blocks of 
 buildings, and beautifying and adorning its streets; less, ap¬ 
 parently, from a desire of profit than from a wish to improve 
 the place which was his adopted home, and where he had 
 reaped his fortunes. His subscription of two hundred thou¬ 
 sand dollars to the Danville and Pottsville Bailroad, in 1831, 
 was an action in keeping with the whole tenor of his life; and 
 his subscription of ten thousand dollars toward the erection of 
 an exchange looked to the same result.” 
 
 The war of 1812, which brought financial ruin to so many 
 others, simply increased Girard’s wealth. He never lost a ship, 
 and as war prices prevailed, his profits were in accordance with 
 them. One of his ships was taken by a British cruiser at the 
 mouth of the Delaware, in the spring of 1813. Fearing that his 
 ])rize would be recaptured by an American ship of war if he at¬ 
 tempted to send her into port, the English admiral dispatched 
 a flag of truce to Mr. Girard,.and proposed to him to ransom 
 the vessel for one hundred and eighty thousand dollars in coin. 
 Girard consented, paid the money, and the ship was allowed to 
 come up to the city. Her cargo consisted of silks, nankeens, 
 and teas, and afforded her owner a profit of half a million of 
 dollars. 
 
 Yet in the midst of all his wealth, which in 1828 was 
 estimated at ten millions of dollars, he was a solitary old man. 
 
STEPHEN GIRARD. 
 
 33 
 
 He lived in a dingy little house in Water Street. His wife 
 had died in an insane asylum, and he was childless. He was 
 repulsive in person. He was feared by his subordinates—by 
 all who had dealings with him—and liked by none. He was 
 mean and close in his personal habits, living on less, perphaps, 
 than any of his clerks, and deriving little or no benefit from 
 his vast wealth, so far as his individual comfort was concerned. 
 He gave nothing in charity. Lazarus would have lain at his 
 doors a life-time without being noticed by him. He was sol¬ 
 itary, soured, cold, with a heart of stone, and fully conscious 
 of his personal unpopularity. Yet he valued wealth—valued 
 it for the power it gave him over men. Under that cold, 
 hardened exterior reigned an ambition as profound as that 
 which moved Napoleon. He was ambitious of regulating 
 the financial operations of the land, and proud of his power 
 in this respect, and it should be remembered in his favor 
 that he did not abuse that power after it had passed into 
 his hands. 
 
 He had no vices, no dissipations; his whole soul was in his 
 business. He was conscious that his only hope of distinction 
 above his fellow-men was in his wealth, and he was resolved 
 that nothing should make him swerve from his endeavor to ac¬ 
 cumulate a fortune which should make him all powerful in life 
 and remembered in death. He sought no friends, and was 
 reticent as to his career, saying to those who questioned him 
 about it, “ Wait till I am dead; my deeds will show what 
 I was.” 
 
 Religion had no place in his heart. He was an avowed 
 unbeliever, making a boast of his disbelief. He always 
 worked on Sunday, in order that he might show his disap¬ 
 proval of the observance of it as a day of rest. Rest, he said, 
 made a man rusty, and attendance upon the worship of God 
 
34 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 he denounced as worse than folly. His favorite books were 
 the Avorks of Voltaire, and he named his best shijAs after the 
 most celebrated French infidels. 
 
 Yet this man, so unloved, so undeserving of love, is said to 
 hav’e once had a warm heart. His early troubles and his 
 domestic griefs are said to have soured and estranged him 
 from mankind. 
 
 ‘‘No one who has had access to his private papers can fail 
 to be impressed with the belief that these early disappointments 
 furnish the key to his entire character. Originally of warm 
 and generous imjnilses, the belief in childhood that he had not 
 been given his share of the love and kindness which were 
 extended to others, changed the natural current of his feelings, 
 and, acting on a warm and passionate temperament, alienated 
 him from his home, his parents, and his friends. And when 
 in after time there were superadded years of bitter anguish, 
 resulting from his unfortunate and ill-adapted marriage, ren¬ 
 dered even more poignant by the necessity of concealment, 
 and the consequent injustice of public sentiment, marring 
 all his cherished expectations, it may be readily under¬ 
 stood why constant occupation became a necessity and labor 
 a pleasure.” 
 
 This is the testimony of Mr. Henry W. Arey, the distin¬ 
 guished secretary of Girard College, in whose keeping are the 
 papers of the subject of this memoir, and it must be confessed 
 that his view of Girard’s character is sustained by the following 
 incidents, the narration of which I have passed over until now, 
 in order that the history of his commercial career might not be 
 interrupted: 
 
 In the summer of 1793 the yellow fever broke out with 
 fearful violence in Philadelphia. The citizens fled in dismay, 
 leaving the plague-smitten city to its fate. Houses Avere left 
 
STEPHEN GIEARD. 
 
 35 
 
 tenantless, and the streets were deserted. It was a season of 
 horror and dread. Those who could not get away avoided 
 each other, and the sufterers were left to languish and die. 
 Money could not buy nurses in sufficient numbers, and often 
 the victims lay unburied for days in the places where they had 
 died. So terrible was the panic that it seemed that nothing 
 could stay it. 
 
 On the 10th of September the Federal Gazette, the only 
 paper which had not suspended its publication, contained an 
 anonymous card, stating that of the visitors of the poor alt 
 but three had succumbed to the disease or fled from the city, 
 and begging assistance from such benevolent citizens as would 
 consent to render their aid. On the 12th and 14th, meetings 
 were held at the City Hall, at the last of which a volunteer 
 committee was appointed to superintend the measures to be 
 taken for checking the pestilence. Twenty-seven men vol¬ 
 unteered to serve, but only twelve had the courage to fulfill 
 their promise. They set to work promptly. The hospital at 
 Bush Hill was reported by the physician to be in a deplorable 
 tate—without order, dirty and foul, and in need of nurses. 
 The last, he stated, could not be had for any price. Two of 
 the committee now stepjied forward and nobly offered them¬ 
 selves as managers of the hospital. They were Stephen Girard 
 and Peter Helm. 
 
 Girard was now a man of wealth and influence, and with a 
 brilliant commercial career opening before him. Above all, he 
 was a foreigner, and unpopular in the city. A"et he did not 
 hesitate to take the post from which others shrank. He and 
 Helm were regarded as doomed men, but they did not falter 
 from their self-imposed task. They went to work at once. 
 Girard chose the post of honor, which was the post of danger— 
 the management of the interior of the hospital. His decisive 
 
36 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 character was at once felt. Order began to appear, medicines 
 and nurses were procured, and the very next day the committee 
 were informed that the hospital had been cleaned and reorgan¬ 
 ized, and was prepared to receive patients. 
 
 Girard opened his purse liberally, and spared no expense 
 where money would avail. But this was not all. Besides 
 j>ersonally superintending the interior of the hospital, he went 
 about tln-ough the city seeking the sick and conveying them to 
 the hospital. 
 
 “In the great scarcity of help, he used frequently to receive 
 the sick and dying at the gate, assist in carrying them to their 
 beds, nurse them, receive their last messages, watch for their 
 last breath, and then, wrapping them in the sheet on which they 
 had died, carry them out to the burial ground and place them 
 in the trench. He had a vivid recollection of the difficulty 
 of finding any kind of fabric in which to wrap the dead, when 
 the vast number of interments had exhausted the supply of 
 sheets. ‘ I would put them,’ he would say, ‘ in any old rag 
 I could find.’ 
 
 “If he ever left the hospital, it was to visit the infected 
 districts, and assist in removing the sick from the houses in 
 which they were dying without help. One scene of this kind, 
 witnessed by a merchant who was hurrj’ing past with cain- 
 phored handkerchief pressed to his mouthy affords us a vivid 
 glimpse of this heroic man engaged in his sublime vocation. 
 A carriage, rapidly driven by a black man, broke the silence 
 of the deserted and grass-grown street. It stoj)ped before a 
 frame house, and the driver, first having bound a handker¬ 
 chief over his mouth, opened the door of the carriage, and 
 quickly remounted to the box. A short, thick-set man stepped 
 from the coach and entered the house. In a minute or two the 
 observer, who stood at a safe distance watching the proceedings. 
 
STEPHEN GIRARD. 
 
 39 
 
 heard a shuffling noise in the entry, and soon saw the stout 
 little man su 2 )porting with extreme difficulty a tall, gaunt, 
 yellow-visaged victim of the pestilence. Gii’ard held round 
 the waist the sick man, whose yellow face rested against his 
 own; his long, damj-), tangled hair mingled with Girard’s; 
 his feet dragging helj^less upon the jjavement. Thus he drew 
 him to the carriage door, the driver averting his face from the 
 spectacle, far from offering to assist. Partly dragging, partly 
 lifting, Girard succeeded, after long and severe exertion, in 
 getting him into the vehicle. He then entered it himself, 
 closed the door, and the carriage drove away toward the 
 hos2:)ital.”* 
 
 For sixty days Mr. Girard continued to discharge his duties, 
 never absenting himself from his jiost, being nobly sustained by 
 Peter Helm. 
 
 Again, in 1797 and 1798, when the city was scourged a 
 second and a third time with the fever, he volunteered his 
 services, and more than earned the gratitude of his fellow- 
 citizens. In the absence of physicians, he took upon himself 
 the office of jirescribing for the sick, and as his treatment 
 involved careful nursing and the use of simple remedies 
 only, he was very successful. In 1799 he wrote to his friend 
 Devize, then in France, but who had been the jdiysician at 
 the Bush Hill Hos{)ital in 1793: 
 
 “During all this frightful time I have constantly remained in 
 the city, and, without neglecting any jiublic duties, I have played 
 a part which will make you smile. Would you believe it, my 
 friend, that I have visited as many as fifteen sick people in a 
 day, and what will surprise you still more, I have lost only 
 one patient, an Irishman, who would drink a little. I do 
 
 * James Parton. 
 
40 
 
 KINGS OP POKTUNE. 
 
 not flatter myself that I have cured one single person, but 
 you will think with me that in my quality of Philadeljihia 
 physician I have been very moderate, and that not one of my 
 confreres have killed fewer than myself.” 
 
 Such acts as these should go far in his favor in estimating 
 his character, for they are the very height of true heroism. 
 
 Mr. Girard was never idle. Work, as has before been said, 
 was a necessity with him. Nothing would draw him from his 
 labors. His only recreation was to drive to his little farm, 
 which lay a few miles out of the city, and engage with his 
 own hands in the work of tilling it. He was very proud of 
 the vegetables and fruits he raised himself, and took great 
 interest in improving their growth. During the visit of the 
 present head of the house of Baring Bros, (then a young 
 man) to this country, that gentleman supposed he would 
 give IMr. Girard pleasure by informing him of the safe arrival 
 of one of his ships, the Voltaire, from India. Engaging a 
 carriage, he drove to the banker’s farm, and inquired for Mr. 
 Girard. 
 
 “He is in the hay-loft,” was the answer. 
 
 “Inform him that I wish to see him,” said Mr. Baring; 
 but almost before the words had left his lips Girard was 
 before him. 
 
 “ I came to inform you,” he said, addressing the banker, 
 “that your ship, the Voltaire, has arrived safely.” 
 
 “I knew that she would reach port safely,” said Girard; 
 “my ships always arrive safe. She is a good ship. IMr. 
 Baring, you must excuse me; I am much engaged in my 
 hay.” And so saying, he ascended to the loft again. 
 
 To the last he was active. In 1830, having reached the 
 age of eighty, he began to lose the sight of his eye; yet he 
 would have no assistance. In attempting to cross a crowded 
 
STEPHEK GlEARt). 
 
 41 
 
 street, he was knocked down by a passing wagon and injured 
 severely. His ear was cut off, his face bruised, and his sight 
 entirely destroyed. His health now declined rapidly, and on 
 the 26th of December, 1831, he died, in the back room of his 
 plain little house in Water Street. 
 
 His immense wealth was carefully divided by his will. He 
 gave to his surviving brother and eleven of his nieces sums 
 ranging from five to twenty thousand dollars, and to his 
 remaining niece, who was the mother of a very large family, 
 he gave sixty thousand dollars. He gave to each of the caj)- 
 tains then in his employ who had made two voyages in his 
 service, and who should bring his ship safely into port, fifteen 
 hundred dollars. To each of his apprentices he gave 'five 
 hundred dollars. To his old servants he gave annuities, rang¬ 
 ing from three to five hundred dollars each. 
 
 He gave thirty thousand dollars to the Pennsylvania Hos¬ 
 pital, in which his wife had been cared for; twenty thousand 
 to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum; ten thousand to the Orphan 
 Asylum; ten thousand to the Lancaster schools; ton thousand 
 for the purpose of providing the poor in Philadel{)hia -with free 
 fuel; ten thousand to the Society for the Relief of Distressed 
 Sea-Captains and their Families; twenty thousand to the Ma¬ 
 sonic Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, for the relief of poor 
 members; six thousand for the establishment of a free school 
 in Passyunk, near Philadelphia; five hundred thousand dol¬ 
 lars to the Corporation of Philadelphia for certain improve¬ 
 ments in the city; three hundred thousand to the State of 
 Pennsylvania for her canals; and a portion of his valuable 
 estates in Louisiana to the Corporation of New Orleans, for the 
 improvement of that eity. 
 
 The remainder of his property, worth then about six mill¬ 
 ions of dollars, he left to trustees for the erection and endow- 
 
42 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE, 
 
 meut of the noble* College for Orphans, in Philadelphia, which 
 bears his name. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that this man, who seemed steeled to 
 resist apj^eals for private charity in life, in death devoted all 
 the results of his unusual genius in his calling to the noblest 
 of purposes, and to enterprises of the most benignant charac¬ 
 ter, which will gratefully hand his name down to the remotest, 
 ages of posterity. 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 HOSE who imagine that the mercantile profession 
 is incapable of developing the element of great¬ 
 ness in the mind of man, find a perfect refutation 
 in the career of the subject of this memoii’, who 
 won his immense fortune by the same traits which 
 woidd have raised him to emineuce as a statesman. It may 
 be thought by some that he lias no claim to a place in the 
 list of famous Americans, since he was not only German by 
 birth, but German in character to his latest day ; but it must 
 be borne in mind that America was the theater of his exploits, 
 and that he owed the greater part of his success to the wise 
 and beneficent institutions of the “New Land,” as he termed 
 it. In his own country he would have had no opportunity for 
 tlie display of his great abilities, and it was only by placing 
 himself in the midst of institutions favorable to progress that 
 he was enabled to make use of his talents. It is for this 
 reason, therefore, that we may justly claim him as one of the 
 most celebrated of American merchants. 
 
 John Jacob Astor was born in the village of Waldorf, near 
 Heidelberg, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, on the 17th of 
 July, 1763. This year was famous for the conclusion of the 
 Treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg^ which placed all the fur- 
 yielding regions of America, from the Gulf of Mexico to the 
 
44 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 Frozen Sea, in the hands of England. He was the youngest 
 of four sons, and was born of Protestant parents. He was 
 early taught to read Luther’s Bible and the Prayer-book, and 
 throughout his whole life remained a zealous Protestant. He 
 was trained to the habit of rising early, and giving the first 
 of his waking hours to reading the Bible and Prayer-book. 
 This habit he continued all through life, and he often declared 
 that it Avas to him the source of unfailing pleasure and com¬ 
 fort. His religious impressions Avere mainly due to his mother, 
 Avho AA’as a pious, thrifty, and hard-Avorking Avoman, given to 
 saving, and deA’oted to her family. 
 
 His father, on the contrary, AA’as a jolly “ne’er do well,” 
 a butcher by trade, and not OA’erburdened Avith industry. The 
 business of a butcher in so small a A’illage as Waldorf, Avhere 
 meat Avas a luxury to the inhabitants, Avas merely a nominal 
 calling. It kncAv but one season of real profit. It AA’as at that 
 time the custom in Germany for CA’ery farmer to set apart a 
 calf, pig, or bullock, and fatten it against harvest time. As that 
 season approached, the Aullage butcher passed from house to house 
 to slaughter the animal, cure its flesh, or make sausage meat 
 of it, spending, sometimes, seA’eral days at each house. This 
 season brought Jacob Astor an abundance of Avork, and en¬ 
 abled him to proA’ide liberally for the simple wants of his 
 family; but during the rest of the year it Avas Avith difficulty 
 that he could make bread for them. Yet Jacob took his hard 
 lot cheerfully. He AA’as merry over his misfortunes, and sought 
 to forget them in the society of companions Avho gathered 
 at the A’illage beer-house. His Avife’s remonstrances against 
 such a course of life AA’ere sometimes so energetic that the house 
 became any thing but a pleasant place for the children. 
 
 Here John Jacob grcAv up to boyhood. His brothers left 
 home to earn their liA’^elihood elseAvhere, as soon as they Avere 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 45 
 
 old enough to do so, and he alone remained under the paternal 
 roof. His father destined him for his own calling, but the 
 boy shrank from it with disgust. To crown his misfortunes, 
 his mother died, and his father married again, and this time a 
 woman who looked with no favor upon the son. The newly- 
 married pair quarreled continually, and the boy was glad to 
 escape occasionally to the house of a schoolmate, where he passed 
 the night in a garret or outhouse. By daylight he was back 
 at his father’s slaughter-house, to assist in carrying out the 
 meat. He was poorly clad and badly fed, and his father’s bad 
 reputation wounded him so keenly that he shrank from play¬ 
 ing with other boys, and led a life of comparative isolation. 
 
 Fortunately for him, he had a teacher, Valentine Jenne 
 by name, the son of French Protestants, who was better fitted 
 for his position than the majority of the more liberally-patron¬ 
 ized Catholic instructors. He was well taught by Valentine 
 Jeune in the rudiments of a jfiain education, and the tutor and 
 the Protestant minister of the village together succeeded so 
 well in his religious instruction that at theH' age of fourteen he 
 was confirmed. Confirmation is the decisive })oint in the 
 career of the German youth. Until then he is only a child. 
 Afterward he is regarded as on the threshold of manhood, 
 and is given to understand that the time has come for him to 
 make choice of a career in life. 
 
 To the German peasant two courses only lie open, to learn a 
 trade or go out to service. John Jacob was resolved not to do 
 the latter, and he was in no condition to adopt the former. He 
 was already familiar with his father’s trade, but he shrank from 
 it with disgust, and he could not hope to obtain money enough 
 to pay for his tuition as an apjirentice in any other calling. 
 No workman in the village would receive him as an appren¬ 
 tice for less than fifty dollars, and fifty dollars were then fur- 
 
46 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 ther beyond his reach than as many millions in after years. 
 The harvest was approaching, and Jacob Astor, seeing an 
 unusual amount of work in store for him at that season, de¬ 
 cided the matter for his sou by informing him that he must 
 prepare to settle down as his assistant. He obeyed, but dis¬ 
 contentedly, and with a determination to abandon his home at 
 the earliest practicable moment. 
 
 His chief desire was to leave Germany and emigrate to 
 America. The American Revolution had brought the “New 
 Land” into great prominence ; and one of the brothers, Henry 
 Astor, had already settled in New York as a butcher, and his 
 letters had the effect of increasing John Jacob’s desire to fol¬ 
 low him. It was impossible to do so then, for the war which 
 was raging in this country made it any thing but inviting to 
 an emigrant, and the boy was entirely ignorant of the Eng¬ 
 lish language. Nevertheless, he knew that the war could not 
 last always, and he resolved to go as soon as peace would al¬ 
 low him. INIeanwhile he wished to join his elder brothei', who 
 had removed to London, and was now engaged with his uncle 
 in the manufacture of musical instruments. In London he 
 thought he could acquire a knowledge of English, and save 
 from his wages the amount necessary to pay his passage from 
 England to America. He could reach some of the seaports of 
 the Continent by walking. But he needed money to pay his 
 passage from there to Great Britain. His determination thus 
 formed, he made no secret of it, and succeeded at length in ex¬ 
 torting a reluctant consent from his father, who was not in¬ 
 clined to expect very much from the future career of his .son. 
 H is teacher, however, had more faith in him, and said to the 
 butcher, on the morning of the lad’s departure; “ I am not 
 afraid of John Jacob; he’ll get through the world. He has a 
 clear head, and every thing right behind the cars.” 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOE. 
 
 47 
 
 He was seventeen years old when he left home; was stout 
 and well built, and had a constitution of iron. He was pos- 
 •sessed of a good plain education, and a remarkable degree of 
 common sense. He had no vicious habits or propensities, and 
 was resolved that he would never set foot again in his native 
 town until he could do so as a rich man. 
 
 Ardently as he was bent on seeking his fortune in distant 
 lands, it cost him a struggle to go away, for he was a true 
 German in his attachment to his home and family. This at¬ 
 tachment he never lost. After providing liberally for his 
 relatives in his will, he made a munificent donation to his na¬ 
 tive village for the benefit of its poor children. 
 
 With his scanty wardrobe in a bundle, which he slung over 
 his shoulder by a stick, and a mere pittance in his purse, he 
 set out from Waldorf, on foot, for the Rhine. “ Soon after I 
 left the village, ” said he, in after-life, “ I sat down beneath a 
 tree to rest, and there I made three resolutions: to be honest, 
 to be industrious, and not to gamble.” He had but two dol¬ 
 lars in his pocket; but this was enough for his purpose. The 
 Rhine was not far distant from his native village, and this part 
 of his journey he easily accomplished on foot. Upon reaching 
 the river, he is said to have secured a place as oarsman on a 
 timber raft. The timber which is cut in the Black Forest for 
 shipment is made up into rafts on the Rhine, but instead of 
 being suffered to float down the stream, as in this country, is 
 rowed by oarsmen, each raft having from sixty to eighty men 
 attached to it. As the labor is severe and attended with some 
 risk, the wages are high, and the lot of the oarsmen not alto¬ 
 gether a hard one, as they manage to have a great deal of sport 
 among themselves. The amount paid as wages on these voy¬ 
 ages is about ten dollars, besides the coarse fare furnished the 
 men, and the time occupied is about two weeks. 
 
48 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Upon reaching the Dutch seaport at the mouth of the Rhine, 
 young Astor received his wages—the largest sum he had ever 
 possessed—and took passage in a vessel for London, where he 
 was welcomed cordially by his brother, and provided with em¬ 
 ployment in his manufactory. 
 
 He now set to work to prepare himself for his emigration to 
 America. His industry was unflagging. He worked literally 
 from dawn till dark, and practiced the most rigid economy in 
 his expenditures. His leisure time, which was brief, was spent 
 in trying to master the English language, and in acquiring in¬ 
 formation respecting America. He had anticipated great dif¬ 
 ficulty in his efforts to learn English, but succeeded beyond his 
 hopes. In six weeks he could make himself understood in 
 that language, and some time before starting for America could 
 speak it with ease, though he never could at any period of his 
 life rid himself of his strong German accent. He was never 
 able to write English correctly, but after being some years in 
 this country acquired a style which was striking and to the 
 point, in spite of its inaccuracy. England, however, was not a 
 favorable place for acquiring information respecting America. 
 The Colonies had exasperated the mother country by their 
 heroic struggle for freedom, which was just drawing to its close, 
 and the Xew 'World was pictured to the imagination of the 
 young German in any thing but a favorable light. His most 
 accurate information was gained from those who had returned 
 from America, and these persons, as often as chance threw them 
 in his way, he questioned with eagerness and precision ; their 
 answers were carefully stored up in his memory. 
 
 In September, 1783, the news of the peace which established 
 the independence of the United States was published in 
 Europe. Young Astor had now been in London two years, 
 and had saved money enough to take him to America. He 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 49 
 
 was the possessor of a suit of good clothes, besides his ordi¬ 
 nary wearing apparel, and fifteen guineas in English money, 
 which he had saved from his slender earnings by the absolute 
 denial to himself of every thing not essential to his existence. 
 The way to America was now open, and he‘ resolved to set out 
 at once. For five guineas he bought a steerage passage in a 
 ship bound for Baltimore, and reserving about five pounds 
 sterling of the remainder of his capital in money, invested the 
 rest in seven German flutes, which he bought of his brother, 
 and embarked for the “ New Land. ” 
 
 The winter was memorable on land and sea for its severity, 
 and our hero’s first voyage was a stormy one. It is said that 
 on one occasion, when the tempest was unusually violent, and 
 the ship in imminent danger, he made his appearance in his 
 Sunday clothes. In reply to those who asked his reason for 
 so strange an act, he said that if he should reach land he would 
 save his best clothes, and that if he was drowned it was im¬ 
 material what became of them. 
 
 Although the ship sailed in November, it did not reach the 
 Chesapeake until near the end of January, and there, when 
 only one day distant from Baltimore, was caught in the ice, 
 where it was compelled to remain until late in March. This 
 delay was very vexatious to the young emigrant, but it proved 
 in the end the greatest blessing that could have befallen him. 
 During the voyage Astor had made the acquaintance of one of 
 his fellow passengers, a German, somewhat older than himself, 
 and, while the ship lay fast in the ice, the two were constantly 
 together. As a consequence of the intimacy which thus sprung 
 up between them, they exchanged confidences, told each other 
 their history, and their purpose in coming to America. Astor 
 learned that his friend had emigrated to the New World a few 
 years before, friendless and penniless, but that, beginning in a 
 
50 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 little way, he had managed to become a fur trader. He bought 
 his furs from the Indians, and from the boatmen plying on 
 the Hudson River. These he sold at a small profit to larger 
 dealers, until he had accumulated a considerable sum for one 
 in his position. Believing that he could find a better market 
 in Europe than in America, he had embarked all his capital in 
 skins, which he had taken to England and sold at a heavy ad¬ 
 vance. The proceeds he had invested in toys and trinkets 
 valued by the savages, and was now on his way back with 
 them, intending to go into the wilderness himself and purchase 
 an additional stock of furs from the Indians. He recommended 
 Astor to enter upon the same business; gave him valuable in¬ 
 formation as to the value of peltries in America and in Eng¬ 
 land ; told him the best way of buying, packing, preserving, 
 and shipping the skins, and gave him the names of the lead¬ 
 ing furriers in New A"ork, Montreal, and London. Astor was 
 deeply impressed with the views of his friend, but he could not 
 see his own way clear to such a success, as he had no capital. 
 His friend assured him that capital was unnecessary if he was 
 willing to begin in an humble way. He could buy valuable 
 furs on the wharves of New A"ork for toys and trinkets, and 
 even for cakes, from the Indians who visited the city, and 
 these he could sell at an advance to the New A"ork dealers. 
 He advised the young man, however, not to be satisfied with 
 the American market, but to work for a position which would 
 enable him to send his furs to England, where they would 
 bring four or five times as much as in this country. Astor 
 carefully treasured up all that his friend said to him, and quietly 
 resolved that he would lose no time in entering iqjon this busi¬ 
 ness, which seemed to promise so much. 
 
 The two friends traveled together from Baltimore to New 
 York, where they were warmly received by Astor’s brother, 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 51 
 
 Henry, who had succeeded in laying the foundation of a pros¬ 
 perous business as a butcher, in which he afterward made a 
 large fortune. Both brothers were men of business habits, and 
 on the very first evening after the arrival of the new-comer 
 they began to discuss plans for his future. Astor’s friend stated 
 all the advantages of the fur trade, and convinced Henry Astor 
 that it was a fine field for the energies of his brother; and it 
 was agreed that it would be best for the young man to seek 
 employment in the service of some furrier in the city, in order 
 that he might thoroughly learn the business, and familiarize 
 himself with the country and its customs. To his great de¬ 
 light, young Astor learned that, so far from being compelled to 
 j)ay his employer for learning him the business, as in Europe, 
 he would be certain here to receive his board and nominal 
 wages from the first. The next day the three started out, and 
 succeeded iu obtaining a situation for the young man in the 
 store of Mr. Robert Bowne, a Quaker, and a merchant of long 
 experience in the business, as well as a most estimal)le man. 
 He is said to have engaged Astor at two dollars per week and 
 his board. 
 
 Astor was at once set to work by his employer to beat furs, 
 this method of treating them being required to prevent the 
 moths from lodging in and destroying them. From the first 
 he applied himself to the task of learning the business. He 
 bent all the powers of his remarkable mind to acquiring an in¬ 
 timate knowledge of furs, and of fur-bearing animals, and their 
 haunts and habits. His opportunities for doing so were very 
 good, as many of the skins were sold over Bowne’s counters 
 by the hunters who had taken them. These men he ques¬ 
 tioned with a minuteness that astonished them, and the result 
 was that iu a few years he was as thoroughly familiar with the 
 animals, their habits, their country, and the mode of taking 
 
52 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 them, as many of the trappers themselves. He is said to have 
 been in his prime the best judge of furs in Ameriea. He ap¬ 
 preciated the fact that no man can succeed in any business or 
 profession without fully understanding it, and he was too much 
 determined upon success to be satisfied with a superficial knowl¬ 
 edge. He was resolved that there should be no detail.in the 
 business, however minute, with which he was unfamiliar, and 
 he toiled patiently to acquire information which most sales¬ 
 men in his place would have esteemed trivial. Nothing was 
 trivial with him, however, and it is remarkable that he ne^'er 
 embarked in any scheme until he had mastered its most 
 trifling details. Few men have ever shown a deeper and 
 more far-reaching knowledge of their profession and the issues 
 involved in it than he. He fully understood that his knowl¬ 
 edge would give him a power which a man of less informa¬ 
 tion could not obtain, and he never failed to use that knowl¬ 
 edge as a power. His instructions to his subordinates were 
 always drawn up with the strictest regard to details, and show 
 not only how thoroughly he had mastered the subject before 
 him, but also how much importance he attached to the con¬ 
 scientious fulfillment of a well-digested jdan of operations. 
 He recognized no such thing as luck. Every thing with him 
 was the result of a deliberate plan based upon knowledge. In 
 this respect his career affords one of the best models to be 
 found in our history. 
 
 Astor’s employer w’as not insensible to his merits, and soon 
 promoted him to a better place. In a little while the latter 
 intrusted him with the buying of the furs from the men who 
 brought them to the store, and he gave such satisfaction to his 
 employer that he was rewarded with a still more confidential 
 post. Montreal was at that time the chief fur depot of the 
 country, and it was the custom of Mr, Bowne to make an an- 
 
JoiiN Jacob astor. 
 
 nc-il joUi'ney to that city for the purpose of replenishing his 
 stock. The journey was long and fatiguing, and as soon as 
 the old gentleman found that he could intrust the mission to 
 his clerk, he sent him in his place. Ascending the Hudson to 
 Albany, Astor, with a pack on his back, struck out across the 
 country, which was then almost unsettled, to Lake George, up 
 \\hich he passed into I^ake Champlain. Sailing to the head of 
 the lake, he made his way to Montreal. Then returning in 
 the same way, he employed Indians to transport his furs from 
 Lake George to Albany, and dropped down the Hudson in the 
 way he had come. Mr. Bowne was delighted with the suc¬ 
 cess of his clerk, who proved more than a match for the 
 shrewd Indians in his bargains. It was doubtless here that 
 l\Ir. Astor obtained that facility in “ driving a hard bargain ” 
 for which he was afterwards noted. 
 
 As soon as Mr. Astor felt himself master of his business, 
 he left the employ of Mr. Bowne, and began life on his own 
 account. The field upon which he purposed entering w'as ex¬ 
 tensive, but it was one of which he had made a careful sur¬ 
 vey. Previous to the peace of 1763, the French and English 
 divided the control of the fur-bearing regions of America. 
 The British possessions, extending from Canada to the unex- 
 ])lorcd regions of the North, had been granted by a charter of 
 Charles II. to Prince Rupert, and were, by virtue of that in¬ 
 strument, under the exclusive control of the Hudson Bay 
 Company. Large quantities of furs were obtained in this re¬ 
 gion, and collected at the principal settlement, York Factory, 
 from which they were shipped to England. 
 
 South of this region was Canada, then possessed by the 
 French, who carried on an extensive trade with the Indians, 
 who brought their furs down to IMontrcal in their birch canoes. 
 The French finally settled in the country of the savages, and 
 
56 KiNGS OP PORTUNfi. 
 
 married among the natives, thenceforward entirely devoting 
 themselves to the life of the trapper and hunter. These mar¬ 
 riages produced a race of half-breeds who were especially suc¬ 
 cessful in securing furs. The cession of Canada to England 
 was a severe blow to the French traders, as it opened the 
 country to the enterprise of the English, a few of whom were 
 quick to avail themselves of its advantages. The French and 
 Indians at first regarded them with hostility, but gradually 
 became I'econciled to their presence. 
 
 Under the French rule the savages had not been furnished 
 with liquors, but the English soon sold whisky and rum in 
 great quantities to them, receiving the best furs in return. As 
 a consequence, intemperance spread rapidly among the savages, 
 and threatened to put an end to their industry as gatherers of 
 furs. To check the evil results of this irregular trading, a com¬ 
 pany was established in 1785, called the North-west Company. 
 It was managed by twelve partners, some of whom resided at 
 IMontreal, and others at the trading posts in the interior. Their 
 chief station was at Fort William, on Lake Superior. Here, at 
 stated times, the agents would come up from Montreal and 
 hold a consultation for the purchase of furs. These meetings 
 always drew crowds of French and Indian trappers, boatmen, 
 and others, who brought in large quantities of skins. 
 
 A few years later a third company was organized, with its 
 principal station at Michilimackinac, near Lake Huron. It 
 was called the Mackinaw Company, and its field of operations 
 was the country bordering Lake Superior, and that lying 
 between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. The 
 company was English, but did not hesitate to operate in 
 American territory, so little regard did Great Britain pay to 
 the rights of the infant republic. 
 
 “ Although peace had been concluded, the frontier forts had 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 57 
 
 not been given up. Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, Michiliinack- 
 inac, and other posts were still in the hands of the English. 
 The Indian tribes continued hostile, being under English influ¬ 
 ence. No company had as yet been formed in the United 
 States. Several French houses at St. Louis traded with the 
 Indians, but it was not until 1807 that an association of 
 twelve partners, with a capital of forty thousand dollars, was 
 formed at St. Louis, under the name of the Missouri Com¬ 
 pany. 
 
 “The trade, it will thus be seen, was almost wholly in the 
 hands of the English companies—the Hudson’s Bay Company 
 in the north, the North-west Company in the Cana<las, the 
 Mackinaw Company in the territories of the United States— 
 and the few American traders in the field had to rely on 
 their individual resources, with no aid from a Government 
 too feeble in its infancy to do more than establish a few 
 Indian agencies, and without constitutional power to confer 
 charter privileges.” 
 
 The voyage of Captain Cook had brouglit to the notice of 
 the fur dealers of the world the sea otter of the northern Pa¬ 
 cific, and the announcement made uj)on the return of the 
 expedition drew large numbers of adventurers to the west 
 coast of America, in search of the valuable skins of these ani¬ 
 mals. In 1792, there were twenty-one vesssels, principally 
 American, on the coast. 
 
 It was into this field, already occupied by powerful and hos¬ 
 tile corporations, that the young German entered. He w'as 
 jierfectly aware of the opposition his eflbrts would encounter 
 from them, but he was not dismayed. He began business in 
 1786, in a small store in Water Street, which he furnished 
 with a few toys and notions suited to the tastes of the Indians 
 who had skins to sell. His entire capital consisted of only a 
 
58 
 
 KINGS OP POETUNE. 
 
 few hundred dollars, a portion of which was loaned him by his 
 brother. He had no assistants. He did all his own work. 
 He bought his skins, cured, beat, and sold them himself. 
 
 Several times during the year he made journeys on foot 
 through western New York, buying skins from the settlers, 
 farmers, trappers, savages, wherever he could find them. He 
 tramped over nearly the entire State in this way, and is said to 
 have had a better knowledge of its geography and topography 
 than any man living.* 
 
 “He used to boast, late in life, when the Erie Canal had 
 called into being a line of thriving towns through the center 
 of the State, that he had himself, in his numberless tramps, 
 designated the sites of those towns, and predicted that one day 
 they would be the centers of business and population. Partic¬ 
 ularly he noted the spots where Rochester and Buffalo now 
 stand, one having a harbor on Lake Erie and the other upon 
 Lake Ontaricj. He predicted that those places would one day 
 he large and prosperous cities; and that prediction he made 
 when there was scarcely a settlement at Buffalo, and only wig¬ 
 wams on the site of Rochester.” 
 
 During these tramps his business in the city was managed by 
 a partner, with whom he was finally compelled to associate 
 himself. 
 
 As soon as he had collected a certain number of hales of 
 skins he shipped them to London, and took a steerage passage 
 in the vessel which conveyed them. He sold his skins in that 
 city at a fine profit, and succeeded in forming business connec¬ 
 tions which enabled him afterward to ship his goods direct to 
 London, and draw regularly upon the houses to which they 
 were consigned. He also made an arrangement with the 
 house of Astor & Broad wood, in which his brother was a 
 partner, by which he became the agent in New York for the 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 59 
 
 sale of their musical instruments, a branch of his business 
 which became quite profitable to him. He is said to have 
 been the first man in Xew York who kept a regular stock 
 of musical instruments on hand. 
 
 Slowly, and by unremitting industry, Mr. Astor succeeded 
 in building up a certain business. His personal journeys 
 made him acquainted with the trappers, and enabled him to 
 win their good will. The savages sold their skins to him 
 readily, and he found a steady market and a growing demand 
 for his commodities in the Old World. 
 
 It was about this time that he married Miss Sarah Todd, of 
 New York. She was a connection of the Brevoort family, and 
 was of better social position than her husband. She entered 
 heartily into his business, doing much of the buying and 
 beating of the furs herself. She was a true helpmate to him, 
 and long after he was a millionaire, he used to boast of her 
 skill in judging furs and conducting business operations. 
 
 In 1794, Jay’s treaty placed the frontier forts in the hands 
 of the Americans, and thus increased the opportunities of our 
 own traders to extend their business. It was of the greatest 
 service to Mr, Astor. It enabled him to enlarge the field of 
 his operations, and, at the same time, to send his agents on the 
 long journeys which he formerly made, while he himself 
 remained in New A^ork to direct his business, which by this 
 time had grown to considerable proportions. 
 
 He was now on the road to wealth. He had scores of trap¬ 
 pers and hunters working for him in the great wilderness, and 
 his agents were kept busy buying and shipping the skins to 
 New York. As soon as he was able to do so he purchased a 
 ship, in which he sent his furs to London, occasionally making 
 a voyage thither himself. He manifested the greatest interest 
 in the markets of the Old World, especially in those of Asia, 
 
GO 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 and informed himself so accurately concerning them that he 
 was always enabled to furnish his cajjtains with instructions 
 covering the most minute detail of their transactions in those 
 markets; and it is said that he was never unsuccessful in 
 his ventures there, except when his instructions were dis¬ 
 obeyed. 
 
 In this again, as in the fur trade, we see him patiently ac¬ 
 quiring knowledge of the eastern trade before venturing to 
 engage in it. His first step was always to fully comprehend 
 his task, to examine it from every possible point of view, so 
 that he should be prepared to encounter any sudden reverse, or 
 ready to take advantage of good fortune. Here lay the secret 
 of his success—that he never embarked in an enterprise until 
 he had learned how to use it to advantage. 
 
 Under his skillful management his business grew rapidly; 
 but he avoided speculation, and confined himself to legitimate 
 commerce. He was plain and simple in his habits, carrying 
 this trait to an extreme long after economy had ceased to be 
 necessary to him. He worked hard, indulged in no pleasures 
 except horseback exercise and the theater, of both Avhich he 
 was very fond. It was only after he had amassed a large 
 fortune that he ever left his business before the close of the 
 dav. Then he would leave his counting-room at two in the 
 afternoon, and, partaking of an early dinner, would pass the 
 rest of the day in riding about the island. So plain was his 
 style of living that, before he beeame generally known as a 
 wealthy man, a bank clerk once superciliously informed him 
 that his indorsement of a note would not be sufficient, as it 
 was not likely he would be able to pay it in case the bank 
 should be forced to call upon him. 
 
 “ Indeed,” said Mr. Astor, “ how much do you suppose I 
 am worth?” 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 Cl 
 
 The clerk named a moderate amount, at which the merchant 
 smiled quietly. 
 
 Would the indorsement of Mr.-, or Mr.-, be suffi¬ 
 
 cient?” asked Mr. Astor, naming several well-known merchants 
 who lived in great style. 
 
 “ Entirely sufficient,” was the rej^ly. “ Each one of them is 
 known to be wealthy.” 
 
 ‘'How much do you think each is worth?” 
 
 The clerk named large sums in connection with each of the 
 gentlemen. 
 
 “Well, my friend,” .said the merchant, “I am worth more 
 than any of them. I will not tell you how much I am worth, 
 but it is more than any sum you have named.” 
 
 The clerk looked at him in surprise, and then said, bluntly, 
 “ Then you are a greater fool than I took you for, to work as 
 hard as you do.” 
 
 Mr. Astor was very fond of telling this story, which he re¬ 
 garded as one of the best jokes of the day. 
 
 All this time Mr. Astor had lived over his store, but in 
 1800, after he had been in business fifteen ycar.s, he moved his 
 dwelling to 223 Broadway, on the site of the Astor House of to¬ 
 day. He lived here, with one removal, for upwards of twenty- 
 five years. The house was plain and simple, but he was satis¬ 
 fied with it. He was now worth a quarter of a million dollars, 
 and his business was growing rapidly. The fur trade was ex¬ 
 ceedingly profitable. A beaver skin could be bought from the 
 trappers in western New York for one dollar and sold in Lon¬ 
 don for six dollars and a quarter. By investing this amount 
 in English manufactures, the six dollars and a quarter received 
 for the skin could be made to produce ten dollars paid for the 
 English goods in New T'ork. 
 
 The Chinese trade was also very profitable. China was an 
 
62 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 excellent market for furs. They brought high prices, and the 
 proceeds could always be invested in teas and silks, which sold 
 well in Xew York. His profit on a voyage would sometimes 
 reach seventy thousand dollars, and the average gain on a 
 lucky venture of this kind was thirty thousand dollars. The 
 high prices produced by the war of 1812-15 were also in Mr. 
 Astor’s favor. His ships were all remarkably lucky in escap¬ 
 ing capture by the enemy, and he was almost the only mer¬ 
 chant who had a cargo of tea in the market. Tea having 
 reached double its usual price, he was enabled to reap immense 
 profits from his ventures. 
 
 Mr. Francis, in his Old Merchants of Xew York, makes the 
 following revelation of the manner in which Mr. Astor found 
 it possible to carry on such an immense business. He says: 
 
 “ A house that could raise money enough, thirty years ago, 
 to send §260,000 in specie, could soon have an uncommon cap¬ 
 ital ; and this was the working of the old system. The Gris¬ 
 wolds owned the ship Panama. They started her fi’ora Xew 
 York in the month of May, with a cargo of perhaps §30,000 
 worth of ginseng, spelter, lead, iron, etc., and §170,000 in 
 Spanish dollars. The ship goes on the voyage, reaches Wham¬ 
 poa in safety (a few miles below Canton). Her supercargo, in 
 two months, has her loaded with tea, some chinaware, a great 
 deal of cassia, or false cinnamon, and a few other articles. 
 Suppose the cargo mainly tea, costing about thirty-seven cents 
 (at that time) per pound on the average. 
 
 “ The duty was enormous in those days. It was twice the 
 cost of the tea, at least; so that a cargo of §200,000, when it 
 had paid duty of seventy-five cents per pound (which would 
 be §400,000), amounted to §600,000. The profit was at least 
 fifty per cent, on the original cost, or §100,000, and would 
 make the cargo worth §700,000. 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 63 
 
 “ The cargo of teas would be sold almost on arrival (say 
 eleven or twelve months after the ship left New York in May), 
 to wholesale grocers, for their notes at four and six months— 
 say for $700,000. In those years there was credit given by the 
 United States of nine, twelve, and eighteen months! So that 
 the East India or Canton merchant, after his shi{) had made 
 one voyage, had the use of Government capital to the extent 
 of $400,000, on the ordinary cargo of a China ship. 
 
 “No sooner had the ship Panama arrived (or any of the 
 regular East Indiameu), than her cargo would be exchanged 
 for grocers’ notes for $700,000. These notes could be turned 
 into specie very easily, and the owner had only to pay his 
 bonds for duty at nine, twelve, and eighteen months, giving him 
 time actually to send two more ships, with $200,000 each, to 
 Canton, and have them back again in New York before the 
 bonds on the first cargo w'ere due. 
 
 “ Johu Jacob Astor, at one period of his life, had several 
 vessels operating in this way. They would go to the Pacific, 
 and carry furs from thence to Canton. These would be sold 
 at large profits. Then the cargoes of tea to New York would 
 pay enormous duties, which Astor did not have to pay to the 
 United States for a year and a half. His tea cargoes would 
 be sold for good four and six months paper, or perhaps cash; 
 so that, for eighteen or twenty years, John Jacob Astor had 
 what was actually a free-of-interest loan from Government of 
 over five millions of dollars.” 
 
 It is estimated that IMr. Astor made about two millions of 
 dollars by his trade in furs and teas. The bulk of his im¬ 
 mense fortune was made by investments in real estate. His 
 estate was estimated at twenty millions of dollars at the time 
 of his death, and has now increased to over forty millions. 
 He had a firm faith in the magnificent future of New York as 
 
64 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 the greatest city of the continent, and as fast as his gains from 
 his business came in, they were regularly invested in real estate, 
 A part was expended in leasing for a long period property 
 which the owners would not sell, and the rest in buying prop¬ 
 erty in fee simple. These leases, some of which have but re¬ 
 cently expired, were extremely profitable. In his purchases of 
 land Mr. Astor was very fortunate. He pursued a regular 
 system in making them. Whenever a favorable purchase could 
 be made in the heart of the city, he availed himself of the op¬ 
 portunity, but as a rule he bought his lands in what was then 
 the suburb of the city, and which few besides himself expected 
 to see built up during their lifetime. His sagacity and foresight 
 have been more than justified by the course of events. His 
 estate now lies principally in the heart of New York, and has 
 yielded an increase greater even than he had ventured to hope 
 for. Seventy hundred and twenty houses are said to figure on 
 the rent roll of the Astor estate at present, and besides these are 
 a number of lots not yet built upon, but which are every day 
 increasing in value. When Mr. Astor bought Richmond Hill, 
 the estate of Aaron Burr, he gave one thousand dollars an acre 
 for the hundred and sixty acres. Twelve years later, the land 
 was valued at fifteen hundred dollars per lot. 
 
 In 1810, he sold a lot near Wall Street for eight thousand 
 dollars. The price was so low that a purchaser for cash was 
 found at once, and this gentleman, after the sale, expressed his 
 surprise that Mr. Astor should ask only eight thousand for a 
 lot Avhich in a few years would sell for twelve thousand. 
 
 “That is true,” said Mr. Astor, “but see what I intend 
 doing with these eight thousand dollars. I shall buy eighty 
 lots above Canal Street, and by the time your one lot is worth 
 twelve thousand dollars, my eighty lots will be worth eighty 
 thousand dollars.” 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOE. 
 
 65 
 
 His expectations were realized. 
 
 During the war of the Revolution, Roger Morris and his 
 wife, Mary, of Putnam County, were obliged to flee from the 
 country to England for adhering to the cause of King George, 
 and, being attainted by the authorities as public enemies, their 
 immense estate, consisting of fifty-one thousand one hundred 
 and two acres, was seized by the State of New York, and sold 
 in small parcels to farmers, who believed the title thus ac¬ 
 quired valid. In 1809, there were upwards of seven hundred 
 families residing on this land, Mr. Astor, having learned that 
 Roger and Mary Morris possessed only a life interest in their 
 property, and having ascertained to his satisfaction that the 
 State could not confiscate the rights of the heirs, purchased 
 their claim, which w'as good not only for the land, but for all 
 the improvements that had been put upon it. He paid twenty 
 thousand pounds sterling for it, A few years previous to the 
 death of Mrs. Morris, who survived her husband some years, 
 Mr, Astor presented his claim. The occupants of the land 
 were thunderstruck, but the right was on his side. The State 
 of New York had simply robbed the heirs of their rights. 
 There was no weak point in the claim. Having given defect¬ 
 ive titles to the farmers, the State was of course responsible for 
 the claim; and upon finding out their mistake, the authorities 
 asked IMr. Astor to name the sum for which he would be will¬ 
 ing to compromise. The lands were valued at six hundred 
 and sixty-seven thousand dollars, but Mr. Astor expressed his 
 willingness to sell for three hundred thousand dollars. His 
 offer was refused. In 1819, a second proposition was made to 
 Mr. Astor by the Legislature of the State. He replied; “In 
 1813 or 1814 a similar proposition was made to me by the 
 commissioners then appointed by the Honorable the Legisla¬ 
 ture of this State, when I offered to compromise for the sum 
 
GO 
 
 KINGS OF FOllTUNE. 
 
 of three hundred thousand dollars, which, considering the value 
 of the property in question, was thought very reasonable, and, 
 at the pres('nt period, wlicn the life of Mrs. Morris is, accord¬ 
 ing to calculation, worth little or nothing, she being near eighty- 
 six years of age, and the property more valuable than it was 
 in 1813. I am still willing to receiv'e the amount which I 
 then stated, with interest on the same, payable in money or 
 stock, bearing an interest of — per cent., payable quarterly. The 
 stock maybe made payable at such periods as the Honorable the 
 Legislatiu’e may deem proper. This offer will, I trust, be consid¬ 
 ered as liberal, and as a proof of my willingness to compromise 
 on terms which are reasonable, considering the value of the prop¬ 
 erty, the price which it cost me, and the inconvenience of having 
 so long lain out of my money, which, if enqiloyed in commercial 
 operations, would most likely have produced better profits.” 
 
 This offer was not accepted by the Legislature, and the cause 
 was delayed until 1827, when it was brought before the courts. 
 It was argued by such men as Daniel AVebster and IMartin 
 Van Buren, on the part of the State, and by Thomas Addis 
 Emmett, Ogden, and others for Astor. The State had no case, 
 and the matter was decided in Astor’s favor. Then the State 
 consented to compromise. The famous Astor stock, which paid 
 that gentleman about five hundred thousand dollars, was issued, 
 and the titles of the possessors of the lands confirmed. 
 
 The most important of all of hlr. Astor’s undertakings was 
 his effort at founding the settlement of Astoria, on the coast of 
 Oregon. This enterprise has been made so familiar to the ma¬ 
 jority of readers by the pen of Mhishington Irving, that I can 
 only refer to it here. “His design,” says a writer of thirteen 
 years ago, “ was to organize and control the fur trade from the 
 lakes to the Pacific, by establishing trading posts along the 
 'Missouri and Columbia to its mouth. He designed establish- 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 07 
 
 ing a central depot and post at the month of the Columbia. 
 He proposed sending regular snpply-ships to the Pacific jiosts 
 around the Horn. By these, stores were to be sent also to the 
 Russian establishments. It was part of his plan, if possible, 
 to obtain possession of one of the Sandwich Islands as a sta¬ 
 tion, for from the Pacific coast he knew that the Chinese 
 market for his peltries could be most conveniently reached, 
 and thus the necessity for a long and circuitous voyage be 
 avoided. Instead of bringing the furs intended for China to 
 New York, they could be sent from the Pacific. By the snp¬ 
 ply-ships, too, the stock of goods suitable for the Indian trade 
 would be kept up there, and the cargoes purchased with the 
 proceeds of the furs sold in China brought back to New York. 
 The line of posts across the continent would become a line of 
 towns; emigration would follow, and civilization would belt 
 the continent. 
 
 ‘‘In this grand scheme, Mr. Astor was only anticipating the 
 course of events which, fifty years later, we are beginning to 
 witness. When he laid his plans before the Government, Mr. 
 Jefferson, who was then President, ‘considered as a great ac¬ 
 quisition,’ as he afterward expressed himself in a letter to Mr. 
 Astor, ‘ the commencement of a settlement on the western 
 coast of America, and looked forward with gratification to the 
 time when its descendants .should have spread themselves 
 through the whole length of that coast, covering it with free 
 and independent Americans, unconnected with us except by tics 
 of blood and interest, and enjoying, like u.s, the rights of self- 
 government. ’ Even Jefferson’s mind, wide as it was, could 
 not take in the idea of a national unity embracing both ends 
 of the continent; but not so thought Astor. The merchant 
 saw farther than the statesman. It was preci.sely this political 
 unity which gave him hope and chance of success in his world- 
 
68 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 wide schemes. When the Constitution was adopted, the chief 
 source of apprehension for its permanence with men like Pat¬ 
 rick Henry, and other wise statesmen, was the extent of our 
 territory. The Alleghanies, it was thouglit, had put asunder 
 communities whom no paper constitution could unite. But at 
 that early day, when Ohio was the far West, and no steamboat 
 had yet gone up the Mississippi, Astor looked beyond the Ohio, 
 beyond the INIississippi, and the Rocky jMountains, and saw the 
 whole American territory, from ocean to ocean, the domain of 
 one united nation, the seat of trade and industry. He saw lines 
 of trading posts uniting the Western settlements with the Pa¬ 
 cific; following this line of trading posts, he saw the columns 
 of a peaceful emigration crossing the plains, crossing the mount¬ 
 ains, descending the Columbia, and towns and villages taking 
 the places of the solitary posts, and cultivated fields instead of 
 the hunting-grounds of the Indian and the trapper. 
 
 “ Xo enterprise, unless it be the Atlantic telegraph, engages 
 more deeply the public attention than a railroad communica¬ 
 tion with the Pacific coast. * The rapid settlement of Oregon 
 and California, the constant communication by steam to the 
 Pacific coast, render it easy now to feel the nearness of that re¬ 
 gion, and the oneness of the nationality which covei’s the conti¬ 
 nent. But to Astor’s eye the thing was as palpable then as 
 now. And yet but two or three attempts had then been made 
 to explore the overland routes.” 
 
 It would be deeply interesting to examine the details of this 
 vast scheme of colonization and trade, for it is certain that ISIr., 
 Astor was as anxious to do an act which, by building up the 
 continent, should hand his name down to posterity as a na¬ 
 tional benefactor, as to increase his business; but the limits of 
 this article forbid more than a mere glance at the subject. 
 
 ■■■' The reader will bear in mind that the above extract was written in 1857. 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOB. 
 
 no 
 
 A company was formed, at the head of which stood ]\Ir. 
 Astor, and an elaborate and carefully-ari’anged plan of opera¬ 
 tions prepared. Two expeditions were dispatched to the month 
 of the Columbia, one by land and the other by sea.% Many 
 hardships were encountered, but the foundation of a settlement 
 was SLiceessfully made on the Columbia. In spite of the war 
 with England (1812-15), which now occurred, the enterprise 
 would have been successful had IVlr. Astor’s positive instruc¬ 
 tions been obeyed. They were utterly disregarded, however, 
 and his partners and agents not only betrayed him in every in¬ 
 stance, but sold his property to a rival British company for a 
 mere trifle. Ilis pecuniary loss was over a million of dollars, 
 and his disappointment bitter beyond expression. When the 
 enterprise was on the point of failure, and while he was still 
 chafing at the conduct of bis treacherous subordinates, he 
 wrote to Mr. Hunt, the most faithful of all bis agents: “ Were 
 I on the spot, and had the management of affairs, I would 
 defy them all; but as it is, every thing depends on you and 
 your friends about you. Our enterprise is grand, and deserves 
 success, and I hope in God it will meet it. If my object was 
 merely gain of money, I should say, thjnk whether it is best to 
 save what we can, and abandon the place; but the very idea is 
 like a dagger to my heart.” When the news of the final be¬ 
 trayal reached him, he wrote to the same gentleman: ‘‘Had 
 our place and property been fairly captured, I should have pre¬ 
 ferred it; I should not feel as if I were disgraced.” 
 
 Mr. Astor remained in active business for fifty years. Dur¬ 
 ing that entire period he scarcely committed an error of judg¬ 
 ment which led to a loss in business. He was thorough master 
 of every thing pertaining to his affairs, and his strength and 
 accuracy of judgment was remarkable. The particulars of his 
 transactions were indelibly impressed upon his mind. His intel- 
 
70 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 lect was vigorous and quick, and he grasped a subject with a 
 readiness which seemed like intuition. He was always careful 
 of the present, but he loved to undertake enterprises which ex- 
 tended^far into the future. He was a man of the utmost punc¬ 
 tuality in all his habits. He rose early, and, until he was fifty ■ 
 five years old, was always in his office before seven o’clock. 
 His capacity for work was very great, so that, in spite of his 
 heavy labors, he was always able to leave his office by two 
 o’clock, while many of his associates, who really did less than 
 he, were compelled to remain in their counting-rooms until four 
 or five. He was noted for his unvarying calmness, which he 
 doubtless owed to his German temperament. In the midst of 
 disaster and loss he was cooler and more cheerful than ever. To 
 those who chafed at their troubles, he would say, smilingly, 
 “ Kec 2 > quiet; keep cool.” This was his safeguard. 
 
 He was a devoted citizen of the United States, and, though 
 he took no active interest in politics, was a steady supporter of 
 the AVhig party. Henry Clay was his personal friend, and his 
 last donation to any political cause was a subscription of fifteen 
 hundred dollars to aid the election of his old friend to the 
 Presidency. 
 
 About the year 1830, Mr. Astor, now the possessor of mill¬ 
 ions, began to withdraw from active business, confining his efforts 
 chiefly to such investments as the management of his immense 
 estate made necessary. He now jnit into execution an enterprise 
 which he had long cherished. When a poor stranger in the 
 city, he had once stojiped in Broadway to notice a row of build¬ 
 ings which had just been erected, and which were considered 
 the finest in the street, and had then made a vow that he would 
 one day build a larger and finer house than any in Broadway. 
 He now set to work to carry out the plan he had cherished ever 
 since. He owned the entire block on Broadway, between Vesey 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR, 
 
 71 
 
 and Barclay streets, with the exception of one house, which was 
 the property of a ]\Ir. Coster, a merchant who had amassed a 
 large fortune and retired from business. INIr. Astor made him 
 many offers for his house, luit the old gentleman was unwilling 
 to remove. Mr. Astor offered him the full value of his house, 
 which was thirty thousand dollars, and increased the bid to 
 forty thousand, but Mr. Coster was obstinate. At length ]\Ir. 
 A.stor, in despair, was compelled to reveal his plan to his 
 neighbor. 
 
 “ I want to build a hotel,” said he. “ I have got all the 
 other lots. Now name your own price.” 
 
 ]\Ir. Coster replied that he would sell for sixty thousand dol- 
 lai’S if his wife would consent, and that Mr. Astor Could sec her 
 the next morning. Mr. Astor was punctual to the ap])oint- 
 ment, and his offer was accepted by the good lady, who said to 
 him, condescendingly, “I don’t want to sell the house, but we 
 are such old friends that I am willing for your sake.” 
 
 Mr. Astor used to remark with great glee that any one 
 could afford to exhibit such condescension after receiving double 
 the value of a piece of property. 
 
 Having got po.ssession of the entire block, he commenced 
 the demolition of the old buildings, and on their site reared the 
 Astor House, then the largest and most elegant hotel in the 
 country. This building, when completed, he gave to his eldest 
 son, AVilliam B. Astor. 
 
 In 1832, Mr. Astor sailed for Europe to visit one of his 
 daughters, who had married a nobleman, and remained abroad 
 until 1835. In that year he was compelled to return home by 
 the action of General Jackson with regard to the Bank of the 
 United States. “ He readied Havre,” .says Mr. Barton, “when 
 the shi]), on the jioint of .sailing, had every stateroom engaged, 
 but he^was so anxious to get home, that the captain, who had 
 
72 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 commanded ships for him in former years, gave up to him his 
 own stateroom. Head winds and boisterous seas kejit the ves¬ 
 sel'Tbeating about and tossing in the channel for many days. 
 The great man was very sick, and still more alarmed. At 
 length, being persuaded that he should not survive the voyage, 
 he asked the captain to run in and set him ashore on the coa.st 
 of England. The captain dissuaded him. The old man urged 
 his request at every opportunity, and said, at last, ‘ I give you 
 tousand dollars to put me aboard a pilot boat.’ He was so ve¬ 
 hement and importunate, that one day the captain, worried out 
 of all patience, promised him that if he did not get out of the 
 channel before next morning, he would run in and put him 
 ashore. It happened that the wind changed in the afternoon 
 and wafted the sliip into the broad ocean. But the troubles of 
 the sea-sick millionaire had only just begun. A heavy gale of 
 some days’ duration blew the vessel along the western coast of 
 Ireland. IMr. Astor, now thoroughly panic-stricken, offered the 
 captain ten thousand dollars if he would put him a.shore any¬ 
 where on the wild and rocky coast of the Emei’ald Isle. In 
 vain the captain remonstrated. In vain he reminded the old 
 gentleman of the danger of forfeiting his insui'ance. 
 
 “‘Insurance!’ exclaimed Astor, “can’t I insure your ship 
 myself?’ 
 
 “ In vain the captain mentioned the rights of the other pas¬ 
 sengers. In vain he described the solitary and rock-bound 
 coast, and detailed tlie dangers and difficulties which attended 
 its approach. Xothing would appease him. He said he would 
 take all the responsibility, brave all the perils, endure all the 
 consequences, only let him once more feel the firm ground un¬ 
 der his feet. The gale having abated, the captain yielded to 
 his entreaties, and engaged, if the other passengers would con¬ 
 sent to the delay, to stand in, and put him ashore. Mr. Astor 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 T3 
 
 •went into the cabin, and proceeded to write what was expected 
 to be a draft for ten thousand dollars in favor of the owners of 
 the ship on his agent in New York. He handed to the captain 
 the result of his efforts. It was a paper covered with writing 
 that was totally illegible. 
 
 “ ‘ What is this'^’ asked the captain. 
 
 “ draft upon my sor for ten thousand dollars/ was the 
 reply. 
 
 “ ‘ But no one can read it.’ 
 
 “‘Oyes, my son will know what it is. My hand trembles 
 so that I can not write any better.’ . . 
 
 “ ‘But/ said the captain, ‘you can at least write your name. 
 I am acting for the owners of the ship, and I can not risk their 
 property for a piece of paper that no one can read. Let one of 
 the gentlemen draw up a draft in proper form; you sign it, and 
 I will put you ashoi’e.’ 
 
 “The old gentleman would not consent to this mode of pro¬ 
 ceeding, and the affair was dropped.” 
 
 During the last twenty years of his life Mr. Astor lived in 
 the retirement of his family, leaving even the greater part of 
 the management of his estate to the hands of others. He was 
 exceedingly fond of literary men. Irving was his friend, and 
 Halleck his business manager. He died at the age of eighty- 
 four years and eight months, literally from old age. He was 
 burled in St. Thomas’s Church, on Broadway. 
 
 His immense estate was left to his children, the bulk of it 
 being bequeathed to his eldest sou. All of his relatives were 
 made comfortable. The village of Waldorf, his native place, 
 received a legacy of fifty thousand dollars for the benefit of its 
 poor, and an amount in land and funds equal to four hundred 
 thousand dollars was left to certain trustees to establish the 
 Astor Library in the city of New York. Besides these, several 
 
74 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 cliaritable and benevolent associations received handsome dona¬ 
 tions from him. 
 
 His career has been related in these pages as an example to 
 those who are seeking to rise in legitimate commerce. It is the 
 best instance on recoi’d of the facility with which success may 
 be won by patient and intelligent industry. In his capacity 
 for grasping and carrying out an enterprise, in his prudent and 
 economical management of his business, in his tact, courage, 
 sagacity, IMr. Astor’s example is one which will lead many to 
 success, and none to injury. 
 
 He was a thoroughly upright man, his transactions Avere 
 rigidly honest; but as a man, candor compels the acknowledg¬ 
 ment that he Avas not a safe or admirable model. He Avas 
 utterly devoid of generosity. Liberal to an extreme Avith his 
 own family, he Avas close and hard Avith others. He paid small 
 Avages to his employes, and never gave more than the man bar¬ 
 gained for, no matter Avhat extra service might be rendered. 
 He carried his economy to a degree of meanness painful to 
 contemplate. At his death, out of his vast estate, he left to 
 his friend and faithful manager an annuity of only t\A’0 hundred 
 dollars, which his son increased to fifteen hundred. 
 
 One of his captains once succeeded in sa\’ing for him property 
 in China to the amount of scA’cn hundred thousand dollars, 
 Avhich had become jeojiardized by the sudden death of the 
 agent in charge of it. This service was jmrely A'oluntary, and 
 Avas one Avhich required the greatest skill, determination, and 
 courage on the part of the captain, and Astor acknowledged it, 
 frequently saying: “If you had not done just as you did, I 
 should never liaA'C seen one dollar of my money; no, not one 
 dollar of it.” This Avas the onh' acknowledgment he made, 
 howcA^er. He Avas Avorth ten millions of dollars, and the cap¬ 
 tain had only his pay—twelve Imndn'd dollars a year—and a 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 75 
 
 
 family. At his father’s death Mr. ^Yilliam B. Astor sent a 
 considerable sura to the old seaman in return for thiS'service. 
 
 “We have all heard much of the closeness, or rather the 
 meanness, of this remarkable man. Truth compels us to admit 
 that he was not generous, excej)t to his own kindred. His 
 liberality began and ended in his own family. Very seldom 
 during his lifetime did he willingly do a generous act, outside 
 of the little circle of his relations and descendants. To get all 
 he could, and to keep nearly all that he got—those were the 
 laws of his being.He enjoyed keenly the con¬ 
 
 sciousness, the feeling, of being rich. The roll-book of his 
 possessions was his Bible. He scanned it fondly, and saw, 
 with quiet but deep delight, the catalogue of his property 
 lengthening from month to month. The love of accumulation 
 grew with his years, until it ruled him like a tyrant. If at 
 fifty he possessed his millions, at sixty-five his millions pos¬ 
 sessed him. Only to his own children and to their children 
 was he liberal; and his liberality to them was all arranged 
 with a view to keeping his estate in the family, and to cause 
 it at every moment to tend toward a final consolidation in one 
 enormous mass.” 
 
 This is the estimate of his character formed by Mr. James 
 Barton. His friend Dr. Coggswell presents him in quite a 
 different light. He says: 
 
 “Mr. Astor lived to the good old age of four score and four 
 years and eight months. For some years previous to his death, 
 which happened INIarch 29, 1848, his manly form was bowed 
 down by age, and his bodily .strength greatly enfeebled, but his 
 mind retained much of its original vigor and brightness. Con¬ 
 sidering his extraordinary activity until a late period of his life, 
 he submitted to the hel[)lessness of age with uncommon resig¬ 
 nation. When his impaired eye-sight no longer ])ermitted him 
 
76 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 4 
 
 to read, his principal I’elief from the wearisoineness of unoccu¬ 
 pied time was in the society of his friends and near relatives. 
 All who knew him well were strongly attached to him, and 
 none but those who were ignorant of his true character believed 
 him unamiable and I’epulsive. 
 
 “His smile was peculiarly benignant and expressive of gen-- 
 nine kindness of heart, and his whole manner cordial and cour¬ 
 teous to every one entitled to his respect. There was something 
 so impressive in his appearance, no one could stand before him 
 without feeling that he was in the presence of a superior intel¬ 
 ligence. His deep, sunken eye, beneath his overarched brow, 
 denoted the prophetic—it might almost be said the inspired— 
 mind within. Although he lived many years beyond the age 
 when the grasshopper is a burden, and was the victim of much 
 snlfering, he did not murmur, nor did he become unreasonable 
 and peevish. He was not wont to talk much on the subject 
 of religion, or freely communicate his views in relation to the 
 life beyond the grave; but it ean not be doubted that such 
 tranquillity as he exhibited in his near approach to it must 
 have been derived from ‘ that peace which the world can 
 neither give nor take away.’” 
 
 Perhaps a medium between Mr. Pai’ton’s bitterness and 
 Dr. Coggswell’s enthusiasm will be as correct an estimate 
 of his personal character as can be formed. It is a singular 
 fact that ^Ir. Astor managed, in spite of the closeness which 
 marked his operations, in spite of the small wages he paid, to 
 inspire his employes with a zeal in his service that made them 
 willing to undertake any thing, to endure any amount of labor, 
 for him. 
 
 “He once lost seventy thousand dollars by committing a 
 piece of petty injustice toward his best captain. This gallant 
 sailor, being notified by an insurance office of the necessity of 
 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
 
 77 
 
 having a chronometer on board his ship, spoke to Mr. Astor 
 on the subject, who advised the captain to buy one. 
 
 “‘But,’ said the captain, ‘I have no five hundred dollars to 
 spare for such a purpose; the chronometer should belong to the 
 ship.’ 
 
 “‘Well,’ said the merchant, ‘you need not pay for it now; 
 pay for it at your convenience.’ 
 
 “The captain still objecting, Astor, after a prolonged hig¬ 
 gling, authorized him to buy a chronometer and charge it to 
 the ship’s account, which was done. 
 
 “Sailing day was at hand. The ship was hauled into the 
 stream. The captain, as is the custom, handed in his account. 
 Astor, subjecting it to his usual close scrutiny, observed the 
 novel item of five hundred dollars for the chronometer. He 
 objected, averring that it was understood between them that 
 the captain was to pay for the instrument. The worthy sailor 
 recalled the conversation, and firmly held to his recollection 
 of it. Astor insisting on his own view of the matter, the 
 captain was so profoundly disgusted that, important as the 
 command of the ship was to him, he resigned his post. 
 Another captain was soon found, and the ship sailed for China. 
 
 “Another house, which was then engaged in the China trade, 
 knowing the worth of this ‘ king of captains,’ as Astor himself 
 used to style him, bought him a ship and dispatched him to 
 Canton two months after the departure of Astor’s vessel. Our 
 captain, put upon his mettle, employed all his skill to accelerate 
 the speed of his ship, and had such success that he reached New 
 York, with a full cargo of tea, just seven days after the arrival 
 of Mr. Astor’s ship. Astor, not expecting another ship for 
 months, and therefore sure of monopolizing the market, had 
 not yet broken bulk, nor even taken off the hatchways. Our 
 captain arrived on a Saturday. Advertisements and handbills 
 
78 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 were immediately issued, and on the Wednesday morning fol¬ 
 lowing, as the custom then was, the auction sale of the tea 
 began on the wharf—two barrels of punch contributing to the 
 eclat and hilarity of the occasion. The cargo was sold to good 
 advantage, and the market was glutted. Astor lost in conse¬ 
 quence the entire profits of the voyage, not less than the sum 
 previously named. INIeeting the captain some time after in 
 Ih’oadway, he said: 
 
 “ ‘ I had better have paid for that chronometer of yours.’ ” 
 
 •Yet he could do a kind act when he was in the humor. 
 When he was poor and struggling for fortune, he had a friend 
 in the city named Pell, a coachmaker. As he advanced in 
 the world he lost sight of his friend. One day a yonng man 
 called on him to ask if he would sell one of his leases which 
 he (the visitor) then held. He replied promptly and decidedly 
 that he would not sell. 
 
 “But Avhat is your name?” he asked. 
 
 “ It is Pell,” was the reply. 
 
 “Pell—Pell—” said the old man, hesitating a moment, “I 
 knew a man by that name once; he was a dear friend of mine, 
 but I have not seen him for years.” 
 
 “That man,” said the visitor, “was my father.” 
 
 “Indeed,” exclaimed the old man, warmly; “your father? 
 Why, he used to give me rides in his coaches. How I should 
 like to .see him.” 
 
 Then pausing a moment, and smiling as he recalled the past 
 to his mind, he .said: 
 
 “A"ou shall have the lease, young man. Go home, have the 
 papers drawn, come here at eleven o’clock on Thursday, and 
 I’ll sign them. But don’t j^ut in any consideration.” 
 
 The engagement was kept punctually by both parties. 
 
 “Have you got the papers?” asked the merchant. ‘‘Did 
 
JOHN JACOi; ASTOR. 
 
 70 
 
 you put iu the consideration? Well, let it be one hundred 
 dollars. Have you got the money about you? Well, no mat¬ 
 ter, Bruce will keep the lease till you come and pay. I’ve 
 given you two thousand dollars, young man. Don’t you buy 
 any more, for I sha’n’t do it again. You tell your father that 
 I remember him, and that I have given you two thousand 
 dollars.” 
 
 jMr. Astor dearly liked a joke, and occasionally indulged in 
 a sly bit of humor himself. On one occasion a committee 
 called upon him to solicit a donation for some charitable object. 
 The old man took the subscription list, and, after examining 
 it, signed it and gave the committee a check for fifty dollars. 
 They had expected much more, and one of them ventured to 
 say: 
 
 “We did hope for more, Mr. Astor. A^our son gave us a 
 hundred dollars.” 
 
 “ Ah! ” replied the old man, drily, “ William has a rich 
 father. Mine was very poor.” 
 
80 
 
 KINGS OF FOBTUNK. 
 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ALEXANDER T. STEWART. 
 
 N the year 1818, a European vessel anchored in 
 the harbor of New York, after a long and weary 
 voyage from the Old World. She brought many 
 passengers to the young metropolis, the majority 
 of whom came with the intention of seeking for¬ 
 tunes in this land of promise. 
 
 Among them was a young Irishman who had left his home 
 in his native land to seek in America the means of bettering 
 Ids condition. This was Alexander T. Stewart. He was the 
 son of Scotch-Irish parents, and was born in Belfast in 1802. 
 Being only three years old when his father died, his grandfather 
 took charge of him, and proved a kind and judicious guardian. 
 As he was designed for the ministry by his relative, and as his 
 own tastes inclined him to that profession, he was given a good 
 common school education, and placed at college, where he made 
 favorable progress in his class. He was particularly successful 
 in the classics, and retained his relish for them all his 
 life. 
 
 During his second term his grandfather died, and he was by 
 this event obliged to leave college. Abandoning the idea of enter- 
 ino- the ministrv, he embarked for America, determined to make 
 a fortune in the New World. He came sufficiently supplied 
 
ALEXANDKK T. STKWAKT. 
 
 81 
 
 with ready money to insure him against immediate w'ant, and 
 Avith letters of introduction Avhich at once secured him an ex¬ 
 cellent social position. 
 
 After trying in vain for some time to secure employment in 
 a business house, he obtained a position as assistant in a com¬ 
 mercial school. This he soon resigned for a similar place in a 
 more celebrated school. His salary here was fSOO, which was 
 considered ample compensation in tho.se days. 
 
 Xot wishing to continue in this career, however, he opened a 
 small retail dry goods store in Xew York, and began business 
 on a humble scale. Here he remained until the age of twentv- 
 one, manifesting no extraordinary business capacity, and in no 
 way distinguished from the many small dealers around him. 
 Upon reaching his majority he returned to Ireland, to look 
 after the inheritance left him by his grandfather. The amount 
 which thus came to him was nearly one thousand pounds, and 
 the greater part of this he inve.sted in “ insertions” and “scol- 
 lo]i trimmings,’’ which he shipped to America by the ve.ssel in 
 which he returned. He rented a little store, on his return, at 
 283 Broadway, and there displayed his stock, wdiich met with 
 a ready sale at a fair profit. 
 
 Without mercantile experience, and possessing little advan¬ 
 tage, save his own Scotch-Irish energy and courage, Mr. 
 Stewart started boldly on what proved the road to fortune. Xo 
 young merchant ever worked harder than he. From fourteen 
 to eighteen hours each day were given to his business. He was 
 his own book-keeper, .salesman, and porter. He could not 
 afford to employ help. Credit was hard to obtain in those 
 days, and young merchants were not favorites with those who 
 had such favors to bestow. Mr. Stewart was one of the 
 least favored, inasmuch as he was almost a total stranger to the 
 business community in Avhich he lived. He kept a small stock 
 
82 
 
 KIXtiS OF FOXTUXE. 
 
 of goods on hand, which he purchased for cash chiefly at the 
 auction sales. He was a regular attendant at these sales, and 
 his purchases were invariably “sample lots”—that is, collec¬ 
 tions of small (piantities of various articles thrown together in 
 confusion, and sold in heaps for what they would bring. He 
 had these purchases conveyed to his store, and after the busi¬ 
 ness of the day was over, he and his wife would take these 
 “sample lots,” and by carefully assorting them, bring or¬ 
 der out of the confusion. Every article was patiently gone 
 over. Gloves were redressed and smoothed out, laces pressed 
 free from the creases which careless bidders had twisted into 
 them, and hose made to look as fresh as if they had never 
 been handled. Each article being good in itself, was thus re¬ 
 stored to its original excellence. The goods were then ar¬ 
 ranged in their projjer places on the shelves of the store, and 
 by being offered at a lower price than that charged by retail 
 dealers elsewhere in the city, met with a ready sale. Even at 
 this low price the profit was great, since they had been pur¬ 
 chased for a mere trifle. For six years Mr. Stewart continued 
 to conduct his business in this way, acquiring every day a 
 larger and more profitable trade. Here he laid down those 
 principles of business and personal integrity from which he 
 never departed, and which led to the honorable position of 
 which only death could deprive him. 
 
 “His first rule was honesty between seller and buyer. His 
 career was a perfect exemplification of Poor Richard’s maxim: 
 ‘ Honesty is the best policy,’ and of the poet’s declaration: 
 ‘ Nothing can need a lie.’ His interest consorted with his in¬ 
 clination, his policy with his principles, and the business with 
 the man, when he determined that the truth should be told 
 over his counter, and that no misrepresentation of his goods 
 should be made. He never asked, he never would suffer, a 
 
ALJ•:XA^■DKK T. bTKWART. 
 
 83 
 
 •clerk to misrepresent the quality of his merchandise. Clerks 
 who had been educated at other stores to cheat customers, and 
 then to laugh off the transaction as ‘ cuteness, ’ or defend it as 
 ‘diamond cut diamond,’ found no such slipshod morality at 
 Stewart’s little store, and learned frankness and fairness in rep¬ 
 resentation at the peril of dismissal. Their employer asked no 
 gain from deceit in trade. On his part, too, in buying, he 
 rarely gave a seller a second opportunity to misrepresent goods 
 to him. 
 
 “ A second innovation of the young dry goods dealer was 
 selling at one price —a custom which has also lasted without 
 interruption, and which has spread to all the great houses. He 
 fixed his price, after careful consideration, at what he thought 
 the goods could and would bring, and would not deviate from 
 it for any haggling, or to suit individual cases. Of course, he 
 followed the fluctuations of the market, and marked his goods 
 up or down in aceordance with it; but no difference in the 
 price was made to different people. Perhaps those , who had 
 some art in ‘beating down’ prices were offended, but people in 
 general were pleased. 
 
 “ The third principle he adopted was that of cash on de¬ 
 livery. It is said that his own early experience of buying on 
 eredit, and selling on credit, drove him to this rule. 
 
 “A fourth prineiple with him wa.s to conduct business as 
 business—not as sentiment. His aim was honorable profit, and 
 he had no purjx)se of confusing it by extraneous considera¬ 
 tions. ” 
 
 While still engaged in his first struggles in his little store, 
 Mr. Stewart found himself called on to make arrangements to 
 pay a note which would soon become due. It was for a con¬ 
 siderable sum, and he had neither the money nor the means of 
 borrowing it. It was a time when the mercantile community 
 
84 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 of New York regarded a failure to pay a note as a crime, and 
 when such a failure was sure to bring ruin to any new man. 
 Mr. Stewart knew this, and felt that he must act with greater 
 resolution and daring than he had ever before exhibited, if he 
 would save himself from dishonor. To meet the crisis he 
 adopted a bold and skillful maneuver. He marked down 
 every article in his store far below the wholesale price. This 
 done, he had a number of handbills printed, announcing that 
 he would sell off his entire stock of goods below cost, within a 
 given time. He scattered these handbills broadcast through 
 the city, and it was not long before purchasers began to flock to 
 his store to secure the great bargains which his advertisements 
 offered them. His terms were “ cash, ” and he had little dif¬ 
 ficulty in selling. Purchasers found that they thus secured the 
 best goods in the market at a lower figure than they had ever 
 been offered before in New York, and each one was prompt to 
 advise relatives and friends to avail themselves of the favor¬ 
 able opportunity. Customers were plentiful; the little Broad¬ 
 way store was thronged all day, and long before the expira¬ 
 tion of the period he had fixed for the duration of his sales, Mr. 
 Stewart found his shelves empty and his treasury full. He paid 
 his note with a part of the money he had thus received, and 
 with the rest laid in a fresh stock of goods. He was fortunate 
 in his purchases at this time, for, as the market was extremely 
 dull and ready money scarce, he, by paying cash, bought his 
 goods at very low prices. 
 
 The energy, industry, patience, and business tact displayed 
 by Mr. Stewart during these first years of his commercial life 
 brought him their sure reward, and in 1828, just six years after 
 commencing business, he found his little store too small and 
 humble for the large and fashionable trade which had come to 
 him. Three new stores had just been erected on Broadway, be- 
 
ALEXANDKK T. STEWAUT. 
 
 85 
 
 tween Chambers and Warren Streets, and he leased the smallest 
 of these and moved into it. It was a modest building, only 
 three stories high and but thirty feet deej), but it was a great 
 improvement on his original place. He was enabled to fill it 
 with a larger and more attractive stock of goods, and his busi¬ 
 ness was greatly benefited by the change. He remained in this 
 store for four years, and in 1832 removed to a two-story build¬ 
 ing located on Broadway, between Murray and Warren Streets. 
 Soon after occupying it, he was compelled, by the growth of his 
 business, to add twenty feet to the depth of the store and 
 a third story to the building. A year or two later a fourth 
 story was added, and in 1837 a fifth story, so rapidly did he 
 prosper. 
 
 His trade was now with the wealthy and fashionable class of 
 the city He had surmounted all his early difficulties, and 
 laid the foundation of that splendid fortune which he has since 
 won. The majority of his customers were ladies, and he now 
 resolved upon an expedient for increasing their number. He 
 had noticed that the ladies, in “ shopping,” were given to the 
 habit of gossiping, and even flirting with the clerks, and he 
 adopted the expedient of employing as his salesmen the hand¬ 
 somest men he could procure, a practice which has since become 
 common. The plan was successful from the first. Women came 
 to his store in greater numbers than before, and “Stewart’s nice 
 young men” were the talk of the town. 
 
 The great crisis of 1837 found Mr. Stewart a prosperous and 
 rising man, and that terrible financial storm Avhich wrecked so 
 many of the best of the city firms did not so much as leave its 
 mark on him. Indeed, while other men were failing all around 
 him, he was coining money. It had always been his habit to 
 watch the market closely, in order to profit by any sudden 
 change in it, and his keen sagacity enabled liiiii to see the 
 
86 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 ;i))proach of the storm long before it broke, and to prepare 
 lor it. 
 
 lie at once marked down all his goods as low as possible, and 
 began to “sell for cost,” originating the system which is now sO' 
 pojmlar. The j)rices were very low, and the goods of the best 
 quality. Every body complained of the hard times, and all 
 were glad to save money by availing themselves of “Stewart’s 
 barirains.” In this wav he carried on a retail cash trade of five 
 thousand dollars per day in the midst of the most terrible crisis 
 the country has ever seen. Other merchants were reduced to 
 every possible expedient, and were compelled to send their goods 
 to auction to be sold for what they would bring, so great was 
 their need of ready money. Stewart attended all these auctions 
 regularly, and purchased the goods thus offered. These he sold 
 rapidly by means of his “ cost system,” realizing an average 
 profit of forty per cent. It is said that he purchased fifty thou¬ 
 sand dollars worth of silks in this way, and sold the whole lot 
 in a few days, making a profit of twenty thousand dollars on 
 the transaction. Thus he not only passed through the “crisis,” 
 but made a fortune in the midst of it. 
 
 From that time on his march to fortune was uninterrupted. 
 Over a quarter of a century ago he purchased the property 
 upon which to build his great wholesale store, and com¬ 
 menced at once to erect a splendid marble warehouse. His 
 friends were surprised at his temerity. They told him it 
 was too far up town, and on the wi’ong side of Broadway, 
 but he quietly informed them that a few years would vindicate 
 his wisdom, and see his store the center of the most flourish¬ 
 ing business neighborhood of New York. His predictions 
 Avere more than realized. 
 
 He moved into his new .store in 1846, and continued to ex¬ 
 pand and enlarge his business every year. Some years ago he 
 
ALKXA.\])i;i; T. STtAVAltT. 
 
 87 
 
 piu’chased tlie old Niiitli-Stmd Dutch Cluircli and the lots ad¬ 
 jacent to it, comprising the entire block lying between Ninth 
 and Tenth Streets, Broadway and Fourth Avenue. When he 
 found the retail trade going up town, and deserting its old 
 haunts below Canal Street, he erected a line iron l>uilding at the 
 (corner of Broadway and Tenth Street, to which lie removed the 
 retail defiartment of his business, continuing his wholesale trade 
 at his old store on Chambers Street. This new “ upper store” 
 increased with the business. The building now covers the en¬ 
 tire block upon which it was erected, and is the largest, most 
 complete, and magnificent establishment of its kind in the world. 
 
 Though he took no active part in politics, he was too much 
 interested in public affairs, by reason of his immense wealth, 
 not to watch them clo.sely. He was .satisfied, .some time before • 
 
 our late troubles began, that war mu.st come, and ijuietly made 
 contracts with nearly all the manufacturers for all their jiro- 
 ductions for a considerable period of time. Accordingly, when 
 the war did come, it was found that nearly all the articles 
 of clothing, blankets, etc., needed for the army had been mo¬ 
 nopolized by him. His profits on these transactions amounted 
 to many millions of dollars, though it should be remarked that 
 his dealings with the Government were characterized by an un¬ 
 usual degree of liberality. The gains thus realized by him more 
 than counterbalanced the losses he siKstaincd by the sudden ces¬ 
 sation of his Southern trade. 
 
 Sixty years have now passed away since the young school¬ 
 teacher landed in New York, and the house he founded 
 stands to-day at the head of the mercantile intei’ests of the 
 New World. In his half-cent\;ry of active busi}iess life he 
 won a fortune variously estimated at from twenty-five to 
 forty millions of dollars. He gained all this Avoalth fairly, 
 not by trickery and deceit, nor even by a ■ questionable 
 
88 
 
 I\;ngs of foutune. 
 
 honesty, but by a series of mercantile transactions the 
 minirtest of which bears the impress of his sterling integrity, 
 and by a patience, energy, tact, and genius of which few 
 men are possessed. Surely, then, it must have been a proud 
 thought to him that he had done all this himself, by his own 
 unaided, efforts, and that amid all his wonderful success 
 there did not rest one single stain upon his good name as a 
 man or a merchant. 
 
 It is said that Mr. Stewart regarded himself as a “lucky 
 man,” rather than as one who had risen by the force of his own 
 genius. A writer in the New York Herald related the follow¬ 
 ing incident, as illustrative of the superstition which this 
 feeling of “luck” has given rise to with him: “When he kept 
 his store on Broadway, between Murray and Warren Streets, 
 there sat on the sidewalk before it, on an orange box, an old 
 woman, whose ostensible occupation was the selling of apples. 
 This business was, however, merely a pretense; the main object 
 being beggary. As years rolled on, Mr. Stewart became im- 
 jwessed with the idea that the old dame was his guardian angel 
 of good luck, and this impression took so firm a hold upon his 
 mind that when he removed to Chambers Street, he, in person, 
 took up the old woman’s box, and removed her to the front of 
 his new establishment. In further illustration of Mr, Stewart’s 
 faith in the Irish traditional belief in ‘lucky’ and ‘unluckv’ 
 ])ersons, it may be mentioned that, after the completion of the 
 St. Nicholas Hotel in this city, an undertaking in which he 
 was largely interested, and when the building was just about 
 to be opened for the reception of guests, the millionaire, stand¬ 
 ing in the drawing-room, ejaculated, ‘It is now finished; I 
 hope its first visitors may be lucky j)eople.’ 
 
 “ A gentleman present, who had heard of ISIr. Stewart’s care 
 for the aged apple vender, remarked, ‘I presume, sir, yon do 
 not in reality care about lucky or unlucky persons;’ to which 
 
ALEXANDER T. STEWART. 
 
 89 
 
 lie immediately replied, ‘ Indeed, I do. There are persons -who 
 are unlucky. I sometimes open a case of goods, and sell the 
 first from it to some person who is unlucky, and lose on it to 
 the end. I frequently see persons to whom I would not sell 
 if I could avoid it.”’ 
 
 The first incident, if true, doubtless illustrates the quiet 
 kindness with which Mr. Stewart watched over the poor that 
 he took under his care—and they were many. He won his 
 success too fairly to be a believer in mere luclc. There is no 
 such thing as chance in this world. Men are the architects 
 ■of their own fortunes. 
 
 One of the principal reasons of his success was the rigid 
 system with which he conducted his business. He had a place 
 for every thing, and a time for every duty, and required the 
 same regularity from his subordinates. His salesmen and 
 managers were thoroughly versed in their duties, and the more 
 important of them were selected with great care. Every thing 
 worked smoothly under the master’s eye, and there was a penal¬ 
 ty for each and every delinquency, which was rigidly exacted. 
 
 Mr. Stewart was one of the hardest workers in his establish¬ 
 ment. His partners relieved him of the details, but the general 
 management of his immense business he trusted to no other 
 hands. His eye was on every thing. He was familiar with 
 every detail, though he did not take upon himself its direction. 
 He went to his business between nine and ten in the morning, 
 stopping first at his upper store. He made a brief but thorough 
 inspection there, learned the general progress of the day, and 
 then repaired to his lower or wholesale store, where he remained 
 during business hours, and returned home between five and six 
 in the afternoon, stopping again at the upper store. He worked 
 hard, and was never absent from his post unless detained by 
 sickness. 
 
90 
 
 KINGS OF FOIITUNE. 
 
 His time was valuable, and he was not willing to waste it. 
 Many persons endeavored to see him merely to gratify their 
 impertinent curiosity, and others wished to intrude upon him 
 for purposes Avhich would simply consume his time. To pro¬ 
 tect himself, he Avas compelled to resort to the following 
 expedient: A gentleman Avas kept on guard near the main 
 door of the store, Avhose dut}’ it Avas to inquire the business 
 of Arisitors. If the Ausitor AA’ished to see Mr. SteAvart, the “sen¬ 
 tinel ” informed him that he must first state his business to 
 him. If the visitor urged that it was private, h6 was told that 
 Mr. SteAvart had no private business. If his errand met the 
 approval of the gentleman on guard, he Avas allowed to go up 
 stairs, where he was met by the confidential agent of the great 
 merchant, to whom he was required to repeat the object of his 
 visit. If this gentleman was satisfied, or could not get rid of 
 the Ausitor, he entered the private ofiice of his employer and 
 laid the case before him. If the business of the Ausitor was 
 urgent he was admitted, otherwise, he aa'us refused an inter¬ 
 view. If admitted, the conference was brief and to the point. 
 There was no time lost. Matters were dispatched Avith a 
 method and promptitude which astonished strangers. If the 
 Ausitor attempted to draw the merchant into a friendly con¬ 
 versation, or indulged in useless complimentary phrases, after 
 the matter on which he came had been settled, Mr. Stewart’s 
 manner instantly became cold and repelling, and troublesome 
 persons were sometimes given a hint Avhich hastened their 
 departure. This was his working time, and it Avas precious 
 to him. He could not afford to Avaste it upon idlers. In 
 social life he is said to have been exceedingly affable. 
 
 The greater portion of Mr. Stewart’s immense fortune was 
 invested in real estate. Besides his tAvo stores on Broadway, 
 
ALEXANDER T. STEWART. 
 
 91 
 
 he owned the Metropolitan Hotel and the New York Theater, 
 also on Broadway; nearly all of Bleecker Street from Broad¬ 
 way to Depauw Bow, several churches, a number of buildings, 
 and many valuable lots. He resided at the northwest corner 
 of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, in one of the finest 
 residences in the world, and then the most superb in America. 
 He owned more real estate than any other man in America 
 except William B. Astor, and was the most successful 
 merchant in the world. 
 
 Mr. Stewart is said to have been extremely liberal in his 
 donations to objects which met with his sympathy. The 
 majority of these donations w'ere quietly made, as he had a 
 repugnance to public charities. He gave liberally to the cause 
 of the Union during the war. During that struggle he sent 
 a cargo of provisions to Ireland, where much distress existed, 
 and then invited as many emigrants as the vessel w’ould carry 
 to take passage to America in her, free of charge. One 
 hundred and thirty-nine persons availed themselves of his 
 offer, and upon reaching America were all provided with 
 good situations by him. 
 
 As I have said before, Mr. Stewart did not care for 
 political distinction, but rather shunned it. He was a mem¬ 
 ber of the Union Defense Committee daring the war, and in 
 1866 was one of the signers of the Saratoga address, calling on 
 the people of the country to sustain the policy of President 
 Johnson. His warm friendship for General Grant caused him 
 to be one of the earliest advocates of the election of the latter 
 to the Presidency. He was a candidate for Presidential 
 Elector on the Republican ticket for the State of New York, 
 but w’as defeated, with his associates, by the Democracy. 
 
92 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 His intimate relations with General Grant, together with his 
 vast financial experience, induced many persons to believe that 
 he would be offered a place in the Cabinet of the new Presi¬ 
 dent. These expectations were realized by his nomination to the 
 post of Secretary of the Treasury, on the 5th of March, 1869, 
 and his immediate and unanimous confirmation by the Senate. 
 He was about to enter upon his new duties, when it was dis¬ 
 covered that there existed an old and almost forgotten law 
 forbidding any merchant from becoming the head of the Treas¬ 
 ury Department. As soon as this discovery was made, Mr. 
 Stewart expressed his desire to withdraw from the })osition, and 
 thus relieve the President of all embarrassment upon the sub¬ 
 ject, but the latter, wishing, if possible, to retain him in the 
 Cabinet, urged him to delay his action, with the hope that 
 the difficulty might be obviated. Willing to oblige his friend, 
 and anxious to serve the country, Mr. Stewart consented to 
 do this, but finding that certain persons were seeking to 
 make his nomination a source of trouble to the Adminis¬ 
 tration, offered either to resign the place or to relinquish 
 his entire interest in his business during the period of his 
 Secretaryship, and to donate his immense profits for that 
 time to the poor of the city of New York. This sacrifice, 
 he hoped, would render him eligible; but the President was 
 unwilling to accept the princely offer—the noblest ever made 
 by any man—and Mr. Stewart finally withdrew from the 
 contest. 
 
 There can be no doubt that he would have been the best 
 Secretary that could have been placed at the head of the Treas¬ 
 ury. His great financial experience and his unquestioned 
 ability were better qualifications than those possessed by any 
 politician in the land. Perhaps the best proof of the satisfac¬ 
 tion which his appointment produced in the minds of the 
 
ALKXANDEll T. .STKWAUT. 
 
 93 
 
 tliinking men of the country is the manner in which the news 
 affected the money market. Gold fell as soon as the announce¬ 
 ment was made. 
 
 Few strangers ever go to New York and depart without 
 visiting Stewart’s famous store at the corner of Tenth Street 
 and Broadway. The lower, or wholesale store, is far more im¬ 
 portant to its owner; but it conducts its operations exclusively 
 with dealers, and in such a quiet and systematic way that it 
 seems to attract but little attention among the masses. It is 
 the upper or retail store that is the wonder of the great city in 
 which it is located. 
 
 It is constructed of iron, in the style of arcade upon arcade, 
 and is lighted by numerous windows. It fronts two hundred 
 feet on Broadway, and three hundred feet on Ninth and Tenth 
 Streets. It covers an area of about two acres, is five stories 
 and an attic in height, and has two cellars underneath. It is 
 warmed by steam, and contains several steam-engines for hoist¬ 
 ing goods, running the machines employed in the manufactur¬ 
 ing department, and forcing water into the immense tank at 
 the top of the building. Six elevators and several handsome 
 stairways connect the various floors. Three of the elevators 
 are used for conveying customers up and down, and the others 
 for hoisting and lowering goods. The building is lighted by 
 several thousand gas jets, which are all set aflame simul¬ 
 taneously by electricity. 
 
 The various floors, with the exception of the first, are broken 
 only by a rotunda, which extends to the roof, and is inclosed 
 at each floor by a massive iron balustrade. Leaning over one 
 of these balustrades, and looking up or down, the sight is 
 brilliant and attractive. Thousands of persons are scattered 
 about the floors making purchases. Hundreds of clerks, sales¬ 
 men, and cash boys are busy serving them, and the buz and 
 
•94 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNK 
 
 iium of human voices under the vast roof sounds like the 
 droning of a hive of bees. 
 
 The service of this immense establishment is arranged as 
 follows: There is one general superintendent, with nineteen 
 assistants, each of whom is at the head of a department. Nine 
 cashiers receive and pay out money; twenty-live book-keepers 
 keep the record of the day; thirty ushers direct jiurchasers to 
 the department they seek; two hundred cash boys receive the 
 money and bring back the change of jiurchasers; four hundred 
 and seventy clerks, a few of whom are females, make the sales 
 of the day; fifty porters do the heavy work, and nine hundred 
 seamstresses are employed in the manufacturing department. 
 Besides these, there are usually about five hundred other per¬ 
 sons employed about the establishment in various capacities, 
 bringing the total strength of the personelle of the house to 
 twenty-two hundred. 
 
 The accounts of each department are kept separate, and the 
 sales of each for the day constitute a separate return. These 
 sales will average something like the following figures: 
 
 Silks . . . 
 Dress goods . 
 Muslins . . 
 Laces . . . 
 
 Shawls . . 
 Suits . . . 
 
 ■Calicoes . . 
 Velvets . . 
 
 Gloves. . . 
 Furs . . . 
 
 Hosiery . . 
 
 Boys’ clothing 
 Notions . . 
 
 Embroideries 
 vCarpets . . 
 
 $ 15,000 
 
 6,000 
 
 3,000 
 
 2,000 
 
 2.500 
 1,000 
 
 1.500 
 2,000 
 1,000 
 1,000 
 
 600 
 
 700 
 
 600 
 
 1,000 
 
 5.500 
 
Al.KXA-NDKU '1'. STKWAUT. 
 
 1)5 
 
 The total daily receipts average $60,000, and have been 
 known to amount to $87,000. 
 
 Salaries of subordinate clerks range from $5 to $25 per week. 
 The cash boys receive $5 per week. If not fined for miscon¬ 
 duct they receive a reward of $1 per month, and a further re¬ 
 ward of $5 at the end of each half year. They are promoted 
 as fast as their conduct and vacancies in the force of salesmen 
 will allow. The number of employes being .so large, the pro¬ 
 prietor is compelled to keep them under the constant es])ionage 
 of two experienced detectives, and each evening when they 
 leave the store they are required to do so through a private 
 door on Ninth Street, where the detectives are stationed to see 
 that none of them carry away articles which do not belong to 
 them. 
 
 The number of visitoi's to the establishment in the busy 
 season is very large. On special occasions, such as opening 
 days, it is said to have reached fifty thousand, but the general 
 average is placed at fifteen thousand, and they represent every 
 grade in life. Rich and poor mingle here freely. 
 
 The floors are arranged simply, and with regard to business 
 rather than for show, but every thing is elegant and tasteful. 
 The sub-cellar is used as a store-room for goods in cases. Here 
 the fabrics are opened and sent to their departments. The cel¬ 
 lar is the carpet sales-room. The first floor is the general sales¬ 
 room, and is the most attractive place in the building. It is 
 three hundred feet long by two hundred wide, and is provided 
 with one hundred counters, each fifty feet in length. Behind 
 these counters the goods are arranged, with no effort at display, 
 on the shelves, which rise but a few feet above the counters. 
 There is an abundance of light in all parts of the house, espe¬ 
 cially over the silk counters, whieh are ju.st under the rotunda. 
 The second floor is taken up with ladies’ suits, shawls, curtain 
 
96 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 i;oods, etc., and tlie next floor is devoted to the same purpose. 
 The fourth floor is used as a manufactory for making up the 
 suits, etc., placed on sale or ordered by customers; on the fifth 
 is the fur-room aud upholstery manufactory; and the sixth is 
 occupied as a laundry. The most perfect order is maintained 
 in every part of the establishment, the mere direction of which 
 requires administrative ability of a very high character. 
 
 As fast as the sales are made, the articles, unless taken away 
 by the purchaser, are sent to the parcel desk, which is located 
 in the cellar. This is the busiest department in the house, and 
 one of the most important. Each order is accompanied by a 
 ticket stating the quality and amount of the goods, the price, and 
 the address of the purchaser. It is remeasured aud examined 
 here, so that any error on the part of the salesman may be de¬ 
 tected and repaired. Errors of this kind, however, are rare, 
 and the burden of the labor in this department consists of mak¬ 
 ing the goods up into secure packages and sending them tO' 
 their destinations. The tickets delivered at the parcel desk 
 are then sent to the checking desk, which is also in the base¬ 
 ment, where they are compared with those delivered by the 
 salesmen to the cashiers, and if no error is discovered, the goods 
 are sent to the wagons for delivery. 
 
 The wagon department constitutes a very important branch 
 of the business. The vehicles and horses are accommodated in 
 a fine stable on Amity Street, near Broadway. The building 
 was formerly a Baptist church, and was presided over by the 
 Rev. Dr. Williams. When the congregation went higher up 
 town, they sold the old church, which found a purchaser in Mr. 
 Stewart. He converted it into a stable, and afterward more 
 than doubled its size. The floor was taken up, a sewer built 
 to carry off the waste water, and the place paved with brick 
 and cement. It is now one of the best stables in the cit}'. It 
 
ALKXAXDKK T. STEWART. 
 
 97 
 
 ^•ontains over forty horses, ami five grooms arc on hand to at¬ 
 tend to them. There are eight wagons employed at the up¬ 
 town store to deliver parcels to purchasers, while thirteen single 
 wagons are used by the lower store to cart single cases around 
 town. In addition to these, there are ten double trucks to haul 
 heavy goods. Twenty-seven drivers are employed, and thirteen 
 liundred bushels of oats and fifty tons of hay arc fed out during 
 a year. The place is in charge of a watchman at night, and 
 during the day is managed by a superintendent. At half-past 
 eight the trucks report at the down-town store, and remain there 
 all day. At the same moment one of the light wagons is dis¬ 
 patched to the retail store, and at once takes out the early sales. 
 In an hour another wagon follows it, and this course is pursued 
 all day until six o’clock, when the last wagon takes the last 
 sales. By this system purchasers receive their parcels with dis- 
 j)atch, and the immense business of the day is entirely finished. 
 Kvery week the superintendent of the stables makes a report 
 of the condition of the horses and wagons, and this “stable re- 
 ])ort” is carefully inspected at head-quarters. In case of sick¬ 
 ness or stubborn lameness, the horses are sent to the country to 
 recruit. 
 
 Mr. Stewart had a farm at Tuckahoe, where the invalid 
 horses were kept, and where much of their provender was 
 raised. This farm was noted for the valuable marble quarry 
 which furnished the stone from which his mansion on Fifth 
 Avenue was built. 
 
 The retail store contains fabrics of every description and 
 price. The wife of a millionaire can gratify her fancy here to 
 its utmost limit, while the poor sewing-girl can obtain her sim¬ 
 ple necessities at the same price which is demanded for them 
 from the rich. In the shawl department, there are “ wraps ” 
 worth as much as $4,500, but not more than one or two find a 
 
08 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 purchaser in the course of a year. Shawls at $3,000 find a sale 
 of about twenty a year, and the number of purcliasers increases 
 as the price diminishes. The wealthy ladies of Xew York deal 
 here extensively. One of the clerks of the establishment re¬ 
 cently made a statement that a fashionable lady ran up a bill 
 of $20,000 here in two months. 
 
 iMr. Stewart, though leaving the details of the retail business 
 in the hands of Mr. Tidier, the general superintendent, yet 
 kept himself thoroughly informed respecting it, and exercised 
 over it a general supervision, to which its increasing success 
 was due. He knew exactly Avhat was in the house, how much 
 was on hand, and how it was selling. He fixed the prices 
 himself, and kept them always at a popular figure. He is 
 said to liaA'e had an aversion to keeping goods over from one 
 season to another, and Avould rather sacrifice them than do 
 so. He had no dead stock on hand. His knowledge of the 
 popular taste and its A'ariations was intuitive, and his great 
 experience enabled him to anticipate its changes. 
 
 “There can not be so much selling without proportionate 
 buying, and Stewart was as systematic in the latter as the 
 former. Latterly he did not act personally in making pur¬ 
 chases, but trusted to the system which he had organized some 
 years before, and which he found to admirably answer as his 
 substitute. He had branch establishments exercising purchas¬ 
 ing functions only in Boston and Philadelphia, in the United 
 States; in Manchester, England; and in Paris and Lyons, 
 France. But while these were his agencies, his buyers 
 haunted the marts of the whole AA’orld. There was no center 
 of commerce or manufacture of the wide range of articles in 
 which he dealt, on either of the continents, Avhere he was not 
 always present by deputy to seize upon favorable fluctuations 
 
ALEXANDER T. STEWART. 
 
 99 
 
 of the market, or pounce upon some exceptionally excellent 
 productions. He OAvned entire the manufactory of the cele¬ 
 brated Alexandre kid-glove. He had a body of men in Persia, 
 organized under the inevitable superintendent, chasing down 
 the Astrachan goat heavy with young, from which the unborn 
 kids were taken and stripped of their skins, thus sacrificing 
 two animals for every skin obtained. He rified Lyons of its 
 choicest silks, the famous productions of Bonnet and Ponson. 
 Holland and Ireland yielded him the first fruits of their 
 looms. Belgium contributed the rarest of her laces, and 
 the North sent down the finest of its Russian sables. All 
 the looms of France, England, Belgium, and the United 
 States were closely watched, and the finest fabrics in dress 
 goods, muslins, carpets, and calicoes were caiaght up the 
 moment the workmen put on the finishing touches. He 
 bought for cash the world over, and was a customer every¬ 
 where so recognized as desirable that he had his choice of 
 industrial productions, and on more advantageous terms than 
 his rivals could purchase what he left. He had been so long 
 in the business, and had become so thoroughly versed in the 
 productions of different looms in different countries, that it 
 was his practice to select certain mills noted for excellence 
 of work, and take their entire supply, and thus it happened 
 that there were many looms in the busiest haunts of the Old 
 and New Worlds that toiled unceasingly on his account. 
 
 “By buying thus largely in foreign lands, he was, of course, 
 the largest importer in the nation, and his duties averaged 
 $30,000 gold per day. Every year his business steadily 
 increased, and there was apparently no practical limit at 
 which it would stop. As prudent in vast affairs as other men 
 were in small, he insured liberally, and had policies renewed 
 
100 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 every third day throughout the year. But while leaning- 
 on the insurance companies, he was utterly independent of 
 the banks; he never asked one of them to ‘ carry ’ him through 
 a crisis, and should such a contingency have arisen, there 
 was no bank in the world competent to the task.” 
 
 He was of the medium size, had light-brown hair and 
 beard, which was closely trimmed. His features were sharp, 
 well cut, his eye bright, and his general expression calm 
 and thoughtful. His manner was reserved, and to all but 
 his intimate friends cold. He dressed with great simplicity, 
 but with taste, and in the style of the day. His habits were 
 simple, and he avoided publicity in all things. Standing as 
 he did at the head of the mercantile interests of the country, 
 he afforded a fine example of the calm and dignified manner 
 in which a man of true merit might enjoy his legitimate 
 success, and of the good use he might make of its fruits. 
 
 Mr. Stewart died April 10, 1876. The management of the 
 great business which he had built up then devolved upon 
 Judge Hilton, long a valued friend of the great merchant. 
 Among the acts of charity which will make Mr. Stewart’s 
 name long remembered, was the presentation of $50,000 
 to the sufferers from the Chicago fire. During his last years 
 he took time to gratify his literary, artistic and social tastes. 
 One of his peculiarities was that he would not have his 
 portrait taken, gi\dng as a reason that he was “such a com¬ 
 monplace looking little fellow.” Bismarck once sent his 
 picture to Mr. Stewart and asked for one of the merchant 
 in return. Mr. Stewart sent instead a check for $1,000 for 
 the benefit of the starving population in one of the districts 
 of Prussia. 
 
AMOS LAWRENCE. 
 
 101 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 AMOS LAWRENCE. 
 
 MOS LAWRENCE was born at Groton, Mas¬ 
 sachusetts, on the 22(1 of April, 1786. His 
 ancestor came of a good English family, and 
 was one of the company which sailed from 
 England for the New World under Governor 
 Winthrop, in 1630, and which, according to Grahame, contained 
 ^'several wealthy and high-born persons, both men and women, 
 who expressed their determination to follow truth and liberty 
 into a desert, rather than to enjoy all the pleasures of the world 
 under the dominion of superstition and slavery.” This Law¬ 
 rence settled in Watertown, and was one of the original pro¬ 
 prietors of the town of Groton, which was founded in 1655. 
 Samuel Lawrence, the father of the subject of this memoir, was 
 the fifth in descent from the founder of the family, and was 
 himself a gallant officer of the American army in the War ol‘ 
 the Revolution, the close of which found him the jwssessor 
 of a small farm, whieh yielded a modest support for his family. 
 
 Young Amos was brought up on the farm, with none of the 
 advantages of wealth, and with but a limited education, which 
 he gained at the village schools, and which was seriously inter¬ 
 fered with by his delicate health. Pie received his final training 
 at the GiX)tou Academy, to which,,in after life, he became a 
 liberal patron. “As we ehildi’eu came forward,” he wrote, late 
 
102 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 in life, ‘‘we were carefully looked after, but were taught to use 
 the talents intrusted to us;, and every nerve was strained to 
 provide for us the academy which is now doing so much there.” 
 Toward the close of the year 1799, when but a little over thir¬ 
 teen years of age, he took his final departure from school, and. 
 entered a store in the village of Dunstable, as clerk. 
 
 He remained there but a few months, and then returned to 
 Groton, where he obtained a place as apprentice in the store of 
 a Mr. Brazer. This was the largest establishment in the place, 
 and conducted a very important trade with the country for 
 miles around. Boston was so far, and so difficulty to reach in 
 those days, that Groton came in for nearly all the business of 
 its vicinity which the railroads have now taken to the city. 
 Mr. Brazer’s establishment, which was known as a “variety 
 store,” came in for the best j)art of this trade. Every thing 
 was sold there; “j)uncheons of rum and brandy, bales of cloth, 
 kegs of tobacco, with hardware and hosiery, shared attention 
 in common with silks and threads, and all other articles for 
 female use.” Even medicines were sold there; and Dr. ^ym. 
 lx. Lawrence, the son of our hero, assures us that his father was 
 obliged to sell medicines, not only to customers, but to all the 
 physicians within a circuit of twenty miles, who depended on 
 this establishment for their supplies. “The confidence in his 
 good judgment,” he adds, “was such that he was often con¬ 
 sulted in preference to the physician, by those who were suffer¬ 
 ing from minor ails; and many were the extemporaneous doses 
 which he administered for the weal or woe of the patient.” 
 
 The Brazer store was a prominent feature in Groton. It 
 was a })lace of general resort, and close by Avas the tavern 
 Avhere the mail coaches stopped. Travelers were constantly 
 jiassing through the town, Bringing the neAvs of those stirring 
 davs when Napoleon Avas rushing OA’er Europe Avith his armies. 
 
AMOS LAM'REXCE. 
 
 103 
 
 overturning old states and building up new ones, and changing 
 the destinies of the world. The domestic politics of the day 
 were exciting, and it is likely that they aided, together M'ith 
 tlie events in the Old World, in imparting to the character of 
 Mr. Lawrence the earnestness and gravity for which he was 
 noted when a mere lad. 
 
 Mr. Brazer had in his employ a number of clerks, but it was 
 not long before the energy and business talent of young Law¬ 
 rence made him the most trusted of all. Mr. Brazer did not 
 give much personal attention to the store, and when he found 
 that his youfig clerk was so admirable and reliable a manager, 
 he left the business entirely in his hands. This was a post of 
 unusual responsibility for one so young, but Amos Lawrence 
 accepted it promptly, and labored to discharge its duties faith¬ 
 fully. He at once established the character for probity and 
 fairness which distinguished him through life; his simple asser¬ 
 tion was sufficient in any matter, being received with implicit 
 trust by all Mdio knew him. His duties ke})t him constantly 
 employed, and though he lived within a mile of his father’s 
 house, weeks sometimes passed without giving him the oppor¬ 
 tunity of visiting it. 
 
 Drunkenness was at that day the curse of New England. 
 Every body drank, and such fiery fluids as brandy, Avhisky, 
 rum, and gin were the favorites. IMcn, women, and children 
 were addicted to the vice, and Gi’oton Avas no exception to the 
 rule. IMr. Brazer’s store Avas famous for the good liquors 
 serA^ed out to its customers, and his clerks Avere aAvare that 
 their employer did not olycct to their hel])ing themseU’es Avhen ' 
 they felt thirsty. Amos Lawrence fell into the habit to Avliich 
 all Avere given, and for some time Avent along Avith the rest; 
 but at length he came to the conclusion that such indulgence 
 Avas Avantoidy ruining his health, and he resolved to ab.stain 
 
104 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE, 
 
 entirely. ‘‘We five boys/’ said he, years afterward, “were in 
 the habit, every forenoon, of making a drink compounded of 
 rum, raisins, sugar, nutmegs, etc., with biscuit—all palatable to 
 eat and drink. After being in the store four weeks, I found my¬ 
 self admonished by my appetite of the appi’oach of the hour for 
 indulgence. Thinking the habit might make trouble if allowed 
 to grow stronger, Avithout further apology to my seniors, I 
 declined partaking Avith them. My first resolution aa’us to 
 abstain for a Aveek, and, Avhen the Aveek Avas out, for a month, 
 and then for a year. Finally, I resoh^ed to abstain for the 
 rest of my apprenticeship, Avhich Avas for five years longer. 
 During that Avhole period I never drank a spoonful, though 
 I mixed gallons daily for my old master and his cus¬ 
 tomers.” 
 
 At the same time, Mr. LaAvrcnce determined that he Avould 
 not use tobacco in any form. He was A’ery fond of the odor 
 of “the Aveed,” and at one period of his life ahvays kept 
 a fine Havana in his draAver that he might enjoy the scent of 
 it; but he AA’as totally free fj-om our disgusting national vice 
 in any of its forms. In this resjAect, as indeed in all others, 
 lie offers a fine example to the rising youth of the present 
 generation. 
 
 On the 22d of April, 1807, l\Ir. LaAA-rence completed his 
 twenty-first year, and his seven years’ apprenticeshij) Avith 
 Mr. Brazer came to an end. He AA-as noAv of an age to enter 
 into business for himself, and it Avas his intention to open a 
 small store in Groton, in connection Avith a brother ajiprentice, 
 but before doing so he decided to A’isit Boston for the purpose 
 of establishing a credit. He reached the city Avith but tAventy 
 dollars in his pocket, richer, he subsequently declared, in his 
 OAvn estimation, than he eA’er felt before or afterAvard. M bile 
 in the city, he receiA’ed the offer of a clerkship from a mer- 
 
AMOS [.AWREN'CE. 
 
 10 .-) 
 
 cantilc house of good standing. It was entirely unsolicited, 
 and took him by surprise, but he decided to accept it, and 
 abandoned his idea of going into business for himself in Gro¬ 
 ton ; and this act led to a career entirely dilferent from that 
 to which he had looked forward. 
 
 Boston, in 1807, had a population of about thirty thousand, 
 and the commercial position of the city was relatively much 
 greater than at present. The foreign trade of the United 
 States was enormous, and was carried on in American ships, 
 and not, as at present, in foreign vessels. The total tonnage of 
 American shipping engaged in this trade was seven hundred 
 thousand tons, and of this Boston possessed a fair share. Her 
 domestic trade was also important. 
 
 “The merchants of Boston had then high places in the es¬ 
 timation of the world. The Perkinses, the Sargeants, the 
 Mays, the Cabots, the Higginsons, and others, were known 
 throughout the world for their integrity, their mercantile skill, 
 and the ^extent and beneticial character of their operations. 
 
 These wei’e the golden days of Boston’s commerce. 
 
 The standard of integrity was high, and though it would be 
 absurd to sup])ose that there was not the usual amount of evil 
 in the place, it may be assumed that in no part of the world 
 was the young trader more likely to find severer judges of 
 character and conduct, or to be better treated if he should afford 
 un(|ucstionable proofs of capacity and honesty.” 
 
 Ft was into this community that Mr. Lawrence now entered, 
 and in which his life was spent. He gave such satisfaction to 
 his employers that, when he had been with them a short time, 
 they astonished him with the offer of a partnership. He was 
 but partially acquainted with their affairs, but their manner of 
 conducting their business did not please him, and he declined 
 their offer. His sagacity was verific<l by the result. In a few 
 
106 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 months the firm failed, and the creditors appointed him to 
 settle their affairs, wliieh lie did to their satisfaction. 
 
 Being now out of employment, he resolved to commence 
 business on his own account in Boston. lie had made such a 
 favorable impression upon the merchants of the city that he 
 had no difficulty in obtaining credit. He rented a store in 
 Cornhill, stocked it with dry goods, and began his career 
 as a merchant. Four months after this, his father, who was 
 keenly interested in his son’s sncce.ss, without consulting the 
 latter, mortgaged his farm for one thousand dollars, and, re¬ 
 pairing to Boston, ])laeed the money in Amos Lawrence’s hands. 
 Mr. Lawrence was jirofoundly affi'cted by this proof of his 
 father’s devotion, but he regretted it none the less, as he knew 
 that his failure would bring ruin to his parent as well as to 
 himself. I told him,” said he, forty years later, “that he did 
 wrong to {ilace himself in a situation to be made unhappy if 
 I lost the money. He told me he r/xesscd I would n't lose if, 
 and I gave him my note.” IMr. Lawrimce made a prompt 
 use of the money, and paid the mortgage at the proper time; 
 but he had a narrow escape from loss, as the bank on which 
 he had bills for the amount of the mortgage failed almost im¬ 
 mediately after he had obtained specie for them. 
 
 “This incident,” he said, “shows how dangerous it is to the 
 independence and comfort of families for parents to take pe¬ 
 cuniary responsibilities for their sons in trade, beyond their 
 power of meeting them without embarrassment. Had any 
 Hillsborough bank-notes not been paid as they were, nearly 
 the whole amount would have been lost, and myself and my 
 tlimily might have been ruined. The incident was so striking 
 that I have uniformly discouraged young men who have ap¬ 
 plied to me for credit, offering their fathers as bondsmen : and 
 by doing so I believe I have saved some respcctalile families 
 
AMOS OAWIUCNCK. 
 
 107 
 
 from min. My advice, liowcver, has sometimes been rejected 
 with anger. A young man who can not get along without 
 sucli aid will not be likely to get along with it.” 
 
 lie began his business upon principles of prudence and 
 economy, which he rigidly maintained throughout his whole 
 life. He never allowed himself to anticipate his gains, and 
 having fixed his personal expenses at a certain sum, he never 
 went beyond it. His system, which is thus stat(>d by himself, 
 is offered here as a safe and admirable rule f()r all persons: 
 
 “ When I commenced, the embargo had just been laid, and 
 with such restrictions on trade that many were induced to leave 
 it. But I felt great confidence that, by industry, economy, and 
 integrity, I could get a living; and the experiment showed that 
 I was right. Most of the young men who commenced at that 
 period failed by spending too much money, and using credit 
 too freely. 
 
 “ I adopted the plan of keeping an accurate account of mer¬ 
 chandise bought and sold each day, with the profit, as far as 
 practicable. This plan was pursued for a number of years, 
 and I never found my merchandise fall short in taking an ac¬ 
 count of stock, which I did as often at least as once in each 
 year. I was thus enabled to form an opinion of my actual state 
 as a business man. I adopted also the rule always to have 
 property, after my second year’s business, to represent foi'ty per 
 cent, at least more than I owed—that is, never to be in debt 
 more than two and a half times my capital. This caution 
 saved me from ever getting embarrassed. If it were more 
 generally adopted, we should see fewer failures in business. 
 Excessive credit is the rock on which so many business men 
 are broken.” 
 
 Mr. Lawrence was very successful from the first. His profits 
 during his first year were fifteen hundred dollars, and over four 
 
108 
 
 KINGS OF FOBTUNE. 
 
 thousand during the second. In seven years he made over 
 fifty thousand dollars. He paid the closest attention to his 
 business, and nothing could draw him from it in working 
 hours. After these were over he would take his pleasure.. His 
 aim was to keep every thing in the most complete state jios- 
 sible. During the first seven years of his business he never 
 allowed a bill against him to stand unsettled over the Sabbath. 
 If he made a purchase of goods on Saturday, and they were 
 delivered to him that day, he always examined and settled the 
 bill by note, or by crediting it, and leaving it clear, so that 
 there should be no unfinished business to go over to the next 
 week, and make trouble for his clerks in case he should not be 
 at his post. “Thus,” said he, “I always kept my business 6c- 
 J'ore me, instead of allowing it to drive me. ” 
 
 The first years of Mr. Lawrence’s mercantile experience 
 covered the darkest period of the history of the Republic. 
 They were marked by the embargo, the crippling, of our com¬ 
 merce by the hostility of England and France, and the second 
 war with Great Britain, in all of which there was much to dis¬ 
 hearten a beginner, even if he escaped positive loss. Xothing 
 was certain. The events of a single hour might undo the 
 labor of yeai's, and baffle the best laid plans. Yet he perse¬ 
 vered, and went .steadily on to fortune. He was remarkable 
 for his keen foresight, as Avell as for his prudence, and was 
 always on the alert to profit by the fluctuations of the market. 
 Yet he abominated speculation. He averred that speculation 
 made men desperate and unfit for legitimate business, and that 
 it led them, when under excitement, to the commission of acts 
 against which their cooler judgment would have warned them. 
 The fair profits of legitimate business were, in his opinion, 
 sure to reward any honest and capable man. His aim was to 
 elevate commerce, and not to degrade it. He introduced into 
 
AMOS I.AWKKNCE. 
 
 109 
 
 Boston the system of double-entry in book-keeping, in advance 
 of any other city merchant. He was prompt and faithful in 
 the performance of every contract, and required a similar 
 course toward himself from all indebted to him, as long as they 
 were able to do so. When they became unfortunate, he was 
 kind and generous, ready to compromise upon the most liberal 
 terms, or to give them their own time for })ayment; and it is 
 recorded of him that he never dealt harshly with a debtor who 
 had failed in business. 
 
 As long as such a course was necessaiy, Mr. Lawrence de¬ 
 voted himself entirely to his business, but after he had placed 
 it on a safe footing, he was careful to reserve to himself time 
 for other duties and for relaxation. No man, he said, had the 
 right to allow his business to engross his entire life. “Prop¬ 
 erty acquired at such sacrifices as I have been obliged to make 
 the past year, ” he wrote at the commencement of 1826, “costs 
 more than it is worth; and the anxiety in protecting it is the 
 extreme of folly. ” He never lost sight of the fact that man is 
 a responsible, intelligent being, placed in the world for other 
 purposes than the mere acquisition of wealth. 
 
 In October, 1808, his brother, Abbott Lawrence, afterward 
 famous as a merchant and statesman, came to him as an appren¬ 
 tice, and on the 1st of January, 1814, he was .admitted to part¬ 
 nership, the style of the firm being A. & A. Lawrence. This 
 partnership was terminated only by the death of the elder 
 brother in 1852. Their business was the importation and sale 
 of foreign manufactures, and the firm soon took its place at the 
 head of the Boston merchants engaged in this trade. The tariffs 
 of 1816 and 1824 gave a new and powerful impetus to the man¬ 
 ufacture of woolens and cottons in this country, and the Law¬ 
 rences entered largely into the sale of these goods on commis¬ 
 sion. In 1830, they became interested in the cotton mills at 
 
no 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUXE. 
 
 Lowell; and on the establishment of tlie Snlfolk, Treraont, and 
 Lawrence Companies, as well as subsequently in other corpora¬ 
 tions, they became large proprietors. From this time their 
 business as selling agents was on the most extensive scale, and 
 their income from all sources large in proportion. They amassed 
 large fortunes, and won names which are the most precious heri¬ 
 tages of their children. 
 
 Perhaps the best exposition of the principles upon which 
 these brothers conducted their commercial operations is found 
 in the following letter from the elder to the younger, written on 
 the 11th of March, 1815, upon the occasion of a visit to Enc 
 land by the latter on business for the firm : 
 
 My Dear Brother —I have thought best, before you go abroad, to 
 suggest a few hints for your benefit in your intercourse with the people 
 among whom you are going. As a first and leading principle, let every 
 transaction be of that pure and honest character that you would not be 
 ashamed to have appear before the whole world as clearly as to yourself. 
 In addition to the advantages arising from an honest course of conduct 
 with your fellow-men, there is the satisfaction of reflecting within jmur- 
 self that you have endeavored to do your duty ; and however greatly 
 the best may fall short of doing all they ought, they will be sure not to 
 do more than their principles enjoin. 
 
 It is, therefore, of the highest consequence that you should not only 
 cultivate correct principles, but that you should place your standard of 
 action so high as to require great vigilance in living up to it. 
 
 In regard to your business transactions, let every thing be so regis¬ 
 tered in your books, that any person, without difficulty, can understand 
 the whole of your concerns. You may be cut off in the midst of your 
 pursuits, and it is of no small consequence that your temporal affairs 
 should always be so arranged that you may be in readiness. 
 
 If it is important that you should be well prepared in this point of 
 view, how much more important is it that you should be prepared in 
 that which relates to eternity! 
 
 You are young, and the course of life seems open, and plea-sant pros¬ 
 pects greet your ardent hopes; but you must remember that the race is 
 
AMOS LAWliKA'CK. 
 
 Ill 
 
 not always to the swift, and that, however flattering may be our pros¬ 
 pects, and however zealously you may seek pleasure, you can never find 
 it except by cherishing pure principles and practicing right conduct. 
 My heart is full on this subject, my dear brother, and it is the only one 
 on which I feel the least anxiety. 
 
 While here, your conduct has been such as to meet my entire ap¬ 
 probation ; but the scenes of another land may be more than your prin¬ 
 ciples will stand against. I say may he, because young men of as fair 
 promise as yourself have been lost by giving a small latitude (inno¬ 
 cent in the first instance) to their propensities. But I pray the Father 
 of all mercies to have you in his keeping, and preserve you amid 
 temptations. 
 
 I can only add my wish to have you write me frequently and par¬ 
 ticularly, and that you will embrace every opportunity of gaining in¬ 
 formation. 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 Amos Lawrence. 
 
 To Abbott L.\wrence. 
 
 In hi.s politics, INIr. Lawrence wa.s a Federalist, and then a 
 Whig. He .served lor one term in the State Legislature as a 
 Representative from Boston, with credit to himself, but after¬ 
 ward avoided any active participation in public events. When 
 his nephew-by-marriage. General Pierce, was a candidate for 
 the Presidency, he was very much gratified personally by the 
 selection of the Democracy, but declined to vote for him. In a 
 letter to a friend, written at this time, he said : “ I had a charm¬ 
 ing ride yesterday with my nephew, Frank Pierce, and told him 
 I thought he must occupy the White House the next term, but 
 that I woidd go for Scott. Pierce is a tine, spirited fellow, 
 and will do his duty wherever placed. Scott will be my choice 
 for President of the United States.” 
 
 Reo-arding: himself as a steward of the riches committed to 
 him, Amos Lawrence was liberal in his charities. During the 
 last twenty-four years of his life he kept an accurate aecount of 
 the sums he thus distributed, but with no idea that the state- 
 
112 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 nient, which he intended for his own eye only, would ever be 
 made public. During this period he gave away six hundred 
 and thirty-nine thousand dollars. The greater part of this was 
 given away in ten years, and during a period when his average 
 income was sixty thousand dollai's a year. He was a liberal 
 patron of education, giving large sums to its extension ; and it 
 was his delight to assist poor clergymen, without regard to de¬ 
 nominations. He gave away clothing, food, books, etc., in large 
 quantities, as well as ready money. “ Two rooms in his house,” 
 says his son and biographer, “ and sometimes three, were used 
 l)rincipally for the reception of useful articles for distribution. 
 There, when stormy weather or ill-health prevented him from 
 taking his usual drive, he was in the habit of passing hours in 
 selecting and packing up articles which he considered suitable 
 to the wants of those whom he wished to aid.” He did not 
 forget the children, and many of his packages contained toys, 
 and books, and other things calculated to jn-omote their enjoy¬ 
 ment. 
 
 He was beset with beggars of all kinds, many of whom he 
 was compelled to refuse. In his diary, he wrote on the 11th of 
 April, 1849, Applications come in from all quarters, for all 
 objects. The reputation of giving freely is a very bad reputa¬ 
 tion, so far as my personal comfort is concerned.” 
 
 It pained him to have his charities made public, and he fre¬ 
 quently requested the recipients to say nothing about them. He 
 once made a present of some books to the Johnson school for 
 girls, and the gift being acknowledged through the columns of a 
 newspaper, he wrote to the principal of the school: “I merely 
 want to say that I hope you will not put me in the newspaper 
 at present, and when my work is done here, if you have any 
 thing to say about me that will not hurt my children and grand¬ 
 children, sa^/ on.” To another party he wrote: “I must I’equest 
 
AMOS LAWRENCE. 
 
 113 
 
 that my name be not thrust forward, as though I was to be a 
 by-word for my vanity. I want to do good, but am sorry to be 
 published, as in the recent case.” 
 
 As a merchant, Mr. Lawrence was upright, prudent, far- 
 seeing, sagacious, and courageous; as a citizen, he was patriotic, 
 public-spirited, and devoted; and as a man, he was a sincere, 
 earnest, Christian husband, father, and friend. Viewed in any 
 light, his character affords one of the most perfect models to be 
 found in our history. He was the Christian gentleman in all 
 things, even in the minutest detail of his business. His stand¬ 
 ard was very high, but he came up to it. Courteous and 
 dignified in manner, with a face handsome and winning in 
 youth, and gentle and benignant in age, he made scores of 
 friends wherever he went, for it was a true index to his char¬ 
 acter. It is a significant and interesting fact that, during the 
 hottest passages of the old nullification times, although his 
 views were known to be uncompromisingly opposed to the 
 attitude of the South, he never lost the wannest friendship of 
 some of the most advanced of the South Carolina leaders. 
 When one thinks of the friendships that were wrecked amid 
 the passions of those days, this fact speaks volumes for the 
 personal attributes of Mr. Lawrence. 
 
 He was a true American—proud of his country’s past, hope¬ 
 ful for her future, and desiring nothing better than to live 
 and die in the land of his birth. He sent his children abroad 
 that they might see the Old World, and profit by the lessons 
 learned there, but he strove earnestly to keep them true to 
 their country. To his son, who was traveling in France in 
 1829, he wrote: 
 
 “ Bring home no foreign fancies whieh are inapplicable to 
 our state of society. It is very common for our young men 
 to come home and appear quite ridiculous iu attcmjiting to 
 
oi'’ I'OUTUNE. 
 
 114 KIXG.S 
 
 introduce their foreign fashions. It should be always kept ii> 
 mind that the state of society is widely different here from that 
 in Euro{)e; and our comfort and character require it should 
 long remain so. Those who strive to introduce many of the 
 European habits and fashions, by displacing our own, do a 
 serious injury to the republic, and deserve censure. An idle 
 person, with good powers of mind, becomes torpid and inactive' 
 after a few years of indulgence, and is incapable of making 
 any high effort. Highly important it is, then, to avoid this 
 enemy of mental and moral improvement. I have no wish that 
 vou pursue trade; I would rather see you on a farm, or study¬ 
 ing any profession. 
 
 “It should always be your aim so to conduct yourself that 
 those whom you value most in the world would appi’ove your 
 conduct, if your actions were laid bare to their inspection; and 
 thus you will be pretty sure that He who sees the motive of 
 all our actions will accept the good designed, though it fall 
 short in its accomplishment. You are young, and are placed 
 in a situation of great peril, and are, perhaps, sometimes 
 tempted to do things which you would not do if you knew 
 yourself under the eye of your guardian. The blandishments 
 of a beautiful city may lead you to forget that you are always 
 surrounded, su])ported, and seen by that best Guardian.” 
 
 He was an eminently just man, and he carried this trait 
 into the little details of his domestic life. His household 
 adored him; and his friends were bound to him by ties unu¬ 
 sually strong. He was firm and positive in his own opinions; 
 but he was tolerant of those who differed from him. He was 
 a man of quick, nervous temperament, but he possessed a pow¬ 
 erful self-control. He was a sincere and earnest Christian, 
 and while attaching himself to the sect of his choice, nis sym¬ 
 pathies and aid went out to the whole Christian Church. 
 
»AiMOS LAWRENCE. 
 
 llo 
 
 'Denominational differences had no place in his heart. He 
 stood on tlie broad platfoi'in of the “faith of Christ crueified.” 
 
 During the last years of Ids life, Mr. Lawrence was a con¬ 
 stant invalid. To a man of his temperament this was a great 
 trial, but he bore it unflinehingly, exhibiting, in the long years 
 of feel)le liealth which preceded Ids death, a cheerfulness and 
 patience which plainly show'ed the aid of the Arm on which 
 he leaned for support. For sixteen years he did not take a 
 meal with his family. His food and drink, of the simplest 
 kind, were regularly weighed, a j)air of scales being kept in 
 his chamber for that purpose. He wrote to his friend Presi¬ 
 dent Hopkins, of Williams College: “If your young folks 
 want to know the meaning of epieureanism, tell them to take 
 some bits of coarse bread (one ounce ora little more), soak them 
 in three gills of coarse meal gruel, and make their dinner of 
 them, and nothing else; beginning very hungry, and leaving 
 off more hungry.” 
 
 Mr. Lawrence continued in this condition until December, 
 1852, when he was seized with a severe attack of the stomachic 
 'trouble to wddeh he was a martyr. He died peacefully, on 
 the last day of that month and year, at the age of sixty-six 
 years, eight months, and eight days. He was buried in Mount 
 Auburn Cemetery, and was followed to the grave by a host 
 of friends who mourned him as a brother, and by strangers 
 to whom his kindness in life had brought relief from many a 
 •care and suffering. 
 
116 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 ANDREiy V. STOUT. 
 
 HERE are few men in the city of New York 
 who have won more fairly their proud positions 
 in the mercantile world than he whose name 
 stands at the top of this page. For more than 
 forty years he has carried on a large and increas¬ 
 ing business with an energy, skill, and probity which could not 
 fail of success. 
 
 Andrew V. Stout was born in the city of New York, at 
 No. 6 Canal Street, or, as it was then called. Pump Street, 
 about the year 1814. When he was scarcely more than a child 
 he was left fatherless, and thrown upon his own resources for 
 a living. He was a manly little fellow, and, young as he was, 
 was fully alive to the importance of the position he was com¬ 
 pelled to assume. He was resolved not only to support himself, 
 but also to acquire a good education, and by studying hard 
 while most boys are at play, mastered the ordinary English 
 branches by the time he was twelve years old. 
 
 He had a mother and sister to support, and applied himself 
 manfully to the task of accomplishing this. He was well 
 grown for his age, and was generally supposed to be several 
 years older than he really was. When he was fourteen years 
 old he applied for and received a position as assistant teacher 
 
ANDREW V. STOUT. 
 
 117 
 
 of the English branches in one of the public schools of the 
 city. The trustees of the school supposed he was at least 
 eighteen or nineteen years old. Had his true age been known 
 to them, it is probable he would not have received the appoint¬ 
 ment. He was not questioned upon the subject, and he was 
 wise enough to keep his own counsel. He performed the duties 
 of his position to the entire satisfaction of the school officials, 
 and made such a good impression on his friends that at the 
 age of sixteen he was made assistant principal in one of the 
 most important and popular private schools of the day, taught 
 by Shepherd Johnson, a name well known to the'Dld residents 
 of New York. 
 
 He was very young to fill this position, and, as may be sup¬ 
 posed, it was peculiarly trying to one whose learning was 
 mainly self-acquired. He was determined to succeed, however, 
 and he applied himself energetically to master the course he 
 was teaching. He studied harder and more constantly than 
 any of his pupils, and was always fresh on the lessons^ for the 
 day. 
 
 AVhen he was sixteen years old he was so well grown and 
 so mature that he passed for twenty. Having succeeded so 
 well in the management of his English classes, he was oflbrcd 
 the position of instructor of Latin, with an increase of his sal¬ 
 ary. The offer at first dismayed him. He was thoroughly ig¬ 
 norant of the Latin language, and utterly unprepared for the 
 ■duties demanded of him. He was very anxious to have the 
 place, however, for he needed the increase of salary offered him, 
 and, after hesitating a little while, accepted it. He pur¬ 
 chased a Latin grammar, and engaged a private tutor. He 
 studied hard, and soon mastered the rudiments of the language. 
 In this way he managed to keep ahead of his classes. If a 
 question was asked him which he could not answer, he post- 
 
118 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 poned his reply, looked into the matter at night, and explained' 
 it the next morning. By such hard study and patient efforts 
 did this boy, himself a mere novice, turn out what was admit¬ 
 ted by all to be the best drilled Latin class Shepherd Johnson’s, 
 ■school had ever boasted of. 
 
 When he was eighteen years old he was made principal of 
 Public School No. 2 of Xew York. He was living at Bush- 
 wick, where he resided with his mother and sister in a cosy 
 little cottage, the garden of which was his pride, since he 
 tended it with his own hands. It was his custom to rise every 
 morning at four o’clock, and work in his garden until seven. 
 Tlien he rode into the city, and attended to his 'school duties 
 until four o’clock, w'hen he returned home. 
 
 He was now in possession of a comfortable living; but he was 
 not satisfied to do this and nothing more. He was anxious to 
 win fortune, to enter upon a more active and stirring pursuit, 
 and he kept himself always on the watch for an opening. 
 About the time he became the head of the public school we 
 have referred to, he commenced to engage in various ventures 
 of a commercial nature, devoting to them his evenings, and the 
 hours of the day not demanded by his school. 
 
 One of his relatives was a builder, with a fair trade, and had 
 made some money by erecting houses in New York. Young 
 Stout, who had saved a little money, proposed to him that 
 they should take out a contract for building a number of dwell¬ 
 ings on the then fashionable thoroughfare of East Broadway. 
 The elder man was pleased with the plan, and at once consented 
 to it. The houses were built at a handsome profit; others fol¬ 
 lowed them, and by attending closely to this business, as well 
 as his other duties, Andrew Stout, by the time he was twenty 
 years old, had saved seventeen thousand dollars—a very large 
 sum in tliose steady-going days. 
 
ANDREW V. STOUT. 
 
 110 
 
 He was greatly aided by the custom of doing business on 
 time, which then prevailed, but he never allowed one of his 
 notes to be protested, and never asked for an extension. When 
 he began business, he did so with the firm resolve that he would 
 conduct his most insignificant transaction as a Christian man of 
 honor. If he could not make money honestly, he would re¬ 
 main poor. Every body saw the energy and judgment with 
 which he conducted his affairs, and the strict integrity which 
 marked them all, and he was not long in building up a i-epu- 
 tation as a business man of which any one might have been 
 jwoud. The prom[)tnoss and apparcul case with which he 
 met every contract, and took n}) every note, caused it to be 
 generally believed that’ he was a very rich man. Further than 
 this, it was known that he was a zealous and earnest Christian, 
 one who carried his religion into his busiucs.s, and who lived 
 u[) to his professions. He was an active mend)er of the Meth¬ 
 odist Church, and the business man of the congregation to 
 which he belonged. In his hands its finances prospered as 
 (hey had never done before. Such was the reputation of this 
 young man, who had not yet attained his majority. 
 
 He held his position in the public school for .several years 
 after his appointment to it, but the requirements of his busi- 
 ne.ss at length compelled him to reliiujuish it. 
 
 In the midst of his prosjierity Mr. Stout made one mistake. 
 A friend with whom he had been interested in building wished 
 to procure .some money from the bank, and Mr. Stout Avas in¬ 
 duced, with considerable reluctance, to indorse his note for five 
 thousand dollars. One false .step in business, as in other affairs 
 of life, leads to another, and, in order to save this money, IMr. 
 Stout was forced to renew his indorsements until his liabilities 
 amounted to twenty-three thousand dollars. To his dismay ho 
 Avas noAV informed by the buikh'r for avIio-^c sake he had incurred 
 
120 
 
 KINGS OF FOIITCNE. 
 
 this risk, that he (the builder) had failed, without making 
 provision for the payment of the notes, and that Mr. Stout 
 would have to account to the bank for them. 
 
 “ Several methods of relief were open to Mr. Stout. He was 
 worth seventeen thousand dollars, which he had earned by 
 nights of toil, by economy, and by daily and earnest attention 
 to business. To jiay the notes would not only sweep away 
 every penny that he had, but would leave him six thousand 
 dollars in debt. He had never realized one cent from the 
 money, and his name was used simply to accommodate the 
 builder. Besides, he was not of age, though nobody suspected 
 that fact, and he could repudiate his debts as a minor. He 
 toolv no counsel, made no statement of his affaii’s to any one, 
 shut himself up in his own room, and considered thoughtfully 
 what he should do, and then followed out the decision that he 
 had reached. Having become bankrupt in money, he concluded 
 he would not be so in character. He had earned seventeen thou¬ 
 sand dollars, and could earn seventeen thousand dollars more. 
 He did confide in one friend. He went to a relative, and asked 
 him to lend him six thousand dollars, the sum necessary to take 
 uj) all the notes. The relative was astonished at the request, 
 and insisted upon knowing the facts in the case. Mr. Stout 
 made a full and frank statement. It was met with the remark, 
 ‘ Well, Andrew, I thought you would be a rich man, but if this 
 is the way you do your business, you will never be worth any 
 tiling.’ But Mr. Stout did not want preaching, he wanted 
 money; and as the relative seemed to hesitate about loaning the 
 money, as no security was offered, Mr. Stout curtly told him he 
 could do as he pleased about it; he could get the money some¬ 
 where, and pay the notes. The money was promised, and he 
 went on his way. 
 
 “ The bank watched the young financier with a great deal of 
 
ANDIIEW Y. STOUT. 
 
 121 
 
 interest. The whole matter had been discussed often in thc 
 bank, and the wonder was how young Stout would meet the 
 blow. It was supposed that he would ask for an extension ; 
 and it was agreed to give it to him, and to make the time of 
 payment convenient to his ability. Had he proposed to com¬ 
 promise the matter by paying one-half, the bank would have 
 accepted it. That would have left him a capital of nearly eight 
 thousand dollars for a fresh start. Had he offered his seventeen 
 thousand dollars on condition that he was released from all lia¬ 
 bility, the notes would have been canceled with alacrity. He 
 did neither. He proposed no compromise, asked no extension, 
 and attempted to negotiate no settlement. When the fij’st note 
 became due, he paid it. He did the same with the second and 
 third. After the third payment, he was called into the office 
 ■of the president. Reference was made to the notes, and to the 
 fact that he had obtained no benefit from the money. The 
 president told him the bank was ready to renew the notes, and 
 to give him any accommodation that he might ask. Mr. Stout 
 simjdy replied that the blow was a heavy one, but that having 
 assumed the obligation, he should discharge it; that he asked 
 no favors, and as the notes matured he should take them uj). 
 He paid every dollar due, and every one was certain that his 
 wealth must be very large. His manliness, pluck, and integ¬ 
 rity, which carried him through that crisis, became the sure 
 f'oundation-stone ou which his great fortune was laid. He took 
 the front rank among successful financiers, and his honorable 
 <‘ourse in that crisis established his fame as an honest man, in 
 whom it would be safe to confide. Years of earnest and active 
 business life have not changed that character, nor allowed a 
 blot or stain to cloud that reputation.” * 
 
 Some years later, ^Ir. Stout became a merchant. He estab- 
 
 * Matthew Halo Smitli. 
 
122 
 
 KINGS OF FOUTUXE. 
 
 lislied a wholesale boot and shoe store, and engaged actively in 
 that business. He brought to his new calling the energy, pru¬ 
 dence, and integrity which had distinguished him all through 
 his life, and was successful from the first. He worked hard. 
 His business hours were from seven in the morning until six in 
 the evening. During his busy season, four months in the year, 
 he worked until ten, and often until twelve, paying his em- 
 jdoyt\s extra wages for labor performed after the regular busi¬ 
 ness hours. Sometimes he worked until four in the morning,, 
 but that did not deter him from being in the store at the usual 
 hour for opening. He was always the last to go home, never 
 leaving the store until the business of the day was over and 
 the house was closed. He extended his operations Uito dry 
 goods, meeting with equal success in this department. As his 
 business expanded, he was compelled to form various partner¬ 
 ships, but in all these arrangements he reserved to himself,, 
 like Stewart, the exclusive management of the finances. 
 
 About thirty years ago, the shoe and leather merchants 
 of the city decided to organize a bank, in which their interests 
 should be the principal considei’ation. i\Ir. Stout engaged in 
 the etfi)rt with great enthusiasm, and the Shoe and Leather 
 Bank of New A"ork was at length organized under the most 
 auspicious circumstances. Mr. Stout was the largest stock¬ 
 holder in the new bank, and was elected one of its directors. 
 H is influence was potent in directing its first operations, and 
 the next year he was elected vice-president, in which position 
 he really had the control of the enterprise left to him. A year 
 later he was elected president of the bank, a position which he 
 still holds, being in point of service the oldest bank president 
 in Xew A"ork. Upon questions of banking and finance, his 
 views are listened to with great respect by his associates, who 
 have proof of their soundness in the splendid success of tho 
 
ANDRKW V. STOUT. 
 
 123 ' 
 
 institution over which he presides; and it may be trnly said 
 tliat there are few men in the city wlio enjoy so large a share 
 of the public confidence as is bestowed upon him 
 
 As a citizen, he is pnblic-spirited and liberal. Some years 
 ago, he held 'the office of city chamberlain, and during his ad¬ 
 ministration of it a difficnlty arose in regard to paying the 
 police force their wages. Knowing that the men and their 
 families would suffer if the money were not promptly paid 
 them, Mr. Stout generously advanced the necessary sum from 
 his private means, looking to the city to reimburse him. In 
 grateful acknowledgment of this practical sympathy for them, 
 the force presented him with a handsome testimonial. His for¬ 
 tune is immense, and is used liberally in behalf of the cause of 
 the Christian religion. His charities are said to be large, but 
 one rarely hears of them, so quietly are they done. He is mar¬ 
 ried and has a familv. 
 
 No man’s career holds out more encouragement to young 
 men seeking to rise than that of Andrew V. Stout. It 
 shows that courage, patient industry, and business capacity 
 will bring fortune to any honest worker. His uniform suc¬ 
 cess speaks volumes in favor of a young man’s striving to 
 lead a Christian life in the midst of his business cares and 
 struggles. God’s blessing follows such an one at every stej), 
 and he will succeed in the end, whatever trials ma}* beset 
 his path at first. It is a great mistake to suppose that a man’s 
 success depends on his “sharpness.” Shrewdness is a valuable 
 quality, but it must be coupled with a plain, practical honesty, 
 or it will amount to nothing in the end. A man must be faith¬ 
 ful to his God if he would have his work stand. 
 
124 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 CHAPTEE Yl. 
 
 JONAS CHICKERING. 
 
 N Treraont Street, iii the City of Boston, near the 
 Roxbury line, there stands an immense building 
 of brick, said to be larger than any edifice in the 
 United States, save the Capitol at IVashington. 
 It is built in the form of a hollow square, with a 
 large court-yard in the center, and the building and court-yard 
 together cover an area of five acres. It is five stories in height 
 on the outer side, and six on the inner, the court-yai’d being one 
 story lower than the street. The building is two hundred and 
 sixty-two feet in length from east to west, and two hundred and 
 forty-five from north to south, the shorter distance being the 
 length on Tremont Street. The width of the building all 
 around the court-yard is fifty feet. It contains nine hundred 
 windows, with eleven thousand panes of glass, and when 
 lighted up at night seems almost a solid mass of fire. From 
 five to six hundred men are employed here in various capaci¬ 
 ties, and an immense steam engine of one hundred and twenty 
 iiorse-power furnishes the motive power for the machinery. 
 Altogether, it is one of the most prominent and interesting 
 of all the sights of Boston, and the visitor is surprised to learn 
 that it is due entirely to the energy and genius of one who, 
 but thirty-four years jirevious to its erection, came to Boston a 
 
JONAS CHICKEKING. 
 
 125 
 
 penniless stranger. The building is the famous piano-forte 
 manufactory of Chickering & Sons, and its founder was Jonas 
 Chickering, the subject of this sketch. 
 
 Jonas Chickering was born at New Ipswich, New Hamj)- 
 shire, on the 5th of April, 1798. His father was a blacksmith 
 by trade, and employed his leisure time in cultiv^ating a small 
 farm of which he was the owner. He was esteemed by his 
 neighbors as an upright, reliable man, and prudent and care¬ 
 ful in his temporal alfairs. The family being poor, young 
 Jonas was required to do his share toward cultivating the 
 farm, and received only such education as was afforded by the 
 district schools in the vicinity. He was noted at an early age 
 for his passionate love of music. When a mere child, he 
 learned to play on the fife, and was such a proficient per¬ 
 former that he was called upon with the town drummer to 
 furnish music for the militia musters, which were then the 
 pride of the town. These were happy days for the lad, but 
 his pleasure was marred by the ridicule which the contrast 
 between his slender figure and the stalwart frame of the “six- 
 foot drummer” caused the fun-loving towns-people to indulge in. 
 Soon after this he learned to play on the clarionet, and when 
 only seventeen or eighteen years old, was so advanced in his art 
 that he could read at sight music of the most difficult character. 
 
 At the age of seventeen he w'as apprenticed to a cabinet¬ 
 maker to learn his trade, and remained with him for three 
 years, exerting himself to become thorough master of every 
 detail of the business. Toward the close of his apprenticeship, 
 an event occurred which changed the whole current of his life, 
 and placed him in what proved to him the road to fame and 
 fortune. 
 
 One of the wealthiest citizens of New Ipswich was the for¬ 
 tunate owner of a piano, the only instrument of the kind in the 
 
126 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 place; but his treasure was almost useless to him, for the reason 
 that it was out of tune and seriously damaged in some respects. 
 It had lain in this condition for a long time, no one in or near 
 the place being able to make the necessary repairs. In this 
 extremity the owner bethought him of Jonas Chickering, who 
 had acquired an enviable reputation for skill in his trade, and 
 it was thought that a good cabinet-maker ought of necessity to 
 be a clever piano-maker. Young Chickering, thus appealed to, 
 consented to undertake the task, as much for the purpose of 
 becoming familiar with the instrument as of earning the sum 
 the owner of it pro})Osed to pay for the repairs. He had not 
 the slightest knowledge of its internal organization, but he 
 believed that by patient investigation he could master it, and 
 he knew that the correctness of his ear would enable him to 
 tune it. He made a careful .study of the instrument and of 
 every sepai'ate part, spent days over the task, discovered the 
 injury and the cause of it, and not only took the instrument to 
 pieces and restored it to its former condition, but did his work 
 so well that the piano was ])ronounced fully as good in every 
 respect as when it was new. This was not all. He di.scovered 
 defects in the instrument which even its maker was not able to 
 ■remedy, and his fertile bi’ain at once suggested to him a plan 
 for removing them. 
 
 Here was a chance for him, and he resolved to profit 
 by it. He would abandon cabinet-making and learn the 
 manufacture of pianos. Then, when master of his trade, 
 he would make use of his di.scoveries, and earn both fame 
 and fortune. When his determination to change his business 
 was made known, his friends attributed it to his desii’e to 
 be in the midst of musical instruments, and where he could 
 gratify his love of music; but this was only a part of the 
 onotive which Influenced him. He meant to rise in the 
 
JONAS CHICKICKING. 
 
 127 
 
 Avoi’lcl, and he was sure that he held in his hands the means 
 ■of doing so. 
 
 In 1818, when twenty years old, he removed to Boston, and 
 obtained employment with a cabinet-maker. He did this in 
 order to give him time to look about him, to become familiar 
 with the city and city life, and to acquire such other informa¬ 
 tion as would enable him to decide upon the best means of 
 putting his plans into execution. He saved his wages with 
 the greatest care, and at the end of his first year in Boston 
 had accumulated a modest little sum, which he meant should 
 support him while he was learning his new trade. 
 
 On the 15th of February, 1819, without the loss of a day, 
 he began work with a piano-maker. 
 
 He had now entered upon what he meant should be the 
 business of his life, and he was resolved that he would bo 
 inaster of it. From the first he took rank in his employer’s 
 factory as the most careful workman in it. He spared no pains 
 to make his knowledge full in every detail. Time was of no 
 consequence compared with knowledge, and he was never 
 anxious to hurry through with his work. It soon came to be 
 recognized by his employer and fellow-workmen that he was 
 the best fitted for those portions of the work upon the instru¬ 
 ment which required the greatest patience as well as the great¬ 
 est care, and the most difficult and delicate work was always 
 intrusted to him, his wages being, of course, in proportion. 
 Other men had no thought but to earn a living. This man 
 meant to win fame and fortune, and to enlarge the scope of 
 that art to which he was so ])assionately devoted. He labored 
 with his mind as well As his hands, familiarizing himself with 
 every detail of the manufacture, and devising in silence the 
 means for Improving the instrument and the implements used 
 in its construction. He could afford to wait, to be slower than 
 
128 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 liis fellows. Every moment spent over his task made his work¬ 
 manship the better, and opened to his mind new sources of im- 
 pi'ovement. He spent three years as a journeyman, and then 
 went into business for himself. He associated himself with a 
 Mr. Stewart, under the firm of Stewart & Chickering. 
 
 Fifty years ago the piano-forte was a wretched piece of 
 mechanism compared with the superb instrument of to-day. 
 It was originally a progressive growth from the ancient lyre,, 
 through the harp, psaltery, dulcimer, clavictherium, clavichord, 
 virginal, spinet, harpsichord, to the piano of Christofali in the 
 early years of the last century. At the period of ]\Ir. Chick- 
 ering’s entrance into business, it was still very imperfect, 
 and the various manufacturers of the instrument were earnestly 
 endeavoring to discover some means of remedying the defects 
 of which they were all conscious. There are four divisions in 
 the manufacture of a piano, each of which requires great skill 
 and care. These are: First, The making of the framing and 
 the sound-board; Second, The stringing; Third, The keys and 
 action; Fourth, The case and ornamental work. The framing 
 requires strength and simplicity. It is this portion of the in¬ 
 strument which sustains the tension of the strings, which in full 
 to large-sized pianos is not less than from six to twelve tons, 
 and it is a matter of prime necessity that the portions which serve 
 as a strut or stretcher between the ends of the strings, and 
 which are to resist this enormous pull, must be made cor¬ 
 respondingly strong and rigid, since by any gradual yielding 
 under the pull of the strings, their lengths and tensions, and 
 hence their tone, must undergo proportionate change. In the 
 old pianos, the frames were of wood, and it was impossible to 
 use any but small, short strings, for the reason given above. 
 Fullness and power were not to be thought of, and builders 
 were obliged to confine themselves to securing truthfulness of 
 
JONAS CHICKKRING. 
 
 129 
 
 tone. A multitude of causes, among which w’ere the changes 
 in the weather, combined to render it impossible to keep the old- 
 fashioned instrument in tune. It was this defect which first 
 attracted the attention of Jonas Chickering, and his first en¬ 
 deavor was to produce an instrument which would withstand 
 the climatic changes which were so troublesome to the old ones. 
 He was fully aware of the fact that the piano trade in this 
 country was then so unimportant that it offered but little in¬ 
 ducement to a man who could manufacture only the old in¬ 
 strument ; but he believed that by producing an instrument of 
 better proportions, and one fuller, richer, and more lasting in 
 tone, he could create a demand for it which would insure the 
 sale of all he could manufacture. His hope of success lay not 
 in the old, but in an improved and nobler Instrument. That 
 he was correct in his belief, the magnificent instrument of to¬ 
 day which bears his name, and the lucrative business he has 
 left to his sons, amply demonstrate. Others besides himself 
 were working for the same end, and he knew that he would 
 have to bear the test of determined and intelligent eompetitiou. 
 He applied himself to his purpose with enthusiasm. He care¬ 
 fully studied the theory of atmospheric vibration and musical 
 cf^nbination, as well as an application of the principles of me¬ 
 chanical philosophy to the construction of the instrument. He 
 went deep into the science involved in his work, into the phil¬ 
 osophy of melody. Passionately devoted to music, he was am¬ 
 bitious of placing that which has been so truly called ‘‘the 
 king of instruments ” within the reach of all lovers of harmony, 
 and to ffive them the best instrument that human invention 
 could produce—an instrument which should not only withstand 
 atmospheric changes, but which should yield the richest, fullest 
 volume of melody, with the least exertion to the performer. 
 His progress was slow’, but it was sure. Beginning with an 
 
130 
 
 KINGS OF FOUTUKE. 
 
 improv'ement in the action, he accoinplished, in a great measure 
 (in 1838), his plan for preserving the permanence and purity 
 of the tone of the instrument bv casting: the entire iron framing 
 with the parallel bars in one piece. Iron had for some time 
 before this been in general use for framing, but the frame was 
 oast in a few separate jiarts, which, were put together by means 
 of bolts and screws, a plan which is still used to a considerable 
 extent in Europe. By his jilan of casting the frame and its 
 supporting bars in one solid piece, I\Ir. Chickering not only 
 prevented the frame from yielding to the pull of the strings, 
 thus securing permanence and purity of tone, but was enabled 
 to use larger frames and more strings, which greatly increased 
 the capacity of the instrnmont. 
 
 Several other improvements were made by him, the most im¬ 
 portant of which was the invention, in 1845, of the circular 
 scale for square pianos, which is now in general use in this 
 country and in Europe. “This consists in giving to the row 
 of tuning pins and wrest-planks—previously straight in these 
 instruments—a curved disposition, answering nearly to an arc 
 of a circle, the advantage being that the strings become less 
 crowded, larger hammers, and a more direct blow can be se¬ 
 cured, and the tone is both strengthened and improved.” AVi^i 
 a rare generosity, Mr. Chickering declined to patent this im- 
 ])rovement, which would have enabled him to drive competition 
 out of the market. He regarded it as so necessary to a good 
 piano that he declared that all makers ought to have the use of 
 it, as it would thus be within the power of all persons able to 
 ))urcha.se a piano to avail themselves of it, w'hether they bought 
 a “Chickering” or not. Such generosity is too rare to fail to 
 receive the praise it merits. 
 
 Mr. Chickering did not continue long in business with Mr. 
 Stewart. The latter ivithdrew' in a few years, and Mr. Chick' 
 
JOXAS CHICKERING. 
 
 131 
 
 ering carried on the business alone. In 1830 he formed a 
 partnership witli Cajitain Jolin Mackay, a retired ship-mer 
 chant. In tlie new firm Captain Mackay took charge of the 
 finances and the office business, while Mr. Chickering devoted 
 himself entirely to the mechanical department. The operations 
 of the new house were very successful. The improvements 
 made by Mr. Chickering from the first created a demand for 
 their instruments which was sometimes so great that it was 
 difficult to supply it. This demand continued to increase, 
 'Until the house was perfectly easy as to money matters, and 
 able to enlarge its facilities very greatly. It was Mr. Chicker- 
 ing’s design that each separate instrument should be an im¬ 
 provement upon those which had preceded it, and he was care¬ 
 ful that this plan should not miscarry. In a few years the 
 firm was enabled to import the foreign materials needed, by the 
 cargo, thus saving the jwofit which they had hitherto been com¬ 
 pelled to pay the importer. Besides this saving, they were 
 enabled to keep on hand a large stock of the woods used in the 
 instrument, and thus it was allowed to became more thoroughly 
 seasoned than that which they had been compelled to [)urchase, 
 from time to time, in small quantities. In 1841, Captain 
 5lackay sailed from Boston for South America, for the purpose 
 ■of obtaining a supply of the woods needed by the firm ; but he 
 never returned, and as no tidings of him or his ship were ever 
 received, it is supposed that the vessel went down at sea with all 
 on board. 
 
 Mr. Chickering now decided to continue the business with- 
 out a partner. His friends supposed that in assuming the 
 management of the concern, in addition to the direction of the 
 mechanical department, and the constant mental labor to which 
 he subjected himself in his efforts to improve the piano, he was 
 undertaking more than he was capable of performing. They 
 
132 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 feared his health Avoukl break down under it. Besides, it was 
 generally believed that, in spite of Mr. Chickering’s undoubted 
 skill in his own department, he was not much of a business 
 man. He was confident of his own ability, however, and did 
 not hesitate to assume the new responsibility. 
 
 The business of which he now became the owner was very 
 heavy and extensive. Soon after the beginning of his connec¬ 
 tion with Captain Mackay, the firm erected a large factory for 
 the purpose of carrying on their business. One hundred hands 
 were employed in it when opened, but in a few years it was 
 necessary to employ more than twice that number, so rapidly 
 did the business increase. The supply of materials needed was 
 ample and of the very best quality, for Mr. Chickering nev^er 
 allowed an inferior article to be used. The warerooms were 
 large and handsomely fitted up, and were filled with instru¬ 
 ments ranging in price from a thousand dollars downward. It 
 was generally believed that while Mr. Chickering’s genius had 
 created the demand for the pianos,, it was Captain Mackay’s 
 business knowledge and experience that had ])laced affairs on 
 their pi’esent footing, and when Mr. Chickering proposed to 
 buy Captain Mackay’s interest from his heirs, which was valued 
 at several hundred thousand dollars, there was a very general 
 belief, which found expression, that he was incurring certain 
 ruin. The condition of the sale was that the purchase-money 
 should be divided into installments, for each of which Mr. 
 Chickering should give his note, secured by a mortgage on the 
 premises. At Mr. Chickering’s request each note was made 
 payable “on or before” a given day. The lawyer who con¬ 
 ducted the transaction smiled skeptically as he inserted this 
 clause, and asked the purchaser if he ever expected to pay the 
 notes at all. 
 
 “If I did not expect to pay them promptly, I should not 
 
JONAS CHICKERING. 
 
 133 
 
 give them,” was the simple reply. He was as good as his 
 word; The notes were met promptly, and although Captain 
 Mackay’s family requested that they might stand as an invest¬ 
 ment for them, Mr. Chickering took up the last one at its 
 maturity. 
 
 With the business in his own hands, Mr. Chickering contin¬ 
 ued its operations, displaying an ease in his mercantile transac¬ 
 tions which astonished and delighted his friends. The business 
 prospered to a greater degree than before, and all the while 
 Mr. Chickering continued his labors for the improvement of 
 his instruments with still greater success than in former years. 
 His pianos were universally regarded as the best in the market, 
 and his competitors were unable to excel him. Although con¬ 
 ducting a business which required the constant exercise of the 
 highest mercantile talent, he did not relax his energy in the 
 mechanical department. To the end of his life, long after he 
 had become a wealthy and prominent man, he had his own 
 little working-cabinet, with an exquisite set of tools, with which 
 he himself put the finishing touch to each of his splendid in¬ 
 struments, a touch he would not intrust to any other hands. 
 
 His competitors did all in their power to equal him, but he 
 distanced them all. One of them ado 2 )ted a most startling ex¬ 
 pedient. He obtained permission from the Legislature of Mas¬ 
 sachusetts to change his name to Chickering, and at once sent out 
 his instruments marked with his new name, his object of course 
 being to deceive the public, and Jonas Chickering had the mor¬ 
 tification of seeing the inferior instruments of another maker 
 mistaken for his own. He promptly laid before the Legislature 
 •a petition for redress, setting forth the facts of the case and the 
 motives of his rival. The result was that the Legislature recon¬ 
 sidered its action, and compelled the bogus Chickering to resume 
 his original name. 
 
134 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Mr. Chickering was noted for his simplicity and straight¬ 
 forwardness in business transactions. Conscious of his own in¬ 
 tegrity, he listened to no proposition of a doubtful character,, 
 nor would he ever allow his ci’edit as a merchant to be ques¬ 
 tioned with impunity. Upon one occasion, he applied through 
 his clerk to the bank, with which he had dealt for many years,, 
 for an accommodation which he needed. The president of 
 the bank sent for him, and told him that security would be 
 required. 
 
 “I shall give you none,” he replied. “1 have done my 
 business at this bank for a long time, and if you do not kno^v 
 me, I shall apply where I-am better known.” 
 
 The president was firm in his position, and Mr. Chickering 
 applied to another bank, which readily granted him the desired 
 discount, and to which he at once transferred his business, which 
 was worth to the bank about ten thousand dollars a year. 
 Shortly after, a director of the institution at which he had for-, 
 merly dealt called on him, and urged him to restore his busi¬ 
 ness to the bank, assuring him that in future it would readily 
 grant him any accommodation he might desire. 
 
 “ Xo,” he replied; “ I will deal with no institution which, 
 having had the opportunity of knowing me, suspects my respon¬ 
 sibility.” 
 
 Again having need of accommodation, he sent his notes for 
 a large sum to one of the city banks for discount. The presi¬ 
 dent said an indorser would be required, 
 
 “ I shall indorse them myself,” said Mr. Chickering. 
 
 “ That will never do,” replied the president. 
 
 “ Very well,” was the simple answer, and, without further 
 words, he took the notes to another bank, which'promptly 
 loaned him the money on them. 
 
 He tolerated no irregularity in his own business. He was 
 
JOXAS < HICKKKIXG. 
 
 135 
 
 true to the spirit as well as to the letter of a contract, and 
 never, during the whole course of his long life, \yas he guilty 
 of a transaction in which the most rigid moralist could find a 
 taint of sharp practice. What a refutation of the theories of 
 those who hold that cunning and trickery arc unavoidahle 
 some time in the course of a long and successful mercantile 
 career lies in the story of this man, who, beginning life penni¬ 
 less, filled with a burning ambition to be rich and famous, never 
 swerved from the straight path of integrity, and by the exercise 
 of only the highest traits of his nature more tlian realized his 
 boyish dreams! Ponder it well, young man, and learn from it 
 that honesty is indeed the best policy in any calling. 
 
 Mr. Chickering had married early in life, and now had three 
 sons just entering upon manhood. These were carefully edu¬ 
 cated at the public schools for which Boston is so justly famed, 
 and then put into their father’s factory to learn the mechanical 
 part of the busine.ss. It was the father’s ambition to be suc¬ 
 ceeded by his sons, but he was not willing to trust the labor of 
 his life to ignorant or incompetent hands. At the age of seven¬ 
 teen, Thomas Chickering, the eldest son, was taken from school, 
 and, under his father’s eye, taught' every detail of the mechan¬ 
 ical branch of the business, until he understood it as well as 
 the senior Chickering himself. George, the second son, in due 
 time passed through the same course of training; while Francis, 
 the youngest, was brought up in the warehouse. The father 
 thoroughly imbued his sons with his own system and energy, 
 and to-day we see the result. The firm of Chickering & Sons 
 is still the most prominent in America. Thomas is now the 
 acting head of the house, and has led it on to continued suc¬ 
 cess; Francis is the presiding genius of the mechanical depart¬ 
 ment, and has made many important imi)rovemen(s in the field 
 in which his father won success ; and Geer<re exercises a iron- 
 
136 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 eral supervision at the immense factory in Boston. The 
 mantle of the father has fallen upon the sons, and his labors 
 have found their highest reward in their success. | 
 
 Mr. Chickering’s good fortune was not entirely uninterrupted. j 
 
 On the l.st of December, 1852, his factory was burned to the 
 ground, with all its v^aluable patterns, stock, etc., involving a * 
 
 loss to him of two hundred thousand dollars. The interruption I 
 
 to his business was very serious, apart from the loss of his ^ 
 
 property. Expressions of sympathy poured in upon him from 
 his friends, coupled with offers of pecuniary assistance in his J 
 
 efforts to reestablish his business. His disaster seemed merely 
 to inspire him with fresh energy, but the kindness of his friends 
 entirely overcame him. 
 
 He wasted no time in vain regrets, but at once went to work. 
 
 He was fifty-four years old, but he showed an energy and 
 determination which more than rivaled the fire of his young 
 manhood. The loss of his factory was not only a severe blow 
 
 “l<y SHALL NOT SUFFER" 
 
 i 
 
JONAS CHICKKRING. 
 
 137 
 
 to him, but to the three hundred workmen who had been 
 employed in it, and who were dependent upon their wages for 
 their support. His first care was to assure them that they 
 should not suffer, but that they should continue to receive their 
 wages as regularly as though nothing had happened to inter¬ 
 rupt their labor. He had always been kind and generous to 
 his employes, paying liberal wages, and rewarding especial 
 merit, but this act of kindness did tnore to endear him to 
 them than any previous benefaction. Having provided for 
 his men, he set to work to prepare temporary accommoda¬ 
 tions for his business, and then began his arrangements for the 
 construction of a new factory. He took a great degree of inter¬ 
 est in the plans for the new building, the architect being almost 
 entirely guided by his suggestions, and the result of his labors 
 is the magnificent building to which reference was made at the 
 opening of this chapter. He did not live to see it completed, 
 however. He died at the house of a friend from the rupture 
 of a blood-vessel, produced, it is believed, by severe mental 
 labor, on the 8th of December, 1853. His fortune at the time 
 of his death was estimated at a quarter of a million of dollars. 
 H is sons assumed the charge of the business, which they still 
 conduct. 
 
 The loss of Mr. Chickering w'as felt by all classes of his fel¬ 
 low-citizens—especially by the poor. To them he had been a 
 kind and generous friend. Distress never appealed to him in 
 vain, and he proved a faithful steward of the riches committed 
 CO his care. Yet he performed his charities with such a modesty 
 and reticence that few beside the grateful recipients were awai'c 
 of them. Indeed, it was his custom to enjoin secrecy iquin 
 those whom he assisted; but they would not remain quiet. 
 His liberality is in striking contrast with the closeness ol 
 many who were worth more than twenty times his wealth, but 
 wiio lacked Ids warm and symi)athizing nature. 
 
138 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 CHAPTEK YII, 
 
 NICHOLAS LONGWORTH. 
 
 ME grape culture of the United States is yet in 
 its infancy. Although the annual wine product 
 is estimated at nearly three millions of gallons, 
 there can be no doubt that ei’e many years shall 
 have elapsed America will rank as one of the 
 most im[)ortant wine countries of the world. California is 
 already extending her vineyards for miles along her smiling 
 valleys, where the clear sky and the balmy air, which are un¬ 
 changeable at the season of the grape harvest, permit a degree 
 of perfection in the fruit unattainable in any European country. 
 Already her wines are commanding an enviable place in the 
 markets of the world, with no apparent limits to the growing 
 demand for them. The hillsides of the lower Ohio Valley are 
 lined with thriving vineyards, whose rich clusters of Catawba 
 and Isabella grapes delight the eye on every hand, and thou¬ 
 sands of acres are now given to successful grape culture, where 
 formerly only a few straggling vines were seen. More than 
 five hundred thousand gallons of wine are now annually'jjro- 
 duced ill the neighborhood of Cincinnati alone, and find a 
 market in that city, and what was but a few years ago a mere 
 experiment is now one of the chief sources of the wonderful 
 jirospcrity of the Ohio Valley, and one of the most important 
 features in the commerce of the Queen City of the West. Thti 
 
NICHOLAS LONGWORTH. 
 
 13!} 
 
 success which has attended this branch of our industry must be 
 a matter of congratulation to the whole country, and the man 
 to whose courage, energy, and liberality it is mainly due must 
 be regarded as a public benefactor. 
 
 This man, Nicholas Longworth by name, was born at 
 Newark, New Jersey, on the 16th of January, 1782. His father 
 had been a man of large property, but in consequence of being 
 a Tory during the Revolution, his possessions were confiscated, 
 and he and his family impoverished. Young Nicholas’s child¬ 
 hood was passed in indigence, and it is said that he wa.s 
 apprenticed to a shoemaker, when a mere lad, to learn the 
 trade as a means of livelihood. However this may be, it is 
 certain that when very young he went to South Carolina as a 
 clerk for his elder brother. The climate of the South, however, 
 did ni)t suit his health, and he returned to Newark, and began 
 the study of the law. 
 
 He was poor, and the East was overcrowded, even at that 
 early day, and offered but few inducements to a young man 
 entirely dependent upon his own efforts. Ohio was then the 
 “ Far West,” and emigration was setting in toward it rapidly. 
 Those who had seen the country related what then seemed mar¬ 
 velous tales of its wonderful fertility and progress. Few ])ro- 
 fessional men w'ere seeking the distant land, and Longworth 
 felt convinced that the services of such as did go would assur¬ 
 edly be in demand, and he resolved to cast his lot with the 
 West. 
 
 In 1803, at the age of twenty-one, he removed to the little 
 village of Cincinnati, and, having fixed upon this place as his 
 future home, entered the law office of Judge Jacob Burnet, 
 long the ablest jurist in Ohio. He soon won the confidence and 
 esteem of his instructor, and succeeded so well in his studies 
 
 I 
 
 that in an unusually short time he was admitted to the bar. 
 
140 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE, 
 
 He entered upon the practice of his profession with energy, and 
 soon acquired a profitable business, which increased rapidly. 
 He was a man of simple habits, and lived economically. His 
 savings were considerable, and were regularly invested by him 
 in real estate in the suburbs of the town. Land was cheap 
 at that time, some of his lots costing him but ten dollars each. 
 Long before his death they were worth more than as many 
 thousands. He had a firm conviction that Cincinnati was des¬ 
 tined to become one of the largest and most flourishing cities 
 in the Union, and that his real estate would increase in value at 
 a rate which would render him wealthy in a very few years. 
 
 His first client was a man accused of horse-stealing, in those 
 days the most heinous offense known to Western law. Long- 
 worth secured his acquittal, but the fellow had no money to 
 pay his counsel, and in the absence of funds gave Longworth 
 two second-hand copper stills, which were his property. These 
 the lawyer accepted, thinking that he could easily dispose of 
 them for cash, as they were rare and valuable there in those 
 days. They were in the keeping of Mr. Joel Williams, who 
 carried on a tavern adjacent to the river, and who was after¬ 
 ward one of the largest property-holders in Cincinnati. Mr. 
 MJlliams Avas building a distillery at the time, and, as he had 
 confidently reckoned upon using the two stills in his possession, 
 was considerably nonplused when Longworth presented his 
 order for them. In his extremity he offered to purchase them 
 from the lawyer for a lot of thirty-three acres of barren land in 
 the town, Avhich was then worth little or nothing. Longworth 
 hesitated, for although he had an almost prophetic belief in the 
 future value of the land, he was sorely in need of ready money ; 
 but at length he accepted the offer. The deed for the land 
 was made out in his name, and the stills became the property 
 of Mr. Williams. The distillery Avas built, and its OAvner 
 
NICHOLAS LONCiWOliTH. 
 
 141 
 
 realized a fortune; but Longworth did more. His tliirty-tliree 
 acres of barren land Avere soon in the very heart of Cincin¬ 
 nati, and long before his death Avere valued at tAvo millions 
 of dollars. 
 
 The foresight of Mr. LongAvorth Avas fully justified by the 
 course of events. The growth of Cincinnati Avas almost mar¬ 
 velous in its rapidity. In 1802, it contained about 800 inhab¬ 
 itants; in 1810, 2,540; in 1820, 9,060; in 1830, 24,831; in 
 1840, 46,338; in 1850, 118,761; and in 1860, just three years 
 before Mr. LongAVorth’s death, 171,293 inhabitants. The reader 
 can easily imagine the immense profits Avhich a half century’s 
 increase placed in the hands of the far-seeing laAvyer. It seems 
 almost like reading some old fairy tale to peruse the accounts 
 of successful ventures in real estate in American cities. They 
 have sprung up as if by magic, and it is impossible to say Avhere 
 their development Avill end. Said a gentleman of less than 
 thirty-five years of age to the Avriter of these pages, I am the 
 oldest natiA'^e-born citizen of Chicago. When I first saAV the 
 light, my native place could not boast even the dignity of a 
 village; and young as I am, I have Avitnessed all this Avonder- 
 ful groAvth.” The prosperity of Cincinnati Avas scarcely less 
 marked, as the career of Mr. LongAVorth sIioaa’s. The iin'est- 
 ment of a comparatively insignificant sum laid the foundation 
 of his fortune, and the first counsel fee he ever earned, a sum 
 trifling in itself, placed him in possession of millions. 
 
 Mr. LongAvorth continued carefully to iuA’est his gains in 
 real estate. The prices paid by him increased, of course, Avith 
 the rise in the value of propei’ty, but as he AA'as persuaded that 
 the limit had not yet been reached, he extended his operations 
 Avithout fear of loss. He sold many of his original purchases, 
 but continued until the day of his death the largest land-oAvner 
 in the city. In 1850 his taxes Avere over $17,000, and in the 
 
142 
 
 KINGS OF FOETUNE. 
 
 same year the taxes of William B. Astor amounted to $23,116. 
 At the time of his death Mr. Longworth’s estate was valued at 
 fifteen millions of dollars, and is doubtless worth fully one- 
 third more at the present day. 
 
 Mr. Longworth retired from the practice of the law in 1819, 
 to devote himself to the management of his property, which 
 was already sufficiently important to require his undivided at¬ 
 tention. He had always been an entliusiast in horticultural 
 matters, and believing that the climate of the Ohip Valley was 
 admirably adapted to the production of grapes, liad for some 
 time been making experiments in that direction; but he fidl 
 into the error of believing that only the foreign vines were 
 worth cultivating, and his experiments were unsuccessful. The 
 foreign grape did not mature well, and the vune produced from 
 it was not good. In 1828 his friend IMajor Adlum sent him 
 some specimens of the Catawba grape, which he had procured 
 from the garden of a German living near Washington City, 
 and he began to experiment with it in his own vineyai’d. 
 
 The Catawba grape, now so popular and well-known through¬ 
 out the country, was then a comparative stranger to our people, 
 and was regarded even by many who were acquainted with it 
 as unfit for vintage purposes. It was first discovered in a wild 
 condition about 1801, near Asheville, Buncombe County, North 
 Carolina, near the source of the Catawba Biver. General Davy, 
 of Rocky IMount, on that river, afterward Senator from North 
 Carolina, is supposed to have given the German in whose gar¬ 
 den Major Adlum found the grape a few of the vines to ex¬ 
 periment upon. General Davy always regarded the bringing 
 of this grape into notice as the greatest act of his life. ‘‘I 
 have done my country a greater benefit in introducing this 
 grape into public notice,” said he, in after years, “than I 
 would have done if I had paid the national debt. ” 
 
NICHOLAS LOAGWOliTH. 
 
 143 
 
 Mr. Longworth’s experiments with the Catawba were highly 
 successful, and induced him to abandon all his efforts with 
 foreign vines, and undertake only the Catawba, to which he 
 afterward added the Isabella. He now entered systematically 
 upon grape-growing. He established a large vineyard uj)on a 
 hillside slojiing down to the river, about four miles above the 
 city, and employed German laborers, whose knowledge of vine¬ 
 dressing, acquired in the Fatherland, made them the best work¬ 
 men he couljd have. He caused it to be announced that all the 
 grape juice produced by the small growers in the vicinity 
 would find a cash purchaser in him, no matter in what quan¬ 
 tities offered. At the same time he offered a reward of five 
 hundred dollars for any improvement in the quality of the 
 Catawba grape. 
 
 The enthusiasm which he manifested, as well as the liberality 
 of his offer, had a decidedly beneficial effect upon the small 
 growers in the neighborhood. “ It proved a great stimulus to 
 the growth of the Catawba vine in the country around Cincin¬ 
 nati,” to know that a- man of Mr. Longworth’s means stood 
 ready to pay cash, at the rate of from a dollar to a dollar and a 
 quarter a gallon, for all the grape-juice that might be*brought 
 to him, without reference to the quantity. It was in this way, 
 and by urgent popular appeals through the columns of the 
 newspapers, that he succeeded, after many failures, and against 
 the depressing influence of much doubt and indifference, in 
 bringing the enterprise up to its present high and stable po¬ 
 sition. When he took the matter in hand there was much to 
 discourage any one not possessed of the traits of constancy of 
 purfwse and persevei’ance peculiar to IMr. Longworth. Many 
 had tried the manufacture of wine, and had failed to give it 
 any economical or commercial importance. It was not believed, 
 until Mr. Longworth practically demonstrated it, that a native 
 
144 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 grape was the only one upon which any hope could be placed^ 
 and that the Catawba olfered the most assured promise of suc¬ 
 cess, and was the one upon which all vine-growers might with 
 confidence depend. It took years of unremitted care, multi¬ 
 plied and wide-spread investigations, and the expenditure of 
 large sums of money, to establish this fact, and bring the agri¬ 
 cultural community to accept it and act under its guidance. 
 The success attained by Mr. Longworth soon induced other 
 gentlemen resident in the vicinity of Cincinnati, and favorably 
 situated for the purpose, to undertake the culture of the Catawba, 
 and several of them are now regularly and extensively engaged 
 in the manufactui’e of wine. The impetus and encouragement 
 thus given to the business soon led the German citizens of 
 Hamilton County to perceive its advantages, and, under their 
 thrifty management, thousands of acres, stretching up from the 
 banks of the Ohio, are now covered with luxuriant and profit¬ 
 able vineyards, rivaling in profusion and beauty the vine-clad 
 hills of Italy and France. The oldest vineyard in the county 
 of Hamilton is of Mr. Longworth’s planting.” 
 
 IMr. Longworth subsequently increased the size of his vine¬ 
 yard to 1^vo hundred acres, and toward the close of his life his 
 wine houses annually produced one hundred and fifty thousand 
 bottles of wine. His vaults usually contained a stock of three 
 hundred thousand bottles in course of thorough ripening. 
 
 His cellars were situated on the declivity of East Sixth 
 Street, on the road to Observatory Hill. They occupied a 
 space ninety feet by one hundred and twenty-five in size, and 
 consisted of two tiers of massive stone vaults, the lower of 
 which was twenty-five feet below the sui'face of the ground. 
 The manufacture of the wine was placed under the charge of a 
 celebrated chemist from Rheims, and the mode of preparation 
 was as follows: 
 
NICHOLAS I.ONGWOETH. 
 
 145 
 
 After the pressing of the grape, tlio juice is subjected to tlie 
 vinous fermeutatiou, by which ten or eleven per cent, of alcohol 
 is developed. In the following spring, it is mixed with a small 
 quantity of sugar, and put into strong bottles, the corks of 
 which are secured with twine and wire. The sugar accelerates 
 a second fermentation, which always takes place about this 
 time, and thus a strong movement is ])roduced inside the glass, 
 which generates gas enough to burst the vessels briskly, adding 
 thereby considerably to the cost. This is known as the gaseous 
 fermentation, and the effect of it is to render the wine more 
 enlivening, more stinging to the taste, and more fruity. “This 
 last effect results from this, that the flavor of the fruit mostly 
 passes off with the carbonic acid gas, wliich is largely generated 
 in the first or vinous fermentation, and in a less degree in this 
 second or gaseous fermentation.” It is impossible to avoid the 
 loss of the flavor in the first fermentation, but the strong bottles 
 and securely-fastened corks preserve it in the second. The 
 liquid, which is muddy at first, becomes clear in about a year, 
 a thick sediment having collected at the bottom of the bottle. 
 The bottles are then placed in racks, with their necks down¬ 
 ward, and are shaken vigorously every day for about three 
 weeks. This forces the sediment to settle down in the neck 
 against the cork. When it is all in the neck, the wires are cut, 
 and the cork blown out by the gas, carrying the sediment with 
 it. Fresh sugar, for sweetness, is now added, new corks are 
 driven in and secured, and in a few weeks the wine is ready 
 for the market. 
 
 Mr. Longworth continued his wine trade with great succe.ss 
 for about twenty-five years, and though for some time his 
 expenditures were largely in excess of his income from this 
 source, he at length reaped a steady and increasing profit from 
 it, which more than reimbursed him for his former losses. He 
 
146 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 was very fond of the strawberry, and succeeded, by careful and 
 expensive cultivation, in making several very important im¬ 
 provements in that delicious fruit. His experiments in the 
 sexual character of the strawberry are highly interesting, but 
 must be passed by here. He manifested no selfishness with 
 respect to his fruits. He was anxious that their cultivation 
 should become general, and his discoveries and improvements 
 were always at the service of any and every one who desired to 
 make use of them. 
 
 He was thoroughly devoted to his adopted home, and anxious 
 to secure its steady improvement. When it was proposed to 
 establish an observatory, the Mount Adams property, then 
 owned by him, was regarded as the most fitting site for it. 
 He was asked to name the price for which he would sell the 
 property. To the astonishment of the parties in charge of 
 the enterprise, he made a free gift of the land—four acres in 
 extent—to the trustees. A gentleman who had hoped to dis¬ 
 pose of some of his own property for this purpose charged Mr. 
 Longworth, through the press, with being influenced by a 
 desire to improve his adjoining property by the erection of 
 the observatory on Mount Adams. Longworth promptly 
 replied that if the writer of the article in question would 
 donate four acres of his own property for an observatory, he 
 (Longworth) Avould put up, at his own expense, a building 
 on it equal to that which had been erected on Mount Adams, 
 and transfer the latter place to the city as a permanent pleasure 
 ground. He quietly added that in this way his accuser might 
 himself receive, for his adjacent property, all the benefits 
 of such an improvement, and at the same time win for 
 himself the lasting gratitude of the people of Cincinnati. 
 This settled the matter, and no more was heard from the 
 other side. 
 
NICHOLAS LONG WORTH. 
 
 147 
 
 Longworth,” says one who knew him, “ is a problem and a 
 riddle—a problem worthy of the study of those who delight in 
 exploring that labyrinth of all that is hidden and mysterious, 
 the human heart; and a riddle to himself and others. He is a 
 wit and a humorist of a high order; of keen sagacity and 
 shrewdness in many other respects than in money matters; one 
 who can be exact to a dollar, and liberal, when he chooses, 
 with thousands; of marked peculiarity and tenacity in his own 
 opinions, yet of abundant tolerance to the opinions, however 
 extravagant, of others—a man of great jHiblic spirit and sound 
 general judgment. 
 
 “ In addition to all this, it would be difficult to find an indi¬ 
 vidual of his position and standing so perfectly free from 
 pride, in the ordinary sense. He has absolutely none, unless it 
 be the pride of eccentricity. It is no uncommon circumstance 
 for men to become rich by the concentration of time, and labor, 
 and attention to some one object of jirofitable employment. 
 This is the ordinary phase of money-getting, as closing the ear 
 and pocket to applications for aid is that of money-saving. 
 Longworth has become a rich man on a different principle. 
 He appears to have started upon the calcidation that if he 
 coukf put any individual in the way of making a dollar Jbr 
 Longworth, and a dollar for himself at the same time, by akl- 
 ing him Muth ground for a lot, or in building him a house 
 on it; and if, moreover, he could multiply cases of the kind 
 by hundreds, or perhaps thousands, he would ])romote his own 
 interests just in the same measure as he was advancing those of 
 others. At the same time he could not be unconscious that, 
 while their half was subdivided into small possessions, owned 
 by a thousand or more individuals, his half was a vast, boundless 
 aggregate, since it was the property of one man alone. The event 
 has done justice to his sagacity. Hundreds, if not thousands, 
 
148 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 in and adjacent to Cincinnati, now own houses and lots, and 
 many have become wealthy, who would, in all probability, have 
 lived and died as tenants under a different state of case. Had 
 not Mr. Longworth adopted this course, he would have occu¬ 
 pied that relation to society which many wealthy men now sus¬ 
 tain, that of getting all they can and keeping all they get.” 
 
 In politics, Mr. Longworth was a Whig, and afterward a 
 Republican. During the famous Clay campaign he was asked 
 to give one hundred dollars to help defray the expenses of the 
 party. 
 
 “ I never give something for nothing,” said he. “We might 
 fail to elect Clay, as we did before, and I should fling away the 
 hundred dollars.” 
 
 The applicant, who was himself a man of wealth, assured 
 him that there was no doubt of Clay’s election. 
 
 “ There can be no chance of your losing,” he said. 
 
 “ Well,” replied Longworth, “ I ’ll tell you what I will do. 
 I will give you the hundred dollars, but mind, you shall be 
 personally responsible to me for its return if Clay is not 
 elected.” 
 
 The offer was accepted; and when the campaign resulted in 
 the defeat of Clay, Longworth demanded his money from the 
 politician, who was compelled to return it out of his own 
 pocket. 
 
 In his own way—and a quaint, singular way it was—Mr. 
 Longworth was exceedingly charitable. Long after he was 
 worth millions, and when every moment of his time was valu¬ 
 able, he was sujiernumerary township trustee. This was an 
 office which required the expenditure of a considerable portion 
 of his time, and brought him in constant contact with some of 
 the most wretched of the lowest class of the poor. He was 
 always in his office, at stated times, and with a patience and 
 
NICHOLAS LOXGWOlU’M. 
 
 140 
 
 kindness worthy of all admiration, the millionaire listened to 
 their sad tales, and provided such aid as was necessary, often¬ 
 times giving it out of his own purse when the public funds 
 foiled. 
 
 He was a bitter foe to vagabondage and mendicity. If peo- 
 pk in need were willing to work, he would place them in the 
 way of doing so. He was the owner of a stone quarry on 
 Deer Creek, the traces of which may still be seen in the lines 
 of the new Gilbert Avenue; and he kept in his office a sujiply 
 of picks and shovels. When a stout beggar asked him for 
 alms, he would inquire if he was willing to go to work. If 
 answered affirmatively, he would give him a pick and shovel, 
 and start him for the quarry, where the wages were promptly 
 paid out every night. Many availed themselves of the oppor¬ 
 tunity, and worked for him faithfully; but others gave the 
 quarry “ a wide berth,’’ and sold the pick and shovel for 
 money or liquor. It was his custom to buy large quantities of 
 bread tickets from the bakers, and to distribute them to those 
 whom he considered worthy; and he would also kee]) ou hand 
 large quantities of shoes, dry goods, etc., which he gave away 
 in the same manner. 
 
 !Mr. Frank Pentland, who was once in his employ, relates 
 the following incident: 
 
 ‘‘One morning, just after Mr. Longworth had gone to his 
 office, near the Third-Street entrance, where he was accustomed 
 to receive ajiplicants for charity, he was accosted by a man who 
 craved assistance. In answer to a question as to his needs, he 
 replied that his main want was a pair of shoes, and a glance at 
 his feet showed that he spoke trnthfully. Mr. Longworth ap¬ 
 peared ‘to take his measure’ at a glance, and impulsively 
 shaking his right foot (he seldom wore his shoes tied), kicked 
 the shoe over to the applicant, saying: 
 
KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 I 
 
 150 
 
 Try that on, my man. How does it fit?’ • 
 
 ‘ Illigant, yer honor.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Well, try that, now, ’ said he, kicking off the other. ‘ How 
 will they do ? ’ 
 
 “ ‘ Illigant, yer honor; illigant! May many a blessing’— 
 
 “‘Well, well, go now—that’ll do,’ and turning to Pentland, 
 who was then a young boy in his service, ordered him to the 
 house to get another pair. Frank obeyed, but was told by Mrs. 
 Longworth that those he wore away from the house were all 
 that he had. The result was that Frank was hurried off to 
 William Hart’s shoe store, on Fifth Street, for new ones, with 
 instructions to ‘ Ask Mr. Hart for the kind I always buy, and 
 don’t pay over a dollar and a half for them.’” 
 
 Yet many persons charged this man with stinginess— a 
 charge to which every rich man lays himself open who does 
 not give to all who ask him. Even the rich must refuse some¬ 
 times, for there is no reason why they should answer all the 
 calls made upon them—a course which would soon impoverish 
 them. They must discriminate somewhere, and how this shall 
 be done is a question which each must decide for himself. 
 Longworth exercised this discrimination in an eccentric man¬ 
 ner, eminently characteristic of him. He invariably refused 
 cases that commended themselves to others. A gentleman once 
 applied to him for assistance for a widow in destitute circum¬ 
 stances. 
 
 “Who is she?” asked the millionaire. “Do you know her? 
 Is she a deserving object?” 
 
 “ She is not only a woman of excellent character,” answered 
 his friend, “ but she is doing all in her power to support a large 
 family of children.” 
 
 “ Very well, then,” said Mr. Longworth, “I slia’n’t give a 
 cent. Such persons will always find a plenty to relieve them.” 
 
XICHOLAS I>ONGWORTH. 
 
 151 
 
 He was firm, and turned coldly from the entreaties of his 
 friend. Yet he opened his purse liberally to those whom others 
 refused. Vagabonds, drunkards, fallen women, those who had 
 gone down far into the depths of misery and wretchedness, and 
 from whom respectable people shrank in disgust, never ap¬ 
 pealed to him in vain. “The devil’s poor,” he whimsically 
 called them. He would listen to them patiently, moved to the 
 depths of his soul by their sad stories, and would send them 
 away rejoicing that they were not utterly friendless. “Decent 
 paupers will always find a plenty to help them, ” he would 
 say, “ but no One cares for these poor wretches. Every body 
 damns them, and as no one else will help them, I must. ” Yet 
 he aided them in such a manner as to encourage them to rise 
 above their wretchedness. 
 
 In his personal appearance ]\Ir. Longworth was not prepos¬ 
 sessing. He Avas diy and caustic in his remarks, and rai'ely 
 spared the object of his satire. He Avas plain and careless in 
 his dress, looking more like a beggar than a millionaire. He 
 cared nothing for dress, except, perhaps, that he preferred 
 common clothes to fine ones. One of his acquaintances re¬ 
 lates the following story in illustration of this phase of his 
 character: 
 
 “ lilanv AA’inters ago, it Avill be remembered that a style of 
 striped goods was quite popular Avith poor people on account of 
 its cheapness, and that it acquired the name of ‘ Hard Times.’ 
 Every body Avith scant purses Avore coats or pants of it, for the 
 reason that they could not A'ery Avell buy any other kind. As 
 the story goes, it appears that ‘ Old Nick, ’ as he Avas familiarly 
 called, invested in an overcoat of this material, and took great 
 pride in Avearing it, much to the annoyance of the Avomen 
 folks. It happened that one cold, stormy night the fiuthful 
 
 family coachman Awas at the house Avithout an overcoat, and 
 10 
 
152 
 
 KINGS OP FOKTUKE. 
 
 ]Mrs. Longwortli, after very feelingly depicting his forlorn con¬ 
 dition to her husband, solicited the privilege of giving him the 
 aforesaid overcoat. ISIuch to her gratification, Mr. Longworth 
 assented, and the coachman wore off the ‘ Hard Times, ’ the 
 good wife replacing it by an elegant broadcloth that she had 
 quietly provided for the occasion. The next morning ‘ Old 
 Nick ’ very innocently (?) overlooked the new coat, and went off 
 to make his usual morning rounds without one; but it would 
 be impossible to portray the annoyance of the household when 
 they saw him returning to dinner wearing a duplicate of the 
 veritable ‘ Hard Times, ’ and for weeks afterward it was no 
 uncommon occurrence to see the ‘ master and man ’ flitting about 
 the old homestead dressed in their gray stripes.” 
 
 The shabbiness of his dress once led to an amusing adven¬ 
 ture, which he enjoyed very much. Climbing one of the hilly 
 streets of the city one broiling summer day, he sat down on a 
 ])ile of brieks, under the cool shade of a tree, to rest. Taking 
 off his well-worn hat, he laid it on his knee, and elosiug his 
 eyes, sat enjoving the breeze which had just then sprung up. 
 He was very tired, and his whole figure expressed his weari¬ 
 ness. As he sat there in his shabby dress, with his eyes closed, 
 and his hat resting on his knees, he looked the very pieture of 
 a blind beggar soliciting charity. For such, indeed, he was mis¬ 
 taken by a working man who passed by a few minutes later, 
 and who, pitying the supposed unfortunate, tossed a few pennies 
 into his hat. The noise of the coppei’S made the old man open 
 his eyes and look up; and to his amazement the workman rec¬ 
 ognized in the object of his charity Xicholas Longworth, the 
 millionaire. Mr. Longworth looked at him a moment in his 
 dry, quizzical way, and then, thanking him politely, put the 
 coins in his pocket, and, closing his eyes, once more resumed his 
 former position. 
 
NICHOLAS LONGWORTH. 
 
 153 
 
 Mr. Longworth had erected a magnificent mansion in the 
 midst of his vineyard. He gathered there a fine library, and 
 a collection of paintings, statuary, and other art treasures, which 
 were his pride. He died there on the 10th of February, 1863, 
 at the age of eighty-one. His loss was severely felt by the 
 community, especially by his “devil’s poor,” for whom he had 
 cared so tenderly. 
 

 TVi 
 
 V i 
 
 I 
 
 .1 
 
 ' I 
 
OEOROE PEABODY. 
 
GEOKGE I’EABODY. 
 
 Jo; 
 
 OIIAPTEE VIII. 
 
 GEORGE PEABODY. 
 
 T is not often that men who pass their lives in the 
 acquisition of money are able to retain the desire 
 to give it to others who have had no share in the 
 earning of it. In European countries^ the wealthy 
 merchant commonly uses his fortune for the pur¬ 
 pose of founding a family, and securing sometimes a title of 
 nobility. His wealth is entailed, that it may remain in his 
 family and benefit remote generations; but few save those of his 
 own blood enjoy any benefit from it, and the world is no better 
 off for his life and success than if he had never been born. In 
 America, instances of personal generosity and benevolence on a 
 large scale are of more common occurrence than in the Old 
 World. We have already borne witness to the munificence of 
 Girard, Astor, Lawrence, Longworth, and Stewart, and shall 
 yet present to the reader other instances of this kind in the 
 remaining pages of this work. We have now to trace the 
 career of one who far exceeded any of these in the extent and 
 magnitude of his liberality, and who, while neglecting none 
 connected with him by ties of blood, took the whole English- 
 speaking race for his family, and by scattering his blessings far 
 and wide on both sides of the Atlantic, has won a proud name 
 “ As one who loved his fellow-men.” 
 
 George Peabody came of an old English family, which 
 
158 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 traced its descent back to the year of our Lord 61, the days of 
 the heroic Boadicea, down through the brilliant circle of the 
 Knights of the Round Table, to Francis Peabody, who in 1635 
 went from St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, to the New World, 
 and settled in Danvers, Massachusetts, where the subject of 
 this memoir was born one hundred and sixty years later, on 
 the 18th of February, 1795. The parents of George Peabody 
 were poor, and hard work was the lot to which he was born, 
 a lot necessary to develop his sterling qualities of mind and 
 heart. He was possessed of a strong, vigorous constitution, 
 and a quick, penetrating intellect. His education was limited, 
 for he was taken from school at the age of eleven, and set to 
 earning his living. Upon leaving school, he was apprenticed 
 to a Mr. Sylvester Proctor, who kept a “ country store ” in 
 Danvers. Here he worked hard and faithfully for four or five 
 years, devoting himself, with an energy and determination sur¬ 
 prising in one so young, to learn the first principles of business. 
 His mind matured more rapidly than his body, and he was a 
 man in intellect long before he was out of his teens. Having 
 gained all the information it was possible to acquire in so small 
 an establishment, he began to wish for a wider field for the ex¬ 
 ercise of his abilities. A retail grocery store was no longer 
 the place for one possessed of such talents, and thoroughly con¬ 
 scious of them at such an early age, and it was natural that he 
 should desire some more important and resi)onsible position. 
 
 Accordingly, he left Mr. Proctor’s employment, and spent a 
 year with his maternal grandfather at Post INIills village, 
 Thetford, Vermont. “George Peabody’s year at Post Mills,” 
 says a writer who knew him, “ must have been a year of in¬ 
 tense quiet, with good examples always before him, and good 
 advice whenever occasion called for it; for Mr. Dodge and his 
 wife were both too shrewd to bore him with it needlessly. 
 
GEORGE PEABODY, 
 
 159 
 
 “The interest with which iNIr. Peabody remembered this 
 visit to Post Mills is shown by his second visit so late in life, 
 and his gift of a library—as large a library as that place needs. 
 Of its influence on his subsequent career, of course, there is no 
 record. Perhaps it was not much. But, at least, it gave him 
 a good chance for quiet thinking, at an age when he needed it; 
 and the labors of the farm may have been useful both to mind 
 and body.” 
 
 At the*age of sixteen, in the year 1811, he went to Xew- 
 buryport, and became a clerk in the store of his elder brother, 
 David Peabody, who was engaged in the dry goods business at 
 
 “ It was on his return from this visit that he spent a night at 
 a tavern in Concord, N. H., and paid for his entertainment by 
 sawing wood the next morning. That, however, must have 
 been a piece of George’s own voluntary economy, for Jeremiah 
 Dodge would never have sent his grandson home to Danvers 
 without the means of procuring the necessaries of life on the 
 Avay, and still less, if possible, would INIrs. Dodge. . . . 
 
IGO 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 that place. He exhibited unusual capacity and promise in his 
 calling, and soon drew upon himself the favorable attention of 
 the merchants of the place. He was prompt, reliable, and en¬ 
 ergetic, and from the first established an enviable reputation for 
 personal and professional integrity. It is said that he earned 
 here the first money he ever made outside of his business. 
 This was by writing ballots for the Federal party in Newbury- 
 port. Printed ballots had not then come into use. 
 
 He did not stay long in Kewburyport, as a great fire, which 
 burned up a considerable part of the town, destroyed his 
 brother’s store, and obliged him to seek employment else- 
 whei’e. He always retained a Avarm attachment to the place, 
 however, an attachment Avhich a resident of the tOAvn explains 
 as follows: 
 
 “The cause of Mr. George Peabody’s interest in Newbury- 
 port was not alone that he had lived here for a brief period, 
 or that his relatives had lived here; but rather it was the 
 Avarm friendship that had been shoAvn him, Avhich was, in fact, 
 the basis of his subsequent prosperity. He left here in 1811, 
 and returned in 1857. The forty-six intervening years had 
 borne to the graA'e most of the persons Avith Avhom he had 
 formed acquaintance. Among those he recognized were several 
 Avho were in business, or clerks, on State Street in 1811,— 
 Messrs. John Porter, !Moses Kimball, Prescott Spaulding, and 
 a feAV others. Mr. Spaulding AA^as fourteen years older than 
 Mr. Peabody, and in business Avhen the latter Avas a clerk Avith 
 his uncle. Colonel John Peabody. Mr. Peabody Avas here in 
 1857, on the day of the Agricultural Fair, and AA^as Avalking 
 in the procession Avith the late Mayor Davenport, Avhen he saAv 
 ;Mr. Spaulding on the sideAvalk, and at once left the procession 
 to greet him. 
 
 “Mr. Spaulding had rendered him the greatest of services. 
 
GEOKOE I’EABODY, 
 
 101 
 
 When Mr. Peabody left Xewburyport, he was under age, and 
 not worth a dollar. Mr. Spaulding gave him letters of credit 
 in Boston, through which he obtained two thousand^ dollars’ 
 worth of merchandise of Mr. James Keed, who was so favor¬ 
 ably impressed with his appearance, that he subsequently gave 
 him credit for a larger amount. This was his start in life, as 
 he afterward acknowledged; for at a public entertainment in 
 Boston, when his credit was good for any amount, and in any 
 part of the world, Mr. Peabody laid his hand on Mr. Reed’s 
 shoulder, and said to those present, 'My friends, here is my 
 first patron; and he is the man who sold me my first bill of 
 goods.’ After he was established in Georgetown, D. C., the 
 first consignment made to him was by the late Francis Todd, 
 of Newburyport. It was from these facts that Newburyjiort 
 was always pleasant in his memory; and the donation he made 
 to the Public Library was on his own suggestion, that he de¬ 
 sired to do something of a public nature for our town.” 
 
 From Xew England, George Peabody turned his face south¬ 
 ward, and entered the employment of his uncle, Mr. John 
 Peabody, Avho was engaged in the dry goods business in 
 Georgetown, in the District of Columbia. He reached tliat 
 place in the spring of 1812; but, as the second war with Eng¬ 
 land broke out about the same time, was not able to give bis 
 immediate attention to business. He became a member of a 
 volunteer company of artillery, which was stationed at Fort 
 Warburton, but as no active duty was rc(pured of the com¬ 
 pany, he soon went back to his uncle’s store. His uncle was 
 a poor man and a bad manager, and for two years the business 
 was conducted by Geoi’ge Peabody, and in his own name; but 
 at the end of that time, seeing the business threatened with 
 ruin by his uncle’s incapacity, he resigned his situation, and 
 entered the service of Mr. Elisha Riggs, who had just estab- 
 
162 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 lisiied a wholesale dry goods house in Georgetown. ISIr. Riggs 
 furnished the capital for the concern, and Mr. Peabody was 
 given the management of it. Soon after this, the latter be¬ 
 came a partner in the house. It is said that when Mr. Riggs 
 invited Mr. Peabody to become his partner, the latter informed 
 him that he could not legally assume the responsibilities of the 
 business, as he was only nineteen years old. This was no 
 objection in the mind of the merchant, as he wanted a young 
 and active assistant, and had discerned in his boy-manager 
 the qualities which never fail to win success. 
 
 The new business in which he was engaged consisted chiefly 
 in the importation and sale of European goods, and consign¬ 
 ments of dry goods from the northern cities. It extended 
 over a wide field, and gave Mr. Peabody a fine opportunity for 
 the display of his abilities. INIr. Riggs’ friends blamed him 
 very much for leaving his business so entirely in the hands of 
 a boy of nineteen; but he had better proof than they that his 
 affairs were not only in good but in the best hands, and he an¬ 
 swered them all by telling them that time would justify his 
 course. Mr. Peabody traveled extensively in establishing his 
 business, loften journeying into the wild and unsettled regions 
 of the border States on horseback. He worked with energy 
 and intelligence, and in 1815 the business was found to be 
 so extensive that a removal to Baltimore became necessary. 
 About this time a sort of irregular banking business was added 
 to the operations of the house. This was chiefly the sugges¬ 
 tion of Mr. Peabody, and proved a source of great profit. 
 
 Mr. Peabody quickly took a prominent rank among the 
 merchants of Baltimore. His manner was frank and engaging, 
 and won him many friends. He was noted for “ a judgment 
 quick and cautious, clear and sound, a decided purpose, a firm 
 will, energetic and persevering industry, punctuality and fidelity 
 
(Ji;<)l!Gi: PKALODV. 
 
 163 
 
 in every engagement, justice and honor controlling every trans¬ 
 action, and courtesy—that true courtesy which springs from 
 genuine kindness—presiding over the intercourse of life.” 
 H is business continued to increase, and in 1822 it became nec¬ 
 essary to establish branches in Philadelphia and New York, 
 over which Mr. Peabody exercised a careful supervision. He 
 was thoroughly familiar with every detail of his business, and 
 never sutfered his vigilance to relax, however competent might 
 be the subordinates in the immediate charge of those details. 
 In 1827 he went to England on business for his firm, and dur¬ 
 ing the next ten years made frequent voyages between New 
 York and London. 
 
 In 1829 Mr. Riggs withdrew from the firm, and Mr. Pea¬ 
 body become the actual head of the house, the style of the 
 firm, which had previously been “ Riggs & Peabody,” being 
 •changed to “ Peabody, Riggs & Co.” The firm had for some 
 time been the financial agents of the State of Maryland, and 
 bad managed the negotiations confided to them with great skill 
 and success; and every year their banking department became 
 more important and more profitable. 
 
 In 1836 Mr. Peabody determined to extend his business, 
 which was already very laige, to England, and to open a 
 branch house in London. In 1837 he removed to that city 
 for the purpose of taking charge of liis house there, and from 
 that time London became his home. 
 
 The summer of this year was marked by one of the most 
 terrible commercial crises the United States has ever known. 
 A large number of the banks suspended specie payment, and 
 the majority of the mercantile houses were cither ruined or in 
 the greatest distress. Thousands of merchants, until then pros¬ 
 perous, were hopelessly ruined. “That great sympathetic nerve 
 of the commercial world, credit,” said Edward Everett, “as far 
 
164 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 as the United States was concerned, was for the time paralyzed. 
 At that moment Mr. Peabody not only stood firm himself, but 
 was the cause of firmness in others. There were not at that 
 time, probably, half a dozen other men in Europe who, upon 
 the subject of American securities, would have been listened to 
 for a moment in the parlor of the Bank of England, But his 
 judgment commanded respect; his integrity won back the re¬ 
 liance which men had been accustomed to place in American 
 securities. The reproach in which they were all involved was 
 gradually wiped away from those of a substantial character; 
 and if, on this solid basis of unsuspected good faith, he reared 
 his own prosperity, let it be remembered that at the same time 
 he retrieved the credit of the State of Maryland, of which he 
 was agent—performing that miracle by which the word of an 
 honest man turns paper into gold.” 
 
 The conduct of ^Ir. Peabody, as well as the evidences which 
 he gave of his I’emarkable capacity for business, in this crisis, 
 placed him among the foremost merchants of London. He 
 carried on his business upon a large scale from his base of 
 operations in that city. He bought British manufactures in 
 all parts of England and shipped them to the United States. 
 His vessels brought back in return all kinds of American pro¬ 
 duce which would command a ready sale in England. Prof¬ 
 itable as these ventures were, there was another branch of his 
 business much more remunerative to him. The merchants and 
 manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic who consigned 
 their goods to him frequently procured from him advances 
 upon the goods long before they were sold. At other times 
 thev would leave large sums in his hands long after the goods 
 were disposed of, knowing that they could draw whenever they 
 needed, and that in the meanwhile their money was being so 
 profitablv invested that they were certain of a proper interest 
 
GEORGE PEABODY. 
 
 165 
 
 for their loans. Thus Mr. Peabody gradually beearae a banker, 
 in which pursuit he was as successful as he had been as a mer¬ 
 chant. In 1843 he withdrew from the house of Peabody, 
 Riggs & Co., and established the house of “ George Peabody & 
 Company, of Warnford Court, City.” 
 
 His dealings were chiefly with America, and in American 
 securities, and he was always regarded as one of the best speci¬ 
 mens of the American merchant ever seen in London. He was 
 very proud of his country; and though he passed so many years 
 of his life abroad, he never forgot that he was an American. 
 In speaking of the manner in which he organized his business 
 establishment, he once said: “ I have endeavored, in the con¬ 
 stitution of its members and the character of its business, to 
 make it an American house, and to give it an American at¬ 
 mosphere; to furnish it with American journals; to make it a 
 center of American news, and an agreeable place for my Amer¬ 
 ican friends visiting London.” 
 
 It was his custom, from his first settlement in England, to 
 celebrate the anniversary of the independence of his country by 
 an entertainment at one of the public houses iu the city, to 
 which the most distinguished Americans in London were al¬ 
 ways invited, as were also many of the prominent men of Great 
 Britain; and this dinner was only discontinued in deference to 
 the general celebration of the day which was aftcrw'ard insti¬ 
 tuted by the whole body of Americans resident in the British 
 metropolis. In the year 1851, when it was thought that there 
 would be no representation of the achievements of American 
 skill and industry in the Great Exhibition of that year, from 
 a lack of funds, Mr. Peabody generously supplied the sum of 
 fifteen thousand dollars, which enabled the Commissioners to 
 make a suitable display of the American contributions. Said 
 the Hon. Edward Everett, alluding to this act: 
 
166 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 '' In most, perhaps in all other countries, this exhibition had 
 been a government atFair. Commissioners were appointed by 
 authority to protect the interests of the exhibitors; and, what 
 was more important, appropriations of money had been made- 
 to defray their expenses. Xo appropriations were made by 
 Congress. Our exhibitors arrived friendless, some of them 
 penniless, in the great commercial Babel of the world. They 
 found the portion of tlie Crystal Palace assigned to our country 
 unpi’epared for the specimens of art and industry which they 
 had brought with them; naked and unadorned by the side of 
 the neighboring arcades and galleries fitted up with elegance- 
 and splendor by the richest governments in Europe. The 
 English press began to^ launch its too ready sarcasms at the 
 sorry appearance which Brother Jonathan seemed likely to 
 make; and all the exhibitors from this country, as well as those- 
 who felt an interest in their success, were disheartened. At this 
 critical moment, our friend stepped forward. He did what 
 Congress should have done. By liberal advances on his part, 
 the American department was fitted up; and day after day, as¬ 
 sume new product of American ingenuity and taste was added 
 to the list,—McCormick’s reaper, Colt’s revolver, Powers’.s- 
 Greek Slave, Hobbs’s unpickable lock, Hoe’s wonderful print¬ 
 ing presses, and Bond’s more wonderful spring governor,—it 
 began to be suspeeted that Brother Jonathan was not quite so 
 much of a simpleton as had been thought. He had contributed 
 his full share, if not to the splendor, at least to the utilities of 
 the exhibition. In fact, the leading journal at London, with a 
 magnanimity which did it honor, admitted that England had 
 derived more real benefit from the contributions of the United. 
 States than from those of any other country.” 
 
 As has been said, Mr. Peabody made the bulk of his colossal 
 fortune in the banking business. He had a firm faith in Amer- 
 
(iEOKGK PEABODY. 
 
 167 
 
 lean securities, and dealt in them largely, and with confidence. 
 His business instinct was remarkable, his judgment in mercan¬ 
 tile and financial matters almost infallible, and he made few 
 mistakes. His course was now onward and upward, and each 
 year marked an increase of his wealth. His business operations 
 were conducted in pursuance of a rigid system which was never 
 relaxed. To the very close of his life he never abandoned the 
 exact or business-like manner in which- he sought to make 
 money. He gave away millions with a generosity never ex¬ 
 celled, yet he could be exacting to a penny in the fulfillment 
 of a contract. 
 
 In his youth he contracted habits of economy, and these he 
 retained to the last. Being unmarried, he did not subject 
 himself to the expense of a complete domestic establishment, 
 but lived in chambers, and entertained his friends at his club 
 or at a cotfee-house. His habits w'ere simple in every respect, 
 and he was often seen making his dinner on a mutton-chop at 
 a table laden (at his cost) with the most sumptuous and tempt¬ 
 ing viands. His personal expenses for ten years did not aver¬ 
 age three thousand dollars per annum. 
 
 The conductor on an English railway once ov'crcharged him 
 a shilling for fare. He promptly complained to the directors, 
 and had the man discharged. “ Not,” said he, that I could 
 not afford to pay the shilling, but the man was cheating many 
 travelers to whom the swindle would be offensive.” 
 
 Several years ago he chanced to ride in a hack in Salem, 
 Massachusetts, and upon reaching his destination tendered the 
 driver his usual fee of fifty cents. 
 
 “ Here’s your change, sir,” said the man, handing him back 
 fifteen cents. 
 
 “ Change! ” exclaimed Mr. Peabody ; “ why, I’m not entitled 
 to any.” 
 
168 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 “Yes, you are; I don’t charge but thirty-five cents for a 
 ride in my hack.” 
 
 “How do you live, then?” 
 
 “ By fair dealing, sir. I don’t believe in making a man pay 
 more than a thing is worth just because I have an oppor¬ 
 tunity.” 
 
 i\Ir. Peabody was so much pleased with this reply, that as 
 long as he remained in Salem he sought this man out and gave 
 him his custom. 
 
 In his dress Mr. Peabody was simple and unostentatious. He 
 was scrupulously neat and tasteful, but there was nothing about 
 him to indicate his vast wealth. He seldom wore any jewelry, 
 using merely a black band for his watch-guard. Display of all 
 kinds he abominated. 
 
 He made several visits to his native country during his last 
 residence in London, and commemorated each one of them by 
 acts of princely munificence. He gave large sums to the cause 
 of education, and to religious and charitable objects, and made 
 each one of his near kindred wealthy. None of his rela¬ 
 tives received less than one hundred thousand dollars, and 
 some were given as much as three times that sum. He gave 
 immense sums to the poor of London, and became their bene¬ 
 factor to such an extent that Queen Victoria sent him her 
 portrait, which she had caused to be executed for him at a cost 
 of over forty thousand dollars, in token of her appreciation of 
 his services in behalf of the poor of her realm. 
 
 ]\Ir. Peabody made another visit to the United States in 1866, 
 and upon this occasion added large sums to many of the dona¬ 
 tions he had already made in this country. He remained here 
 until May, 1867, when he returned to England. He came back 
 in June, 1869, but soon sailed again for England. His health 
 had become very feeble, and it was his belief that it would be 
 
GEOKGK PEABODY. 
 
 IGO 
 
 Getter in the atmosphere of London, to which he had been so 
 long accustomed. His hope of recovery was vain. He failed 
 to rally upon reaching London, and died in that city on the 4th 
 of November, 1869. 
 
 The news of his death created a profound sadness on botli 
 sides of the Atlantic, for his native and his adopted country 
 alike revered him as a benefactor. The Queen caused his body 
 to be placed in a vault in Westminster Abbey, amidst the 
 greatest and noblest of her kingdom, until all was in readiness 
 for its transportation to the United States in a royal man-of- 
 war. The Congress of the United States authorized the Pres- 
 ident to make such arrangements for the reception of the body 
 as he should deem necessary. Sovereigns, statesmen, and war¬ 
 riors united to do homage to tlie mortal remains of this plain, 
 simple man, who, beginning life a poor boy, and never dej)art- 
 ing from the character of an unassuming citizen, had made 
 humanity his debtor by his generosity and goodness. He was 
 borne across the ocean with kingly honors, two great nations 
 acting as chief mourners, and then, when the pomp and the 
 splendor of the occasion were ended, they laid him down in his 
 uative earth by the side of the mother from whom he had im¬ 
 bibed those principles of integrity and goodness which were the 
 foundation of his fame and fortune. 
 
 It is impossible to obtain an accurate statement of the dona¬ 
 tions made by Mr. Peabody to the objects which enlisted his 
 sympathy. In addition to those mentioned in the list below, 
 he gave away for various public purposes sums ranging from 
 two hundred and fifty to one thousand dollars, and extending 
 back as far as the year 1835. He divided among his relatives 
 the sum of about three millions of dollars, giving them a por¬ 
 tion during his last visit to this country, and leaving them the 
 remainder at his death. 
 
170 
 
 KINGS OP POETUNE. 
 
 The following is a statement of his more important dona¬ 
 tions during his life, including the bequests contained in his last 
 •will and testament: 
 
 To the State of Maryland, for negotiating the 
 
 loan of $8,000,000 . $60,000 
 
 To the Peabody Institute, Baltimore, Md., in¬ 
 cluding accrued interest. 1,500,000 
 
 To the Southern Education Fund. 3,000,000 
 
 To Yale College. 150,000 
 
 To Harvard College. 150,000 
 
 To Peabody Academy, Massachusetts .... 140,000 
 
 To Phillips Academy, Massachusetts .... 25,000 
 
 To Peabody Institute, etc., at Peabody, Mass. . 250,000 
 
 To Kenyon College, Ohio. 25,000 
 
 To Memorial Church, in Georgetown, Mass. . 100,000 
 
 To Homes for the Poor in London. 3,000,000 
 
 To Libraries in Georgetown, Massachusetts, 
 
 and Thetford, Vermont. 10,000 
 
 To Kane’s Arctic Expedition. 10,000 
 
 To different Sanitary Fairs. 10,000 
 
 To unpaid moneys advanced to uphold the 
 
 credit of States ..." . 40,000 
 
 Total.$8,470,000 
 
 The life of such a man affords lessons full of hope and en¬ 
 couragement to others. In 1856, when on a visit to Danvers, 
 now named Peabody, in,honor of him, its most distinguished 
 son and greatest benefactor, he said : 
 
 “ Though Providence has granted me an unvaried and un- 
 usual success in the pursuit of fortune in other lands, I am still 
 in heart the humble boy who left yonder unjiretending dwell¬ 
 ing, There is not a youth within the sound of my voice whose 
 early opjiortunities and advantages are not very much greater 
 than were my own, and I have since achieved nothing that is 
 impossible to the most humble boy among you.” 
 
PHILIP D. AIIMOUB. 
 
 171 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PHILIP D. AEMOUE. 
 
 rendering honor to whom honor is duej 
 the public cannot offer a tribute to any one more 
 deserving than Philip D. Armour, the great iner- 
 chant of Chicago, through whose untiring energy, 
 myriads of families in two continents are supplied 
 ’—with leading articles of food. In tracing the out¬ 
 lines of his career, one is reminded of the hardihood of the 
 Scotch Highlanders, whose arms no foe could conquer, 
 and whose breath no enemy could tire; for this financial 
 hero traces his lineage to the bold warriors who fought for 
 their country under Robert Bruce and William Wallace. 
 Some institutions of learning have gone beyond the boundary 
 of custom, and bestowed the title of Doctor of Laws upon 
 those who have been sucessful in managing armies on the 
 field of battle; and if this custom is to be received with favor, 
 there is no manner in which it can operate more deservingly 
 than awarding the title upon such remarkable characters 
 as are exemplified by the subject of this sketch. 
 
 Philip D. Armour was born on a farm in Madison County, 
 N. Y., in 1832, his parents being of American nativity, and 
 living near Oneida. There were eight children in the family. 
 
172 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 well known in tlie locality because of the broad shoulders 
 which they possessed and the great similarity in their looks. 
 The boy Philip “drifted into business, first as a cattle dealer 
 and butcher,” buying his beef himself, killing it, dressing 
 it, loading it into a wagon, and selling it by himself, travel¬ 
 ing over Oneida and Madison Counties. When about nine¬ 
 teen years of age, a circumstance occurred which induced 
 him to make a journey westward. Gold had recently been 
 discovered in California and thither were flocking a mixed 
 population from every quarter of the globe, and caravans 
 were traversing the vast plains and di’eary mountains from 
 St Louis, Mo., to fields of gold on the Pacific slope. In 
 this direction the eyes of Philip were turned. Having 
 without permission remained from school one afternoon 
 and taken a ride with the “ prettiest girl in the academy,” 
 he incui-red the displeasure of the principal, and both were 
 expelled. Being indentui’ed to a gentleman, he told his 
 mother immediately after the expulsion, that if the gentle¬ 
 man would release him, he would start for California. 
 His request for this was granted, and he immediately started 
 to California with a party in search of golden prizes. He 
 went across the plains from Fort Leavenworth, following the 
 old trail to California, which can be seen to-day by the 
 traveler on a train of the Pacific Railroad. Six 
 months were required by his party to make the 
 journey. The hardships of crossing the plains were very 
 great. He fell sick and narrowly escaped dying; but he 
 reached the gold fields without his physical strength being 
 impaired, and dug with better success than the majority 
 who went in quest of fortune. His mother had taught him 
 how to save, and this lesson he put into practice. Besides 
 
PHILIP D. ARMOUE. 
 
 173 
 
 this, like all the Armours, he was combative, and would 
 not be imposed upon and robbed like thousands of the 
 “tender-feet” who had entered the gold fields. After 
 digging and trading and laying away, he started back 
 East, and never stopped till he got to Milwaukee. There, 
 for some years, he did a grain-receiving and warehouse 
 business. He was at first somewhat undecided as to 
 whether he should engage in the lumber business or that of 
 pork-packing. Finally he bought out the interest of Mr. 
 Layton in the firm of Layton & Plankinton, and, with the 
 latter gentleman, has co-operated as a pork merchant under 
 the firm name of Plankinton, Armour & Co., until about 
 twelve months ago, when Mr. Plankinton retired. From the 
 day Mr. Armour reached California to the time of his enter¬ 
 ing into partnership with Mr. Plankinton, he had made 
 money with amazing rapidity, and had gotten together about 
 $500,000. 
 
 The headquarters of Plankinton, Armour & Co. were at 
 Milwaukee, but they established branch houses at Chicago 
 and other cities. Year after year the business grew; pros¬ 
 perity followed every enterprise undertaken by Philip D, 
 Armour, as though his touch were full of magic. In 
 1874 he moved to Chicago, and took charge of their 
 branch house at that place, owing to the illness of his 
 brother, who started this branch of the business. Since that 
 date Mr. Armour has extended his business, perfected its 
 organization, and has it now so systemized that his company 
 have better facilities for distributing their products than any 
 other house in the world. Many of his modes of procedure 
 are entirely original. There are one hundred and seventeen 
 clerks in his office on Washington street ; eighty of 
 
174 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 these are employed day in and day out making out bills. 
 Phil. Armour has agents in all the towns of consequence 
 in this country, and in every leading city of Europe. Every 
 morning messages are sent to these representatives,giving 
 them the quotations of the day: every night they wire back 
 the transactions of the day. Cables each morning are sent to 
 a dozen European cities, and answers each night are received. 
 The mail of Armour & Co. aggregates each day one thousand 
 letters in and another thousand out. Every twenty-foui' 
 hours requisitions are made upon the different railroads for 
 one huncb-ed or two hundi-ed freight cars, and each car bears 
 not less than twmnty tons of produce. Armour himself 
 owns three hundred of the finest refrigerator cars yet 
 constructed. They carry his beef to and fro. Instead 
 of shipping cattle East alive, they are dressed in 
 Chicago and shipped in refrigerator cars to leading cities. 
 Having frozen three or four days in these cars before use, they 
 are served up in Boston and New York as the best beef on the 
 market, to the astonishment of those who are thus informed. 
 While Mr. Armour is fixing the price of pork and beef for 
 the countrj% his thousands of employes at the stock yards 
 are slaughtering hogs and cattle at the rate of four every 
 minute, the capacity being about twelve thousand hogs and 
 two thousand cattle per day. Ten men are required to make 
 a factory shoe; twenty men are called into action in 
 preparing a hog for market. Acres are covei’ed by his 
 slaughter houses, cooling rooms, ice cellars, beef, pork¬ 
 packing and sausage-making departments. His refrigerator 
 cars are worth fortunes. One may travel a day in the 
 famous Union Stock Yards and return to find new and 
 interesting features 
 
PHILIP D. ARMOUR. 
 
 175 
 
 In dealing with slaughtered products there is exemplified 
 a marvel of economy. Horns of the cattle are thrown upon 
 the market and become fashionable decorations for articles 
 of furniture. The bones of animals are dried and pulverized 
 and sold as bone dust, to recuperate worn-out farms. The 
 hoofs have a value, as well as all other parts of the slaught¬ 
 ered animal, all the blood being saved and shipped in casks 
 for refining sugar. The men, w^omen and children sup¬ 
 ported by the great packer would make a city of fifty 
 thousand inhabitants, for there are on the pay rolls of 
 Chicago, Milwaukee and Kansas City not less than ten 
 thousand men. 
 
 At a little before seven o’clock each morning, as the last 
 of the printers are getting home, and before the day watch 
 has changed places with the night watch at the telegraph 
 offices, a carriage drives rapidly along Washington street, 
 and stops in front of the packer’s office. Armour himself 
 steps out, enters his office and begins his work. One man 
 has preceded him and opened his cables. On the floor of 
 the office he has one hundred and twelve book-keepers, and 
 as these young gentlemen glide to their places, they see the 
 plain man of many millions, who has been at his desk for an 
 hour. Armour is awakened at five o’clock, breakfasts at six, 
 and is invariably at his office at seven in the morning. He 
 leaves at six P. M., the eleven hours intervening being 
 crowded with work. 
 
 Mr. Armour is conversant with the details of his vast 
 establishment. In an emergency, he can take charge of any 
 department, and manage it better than any man in his 
 employ. He knows all the while just what is going on, 
 being assisted in this by a marvelous memory. He arranges 
 
176 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 details himself, from the painting of one of his yellow 
 wagons to the building of ^500,000 •worth of refrigerator 
 cars. 
 
 There is placed before him every morning a little ticket 
 about the size of a calling card. It represents the cash in 
 bank in Chicago, which, it is said, is never far from 
 $1,000,000. The capital of Armour & Co. is larger 
 than that of any other similar house in the world, the best 
 authority on this point saying that the firm is worth 
 $25,000,000. Phil. D. Armour is not only rich, but he con¬ 
 trols many fortunes. He handles the wealth of many other 
 millionaires who have unquestionable faith in his ability. 
 He owns no penny made by railroad ■wrecking; never watered 
 any stock, and is regarded with admiration by all who 
 co-operate either with or against him in the markets of the 
 world. He is the leading figure on the Chicago Board of 
 Trade, and is virtual dictator of the provision market of the 
 country. He o-wms or controls all the pork in the Northwest, 
 and it is but the truth to declare that no other man ever 
 exercised so great an influence on the prices of the food 
 supply of the world. He is one of the wonderful products 
 of Chicago. Again and again have en\dous operators tried 
 to corner him on lard deals or draw him into a vortex in the 
 wheat pit, but to no purpose. The Madison County boy has 
 always been able to secure every dollar necessary to make 
 the market go his own way. 
 
 His first great stroke of fortune was just before the close 
 of the war, when he was a pork packer in Milwaukee, and 
 pork was selling at $40.00. He di’eamed one night that 
 there would be a great fall in prices, and the next morning 
 on his way down to-wn he stopped at his partner’s house, 
 
PHILIP D. ARMOUR. 
 
 177 
 
 remarking that he thought pork was too high. Mr. Plank- 
 iiiton replied: “That’s my opinion, too.” After a little 
 further conversation, it was agreed that Armour should 
 take the first train for New York and sell ell he 
 could. Armour got to New York, went “ short ” of pork at 
 140.00, and never took it in until it was selling at $18.00. 
 It made him easily a millionaire, but the experience was a 
 difficult one. All the big packers in the country, with a very 
 few exceptions, were bulls on provisions, and loaded up with 
 product upon which considerable advance had been made. 
 Sid Kent and Phil Armour were “ bears,” and could not be 
 turned from their opinion. Each night conferences were 
 held at the Fifth Avenue Hotel; traps were set, invitations 
 issued, dinners given, and other things undertaken to obtain 
 the influence of these two merchants. Armour would not go 
 near the meetings and would have nothing to do with the 
 pool. He insisted upon selling, but found it no easy thing 
 to do. He ordered his agents to sell a large lot of pork. 
 They asked him if he had it to sell. He replied that it was 
 none of their business, and if they wanted margins let them 
 name the sum. They tried to persuaded Armour that he 
 was wrong, but would give no decisive refusal. Stepping 
 across the street to a well-known broker’s office, he gave an 
 order to sell ten thousand barrels, simply announcing his 
 name. Before he knew that the order had been given, the 
 sales were reported. He asked the broker what margins he 
 wanted; the broker replied that he would arrange it in the 
 morning. This was the first of his short selling. He con¬ 
 tinued it, to the terror of the whole provision market, for 
 three months. From morning until night, day in and day 
 out, for ninety days, he haunted the office of his agents. 
 
178 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE, 
 
 Customers to wliom they would refuse to sell he would intercept 
 and accommodate. At the time of his departure, pork had 
 fallen in price $5.00 a barrel. When the Milwaukean was 
 about to leave for home, a great operator of that day said he 
 wanted to make just one more trade. “I’li»sell you,” said 
 Armour, “ one thousand barrels of pork.” “ I’ll take it,” 
 said the operator, “but you will want it back when pork is 
 $60.00.” Mr. Armour responded, “ I will deliver you that 
 pork when the price is $18.00.” This he accordingly did. 
 The packers, with a few exceptions, from one end of the 
 country to the other, were ruined by the fall in price, but 
 Ai’mour and his partner became the greatest provision men 
 in the world. The firm of Wallace & Wicks, who had 
 treated him improperly, Mr. Armour declared that he would 
 drive out of business. Near their place of business H. O. 
 Armour & Co. were soon established in New York, and the 
 sign of Wallace & Wicks came down. 
 
 In 1878 and 1879 Armour & Co. made enormous pur¬ 
 chases of pork, based upon the information which the packer 
 had of the world’s supply and demand, and the cost of 
 manufacture and his own reserves. He always buys pork 
 when it is cheap, but does not buy for the purpose of selling 
 again on the speculative market. When he finds the market 
 attacked he always protects his property. On one occasion, 
 when a raid was directed against him, it is said that he made 
 $3,500,000, and on another similar occasion he acquired 
 $2,000,000. Speaking of these he said, “If the bears had let 
 me alone, I should not have made this money. I am 
 engaged in a legitimate business, buying and selling for con¬ 
 sumption. I have over 10,000 men in my employ, and my 
 sole business is to distribute the product in the markets of 
 the world,” 
 
PHILIP D. ABMOUR. 
 
 179 
 
 Close observers of the methods of this King of Fortune 
 say that his great efforts invariably follow some great public 
 calamity, or widespread panic. He buys when others have 
 lost confidence in values, and limits his purchases only to 
 the amounts of the offerings. In 1879 and 1880, the short 
 side of pork appeared attractive to speculators, notwithstand¬ 
 ing their repeated unpleasant experience with Armour. In 
 the latter year, the stock on hand was large, and on the 80th 
 of April pork sold down to ^9.25. It was then that Armour 
 took hold, and laid the foundations for his gigantic trans¬ 
 actions of the summei’. Beginning at this figure, he bought 
 all the way up to $13.00 in July. He held the advantage 
 for the next three months. The shorts in August settled at 
 $17.00; in September at $18.00, and in October at $19.00. 
 The total quantity of pork handled by Armour and the 
 number of shorts out was large, covering more than 600,- 
 000 barrels. It was a mammoth transaction, and involved 
 buying all the pork in the world. 
 
 Mr. Armour is a short, thick-set man, with a smooth 
 shaven face and a large head. He is one of the least pre¬ 
 tentious men in the community; has a hearty grip and 
 genial greeting for all his callers; is never in a hurry; and 
 if his visitor has time, he will tell a funny story and enjoy 
 the amusement. One story will suggest another, and the 
 merchant will follow the visitor out into the main office and 
 so to the door, parting from him in the jolliest fashion. He 
 is not crabbed through dyspepsia, not annoyed by repudi¬ 
 ated obligations, and, without red tape or magnificence, this 
 plain, honest Phil Armour puts in twelve hours of work 
 every day, retires early at night, and rises early in the 
 morning in vigorous condition for the work of the day. 
 
180 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Speaking in reference to kis habits, he one day remarked; 
 “I work harder now than when I was a boy, have as good 
 an appetite, sleep just as soundly, and go to bed just as early. 
 Nine o’.clock finds my house shut up and the lights out. No 
 one, except a burglar can get in after that hour.” This 
 provision king is continually growing richer. He has been 
 all his days as combative in business as in the other walks 
 of life. “The defense of his cellars cost him in 1878 a 
 clear million dollars, but the loss did not make him abandon 
 it He redoubled it, and finally his opponents were glad to 
 be let off, after paying a very large tribute. 
 
 The charity of Phil D. Armour is proverbial. He is 
 unquestionably the largest giver in Chicago. His presenta¬ 
 tion of Avatches to deseiwing ones is quite extensive. 
 
 This great donor has neA^er founded a library, but he has 
 given liberally for the advancement of art, and faithful 
 sei’AUce, and the stockyard workman who goes to the rich 
 packer with his trouble neA’er returns from him empty- 
 handed. Some really generous gHers follow their gift; 
 but Ai’mour’s donations are placed without qualification 
 at the disposal of the applicant. Some years ago a 
 Chicago minister applied to the packer for aid for a young 
 AA'oman who was in distress in the city. A liberal sum was 
 put at the disposal of the man of God. After some little 
 delay, the money was returned, with an explanation that the 
 young lady had refused to answer satisfactorily some ques¬ 
 tions. She could not tell, it was said, why she was away from 
 her home. The minister pressed her to make a confession. 
 She declared she had nothing to confess. Since that time 
 the packer and the man of God have never spoken. Mrs. 
 Armoui’, a most excellent lady, carried out the mission the 
 
PHILIP D. AEMOUR. 
 
 181 
 
 minister abandoned. The girl was tenderly cared for until 
 the day of her death, which occurred very shortly after the 
 incident happened. A street vender in Philadelphia said 
 to a Chicago visitor, “Do you know Phil D. Armour of your 
 city?” Everybody in the West has heard of him,” was the 
 reply. “Is he very rich?” said the old man. “Deported to be 
 a millionaire,” answered the other promptly. After a 
 moment’s silence, the old man said: “Phil D. Armour was 
 indentured to me when a boy. I released him at his request, 
 so that he could go to California during the gold fever.” 
 The visitor on his return to Chicago met the good-natured 
 looking packer in the street, and said: “Mr. Armour, do you 
 know Mr. Blank of Philadelphia ?” He responded like a flash, 
 “ I was bound out to that man, and obtained from him a 
 release when I started to California.” Armour took the 
 old man’s address, and sent him $500, as was afterwards 
 learned; and also made the remark, “That old man will 
 never want as long as I know his address.” His liberality 
 is also manifested in his employment of men to execute 
 the duties of his office. He gives to his employes a 
 compensation that insures contentedness, faithful work, 
 and an inclination to engage in no transactions aside 
 from that for which they are employed. Such a man, with 
 such liberal nature and generous spirit, is not only a bless¬ 
 ing to the age in which he lives, biit his influence for 
 improving human interests must extend through all time. 
 
MAESHALL FIELD. 
 
Marshall field. 
 
 185 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MARSHALL FIELD. 
 
 JEW ENGLAND farms are somewhat face¬ 
 tiously reputed to yield annually more generous 
 crops of stones than of any other commodity. 
 Stone fences abound everywhere, and in many 
 sections the material of which they are con¬ 
 structed crops out so plentifully from the scanty 
 soil as to require its removal each year before seed can 
 be sown. But while the soil of this Green Mountain 
 region yields so sparingly, and at the cost of so much 
 labor, the various products of the farm, it has produced its 
 full share of the notable men who have made themselves a 
 credit to the Nation. The list is a long one. In it almost 
 every calling has brilliant representatives, and among the 
 devotees of commerce to be found there, the career of none 
 has been more successful and honorable than that of Mar¬ 
 shall Field. 
 
 It was on one of these stony, but carefully tilled New 
 England farms that Marshall Field was born, in the year 
 1835. His father was a well-to-do representative of a 
 farming community whose acres encroached upon the pre¬ 
 cincts of Conway, Mass., a village of modest proportions, 
 containing a public school and an academy, at which their 
 sons and daughters received their “book learning.” 
 
186 
 
 KINGS OF FOETUNF. 
 
 The reader who likes to associate the attainment of vast 
 wealth with intrepid daring in business dealings, with the 
 taking of great risks, and with many narrow escapes from 
 ruin, will find little to interest him in this brief history of 
 Marshall Field’s career as a merchant. Though standing 
 in the front rank of the great mercantile houses of the 
 country, as well as of the world, that of Marshall Field & 
 Co. is the result of a steady growth, which germinated when 
 its founder, in 1852, entered as clerk a small retail dry 
 goods store in Pittsfield, Mass. It is a growth which no 
 brilliant departure from established business methods has 
 served to accelerate or retard. 
 
 When the novelty of his promotion from the farm to the 
 position of clerk in a small village store had worn off— 
 which it was not long in doing—young Field suddenly dis¬ 
 covered that the fulfillment of his ambitions would necessi¬ 
 tate a change to a much wider field of operations. He had 
 familiarized himself with all the details of the retail trade in 
 that part of the country, but saw no opportunity of making 
 his experience profitable. The salary attached to his posi¬ 
 tion was too small to make such a thing as a bank account 
 possible, and in January, 1856, with the exception of the 
 rather meager knowledge of the dry goods business his 
 apprenticeship had gained him, his capital was no larger 
 than when he left the farm. In those days, as now, the 
 West was the Mecca toward which the ambitious and ven¬ 
 turesome youth of the Atlantic States turned wistful eyes. 
 As ambitious as any, but, perhaps, less venturesome, young 
 Field, after mature deliberation, compromised on Chicago. 
 He immediately left his position as clerk, gave his note to his 
 father for one hundred dollars—which he paid, principal and 
 
MARSHALL FIELD. 
 
 187 
 
 interest, witliin a year—and a week later had obtained 
 a situation in the wholesale dry goods house of Cooley, 
 Wadsworth & Co. This firm was situated on South Water 
 street, in what was at that time the center of the wholesale 
 district of Chicago. It enjoyed a thriving trade throughout 
 the western country, and was called the leading house of its 
 kind in the Garden City. One year after Marshall 
 Field’s connection with the house began, the firm name was 
 changed to Cooley, Farwell & Co. By this time young 
 Field had become sufficiently familiar with the stock and 
 business of the firm to be entrusted with quite a responsible 
 position as general salesman. He traveled some, but most 
 of the time could be found in the salesrooms of the estab¬ 
 lishment, attending to the wants of country customers. The 
 fact that in January, 1860—four years from the date of his 
 arrival in Chicago—he was made a member of the firm, 
 renders a recital of the details of his progress during that 
 period superfluous. When Mr. Field has been asked how it 
 happened that without backing or influence, except such as 
 his own conduct exerted, he gained so good a foothold so 
 quickly, he has invariably replied w’itli characteristic mod¬ 
 esty that he supposed it was because he saved his money, 
 instead of spending it. His friends, however, supplement 
 this feature of the case with others of a very flattering 
 nature, among wliich, as deemed worthy of mention, are, 
 attention to business and fidelity to the interests of his 
 employers. 
 
 In 1864, Mr. Cooley retiring, the firm name became 
 Farwell, Field & Co. A year later the firm dissolved 
 partnership, Messrs. Field & Leiter associffting themselves 
 with Potter Palmer on Lake street, and until 1867 the firm 
 
188 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 was known as Field, Palmei* & Leiter. Mr, Palmer retired in 
 1867, and the firm became Field, Leiter & Co. A year 
 later the firm located itself at the northeast corner of State 
 and Washington streets, the present site of Marsnall Field 
 & Co.’s retail store, and in a short time controlled the largest 
 and best retail trade in the city. The popularity of the 
 house was not confined to the city, however. Throughout 
 the entire country tributary to Chicago, with respect to its 
 commercial needs. Field, Leiter & Co. were favorably known 
 as wholesale dealers and enterprising importers of all foreign 
 fabrics and novelties which were adapted to the wants of 
 the West. The patronage of the house increased with such 
 rapidity that at the time of the great fire, in October, 1871, 
 the firm’s business had already outgrown its quarters to 
 such an extent as to demand separate buildings for the 
 wholesale and retail departments. 
 
 But while a heavy loser by the fire, the capital of the house 
 was not so seriously impaired as to interfere with immediate 
 preparations to resume business. Having made it a rule to 
 invariably purchase for cash, the firm could have obtained 
 almost any amount of credit had there been need of it, but a 
 cash business being also a paying business, the house was not 
 embarrassed for want of ready money with which to start 
 afresh. Not an hour was lost. Before the flames had died 
 out for want of fuel, new stocks of goods were en route from 
 the manufactories of this country and Europe, and the 
 firm was busily engaged in fitting up temporary quarters 
 for the accommodation of its trade until a new building 
 could be erected. The city railway car barns, at the corner 
 of State and Twentieth streets, were rented for this pur¬ 
 pose, and there for several months both the wholesale and 
 
MARSHALL FIELD. 
 
 189 
 
 retail business Was conducted. While the ruins at the 
 corner of State and Washington streets were still smoking., 
 preparations for the erection of a new and commodious 
 retail building were begun. The same building, which was 
 erected on the site of the old store, is now the popular 
 rendezvous of ladies of fashion when on their shopping 
 expeditions. Though built directly after the fire, the 
 structure is still admired as one of the most substantial, 
 handsome, and well lighted business blocks in Chicago. 
 Almost at the same time the firm commenced the erection 
 of its present wholesale building at the corner of Madison 
 and Market streets. This was one of the first buildings 
 completed in that part of the city after the fire. It is a 
 plain structure of brick, with absolutely nothing in the 
 shape of ornamentation to relieve the monotony of its bare 
 walls. The walls are pierced by many windows, each of 
 which is provided with iron shutters, which close flush with 
 the outer surface of the walls, and add to the impression the 
 sight of the building conveys—that the sole end for {vdiicli it 
 was designed was utility. Inside, at the end of an enclosure 
 where a hundred clerks and book-keepers attend to the 
 accounts of the vast establishment, is the private office where 
 Marshall Field is sure to be found at certain hours of the 
 day when he is not out of the city. It is the plain business 
 office of a business man, and visitors who do not come on 
 business seldom gain entrance to it. 
 
 The remarkable growth of the house up to the time of the 
 fire, has been more than maintained. In 1881 its business 
 was more than double that of the year preceding the confla¬ 
 gration, and has steadily increased since, last year reaching 
 the enormous figure of ^30,000,000, 
 
190 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 A prominent feature of Mr. Field’s character is his faculty 
 for making himself popular with his employees. Though a 
 man of few words and reserved in his demeanor, his just 
 treatment of those he employs, and frequent proofs of his 
 interest in them, put them at their ease in his presence and 
 vins him their respect and best efforts. Some of his 
 employees who have been in his service for many years say 
 they have never known him to exhibit an ill-tempered spirit, 
 no matter what may have been the provocation. 
 
 As becomes a man of his wealth and position, Mr. Field, 
 in a modest and unassuming manner, accedes to the demands 
 of society upon his time and purse. He belongs to one of 
 the representative churches of Chicago, and attends services 
 legularly with his family. Anything in the nature of 
 notoriety has always been especially repugnant to him, and, 
 being naturally public-spirited and possessed of a vein of 
 philanthropy which seeks vent in numerous good deeds, he 
 is put to no little anxiety to keep them out of people’s sight 
 and hearing. . 
 
IT. 
 
 CAPITALISTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CORNELIUS V.4NDERBILT. 
 
 TATEX ISLAND lio.s in the beautiful bay of 
 New A"ork, seven miles distant from tlie great 
 city. Its lofty heights shut in the sung anchor¬ 
 age of the inner bay, and jirotect it from the rude 
 storms which howl along the coast. It lies full 
 in sight of the city, and is one of the most beantifnl and at¬ 
 tractive of its suburbs. The commanding heights and em¬ 
 bowered shores are covered with villas and cottages, and afford 
 a pleasant and convenient summer resort for the people of New 
 A'ork. It now contains a large and flourishing population, and 
 maintains a speedy and constant communication with the me¬ 
 tropolis by means of steam ferry-boats, the total travel on 
 which sometimes reaches as many as ten or twelve thousand 
 passengers per day. 
 
 Ninety-one years ago, Staten Island was a mere country 
 settlement, and its eommunications with the city were main¬ 
 tained by means of a few sail-boats, which made one trij) each 
 way per day. 
 
 One of these boats was owned and navigated by Cornelius 
 
 193 
 
194 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Vanderbilt, a thriving farmer, who owned a small but well 
 cultivated estate on Staten Island, near the present Quarantine 
 Grounds. He was a man of exemplary character, great indus¬ 
 try, and was generally regarded as one of the most prudent and 
 reliable me./ " 2 ^ the island. Having a considerable araount of 
 produce to sell in the city, he purchased a boat of his own for 
 the purpose of transporting it thither. Frequently, residents 
 of the island would secure passage in this boat to the city in 
 the morning, and return with it in the evening. He realized 
 a considerable sum of money in this way, and finally ran his 
 boat regularly between the island and the city. This was the 
 beginning of the Xew York and Staten Island Ferry. Mr. 
 Vanderbilt, by close application to his farm and boat, soon 
 acquired a property, which, though small, was sufficient to 
 enable him to maintain his family independently. His wife 
 was a woman of more than usual character, and aided him 
 nobly in making his way in the world. 
 
 This admirable couple were blessed with nine children. The 
 oldest of these, Cornelius, the subject of this sketch, was 
 boj'n at the old farm-house on Staten Island, on the 27th of 
 May, 1794. He was a healthy, active boy, fond of all man¬ 
 ner of out-door sports, and manifesting an unusual repugnance 
 to the confinement and labors of the school-room. He after¬ 
 ward. declared, that the only books he remembered using at 
 school were the Xew' Testament and the spelling-book. The 
 result was, that he merely learned to read, write, and cipher, 
 and that imperfectly. He was passionately fond of the water, 
 and was never so well pleased as when his father allowed him 
 to assist in sailing his boat. He was also a famous horseman 
 from his earliest childhood, and even now recalls with evident 
 pride the fact that when but six yeai’s old he rode a race¬ 
 horse at full speed. 'When he set himself to accomplish any 
 
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 
 
 195 
 
 thing, he was not, like most boys, deterred by the difficulties 
 of his undertaking, but persevered until success crowned his 
 efforts. So early did he establish his reputation for overcom¬ 
 ing obstacles, that his boyish friends learned to regard any 
 task which he undertook as already virtually performed. 
 
 When lie was only twelve years old his father contracted to 
 remove the cargo from a ship which had gone ashore near 
 Sandy Hook, and to convey it to New York. The lighters 
 which were to carry the goods to the city could not reach the 
 ship, and it was necessary to haul the cargo, transported in 
 wagons, across the sands from the vessel to them. In spite of 
 his tender age, little Cornelius was placed by his father in 
 charge of the undertaking, which he accomplished promptly 
 and successfully. He loaded his lighters, sent them up to Now 
 York, and then started for home with his wagons. Upon reach¬ 
 ing South Amboy, where he was to cross over to Staten Island, 
 he found himself, with his wagons, horses, and men, without any 
 money to pay his ferriage across to the island. The ferriage 
 would amount to si.v dollars, and how he was to raise this 
 sum he was, for a time, at a loss to determine. Finally, he 
 went to the keeper of the tavern, to whom he was a stranger, 
 and asked for the loan of six dollars, offering to leave one of 
 his horses as a pledge for the money, which he promised to 
 return within two days. The tavern-keeper was so well 
 pleased with the boy’s energy, that he loaned him the money, 
 and the party crossed over to Staten Island. The pawned 
 horse was promptly redeemed. 
 
 Young Vanderbilt was always anxious to become a .sailor, 
 and, as he approached his .seventeenth year, he determined to 
 begin life as a boatman in the harbor of New York. On the 
 1st of ISIay, 1810, he informed his mother of his determination, 
 and asked her to lend him one hundred dollars to buy a boat. 
 
196 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 The good lady had always opposed her son’s wish to go to sea, 
 and regarded this new scheme as equally hair-brained. As a 
 means of discouraging him, she told him if he would plow, har¬ 
 row, and plant with corn a certain ten-acre lot belonging to the 
 farm, by the twenty-seventh of that mouth, on which day he 
 would be seventeen years old, she would lend him the money. 
 The held was the worst in the whole farm; it was rough, hard, 
 and stony; but by the appointed time the work was done, and 
 well done, and the boy claimed and received his money. He 
 
 VANDEHoiuV cmRNINQ HlS FIRST HUNDRED DOLLARS. 
 
 hurrie<l off to a neighboring village, and bought his boat, in 
 which he set out for home. He had not gone far, however, 
 when the boat struck a sunken wreck, and hlled so rapidly that 
 the bov had barely time to get into shoal water before it sank. 
 
 “Undismayed at this mishap,” .says Mr. Parton, from whose 
 graphic memoir the leading incidents of this sketch are taken, 
 “he began his new career. His success, as we have intimated, 
 was speedy and great. He made a thousand dollars during 
 each of the next three summers. Often he worked all night; 
 
CORNELlt^S VAis'DERBILT. 
 
 197 
 
 l)iit he was never absent from his post by day, and he soon 
 had the cream of the boating business of tlie port. 
 
 “At tliat day parents claimed tlie services and earnings of tlieir 
 children till they Avere twenty-one. In other words, families 
 made common cause against the common enemy. Want. The 
 arrangement between this young boatman and his parents was, 
 that he should give them all his day earnings and half his 
 night earnings. He fulfilled his engagement faithfully until his 
 parents released him from it, and with his own half of his 
 earnings bv night, he bought all his clothes. He had forty 
 competitors in the business, who, Ixung all grown men, could 
 disjiose of their gains as they chose; but of all the forty, 
 he alone has emerged to pros}>erity and distinction. Why was 
 this? There were several reasons. He soon became the best 
 boatman in the port. He attended to his business more regu¬ 
 larly and strictly than any other. He had no vices. His 
 comrades spent at night much of what they earned by day, 
 and when the winter suspended their business, instead of living 
 on their last summer’s savings, they Avere obliged to lay up 
 debts for the next summer’s gains to discharge. In those 
 three years of Avilling servitude to his parents, Cornelius Van¬ 
 derbilt added to the family’s common stock of AA’ealth, and 
 gained for himself three things—a perfect knoAvledgc' of his 
 business, habits of industry and scdf-control, and the best boat 
 in the harbor.” 
 
 During the War of 1812, young Vanderbilt Avas kept very 
 busy. All the harbor defenses Avere fullv manned, and a 
 
 « ' s 
 
 number of Avar a’csssIs Avere in jiort all the time. The travel 
 between these and the city Avas A’cry great, and boatmen were 
 in demand. 
 
 In September, 1813, a British fleet attempted to run past 
 Fort Richmond, during a heavy gale. The commanding officer 
 
198 
 
 Sings of foetune. 
 
 was anxious to' send to Xew York for reenforcements, but it 
 was blowing so hard that none of the old boatmen were willing 
 to venture upon the bay. They all declared that if the voyage 
 could be made at all, Cornelius Vanderbilt was the only man 
 who could make it. The commandant at once sent for the 
 young man, who, upon learning the urgency of the case, 
 expressed his belief that he could carry the messengers to 
 the city. “ But,” said he, “ I shall have to carry them part 
 of the way under water.” He set out with the messengers, 
 and in an hour landed them safe, but drenched through, at the 
 foot of Whitehall Street, which was then the landing place of 
 all the boatn\en of the harbor. 
 
 He was now so prosperous in his calling that he determined 
 to marry. He had wooed and won the heart of Sophia John¬ 
 son, the daughter of a neighbor, and he now asked his parents’ 
 consent to his marriage, and also requested them to allow him 
 to retain his own earnings, in order that he might be able to 
 support a wife. Both of his petitions received the approval of 
 his parents, and in the winter of 1813 he was married. His 
 wife was a woman of unusual })ersonal beauty and strength of 
 character, and proved the best of partners. He has often de¬ 
 clared since that he owed his success in life as much to her 
 counsel and assistance as to his own efforts. 
 
 In the spring of 1814, it became known in America .that 
 the British were fitting out a formidable military and naval 
 expedition for the purpose of attacking one of the Atlantic 
 ports of the United States. The ivhole coast was on the look¬ 
 out, and, as it was feared that the blow would be struck at 
 Xew York, every precaution was taken to be ready. The 
 militia were called into service for three months, under a 
 heavy penalty for refusing to obey the call. The term of 
 service thus marked out covered the most prosperous season 
 
cornkliL's Vanderbilt. 
 
 199 
 
 of the boatmen, and made the call fall particularly hard upon 
 them. About this time, an advertisement was inserted in the 
 city journals by the Commissary-General of the army, calling 
 tor bids from boatmen for the purpose of conveying provisions 
 from New York to the various military posts in the vicinity. 
 The labor was to be performed during the three months for 
 which the militia were called out, and the contractor was to 
 be exemj)ted from all military duty during that time. Bids 
 ])oured in from the boatmen, who offered to do the work at 
 ridiculously low figurc.s—the chief object of each one being to 
 secure the exemption. 
 
 Young Vanderbilt, knowing that the work could not be done 
 at the rates at which his comrades offered to perform it, at first 
 decided not to bid for it, but at length—and more to please his 
 father than because he expected to succeed—offered to transport 
 the provisions at a price which would enable him to be sure 
 of doing it well and thoroughly. He felt so little hope of suc¬ 
 cess that he did not even trouble himself to go to the office of 
 the Commissary on the day of the awarding of the contract, 
 until he learned from his companions that all their efforts to 
 secure it had been ineffectual. Then he called on the Com¬ 
 missary, merely through curiosity, to learn the name of the for¬ 
 tunate man, and to his utter astonishment was told that the 
 contract had been awarded to himself. The Government was 
 satisfied, from his sensible offer, that he would do the business 
 thoroughly, and this the Commissary assured him was the 
 reason why they had selected him. 
 
 There were six posts to be supplied—Harlem, Hell Gate, 
 Ward’s Island, the Narrows, and one other in the harbor, each 
 of which was to be furnished with one load per week. The 
 young contractor made arrangements to have a daily load of 
 stores ready for him each evening at six o’clock, and thus per- 
 
200 
 
 KIKGS Of I'ORTTjKfl 
 
 formed all the duties of his eontraet at night, whieh left him 
 free to attend to his boating during the day. He never failed 
 to make a single delivery of stores, or to be absent from his post 
 on the beach at Whitehall one single day during the whole 
 three months. He was often without sleep, and performed an 
 immense amount of labor during this period; but his indom¬ 
 itable energy and powerful physical organization carried him 
 safelv through it all. 
 
 He made a great deal of money that summer, and with his 
 earnings built a splendid little schooner, which he named the 
 “Dread.” In 1815, in connection with his brother-in-law. Cap¬ 
 tain De Forrest, he built a fine .schooner, called the “Charlotte,” 
 for the coasting service. She was celebrated for the beauty of 
 her model and her great speed. He continued to ply his boat 
 in the harbor during the summer, but in the fall and winter 
 made voyages along the coast, often as far south as Charleston. 
 During the three vears succeeding the termination of the war 
 he saved nine thousand dollars in cash, and built two or three 
 small vessels. This was his condition in 1818. 
 
 By this time it had become demonstrated to his satisfaction 
 that the new system of steamboats was a success, and was 
 destined to come into general use at no verv distant dav. He 
 therefore determined to identify himself with it at once, and 
 thereby secure the benefits which he felt sure would result from 
 a prompt connection with it. Accordingly, in 1818, to the 
 surprise and dismay of his friends, he gave up his flourishing 
 business, in order to accept the captaincy of a steamboat which 
 was offered him by Mr. Thomas Gibbons. The .salary attached 
 to this position was one thousand dollars, and Captain Vander¬ 
 bilt’s friends frankly told him that he was very fooli.sh in 
 abandoning a lucrative business for .so insignificant a sum. 
 Turning a deaf ear to their remonstrances, however, he entered 
 
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 
 
 201 
 
 promptly njwn the duties of his new career, and was given 
 command of a steandjoat I'lying between Xew York and New 
 Brunswick. 
 
 Passengers to Philadelphia, at that day, were tran.sported by 
 steamer from New York to New Brunswick, where they re¬ 
 mained all night The next morning they took the stage for 
 Trenton, from which they were conveyed by steamer to Phila¬ 
 delphia. The hotel at New Brunswick was a miserable affair, 
 and had never paid expenses. When Captain Vanderbilt took 
 command of the steamer, he was offei-ed the hotel rent free, and 
 accepted the offer. He placed the house in charge of his wife, 
 under whose vigorous administration it soon acquired a popu¬ 
 larity which was of the greatest benefit to the line. 
 
 For seven years he was harassed and hampered by the hos¬ 
 tility of the State of New York, which had granted to Fulton 
 and Livingston the sole right to navigate New York waters by 
 steam. Thomas Gibbons believed this law to be unconstitu¬ 
 tional, and ran his boats in defiance of it. The authorities of the 
 State resented his disregard of their monopoly, and a long and 
 vexatious warfare sprang np between them,'whieh was ended 
 oidy in 1824, by the decision of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States in favor of Mr. Gibbons. 
 
 7\.s a means of crippling Gibbons, the New York authorities 
 at one time determined to arrest Vanderbilt and his crew; but 
 the wary eajitain was too cunning for them. He would land 
 his crew in Jersey City, and take charge of the engine himself, 
 while a lady managed the helm. In this way he a])})roaehed 
 the wharf at New York, landed his passengers, and took on 
 more. As soon as he had made his boat fast, he concealed 
 himself in the hold until the moment of his de])arture. As 
 soon as he appeared on deck, the Sheritl’s officer (who was 
 changed every day to avoid recognition) would approach him 
 
2G2 
 
 IvIKGS OF FOUTUNF. 
 
 with a warrant for his arrest. His rejily was an order to let 
 go tlie line. The officer, unwilling to be carried off to New 
 Jersey, where he was threatened with imprisonment in the pen¬ 
 itentiary for interfering with the steamei’, would at once jump 
 ashore, or beg to be landed. This was kept up for two months, 
 but the captain successfully baffled his enemies during the 
 whole of that period. The oj^ponents of Mr. Gibbons offered 
 a larger and better boat than the one he commanded if he would 
 enter their .service, but he hrmly declined all their offer.s, avow¬ 
 ing: his determination to remain with Mr. Gibbons until the 
 difficulty was settled. 
 
 After the decision of the Supreme Court placed ]\Ir. Gibbons 
 in the full enjoyment of his rights. Captain A^anderbilt was 
 allowed to manage the line in his own way, and conducted it 
 with so much skill and vigor that it paid its owner an annual 
 profit of forty thousand dollars. ISIr. Gibbons offered to in¬ 
 crease his salarv to five thousand dollars, but he refused to ac- 
 cept the offer. 
 
 “ I did it on principle,” he said, afterward. “ The other cap¬ 
 tains had but one thousand, and they were already jealous 
 enough of me. Besides, I never cared for money. All I ever 
 cared for was to carry my point.” 
 
 In 1829 he determined to leave the service of Mr. Gibbons, 
 with whom he had been connected for eleven years. He was 
 thirty-five years old, and had saved thirty thousand dollars. 
 He resolved to build a steamer of his own, and command her 
 himself, and accordingly made known his intention to his em¬ 
 ployer. Mr. Gibbons at once declared that he could not carry 
 on the line without his assistance, and told him he might make 
 his own terms if he would stay with him. Captain A^anderbilt 
 had formed his decision after much thought, and being satisfied 
 that he was doing right, he persisted in his determination to set 
 
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CORXfU.lUS VANDERBILT. 
 
 205 
 
 Tip foi’ himself. Mr. Gibbons then offered to sell him the line 
 on the spot, and to take his pay as the money shonld be earned. 
 It was a splendid offer, but it was tirmly and gi-atefully refused. 
 The captain knew the ni'^", among whom he woidd be thrown, 
 and that they could never act together harmoniously. lie be¬ 
 lieved his own ideas to be the best, and wished to be free to 
 carry them out. 
 
 After leaving Mr. Gibbons he built a small steamer, called 
 the “ Caroline,” which he commanded himself. In a few years 
 he was the owner of several other small steamers plying be¬ 
 tween New York and the neighboring towns. He made slow 
 progress at first, for he had strong opposition to overcome. The 
 steamboat interest was in the hands of powerful comjianies, 
 badvcd by immense capital, and these companies were not dis- 
 ])oscd to tolerate the interference of any new-comer. They 
 met their match in all cases, however, for Vanderbilt inaugu¬ 
 rated so shai’p a business opposition that the best of them were 
 forced to compromise with him. These troubles were very an¬ 
 noying to him, and cost him nearly every dollar he was worth, 
 but he persevered, and at length “ carried his ])oint.” 
 
 From that time he made his way gradually iu his business, 
 until he rose to the head of the steamboat interest of the United 
 States. He owned or was interested in one hundred steam 
 vessels, and was instrumental in a greater degree than any 
 other man in bringing down the tariff of steamboat fares. He 
 never built a vessel without giving his personal superintend¬ 
 ence to every detail, so that all his various craft were models 
 of their kind. He selected his officers with the greatest care, 
 paid them liberal salaries, and, as long as they did their duty, 
 sustained them against all outside interference or intrigue. 
 In this w'ay he inspired them with zeal, and the result was 
 that he never lost a vessel by fire, explosion, or wreck. 
 
206 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 He built the famous steamer “North Star,” and made a 
 triumphal cruise in her to the Old World. It is said that he 
 was at one time very anxious to divide the business of the ocean 
 with the Collins Line of steamers. When the “ Arctic” was lost 
 he applied to Mr. Collins to allow his steamer to run in her 
 place. He promised to make no claim for the mail subsidy 
 wliich Collins received, and to take the vessel oif as soon as 
 Collins could build another to take her place. Mr. Collins was 
 afraid to let l\Ir. Vanderbilt get any hold on the foreign trade 
 of the country, and not only refused his request, but did so in a 
 manner which roused the anger of the veteran, who thereupon 
 told Mr. Collins that he would run his line off the ocean if it 
 took his whole life and entire fortune to do it. He kept his 
 word. He at once offered the Government to carry the mails 
 more promptly and regularly than had ever been done before, 
 and to do this for a term of years without asking one single 
 cent as subsidy. It was well known that he was perfectly able 
 to do what he promised, and he pressed the matter upon the 
 Government so vigorously that he was successful. The sub¬ 
 sidy to Collins was withdrawn, and the magnificent line soon 
 fell to pieces in consequence of the bankruptcy of its owner, 
 who might have averted his fate by the exercise of a little 
 liberality. 
 
 Later on, Mr. Vanderbilt withdrew most of his money from 
 ships and steamers, and invested it in railroads and iron 
 works. Success attended him in all his ventures, until he 
 reckoned his wealth by tens of millions. He controlled the 
 Hudson Eiver, Harlem, and New York Central Eoads, and 
 was largely interested in many others. He was all powerful 
 in the stock market, and could move it as he chose. 
 
 Many years ago he wished to consolidate the Hudson Eiver 
 and Harlem Eailroads, and when the scheme was presented be- 
 
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 
 
 207 
 
 fore the Legislature of New York, secured a sufficient number 
 of votes to insure the passage of the bill authorizing the con¬ 
 solidation. Before the bill was called up on its final passage, 
 however, he learned from a trustwortliy source that the mem¬ 
 bers of the Legislature who had promised to vote for the bill 
 were determined to vote against it, with the hope of ruining 
 him. The stock of Harlem Road was then selling very high, 
 in consequence of the expected consolidation. The defeat of 
 the bill would, of course, cause it to fall immediately. The 
 unprincipled legislators at once commenced a shrewd game. 
 They sold Harlem right and left, to be delivered,at a future 
 day, and found plenty of purchasers. They let their friends 
 into the secret, and there was soon a great deal of “selling 
 ‘short’” in this stock.* Commodore Vanderbilt, although 
 indignant at the treachery of which he was to be made the 
 victim, held his peace. He went into the market quietly, with 
 all the funds he could raise, jiurchased every dollar’s worth 
 of Harlem stock he could lay his hands on, and locked it up 
 in his safe. When the bill came before the Legislature on its 
 final passage, the members who had pledged themselves to vote 
 for it voted against it, and it was rejected. 
 
 The speculators were jubilant. They were siii’e that the 
 defeat of the bill would bring down “Harlem” with a rush. 
 To their astonishment, however, “Harlem” did not fall. It 
 remained stationary the first day, and then, to their dismay. 
 
 * For the benefit of the uninitiated reader, we will explain tlie “ game ” more 
 clearly. Harlem stock was selling at a high price, in consequence of the ex¬ 
 pected consolidation. Those who sold “ short ” at this time sold at the market 
 price, which, as we have said, was higli By engaging to deliver at some future 
 day, tliey expected to be able to buy the stock for little or notliing after the de¬ 
 feat of the bill, and then to demand for it the price for which they had sold it 
 in the first place. Such a transaction was infamous, but would have enabled 
 those engaged in it to realize immense sums by the diflerence in the price of Uio 
 stock. 
 
 13 
 
208 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 began to rise steadily. Those to wliom they had sold de¬ 
 manded the delivery of the stock, but the speculators found it 
 impossible to buy it. There was none in the market at any 
 price. Being unable to deliver stock, they were forced to pay 
 its equivalent in money, and the result was, that all who were 
 engaged in the infamous scheme were ruined. One of the 
 shrewdest operators in Xew York lost over two hundred thou¬ 
 sand dollars. He refused to pay, but his name was at once 
 stricken from the list of stock-brokers. This brought him to 
 terms, and he made good his contracts. Vanderbilt made 
 enough money out of this effort to crush him to pay for all 
 the stock he OAvned in the Harlem Road. 
 
 During the rebellion, Commodore Vanderbilt was one of the 
 stanchest supporters of the Government. Early in the struggle 
 he equipped his splendid steamer, the “ Vanderbilt,” as a man- 
 of-war, and offered her to the Xavy Department at a fair price. 
 He found that, in order to sell the vessel, he would have to pay 
 a percentage of the price received for her to certain parties who 
 stood between the Government and the purchase, and levied 
 black mail upon every ship the Government bought. Indig¬ 
 nant and disgusted, he withdrew his ship, and declared she was 
 not for .sale. Then, satisfying himself that she was in perfect 
 condition, he presented her to the Xavy Department as a free 
 gift to the nation. 
 
 Said a AATiter, whose fondness for courtly similes the 
 reader must pardon, for the sake of the information he imparts: 
 “ Xo man is felt in Wall Street more than Commodore Van¬ 
 derbilt, yet he is seldom seen there. All of his business is 
 done in his office in Fourth Street. Here his brokers meet 
 him, receive their orders, and give reports. Here the plans 
 are laid that shake the street, and Wall Street trembles at the 
 foot of an invisible autocrat. If the reader would care to 
 
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 
 
 209 
 
 visit the court of that great railroad king, whose name has 
 become the terror of Wall Street, he may accompany us to a 
 plain brick residence in Fourth Street, near Broadway, and 
 distant from Wall Street nearly two miles. No sign indieates 
 its imperial occupant, except that the upper story being occu¬ 
 pied as a millinery establishment bears a legend of that char¬ 
 acter. However, as we enter the hall, we notice the word 
 ‘ office,’ and open the door thus inscribed. Here we see a table, 
 a few chairs, and a desk, at which a solitaiy clerk of middle 
 age is standing at work. 
 
 “ The w*alls are bare, with the exception of a few pictures 
 of those steamships which originated the title of ‘ Commodore.’ 
 This is the ante-chamber, and a pair of folding doors screen 
 the king from vulgar gaze. He is closeted with his marshals, 
 and this privy council will last an hour or so. One after the 
 other they depart, and before three o’clock the effect of this 
 council will not only be felt in Wall Street, but will be flashed 
 over the Union. At length you are permitted to enter. The 
 folding door is 02 iened, and you behold an office as plain in 
 appearance as the one just described. It contains a few arm¬ 
 chairs and a long business-table, thrown flush before you, on 
 the ojijiosite side of which sits a large man, with his face 
 fronting you. He is writing, and his eyes are fixed on the 
 pajier, so that you have a moment to note the dignity of frame 
 and the vast develojiment of bi’ain. In a few minutes the 
 countenance raises, and you meet its expansive and jienetrat- 
 ing glance. 
 
 “You face the king. He smiles in a jileasant and whole- 
 souled manner, and in a moment jmts you at ease. No stiff¬ 
 ness nor formality here. His kingshij) is in himselfj not in 
 etiquette. He is ready for a 2 )leasantry, and will initiate one 
 if it comes in the line of conversation, You uote those won- 
 
210 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 clerful eyes, bright and piercing, and so large and rich that one 
 is fascinated, and does not know how to stop gazing into them. 
 Such is the appearance of the railway king, and yon take your 
 leave, conscious that some men, as Shakespeare says, ‘ai*e born 
 great.’ Indeed, we know a man who would rather give five 
 dollai's to sit and look at Commodore Vanderbilt for an hour 
 than to see any other sight in this city. Next door to the 
 office is a building of brown stone, with spacious doors and a 
 roadway. This is the Commodore’s stable, where are some of 
 the finest horses in the country. 
 
 “Every afternoon he is wont to take an airing, and after tea 
 a game of whist affords an evening amusement. The Commo¬ 
 dore is simple in his manners and habits. He is a representa¬ 
 tive of a former age, when men lived less artificially than at 
 the present time, and when there was more happiness and less 
 show. As for business, it is his nature. He can not help 
 being king. He is but developing himself, and any other mode 
 of life would be painful. He lias in the Central affirded a 
 third wonder, the Harlem and the Hudson River being the 
 first and .second, and if he gets the Erie he will soon show the 
 world another wonder. On Sundays the Commodore attends 
 Dr. Hutton’s church on ^Vashington Square, and here his tall 
 and dignified form may be seen, head and shoulders above the 
 rest of the congregation. He is a friend of the pastor, who 
 takes a deep interest in his welfare, and we hope will meet 
 him in a better world. He stood by the Commodore’s side 
 when his wife was laid in the tomb, and cheered him in that 
 dark and trying hour. Among his more recent works is the 
 completing of a tomb in the old Moravian burial-ground in 
 Staten Island. The subterranean chamber is about thirty feet 
 square, and is surmounted by a lofty shaft, and a statue of grief 
 iidds a peculiar finish to the spot. The cemetery is on an emi- 
 
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 
 
 211 
 
 nence, from which one gets a fine view of the ohean, dotted 
 with ships.” 
 
 Commodore Vanderbilt’s early passion for horses never 
 waned, and his stables contained some of the finest in the 
 world. Nothing pleased him so well as to sit behind a fast 
 team, with the reins in his hands, and fiy along the road 
 with almost the speed of the wind. 
 
 His death occurred Jan. 4, 1877, he being 82 years old. 
 He left behind him four sons and nine daughters. In per¬ 
 sonal habits he was careful and abstemious. He scarcely 
 drank a pint of wine in a year. He was a firm believer in 
 the Bible, but seldom went to church until the closing years 
 of his life. As a young man he resolved to retire from 
 business when forty years old, if he should then be worth 
 $20,000. On his fortieth birthday his mother reminded him 
 of this resolve, “Are you worth that much?” she asked. 
 He replied that he was worth $400,000, but that he owed it 
 to his children, to the public, and to his God, to carry on 
 the great enterprises he had undertaken. 
 
 He was extremely generous to his friends, and gave lib¬ 
 erally to charitable objects. He never put his name to a 
 subscription paper, but his donations were none the less 
 liberal for that. His old acquaintances — especially those 
 of his boyhood—found him a tender frieml, and many of 
 them owed to his bounty the comforts which surrounded 
 their age. 
 
212 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 GEORGE M. PULLMAN. 
 
 ^EW travelers intent upon pleasure and 
 observation, wbo have visited Chicago since 1880, 
 have been guilty of turning their backs on the Gar¬ 
 den City and its environs without first paying a 
 tribute to the genius and industry of George M. 
 Pullman. “ Have you been out to Pullman ?” is an 
 inquiry which the enterprising Chicagoan never omits pro¬ 
 pounding to the sti’anger within the gates of his citj^ This 
 wonderful metropolis in miniature, which has sprung up in 
 less than five years, under the hand of the man whose name it 
 bears, is one of the recognized sights of Chicago, and no other 
 name is more familiar to the traveling public of this coun¬ 
 try. It is a name whose suggestions at once rob a long 
 journey of all its terrors. Its mere mention carries with it 
 an unctuous fiavor of palace sleeping cars and all the com¬ 
 forts of a modern hotel, made quite as accessible far out on 
 the plains or in the heart of the Eocky Mountains, as they 
 are in the finest city in the land. It is a name of which its 
 owner may well be proud, since it is not only entitled to a 
 place alongside those of Fulton, Morse, and Field, but is 
 wholly of his own achieGng. 
 
 The early life of George M. Pullman in a measure fitted 
 him for the career which he has since pursued with such 
 
GEonCxE M. PULLMAN. 
 
 213 
 
 wonderful success. His father was an intelligent mechanic, 
 and his own first efPorts at bread-winning were put forth in 
 that direction. The elder Pullman was able, at his trade, 
 to maintain his family comfortably and respectably, but 
 found no opportunity to accumulate property of any conse¬ 
 quence. The children of the family were sent to the near¬ 
 est district school, and gained the amount of knowledge cus¬ 
 tomary with children whose parents could afford them no 
 better educational advantages than the ordinary countiy 
 school provides. Chatauqua County, New York, was the 
 scene of George’s early childhood. He was born in the year 
 1831, and, while yet in his teens, had left school and was 
 employed in the shop of a small furniture manufacturer in 
 Albion, 'New York. Before reaching his majority his father 
 died, and George, finding himself burdened with a large 
 share of the responsibility and support of the family, con¬ 
 sisting of his mother and several younger children, found 
 it necessary to seek better opportunities of money-making. 
 At this time the Erie canal was being widened and deepened, 
 and the State had advertised for bids for contracts to raise 
 buildings along the line of the improved water-way. One 
 of these contracts young Pullman secured. Being of an 
 intelligent, industrious and inquiring disposition, he had 
 learned of his father and in the shop at Albion, besides the 
 principles of mechanics, something of engineering. He 
 bent all his energies to his new task, and accomplished it so 
 quickly and well as to gain him at once a good standing 
 among contractors of that sort. He found no difficulty in 
 securing other jobs of a similar nature, and was plainly on 
 the high road to prosperity. 
 
 In 1859, the work of raising the river streets of Chicago, 
 
214 
 
 KINGS OF FOETUNE. 
 
 of bringing tbe large commercial buildings up to grade and 
 of lifting tbe city out of tbe mud generally—a project long 
 in contemplation—bad just begun. Tbe improvements were 
 to be on a very large scale, in fact, tbe task was a stupendous 
 one, and involved an outlay in money wbicb bas seldom 
 been appropriated for a similar purpose. There was 
 no little difficulty in finding tbe right kind of man to 
 whom to entrust tbe direction of so important a project, and 
 tbe prudent expenditure of so much money. Tbe matter 
 attracted tbe attention of Mr. Pullman, who then, at twenty- 
 eight years of age, was one of tbe best known contractors in 
 tbe country. He came to Chicago, bid for tbe contract and 
 was awarded it. Tbe work Avas commenced immediately. 
 Tbe portion of the city to be raised was tbe center of tbe 
 wholesale district along Lake and Water streets. Many of 
 tbe buildings were four and five story structures of brick, 
 iron and stone, and so heavy and substantial in appearance 
 that, to tbe ordinary mind, tbe idea of raising them bodily 
 three or four or five feet, or eA’en so many inches, seemed 
 preposterous. Tbe streets of the neighborhood were crowded 
 with drays and delivery wagons from morning till night. 
 Business was in a thriving condition, and merchants were 
 dreading tbe commencement of tbe improvements wbicb they 
 had apparently good reason to believe would seriously inter¬ 
 fere with their trade for Aveeks, perhaps months, to come. 
 Tbe contractors, however, as they soon learned, bad no inten¬ 
 tion of blocking the wheels of commerce to any such extent. 
 Mr. Pullman and bis associates in tbe enterprise proA^ed 
 themselves masters of tbe situation. It was tbe man who 
 bad gained bis first experience in such matters along tbe 
 Erie canal, however, who directed tbe work, and whose 
 
GEOilGE M. PULLMAN. 
 
 215 
 
 engineering skill pushed it so rapidly and smoothly 
 forward. In one operation, the whole Lake street front 
 of the block lying between Clark and La Salle streets was^ 
 raised to the level of the new grade, the business and 
 traffic of the block and the locality remaining mean¬ 
 time wholly unimpeded. In the same way, and -svithout 
 materially disturbing the ordinary daily routine of affairs, 
 many heavy South Water street blocks, and the Tremont 
 and Matteson Houses, were brought up to grade. It is 
 needless to say that these extensive operations, concluded 
 in a much shorter space of time than had been antici¬ 
 pated, won the admiration of every one who watched them, 
 and no small amount of gratitude from the merchants, 
 who had made preparations for a long siege of confusion 
 and interrupted trade. The completion of the work saw 
 Mr. Pullman as popular in Chicago as he had been where 
 the first proofs of his engineering skill brought him a 
 large income and an enviable birsiness reputation. 
 
 Meantime, Mr. Pullman had given no small amount of 
 time and thought to Avhat had been for some time his pet 
 project — -the manufacture of a kind of sleeping railway 
 coach, that should commend itself so strongly to the public 
 as to demand its adoption by every raih’oad company in the 
 country. The idea of a railway coach -with sleeping com¬ 
 partments was not wholly original with Mr. Pullman, but it 
 was largely due to his powers of invention and indomitable 
 energy that the idea was elaborated, until at last it bore fruit 
 in the luxurious palace sleeper now in general use. The 
 first attempt at introducing the feature of sleeping accom¬ 
 modations in railway coaches met with small encouragement, 
 owing to the clumsiness of the contrivance called a berth, 
 
216 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 and the small amount of comfort provided, to say nothing of 
 the question of luxury. Mr. Pullman went to work on the 
 theory that the more luxurious were such accommodations 
 the more effectively would they appeal to the class for whose 
 benefit they were designed. His first practical illustration 
 of this theory was in the spring of 1859. Two old cars on 
 the Chicago & Alton road were fitted up and made several 
 trips. The innovation created no end of comment from all 
 directions, and altogether, the experiment thus hastily and 
 imperfectly made, was sufficiently successful to give the 
 inventor strong hopes of eventually seeing his anticipations 
 fully realized. Just at this time, however, a large share of 
 public attention was directed in a channel very different from 
 that leading to a means of luxurious travel. Gold had been 
 discovered in Colorado, and people were flocking there in 
 large numbers. The mining industry affords many oppor¬ 
 tunities to the engineer, as well as the capitalist, and Mr. 
 Pullman was oiie of the former class to be attracted to the 
 mines of Colorado. He remained there three years, and 
 came back considerably richer than when he went away, 
 and full of a determination to push his sleeping-car project 
 to a point of success. He put his whole time and capital 
 into the enterprise, and in a few weeks had completed two 
 palace sleeping cars at a cost of $18,000 each. They 
 were very gorgeous specimens of car-building, and their 
 builder was generally conceded to be foolishly extrava¬ 
 gant and impractical. But it was soon observed that 
 the ventui’e, extravagant as it appeared, was bound to 
 pay handsomely. At each trip over the road, every berth 
 in both cars had its occupant, who invariably counted 
 his quarters cheap at the price. The first railway official 
 
GEORGE M. PULLMAN, 
 
 217 
 
 to signify liis appreciation of the value of Mr. Pullman’s 
 arrangement for the comfort of travelers was John W. 
 Brooks, of the Michigan Central Eoad. An agreement 
 was at once entered into whereby Mr. Pullman was to go 
 to Boston and build similar cars for use on the Michigan 
 Central. Contracts with other roads were made in rapid 
 succession. There was no further opposition to the palace 
 sleeping-car on the score of extravagance, nor on any other 
 account. It was a positive necessity with every road of any 
 standing to furnish its patrons with the accommodations 
 which were in vogue on other roads, and which were already 
 becoming regarded as indispensable. The correctness of 
 Mr. Pullman’s reasoning that people would be willing to pay 
 handsomely for whatever would aid in lessening the discom¬ 
 forts of long journeys by rail was illustrated by the ready 
 and profitable acceptance accorded to his subsequent im¬ 
 provements in the interior arrangement and fitting up of his 
 cars. Indeed, this has been a noticeable feature of Mr. 
 Pullman’s success in business; he seemed always aiming at 
 perfection, and no opportunity to make an improvement, no 
 matter how trivial, was neglected. 
 
 In 1880, Mr. Pullman’s manufacturing interests had 
 reached a point where it was found necessary, in order to 
 satisfy the demands of an enormous and rapidly growing 
 trade, to secure a manufacturing site outside the city limits, 
 and lay out works on a large scale. The present site of the 
 city of Pullman was selected, and a company formed, of which 
 Mr. Pullman was made President. Under his management, 
 and chiefly of his capital, a city suddenly sprang up that was 
 the marvel of the entire country, “Pullman’s wonderful 
 city ” became a sort of stock caption for long newspaper 
 articles descriptive of the enterprise. 
 
218 
 
 Kings of fortunF. 
 
 “ One of Mr. Pullman’s fundamental ideas is the commer¬ 
 cial value of beauhj, and this he has endeavored to carry out 
 as faithfully in the town whi(;h bears his name as in the 
 Pullman drawing-room and sleeping-cars. He is one of the 
 few men who thought it a paying investment to expend mil¬ 
 lions for the purpose of surrounding laborers with objects of 
 beauty and comfort. In a hundred ways one sees in Pull¬ 
 man to-day evidences of its founder’s foresight. One of the 
 most interesting is the fact that the company finds it pays 
 them in dollars and cents to keep the streets sprinkled with 
 water and the lawns well trimmed, the saving in paint and 
 calcimine more than repaying the outlay. Less dust and 
 dirt are carried and blown into the houses, and the injury 
 done to walls and woodwork is diminished. For the rest, 
 the neat exterior is a constant example which is sure, sooner 
 or later, to exert its proper effect on housewives, stimulating 
 them to exertion in behalf of cleanliness and order.” 
 
 For a number of years, Mr. Pullman’s sumptuous brown 
 stone mansion, on one of the most fashionable streets of the 
 South Side, w'as unequaled in Chicago, and possibly is yet, 
 in point of massive elegance and costliness. The lawm sur¬ 
 rounding it on three sides occupies an entire square. Not 
 only the three fronts of the mansion, but the entire struc¬ 
 ture, is of the most expensive cut stone, and its interior 
 arrangement is palatial. Within the last year, Mr. Pullman 
 has completed, at the corner of Adams street and Michigan 
 avenue, an immense nine-story office and apartment build¬ 
 ing, a large portion of the second floor of which is occupied 
 as the offices of the President and Secretary of the Pullman 
 Palace Car Company. The Adams street entrance to the 
 building is especially grand, being an enormous arch 
 
GEORGE M. PULLMAN. 
 
 219 
 
 supported by huge granite pillars. This arch is the full 
 width of an open court, on either side of which marble 
 stairways ascend to the second floor. 
 
 With the exception, perhaps, of Jay Gould, Mr. Pullman 
 is probably the busiest and most difficult of approach of any 
 man in the country. He rarely makes an engagement with 
 any one, always attending to that matter of business which 
 is most urgent at the time, whether it can be done in his 
 office or necessitates a trip to Europe. His interests are so 
 many and so great, that people are glad to come to him and 
 await an audience at his pleasure. Still, he is far from being 
 an arrogant man, and though of a very dignified presence, 
 could not be called haughty in his bearing. What he has 
 done for the laboring class, proves him to be a philanthro¬ 
 pist. His immense wealth is invested in a manner which 
 gives continuous employment to over a thousand men, whose 
 condition he seems always seeking to improve. 
 
 Of Mr. Pullman’s social life, it can be said that no one is 
 better or more favorably known in the best society of Chi¬ 
 cago. Though making no parade of their respect for the 
 religious observances of the country, Mr. Pullman and his 
 family are regular attendants at church, and contribute lib¬ 
 erally to deserving charities. 
 
 This is the record of an American, self-made man, who, 
 still in the prime of life, and many times a millionaire, 
 was, at twenty years of age, the comparatively uneducated 
 son of a poor mechanic. 
 
. I kl 
 
CYRUS W. FIELD. 
 
CVJIUS W. FIKLI;. 
 
 223 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 CYRUS W. FIELD. 
 
 MUS far we have been considering the struggles 
 of men who have risen from obscure positions in 
 life, by the aid of their own genius, industry, 
 and courage, to the front rank of their res[)ective 
 callings. We shall now relate the story of one 
 who having already won fortune, periled it all upon an enter¬ 
 prise in which his own genius had recognized the path to fame 
 and to still greater success, but which the almost united voice 
 of the people of his country condemned as visionary, and from 
 whi(!h they coldly held aloof until its brilliant success com- 
 jielled them to acknowledge the wisdom and foresight of its 
 projector. 
 
 Thirty years ago very few persons had heard of Cyrus 
 W. Field Twenty-five years ago he had achieved consid¬ 
 erable notoriety as a visionary who was bent on sinking his 
 handsome fortune in the sea. To-day, the world is full of 
 his fame, as the man to whom, above all others, it is 
 indebted for the successful completion of the Atlantic Tele¬ 
 graph; and those who were formerly loudest in ridiculing 
 him are now foremost in his praise. “ Nothing succeeds 
 like success,” and Avhat was once in their eyes mere folly, 
 and worthy only of ridicule, they now hail as the evidences 
 
224 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 of his courage, foresight, and profound Tvisdom, and "won¬ 
 der that they never could see them in their light before. 
 
 Cyrus West Field was born at Stockbridge, Mas^achu- 
 setts, on the 30th day of Xovember, 1819, and is the sou of 
 the Rev. David Dudley Field, a distinguished clergyman of 
 that State. He was carefully educated in the primary and 
 grammar schools of his native county, and at the age of fifteen 
 went to Xew York to seek his fortune. He had no difficulty 
 in obtaining a clerkship in an enterprising mercantile house in 
 that city, and, from the first, gave evidence of unusual business 
 capacity. His employers, pleased with his promise, advanced 
 him rapidly, and in a few years he became a partner in the 
 house. His success as a merchant was uniform and marketl— 
 so marked, indeed, that in 1853, when only thirtN’-four years 
 old, he was able to partially retire from business with a large 
 fortune as the substantial reward of his mercantile career. 
 
 Mr. Field had devoted himself so closely to his business that, 
 at his retirement, he resolved to seek recreation and change of 
 scene in foreign travel, and accordingly he left Xew York, and 
 passed the next six months in jonrneying through the mount¬ 
 ains of South America. Upon his return home, at the close of 
 the year 1853, he declared his intention to withdraw entirely 
 from active participation in business, and to engage in no new 
 schemes. 
 
 He had scarcely returned home, however, when his brother, 
 Mr. Matthew D. Field, a successful and well-known civil 
 engineer, informed him that he had just become acquainted 
 with a Mr. Frederick X. Gisborne, of Xewfoundland, who had 
 come to Xew A'ork for the purpose of interesting some Amer¬ 
 ican capitalists in a company which had been organized in 
 Xewfoundland for the pnrpose of procuring news in America 
 and Europe, and transmitting it between the two continents 
 
CYRUS W. FIELD. 
 
 223 
 
 with greater dispatch than was possible in the then existing 
 mode of communication between the two countries. The 
 scheme of Mr. Gisborne had commended itself to Mr. Matthew 
 Field, and he urged his brother to meet that gentleman and 
 hear his statements. Mr. Cyrus Field at once declined to 
 undertake any share in the enterprise, and said that it would 
 be useless for him to meet Mr. Gisborne; but his brother was 
 so urgent that he at last consented to grant Mr. Gisborne an 
 interview, and at least hear what he had to say. At the 
 ajipointed time, Mr. Field received Mr. Gisborne at his house, 
 and was there made acquainted with the proposed plan of 
 operations of the “ Electric Telegraph Company of Newfound¬ 
 land.” This company had gone into bankruptcy a short time 
 previous, but Mr. Gisborne hoped to be able to revive it by 
 the aid of American cajiital. The scheme which he laid before 
 Mr. Field, can not be better stated than by quoting the follow¬ 
 ing extract from the charter which the Legislature of New¬ 
 foundland had granted the bankruptcy company: 
 
 ‘'The telegraph line of this company is designed to be 
 strictly an ‘Inter-Continental Telegraph.’ Its termini will 
 be New York, in the United States, and London, in the King¬ 
 dom of Great Britain; these points are to be connected by a 
 line of electric telegraph from New York to St. John’s, New- 
 Ibundland, partly on poles, partly laid in the ground, and partly 
 through the water, and a line of the swiftest steamships ever 
 built, from that point to Ireland. The trips of these steam¬ 
 ships, it is expected, will not exceed five days, and as very 
 little time will be occupied in transmitting messages between 
 St. John’s and New York, the communication between the 
 latter city and London or Liverpool, will be effected in six 
 
 I 
 
 days, or less. The company will have likewise stationed at 
 St. John’s a steam yacht, for the purpose of intercepting the 
 
226 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 European and American steamships, so that no opportunity 
 may be lost in forwarding intelligence in advance of the ordi¬ 
 nary channels of communication.” 
 
 Mr.*'Field listened attentively to his visitor, but declined to 
 commit himself to more than an expression of sympathy with 
 the enterprise. After the departure of his guest, he took the 
 globe whicli stood in his library, and turning it over, began to 
 examine the proposed route of the telegraph line and the dis¬ 
 tance to be traversed by the steamers. While engaged in this 
 examination, the idea flashed across his mind that instead of 
 undertaking such a complicated scheme, it would be better to 
 attempt to stretch a telegraph wire entirely across the ocean, 
 from the shores of Newfoundland to the coast of Ireland. The 
 vastne.ss of this .scheme pleased him, and its usefulne.ss to the 
 entire world, if it could be carried out, was clear to hi? mind 
 from the first. 
 
 He at once .set to work to ascertain if such an undertaking: 
 as an Atlantic telegraph was practicable. He wrote to Lieuten¬ 
 ant Maury, then the Chief of the National Observatory at 
 Wa.shiogton, and asked if the laying of such a wire was pos¬ 
 sible; and to Professor Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, to 
 know if such a wire would be available for sending messages if 
 it could be laid. Lieutenant Maury promptly replied, inclosing 
 a copy of a report he had just made to the Secretary of the 
 Navy on the subject, from which Mr. Field learned that the 
 idea of laying a telegraph across the ocean was not original 
 with himself. In this report Lieutenant Maury demonstrated 
 the entire practicability of such an enterprise, and sustained 
 his conclusions by a .statement of the recent discoveries con¬ 
 cerning the bed of the ocean, made by Lieutenant Berry¬ 
 man. Professor Morse came in person to visit Mr. Field, 
 and assured him of his entire faith in the possibility of 
 
CYRUS AV. FIELD. 
 
 sending telegraphic messages across the ocean Avith rapidity and 
 success. 
 
 The tAvo highest authorities in the Avorld thus having assured 
 him of the entire practicability of the undertaking, Mr. Field 
 declared his readiness, if he could procure the assistance of a 
 sufficient number of capitalists in the United States, to under¬ 
 take the laying of a telegraph across the Atlantic betAveen 
 Europe and America. Furtiier deliberation only made him 
 better satisfied with the undertaking, and he set to Avork to find 
 ten capitalists, each of whom he proposed should contribute one 
 hundred thousand dollars, making the capital of the proposed 
 company one million of dollars. ]\Ir. Field AA'as convinced that 
 the undertaking would be expensive, but he had then but a 
 faint conception of its magnitude, and Avas very far from sup¬ 
 posing that “ he might yet be draAvn on to stake upon its suc¬ 
 cess the Avhole fortune he had accumulated; that he Avas to sac¬ 
 rifice for it all the peace and quiet he had hoped to enjoy, and 
 that for tAvelv'e years he was to be almost Avithout a home, 
 crossing and recrossing the sea, urging his enterprise in Europe 
 and America.” 
 
 The scientific questions iiiAmlved in the undertaking were so 
 little undei’stood at the time by the public, and the popular 
 judgment regarded the attempt to stretch a cable across the 
 deep, mysterious ocean Avith so much incredulity, that Mr. Field 
 had considerable trouble in finding gentlemen Avilling or pre¬ 
 pared to share his faith in the enterprise. His first effort AA'as 
 to induce Mr. Peter Cooper, of Noav York, his next door neigh¬ 
 bor, to join him, and he succeeded so well that Mr. Cooper con¬ 
 sented to do so if several others would unite with them. En¬ 
 couraged by his success with IMr. Cooper, Avhose name Avas a 
 toAver of strength to his cause, Mr. Field renewed his eflEbrts, 
 and succeeded in Avinning over the folloAving gentlemen, and in 
 
228 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 the order named: Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Eoberts, and 
 Chandlei White. These gentlemen were very slow to accept 
 the views of Mr. Field, but, once having done so, they never 
 lost faith in the ultimate success of the undertaking. The 
 more thoroughly they became acquainted with its magnitude 
 and costliness, the stronger grew their confidence in it, for this 
 increase of knowledge not only showed them more plainly its 
 difficulties and dangers, but developed new grounds on which 
 to base their hopes. 
 
 ]\Ir. Field was about to continue his efforts to pi’ocure ad¬ 
 ditional names, when Mi*. Cooper proposed that the five gen¬ 
 tlemen already jdedged to the scheme should undertake its en¬ 
 tire cost without waiting for the other four. The proposition 
 was agreed to, and it was decided to take the necessary steps 
 to procure a charter for their company from the Legislature of 
 Newfoundland. Mr. Field consented to undertake this, and at 
 once set off for St. John’s, accompanied by his brother, Mr. 
 David Dudley Field, who was made the legal adviser of the 
 company. At St. Jolin’s they were greatly aided by Mr. Arch¬ 
 ibald, then the Attorney-General of the Colony, and after¬ 
 ward the British Consul at New York, and by the Governor 
 of Newfoundland. They succeeded in obtaining a charter 
 from the Legislature under the name of the “ New York, New¬ 
 foundland, and London Telegraph Company,” with liberal 
 grants in land and money. This accomplished, they assumed 
 and paid the liabilities of the old Telegraph Company which 
 had been brought to Mr. Field’s notice by Mr. Gisborne, and 
 thus removed the last difficulty in their way. This much ac¬ 
 complished, Mr. Field hastened back to New T^ork, and on the 
 6th of May, 1854, the Company was formally organized at the 
 residence of Mr. David Dudley Field. Messrs. Cooper, Taylor, 
 Field, Roberts, and White were the first directors. Mr. Cooper, 
 
CYRUS W. FIELD. 
 
 229 
 
 was made President of the Company, Mr. White, Vice-Presi¬ 
 dent, and Mr. Taylor Secretary. A capital of one million and a 
 half of dollars was subscribed on the spot, Mr. Field contrib¬ 
 uting about two hundred thousand dollars in cash. 
 
 Work was at once begun on the section between.New York 
 and St. John’s. There was no road across the island of New¬ 
 foundland, and the Company had not only to build their tele¬ 
 graph line, but to construct a road by the side of it through an 
 almost unbroken wilderness. It was a work which required 
 the highest executive ability, and the services of an army of 
 men. The distance across the island was four hundred miles, 
 and there were numerous rocky gorges, morasses, and rivers in 
 the way. The country was a desolation, and it was found that 
 supplies would have to be transported from St. John’s. The ex¬ 
 ecution of the work was committed to Mr. White, the Vice-Pres¬ 
 ident, who went to St. John’s to act as the general agent of the 
 Company, and to Mr. Matthew D. Field, who was appointed 
 constructing engineer. These gentlemen displayed such skill 
 and energy in their respective positions that in two years the 
 Company had not only built a telegraph line and a road of 
 four hundred miles across the island, but had constructed 
 another line of one hundred and forty miles in the island of 
 Cape Breton, and had stretched a submarine cable across the 
 Gulf of St. Lawrence.* The line was now in working order 
 from New York to St. John’s, Newfoundland, a distance of one 
 thousand miles, and it had required about a million of dollars 
 for its construction. It now remained to complete the great 
 work by laying the cable between Newfoundland and Ireland. 
 
 It being desirable to examine still further the bed of the 
 
 * The firet effort to lay a cable in the Gnlf of Rt. Lawrence was made by this 
 ■Company, in August, 1855. It was a failure, and the cable was lost. The second 
 iittempt was made in the summer of 1856, and was entirely successful. 
 
230 
 
 KIXGS OF FOr.TUNE. 
 
 ocean ov^er which the cable was to be laid, Mr. Field requested 
 the Government of the United States to send out an expedi¬ 
 tion over the route for the purpose of taking deep sea sound¬ 
 ings. His request was promptly granted, and an expedition 
 under Lieut. Berryman was dispatched, which proceeded to ex¬ 
 amine the ocean bed, with the most satisfactory results. This 
 was accomplished in the summer of 1856, and the next year 
 the same route was surveyed by Commander Daymen, with 
 the British war steamer Cyclops—this survey being ordered by 
 the Lords of the Admiralty, at Mr. Field’s request. These 
 surveys made it plain beyond question that a cable could lie 
 safely on the bed of the sea, at a depth sufficient to protect it 
 from vessels’ anchors, from icebergs, and from submarine cur¬ 
 rents, and that it would receive sufficient support from that bed 
 to free it from all undue tension. There was no doubt of the 
 ultimate success of the enterprise in the minds of the directors, 
 but it was necessary to convince the public in both Eui'ope 
 and America that it was not an impossibility, and also to enlist 
 the sympathies of the Governments of Great Britain and the 
 United States, and secure their assistance. 
 
 Mr. Field, who had made several voyages to England and 
 to Newfoundland in behalf of the company, was elected Vice- 
 President after the death of Mr. White, in 1856, and was 
 charged with the duty of proceeding to England to obtain the 
 assistance of the British Government, and to organize the com¬ 
 pany in London. Thus far the directors had borne the entire 
 cost of the undertaking, and it was but fair that they should 
 seek the means for completing their work in the country which 
 was to be so much benefited by it. Mr. Field sailed for Eng¬ 
 land in the summer of 1856, and upon reaching that country 
 pi-oceeded to consult some of its most eminent engineers and 
 electricians. The English people were slow to believe that sa 
 
CYlJUS \V. FIKLD. 
 
 231 
 
 long a cable could be successfully worked, even if laid intact, 
 and to remove their doubts, the opinions of Professor Morse 
 and Lieutenant Maury were published in their newspaj)ers; 
 and this publication brought out communications from many 
 scientific men on the subject, a number of them advocating the 
 undertaking. Thus, the attention of the English public was 
 gained. Experiments were made by Professor Morse, iMr. 
 Bright, and Dr. Whitehouse, which proved beyond all doubt 
 the ease witli which a continuous line of more than two thou¬ 
 sand miles of wire could be worked; and Profesfsor Morse was 
 able, from these exj)erimcnts, to declare his conviction that an 
 electric current could pass between London and New York, on 
 such a wire, in the space of one second. 
 
 Science had now done its utmost, and had in every thing sus¬ 
 tained the great plan. It was now necessary to ask the aid of Her 
 INIajesty’s Government. This effort was intrusted to Mr. Field, 
 who carried it through successfully. The English Government 
 agreed to furnish the ships necessary for making soundings and 
 surveys, and to furni.sh vessels to assist in laying the cable. It 
 also agreed to pay to the company an annual subsidy of four¬ 
 teen thousand pounds for the transmission of the government 
 messages until the net j)rofits of the company were equal to a 
 dividend of six pounds per cent., when the ])ayment was to be 
 reduced to ten thousand pounds per annum, for a period of 
 twenty-five years. Provision was made for extra payment, 
 in case the government messages exceeded a certain amount; 
 and it was ])rovided that the messages of the Governments of 
 Great Britain and the United States .should be placed upon an 
 equal footing, and should have priority in the order in which 
 they arrived at the stations. This last provision exhibited a 
 decided liberality on the part of the English Government, 
 since both ends of the proposed cable would be in British ter- 
 
232 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 ritory. Indeed, tlu’oughout the whole negotiation, Great Brit¬ 
 ain cheerfully accorded to the United States every privilege 
 which she claimed for herself. 
 
 Having secured the aid of the Queen’s Government on sucli 
 liberal terms, Mr. Field now undertook the organization of the 
 company, in addition to the task of raising a capital of three 
 hundred and fifty thousand pounds. In both efforts he was 
 effectively assisted by Mr. John M". Brett, who had laid the first 
 cable across the English Channel, and by Mr. Charles T. Bright 
 and Dr. Edward O. W. M’^hitehouse. The efforts of these gen¬ 
 tlemen were successful. In a few weeks the whole capital was 
 subscribed. It had been divided into three hundred and fifty 
 shares of a thousand pounds each. One hundred and one of 
 these were taken up in London, eighty-six in Liverpool, thirty- 
 seven in Glasgow, twenty-eight in Manchester, and a few in 
 other parts of England. Mr. Field, at the final division of 
 shares, took eighty-eight. He did not design making this in¬ 
 vestment on his own account, but thinking it but fair that at 
 least one-fourth of the stock should be held in America, he 
 made this subscription with the intention of disposing of his 
 shares after his return home. Owing to his continued absence 
 from New York, and the straitened condition of the money 
 market, it was nearly a year before he could succeed in selling 
 as much as twenty-seven shares. The company was organized 
 in December, 1856, a Board of Directors elected, and a con¬ 
 tract made for the cable, half of which was to be made in Lon¬ 
 don and the other half in Liverpool. 
 
 The day after the organization of the company, Mr. Field 
 sailed for New York, from which place he at once made a voy¬ 
 age to Newfoundland, to look after some matters which required 
 his presence. Returning home, he hurried to Washington, to 
 secure the aid of the General Government. He met with more 
 
CYRUS W. FIELD. 
 
 233 
 
 opposition here than he had encountered in England. A power¬ 
 ful lobby opposed him, and a spirit of hostility to his bill exhib¬ 
 ited itself in Congress, and to such a degree that the measure 
 passed the Senate by a majority of only one vote. It came very 
 near failing in the House, but at length got through, and re¬ 
 ceived the President’s signature on the 3d of March, 1857. 
 
 In the summer of 1857, Mr. Field having returned to Eng¬ 
 land, the cable was declared to be in readiness for laying. The 
 United States Government now placed at the disposal of the 
 Telegraph Company the magnificent new steam frigate “ Niag¬ 
 ara,” as the most suitable vessel for laying the cable, and ordered 
 the “ Susquehanna,” the largest side-wheel frigate in the service, 
 to accompany her in the expedition. The British Government 
 provided the steam frigate “ Agamemnon,” a splendid vessel, 
 which had been the flagship of the English fleet at the bom¬ 
 bardment of Sebastopol, and ordered the “ Leopard” to accom¬ 
 pany her as an escort. The '^Niagara” was commanded by 
 Captain W. L. Hudson, of the United States Navy, and the 
 “Agamemnon” by Captain Noddal, of the Royal Navy. The 
 ^‘Niagara” took on her share of the cable at Liverpool, and 
 the “ Agamemnon ” received hers at London. It was agreed 
 that the “ Niagara ” should begin the laying of the cable, and 
 continue it until her portion of it should be exhausted in mid¬ 
 ocean, when lier end of it should be united with the cable on 
 board the “ Agamemnon,” which ship should continue laying the 
 line until the shores of Newfoundland were reached. After 
 taking on the cable, the ships were ordered to Queenstown. 
 
 The vessels left England in the midst of general rejoicings, 
 and arrived at the rendezvous at the proper time. Thence tliey 
 sailed for the harbor of Valentin, which was to be the eastern 
 terminus of the line and the starting point of the expedition. 
 They were greeted every-where with enthusiasm, and the great- 
 
234 
 
 KINGS or FORTUNE. 
 
 est confidence in the success of the enterprise was manifested by 
 those on board. ]\Ir. Field, Professor Morse, and several other 
 officers of the company were on board the “ Niagara,” as that 
 ship was to conduct the first part of the sinking of the cable. 
 
 At length all was in readiness. The shore end of the cable 
 was landed and made fast on Wednesday afternoon, the 5th of 
 August, and the next morning the fleet stood out to sea. “ Be¬ 
 fore they had gone five miles the heavy shore end of the cable 
 caught in the machinery and parted. The ‘Niagara’ put back, 
 and the cable was ‘underrun’ the whole distance. At length 
 the end was lifted out of the water and spliced to the gigantic 
 coil, and as it dropped safely to the bottorh of the sea, the 
 mighty ship began to stir. At first she moved very slowly, not 
 more than two miles an hour, to avoid the danger of accident; 
 but the feeling that they are at last away is itself a relief. The 
 ships are all in sight, and so near that they can hear each other’s 
 bells. The ‘ Niagara,’ as if knowing that she is bound for the 
 land out of whose forests she came, bends her head to the waves,, 
 as her prow is turned toward her native shores. 
 
 “ Slowly passed the hours of that day. But all went well,, 
 and the ships were moving out into the .broad Atlantic. At 
 length the sun went down in the west, and stars came out on 
 the face of the deep. But no man slept. A thousand eyes 
 were watching a great experiment, as those who have a per¬ 
 sonal interest in the issue. All through that night, and through 
 the anxious days and nights that followed, there was a feeling^ 
 in every soul on board as if a friend in the cabin vvere at the 
 turning-point of life or death, and they were watching beside 
 him. There was a strange, unnatural silence in the shij). Men 
 paced the deck with soft and muffled tread, speaking only in 
 whisj)ers, as if a loud voice or a heav'y footfall might snap the 
 vital cord. So much had they grown to feel for the enter- 
 
CYRUS W. FIELD. 
 
 prise, that the cable seemed to them like a human creature, on 
 whose fate they hung, as if it were to decide their own 
 destiny. 
 
 ‘‘ Tliere are some who will never forget that first night at 
 sea. Perhaps the reaction from the excitement on shore made 
 the im})ression the deeper. What strange thoughts came to 
 them as they stood on the deck and watched that mysterious 
 cord disappearing in the darkness, and gliding to its ocean 
 bed! There are certain moments in life when every thing 
 comes back upon us—when the events of years seem crowded 
 into an hour. What memories came up in those long night 
 hours! How many on board that ship thouglit of homes 
 beyond the sea, of absent ones, of the distant and the dead! 
 Such thoughts, mingling with those suggested by the scene 
 around, added to the solemnity of the hour, had left an im¬ 
 pression which can never be forgotten. 
 
 “But with the work in hand all is going on well. There 
 are vigilant eyes on deck. Mr. Bright, the engineer of the 
 company, is there, and Mr. Ev^erett, Mr. De Sauty, the electri¬ 
 cian, and Professor Morse. The paying-out machinery does its 
 work, and though it makes a constant rumble in the ship, that 
 dull, heavy sound is music to their ears, as it tells them that 
 all is well. If one should drop to sleep, and wake up at night, 
 he has only to hear the sound of ‘ the old coffee-mill,’ and his 
 fears are relieved, and he goes to sleep again.” 
 
 Saturday and Sunday passed away without accident, but on 
 Monday, when two hundred miles at sea, in deep water, and 
 safely beyond the great submarine mountain, the electrical con¬ 
 tinuity was suddenly lost. This interruption amazed and per¬ 
 plexed all on board, but no one was able to remedy it, or to 
 account for it satisfactorily. It lasted for two hours, and then, 
 just as the order was about to be given to cut the cable and 
 
236 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 endeavoi’ to wind it in, it came back as suddenly and mysteri¬ 
 ously as it had disappeared. The greatest delight was now 
 manifested by all on board. “You could see,” says the cori'e- 
 spondent of the London Times, “the tears of joy standing in the 
 eyes of some as they almost cried for joy, and told their mess¬ 
 mates that it was all right.” 
 
 That night, however, the expedition came to grief. The cable 
 was running out freely at the rate of six miles per hour, while 
 the ship was making only four. This was supposed to be owing 
 to a powerful undercurrent. To check this waste of the cable 
 the engineer applied the brakes firmly, which at once stopped 
 the machine. The eflfect was to bring a heavy strain on the 
 cable that was in the water. The stern of the ship was down in 
 the trough of the sea, and as it rose upward on the swell, the 
 pressiu'e was too great, and the cable parted. The alarm was at 
 once given, and the greatest consternation and grief prevailed 
 on board. “ It made all hands of us through the day,” says 
 Captain Hudson, “ like a household or family which had lost 
 their dearest friend, for officers and men had been deeply inter¬ 
 ested in the success of the enterprise.” 
 
 The fleet immediately put about and returned to England, 
 where Mr. Field at once informed the directors of the extent of 
 the disaster. The remaining portions of the cable were landed 
 and stored safely away, and the vessels were returned to their 
 respective Governments. Orders were given for the manufac¬ 
 ture of seven hundred miles of cable to replace the portion which 
 had been lost, and to allow for waste in paying it out, and the 
 most energetic preparations were made for another attempt. 
 
 Being satisfied that the machine used for paying out the cable 
 was defective, Mr. Field went to Washington and procured fi’om 
 the Xavy Department the services of Mr. Wm. E. Everett, the 
 chief engineer of the “ Niagara,” stating to that gentleman the 
 
CYRUS W. FIELD. 
 
 237 
 
 necessity for a new machine, and urging him to invent it. This 
 Mr. Everett succeeded in doing during the winter. His ma¬ 
 chine was regarded as a great improvement on that which had 
 been used on the “ Niagara.” “ It was much smaller and lighter. 
 It would take up only about one third as much room on the 
 deck, and had only one fourth the weight of the old machine. 
 Its construction was much more simple. Instead of four heavy 
 wheels, it had but two, and these were made to revolve with 
 ease, and without danger of sudden check, by the application of 
 what were known as self-releasing brakes. These were the in¬ 
 vention of Mr. Appold, of London, a gentleman of fortune, but 
 with a strong taste for mechanics, which led him to spend his 
 time and wealth in exercising his mechanical ingenuity. These 
 brakes were so adjusted as to bear only a certain strain, when 
 they released themselves. This ingenious contrivance was ap¬ 
 plied by Mr. Everett to the paying-out machinery. The 
 strength of the cable was such that it would not break except 
 under a pressure of a little over three tons. The machinery 
 was so adjusted that not more than half that strain could pos¬ 
 sibly come upon the cable, when the brakes would relax their 
 grasp, the wheels revolve easily, and the cable run out into the 
 sea ‘ at its own sweet will.’ The paying-out machine, there¬ 
 fore, we are far from claiming as wholly an American invention. 
 This part of the mechanism was English. The merit of Mr. 
 Everett lay in the skill with which he adapted it to the laying 
 of the Atlantic cable, and in his great improvements of other 
 parts of the machinery. The whole construction, as it afterward 
 stood upon the decks of the “Niagara” and the “Agamemnon,” 
 was the combined product of English and American invention.” 
 
 In January, 1858, the Board of Directors offered Mr. Field 
 the sum of five thousand dollars per annum if he Avould assume 
 the post of general manager of the company. He at once un- 
 
238 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 dertook the duties of the position, but declined all compensa¬ 
 tion. 
 
 Every thing being in readiness for the second attempt at lay¬ 
 ing the cable, the “Niagara” sailed from New York in March, 
 1858, to take on her portion of the cable at Plymouth. Tlie 
 ■“Agamemnon” was again ordered to assist in the undertak¬ 
 ing, and the “Gorgon” was made her consort. Mr. Field had 
 hoped that the “ Susquehanna ” would again be the consort of 
 the “Niagara,” but a few days before the sailing of the fleet he 
 was officially informed that he could not have the ship, as she 
 was then in the West Indies, with the greater part of her crew 
 down with the yellow fever. This was a keen disappointment, 
 as every arrangement had been made with the expectation of 
 having the assistance of the “ Susquehanna.” It was too late to 
 ask the Government at Washington for another ship, and it 
 was by no means certain that the request would be granted if 
 made. In this dilemma Mr. Field frankly stated his disap¬ 
 pointment to the Lords of the Admiralty of England, and 
 asked for a ship to accompany the “ Niagara.” He was 
 informed that the English Government was at that moment 
 chartering vessels to convey troops to Malta, as it had not ships 
 enough of its own, and that it was doubtful whether it could 
 contribute a third ship to the expedition. Still, so greatly did 
 the government desire the success of the enterprise, that a little 
 later on the same day the “ Valorous ” was ordered to take 
 the place of the “Susquehanna” in the telegraph fleet. This 
 generous assistance was all the more praiseworthy, as it was 
 given at a time when the need (tf England for ships was veiy 
 urgent. 
 
 After shipping the cable, the squadron sailed from Plymouth 
 on the 29th of May, 1868, for the Bay of Biscay, where the 
 cable was subjected to numerous and thorough tests, which 
 
CYRUS W. FIELD. 
 
 239 
 
 demonstrated its strength and its sensitiveness to the electric 
 current. This accomplished, the vessels returned to Plymouth. 
 
 ‘‘Among the matters of personal solicitude and anxiety at 
 this time, next to the success of the expedition, was Mr. Field 
 himself. He was working with an activity which was unnatu¬ 
 ral—which could only be kept up by great excitement, and 
 which involved the most serious danger. The strain on the 
 man was more than the strain on the cable, and we were in fear 
 that both would break together. Often he had no sleep, except 
 such as he caught flying on the railway. Indeed, when we 
 remonstrated, he said he could rest better there than anywhere 
 else, for then he was not tormented with the thought of any 
 thing undone. For the time being he could do no more; and 
 then, putting his head in the cushioned corner of the carriage, 
 he got an hour or two of broken sleep. 
 
 “ Of this activity we had an instance while in Plymouth. 
 The ships were then lying in the Sound, only waiting orders 
 from the Admiralty to go to sea; but some business required 
 one of the directors to go to Paris, and, as usual, it fell upon 
 him. He left on Sunday night, and went to Bristol, and 
 thence, by the first morning train, to London. Monday he 
 was busy all day, and that night went to Paris. Tuesday, 
 another busy day, and that night back to London. Wednes¬ 
 day, occupied every minute till the departure of the Great 
 Western train. That night back to Plymouth. Thursday 
 morning on board the ‘Niagara,’ and immediately the squad¬ 
 ron sailed.” 
 
 The plan of operations this time was for the vessels to pro¬ 
 ceed to a given point in mid-ocean, and there unite the two ends 
 of the cable, after which the “Niagara” should proceed toward 
 Newfoundland and the “Agamemnon” toward Ireland, and it 
 was supposed that each vessel would make land about the same 
 
240 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 time. This was believed to be a better plan than the one pur¬ 
 sued in the first expedition. 
 
 The squadron sailed from Plymouth on the 10th of June. 
 The weather was favorable for the first two or three days of 
 the voyage, but on the 13th a severe gale set in, which lasted 
 for over a week, and came near causing the “Agamemnon ” to 
 founder beneath her immense load, a portion of which broke 
 loose in her hold. All the vessels succeeded in weathering the 
 storm, however, and on the 25th reached the rendezvous in 
 mid-ocean. The next day the splice was made, and the ships 
 set out for their respective destinations. Before they had gone 
 three miles the machinery of the “Niagara” caught the cable 
 and broke it. A second splice was made, but when each ship had 
 paid out about forty miles, the electric current suddenly ceased. 
 The cable was cut promptly, and the two vessels at once re¬ 
 turned to the rendezvous, where they rejoined each other on the 
 28th. A comparison of the logs of the two ships “showed the 
 painful and mysterious fact that at the same second of time 
 each vessel discovered that a total fracture had taken place, at 
 a distance of certainly not less than ten miles from each ship, 
 in fact, as well as can be judged, at the bottom of the ocean.’^ 
 A third splice was made without delay, and the two ships again 
 set out for the opposite shores of the Atlantic. This time about 
 two hundred miles of the cable were successfullv laid, when it 
 parted about twenty feet from the stern of the “ Agamemnon.” 
 The “Niagara,” being unable to communicate with the English 
 frigate, bore away for Queenstown, where she was joined a few 
 days later by the “ Agamemnon.” 
 
 This second failure greatly disheartened the directors, and it 
 required all Mr. Field’s persuasiveness to induce them to sanc¬ 
 tion another attempt. A"et he prevailed, and, hastening from 
 London to Queenstown, sailed with the telegraph fleet on the 
 
(Ti'RUS AV. FIELD. 
 
 241 
 
 third attempt to lay the cable, leaving Queenstown on the 17th 
 of July. The rendezvous was reached on the 28th, and on the 
 29th the splice was made, and the “ Niagara ” and “Agamemnon” 
 parted company. This time the undertaking was successful. 
 The cable was laid across the Atlantic, the “Niagara” reaching 
 Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, on the 5th of August, and the 
 “Agamemnon” arriving at Valentia, Ireland, a few hours later 
 on the same day. Signals were sent across the entire length of 
 the line, from .shore to shore, with ease and rapidity, and noth¬ 
 ing occurred to mar the success of the mighty undertaking. 
 
 The successful laying of the cable Avas hailed Avith the live¬ 
 liest joy on both sides of the Atlantic, and those Avho had par¬ 
 ticipated in it Avere regarded as heroes. But great as Avas the 
 achievement, it Avas not destined to be a lasting success. After 
 working for four Aveeks, the electric current suddenly ceased on 
 the 1st of Septembei’. It never Avorked perfectly at any period 
 of its existence, but it did transmit a number of messages 
 Avith iutelligibleness, and thus put an end to all doubt in the 
 minds of the scientific men of the expedition of the feasibility 
 of laying a successful line across the ocean. 
 
 The public generally and the directors of the company Avere 
 greatly disapiAointed, and many of the latter and nearly all of 
 the former declared that all such attempts must of necessity fail. 
 Some persons even Avent so far as to avoAv their belief that the 
 statements as to the successful transmission of signals OA'er the 
 Avire Avere false; but the proofs that the Avire did Avork properly 
 for aAvhile are too strong to allow us to accord the slightest 
 Aveight to this disbelief. But Avhether signals had passed over 
 the Avire or not, there could be no doubt that the cable had 
 ceased to respond to the efforts of the electrician.s, and Avas a 
 total fiiilure, and the discouragement of nearly every one con¬ 
 nected with it Avas most profound. 
 
 15 
 
242 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Mr, Field and one or two others were the only persons who 
 retained the slightest confidence in the enterprise, and it was 
 clear to them that any farther effort to secure the aid of private 
 capital would be useless just then. An appeal was made to the 
 British Government. It was urged that the work was too 
 great to be undertaken by private capital alone, and that, since 
 it was to be more of a public than a private nature, it was but 
 just that the Government should undertake it. The company 
 asked the Government to guarantee the interest on a certain 
 amount of stock, even if the second attempt should not prove 
 a complete success. The failure of the Red Sea cable, to 
 which the British Government had giv’en an unconditional 
 guarantee, had just occurred, and had caused a considerable loss 
 to the treasury, and the Government was not willing to assume 
 another such risk. Anxious, however, for the success of the 
 Atlantic telegraph, it increased its subsidy from fourteen thou¬ 
 sand to twenty thousand pounds, and agreed to guarantee eight 
 per cent, on six hundred thousand pounds of new capital for 
 twenty-five years, upon the single condition that the cable 
 should be made to work successfully. 
 
 This was not all, however. The Government caused further 
 soundings to be made off the coast of Ireland, which effectually 
 dispelled all the fears which had been entertained of a subma¬ 
 rine mountain which would prove an impassable barrier in the 
 path of an ocean telegraph. In addition to this, it caused the 
 organization of a board of distinguished scientific men for the 
 purpose of determining all the difficult problems of submarine 
 telegraphy. This board met in 1859, and sat two years. The 
 result of its experiments and investigations was a declaration, 
 signed by the members, that a cable properly made, “and paid 
 into the ocean with the most improved machinery, possesses 
 every prospect of not only being successfully laid in the first 
 
CYKUS W. FIELD. 
 
 243 
 
 instance, but may reasonably be relied upon to continue many 
 years in an efficient state for the transmission of signals.” 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Field labored energetically to revive the 
 company. The war which had broken out in the United 
 States brought home to our Government the urgent need of 
 telegraphic communication with Europe, and Mr. Field had 
 no difficulty in obtaining from the President an assurance that 
 this Government would be most happy to join with Great 
 Britain in promoting this great international work. He ad¬ 
 dressed meetings of merchants in various American cities, and 
 displayed the greatest energy in his efforts to enlist the aid of 
 American capital. Very little was accomplished, however, until 
 1863. By this time the success of the lines -in the Mediter¬ 
 ranean and in the Persian Gulf had demonstrated the practica¬ 
 bility of long submarine telegraphs, and the public confidence 
 in the attempt had been revived to such an e.xtent that the 
 directors ventured to call for proposals for the manufacture 
 of a cable. Seventeen offers were made, from which that of 
 Messrs. Glass, Elliott & Co., of London, was selected. Mr. 
 Field now renewed his indomitable efibrts, and in a few 
 months the new capital of six hundred thousand pounds was 
 subscribed, ISIessrs. Glass, Elliott & Co. taking three hundred 
 and fifteen thousand pounds, besides one hundred thousand 
 pounds in bonds. This was accomplished in 1864, and work 
 on the cable was immediately begun. The cable now adopted 
 Avas very different from, and much more sensitive than, those 
 which had been used before. It was heavier, and less liable 
 to be injured by the water. 
 
 The “Great Eastern” steamship, the greatest wonder of naval 
 architecture, Avas at this time advertised for sale, and it occurred 
 to scA'cral of the gentlemen interested in the telegrajffi company 
 that she was the best vessel for laying the cable that could be 
 
244 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 found. They at once organized themselves into a company, 
 purchased the ship, and fitted her up for that service. They 
 were fortunate in securing the services of Captain James An¬ 
 derson, and placing him in charge of her, sent her to Sheerness, 
 where the cable was sent down to her in lighters from the fac¬ 
 tory at Greenwich. When the cable was on board, and'all the 
 other arrangements had been completed, the big ship left the 
 Thames and sailed for Valentia harbor. 
 
 The point of landing had been changed from Valentia har¬ 
 bor, five or six miles, to Foilhomtnerum Bay. On the 23d 
 of July, 1865, the shore end was connected with the cable on 
 board the ship, and the voyage was begun. It would be inter¬ 
 esting to follow the huge steamer on this remarkable voyage, 
 and to relate to the reader the almost marvelous manner in 
 which faults were detected in the line hundreds of miles from 
 the shore, and how the cable was successfully hauled in and the 
 damage repaired. All went well until twelve hundred miles 
 of cable had been paid out, and the ship was but six hundred 
 miles from the shores of Newfoundland, when the cable broke 
 again and plunged into the sea. 
 
 Mr. Canning, the engineer in charge, was dismayed, but not 
 disheartened. For nine days the ship hung around the spot 
 grappling for the cable, in the hope of raising it, and sinking 
 its grapnels for this purpose to a depth of two miles. The 
 cable was caught several times, but the rope which held the 
 grapnel broke each time, and the precious coil fell back again 
 into the deep. At length, having marked the place where 
 the eable was lost with buoys, the ship put back for England, 
 and the enterprise was abandoned for that year. 
 
 Though unsuccessful in carrying the cable across the ocean, 
 this expedition was by no means a failure. Its results are thus 
 summed up by the officers in charge of it: 
 
CYiirs w. t'lELt). 
 
 245 
 
 1. It was proved by the expedition of 1858 that a submarine tele¬ 
 graph cable could be laid between Ireland and Newfoundland, and mes¬ 
 sages transmitted through the same. 
 
 By the expedition of 1865 it has been fully demonstrated : 
 
 2. That the insulation of a cable improves very much after its sub¬ 
 mersion in the cold deep water of the Atlantic, and that its conducting 
 power is considerably increased thereby. 
 
 3. That the steamship “Great Eastern,” from her size and constant 
 steadiness, and from the control over her afforded by the joint use of 
 paddles and screw, renders it safe to lay an Atlantic cable in any 
 weather. 
 
 4. That in a depth of over two miles four attempts were made to 
 grapple the cable. In three of them the cable was caught by the grap¬ 
 nel, and ill the other the grapnel was fouled by the chain attached to it. 
 
 5. That the paying-out machinery used on board the Great Eastern 
 worked perfectly, and can be confidently relied on for laying cables 
 across the Atlantic. 
 
 6. That with the improved telegraphic instruments for long sub¬ 
 marine lines, a speed of more than eight w'ords per minute can be ob¬ 
 tained through such a cable as the present Atlantic one between Ireland 
 and Newfoundland, as the amount of slack actually paid out did not ex¬ 
 ceed fourteen per cent., which would have made the total cable laid be¬ 
 tween Valentia and Heart’s Content nineteen hundred miles. 
 
 7. That the present Atlantic cable, though capable of bearing a 
 strain of seven tons, did not experience more than fourteen hundred¬ 
 weight in being paid out into the deepest water of the Atlantic between 
 Ireland and Newfoundland. 
 
 8. That there is no difficulty in mooring buoys in the deep water of 
 the Atlantic between Ireland and Newfoundland, and that two buoys 
 even when moored by a piece of the Atlantic cable itself, which had 
 been previously lifted from the bottom, have ridden out a gale. 
 
 9. That more than four nautical miles of the Atlantic cable have 
 been recovered from a depth of over two miles, and that the insulation 
 of the gutta-percha covered wire was in no way whatever impaired by 
 the depth of water or the strains to which it had been subjected by lift¬ 
 ing and passing through the hauling-in apparatus. 
 
 10. That the cable of 1865, owing to the improvements introduced 
 
246 
 
 KiXGS OF fortune. 
 
 into the manufacture of the gutta-percha core, was more than one hun¬ 
 dred times better insulated than cables made in 1858, then considered 
 perfect and still working. 
 
 11. That the electrical testing can be conducted with such unerring 
 accuracy as to enable the electricians to discover the existence of a fault 
 immediately after its production or development, and very quickly to 
 ascertain its position in the cable. 
 
 12. That with a steam-engine attached to the paying-out machinerj', 
 should a fault be discovered on board whilst laying the cable, it is pos¬ 
 sible that it might be recovered before it had reached the bottom of the 
 Atlantic, and repaired at once. 
 
 It was now placed beyond the possibility of a doubt that the 
 cable would be laid within the next year. More than this, it 
 was determined not only to lay a new cable between the two 
 continents, but to fish up the cable of 1865, splice it and con¬ 
 tinue it to Newfoundland, thus giving the company two work¬ 
 ing lines. 
 
 It was necessary, however, to raise more capital, and in this 
 effort Mr. Field again put forth his restless and indomitable 
 energies. As the public confidence in the scheme had been 
 effectually restored, it was resolved to raise six hundred thou¬ 
 sand pounds of new capital by the issue of one hundred and 
 twenty thousand shares of five pounds each, which should be 
 preferential shares, entitled to a dividend of twelve per cent, 
 before the eight per cent, dividend to be paid on the former 
 preference shares, and the four per cent, on the ordinary stock. 
 They at once proceeded to issue these bond.s, when they were in¬ 
 formed by the Attorney-General that the proceeding was con¬ 
 trary to law. 
 
 In this dilemma work on the new cable was at once stopped, 
 and the money which had been paid in returned to the sub¬ 
 scribers. As Parliament was not in session, and a new issue of 
 stock could not be made by the company without its authori- 
 
CYRUS \V. FIELD. 
 
 247 
 
 zation, and as to wait for this would be to postpone the laying 
 of the cable for another year, Mr. Field was now advised by 
 Mr. Daniel Gooch, M. P., that the only way out of the difficulty 
 was to organize a new company at once, which should assume 
 the work, issue its own shares, and raise its own capital. Emi¬ 
 nent legal gentlemen sustained Mr. Gooch in this ojiinion, and 
 Mr. Field again set to work to organize a new company, under 
 the name of the “Anglo-American Telegraph Company.” The 
 capital was fixed at six hundred thousand pounds, Mr. Field 
 taking ten thousand jiounds. The whole amount was raised in 
 a short time, and the company “ contracted with the Atlantic 
 Cable Company to manufacture and lay down a cable in the 
 summer of 18GG, for doing which it is to be entitled to what 
 virtually amounts to a preference dividend of twenty-five per 
 cent., as a first claim is secured to them by the Atlantic Tele¬ 
 graph Company u])on the revenue of the cable or cables (after 
 the working expenses have been provided for) to the extent of 
 one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds per annum, and 
 the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Com¬ 
 pany undertake to contribute from their revenue a further an¬ 
 nual sum of twenty-five thousand pounds, on condition that a 
 cable shall he working during 1866.” 
 
 Once more the furnaces glowed and the hammers rang in 
 the manufacture of the cable. Great improvements were made 
 in the cable itself and in the maehincry for laying it, and the 
 “Great Eastern” was thoroughly overhauled. The cable was 
 completed and put on board in .Tune, and the big ship left the 
 Medway on the last of the month and proceeded to Berehaven, 
 in Ireland, where she took on her final stores of coal. This 
 done, she proceeded to Valentia, where she arrived on the 
 seventh of July. 
 
 The shore end was successfully laid and made fast to the cable 
 
248 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 on board the ‘‘Groat Eastern,” and on Friday morning, the 13th 
 of July, 1866, the huge ship set sail for Newfoundland, accom¬ 
 panied hy her consorts of the telegraph fleet. The voyage occu¬ 
 pied fourteen days, the ship making an average run of about 
 one hundred and eighteen miles per day, and paying out about 
 one hundred and thirty-one miles of cable in the same period of 
 time. The weather was fair during the whole voyage, but the 
 anxiety of the officers in charge was none the less on that 
 account. There were accidents to be dreaded more than unfav¬ 
 orable weather. The ship was run at moderate speed all the 
 way, as it was thought she had once or twice run too fast on the 
 last voyage, and exposed the cable to danger. “ The total slack 
 of the cable was less than twelve per cent., showing that the 
 cable was laid almost in a straight line, allowing for the swells 
 and hollows in the bottom of the sea. , 
 
 “As the next week drew toward its close, it was evident that 
 they were approaching the end of their voyage. By Thursday 
 they had passed the great depths of the Atlantic, and were off 
 soundings. Besides, their daily observations, there were many 
 signs well known to mariners that they were near the coast. 
 There were the sea-birds, and even the smell of the fand, such 
 as once greeted the sharp senses of Columbus, and made him 
 sure that he was floating to some undiscovered shore. Captain 
 Anderson had timed his departure so that he should approach 
 the Amerieau coast at the full moon; and so, for the last two 
 or three nights, as they drew near the Western shore, the 
 round orb rose behind them, casting its soft light over sea and 
 sky; and these happy men seemed like heavenly voyagers, 
 floating gently on to a haven of rest. 
 
 “ In England the progress of the expedition was known 
 from day to day, but on this side of the ocean all was uncer¬ 
 tainty. Some had gone to Heart’s Content, hoping to witness 
 
CYRUS \V. FIELD. 
 
 240 
 
 the arrival of the fleet, but not so many as the last year, for 
 the memory of their disappointment was too fresh, and they 
 feared the same result again. But still a faithful few were 
 there, who kept their daily watch. Two weeks have passed. 
 It is Friday morning, the 27th of July. They are up early, 
 and looking eastward to see the day break, when a ship is 
 seen in the offing. She is far down on the horizon. Spy¬ 
 glasses are turned toward her. She comes nearer; and look, 
 there is another, and another! And now the hull of the 
 ‘Great Eastern’ looms up all glorious in that morning sky. 
 They are coming ! Instantly all is wild excitement on shore. 
 Boats put off’ to row toward the fleet. The ‘ Albany’ is the first 
 to round the point and enter the bay. The ‘Terrible’ is close 
 behind; the ‘Medway’ stops an hour or two to join on the heavy 
 shore end, while the ‘Great Eastern,’ gliding calmly in as if she 
 had done nothing remarkable, drops her anchor in front of the 
 telegraph house, having trailed behind her a chain of two thou¬ 
 sand miles, to bind the old world to the new. 
 
 “ Although the expedition reached Newfoundland on Friday, 
 the 27th, yet, as the cable across the Gulf of St. Lawrence was 
 broken, the news was not received in New York till the 29th. 
 It was early Sunday morning, before the Sabbath bells had rung 
 their call to prayer, that the tidings came. The first announce¬ 
 ment was brief: ‘ Heart’s Content, July 27th. We arrived here 
 at nine o’clock this morning. All well. Thank God, the cable 
 is laid, and is in perfect working order. Cyrus W. Field.’ ” 
 
 There was no failure in the communication this time. The 
 electi-ic current has continued to flow strongly and uninter¬ 
 ruptedly from that day until the present, and experience has 
 demon.strated for the wonderful wire a capacity far beyond the 
 hopes of its ])rojectors. 
 
 Having laid the cable, the “ Great Eastern ” proceeded with 
 
250 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 surprising accuracy to where the line had been lost the year 
 bel’ore, and succeeded in grappling and raising it to the surface. 
 It was tested, and found to be in perfect order, messages being 
 sent with ease from the ship to A'alentia, and from that point 
 back again. A splice was then made, and the line was con¬ 
 tinued to Newfoundland. Both cables are still working, and 
 bid fair to be serviceable for many years to come. 
 
 ISlany persons had contributed to this great success, but to 
 Cyrus W. Field must be assigned the chief praise. His energy 
 and perseverance kept the subject constantly before the public. 
 His courage inspired others, and his faith in its ultimate suc¬ 
 cess alone kept its best friends from abandoning it in its dark¬ 
 est hours. In its behalf he spent twelve years of constant toil, 
 and made over fifty voyages, more than thirty of which were 
 across the Atlantic. He devoted his entire fortune to the un¬ 
 dertaking, of which he was the projector, and cheerfully in¬ 
 curred the risk of poverty rather than abandon it. Therefore, 
 it is but just that he, who was the chief instrument in obtain¬ 
 ing for the world this great benefit, should receive the chief 
 measure of the praise which it has brought to all connected 
 with it. 
 
 To him belongs the honor of proposing, and afterwards 
 superintending, the raising of the fund for the benefit of 
 our late beloved President, James A. Garfield. 
 
 Mr. Field still figures among the many acute business 
 men of New York, and is ever foremost in acts to benefit 
 his fellow-man. 
 
WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT. 
 
WILLIAM H. VANDEKBILT. 
 
 258 
 
 CHAPTER XTV. 
 
 WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT. 
 
 ILLIAM H. VANDERBILT is the oldest of 
 the thirteen children of the great Cornelius 
 Vanderbilt, Avhose history we have just related, 
 and whose enterprise, genius and success were 
 known and felt all over the world. William 
 was born in New Brunswick, N. J., on the 8th 
 of May, 1821. He inherited a great part of his father’s 
 immense fortune, and has been a very successful manager 
 of the stupendous enterprise begun by that great financier. 
 This fortunate son grew up under the old-fashioned delusion 
 that if you keep a child hungry he will deserve fortune better, 
 and consequently he spent his time on a farm within sight 
 of New York, till his youth was passed and he had advanced 
 considerably in years. He was allowed a common school 
 education at Columbia College Grammar School, and 
 suffered the neglect of not recei\dng further advancement 
 in this line of mental culture. When eighteen years of age 
 he was employed by the financial house of Drew, Robinson 
 & Co., and two years later, having shown much industry and 
 executive ability, he was offered a partnership in the business. 
 The close confinement required at duties with this firm 
 
254 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 began to injure liis health, and he determined to engage in 
 farming as a means of recuperation. For this purpose the 
 Commodore gave him a farm of seventy-five acres on Staten 
 Island, and unimproved. Thither with his wife he removed, 
 and began the work of farming. He soon improved the 
 seventy-five acres and purchased a larger tract, so that he 
 could have under crop three hundred and fifty acres. 
 
 When he first began farming, his means were so limited 
 that he could not operate as he desired, and conse¬ 
 quently he mortgaged his land for $G,000, turning the 
 sum to good account. After this act reached the ears of 
 the Commodore, he observed to his son: “So you mort¬ 
 gaged the new crop farm for $G,000, did you ? You 
 don’t amount to a row of pins, and never will.” His son 
 replied: “ I did mortgage the farm, and have put every cent 
 of the money right into improHng the land.” To this the 
 Commodore responded: “Well, I’ll have nothing more to 
 do with you, for you’ll only bring disgrace on yourself and 
 your family, and everybody connected with you.” It is 
 probable that the father soon felt that his opinion should be 
 modified, for on the morning following the conversation, he 
 sent the son SG,000, ordering him to pay off the mortgage at 
 once. 
 
 It was not long after this that the Staten Island Railroad 
 Company became embarrassed, and William H. Vanderbilt 
 and his uncle Jacob were called to its management. In 
 this capacity they relieved the road of its difficulties, and 
 improved its prospects in a marked degree. The experience 
 acquired here gave William an insight into railroad affairs, 
 and so advanced him in the estimation of capitalists, that he 
 was elected Vice-President of the New York and Harlem in 
 
WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT. 
 
 255 
 
 1864, and soon after of the Hudson River line. This latter 
 named road became so prosperous under his management 
 that he was, without question, recognized as a railroad man¬ 
 ager of profound knowledge and experience, and rendered 
 worthy the confidence of his father to the fullest extent. 
 Having attained this success, his career was subsequently 
 marked with prosperity, and on the death of the Commodore, 
 he became possessed of the larger part of his father’s prop¬ 
 erty. 
 
 Mr. Vanderbilt regrets the loss of better educational 
 advantages, but has gained much from the refining instincts 
 of his wife, who is a lady of exceptional qualities, being a 
 daughter of a New York clergyman, and a Christian lady of 
 sterling attributes and attainments. Her name was Kis- 
 sam, and the marriage took place in 1841, when William 
 was twenty years of age. Of the nine children, eight are 
 alive, well educated, and constitute a most interesting and 
 charming family. In these Mr. Vanderbilt takes great 
 pleasure, and the household is as happy a family as their 
 old Dutch ancestors in the valley on the Hudson, where 
 divorces were never known. 
 
 The interests of William Vanderbilt are so great that he 
 is compelled to operate with prudence and caution, and 
 must be considered as we would estimate a ruling statesman of 
 a leading nation. Nobody says that Bismark falsifies, though 
 he does not betray his plans to his contemporaries, and often 
 covers his tracks, or reverses his snow shoes. In like man¬ 
 ner, Mr. Vanderbilt, having so great interests, does not give 
 his confidence wholly to anybody. Had he done this, he 
 might have wasted even the great patrimony he inherited, 
 and received nothing from the general community but pity 
 
256 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 and contempt. It is owing to this reticence, a necessity on 
 his part, that his biography can not now be written so as to 
 give the salient points of action in his life. 
 
 This great capitalist is moderately parsimonious, and 
 does not “jump to the calls” of modern times, as many 
 persons would readily suspect. He goes on towards prog¬ 
 ress, but is generally some distance behind. This is exem¬ 
 plified by the fact that he has been slow to operate his road 
 with modern electric signals, and to introduce the latest and 
 most desirable improvements on sleeping-cars. Though 
 slow at taking hold of improvements, William Vanderbilt is a 
 safe investor, and troubles the courts as little as possible for a 
 man having the care of so much property. In the manage¬ 
 ment of his estate he has not let his character or system fall 
 below the mark; has done as well with the tempting influ¬ 
 ences of his Avealth as any other man, perhaps, would do; 
 and has defended his property Avith a courage not unworthy 
 the Princes of Orange themselves, under Avhom his ances¬ 
 tors greAV up and lived. 
 
 This remarkable character enjoys the distinction of being 
 the wealthiest man in America, haAung a fortune that is 
 probably worth tAA'o hundred millions of dollars. No other 
 man in the AA’orld has under his control so many miles of rail¬ 
 way; for these touch all the States in the Union, and are a 
 potent instrument for harmony,binding the different parts of 
 the continent into a union of feeling,sentiment and prosperity. 
 His locomotives haA’e been called shuttles, that, passing 
 through the golden thread of commerce, weave the woof of- 
 the East with the warp of the West, in a manner so firm as 
 to prevent disaster to their prosperity. His colossal enter¬ 
 prises require in their management men so great in number 
 
WILLIAM II. VANDEIiBLT. 
 
 257 
 
 that they might be called an army. To take care of his 
 immense railway interests, requires more executive ability 
 than is put forth in the management of many a sovereign 
 government, and the manner in which he has wielded the 
 vast estate to which he has fallen heir shows the great skill 
 and power of which he is possessed. His advance in life has 
 been quiet and comparatively uneventful, save the greatness 
 of his influence in the money market, and the strength 
 attached to him with the “bulls and bears.” He became the 
 confidence and pride of his father, inherited the lion’s share 
 of the Commodore’s estate, and has operated this so shrewdly, 
 that he has doubled and quadrupled,and additionally increased 
 the amount of property left him. He is fond of blooded 
 horses, and once owned the fastest horse in the world. 
 Costly pictures and elegant furniture decorate the palaces 
 which he has built on Fifth avenue, and their erection and 
 adornment as palatial residences, show his practical nature 
 and excellent taste. In personal appearance he is free from 
 that conceit and scorn which often appears on the visage of 
 men who excel others in the race for riches and distinction. 
 On his full, round face appears a look pleasant to behold, 
 and his high, broad forehead seems to harmonize with his 
 large head, broad shoulders, and manly frame. 
 
 He has made several visits to Europe, where he has 
 purchased numerous works of art for the adornment of his 
 home on this side of the Atlantic. He does not seem to 
 court notoriety through liberal acts, though his charities 
 and public spirit are not unworthy his vast wealth. He 
 defrayed the whole cost of the removal of Cleopatra’s 
 Needle from Alexandria, Egypt, to its present site in Cen¬ 
 tral Park, New York, and it was some time before the pub¬ 
 lic was made aware of this liberal contribution. 
 
258 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Mr. Yanclerbilt is hale and active, and spends much of 
 his time vith his family, and the few select friends whom 
 he has chosen from among his numerous acquaintances. 
 He always “has an eye” to business, but in private life is 
 open, frank and generous. From the appearance of his 
 di'ess and general bearing, there is nothing to distinguish 
 him from any other American gentlemen. Occupying the 
 most magnificent residence in the country, sui'rounded 
 by peace and happiness at home, and being in possession 
 of a vigorous mind and body, it would seem that there awaits 
 him much advancement, and many yeai’s of usefulness to 
 himself and to his fellow-man. 
 

% 
 
 JAY GOULD. 
 
JAY GOULD. 
 
 2G1 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 JAY GOULD. 
 
 }0 name is to-day more conspicuous in American 
 finance than that of the subject of this sketch. 
 Around no name clusters so much fascination, 
 enticing venturesome and even prudent men into 
 the alluring domain of speculation. And much 
 of this fascination about t!ie name of Jay Gould 
 is ascribable to the fact of his humble origin, which seems to 
 teach, by example, the fact that the goddess of Fortune, 
 capricious as she is, despises none, but may be wooed and 
 won by the most obscure. 
 
 From somewhere in Connecticut many years ago, when 
 colossal fortunes were among the myths of history, Abraham 
 Gould emigrated and settled the then somewhat sparsely 
 settled country where now stands the village of Roxbury, in 
 Delaware County, New York, about fifty miles west of 
 Rondout, on the Hudson River. Biit little is known of 
 Abraham Gould, and it is doubtful if his grandson knows 
 more than that he was of Puritan stock, aggressive and fear¬ 
 less, with a strong dash of the asceticism of his forefathers. 
 To Abraham Gould was born a son, John B. Gould, who 
 was reputed to be the first white male child born in the 
 village of Roxbury, where he grew to manhood.- 
 16 
 
2C2 
 
 KINGS OF FORl’UNE. 
 
 Jolin B. Gould was twice married, the result of his first 
 union being four daughters and one son, and by the second 
 wife, a son. The first of these two sons was born in May, 
 1830, and is the subject of this sketch. But little is recorded 
 of the history of John B., the father of Jay Gould, and 
 indeed it is not probable that if all were known there 
 would be anything to indicate that he rose above mediocrity, 
 or that he was in any great degree superior to his surround¬ 
 ings. It is related of him, however, that he, with a great 
 many other farmers in that portion of the State, had by some 
 system prevailing at the time, rented their land' on long 
 leaseholds. In course of time the terms of their tenure 
 became objectionable, and the rental oppressive, and there 
 were developed two parties, one of which favored a complete 
 repudiation of their obligations, while the other favored an 
 adherence to their agreements. To this latter class belonged 
 John B. Gould. Nor was the only hardship in maintain¬ 
 ing this stand the payment of the onerous rental. In addi¬ 
 tion to this, those who opposed repudiation were subjected 
 to disagreeable persecutions and ostracism, which were 
 practiced not only against grown up people, but visited upon 
 their children. This was especially the case at the public 
 school, and soon became unbearable. In this emergency, 
 in no wise intimidated, Gould erected a schoolhouse on his 
 own land, and, with others, employed suitable instructors, 
 and so popular did this school become, notwithstanding 
 the tuition fee that was charged, that in a short time the 
 village school was deserted and closed. In this school, 
 born of his father’s honesty and sturdy manhood, young 
 Jay learned his earliest lessons. As he advanced in his 
 studies he was transferred to a select school at a village 
 
JAY GOULD. 
 
 2G3 
 
 witliin a few miles of Eoxbury, where lie remained a consid¬ 
 erable period, when he returned to Eoxbury and entered the 
 local academy. During his school days he developed a 
 marked aptitude for mathematics, which induced his father 
 to select for him the vocation of a surveyor, and in order to 
 perfect his son in the necessary branches, sent him for a 
 year to a school at Albany. 
 
 The natural disposition of biographers of distinguished 
 men fails to disclose anything especially promising in the 
 youthful surveyor. As a boy, he was retiring, and inclined 
 to be exclusive rather than communicative and companion¬ 
 able. As a scholar, he was reasonably diligent, composed 
 rather well, and was a good grammarian, but had little taste 
 for declamation or debate. 
 
 Young Gould’s first business experience seems to have 
 been in running a stove store, of which his father was the tem¬ 
 porary owner. When this was sold he was commissioned 
 by his uncle, a Mr. Moore, to exhibit a patent rat trap at the 
 World’s Fair in New Y"ork, in 1853. He was then seventeen 
 years old. What success his youthful energy infused into the 
 rat trap venture is nowhere recorded, but it does appear to have 
 been very great. In connection with his experience at the 
 World’s Fair an incident is related which seems to indicate 
 that even at that time he had a latent ambition to attain a 
 distinguishing success. During the fair President Pierce 
 visited the exhibition and among the many persons whom 
 he met and spoke kindly to was young Gould, who appeared 
 to be fascinated by the flattery extended to the President. 
 Turning to a companion as the Presidential party moved on, 
 his eyes a-gleam with enthusiasm, he exclaimed, “ I will be 
 President of the United States myself when I become a man.” 
 
264 
 
 KINGS OP POETUNE. 
 
 Keturning to Roxbmy from the World’s Fair, Jay entered 
 a general store, kept by a man named Berhans. Here his 
 position and duties were such that he was enabled to prac¬ 
 tice his vocation as surveyor as occasion required, and 
 which he did by taking such odd jobs as came in his way. 
 Growing more ambitious to perfect himself, he threw up his 
 position, and surveyed the farms in Delaware County, and as 
 a product of his labors brought out a map of that county. 
 While doing this, lacking other income, he paid his way by 
 placing on the premises of the farmers a “ noon mark,’' to 
 indicate the hour by the sun. For each service of this kind 
 he received one dollar, the value of which he often took in 
 meals and lodging, while employed in the ■vicinity. During 
 these labors as surveyor he collected the data for a history 
 of Delaware County, which he published and which is still 
 extant, a respectable volume of nearly 400 well written 
 pages. From this labor, much encouraged by his success, 
 he proceeded to greater endeavors, and surveyed and mapped 
 Ulster and Albany Counties in New York, and several coun¬ 
 ties in Ohio. 
 
 From this class of work he turned his attention to cml 
 engineering, and siirveyed the route of a railroad through 
 Delaware County, and ran the level for the horse railway 
 between Albany and West Troy. Soon after these achieve¬ 
 ments, for he was then but twenty years of age, he was placed in 
 charge of a newspaper during the absence of the editor. In 
 this position he employed himself in writing, among other 
 things, a laudatory article about Zadok Pratt, the famous tan¬ 
 ner of Pratt-sulle. and urging his nomination for Vice Presi¬ 
 dent for the election of 1856. Col. Pratt was greatly pleased 
 with the article, and seeking the author, discovered young 
 
JAY GOtJLO. 
 
 2G5 
 
 (jould, for whom he conceived a great admiration, and a deter¬ 
 mination to assist him. Pratt was a wealthy and enterprising 
 man, and in order to favor and utilize young Gould’s abilities, 
 took him to Pennsylvania where he purchased several thousand 
 acres of hemlock lands and erected a tannery, about which 
 grew up a village that was named Gouldsborougli. In 
 this labor the youthful Gould showed himself efficient and 
 capable, by furnishing the plans for the buildings and 
 drafting all the legal papers that ivere required. The 
 business of the tannery increased rapidly under Gould’s 
 management, and grew quite profitable. Put at the end of 
 three years Pratt began to mistrust his youthful partner and 
 protege, and became convinced that he was using the firm 
 signature, which he could use without limit, for borrowing 
 larger sums of money than were requisite for the firm’s 
 business. So strong was this belief in the mind of the 
 philanthropic old gentleman that, notwithstanding Gould’s 
 protestations, he forced an iiflmediate termination of the 
 partnership. To do this, he made Gould an offer to buy or 
 sell, and supposing that Gould would be unable to buy, 
 made his figure very low. Gould was in a sore emei’gency. 
 He had pleaded with Pratt for a continuance of the partner¬ 
 ship without avail, and saw that he must now sell at a ruinous 
 figure, under disgraceful circumstances. But he rose 
 equal to the emergency, and, hastening to New York, secured 
 from George Loop, a leather dealer, the money necessary to 
 buy, and, much to Pratt’s astonishment and chagrin, bought 
 his interest at the low figure which he had over-shrewdly 
 placed upon it, expecting only to buy. In regard to the 
 statements of Pratt concerning the misuse of the firm’s 
 signature, the detractors of Gould say that subsequent 
 
266 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 events proved them to be true, while his admirers assert the 
 reverse. The partnership between Loop and Gould did not 
 last long before serious disagreements were engendered by 
 Gould’s acts, and a struggle for the possession of the 
 property arose, and the place was captured dru’ing Gould’s 
 absence by the sheriff and a small posse. When Gould 
 returned he called his late employes together, and, himself 
 leading them, recaptui’ed the premises, a number of shots 
 being fired. While these troubles were pending Loop com¬ 
 mitted suicide, wdiich his friends ascribed to Gould’s alleged 
 treachery and mistreatment of him. In defense of this 
 charge Gould’s fidends cited the facts that his position w’as 
 sustained in the courts. 
 
 While these things were transpiring Gould had, upon his 
 own venture, opened a leather store in New York, and in 
 1862, at the age of twenty-six years, was married to Miss 
 Helen Miller, a daughter of Daniel Miller, a well-known 
 capitalist of the metropolis. Soon after his marriage he 
 disposed of his leather interests, and purchased a controlling 
 interest in the Troy & Kutland Eaih’oad, electing himself its 
 President, having his office at Troy. But he was not 
 endowed with a disposition that would permit him to sit 
 down and acquii’e w^ealth by the natural processes and slow 
 development of business, but chose, rather, to dii’ect his 
 efforts to making money by speculating; so, but a short time 
 after his pui’chase of the Troy Railroad, he sold out and made 
 heavy purchases of Erie stocks for Daniel Drew, as well as 
 for himself. 
 
 In this operation he was met by James Fisk, Jr., who 
 was executinof a similar commission for Commodore Yander- 
 bilt. As a result of this contract they became partners, and 
 
261 
 
 Jay GOULD. 
 
 the manipulation of Erie was consummated by Gould 
 becoming President of the road, while Fisk held a subordi¬ 
 nate position. But the stockholders of .Erie fancied or found 
 that the dividends and the ascendancy of Fisk and Gould 
 were in inverse ratio, and after much talk proceedings were 
 instituted against them; but the courts failed to provide any 
 remedy or recompense for their losses, which provoked con¬ 
 siderable criticism of the courts. 
 
 But their grip on Erie was loosened. They made vast 
 sums from its management, and when they were compelled 
 to relinquish it, Gould compromised by agreeing to reimburse 
 the almost bankrupt corporation by the repayment of ^10,- 
 000,000 alleged to have been wrongfully retained by him. 
 By some means Gould escaped the obligation, and never paid 
 the sum stipulated. 
 
 In this matter as in many others, the remarkable cunning 
 of the man is shown conspicuously. Knowing the depress¬ 
 ing effect his management had on Erie stocks, and that the 
 minute he let go his hold Erie stocks would rise, he, in 
 anticipation of that event, held on to a considerable block of 
 stock. True to his expectation, when he let go Erie stocks 
 quickly appreciated, and he was enabled to sell at an advance 
 of nearly half a million dollars! Pietiring from the Erie 
 management, Gould became one of the brokerage firm of 
 Smith, Gould & Martin, during which partnership the ever- 
 memorable Black Friday came, of which so much has been 
 written and so little actually known. But, it is not improb¬ 
 able that to Gould was due the originating of the scheme, 
 and the mapping out of its minutest details, the execiition 
 of which was left to Eisk. 
 
 From the time of Black Friday in 18G9 along Avell up 
 
268 
 
 KINGS OF FoKFUNE. 
 
 into the ’70’s Gould made no particularly aggressive 
 movements. During this time and later on he acquired 
 control of the Western Union Telegraph, and proceeded to 
 turn his control to profitable account. To do this he devised 
 a scheme which is more to be admired for its comprehen¬ 
 siveness and cunning than commended for its honesty. The 
 operation was this. The Western Union was a monopoly, 
 grinding and offensive. Its charges were extortionate; its 
 employes intolerant and unaccommodating; the public were 
 crying for relief. Gould responded to the demand, craftily 
 putting forward men whose connection with himself was 
 unknown. These men incorporated a company in opposition 
 to the Western Union, and proceeded to secure stock sub¬ 
 scriptions and privileges on' the ground of the new company 
 being a competitor of the Western Union. 
 
 Their solicitation was exti’aordinarily successful, and soon 
 the wires of the competing line Avere strung in nearly every 
 State in the Union. The next move of Gould was bold cun¬ 
 ning. Said he, “ The Western Union can not stand this com¬ 
 petition! We must buy out the new company!” and con¬ 
 trolling the directory of the Western Union he did so, and 
 profited to the extent of perhaps 810,000,000 by the sale of 
 the plant of the new company. 
 
 In his long continued control of the Union Pacific Eail- 
 road, Gould has shown himself a master schemer. This 
 has been especially conspicuous in his dealings with the 
 Government. The reader will, no doubt, remember that 
 the Union Pacific road was built under the following cir¬ 
 cumstances: Certain grants of land (not necessary to 
 
 explain here) and certain capital Avere gh-en to the company 
 by the United States Government. The capital was in the 
 
JAY GOULD. 
 
 209 
 
 shape o£ about |60,000,000 of bonds issued for that pur¬ 
 pose, on which the company was to pay the interest, and 
 which were to be in the character of a first mortgage on the 
 road and its equipment. Through the years that have come 
 and gone since the road was built, not one dollar has been 
 paid by the company to liquidate the interest accruing, 
 which has be*en paid by the treasury department. Nor was 
 any arrangement made to provide a fund for that purpose, 
 nor for the wiping out of the bonds; but, on the other 
 hand, an unsuccessful endeavor was made to push through 
 Congress a measure making the bonds a second instead of a 
 first mortgage, which was defeated by Senator Thiirman and 
 others. Since that time, a measure has passed Congress 
 and become a law, compelling the company to at once begin 
 the creation of a sinking fund for the purpose of paying 
 the interest on their debt, at least. In these endeavors to 
 secure immunity from this debt, Gould has shown great 
 generalship, and has not always been scrupulous about the 
 methods he has employed. 
 
 In the Wabash system and its manipulation Gould’s 
 genius has shone resplendent. What Avas known as the 
 “Wabash & Western Railway,” was a trunkline extending 
 from Toledo, Ohio, to Quincy, Ill. This road was heavily 
 in debt, and its stock almost valueless, and its track and 
 road-bed were in bad order with inferior rolling stock and 
 equipment. Gould conceived the idea of reviving the road, 
 and secured control of it and extended its connections by 
 lease, purchase and extensions in every direction, until to-day 
 it has no rival in the West and Sojithwest. In doing this 
 the most careful devices were adroitly operated, and in 
 many instances the people of sections through which the 
 
270 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Wabasli and its projected extensions passed were persuaded 
 into granting privileges, under the impression that they 
 were assisting in the formation of competing lines. 
 
 During these years which he has controlled the Western 
 Union Telegraph Company, Gould became acquainted with 
 the manner in which the Western Associated Press is con¬ 
 trolled, which association, the reader will understand, is the 
 vehicle for collecting and distributing the telegraphic news 
 reports throughout the country. The local arrangement in 
 cities generally is, that a majority of those newspapers 
 which belong to the association shall control the appoint¬ 
 ment of persons to collect the news in that city in which they 
 are located. Thus, to control a majority of the New York 
 City newspapers belonging to the association, was to secure 
 control of the Associated Press agent in New York City. 
 But of what value was this to him? asks the reader, in 
 mystification. Simply this, by controlling the Associated 
 Press, he could have controlled the market reports, and 
 could have sent out telegrams through the regular news 
 channels, which on one day might have been used to induca 
 ignorant holders to sell this or that stock, or security, at less 
 than it was worth, or, again to induce others to buy this or 
 that stock, or security, at a price greater than its real value. 
 In other words, his plan was to make the Associated Press 
 conserve his own ends and aims. But in this he met with 
 complete failure. As far back as 1874 he obtained control 
 of one or two New York newspapers, and later on another, 
 but he could never secure the fourth, so after nearly ten 
 years he was compelled to abandon his endeavor. In this 
 he met the most conspicuous, if not the only important 
 defeat that he has ever encountered. 
 
JAY GOULD. 
 
 271 
 
 In regard to Gould’s wealth, much has been said and 
 but little known. There is no doiibt, however, that he is 
 worth in the neighborhood of $00,000,000. On a certain 
 occasion recently, according to the usual custom when a 
 great change in the stock market is taking place, the rumor 
 became current that Gould was sorely pressed for money; 
 that all his stocks were hypothecated, and that he was ruined. 
 So much credit was attached to this rumor that Gould 
 deemed it advisable to convince the public of the contrary, 
 and calling in several reliable witnesses and one associated 
 press reporter, he proceeded to have brought from his safe, 
 stocks, bonds and securities of different kinds, neatly folded 
 and packed up, to the value of $15,000,000 or $50,000,000. 
 
 Since achieving his later successes, Goiild has gradually 
 become exclusive and non-communicative, and even irascible 
 when approached concerning his designs. To illustrate his 
 manner, the following incident may prove instructive: On 
 one occasion a reporter on a Chicago jovirnal visited Mr. 
 Gould at a hotel in Chicago where he w'as stopping. Send¬ 
 ing up his card he was denied admission. Not to be repelled 
 so easily, however, he went to the door of the gentleman’s 
 room and rapped. “ Come in! ” called Mr. Gould, supposing 
 the reporter to be a bell boy. The reporter did as requested. 
 The great railroad king lay on a sofa with his shoes off, 
 endeavoring to rest. “ I would like to know for the morn¬ 
 ing - ,” began the reporter, “if your visit is in con¬ 
 nection with the consolidation of the - railroads,” 
 
 (naming the lines.) The little, black-bearded man jumped 
 from the sofa as though threatened with personal violence, 
 and whisking up and down the room, his eyes snap¬ 
 ping angrily, exclaimed with vehemence: “I attend to my 
 
272 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 business and let the newspapers alone! Why can’t they 
 let me alone? I won’t answer a question, and you can 
 get out!” This desire to be let alone has become a 
 conspicuous trait in Mr.-Gould’s character and has fre¬ 
 quently been manifested. Indeed it appears to be a com¬ 
 mon desire among men, who, by their wealth and power, 
 excite the envy and anger of the less fortunate and some¬ 
 times exasperated populace. A recent incident serves to 
 illustrate this timidity. During the days that followed the 
 election of Cleveland to the Presidency, the figures of the 
 Western Associated Press which receives its dispatches over 
 the Western Union wires, did not agree with the dispatches 
 received by other agencies. The one showed New York to 
 have gone for Blaine, the other for Cleveland, and which¬ 
 ever way New York went, the election was decided. In this 
 situation the crowds of Cleveland’s adherents which collected 
 and marched through the streets of the metropolis became 
 intolerant; claims of the Western Associated Press, which 
 they confounded with the Western Union and that with Jay 
 Gould; and on one occasion marched by Gould’s office mak¬ 
 ing threatening gestures and singing: 
 
 “ We’h hang Jay Gould on a sour apple tree, 
 
 As we go marching on !” 
 
 This proceeding was not long past before Gould sent a dis¬ 
 patch which he caused to be made public, himself congratu¬ 
 lating Cleveland on his election. 
 
 In his business habits Gould’s methods cannot be criti¬ 
 cised. Since the day when he started out as a surveyor he 
 has evinced a studiousness, and an application to business, 
 an attention to details, and a persistence that can not be too 
 highly commended, however justly his methods may be 
 
JAY GOULD. 
 
 273 
 
 criticised by liis detractors. In his connection with Fisk 
 it does not appear that he entered into his partner’s extrava¬ 
 gant and showy expenditures. He does not appear to have 
 anywhere evinced a hearty interest in them, but he fre¬ 
 quently appears to have profited by them. Nor did he, 
 while Fisk was devoting his fortune and a large share of his 
 time to wine and women, and inviting the fatal bullet which 
 so abruptly terminated his career, sympathise much with 
 him, but was temperate in his habits, and altogether 
 unwon by the blandishments of the mad career 
 his partner was pursuing. At still another point the 
 difference between their make up is apparent. Fisk’s 
 method was to carry things with a whoop and hurrah, 
 and his business habits were of the helter-skelter style. 
 Gould was precisely the reverse, and remains to-day precise, 
 prim and exacting as to details. Fisk was in trade a great 
 cavalry officer, who could lead a raid or a great charge. 
 Gould is a great planner, who can surround, lay siege to, 
 undermine, and starve the enemy, and never appear himself 
 in the saddle. In his office life Gould is promptly on hand 
 at the time for business, and quits on the stroke of the 
 closing hour. He is always ready for business, but for 
 nothing else. For diversion his recreations are few, and 
 he appears to have no taste for horses, yachts, or any other 
 of the ordinary amusements of wealthy life. 
 
 In personal appearance, Mr. Gould is not remarkable in 
 any way. His most conspicuous characteristic is a quickness 
 of manner that appears to be nervousness, but which can not be 
 more than the natural alertness of his fine temperament. He 
 has no friendships outside his family, and betrays no fondness 
 for any of those things which men in his position most admire. 
 
274 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 His habits and morals are orderly and good, and his family 
 are the few who know his heart. In regard to his philan- 
 throphy and charitableness, there is nothing to be said. His 
 admh’ers affirm, with many knowing head-shakings, that he 
 does not let his charities be bruited abroad, which can not be 
 gainsayed. The family home is a handsome residence on 
 47th street near Fifth avenue, in New York City, and a sum¬ 
 mer residence at Tarrytown, on the Hudson. His house¬ 
 hold consists of his wife and six children—four boys and 
 two gills. 
 

 ROBERT FUETON. 
 
III. 
 
 I INVENTORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 ROBERT FULTON. 
 
 NE of tlie pleasantest as well as one of the mo.st 
 prominent places in the city of New York is tiie 
 grave-yard of old Trinity Church. A handsome 
 iron railing separates it from Broadway, and the 
 thick rows of grave-stones, all crumbling and 
 stained with age, present a strange contrast to the bustle, vital¬ 
 ity, and splendor with which they are surrounded. They stare 
 solemnly down into Wall Street, and offer a bitter commentary 
 upon the struggles and anxiety of the money kings of the great 
 city. Work, toil, plan, combine as you may, they seem to say, 
 and yet it must all come to this. 
 
 Not far from the south door of the church, and shaded by a 
 venerable tree, is a ])lain brown stone slab, bearing this imscrip- 
 tion: “The vault of Walter and Robert C. Livingston, sons 
 of Robert Livingston, of the manor of Tnvingston.” A stranger 
 would pa.ss it by without a second glance; yet it is one of the 
 Meccas of the world of science, for the mortal part of Robert 
 Fulton sleeps in the vault below, without monument or legen¬ 
 dary stone to his memory, but in sight of the mighty steam 
 
 275 
 
276 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 fleets which his genius called forth. Very few visitors ever sec 
 this part of the churchyard, and the grave of Fulton is unknown 
 to nine out of ten of his countrymen. Yet this man, sleeping 
 so obscurely in his grave without a name, did far more for tlie 
 woi'ld than cither Xapoleon or Wellington. He revolutionized 
 commerce and manufactures, changed the entire system of navi¬ 
 gation, triumphed over the winds and the waves, and compelled 
 the adoption of a new system of modern warfare. Xow he lies 
 in a grave not his own, with no monument or statue erected to 
 his memory in all this broad land. 
 
 Robert Fulton was born in the township of Little Britain 
 (now' called Fulton), in Lancaster County, Pennsylvaiua, in 
 1765. He was of Irish descent, and his father was a farmer in 
 moderate circumstances. He was the eldest son and third child 
 of a family of five children. The farm upon which he was 
 born was conveyed by his father in 1766 to Joseph Swift, in 
 whose family it still remains. It contains three hundred and 
 sixty-four acres, and is one of the handsomest farms in Lancas¬ 
 ter County. 
 
 After disposing of his farm, Mr. Fulton, senior, removed to 
 the town of Lancaster, where he died in 1768, and there young 
 lL)bert grew up under the care of his mother. He learned to 
 read and write quickly, but did not manifest much fondness for 
 his books after mastering his elementary studies. He early ex¬ 
 hibited an unusual talent for drawing, however, greatly prefer¬ 
 ring the employment of his pencil to the more serious duties of 
 the school. His instructors and companions considered him a 
 dull boy, though all admitted that he showed no disposition to 
 be idle. All his leisure time w'as spent either in drawing, or in 
 visiting the shops of the mechanics in the place and eagerly 
 watching their operations. He displayed a remarkable talent 
 * for mechanism, which was greatly assisted by his skill in draw'- 
 
Robert fultoN. 
 
 ,277 
 
 fng, and his visits to the machine shops were always welcomed 
 by both the apprentices and their employers, who recognized 
 the unusual genius of the boy, and predicted great things for 
 him in the future. But to his teacher, who seems to have been 
 rather more belligerent than is usual with Quakers, Robert's 
 neglect of his studies and visits to the machine shops were so 
 many indications of growing worthlessness. The indignant 
 pedagogue once took occasion to remonstrate with him upon his 
 course, and, failing to convince him by argument, rapped him 
 sharply over the knuckles with a ruler, telling him he would 
 make him do something. Robert at once placed his arms 
 akimbo, and, looking his tutor sternly in the face, replied: 
 “Sir, I came here to have something beat into my brains, not 
 into my knuckles.” 
 
 Some time after this Mrs. Fulton, in conversation with the 
 teacher, expressed her solicitude lest her son should “turn out 
 nothing,” since he neglected his books so entirely. The teacher 
 frankly confessed that he had done all in his power for the boy, 
 but that he was discouraged, and added: “Only yesterday, 
 madam, Robert ])ertinaciously declared to me that his head was 
 so full of original notions that there was no vacant chamber to 
 store away the contents of any dusty books.” The lad was only 
 ten years of age at the time, and, as may be suj)posed, the good 
 Quaker who directed his education was not a little dismayed by 
 such a remark. 
 
 The boyhood of Fulton was passed during the stormy period 
 of the Revolution, and in a section so close to the theater of 
 war that he was in the midst of all the excitement engendered 
 by the conflict. He was an ardent patriot from the first, and 
 used his pencil freely to carieature all who showed the slightest 
 leaning to the cause of the enemy. 
 
 In 1778 the supply of candles was so low in Lancaster that 
 17 
 
m 
 
 K1N6S OP FORTUNE. 
 
 the town authorities advised the people to refrain from illu¬ 
 minating their houses on the 4th of July of that year, in order 
 to save their candles. Robert, at this time but thirteen years 
 old, was determined not to forego a patriotic display of some 
 sort. He had prepared a quantity of candles for the occasion, 
 and after the proclamation of the Town Council was issued, 
 he took them to a Mr. John Fisher, who kept a store in the 
 place, and sold powder and shot. Mr. Fisher was somewhat 
 astonished at Robert’s desire to part with the candles, which 
 were at that time scarce articles, and asked his reason for so 
 doing. The boy replied : “ Our rulers have requested the cit¬ 
 izens to refrain from illuminating their windows and streets; 
 as good citizens we should comply with their request, and I 
 prefer illuminating the heavens with sky-rockets.” Having 
 procured the powder, he left ISIr. Fisher’s, and entered a small 
 variety store kept by a ]\Ir. Cossart, where he purchased several 
 sheets of large-sized pasteboard. As Mr. Cossart was about to 
 roll them, the boy stopped him, saying he wished to carry them 
 open. ^Ir. Cossart, knowing Robert’s mechanical genius, asked 
 him what he was about to invent. 
 
 “ Why,” said the boy, “ we are prohibited from illuminating 
 our windows with candles, and I’m going to shoot my candles 
 through the air.” 
 
 ‘‘Tut, tut, tut,” said Mr. Cossart, laughingly; “that’s an 
 impossibility.” 
 
 “ No, sir,” said Robert, “ there is nothing impossible.”* 
 
 “ Robert was known,” says one of his biographers, “ to pur- 
 cliase small quantities of quicksilver from Dr. Adam Simon 
 Kuhn, druggist, residing opposite the market-house. He was 
 trying some experiments that he did not wish to make public, 
 
 '■ He pi'oved that this was not impossible, for he had liis display, making his 
 rockets himself, and after his own model. 
 
ROBERT EULTON. 
 
 279 
 
 and which the workmen in Mr. Fenno’s and Mr. Christian 
 Isch’s shops were anxious to find out, but could not. He was 
 in the habit almost daily of visiting those shops, and was a 
 favorite among the workmen, who took advantage of his talent 
 for drawing by getting him to make ornamental designs for 
 guns, and sketches of the size and shape of guns, and then 
 giving the calculations of the force, size of the bore and balls, 
 and the distances they would fire; and he would accompany 
 them to the open commons near by potter’s field, to prove his 
 calculations by shooting at a mark. On account of his expert- 
 noss in his calculations, and of their inetfectual efforts to dis¬ 
 cover the use he was making of quicksilver, the shop-hands 
 nicknamed him ‘quicksilver Bob.’ 
 
 “ Mr. Messersmith and Mr. Christian Isch were em{)loyed 
 by the Government to make and repair the arms for the troops; 
 and on several occasions guards were stationed at their shops 
 to watch and see that the workmen w’ere constantly employed 
 during whole nights and on Sunday, to prevent any delay. 
 The workmen had so iniufii reliance and confidence in ‘ quick¬ 
 silver Bob’s’ judgment and mechanical skill, that every sug¬ 
 gestion he would make as to the alteration of a gun, or any 
 additional ornament that he would design, was invariably 
 adoj)ted by common consent. 
 
 “In the summer of 1779, Robert Fulton evinced an extra¬ 
 ordinary fondness for inventions. He was a frequent visitor 
 at Mr. Messersmith’s and Mr. Fenno’s gunsmith shops, almost 
 daily, and endeavored to manufacture a small air-gun.” 
 
 Among the acquaintances of Robert Fulton at this time was 
 a young man, about eighteen years of age, named Christopher 
 Gumpf, who used frequently to accompany his father in his 
 fishing excursions on the Conestoga. Mr. Gum])f, Sen., being 
 an experienced angler, readily consented to allow Robert to 
 
280 
 
 kings ok fortune. 
 
 join himself and his son in these expeditions, and made the 
 two boys earn their pleasure by pushing the boat about the 
 stream, as he desired to move from point to point. As the 
 means of propulsion was simply a pole, the labor was very 
 severe, and Robert soon became tired of it. Xot wishing, how¬ 
 ever, to give up his pleasant fishing trips, he determined to de¬ 
 vise some means of lightening the labor. 
 
 “ He absented himself a week, having gone to Little Britain 
 township to spend a few days at his aunt’s; and while there 
 he planned and completed a small working model of a fishing 
 boat, with paddle-wheels. On leaving his aunt’s, he jjlaced the 
 model in the garret, with a request that it should not be de¬ 
 stroyed. j\Iany years afterward, that simple model was the 
 attraction of friends, and became, instead of lumber in the 
 garret, an ornament in the aunt’s parlor, who prized it highly. 
 That model was the result of Robert’s fishing excursions with 
 Christopher Gumpf; and when he returned from his aunt’s he 
 told Christopher that he must make a set of paddles to work 
 at the sides of the boat, to be operated by a double crank, and 
 then they could propel the old gentleman’s fishing-boat with 
 greater ease. Two arms or pieces of timber were then fastened 
 together at right angles, with a paddle at each end, and the 
 crank was attached to the boat across it near the stern, with a 
 paddle operating on a pivot as a rudder; and Fulton’s first 
 invention was tried on the Conestoga River, opposite Rock¬ 
 ford, in the presence of Peter and Christopher Gumpf. The 
 boys were so pleased with the experiment, that they hid the 
 jjaddles in the bushes on the shore, lest others might use and 
 break them, and attached them to the boat whenever they 
 chose; and thus did they enjoy very many fishing excur¬ 
 sions.” 
 
 This was the first experiment in the science of navigation 
 
ROBERT FUETON. 
 
 281 
 
 attempted by the man who afterward became the author of a 
 new system. 
 
 Having chosen the profession of an artist and portrait 
 painter, young Fulton removed to Philadelpliia at the age of 
 seventeen, and remained there, pursuing his vocation, until the 
 completion of his twenty-first year. He formed there the ac¬ 
 quaintance of Benjamin Franklin, by whom he was much no¬ 
 ticed. His success was rapid, and upon attaining his majority 
 he was enabled to purchase and stock a farm of eighty-four 
 acres in Washington County, Pennsylvania, which he gave to 
 his mother for a home as long as she should live. Having 
 thus insured her comfort, he went to England for the jmrpose 
 of completing his studies in his profession. He took with him 
 letters to Benjamin West, then at the height of his fame, and 
 living in London. He was cordially received by INIr. West, 
 who was also a native of Pennsylvania, and remained an in¬ 
 mate of his family for several years. West was then the Pres¬ 
 ident of the Iloyal Academy of Great Britain, and was thus 
 enabled to extend to Fulton, to whom he became dee})ly at¬ 
 tached, many advantages, both social and professional, of which 
 the young artist was prompt to avail himself. 
 
 Upon leaving the family of Mr. West, Fulton commenced 
 a tour for the purpose of examining the treasures of art con¬ 
 tained in the residences of the English nobility, and remained 
 for two years in Devonshire. There he became aeqainted with 
 the Duke of Bridgewater, to wliom England is indebted for 
 the introduction of the canal system within her limits; and it 
 is said that he was induced by this nobleman to abandon the 
 profession of an artist, and enter upon that of a civil engineer. 
 This nobleman being devoted to mechanical investigations, 
 proved a very congenial acquaintance to Eulton. He was en¬ 
 gaged at the time on a scheme of steam navigation by a pro- 
 
282 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 peller, modeled after the foot of a water fowl. His plan did 
 not commend itself to Fulton’s judgment, and he addressed 
 him a letter, setting forth its defects, and advancing some of 
 the views upon which he acted himself in after life. Here he 
 also met with Watt, who had just produced the steam-engine, 
 which Fulton studied enthusiastically. His own inventive 
 genius was not idle, and while living in Devonshire, he pro¬ 
 duced an improved mill for sawing marble, which won him the 
 thanks and medal of the British Society for the Promotion of 
 the Arts and Commerce; a machine for spinning flax and mak¬ 
 ing ropes; and an excavator for scooping out tlie channels of 
 canals and aqueducts, all of which were patented. He pub¬ 
 lished a number of communications on the subject of canals 
 in one of the leading London journals, and a treatise upon the 
 same subject. Having obtained a patent in England for canal 
 improvements, he went to France in 1797, with the design of 
 introducing them in that country. 
 
 Upon reaching Paris, he took up his residence with Mr. Joel 
 Barlow, and thus was laid the foundation of a friendship be¬ 
 tween these two gentlemen which lasted during their lives. 
 He remained in Paris seven years, residing during that time 
 with INIr. Bai'low, and devoting himself to the study of modern 
 languages, and engineering and its kindred sciences. 
 
 His Avork was continuous and severe in Paris. He invented 
 and painted the first panorama ever exhibited in that city, 
 which he sold for the purpose of raising money for his experi¬ 
 ments in steam navigation; he also designed a series of splendid 
 colored illustrations for The Columhiad, the famous poem of his 
 friend INIr. Barlow. Besides these, he invented a number of 
 improvements in canals, aqueducts, inclined planes, boats, and 
 guns, which yielded him considerable credit, but very little profit. 
 
 In 1801, he invented a submarine boat which he called the 
 
KOBERT FULTON. 
 
 283 
 
 “Nautilus,” which is thus described by M. de St. Aubin, a 
 member of the Tribunate: 
 
 “The diving-boat, in the construction of wliich he is now 
 employed, will be capacious enough to contain eight men and 
 provision for twenty days, and will be of sufficient strength 
 and power to enable him to plunge one hundred feet under 
 water, ^f necessary. He has contrived a reservoir of air, 
 which will enable eight men to remain under water eight 
 hours. When the boat is above water, it has two sails, and 
 looks just like a common boat; when it is to dive, the mast 
 and sails are struck. 
 
 “In making his experiments, Mr. Fulton not only remained 
 a whole hour under water, with three of his companions, but 
 had the boat parallel to the horizon at any given distance. He 
 proved that the compass points as correctly under water as on 
 the surface, and that while under water the boat made way 
 at the rate of half a league an hour, by means contrived for 
 that purpose. 
 
 “ It is not twenty years since all Europe was astonished at the 
 first ascension of men in balloons: pei’haps in a few years they 
 will not be less surprised to see a flotilla of diving-boats, which, 
 on a given signal, shall, to avoid the pursuit of an enemy, 
 plunge under water, and rise again several leagues from the 
 place where they descended! 
 
 “ But if we have not suceeeded in steering the balloon, and 
 even were it impossible to attain that object, the case is different 
 with the diving-boat, which can be conducted under water in 
 the same manner as upon the surface. It has the advantage 
 of sailing like the common boat, and also of diving when it is 
 pursued. With these qualities, it is fit for carrying secret 
 orders, to suecor a blockaded fort, and to examine the force 
 and position of an enemy in their harbor^,” 
 
284 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Ill conuection with this boat, Fulton invented a torpedo, or 
 infernal machine, for the purpose of destroying vessels of war 
 by approaching them under water and breaking up their hulls 
 by the explosion. He ofiered his invention several times to 
 the French Government, and once to the Ambassador of Hol¬ 
 land at Paris, without being able to induce them to consider 
 it. Somewhat later, he visited London, at the request of the 
 British Ministry, and explained his invention to them. Al¬ 
 though he succeeded in blowing up a vessel of two hundred 
 tons with one hundred and seventy pounds of powder, and in 
 extorting from Mr. Pitt the acknowledgment that, if introduced 
 into practice, the torpedo would annihilate all navies, his inven¬ 
 tion was rejected, through the influence of Lord Melville, who 
 feared that its adoption might injure England more than it 
 would benefit her. At the first, when it was thought that 
 England would purchase Fulton’s invention, it was intimated 
 to him that he would be required to pledge himself not to 
 dispose of it to any other power. He replied promptly: 
 
 ‘AVhatever may be your award, I never will consent to let 
 these inventions lie dormant should my country at any time 
 have need of them. Were you to grant me an annuity of 
 twenty thousand pounds, I would sacrifice all to the safety 
 and independence of my country.” 
 
 In 1806, Mr. Fulton returned to New York, and in the 
 same year he married Miss Harriet Livingston, a niece of 
 Chancellor Livingston, by whom he had four children. He 
 ofiered his torpedo to the General Government, but the trial 
 to which it was subjected by the Navy Department was unsuc¬ 
 cessful for him, and the Government declined to purchase the 
 invention. 
 
 But it was not as the inventor of engines of destruction that 
 Bobert Fulton was to achieve fame. A still nobler triumph 
 
EGBERT FULTON, 
 
 285 
 
 was reserved for him—one which was to bring joy instead of 
 sorrow to the world. From the time that Fulton had designed 
 the paddle-wheels for his fishing-boat, he had never ceased to 
 give his attention to the subject of propelling vessels by machin¬ 
 ery, and after his acquaintance with AVatt, he was more tlian 
 ever convinced that the steam-engine could, under proper cir¬ 
 cumstances, be made to furnish the motive power. 
 
 Several eminent and ingenious men, previous to this, hud 
 proposed to propel vessels by steam power, among whom were 
 Dr. Papin, of France, Savery, the INIarquis of AVorcester, and 
 Dr. John Allen, of London, in 1726. In 1786, Oliver Evans, 
 of Philadelphia, and about the same time Dr. Franklin, pro¬ 
 posed to accomplish this result by forcing a quantity of water, 
 by means of steam power, through an opening made for that 
 purpose ill the stern of the hull of the boat. 
 
 In 1737, Jonathan Hulls issued a pamphlet proposing to 
 construct a boat to be moved by steam power, for the purpose 
 of towing vessels out of harbors against tide and winds. In his 
 plan the paddle-wheel was used, and was secured to a frame 
 placed far out over the stern of the boat. It was given this 
 position by the inventor because water fowls propelled them¬ 
 selves by pushing their feet behind them. 
 
 In 1787, Mr. James Rumsey, of Shepherdstown, Virginia, 
 constructed and navigated the first steamboat in actual use. 
 His boat was eighty feet in length, and was propelled by moans 
 of a vertical pump in the middle of the vessel, by which the 
 water was drawn in at the bow and expelled at the stern 
 through a horizontal trough in her hull. The engine weighed 
 about one third of a ton, and the boat had a capacity of about 
 three tons burthen, AVhen thus laden, a speed of about four 
 miles an hour could be attained. The boiler held only five 
 gallons of water, and needed but a pint at a time. Rumsey 
 
286 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 went to England to exhibit his plan on the Thames, and died 
 there in 1793. 
 
 About the same time the Marquis de Joftrey launched a 
 steamer one hundred feet long on the Loire, at Lyons, using 
 paddles revolving on an endless chain, but only to find his 
 experiment a failure. 
 
 In December, 1786, John Fitch published the following 
 account of a steamer with which he had made several experi¬ 
 ments on the Delaware, at Philadelphia, and which came nearei 
 to success than any thing that had at that time been invented: 
 
 ‘‘The cylinder is to be horizontal, and the steam to work 
 with equal force at each end. The mode by which we obtain 
 what I term a vacuum is, it is believed, entirely new, as is also 
 the method of letting the water into it, and throwing it ofi‘ 
 against the atmosphere without any friction. It is expected 
 thatr the cylinder, which is of twelve inches diameter, will move 
 a clear force of eleven or twelve cwt. after the frictions are de¬ 
 ducted : this force is to be directed against a wheel of eighteen 
 inches diameter. The piston moves about three feet, and each 
 vibration of it gives the axis about forty revolutions. Each 
 revolution of the axis moves twelve oars or paddles five and a 
 half feet: they work perpendicularly, and are represented by 
 the strokes of a paddle of a canoe. As six of the paddles are 
 raised from the water, six more are entered, and the two sets of 
 jiaddles make their strokes of about eleven feet in each revolu¬ 
 tion. The crank of the axis acts upon the paddles about one- 
 third of their length from their lower ends, on which part of 
 the oar the whole force of the axis is ap])lied. The engine is 
 ])laced in the bottom of the boat, about one-third from the stern, 
 and both the action and reaction turn the wheel the same 
 way.” 
 
 Fitch was unfortunate in his affairs, and became so disheart- 
 
ROBERT FULTON. 
 
 287 
 
 ened that he ceased to attempt to improve his invention, and 
 finally committed suicide by drowning himself in the Alleghany 
 River at Pittsburgh. 
 
 In 1787, Mr. Patrick Miller, of Dalwinston, Scotland, de¬ 
 signed a double vessel, propelled by a wheel placed in the stern 
 between the two keels. This boat is said to have been very 
 successful, but it was very small, the cylinder being only four 
 inches in diameter. In 1789, Mr. Miller produced a larger 
 vessel on the same plan, which made seven miles per hour in 
 the still water of the Forth and Clyde Canal, but it proved too 
 weak for its machinery, which had to be taken out. 
 
 It was in the face of these failures that Fulton applied him¬ 
 self to the task of designing a successful steamboat. During 
 his residence in Paris he had made the acquaintance of Mr. 
 Robert R. Livingston, then the Amei’ican minister in France, 
 who had previously been connected with some unsuccessful 
 steamboat experiments at home. Mr. Livingston was delighted 
 to find a man of Fulton’s mechanical genius so well satisfied 
 of the practicability of steam navigation, and joined lieartMy 
 with him in his efforts to prove his theories by experiments. 
 Several small working models made by Fulton convinced Mr. 
 Livingston that the former had discovered and had overcome 
 the cause of the failure of the experiments of other inventors, 
 and it was finally agreed between them to build a large boat 
 for trial on the Seine. This experimental steanter was fur¬ 
 nished with paddle wheels, and was completed and launched 
 early in the spring of 1803. On the very morning appointed 
 for the trial, Fulton wms aroused from his sleep by a messenger 
 from the boat, who rushed into his chamber, pale and breath¬ 
 less, exclaiming, “ Oh, sir, the boat has broken in pieces and 
 gone to the bottom ! ” Hastily dressing and hurrying to tha 
 spot, he found that the weight of the machinery had broke* 
 
2S8 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 the boat in half ami earried the whole structure to the bottom 
 of tbe river. He at once .set to work to raise the machinery, 
 devoting twenty-four hours, without resting or eating, to the 
 undertaking, and succeetled in doing .so, but inflicted upon hi.s 
 constitution a strain from which he never entirely recovered. 
 The machiueiy was very slightly damaged, but it was necessary 
 to rebuild the Iwat entirely. This was accomplished by July of 
 the same year, and the boat was tried in August with triumph¬ 
 ant succe.ss, in the presence of the French National Institute 
 and a vast crowd of the citizims of Paris. 
 
 This steamer was very defective, but still so great an im- 
 jmwement upon all that had preceded it, that Me.s.sr.s. Fulton 
 and Ijivingstou determined to build one on a larger .scale in 
 the waters of New York, the right of navigating which by 
 .steam ve.s.sels had been secured by the latter as far back as 
 1798. Tin* law which granted this right had been continued 
 from time to time through Mr. Livingston’s influence, and was 
 finally amended .so as to include Fulton within its provision.s. 
 Having resolved to return home, Fulton set out as soon as pos¬ 
 sible, stopping in England on his return, to order an engine 
 for his boat from Watt and Boulton. He gave an exact dc- 
 .'^eription of the engine, which was built in strict accordance 
 with his plan, but declined to state the use to which he in¬ 
 tended putting it. 
 
 Very soon after his arrival in New A"ork, he commenced 
 building his first American boat, and finding that her cost 
 would greatly exceed his estimate, he offered for sale a third in¬ 
 terest in the monopoly of the navigation of the waters of New 
 A"ork, held by Living.ston and himself, in order to raise money 
 to build the boat, and thus lighten the burdens of himself and 
 his partner, but he could find no one willing to risk money in 
 such a scheme. Indeed, steam navigation was universally re- 
 
I!OI5ERT FUI/rON. 
 
 289 
 
 garded in America as a mere chimera, and Fulton and Living¬ 
 ston were ridiculed for their faith in it. The bill granting 
 the monopoly held by Livingston was I’egarded as so utterly 
 absurd by the Ijegislature of New York, that that wise body 
 could with difficulty be induced to consider it seriously. Even 
 among scientific men the project was considered impracticable. 
 A society in Rotterdam had, several years before Fulton’s 
 return home, applied to the American Philosophical Society 
 to be informed whether any and M'hat improvements had 
 been made in the construction of steam-engines in America. 
 A reply to this inquiry was prepared, at the request of the 
 Society, by Mr. Benjamin H. Latrobe, a distinguished engi¬ 
 neer. The following extracts from this paper will show the 
 reader how Fulton’s scheme was regarded by one who was con¬ 
 fessedly one of the most brilliant engineers of his day, and who 
 has since accomplished so much for the improvement of steam 
 travel : 
 
 During the general lassitude of mechanical exertion which succeeded 
 the American Revolution, the utility of steam-engines appears to have 
 been forgotten; but the subject afterward started into very general 
 notice in a form in which it could not possibly be attended with success. 
 A sort of mania began to prevail, which, indeed, has not yet entirely 
 subsided, for impelling boats by steam-engines. Dr. Franklin proposed 
 to force forward the boat by the immediate application of the steam 
 upon the water. Many attempts to simplify the working of the engine, 
 and more to employ a means of dispensing with the beam in converting 
 the Hbratonj into a rotatory motion, were made. For a short time, a 
 passage-boat, rowed by a steam-engine, was established between Borden- 
 town and Philadelphia, but it was soon laid aside. The best and most 
 powerful steam-engine which has been employed for this purpose — ex¬ 
 cepting, perhaps, one constructed by Dr. Kinsey, with the performance 
 of which I am not sufficiently acquainted — belonged to a gentleman 
 of New York. It was made to act, by way of experiment, upon oars, 
 upon paddles, and upon flutter-wbeels. Nothing in the success of any 
 
290 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 of these experiments appeared to be sufficient compensation for the 
 expense and the extreme inconvenience of the steam-engine in the 
 vessel. 
 
 There are, indeed, general objections to the use of the steam-engine 
 for impelling boats, from which no particular mode of application can 
 be free. These are; 
 
 First. The weight of the engine and of the fuel. 
 
 Second, The large space it occupies. 
 
 Third. The tendency of its action to rack the vessel, and render it 
 leaky. 
 
 Fourth. The expense of maintenance. 
 
 Fifth. The irregularity of its motion, and the motion of the water in 
 the boiler and cistern, and of the fuel-vessel in rough water. 
 
 Sixth. Tlie difficulty arising from the liability of the paddles and 
 oars to break, if light, and from the weight, if made strong. 
 
 Nor have I ever heard of an instance, verified by other testimony 
 than that of the inventor, of a speedy and agreeable voyage having 
 been performed in a steamboat of any construction. 
 
 I am well aware that there are still many very respectable and inge¬ 
 nious men who consider the application of the steam-engine to the 
 purpose of navigation as highly important, and as very practicable, 
 especially on the rapid waters of the Mississippi, and who would feel 
 themselves almost offended at the expression of an opposite opinion. 
 And, perhaj)s, some of the objections against it may be avoided. That 
 founded on the expense and weight of the fuel may not, for some years, 
 exist on the Mississippi, where there is a redundance of wood on the 
 banks; but the cutting and loading will be almost as great an evil. 
 
 Scientific men and amateurs all agreed in pronouncing Ful¬ 
 ton’s scheme impracticable; but he went on with his work, his 
 boat attracting no less attention and exciting no less ridicule 
 than the ark had received from the scoffers in the days of 
 Noah. The steam-engine ordered from Boulton and Watt was 
 received in the latter part of 1806; and in the following spring 
 the boat was launched from the ship-yard of Charles Brown, 
 on the East River. Fulton named her the “Clermont,” affer 
 
ROBERT FULTON. 
 
 291 
 
 the country-seat of his friend and partner, Chancellor Living¬ 
 ston. She was one hundred and sixty tons burthen, one hun¬ 
 dred and thirty feet long, eighteen feet wide, and seven feet 
 deeji. Her engine was made with a single cylinder, two feet 
 in diameter, and of four feet stroke; and her boiler was twenty 
 feet long, seven feet deep, and eight feet broad. The diameter 
 of the paddle-wheels was fifteen feet, the boai'ds four feet long, 
 and dipping two feet in the water. The boat was comjileted 
 about the last of August, and she was moved by her machin^y 
 from the East River into the Hudson, and over to the Jersey 
 shore. This trial, brief as it was, satisfied Fulton of its suc¬ 
 cess, and he announced that in a few days the steamer would 
 sail from New York for Albany. A few friends, including 
 several scientific men and mechanics, were invited to take pas¬ 
 sage in the boat, to witness her performance; and they accepted 
 the invitation with a general conviction that they were to do 
 but little more than witness another failure. 
 
 Monday, September 10, 1807, came at length, and a vast 
 •crowd assembled along the shore of the North River to witness 
 the starting. As the hour for sailing drew near, the crowd 
 increased, and jokes were passed on all sides at the expense 
 of the inventor, who paid little attention to them, however, 
 but busied himself in making a final and close inspection of 
 the machinery. Says Fulton, “The morning I left New York, 
 there were not, perhaps, thirty persons in the city who believed 
 that the boat would ever move one mile per hour, or be of the 
 least utility; and while we were putting off from the wharf, 
 which was crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sar¬ 
 castic remarks.’’ 
 
 One o’clock, the hour for sailing, came, and expectation was 
 at its highest. The friends of the inventor were in a state of 
 feverish anxiety lest the enterprise should come to grief, and 
 
292 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 the scoiFers on the wharf were all ready to give vent to 
 their shouts of derision. Precisely as the hour struck, the 
 moorings were thrown otf, and the ‘‘Clermont” moved slowly 
 out into the stream. Volumes of smoke and sparks from her 
 furnaces, which were fed with pine wood, rushed forth from 
 her chimney, and her wheels, which were uncovered, scattered 
 the spray far hehind her. The spectacle she presented as she 
 moved out gradually from her dock was certainly novel to 
 the people of those days, and the crowd on the wharf broke 
 into shouts of ridicule. Soon, however, the jeers grew silent, 
 for it was seen that the steamer was by degrees increasing her 
 speed. In a little while she was fairly under weigh, and mak¬ 
 ing a steady progress up the stream at the rate of five miles per 
 hour. The incredulity of the spectators had been succeeded by 
 astonishment, and now this feeling gave way to undisguised 
 delight, and cheer after cheer went up from the vast throng. 
 Many people followed the boat for some distance up the river 
 shore. In a little while, however, the boat was observed to 
 stop, and the enthusiasm of the people on the shore at once 
 subsided. The scoffers were again in their glory, and unhesi¬ 
 tatingly pronounced the boat a failure. Their chagrin may be 
 imagined when, after a short delay, the steamer once more pro¬ 
 ceeded on her way, and this time even more rapidly than 
 before. Fulton had discovered that the paddles were too 
 long, and took too deep a hold on the water, and had stopped 
 the boat for the purpose of shortening them. 
 
 Having remedied this defect, the “Clermont” continued her 
 voyage during the rest of the day and all night, without stop¬ 
 ping, and at one o’clock the next day ran alongside the land¬ 
 ing at Clermont, the seat of Chancellor Livingston. She lay 
 there until nine the next morning, when she continued her 
 voyage toward Albany, reaching that city at five in the after- 
 
KOBEKT FUI/KJN. 
 
 298 
 
 noou, having made the entire distance between Now York and 
 Albany (one liundred and fifty miles) in thirty-two hours of 
 actual running time, an average s})eeil of nearly five miles per 
 hour. On her return trip, she reached New York in thirty 
 hours running time—exactly five miles t)er hour. Fulton 
 states that during both trips he encountered a head wind. 
 
 The river was at this time navigated entirely with .sailing 
 ves.sels, and large numbers of these were encountered by the 
 “Clermont” during her up and down trips. The surprise 
 and dismay excited among the crews of the.se ves.sels by the 
 appearance of the steamer was extreme. The.se simple people, 
 the majority of whom had heard nothing of Fulton’s ex])eri- 
 jnents, beheld what they su})posed to be a huge monster, vom¬ 
 iting fire and smoke from its throat, la.shing the water with 
 its fins, and shaking the river with its roar, a))[)roaehing rap¬ 
 idly in the very face of both wind and tide. Some threw 
 themselves flat on the deck of their vessels, where they re¬ 
 mained in an agony of terror until the monster had pa.ssed, 
 while others took to their boats and made for the shore in 
 dismay, leaving their ve.ssels to drift helplessly down the 
 stream. Nor was this terror confined to the .sailors. The 
 people dwelling along the shore (u-owded the banks to gaze 
 upon the steamer as she passed by. A former resident of 
 the neighborhood of Poughkeepsie thus describes the scene at 
 that place, which will serve as a specimen of the conduct of 
 the pcoj)le along the entire river below' Albany: 
 
 “It was in the early autumn of the year 1807 that a knot 
 of villagers was gathered on a high blufl’ ju.st opposite Pough¬ 
 keepsie, on the w'est bank of the llud.son, attracted by the 
 appearance of a .strange, dark-looking craft, which was slowly 
 making its W’ay up the river. Sonu* imagined it to be a sea- 
 
 monster, while others did not hesitate to express their belief 
 18 
 
294 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 that it was a sign of the approacliing judgment. What seemed 
 strange in the vessel was the substitution of lofty and straight 
 black smoke-pipes, rising from the deck, instead of the grace- 
 fiilly tapered masts that commonly stood on the vessels navi¬ 
 gating the stream, and, in place of the spars and rigging, the 
 curious play of the working-beam and pistons, and the slow 
 turning and splashing of the huge and naked paddle-wheels, 
 met the astonished gaze. The dense clouds of smoke, as they 
 rose wave upon wave, added still more to the wonderment of 
 the rustics. 
 
 “This strange-looking craft was the 'Clermont,’ on her trial 
 trip to Albany; and of the little knot of villagers mentioned 
 above, the writer, then a boy in his eighth year, with his par¬ 
 ents, formed a part. I well remember the scene, one so well 
 fitted to impress a lasting picture upon the mind of a child 
 accustomed to watch the vessels that passed up and down tl>e 
 river. 
 
 “ The forms of four ])ersons were distinctly visible on the 
 fleck as she passed the blulf—one of whom, doubtless, was 
 Rob(‘rt Fulton, who had on boai’d with him all the cherished 
 hopes of years, the most precious cargo the wonderful boat 
 could carry. 
 
 “ On her return trip, the curiosity she excited was scarcely 
 less intense. The whole country talked of nothing but the sea- 
 monster, belching forth fire and smoke. The fishermen became 
 terrified, and rowed homewards, and they saw nothing but de¬ 
 struction devastating their fishing-grounds; while the wreaths 
 of black vapor, and rushing noise of the jiaddle-wheels, foam¬ 
 ing with the stirred-uj) watens, jiroduced great excitement 
 amou''- the boatmen, which continued without abatement, until 
 the cliaracter of that curious boat, and the nature of the enter¬ 
 prise which she was pioneering, had been understood.” 
 
EGBERT FUI/rON. 
 
 295 
 
 The alarm of the sailors and dwellers on the river shore dis¬ 
 appeared as the character of the steamer became better known; 
 but when it was found that the “ Clermont ” was to run regularly 
 between New York and Albany, as a packet-boat, she became 
 the object of the most intense hatred on the part of the boat¬ 
 men on the river, who feared that she would entirely destroy 
 their business. In many quarters Fulton and his invention 
 were denounced as baneful to society, and frequent attempts 
 were made by captains of sailing vessels to sink the “ Clermont” 
 by running into her. She was several times damaged in this 
 way, and the hostility of the boatmen became so great that it 
 was necessary for the Legislature of New York to pass a law 
 declaring combinations to destroy her, or willful attempts to in¬ 
 jure her, public offenses punishable by fine and imprisonment. 
 
 It had been supposed that Fulton’s object was to produce a 
 steamer capable of navigating the Mississippi River, and much 
 surprise was occasioned by the announcement that the “Cler¬ 
 mont” was to be permanently employed upon the Hudson. 
 She continued to j)!}’ regularly between New York and Albany 
 until the close of navigation for that season, always carrying a 
 full complement of passengers, and more or less freight. Dur¬ 
 ing the winter she was overhauled and enlarged, and her speed 
 improved. In the spring of 1808 she resumed her regular 
 trips, and since then steam navigation on the Hudson has not 
 ceased for a single day, except during the closing of the river 
 by ice. 
 
 In 1811 and 1812, Fulton built two steam ferry-boats for 
 the North River, and soon after added a third for the East 
 River. These boats were the beo:innino; of the maenifieent 
 steam ferry system which is to-day one of the chief wonders of 
 New York. They were what are called twin-boats, each of 
 them consisting of two complete hulls, united by a tleck or 
 
296 
 
 KINGS OF FOr.TUNE. 
 
 bridge. They were sharp at both ends, and moved equally 
 well with either end foremost, so that they could cross and re¬ 
 cross without being turned around. These boats wei'e given 
 engines of sufficient power to enable them to overcome the force 
 of strong ebb tides; and in order to facilitate their landing, Ful¬ 
 ton contrived a species of floating dock, and a means of decreas¬ 
 ing the shock caused by the striking of the boat against the 
 dock. These boats could accommodate eight four-wheel carri¬ 
 ages, twenty-nine horses, and four hundred passengers. Their 
 average time across the North River, a mile and a half wide, 
 was twenty minutes. 
 
 The introduction of the steamboat gave a powerful impetus 
 to the internal commerce of the Union. It opened to navigation 
 many important rivers (whose swift currents had closed them ta 
 sailing craft), and made rapid and easy communication between 
 the most distant parts of the country practicable. The public 
 soon began to appreciate this, and orders came in rapidly for 
 steamboats for various parts of the country. Fulton executed 
 these as fast as possible, and among the number several for 
 boats for the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. 
 
 Early in 1814, the city of New York was seriously menaced 
 with an attack from the British fleet, and Fulton was called on by 
 a committee of citizens to furnish a plan for a means of defend¬ 
 ing the harbor. He exhibited to the committee his plans for a 
 vessel of war to be propelled by steam, capable of carrying a 
 strong battery, with furnaces for red-hot shot, and which, he 
 represented, would move at the rate of four miles an hour. 
 These plans were also submitted to a number of naval officials, 
 among whom were Commodore Decatur, Captain Jones, Captain 
 Evans, Captain Biddle, Commodore Perry, Captain Warring¬ 
 ton, and Captain Lewis, all of whom warmly united in urging 
 the Government to undertake the construction of the proposed 
 
KOBKKT FULTON. 
 
 207 
 
 steamer. The eitizens of New York offered, if tlie Government 
 would employ and pay for her after she was built, to advance 
 the sum ($320,000) necessary for her construction. The subject 
 was vigorously pressed, and in March, 1814, Congress author¬ 
 ized the building of one or more floating batteries after the plan 
 ])resented by Fulton. Her keel was laid on the 20th of June, 
 1814, and on the 31st of October, of the same year, she was 
 launched, amid great rejoicings, from the ship-yard of Adam and 
 Noah Brown. In May, 1815, her engines were put on board, 
 and on the 4th of July of that year she made a trial trip to 
 Sandy Hook and back, accomplishing the round trip—a dis¬ 
 tance of fifty-three miles—in eight hours and tw-enty minutes, 
 under steam alone. Before this, how'ever, peace had been pro-' 
 claimed, and Fulton had gone to rest from his labors. 
 
 The ship was a complete success, and was the first steam vessel 
 of war ever built. She was called the “ Fulton the First,” and 
 was for many years used as the receiving ship at the Brooklyn 
 Navy Yard. She was an awkward and unwieldy mass, but was 
 regarded as the most formidable vessel afloat ; and as the pioneer 
 of the splendid war steamers of to-day is still an object of great 
 interest. The English i-egarded her with especial uneasiness, 
 and put in circulation the most marvelous stories concerning 
 her. One of these I take from a treatise on steam navigation 
 published in Scotland at this 2 >eriod, the author of which assures 
 his readers that he has taken the utmost pains to obtain full 
 and accurate information respecting the American war steamer. 
 His description is as follows: 
 
 “ Length on deck three hundred feet, breadth two hundred 
 feet, thickness of her sides, thirteen feet, of alternate oak plank 
 and corkwood; carries forty-four guns, four of which are 100- 
 j)ounders, quarter-deck and forcastle guns, 44-pounders; and 
 further, to annoy an enemy attempting to board, can discharge 
 
298 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 one hundred gallons of boiling water in a minute, and b)- 
 mechanism brandishes three hundred cutlasses, with the utmost 
 regularity, over her gunwales; works also an equal number of 
 heavy iron pikes of great length, darting them from her sides 
 with prodigious force, and withdrawing them every quarter of 
 a minute!’^ 
 
 Fulton followed up the “Clermont,” in 1807, with a larger 
 boat, called the “ Car of Neptune,” whiph was placed on the 
 Albany route as soon as completed. The Legislature of New 
 York had enacted a law, immediately upon his first success, 
 givinir to Livinsston and himself the exclusive right to navi- 
 gate the waters of the State by steam, for five years for every 
 additional boat they should build in the State, provided the 
 whole term should not exceed thirty years. “ In the following 
 year the Legislature passed another act, confirmatory of the 
 prior grants, and giving new remedies to the grantees for any 
 invasion of them, and subjecting to forfeiture any vessel pro¬ 
 pelled by steam which should enter the waters of the State 
 without their license. In 1809 Fulton obtained his first 
 patent from the United States; and in 1811 he took out 
 a second patent for some improvement in his boats and ma¬ 
 chinery. His patents were limited to the simple means of 
 adapting paddle wheels to the axle of the crank of Watt’s 
 engine. 
 
 “Meanwhile the power of the Legislature to grant the steam¬ 
 boat monopoly was denied, and a company was formed at 
 Albany to establish another line of steam passage boats on the 
 Hudson, between that city and New York. The State grantees 
 filed a bill in equity, and prayed for an injunction, which was 
 refused by Chancellor Lansing, on the ground that the act of 
 the State Legislature was repugnant to the Constitution of the 
 United States, and against common right. This decree was 
 
ROBERT FULTON. 
 
 299 
 
 unanimously reversed by the Court of Errors, and a compromise 
 was effected with the Albany company by an assignment to 
 them of the right to employ steam on the waters of Lake 
 Champlain. 
 
 “ Legislative aid was again invoked, and an act was passed 
 directing peremptorily the allowance of an injunction on the 
 prayer of the State grantees, and the seizure of any hostile 
 boat at the commencement of the suit. Litigation was thus 
 effectually arrested in New York, though by an arbitrary 
 and unconstitutional enactment, and the waters of the State 
 remained in the exclusive possession of Fulton and his partner 
 during the lifetime of the former. A similar controversy with 
 Colonel Aaron Ogden, of New Jersey, was compromised by 
 advantageous concessions, which converted the opponent of 
 the monopoly into its firmest friend, and left him many 
 years afterward the defeated party in the famous suit of 
 Gibbons and Ogden, in the Supreme Court of the United 
 States.” 
 
 In January, 1816, Fulton was summoned to Trenton, New 
 Jersey, as a witness in one of the numerous suits which grew 
 out of the efforts to break down his monopoly. During his ex¬ 
 amination he was very much exposed, as the hall of the Legis¬ 
 lature was uncommonly cold. In returning home, he crossed 
 the Hudson in an open boat, and was detained on the river 
 several hours. This severe exposure brought on an attack of 
 sickness, which for a short time confined him to his bed. The 
 steam frigate, then almost ready for her engines, occasioned him 
 great anxiety at the time, and before he had fairly recovered 
 his strength he went to the ship-yard to give some directions to 
 the workmen employed on her, and thus exposed himself again 
 to the inclemency of the weather. In a few days his indisposi¬ 
 tion prostrated him again, and, growing rapidly worse, he died 
 
300 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 on the 24tli of February, 1815, at the age of fifty years. His 
 death was universally regarded as a national calamity, and 
 appropriate honors were paid to his memory by the General 
 Government and by many of the State and municipal govern¬ 
 ments of the Union. He was buried from his residence, 
 No. 1 State Street, on the 25th of February, and his body 
 was placed in the vault of the Livingston family, in Trinity 
 church-yard. 
 
 He left a widow and four children. By the terms of his will 
 he bequeathed to his wife an income of nine thousand dollars . 
 year, and five hundred dollars to each of his children until they 
 were twelve years old, after which they were each to receive 
 one thousand dollars a year until they should attain the age of 
 twenty-one years. 
 
 In person, Fulton was tall and handsome. His manner was 
 polished, cordial, and winning. He made friends rapidly, and 
 never failed in his efforts to enlist capital and influence in sup¬ 
 port of his schemes. He was manly, fearless, and independent 
 in character, and joined to a perfect integrity a patience and in¬ 
 domitable resolution which enabled him to bear up under every 
 disappointment, and which won him in the end a glorious suc¬ 
 cess. His name and fame will always be dear to his country¬ 
 men, for while we can not claim that he was (nor did he ever 
 assume to be) the inventor of steam navigation, or even the 
 inventor of the means of such navigation, we do claim for him 
 the honor of being the first man to cross the gulf which lies 
 between experiment and achievement, the man whose skill and 
 perseverance first conquered the difficulties which had baffled so 
 many others, and made steam navigation both practicable and 
 profitable. The Committee of the London Exhibition of 1851 
 gave utterance in their report to a declaration which places his 
 fame beyond assault, as follows: 
 
IIOBKRT FUI/rON. 
 
 301 
 
 “ Many persons, in various countries, claim the honor of 
 having first invented small boats propelled by steam, but it 
 is to the undaunted perseverance and exertions of the Amer¬ 
 ican Fulton that is due the everlasting honor of having 
 produced this revolution, both in naval architecture and navi¬ 
 gation.” 
 
302 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 CHARLES GOODYEAR. 
 
 the year 1735, a party of astronomers, sent bj 
 the French Government to Peru for purposes of 
 
 scientific investigation, discovered a curious tree 
 growing in that country, the like of which no Eu¬ 
 
 ropean had ever seen before. It grew to a consid¬ 
 erable size, and yielded a peculiar sap or gum. It was the cus¬ 
 tom of the natives to make several incisions in each tree with 
 an ax, in the morning, and to place under each incision a cup 
 or jar made of soft clay. Late in the afternoon, the fluid thus 
 obtained was collected in a large clay vessel, each incision yield¬ 
 ing about a gill of sap per day. This process was repeated for 
 several days in succession, until the tree had been thoroughlv 
 drained. This sap was simply a species of liquid gum, which, 
 though clear and colorless in its native state, had the property 
 of becoming hard and tough when expo.sed to the sun or artifi¬ 
 cial heat. It was used by the natives for the manufacture of a 
 few rude and simple articles, by a process similar to that by 
 which the old-fashioned “tallow-dip” candles were made. It 
 was poured over a pattern of clay or a wooden mold or la^t 
 covered with clay, and successive coatings were applied as fast 
 as the former ones dried, until the article had attained the de¬ 
 sired thickness, the whole taking the shape of the mold over 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR. 
 
 303 
 
 which the gum was poured. As the layers were apj)ried, their 
 drying was hastened by exposure to the heat and smoke of a 
 fire, the latter giving to the gum a dark-black hue. Dried 
 without exposure to the smoke, or by the sun alone, the gum 
 became white within and yellowish-brown without. The dry¬ 
 ing process required several days, and during its progress the 
 gum was ornamented with characters or linos made with a stick. 
 When it was completed, the clay mold was broken to pieces 
 and shaken out of the opening. The natives in this manner 
 made a species of rough, clumsy shoe, and an equally rougli 
 bottle. In some parts of South America, the natives make it a 
 rule to present their guests with one of these bottles, furnished 
 with a hollow stem, which serves as a syringe for squirting 
 water into the mouth in order to cleanse it after eating. The 
 ■irticles thus made were liable to become stiff and unmanageable 
 in cold weather, and soft and sticky in warm. The French 
 astronomers, upon their return to their own country, were quick 
 to call attention to this remarkable gum, which was afterward 
 discovered in Cayenne by Trismau, in 1751, At present it is 
 found in large quantities in various parts of South America, but 
 tlie chief supplies used in commerce are ju'oduced in the })rov- 
 ince of Para, which lies south of the equator, in Brazil. It is 
 also grown largely in the East Indies, vast and inexhaustible 
 forests of the trees which yield it being found in Assam, beyond 
 the Ganges, although the quality can not compare with that 
 of the South American article. 
 
 This substance, variously known as cachuchu, caoutchouc, 
 gum clastic, and India-rubber, was first introduced into Europe 
 in 1730, where it was regarded merely as a curiosity, useful 
 for erasing pencil marks, but valueless for any practical use. 
 
 ‘ Ships from South America brought it over as ballast, but it 
 was not until ninety years after its first appearance in Europe 
 
304 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 that any effort was made to utilize it. About the year 1820 it 
 began to be used in France in the manufacture of suspenders 
 and garters, India-rubber threads being mixed with the mate¬ 
 rials used in weaving those articles. It was also used in black¬ 
 ing and varnish, and some years later. Mackintosh brought it 
 into prominent notice by using it in his famous water-proof 
 coats, which were made by spreading a layer of the gum be¬ 
 tween two pieces of cloth. The gum was thus protected from 
 the air, and preserved from injury. 
 
 Up to this time, it was almost an unknown article in the 
 United States, but in 1820 a pair of India-rubber shoes were 
 exhibited in Boston. Even then they were regarded as merely 
 a curiosity, and were covered with gilt foil to hide their natu¬ 
 ral ugliness. In 1823, a merchant, engaged in the South 
 American trade, imported five hundred pairs from the Para 
 district. He had no difficulty in disposing of them; and so 
 great was the favor with which they were received, that in a 
 few years the annual importation of India-rubber shoes 
 amounted to five hundred thousand pairs. It had become a 
 matter of fashion to wear these shoes, and no person’s toilet 
 was complete in wet weather unless the feet were incased in 
 them; yet tliey were terribly rough and clumsy. They had 
 scarcely any shape to them, and were not to be depended on 
 in winter or summer. In the cold season they froze so hard 
 that they could be used only after being thawed by the fire, 
 and in summer they could be preserved only by keeping them 
 on ice; and if, during the thawing process, they were placed 
 too near the fire, there was danger that they would melt into 
 a shapeless and useless mass. They cost from three to five 
 dollars per pair, which was very high for an article so perish¬ 
 able in its nature. 
 
 The great popularity of India-rubber induced Mr. E. M. 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR. 
 
 305 
 
 Chaffee, of Boston, the foreman of a patent leather factory in 
 that city, to attempt to ap])ly the new substance to some of the 
 uses to which patent leather was then put. His hope was that, 
 by spreading the liquid gum upon cloth, he could produce an 
 article which, while possessing the durability and flexibility 
 of patent leather, would also be water-proof. His experiments 
 extended over a period of several months, during which time 
 he kept his plan a secret. He dissolved a pound of the gum 
 in three quarts of spirits of turpentine, and added to the mix¬ 
 ture enough lamp-black to produce a bright black color, and 
 was so well satisfied with his compound, that he felt sure that 
 the only thing necessary to his entire suecess was a machine 
 for spreading it properly on the cloth. Like a true son of New 
 England, he soon overcame this difficulty by inventing the de¬ 
 sired maehine. His compound was spread on the cloth, and 
 dried in the sun, producing a hard, smooth surface, and one 
 sufficiently flexible to be twisted into any shape witliout crack¬ 
 ing, Mr. Chaffee was now sure that he had mastered the dif¬ 
 ficulty. Taking a few capitalists into his confidence, he suc¬ 
 ceeded so well in convincing them of the excellence of his 
 invention, that in February, 1833, a company, called the 
 “ Roxbury India-rubber Company,” was organized, with a 
 capital of thirty thousand dollars. In three years this sum 
 was increased to four hundred thousand dollars. The new 
 company manufactured India-rubber cloth according to Mr. 
 Chaffee’s process, and from it made wagon-covers, piano- 
 cover.s, caps, coats, and a few other artieles, and, in a little 
 while, added to their list of produets shoes without fiber. 
 They had no difficulty in disposing of their stock. Every 
 body had taken the “ India-rubber fever,” as the excitement 
 caused by Mr. Chaffee’s discovery was called; and so high 
 were the hopes of the public raised by it, that buyers were 
 
306 
 
 KINGS OK FOllTUNE. 
 
 found in abundance whenever the bonds of the numerous 
 India-rubber companies were offered for sale. The extraor¬ 
 dinary success of the Roxbury Company led to the establish¬ 
 ment of similar enterprises at Boston, Framingham, Salem, 
 Lynn, Chelsea, Troy, and Staten Island. The Roxbury Com¬ 
 pany could not supply the demand for its articles, and the others 
 appeared to have as much business as they could attend to. 
 Apparently, they were all on the high road to wealth. 
 
 Their i)rosperity was only fictitious, however, and a day of 
 fearful disaster was pending over them. The bulk of the 
 goods produced in 1833 and 1834 had been manufactured in 
 the cold weather, and the greater part of them had succumbed 
 to the heat of the ensuing summer. The shoes had melted to 
 a soft mass, and tne caps, wagon-covers, and coats had become 
 sticky and useless in summer, and rigid in the cold of winter. 
 In some cases the articles had borne the test of one year’s use, 
 but the second summer had ruined them. To make the matter 
 worse, they emitted an odor so oftensive that it was necessary 
 to bury them in the ground to get rid of the smell. Twenty 
 thousand dollars’ worth were thrown back on the hands of the 
 Roxbury (A)mpany alone, and the directors were appalled by the 
 ruin which threatened them. It was useless for them to go on 
 manufacturing goods which might prove worthless at any mo¬ 
 ment; and, as their capital was already taxed to its utmost, it 
 was plain that unless a better process should be speedily dis¬ 
 covered, they must become involved in irretrievable disaster. 
 Their efforts were unavailing, however. Xo better process was 
 found, and the disgust of tlie public with their goods was soon 
 general and unmitigable. India-rubber stock fell rapidly, and 
 by the end of the year 1836 there was not a solvent company 
 in the Union. The loss of the stockholders was complete, and 
 amounted in the aggregate to two millions of dollars.. People 
 
Charles Goodyear. 
 
 307 
 
 came to detest the very name of India-rubber, since it reminded 
 them only of blighted hopes and heavy losses. 
 
 Before the final disaster, however, it chanced that a bankrupt 
 merchant of Philadelphia, being one day in New York on busi¬ 
 ness, was led by curiosity to visit the salesroom of the agency 
 of the Roxbury Company in that city. Ilis visit resulted in 
 the purchase of a life-preserver, which he took home with him 
 for the purpose of examining it. Subjecting it to a careful in¬ 
 vestigation, he discovered a defect in the valve used for inflat¬ 
 ing it, and promptly devised a simpler and better apparatus. 
 
 This man, afterward so famous in the history of India-rnR 
 her manufacture, was Charles Goodyear. He was born at 
 New Haven, Connecticut, on the 29th of December, 1800. He 
 attended a public school during his boyhood, thus ac(piiring a 
 limited education. When quite a youth, he removed with his 
 family to Philadelphia, where his father entered into the 
 hardware business. Upon coming of age, he was admitted 
 to partnership with his fatlier and one of his brothers, the 
 style of the firm being A, Goodyear & Sons. The house was 
 extensively engaged in the manufacture of hardware, and among 
 the other articles which they introduced was a liglit hay-fork, 
 made of spring steel, which gradually took the place of the 
 heavy wrought iron implement formerly in general use among 
 the farmers. It required a large outlay and a great deal of time 
 to introduce this fork, but, once in use, it rapidly drove the 
 old one out of the market, and j)roved a source of considerable 
 ])rofit to its inventor. The prosperity of the house, however, 
 soon began to wane, and it was brought to bankruptcy by the 
 crisis of 183G. 
 
 Mr. Goodyear’s attention had for some time been attracted 
 to the wonderful apparent success of the India-rubber companies 
 of the country, and he was hopeful that his improvement in the 
 
308 
 
 KINGS OK KORTtNE. 
 
 inflating apparatus of the life-preserver would bring him the 
 means of partially extricating himself from his difficulties. 
 Repairing to Xew York, he called on the agent of the Roxbury 
 Company, and explaining his invention to him, offered to sell 
 it to the company. The agent was struck with the skill dis¬ 
 played in the improvement of ^Ir. Goodyear, but, instead of 
 offering to buy it, astounded the inventor by informing him 
 of the real state of the India-rubber trade of the country. He 
 urged Mr. Goodyear to exert his inventive skill to discover 
 some means of imparting durability to India-rubber goods, and 
 assured him that if he coidd discover a process which would 
 secure that end, the various companies of the United States 
 would eagerly buy it at his own price. He explained to him 
 the process then in use, and pointed out its imperfections. Mr. 
 Goodyear listened carefully to his statements, forgot all about 
 his disappointment in failing to sell his improved inflating 
 apparatus, and went home firmly convinced that he had found 
 his true mission in life. In after years, when success had 
 crowned his labors, he modestly referred to this period of his 
 career in laimuatie the substance of which is thus recorded: 
 
 “From the time that his attention Avas first given to the 
 subjeet, a strong and abiding impression was made upon his 
 mind that an object so desirable and important, and so neces¬ 
 sary to man’s comfort, as the making of gum elastic available 
 to his use was most certainly placed within his reach. Hav¬ 
 ing this presentiment, of Avhich he could not divest himself 
 under the most trying adversity, he was stimulated with the 
 hope of ultimately attaining this object. Beyond this, he 
 would refer the Avhole to the great Creator, who directs the 
 operations of the mind to the development of properties of 
 matter, in his own Avay, at the time Avhen they are specially 
 needed, influencing some mind for every work or calling.” 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR. 
 
 309 
 
 There was something sublime in the attitude of this one 
 man, now feeble in health, the only dependence of a young 
 family, a bankrupt in business, starting out to seek success 
 in a field in which so many had found only ruin. He was 
 convinced in his own mind that ha would master the secret, 
 while his friends were equally sure that he would but increase 
 his difficulties. The firm of which he had been a member had 
 surrendered all their property to their creditors; but they still 
 owed thirty thousand dollars, and immediately upon his return 
 from New York, after his visit to the agent of the Eoxbury 
 Company, he was arrested for debt, and though not actually 
 thrown in jail, was compelled to take up his residence within 
 prison limits. 
 
 Strong in the conviction before named, that he was the man 
 of all others to discover the secret of controlling India-rubber, 
 he at once began his experiments. This was in the winter of 
 1834-35. The gum had fallen in price to five cents per pound, 
 and, poor as he was, he had no difficulty in procuring a suffi¬ 
 cient quantity to begin with. By melting and working the 
 gum thoroughly, and by rolling it upon a stone table with a 
 rolling-pin, he succeeded in producing sheets of India-rubber 
 which seemed to him to possess the properties which those of 
 Mr. Chaffee had lacked. He explained his process to a friend, 
 who, becoming interested in it, loaned him the money to man¬ 
 ufacture a number of shoes, which at first seemed all that 
 could be desired. Fearful, however, of meeting the fate 
 which had befallen the Roxbury Company, IMr. Goodyear put 
 his shoes away until the next summer, to ascertain whether 
 they would bear the heat. His doubts were more than real¬ 
 ized. The warm weather completely ruined them, reducing 
 them to a mass of so offensive an odor that he was glad to 
 
 throw them away. 
 
 19 
 
310 
 
 KINGS OK FORTUNE. 
 
 The friend of the inventor was thoroughly disheartened by 
 this failure, and refused to have any thing more to do with 
 Goodyear’s schemes; but the latter, though much disappointed, 
 did not despair. He set to work to discover the cause of his 
 failure, and traced it, as Jie supposed, to the mixing of the 
 gum with the turpentine and lamp-black. Having procured 
 some barrels of the gum in its native liquid state, he spread it 
 on cloth without smoking it or mixing it with any thing else. 
 He succeeded in producing a very handsome white rubber cloth, 
 but it was one that became soft and sticky as quickly as tin; 
 other had done. 
 
 It now occurred to him that there must be some mineral 
 substance which, mixed with the gum, would render it durable, 
 and he began to experiment with almost every substance that 
 he could lay his hands on. All these proved total failures, 
 with the exception of magnesia. By mixing half a pound of 
 magnesia with a pound of tne gum, he produced a compound 
 much whiter than the pure gum, and one which was at first as 
 firm and flexible as leather. He made book-covers and piano- 
 covers out of it, and for a time it seemed that he had discov¬ 
 ered the longed-for secret; but in a month his pretty })roduct 
 was ruined. The heat caused it to soften; then fermentation 
 set in, and, finally, it became as hard and brittle as thin glass. 
 
 His friends, who had aided him at first, now turned from 
 him coldly, regarding him as a dreamer; and his own stock of 
 money was exhausted. In his extremity he was forced to pawn 
 all his own valuables, and even some of the trinkets of his 
 wife. In spite of this, he felt sure that he was on the road to 
 success, and that he would very soon be enabled to rise above 
 his present difficulties, and win both fame and fortune. He 
 was obliged for the time, however, to remove his family to the 
 country, depositing wdth his landlord, as security for the pay- 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR. 
 
 311 
 
 nient of the first quarter’s rent, some linen which had been 
 spun by his wife, and which he was never able to redeem. 
 Having settled his family in the country, he set out for New 
 York, where he hoped to find some one willing to aid him in 
 extending his researches still further. 
 
 Arrived in the great city, he found two old acquaintances, 
 to whom he stated his plans and his hopes. One of them 
 offered him the use of a room in Gold Street, as a laboratory, 
 and the other, who was a druggist, agreed to let him have 
 sueh chemicals as he needed on credit. He now ])roceeded to 
 boil the gum, mixed with magnesia, in quicklime and water, 
 and, as the result, obtained sheets of his com})ound whose 
 firmness and smoothness of surface won them a medal at the 
 fair of the American Institute in 1835. He seemed now on 
 the point of success, and readily disposed of all the .sheets he 
 could manufacture. The newspapers .sjioke highly of his in¬ 
 vention, for which he obtained a patent; and he was about to 
 endeavor to eidist some persons of means in its manufacture 
 on a large scale, when, to his dismay, he di.scovered that a 
 .single drop of the weakest acid, such as the juice of an apjde, 
 or diluted vinegar, would utterly destroy the influenee of the 
 lime in the compound, and reduce it to the old sticky substance 
 that had baffled him so often. 
 
 His next step was to iiiix quicklime with the gum. In 
 order to work the compound thoroughly, he used to carry the 
 ve.s.sel containing it, on his shoulder, to a place three miles 
 distant from his laboratory, where he had the use of horse 
 power. The lime, however, utterly destroyed the gum, and 
 nothing came of this experiment. 
 
 The di.scovery which followed was the result of accident, and 
 brought him on the very threshold of success, yet did not en¬ 
 tirely conquer his difficulties. He was an ardent lover of the 
 
312 
 
 KINGS or FORTUNE. 
 
 bi.'autifiil, and it was a constsjat effort with him to render his 
 productions as attractive to the eye as possible. Upon one 
 accasion, while bronzing a piece of rubber cloth, he applied 
 aqua fortis to it for the purpose of removing the bronze from a 
 certain part. It took away the bronze as he had designed, but 
 it also discolored the ^^loth to such a degree that he supposed it 
 ruined, and threw it away. A day or two later, he chanced 
 to remember that he had not examined very closely into the 
 effect of the aqua fortis upon the rubber, and thereupon insti¬ 
 tuted a search for it. He was fortunate enough to find it, and 
 was overjoyed to discover that the rubber had undergone a 
 remarkable change, and that the effect of the acid wasi to 
 harden it to such an extent that it would now stand a degree 
 of heat which would have melted it before. When the reader 
 remembers that aqua fortis is a compound two-fifths of which 
 is sulphuric acid, he will understand that Mr. Goodyear had 
 almost mastered the secret of vulcanizino; rubber. He does 
 not appear, however, to have known the true nature of aqua 
 fortis, and called his process the “curing” of India-rubber by 
 the use of that acid. 
 
 The “ cured ” India-rubber was subjected to many tests, and 
 passed through them successfully, thus demonstrating its adap¬ 
 tability to many important uses. Mr. Goodyear readily ob¬ 
 tained a patent for his process, and a partner with a large cap¬ 
 ital was found ready to aid him. He hired the old India-rub¬ 
 ber works on Staten Island, and opened a salesroom in Broad¬ 
 way. He was thrown baek for six weeks at this important 
 time by an accident, which happened to him while experiment¬ 
 ing with his fabrics, and which came near causing his death. 
 Just as he was recovering and preparing to commence the 
 manufacture of his goods on a large scale, the terrible commer¬ 
 cial crisis of 1836 swept over the countiy, and, by destroying 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR, 
 
 313 
 
 his partner’s fortune at one blow, reduced Goodyear to abso¬ 
 lute beggary. His family had joined him in New York, and 
 he was entirely without the means of supporting them. As 
 the only resource at hand, he decided to pawn an article of 
 value, one of the few which he possessed, in order to raise 
 money enough to procure one day’s supply of provisions. At 
 the very door of the pawnbroker’s shop he met one of his 
 creditors, who kindly asked if he could be of any further 
 assistance to him. Weak with hunger, and overcome by the 
 generosity of his friend, the poor man burst into tears, and 
 rej)lied that, as his family was on the point of starvation, a 
 loan of fifteen dollars w'ould greatly oblige him. The money 
 was given him on the spot, and the necessity for visiting the 
 pawnbroker averted for several days longer. Still he was a 
 frequent visitor to that individual during the year; and thus, 
 one by one, the relics of his better days disappeared. Another 
 friend loaned him one hundred dollars, wdiich enabled him to 
 remove his family to Staten Island, in the neighborhood of the 
 abandoned rubber works, which the owners gave him permis¬ 
 sion to use as far as he could. He contrived in this way to 
 manufacture enough of his “cured” cloth, which sold readily, 
 to enable him to keep his family from starvation. He made 
 repeated efforts to induce capitalists to come to the factory 
 and see his samples and the process by which they were made, 
 but no one would venture near him. There had been money 
 enough lost in such experiments, they said, and they were de¬ 
 termined to risk no more. 
 
 Indeed, in all the broad land there was but one man who 
 had the slightest hope of accomplishing any thing with India- 
 rubber, and that one was Charles Goodyear. His friends re¬ 
 garded him as a monomaniac. He not only manufactured his 
 cloth, but even dressed in clothes made of it, wearing it for the 
 
314 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 purpose of testing its durability, as well as of advertising it. 
 lie was certainly an odd figure, and in his appearance justified 
 the remark of one of his friends, who, upon being asked how 
 Mr. Gooilyear could be recognized, replied : “ If you see a man 
 with an India-rubber coat on. India-rubber shoes, an India- 
 rubber cap, and in his pocket an India-rubber purse, with not 
 a cent in it, that is Goodyear.” 
 
 In September, 183G, a new gleam of hope lit up his path¬ 
 way. A friend having loaned him a small sum of money, he 
 went to Roxl)ury, taking with him -some of his best specimen.s. 
 Although the Roxbury Company had gone down with such a fear¬ 
 ful crash, Mr. Chaifee, the inventor of the proce.ss in this country, 
 was still firm in his faith that India-rubber would at some 
 future time justify the expectations of its earliest friends. He 
 welcomed Mr. Goodyear cordially, and allowed him to use the 
 abandoned works of the company for his experiments. The 
 result was that Goodyear succeeded in making shoes and cloths 
 of India-rubber of a quality so much better than any that had 
 yet been seen in America, that the hopes of the friends of 
 India-rubber were rai.sed to a high point. Offers to purchase 
 rights for certain portions of the country came in rapidly, and 
 by the sale of them Goodyear realized between four and five 
 thousand dollars. He was now able to bring his family to Rox¬ 
 bury, and for the time fortune seemed to smile upon him. 
 
 His success was but temporary, however. He t)btained an 
 artier from the General Government for one hundred and fifty 
 India-rubber mail bags, which he succeeded in producing, and 
 as they came out smooth, highly polished, hard, well shaped, 
 and entirely impervious to moisture, he was delighted, and 
 summoned his friends to inspect and admire them. All who 
 saw them pronounced them a perfect success; but, alas! in a 
 single month they began to soften and ferment, and finally 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR. 
 
 .SI 5 
 
 became useless. Poor Goodyear’s hopes were dashed to the 
 ground. It was found that the aqua fortis merely “cured” the 
 surface of the material, and that only very thin cloth made in 
 this way was durable. His other goods began to prove worth¬ 
 less, and his promising business came to a sudden and disas¬ 
 trous end. All his possessions were seized and sold for debt, 
 and once more he was reduced to poverty. His position was 
 even worse than before, for his family had increased in size, 
 and his aged father also had become dependent upon him fov 
 support. 
 
 Friends, relatives, and even his wife, all demanded that lie 
 should abandon his empty dreams, and turn his attention to 
 something that would yield a support to his family. Four 
 years of constant failure, added to the unfortunate experience 
 of those who had preceded him, ought to convince him, they 
 said, that he was hoping against hope. Hitherto his conduct, 
 they said, had been absurd, though they admitted that he was 
 to some extent excused for it by his partial success; but to 
 jK'i’sist in it would now be criminal. The inventor was driven 
 to despair, and being a man of tender feelings and ardently 
 devoted to his family, might have yielded to them had he not 
 felt that he was nearer than ever to the discovery of the secret 
 that had eluded him so long. 
 
 Just before the failure of his mail-bags had brought ruin 
 upon him, he had taken into his employ a man named 
 Nathaniel Hayward, who had been the foreman of the old 
 Roxbury works, and who was still in charge of them when 
 Goodyear came to Roxbury, making a few rubber articles on 
 his own account. He hardened his compound by mixing a 
 little powdered sulphur with the gum, or by sprinkling suli^hur 
 on the rubber cloth, and drying it in the sun. He declared 
 that the process had been revealed to him in a dream, but 
 
316 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 could give no further account of it. Goodyear was astonished 
 to find that the sulphur cured the India-rubber as thoroughly 
 as the aqua fortis, the principal objection being that the sul¬ 
 phurous odor of the goods was frightful in hot weather. Hay¬ 
 ward’s process was really the same as that employed by Good- 
 tear, the “curing” of the India-rubber being due in each case 
 to the agency of sulphur, the princijial difference between 
 them being that Hayward’s goods were dried by the sun, and 
 Goodyear’s with nitric acid. Hayward set so small a value 
 upon his discovery that he had readily sold it to his new 
 employer. 
 
 Goodyear felt that he had now all but conquered his diffi¬ 
 culties. It was plain that sulphur was the great controller of 
 India-rnbber, for he had proved that when applied to thin 
 cloth it would render it available for most purpo.ses. The 
 problem that now remained was how to mix sulphur and the 
 gum in a mass, so that every part of the rubber should be 
 subjected to the agency of the sulphur. He experimented for 
 weeks and months with the most intense eagerness, but the 
 mystery completely baffled him. His friends urged him to 
 go to work to do something for his family, but he could not 
 turn back. The goal was almost in sight, and he felt that he 
 would be false to his mission were he to abandon his labors 
 now. To the world he seemed a crack-brained dreamer, and 
 some there were Avho, seeing the distress of his family, did 
 not hesitate to apply still harsher names to him; but to the 
 Great Eye that reads all hearts, how different did this man 
 appear! It saw the anguish that wrung the heart of Charles 
 Goodyear, and knew the more than heroic firmness with which, 
 in the midst of his poverty and suffering, he agonized for the 
 great discoverv. Had it been merely wealth that he was 
 working for, doubtless he would have turned back and sought 
 
1 
 
 * 
 
 B '& 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR. 
 
 319 
 
 some other means of obtaining it; but he sought more. He 
 was striving for the good of his fellow-men, and ambitious of 
 becoming a benefactor of the race. He felt that he had a 
 mission to fulfill, and no one else could perform it. 
 
 lie was right. A still greater success was about to crown 
 his labors, but in a manner far different from his expectations. 
 His experiments had developed nothing; chance was to make 
 the revelation. It was in the spring of 1839 that this revela¬ 
 tion came to him, and in the following manner: Standing 
 before a stove in a store at Woburn, Massachusetts, he was 
 explaining to some acquaintances the properties of a piece of 
 sul})hur-cured India-rubber which he held in his hand. They 
 listened to him good-naturedly, but with evident incredulity, 
 when suddenly he dropped the rubber ou the stove, which was 
 red hot. His old cloths would have melted instantly from 
 contact with such heat; but, to his surprise, this juece under¬ 
 went no such change. In amazement, he examined it, and 
 found that while it had charred or shriveled, like leather, it 
 I had not softened at all. The bystanders attached no impor- 
 i tance to this phenomenon, but to him it was a revelation. He 
 j renewed his experiments with enthusiasm, and in a little while 
 established the facts that India-rubber, when mixed with sul- 
 I phur and exposed to a certain degree of heat for a certain time, 
 I, would not melt or even soften at any degree of heat, that it 
 ( would only char at two hundred and eighty degrees, and that 
 
 I f it would not stiffen from exposure to any degree of cold. The 
 
 I I difficulty now consisted in finding out the exact degree of heat 
 11' necessary for the perfection of the rubber, and the exact length 
 
 of time required for the heating. 
 
 He made this discovery in his darkest days; when, in fact, 
 he was in constant danger of arrest for debt, having already 
 been a frequent inmate of the debtor’s prison. He was in the 
 
320 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 depths of bitter poverty, and in such feeble health that he was 
 constantly haunted by the fear of dying before he had per¬ 
 fected his discovery—before he had fulfilled his mission. His 
 poverty was a greater drawback to him than ever before. He 
 needed an apparatus for producing a high and uniform heat 
 for his experiments, and he was unable to obtain it. He 
 used to bake his compound in his wife’s bread oven, and steam 
 it over the spout of her tea-kettle, and to press the kitchen fire 
 into his service as far as it would go. When this failed, he 
 would go to the shops in the vicinity of Woburn, and beg to 
 be allowed to use the ovens and boilers after working hours 
 were over. The workmen regarded him as a lunatic, but were 
 too good-natured to deny him the request. Fiuall}', he induced 
 a bricklayer to make him an oven, and paid him in mason’s 
 aprons of India-rubber. The oven was a failure. Sometimes 
 it would turn out pieces of perfectly vulcanized cloth, and again 
 the goods would be charred and ruined. Goodyear was in 
 despair. 
 
 All this time he lived on the charity of his friends. His 
 neighbors pretended to lend him money, but in reality gave 
 him the means of keeping his family from starvation. He has 
 declared that all the while he felt sure he would, before long, 
 be able to pay them back, but they declared with equal emphasis 
 that, at that time, they never expected to witness his success. 
 He was yellow and shriveled in face, with a gaunt, lean figure, 
 and his habit of wearing an India-rubber coat, which was 
 charred and blackened from his frequent experiments with it, 
 gave him a wild and singular appearance. People shook their 
 heads solemnly when they saw him, and said that the mad¬ 
 house was the proper place for him. 
 
 The winter of 1839-40 was long and severe. At the open¬ 
 ing of the season, Mr. Goodyear received a letter from a house 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR. 
 
 321 
 
 in Paris, making him a handsome offer for the use of his pro¬ 
 cess of curing India-rubber with aqua fortis. Here was a 
 cliance for him to rise out of his misery. A year before he 
 would have closed with the offer, but since then he had dis¬ 
 covered the effects of sulphur and heat on his compound, and 
 bad passed far beyond the aqua fortis stage. Disappointment 
 and want had not warped his honesty, and he at once declined 
 to enter into any arrangements with the French house, inform¬ 
 ing them that although the process they desired to purchase 
 was a valuable one, it was about to be entirely replaced by 
 another which he was then on the point of perfecting, and 
 which he would gladly sell them as soon as he had completed 
 it. His friends declared that he was mad to refuse such an 
 offer; but he replied that nothing would induce him to sell a 
 process which he knew was about to be rendered worthless by 
 still greater discoveries. 
 
 A few weeks later, a terrible snow-storm passed over the 
 land, one of the worst that New England has ever known, and 
 in the midst of it Goodyear made the appalling discovery that 
 he had not a particle of fuel or a mouthful of food in the house. 
 He was ill enough to be in bed himself, and his purse was en¬ 
 tirely empty. It was a terrible position, made worse, too, by 
 the fact that his friends who had formerly aided him had turned 
 from him, vexed with his pertinacity, and abandoned him to 
 his fate. In his despair, he bethought him of a mere acquaint¬ 
 ance who lived several miles from his cottage, and who but a 
 few days before had spoken to him with more of kindness than 
 he had received of late. This gentleman, he thought, would aid 
 him in his distress, if he could but reach his house, but in such a 
 snow the journey seemed hopeless to a man in his feeble health. 
 Still the effort must be made. Nerved by despair, he set out, 
 and pushed his way resolutely through the heavy drifts. The 
 
322 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 way was long, anti it seeinctl to him that he would never accom¬ 
 plish it. Often he fell prostrate on the snow, almost fainting 
 with fatigue and hunger, and again he would sit down wearily 
 in the road, feeling that he would gladly die if his discovery 
 were but completed. At length, however, he reached the 
 end of his journey, and fortunately found his acquaintance at 
 home. To this gentleman he told the story of his discovery, 
 his hopes, his struggles, and his present sufferings, and implored 
 him to aid him. ^Ir. Coolidge*—for such was the gentleman’s 
 name—listened to him kindly, and after expressing the warmest 
 sympathy for him, loaned him money enough to support his 
 family during the severe weather, and to enable him to continue 
 his experiments. 
 
 “ Seeing no prospect of success in Massachusetts, he now 
 resolved to make a desperate effort to get to Xew York, feeling 
 confident that the specimens he could take with him would con¬ 
 vince some one of the superiority of his new method. He was 
 beginning to understand the causes of his many faihu’es, but he 
 saw clearly that his compound could not be worked with cer¬ 
 tainty without expensive apparatus. It was a very delicate op¬ 
 eration, requiring exactness and promptitude. The conditions 
 upon which success depended were numerous, and the failure 
 of one spoiled all. . . It cost him thousands of failures to learn 
 that a little acid in his sulphur caused the blistering; that his 
 compound must be heated almost immediately after being 
 mixed, or it would never vulcanize; that a portion of white 
 lead in the compound greatly facilitated the operation and im¬ 
 proved the result; and when he had learned these facts, it still 
 required costly and laborious experiments to devise the best 
 methods of compounding his ingredients, the best proportions, 
 the best mode of heating, the proper duration of the heating, 
 
 =■' O. B. Coolidge, of Woburu. 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR. 
 
 323 
 
 and tlie various useful effects tliat could be produced by vary¬ 
 ing the proportions and the degree of heat. He tells us that 
 many times when, by exhausting every resource, he had jire- 
 pared a quantity of his compound for heating, it was spoiled 
 because he could not, with his inadequate apparatus, apply the 
 heat soon enough. 
 
 “ To New York, then, he dii’ected his thoughts. Merely to 
 get thei’e cost him a severer and a longer effort than men in 
 general are capable of making. First he walked to Boston, ten 
 miles distant, wliere he hoped to borrow from an old acquaint¬ 
 ance fifty dollars, with which to provide for his family and pay 
 his fare to New York. He not oidy failed in this, but he was 
 arrested for debt and thrown into prison. Even in prison, 
 while his father was negotiating to procure his release, he 
 labored to interest men of capital in his discovery, and made 
 proposals for founding a factory in Boston. Having obtained 
 his liberty, he went to a hotel, and spent a week in vain efforts 
 to effect a small loan. Satiu’day night came, and with it his 
 hotel bill, which he had no means of discharging. In an agony 
 of shame and anxiety, he went to a friend and entreated the 
 sum of five dollars to enable him to return home. He was met 
 with a point blank refusal. In the deepest d(‘jection, he walked 
 the streets till late in the night, and strayed at length, almost 
 beside himself, to Cambridge, where he ventured to call upon a 
 friend and ask shelter for the night. He was hospitably enter¬ 
 tained, and the next morning walked wearily home, ])ennilcss 
 and dcs})airing. At the door of his house a member of his 
 family met him with the news that his youngest child, two 
 years old, whom he had left in perfect health, was dying. In 
 a few hours he had in his house a dead child, but not the means 
 of burying it, and five living dependents without a morsel of 
 food to give them. A storekeeper near by had promised to 
 
KIKGS OS' I'OilTUNE. 
 
 824 
 
 supply the family, but, discouraged by the unforeseen length of 
 the father’s absence, he had that day refused to trust them fur¬ 
 ther. In these terrible circumstances, he applied to a friend 
 upon whose generosity he knew he could rely, one who never 
 failed him. He received in reply a letter of severe and cutting 
 reproach, inclosing seven dollars, which his friend explained 
 was given only out of pity for his innocent and suffering family. 
 A stranger who chanced to be present when this letter arrived 
 sent them a barrel of flour—a timely and blessed relief. The 
 next day the family followed on foot the remains of the little 
 child to the grave.” 
 
 He had now reached the lowest ebb of his misery, and a 
 brighter day was in store for him. Obtaining fifty dollars from 
 a relative, he went to New York, where he succeeded in inter¬ 
 esting in his discovery two brothers, William and Emory Rider. 
 They agreed to advance him a certain sum to support his fam¬ 
 ily and continue his experiments. By means of this aid he was 
 enabled to keep his family from want in the future, and from 
 that time his experiments never flagged. Before entire suc¬ 
 cess crowned his efforts, the brothers Rider failed; but he had 
 advanced his experiments so greatly that his brother-in-law, 
 William De Forrest, a rich woolen manufacturer, came to his 
 support, and supplied him with the means to go on with his 
 labors. Mr. De Forrest’s total advances amounted to forty-six 
 thousand dollars, from which fact the reader may gain some 
 idea of the obstacles overcome by Goodyear in this last stage 
 of his invention. 
 
 The })rize for which he had labored so long and so heroically 
 was secured at last, and in 1844, ten years after the commence¬ 
 ment of his experiments, he was able to produce perfectly vul¬ 
 canized India-rubber with expedition and economy, and, above 
 all, with certainty. He had won a success which added a new 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR. 
 
 325 
 
 material to art and commerce, and one which could be applied 
 in a thousand different ways, and all of them useful to man. 
 But great as his success was, he was not satisfied with it. To 
 the end of his life his constant effort was to improve his in¬ 
 vention, and aj)ply it to new uses. He had an unlimited faith 
 in its adaptability, believing that there was scarcely any article 
 of general use that could not be made of it. Upon one occa¬ 
 sion he read in a newspaper that twenty persons perished every 
 hour by drowning. The statement impressed him deeply, and 
 his wife noticed that for several nights he scarcely slept at 
 all. “Try to compose yourself, and sleep,” she said to him. 
 “ Sleep ! ” he exclaimed, “ how can I sleep when twenty hu¬ 
 man beings are drowning every hour, and I am the man that 
 can save them?” And at this time it was his constant en¬ 
 deavor to invent some article of India-rubber which could be 
 easily carried by travelers, and which would render it impos¬ 
 sible for them to sink in water. 
 
 Having brought his process to a successful completion in 
 this country, and obtained patents for it, he went to Europe 
 to secure similar protections in the principal countries of the 
 Old World. “The French laws require that the patentee 
 shall put and keep his invention in public use in France 
 within two years from its date. Goodyear had, at great incon¬ 
 venience and expense, endeavored to com 2 )ly with this and with 
 all other requirements of the French laws, and thought he had 
 effectually done so; but the courts of France decided that he had 
 not in every particular complied with the strict requisitions of the 
 law, and that, therefore, his patent in France had become void. 
 In England he was still more unfortunate. Having sent spec¬ 
 imens of vulcanized fabrics to Charles Mackintosh & Co., in 
 1842, and having opened with them a negotiation for the sale 
 of the secret of the invention or discovery, one of the partners 
 
KINGS OF POR^UNK. 
 
 326 
 
 of that firm, named Thomas Hancock, availing himseif, as he 
 admits, of the hints and opportunities thus presented to him, 
 rediscovered, as he affirms, the process of vulcanization, and 
 described it in a ])atent for England, which was enrolled on 
 May 21, 1814, about jive weeks after the specification and pub¬ 
 lication of the discovery to the world by Goodyear’s patent for 
 vulcanization in France. And the patent of Hancock, held 
 good according to a peculiarity of English law, thus super¬ 
 seded Goodyear’s English patent for vulcanization, which 
 bore date a few days later. Goodyear, however, obtained the 
 great council medal of the exhibition of all nations at London, 
 the grand medal of the world’s exhibition at Paris, and the 
 ribbon of the Legion of Honor, presented by Napoleon III.” 
 
 In his own country, Mr. Goodyear was scarcely less unfor¬ 
 tunate. His patents were infringed and violated by others, 
 even after the decision of the courts seemed to place his rights 
 beyond question. He was too thoroughly the inventor and 
 too little the man of business to protect himself from the rob¬ 
 beries of the wretches who plundei'ed him of the profits of his 
 invention. It is said that his inability to manage sharp trans¬ 
 actions made him the victim of many who held nominally fair 
 business relations with him. The United States Commissioner 
 of Patents, in 1858, thus spoke of his losses: 
 
 “ No inventor, probably, has ever been so harassed, so 
 trampled upon, so plundered by that sordid and licentious 
 class of infringers known in the parlance of the world, with 
 no exaggeration of phrase, as ' pirates.’ The spoliation of 
 their incessant guerrilla warfiire upon his defenseless rights 
 have, unquestionably, amounted to millions.” 
 
 Failing to accomplish any thing in Europe, Mr. Goodyear 
 returned to this country, and continued his labors. His 
 health, never strong, gave way under the continued strain, and 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR. 
 
 32T 
 
 he died in New York in Jnly, 1860, in the sixtieth year of his 
 age, completely worn out. Notwithstanding his great inven¬ 
 tion—an invention which has made millions for those engaged 
 in its manufacture — he died insolvent, and left his family 
 heavily in debt. A few years after his death an effort was 
 made to procure from Congress a further seven years’ exten¬ 
 sion of his patent for vulcanization, for the benefit of his family 
 and his creditors. The men who had trampled his rights 
 under foot while living were resolved, however, that he should 
 not have justice done him in death; and, through their influ¬ 
 ence, that august body, in strange contrast with its usual lav¬ 
 ish generosity in the matter of land grants and the like, coldly 
 <leclincd to do any thing for the family of the man to whom 
 civilization owes so much, and the effort proved abortive. 
 
 But, though unfortunate in a pecuniary sense, though he 
 died without freeing himself from the embarrassments which 
 haunted him through life, there can be no question that Charles 
 Goodyear richly merits the place which we have given him in 
 this gallery of “ Our Self-made Men not only on account of 
 the great merit and usefulness of his discovery or invention, 
 but because that invention has been the source of many a 
 great fortune” to others, as it might, indeed, have been to 
 him, had his rights been respected, or properly protected when 
 infringed. It is sad to reflect that he died poor who has given 
 wealth to so many, and accomplished results so beneficent to 
 mankind. Yet he did not fail entirely of his reward in life; 
 he lived to see his invention give rise to large factories in the 
 United States, and in England, France, and Germany, which 
 employ sixty thousand operatives, and produce over five hun¬ 
 dred different kinds of articles, to the amount of eight millions 
 of dollars annually. He lived to see boots and shoes, clothing, 
 
 caps, hats, articles of commerce and of pleasure, mechanical, 
 20 
 
328 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 scientific, and surgical instruments, toys, belting for machinery, 
 packing for the steam-engine, and many other articles now in 
 common use, made of the material, the discov'ery and perfec¬ 
 tion of which cost him long and sorrowful years of toil. He 
 lived to hear his name mentioned by millions as one of their 
 greatest benefactors; to know that he had conferred upon the 
 world benefits of which those who had robbed him could not 
 deprive his fellow-men; and to feel that he had at length 
 accomplished his mission—a mission which has been produc¬ 
 tive of good alone. 
 
ELI WHlTifEY, 
 
 329 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ELI WHITNEY. 
 
 T tlie close of the Revolution the States of South 
 Carolina and Georgia presented large tracts of 
 land to the gallant General Nathaniel Greene, 
 to whose genius they were indebted for their 
 relief from British tyranny. Soon after this 
 grant was made, General Greene removed his family to Mnl- 
 berry Grove, a fine plantation on the Georgia side of the Sa¬ 
 vannah River. Here he died in 1786, from sunstroke, but his 
 family continued to reside on the place. The mansion of Mrs. 
 Greene was noted for its hospitality, and was frequently filled 
 with guests w’ho came to pay their respects to the wddow of the 
 most brilliant and best trusted subordinate of the immortal 
 Washington. 
 
 To this mansion there came one day, in the year 1792, Eli 
 Whitney, then a young man recently from New England. He 
 was a native of Westborough, IMassachusetts, where he was born 
 on the 8th of December, 1765. Of his youth but little is 
 known, save that he was gifted with unusual mechanical genius, 
 the employment of which enabled him to overcame some of the 
 difficulties incident to his poverty, and to acquire the means of 
 obtaining a good common school education. Adding to this the 
 labors of a teacher, he earned a sum sufficient to carry him 
 
S30 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 tlirougli Yale College, -where he was graduated in the summer 
 of 1702, a few months before his arrival in Georgia. He had 
 come South ta accept the offer of a situation as teacher, but the 
 place had been filled before his arrival, and, being without 
 friends in that section, he sought employment from Mrs. Greene. 
 Though pleased with his modesty and intelligence, that lady 
 could not avail herself of his services as a tutor, but invited him 
 to make her house his home as long as he should desire to re¬ 
 main in Georgia. He was sick in body and disheartened by his 
 first failure, and gladly accepted her invitation. While her 
 guest he made her a tambour frame of an improved pattern, 
 and a number of ingenious toys for her children, which so de¬ 
 lighted the good lady that she enthusiastically declared him 
 capable of doing any thing. 
 
 Not long after ISIr. Whitney’s arrival at the plantation, IMrs. 
 Greene was entertaining a number of visitors from the sur¬ 
 rounding country, several planters of considerable wealth being 
 among the number, when one of the guests turned the conversa¬ 
 tion upon the subject of cotton-raising, by declaving that he had 
 met with such poor success that he was ready to abandon the 
 undertaking. His trouble was not, he .said, that cotton would 
 not grow in his land, for it yielded an abundant return, but 
 that the labor of clearing it from the .seed was .so enormous that 
 he could not do more than pay expenses after .selling it. 
 
 His case was simply one among a thousand. The far South¬ 
 ern States were admitted by every one to be admirably adapted 
 to the cultivation of cotton, but, after it was grown and picked, 
 the expense of cleaning it destroyed nearly all the profits of the 
 transaction. The cleaning process was performed by hand, and 
 it was as much as an able-bodied negro could do to clean one 
 pound per dav in this manner. Disheartened by this difficulty, 
 which no one had yet been able to remove, the planters of the 
 
ELI WHITNEY. 
 
 331 
 
 South were seriously contemj)lating the entire abandoiinient of 
 this portion of their industry, sinee it only involved them in 
 debt. Their lands were heavily mortgaged, and general ruin 
 seemed to threaten them. All felt that the invention of a 
 machine for cleaning or ginning the cotton would not only re¬ 
 move their difficulties, but enable them to plant the green cot¬ 
 ton-seed, from the use of which they were then almost entirely 
 debarred, because, although more productive and of a better 
 quality than the black, and adapted by nature to a much greater 
 variety of climate, it was much more difficult to clean, and 
 therefore less profitable to cultivate. 
 
 These facts were discussed in the conversation at Mrs. 
 Greene’s table, and it was suggested by one of the company 
 that perhaps the very urgency of the case would induce some 
 ingenious man to invent a machine which should solve the 
 problem, and remove all the difficulties in the way. 
 
 “Is it a machine you want?” said Mrs. Greene, eagerly. 
 “Then, gentlemen, you should apply to my young friend, INIr. 
 Whitney; he can make any thing.” 
 
 She at once sent for Whitney, and introduced him to her 
 guests, who repeated to him the substance of their conversa¬ 
 tion, and urged him to undertake the invention of what was so 
 much needed. The young man protested that he had never 
 seen either a pod of cotton or a cotton-seed in his life, and was 
 utterly incompetent for the task they proposed. In sjfite of 
 this, however, his new acquaintances urged him to attempt it, 
 and assured him that if successful his invention would make his 
 fortune. Whitney would promise nothing more than to think 
 of the matter, and the planters departed in the belief that noth¬ 
 ing would come of their entreaties, and that the culture of cot¬ 
 ton would languish until it should finally die out. 
 
 Whitney did think of the matter, and the result was that he 
 
332 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 at it, with a patience and energy which could not fail of suc¬ 
 cess. ]\Iany difficulties confronted him. To carry on his work 
 successfully, he needed tools of a certain description, which were 
 not to be had in Savannah, or even in Charleston, upon any 
 terms. But when was the genius of a Yankee ever baffied by 
 difficulties? Whitney’s mechanical skill came to his aid, and 
 he conquered this obstacle by manufacturing all the implements 
 
 decided to attempt the production of a machine which should 
 clean cotton both expeditiously and cheaply. It was late in 1 
 the season, and unginned cotton, or cotton from which the > 
 seeds had not been removed, was hard to procure. With con¬ 
 siderable difficulty he succeeded in finding a few pounds on the 
 wharf at Savannah, and at once securing his prize, he carried 
 it home in his hands. 
 
 Mrs. Greene being confidentially informed of his plans, pro¬ 
 vided him with a room in the cellar of her house, where he 
 could carry on his work in secret. All that winter he worked j 
 
ELI WHITNEY. 
 
 333 
 
 he needed. He wanted wire, but none was to be found, and be 
 was compelled to make all that he used. A score or more of 
 drawbacks presented themselves, and were overcome in this 
 way, and all through the winter the young inventor applied 
 himself with diligence to his task. The children and servants 
 regarded him with the greatest curiosity. They heard him 
 hammering and sawing in his room, the doors of which were 
 always kept locked, and into which they were never allowed to 
 enter. Mrs. Greene was kept fully informed of his progress. 
 When sure of success, Whitney revealed the secret to a M).. 
 Miller, a gentleman of means, who consented to enter into a 
 copartnership with him for the manufacture of the machines, 
 after the completion of the model should have enabled Whitney 
 to secure a patent for his invention. 
 
 Whitney had hoped to keep his work secret from all others, 
 but this proved to be impossible. It became rumored about 
 the country that the young man from New England, who was 
 living at Mrs. Greene’s, was engaged in inventing a machine 
 which would clean cotton with the rapidity of thought, and the 
 most intense eagerness was manifested to see the wonderful 
 production, which every one felt would entirely revolutionize 
 cotton culture in the South. Whitney endeavored to guard his 
 invention from the public curiosity, but without success. Before 
 he had completed his model, some scoundrels broke into the 
 place containing it, and carried it off by night. He succeeded 
 in recovering it, but the principle upon which it depended was 
 made public, and before the model was completed and a patent 
 secured, a number of machines based on his invention had been 
 surreptitiously made, and were in operation. 
 
 In spite of this discouraging circumstance, Whitney brought 
 his invention to perfection, and in the spring of 1793 set up his 
 first cotton gin, under a shed on Mrs. Greene’s plantation, and 
 
334 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 invited a nuiubcr of the neighboring planters to witness its 
 operation. 
 
 His machine was very simple, but none the less ingenious 
 on that account. The cotton was placed in a trough, the bot¬ 
 tom of which consisted of parallel rows of wire, placed like the 
 bars in a grating, but so close together that the seed could not 
 pass through them. Underneath this trough revolved an iron 
 roller, armed with teeth formed of strong wires projecting from 
 the roller, which passed between the wire bars, and, seizing the 
 cotton, drew it through the bars and passed it behind the roller, 
 where it was brushed off the wire teeth by means of a cylin¬ 
 drical brush. The seed, unable to pass through the bars, were 
 left behind, and, completely stripped of the fiber, ran out in a 
 stream tlirough a spout at one end of the trough. It was found 
 that the cotton thus ginned was cleaned thoroughly,* and far 
 better than it could be done by hand, and that a single man, by 
 this process, could clean as much as three hundred pounds in 
 a day. 
 
 The spectators were delighted with Whitney’s machine, and 
 urged him to lose no time in putting it in the market. They 
 predicted an unlimited success for it, and assured the inventor 
 that it would not only make his own fortune, but also render 
 cotton culture the source of wealth to the South. They did not 
 exaggerate. As soon as it was made known to the public, 
 Whitney’s machine came into general use. Planters had no 
 longer any thing to fear from the labor and expense of prepar- 
 
 '■The cotton for which Whitney’s machine accomplished so much, was the 
 short staple, wlilch is the principal product of tlie South. Tlie Sea Island cot¬ 
 ton could not be cleaned by it, on account of the length and delicacy of its fiber; 
 and this species, for the want of some cheap and expeditions method of pre¬ 
 paring it, has seldom been grown to a greater quantity than fifty thousand bsigs 
 of three hundred pounds each. Consequently, it has always commanded a high 
 price. 
 
ELI WHITNEY. 
 
 335 
 
 ing their great staple for market. Whitney’s genius had swept 
 away all their difficulties, and they reaped a golden harvest 
 from it. They were enabled to send their cotton promptly 
 and cheaply to market, where it brought good prices. With 
 the money thus obtained they paid their debts, and increased 
 their capacity for cultivation. Every year the area devoted to 
 cotton-growing became more extended, and the prosperity of 
 the South became greater and more durable. In 1793, the 
 total export of cotton from the United States was ten thousand 
 bales; in 1860, it was over four millions of bales. Hundreds 
 of millions of dollars were brought into the South by this inven¬ 
 tion—so that it is no exaggeration to say that the remarkable 
 prosperity enjoyed by the South at the commencement of our 
 late civil war was due entirely to the genius of Eli Whitney. 
 This opinion is fortified by the following remarks of Judge 
 Johnson, uttered in a charge to the jury in a suit brought by 
 Whitney, in Savannah, in 1807, to sustain the validity of his 
 patent: 
 
 “With regard to the utility of this discovery . . . the 
 
 whole interior of the Southern States was languishing, and its 
 inhabitants emigrating for want of some object to engage their 
 attention and employ their industry, when the invention of tliis 
 machine at once opened views to them which set the whole 
 country in active motion. From childhood to age it lias pre¬ 
 sented to us a lucrative employment. Individuals who were 
 depressed with poverty, and sunk in idleness, have suddenly 
 risen to wealth and respedability. Our debts have been ])aid 
 off, our capitals have increased, and our lands have trebled 
 themselves in value. We can not express the weight of the 
 obligation which the country owes to this invention. The ex¬ 
 tent of it can not now be .seen.” 
 
 Surely, the reader will exclaim, if such was the profit of this 
 
336 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 invention to the country at large, what a vast fortune must it 
 have been to its inventor! Let us see. In May, 1793, Whit¬ 
 ney and Miller went to Connecticut and established a faetory 
 for the eonstruction of cotton gins. Tliey were in possession 
 of a patent which was sn])posed to pledge to them the protec¬ 
 tion of the United States. The demand for the machine was 
 increasing every day, and it seemed tliat they would reap a 
 golden harvest from it. They were disappointed. The machine 
 was so simple that any competent mechanic could easily manu¬ 
 facture one after examining the model, and this temptation to 
 dishonesty ]>roved too strong for the morality of the cotton¬ 
 growing community. In a short time there were hundreds of 
 fraudulent machines at work in the South, made and sold in 
 direct and open violation of Whitney’s rights. In vain the in¬ 
 ventor brought suit against those who infringed his patent. It 
 was rare tliat a jury in a cotton State gave a verdict in his 
 favor. In Georgia it was boldly asserted that Whitney was not 
 the inventor of the cotton gin, but that some persons in Swit¬ 
 zerland had invented something similar to it, and the substitu¬ 
 tion of teeth, cut in an iron plate, instead of wire, was claimed 
 as superseding his invention. The Legislature of South Caro¬ 
 lina granted him the beggarly sum of $50,000 for the use of 
 his invention by tlie planters of that State; but it was only by 
 going to law, and after several tedious and vexatious suits, 
 that he Avas able to secure this sum. Tennessee agreed to allow 
 him a percentage for the use of each saw for a certain period, 
 but afterward repudiated her contract. The action of North 
 Carolina forms the only bright {>age in this history of fraud 
 and wrong. That State allowed him a percentage for the use 
 of each saw for the term of five years, and promptly collected 
 the money and paid it over to the patentee. For fourteen 
 years Whitney continued to manufacture his machines, reaping 
 
ELI AVIIITNEY. 
 
 337 
 
 absolutely no profit from his investments, and earning merely a 
 bare support. During all this time his rights were systemat¬ 
 ically violated, suits were wrongfully decided against him by 
 various Southern courts, and he was harassed and plundered on 
 every side. America never presented a more shameful spec¬ 
 tacle than was exhibited when the courts of the cotton-growing 
 regions united with the piratical infringers of Whitney’s rights 
 in robbing their greatest benefactor. In 1807, Whitney’s part¬ 
 ner died, and his factory was destroyed by fire. In the same 
 year his ])atent expired, and he sought its renewal from Con¬ 
 gress. Here again he was met with the ingratitude of the 
 cotton States. The Southern members, then all powerful iu 
 the Government, united iu opposing the extension of his pat¬ 
 ent, and his petition wiis rejected. At the same time a rej)ort 
 was industriously circulated that his machine injured the fiber 
 of the cotton; but it is a significant fact that, although the 
 planters insisted vehemently upon this assertion while ^Miit- 
 ney was seeking an extension of his patent, not one of them 
 discontinued the use of his machine, or sought to remedy the 
 alleged defect. 
 
 Whitney, thoroughly disheartened, now abandoned the manu¬ 
 facture of cotton gins in disgust, wound up his affairs, and 
 found himself a j)oor man. In spite of the far-reaching bene¬ 
 fits of his invention, he had not realized one dollar above his 
 expenses. He had given millions upon millions of dollars to 
 the cotton-growing States, he had opened the way for the estab¬ 
 lishment of the vast cotton-spinning interests of his own coun¬ 
 try and Europe, and yet, after fourteen years of hard labor, he 
 was a poor man, the victim of a wealthy, powerful, and, iu his 
 case, a dishonest class, who had robbed him of his rights and of 
 the fortune he had so fairly earned. Truly, ‘‘wisdom is better 
 than strength, but the poor man’s wisdom is despised.” 
 
338 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Whitney, however, was not the man to waste his time in 
 repining. He abaiuloned his eftorts to protect his cotton gin 
 because of his conviction that there was not honesty enough in 
 the country to sustain him in his rights, but he did not abandon 
 with it the idea of winning fortune. He promptly turned his 
 genius in another direction, and this time with success. 
 
 The tire-arms then in use were heavy, clumsy weapons, and 
 effc'ctive only at very short range. He examined the system 
 closely, and quickly designed several important improvements 
 in them, especially in the old-fashioned musket. Although his 
 improved arms were not to be compared with the terribly effec¬ 
 tive weapons of to-day, they were admitted to be the best then 
 in use. By examining the Springfield musket, which is due 
 almost entirely to his genius, the reader can form an accurate 
 estimate of the service he rendered in this respect. He has the 
 honor of being the inaugurator of the system of progressive im¬ 
 provement in fire-arms, which has gone on steadily and with¬ 
 out flagging for now fully sixty years past. 
 
 Some time before abandoning the manufacture of the cotton 
 gin, Mr. Whitney established an arms factory in Xew Haven, 
 and obtained a contract from the Government for ten thousand 
 stand of arms, to be delivered in two years. At this time he 
 not only had to manufacture the machinery needed by him for 
 this purpose, but had to invent the greater part of it. This 
 delayed the execution of his contract for eight years, but at the 
 expiration of that time hfe had so far perfected his establish¬ 
 ment, which had been removed to M'hitneyville, Conn., that 
 he at once entered into contracts fiar thirty thousand more 
 arms, which he delivered promptly at the appointed time. His 
 factory was the most complete in the country, and was fitted up 
 in a great measure with the machinery which he had invented, 
 and without which the improved weapons could not be fabri- 
 
ELI WHITNEY. 
 
 330 
 
 catcd. He introduced a new system into the manufacture of 
 fire-arms, and one which greatly increased the rapidity of con¬ 
 struction. “ He was the tirst manufacturer of fire-arms who 
 carried the division of labor to the extent of making it the duty 
 of each workman to perform by machinery but one or two 
 operations on a single portion of tlie gun, and thus rendered all 
 the parts adapted to any one of the thousands of arms in pro¬ 
 cess of manufacture at the same time.” 
 
 His success was now marked and rapid. His factory was 
 taxed to its fullest capacity to supply the demand for arms. 
 His genius was rewarded at last, and he acquired a fortune 
 which enabled him not only to pass the evening of his days in 
 comfort, but also to leave a handsome estate to his family. He 
 married a daughter of Judge Pierpont Edwards, a lady of fine 
 accomplishments and high character. He died at New Haven 
 on the 8th of January, 1825, in his sixtieth year. 
 

«ei»-SKYtfcP 
 
 ELIAS HOWE, JR. 
 
tLiAS Hows. 
 
 343 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ELIAS HOWE, Jr. 
 
 NE of the busiest parts of the busy thoroughfare 
 of Broadway, in the city of New York, is the 
 point of its intersection with Fourth Street. 
 Thousands and tens of thousands of people ])ass 
 and repass there daily, but few ever pause to look 
 at the curious machine which stands in the window of 
 the shop at the north-west corner of these two streets. This 
 machine, clumsy and odd-looking as it is, nevertheless has 
 a history which makes it one of the most interesting of all the 
 sights of the great city. It is the first sewing-machine that 
 was ever made. 
 
 Elias Howe, its maker, was born in the town of Spencer, 
 Massachusetts, in 1819. He was one of eight children, and it 
 was no small undertaking on the part of his father to provide 
 a maintenance for such a household. Mr. Howe, Sen., was a 
 farmer and miller, and, as was the custom at that time in the 
 country towns of New England, carried on in his family some 
 of those minor branches of industry suited to the cajiacity of 
 children, with which New England abounds. 4Vhcn Elias was 
 six years old, he was set, with his brothers and sisters, to stick¬ 
 ing wire teeth through the leather straps used for making cot¬ 
 ton cards. 4Vhen he became old enough he assisted his father 
 
344 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUnK. 
 
 in his saw-mill and grist-mill, and during the winter months 
 picked up a meager education at the district school. He has 
 said that it was the rude and imperfect mills of his father tliat 
 first turned his attention to machinery. He was not fitted for 
 hard work, however, as he was frail in constitution and in¬ 
 capable of bearing much fatigue. Moreover, he inherited a 
 species of lameness which proved a great obstacle to any under¬ 
 taking on his part, and gave him no little trouble all through 
 life. At the age of eleven he went to live out on the farm of 
 a neighbor, but the labor proving too severe for him, he re¬ 
 turned home and resumed his place in his father’s mills, where 
 he remained until he was sixteen years old. 
 
 When at this age, he conceived an ardent desire to go to 
 Lowell to seek his fortune. One of his friends had just re¬ 
 turned from that place, and had given him such a wonderful 
 description of the city and its huge mills, that he was eager to 
 go there and see the marvel for himself Obtaining his father’s 
 consent, he went to Lowell, and found employment as a learner 
 in one of the large cotton-mills of the city. He remained there 
 two years, when the great financial disaster of 1837 threw him 
 out of emjdoyment and compelled him to look for work else¬ 
 where. He obtained a place at Cambridge, in a machine-shop, 
 and was put to work upon the new hemp-carding machinery 
 of Professor Treadwell. His cousin, Nathaniel P. Banks, 
 afterward governor of Massachusetts, member of Congress, and 
 major-general, worked in the same shop with him, and boarded 
 at the same house. Howe remained in Cambridge only a few 
 months, however, and was then given a place in the machine- 
 shop of Ari Davis, of Boston. 
 
 At the age of twenty-one he married. This was a rash step 
 for him, as his health was very delicate, and his earnings were 
 but nine dollars per week. Three children were born to him 
 
KLIAS HOWE. 
 
 345 
 
 in quick succession, and he found it no easy task to provide 
 food, shelter, and clothing for his little family. The light¬ 
 heartedness for which he had formerly been noted entirely de¬ 
 serted him, and he became sad and melancholy. His health 
 did not improve, and it was with difficulty that he could per¬ 
 form his daily task. His strength was so slight that he would 
 frequently return home from his day’s work too much ex¬ 
 hausted to eat. He could only go to bed, and in his agony he 
 wished “ to lie in bed forever and ever.” Still he worked 
 faithfully and conscientiously, for his wife and children were 
 very dear to him; but he did so with a hopelessness which 
 only those who have tasted the depths of poverty can under¬ 
 stand. 
 
 About this time he heal’d it said that the great necessity of 
 the age was a machine for doing sewing. The immense amount 
 of fatigue incurred and the delay in hand-sewing were obvious, 
 and it was conceded by all who thought of the matter at all 
 that the man who could invent a machine which would remove 
 these difficulties would make a fortune. Howe’s jioverty in¬ 
 clined him to listen to these I’ernarks with great interest. No 
 man needed money more than he, and he was confident that his 
 mechanical skill was of an order which made him as competent 
 as any one else to achieve the task proposed. He set to work 
 to accomplish it, and, as he knew well the dangers which sur¬ 
 round an inventor, kejit his own counsel. At his daily labor, in 
 all his waking liours, and even in his dreams, he brooded over 
 this invention. He spent many a wakeful night in these med¬ 
 itations, and his health was far from being benefited by this 
 severe mental application. Success is not easily won in any 
 great undertaking, and Elias Howe found that he had entered 
 upon a task which required the greatest patience, perseverance, 
 
 energv, and hopefulness. He watched his wife as she sewed, 
 21 
 
liixas OF FORTUNE. 
 
 3iG 
 
 and his first effort was to devise a machine which should do 
 what she was doing. He made a needle pointed at both ends, 
 with the eye in the middle, that should work up and down 
 through the cloth, and carry the thread through at each thrust; 
 but his elaboration of this conception would not work satisfac¬ 
 torily. It was not until 1844, fully a year after he began the 
 attempt to invent the machine, that he came to the conclusion 
 
 ) 
 
 t 
 
 \ 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 HOVrES FIRST IDEA OF THE SEWINO-MACHINE. 
 
 that the movement of a machine need not of necessity be an 
 imitation of the performance of the hand. It was plain to him 
 that there must be another stitch, and that if he could discover 
 it his difficulties would all be ended. A little later he conceived 
 the idea of using two threads, and forming a stitch by the aid 
 of a shuttle and a curved needle with the eye near the point. 
 This was the triumph of his skill. He had now invented a 
 perfect sewing-machine, and had discovered the essential prin- * 
 cipies of every subsequent modification of his conception. Sat- 
 isfied that he had at length solved the problem, he constructed \ 
 a rough model of his machine of wood and wire, in October, 
 
ELIAS HOWE. 
 
 347 
 
 1844, and operated it to his perfect satisfaction. His invention 
 is thus described: 
 
 “ He used a needle and a shuttle of novel construction, and 
 combined them with holding surfaces, feed mechanism and 
 other devices, as they had never before been brought together 
 
 in one machine.One of the principal features of 
 
 Mr. Howe’s invention is the combination of a grooved needle, 
 having an eye near its point, and vibrating in the direction of 
 its length, with a side-pointed shuttle for effecting a locked 
 stitch, and forming, with the threads, one on each side of the 
 cloth, a firm and lasting scam not easily ripped. The main 
 action of the machine consists in the interlocking of the loop, 
 made by the thread carried in the point of the needle through 
 the cloth, with another thread passed through this loop by 
 means of a shuttle entering and leaving it at every stitch. 
 The thread attached to this shuttle remains in the loop and 
 secures the stitch as the needle is withdrawn to be ready to 
 make the next one. At the same time the cloth, held by little 
 projecting pins to the baster plate, is carried along with this 
 by w’hat is called the ‘feed motion ’just the length of a stitch, 
 the distance being readily adjusted for finer or coarser work. 
 
 . . . . The cloth is held in a vertical position in the 
 
 machine, and the part to be sewed is pressed against the side 
 oi' the shuttle-race by a presscr ])late hinged on its upper 
 edge, and capable of exerting any required pressure on the 
 cloth, according as the adjusting screw that regulates it is 
 turned. A slot, or perforation through the plate, also extended 
 through the side of the shuttle-race near the bottom, admits the 
 passage of the needle; and wdien this is pushed in the shuttle 
 can still pass freely over it. The shuttle is pushed one way 
 and then the other through its race or trough by picker 
 staves, The tlu'ead for the needle is supplietl by a bobbin, 
 
348 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 tlie movement of which is checked by a friction band, this 
 securing the proper tension, and the slack of the thread is 
 duly taken up by a suitable contrivance for the purpose. 
 I’hus, all the essential features of the most approved sewing- 
 machine were first found in that of Mr. Howe; and the 
 machines of later date are, in fact, but modifications of it.” 
 
 At this time, he had abandoned his work as a journeyman 
 mechanic, and had removed to his father’s house. Mr. Howe, 
 Sen., had established in Cambridge a machine-shop for the 
 cutting of strips of palm-leaf used in the manufacture of hats. 
 Elias and his family lived under his father’s roof, and in the 
 garret of the house the half-sick inventor put up a lathe, 
 wliere he did a little work on his own account, and labored 
 on his sewing-machine. He was miserably poor, and could 
 scarcely earn enough to provide food for his family; and, to 
 make matters worse, his father, who was disposed to help him, 
 lost his shop and its contents by fire. Poor Elias was in a 
 most deplorable condition. He had his model in his head, 
 and was fully satisfied of its excellence, but he had not the 
 money to buy the materials needed in making a perfect ma¬ 
 chine, which would have to be constructed of steel and iron, 
 and without which he could not hope to convince others of its 
 value. His great invention was useless to him without the 
 five hundi’ed dollars which he needed in the construction of a 
 working model. 
 
 In this dilemma, he applied to a friend, Mr. George Fisher, 
 a coal and wood merchant of Cambridge, who was a man of 
 some means. He explained his invention to him, and suc¬ 
 ceeded in forming a partnership with him. Fisher agreed to 
 take Howe and his family to board with him while the latter 
 was making the machine, to allow his garret to be used as a 
 workshop, and to advance the five hundred dollars necessary 
 
ELIAS HOWE. 
 
 349 
 
 for tlie j)urchasc of tools and the construction of a model. In 
 return for this he was to receive one-half of the patent, if 
 Howe succeeded in patenting his machine. About the first of 
 December, 1844, Howe and his family accordingly moved into 
 Fislier’s house, and the little workshop was set up in the 
 garret. All that winter he worked on his model. There was 
 little to delay him in its construction, as the conception was 
 perfectly clear in his mind. He worked all day, and some¬ 
 times nearly all night, and in April, 1845, had his machine so 
 far advanced that he sewed a seam with it. By the middle of 
 May the machine was completed, and in July he sewed with it 
 the seams of two woolen suits, one for himself and the other 
 for Mr. Fisher. The sewing Avas so well done that it outla.sted 
 the cloth. 
 
 It has been stated by Profe.ssor Ren wick and other scientific 
 men that Elias Howe “ carried the invention of the sewing- 
 machine further on toward its complete and final utility than 
 any other inventor has ever brought a first-rate invention at 
 the first trial.” Those who doubt this assertion should examine 
 the curious machine at the corner of Broadway and Fourth 
 Street, and their doubts will be dispelled; for they will find in 
 it all the essentials of the best sewing-machine of to-day. 
 
 Having patented his machine, Ilowe endeavored to bring it 
 into use. He was full of hope, and had no doubt that it would 
 be adopted at once by those who were so much interested in 
 the saving of labor. He first offered it to the tailors of Bos¬ 
 ton; but they, while admitting its usefulne.ss, told him it would 
 never be adopted by their trade, as it would ruiu them. Con¬ 
 sidering the number of machines now used by the tailoring 
 interest throughout the world, this as.sertion seems ridiculous. 
 Other efforts were equally unsuccessful. Every one admitted 
 and praised the ingenuity of the machine, but no one would 
 
350 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 invest a dollar in it. Fisher became disgusted, and withdrew 
 from his partnership, and Howe and his family moved back to 
 his father’s house. Thoroughly disheartened, he abandoned his 
 machine. He then obtained a place as engineer on a railroad, 
 and drove a locomotive until his health entirely broke down. 
 
 With the loss of his health his hopes revived, and he de¬ 
 termined to seek in England the victory which he had failed 
 to win here. Unable to go himself, he sent his machine by his 
 brother Amasa, in October, 1846. Upon reaching London, 
 Amasa sought out IMr. William Thomas, of Cheapside, and ex¬ 
 plained to him his brother’s invention. He found Mr. Thomas 
 willing to use the machine in his business, but upon terms more 
 favorable to himself than to the inventor. He offered the sum 
 of twelve hundred and fifty dollars for the machine which 
 Amasa Howe had brought with him, and agreed to pay Elias 
 fifteen dollars per week if he would enter his service, and 
 adapt the machine to his business of umbrella and corset 
 making. As this was his only hope of earning a livelihood, 
 Elias accepted the offer, and, upon his brother’s return to the 
 United States, sailed for England. He remained in Mr. 
 Thomas’s employ for about eight months, and at the end of 
 that time left him, having found him hard, exacting, and 
 unreasonable. 
 
 Meanwhile his sick wife and three children had joined him 
 in London, and he had found it hai’d to provide for them on 
 the wages given him by Mr. Thomas; but after being thrown 
 out of employment his condition was desperate indeed. He 
 was in a strange country, without friends or money, and often 
 he and his little family went whole days without food. Their 
 sufferings were very great, but at length Howe was able (prob¬ 
 ably by assistance from home) to send his family back to his 
 father’s house. He himself remained in London, still hoping 
 
ELIAS HOWE. 
 
 351 
 
 to bring his machine into use. It was in vain, however, and 
 so, collecting what few household goods he had acquired in 
 England, he shipped them to America, and followed them 
 thither himself in another vessel, pawning his model and patent 
 papers to pay his passage. When he landed in Xew A"ork he 
 had half a crown in his pocket, and there came to him on the 
 same day a letter telling him that his wife was dying with con¬ 
 sumption in Cambridge. He could not go to her at once, as he 
 had no money, and was too feeble to undertake the distance on 
 foot. He was compelled to wait several days until he could 
 obtain the money for his fare to Cambridge, but at length suc¬ 
 ceeded in reaching that })lace just in time to see his wife die. 
 In the midst of his grief he received the announcement that 
 the vessel containing the few household goods which he had 
 shipped from England had been lost at sea. It seemed to him 
 that Fate was bent upon destroying him, so rapid and stun- 
 niim were the blows she dealt him. 
 
 O 
 
 But a great success was now in store for him, and he was to 
 rise out of his troubles to the realization of his brightest hopes. 
 Soon after his return home he obtained profitable employment, 
 and, better still, discovered that his machine had become famous 
 during his absence. Fac-similes of it had been constructed by 
 unscrupulous mechanics, who paid no attention to the patents 
 of the inventor, and these copies had been exhibited in many 
 ])laces as “ wonders,” and had even been adopted in many 
 important branches of manufacture. Howe at once set to work 
 to defend his rights. He found friends to aid him, and in 
 August, 1850, began those famous suits which continued for 
 four years, and were at length decided in his favor. His ad¬ 
 versaries made a bold resistance, but the decision of Judge 
 Sprague, in 1854, settled the matter, and triumphantly es¬ 
 tablished the rights of the inventor. 
 
352 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 In 1850, Howe removed to Xew York, and began in a small 
 way to manufacture machines to order. He w’as in partnership 
 witli a jSIr. Bliss, but for several years the business was so un¬ 
 important that upon the death of his partner, in 1855, he was 
 enabled to buy out that gentleman’s interest, and thus become 
 the sole proprietor of his patent. Soon after this his business 
 began to increase, and continued until his own proper profits 
 and the royalty which the courts compelled other manufac¬ 
 turers to pay him for the use of his invention grew from $300 
 to $200,000 per annum. In 1867, when the extension of his 
 patent expired, it is stated that he had earned a total of two 
 millions of dollars by it. It cost him large sums to defend his 
 rights, however, and he was very far from being as wealthy as 
 w'as commonly supposed, although a very rich man. 
 
 In the Paris Exposition of 1867, he exhibited his machines, 
 and received the gold medal of the Exposition, and the Cross 
 of the Legion of Honor, in addition, as a compliment to him as 
 a manufacturer and inventor. 
 
 He contributed money liberally to the aid of the Union in 
 the late war, and enlisted as a private soldier in the Seventeenth 
 Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers, with which command he 
 went to the field, performing all the duties of his position until 
 failing health compelled him to leave the service. Upon one 
 occasion the Government was so much embarrassed that it 
 could not pay the regiment of which he was a member. ]\Ir. 
 Howe promptly advanced the money, and his comrades were 
 saved from the annoyances which would have attended the 
 delay in paying them. He died at Brooklyn, Long Island, on 
 the 3d of October, 1867. 
 
 i\Ir. Howe will always rank among the most distinguished 
 of American inventors ; not only because of the unusual degree 
 of completeness shown in his first conception of the sewing- 
 
ELIAS HOWE. 
 
 353 
 
 machine, but because of the great benefits which have sprung 
 from it. It has revolutionized the industry of the world, 
 opened new sources of wealth to enterprise, and lightened the 
 labor of hundreds of thousands of working people. Many a 
 pale-faced, hollow-eyed woman, who formerly sat sewing her 
 life away for a mere pittance, blesses the name of Elias Howe, 
 and there is scareely a community in the eivilized world but 
 contains the evidence of his genius, q,nd honors him as the 
 benefactor of the human race. 
 
354 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 RICHARD M. HOE. 
 
 |0 write tlie complete history of the printing press 
 would require years of patient labor and research, 
 and a much larger space than the limits of the 
 present work will permit. There are few sub¬ 
 jects more atti’active or more worthy of consider¬ 
 ation than the history of this -wonderful invention, which seems 
 more like a romance than a narration of facts. The historian 
 who should essay the task would be required to carry his 
 reader back to the darkest ages of the world, and, beginning 
 with the stamps used for affixing hieroglyphical characters to 
 the now crumbling ruins of Egypt and Xineveh, trace the 
 gradual development of the beneficent conception from the 
 signets of the Israelites, and the stamps used by the Romans 
 for marking certain kinds of merchandise, through the rude 
 process of the Chinese, Ja})anese, and Tartars, to the invention 
 of Johannes Guttenberg, and, finally, to the wonderful light¬ 
 ning steam-presses of to-day. 
 
 In these pages it is not proposed to offer to the reader any 
 such narrative. On the contrary, the story of the printing 
 press will be taken up just as it was on the point of reaching its 
 greatest perfection, since our subject concerns only the man 
 who brought it to that state. 
 
EICHAED M. HOE. 
 
 355 
 
 This man, Eichaed Maech PIoe by name, was born in the 
 city of New York, on the 12tli of Sejjtember, 1812. His father, 
 Robert Hoe, was a native of the village of Hose, Leicester, 
 England, and the son of a wealthy farmer. Disliking his fath¬ 
 er’s pursuit, he apprenticed himself to a carpenter. When only 
 sixteen years old, the elder kloe purchased his indentures from 
 his master and sailed for the United States. He was almost 
 penniless when he reached New York, and in this condition 
 entered the store of Mr. Grant Thorburn one day in search of 
 employment. Mr. Thorburn manifested a sudden and strong 
 liking to the youth, took him to his own house, and when he 
 was prostrated with the yellow fever, during the epidemic of 
 1804, nursed him tenderly throughout. Setting to work imme¬ 
 diately upon his arrival in New York, he made friends rapidly, 
 and prospered in his trade so well that when but twenty years 
 old he was able to marry. His bride was a daughter of Matthew 
 Smith, of MYstchester, and a sister of Peter Smith, the inven¬ 
 tor of the hand printing press, which bears his name. Mdth this 
 gentleman and Matthew Smith, jr., his brother, Robert Hoe 
 entered into partnership. Their business was that of carpenter¬ 
 ing and printers’joinery; but alter Peter Smith had completed 
 the invention of his hand ju’ess, it gradually grew into the 
 manufacture of presses and jn-inters’ materials. Both of the 
 brothers died in 1823, and Robert Hoe succeeded to the entire 
 business. 
 
 The manufactory of “ Robert Hoe & Co.” was originally 
 located in the centre of the old block between Pearl and AVil- 
 liam Streets, and Pine Street and Maiden Lane. Soon after 
 their establishment there, the city authorities ran Cedar Street 
 right through their building, and they removed to Gold Street, 
 near John. They have been twice burned out here, but still 
 occu})y these premises with their counting-room and lower shop. 
 
856 
 
 KINGS OF FOETUNE. 
 
 Printing by steam had long attracted the attention of persons 
 engaged in the art, and many essays had been made in this 
 direction by diiferent inventors, both in this country and in 
 Europe. Tlie most successful results were the Adams press, 
 the invention of Mr. Isaac Adams, of Boston, Mass., and the 
 Napier press, that of a British artisan. It was the latter which 
 was the means of identifying Mr. Hoe with the steam press. 
 
 The Napier press was introduced into this country in 1830, 
 by the proprietors of the National Intelligencer, but when it ar¬ 
 rived, these gentlemen were not able to release it from the Cus¬ 
 tom-house. Major Noah, himself the proprietor of a news¬ 
 paper, was at that time Collector of the port of New York, 
 and he, being anxious to see the press in operation, requested 
 ]Mr. Hoe to put it together. Mr. Hoe performed this task suc¬ 
 cessfully, although the press was a novelty to him, and was per¬ 
 mitted to take models of its various parts before it was re¬ 
 shipped to England. It was found to be a better press than 
 any that had ever been seen in this country, and the Commer¬ 
 cial Advertiser, of New Y’ork, and the Chronicle, of Phila¬ 
 delphia, at once ordered duplicates of it from England. 
 
 ISIr. Hoe was very much pleased with this press, but believed 
 that he could construct a much better one. ‘^To this end he 
 despatche'd his new partner, Mr. Sereno Newton, to England to 
 examine all the improvements in machinery there, and bring 
 home samples of such as he thought might be advantageously 
 adopted in this country. Mr. Newton, besides being an in¬ 
 genious mechanic, was well-read in books, and was considered 
 one of the first mathematicians in New A"ork. Return¬ 
 ing from his mission, he constructed a new two-cylinder press, 
 which soon superseded all others then in use.” INIr. Hoe’s 
 health failed, compelling him, in 1832, to retire from the 
 business. 
 
EICHARD M. HOE. 
 
 357 
 
 Young Richard M. Hoe had been brought up in his father’s 
 business, after receiving a fair education. He inlierited his 
 father’s inventive genius, combined with a rare business 
 capacity, and from tlie first was regarded as the future liope of 
 the establishment. Ui)on the withdrawal of his father, a part- 
 iiershi]) was established between himself, his brother Robert, 
 Mr. Newton, and his cousin Matthew Smith, but the style of 
 the firm remained unchanged. 
 
 Richard Hoe’s first invention was conceived in 1837, and 
 consisted of a valuable improvement in the manufacture of 
 grinding saws. Having obtained a patent for it in the United 
 States, he visited England in that year for the same })urpose. 
 By his process circular saws may be ground with accuracy to 
 any desired thickness. He readily obtained a patent in Eng¬ 
 land, as the excellence of his invention commended it to every 
 one. While there he gave especial attention to the improve¬ 
 ments which had been made in the printing ])ress, in the man¬ 
 ufacture of which his firm was still largely engaged. Return¬ 
 ing to New York, he devoted himself entirely to this branch of 
 his business, and soon produced the machine known as “Hoe’s 
 Double-Cylinder Press,” which was capable of making about 
 six thousand impressions ]icr hour. The first press of this 
 kind ever made was ordered by the New York Sun, and was 
 the admiration of all the printers of the city. This style of 
 press has long been used for printing country news¬ 
 papers. 
 
 As long as the newspaper interest of the country stood still, 
 “Hoe’s Double-Cylinder Press” was am])ly sufficient for its 
 wants, but as the circulation of the journals of the large cities 
 began to increase, the “double-cylinder” was often taxed far 
 beyond its powers. A printing press capable of striking off 
 papers with much greater ra})idity was felt to be an imperative 
 
358 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 and still-increasing need. It was often necessary to hold the 
 forms back until nearly daylight for the purpose of issuing the 
 latest news, and in the hurry which ensued to get out the 
 morning edition, the press very frequently met with accidents. 
 
 Mr. Hoe was fully alive to the importance of improving his 
 press, and, in 1842, he began to experiment \\ ith it for the 
 purpose of obtaining greater speed. It was a serious under¬ 
 taking, however, and at every step fresh difficulties arose. He 
 spent four years in experimenting, and at the end of that time 
 was almost ready to confess that the obstacles were too great to 
 be overcome. One night, in 1846, while in this mood, he re¬ 
 sumed his experiments. The more he pondered over the sub¬ 
 ject the more difficult it seemed. In despair, he was about to 
 relinquish the effort for the night, when suddenly there flashed 
 across his mind a plan for securing the type on a horizontal 
 cylinder. This had been his great difficulty, and he now felt 
 that he had mastered it. He sat up all night, working out his 
 design, and making a note of every idea that occurred to him, 
 in order that nothing should escape him. By morning the 
 problem which had baffled him so long had been solved, and 
 the magnificent “ Lightning Press” already had a being in the 
 inventor’s fertile brain. 
 
 He carried his model rapidly to perfection, and, proceeding 
 with it to Washington, obtained a patent. On his return home 
 he met Mr. Swain, the proprietor of the Baltimore Sun and 
 Philadelphia Ledger, and explained his invention to him. INIr. 
 Swain was so much pleased with it that he at onee ordei'ed a 
 four-cylinder press, which was completed and ready for use on 
 the 31st of December, 1848. This press was capable of making 
 ten thousand impressions per hour, and did its work with en¬ 
 tire satisfaction in every respect. 
 
 This was a success absolutely unprecedented—so marked, in 
 
EICHARD M. HOE. 
 
 359 
 
 fact, that some persons were inclined to doubt it. The news 
 flew rapidly from city to city, and across the ocean to foreign 
 lands, and soon wherever a newspaper was jirinted men were 
 talking of Hoe’s wonderful invention. Orders came pouring 
 in upon the inventor with such ra 2 )idity that he soon had as 
 many on hand as he could fill in several years. In a comjiar- 
 atively brief period the Herald, Tribune, and Sun, of JSTew 
 York, were boasting of their “ Lightning Presses,” and soon 
 the Traveller and Daily Journal, in Boston, followed their ex¬ 
 ample. Mr. Hoe was now not only a famous man, but ,])os- 
 sessed of an assured business for the future, which was certain 
 to resu-lt in a large fortune. By the year 1860, besides sup¬ 
 plying the princiixd cities of the Union (fifteen lightning 
 presses being used in the city of New York alone), he had 
 shipjied eighteen presses to Great Britain, four to France, and 
 one to Australia. Two of the jjresses sent to England were 
 ordered for the London Times. 
 
 I\Ir. Hoe continued to improve his invention, adding addi¬ 
 tional cylinders as increased speed was desired, and at length 
 brought it to the degree of jierfection exhibited in the splendid 
 ten-cylinder press now in use in the offices of our leading jour¬ 
 nals, which strikes off twenty-five thousand .sheets jier hour. 
 Whether more will be accomplished with this wonderful ma¬ 
 chine the future alone can determine, but other inventors 
 are still laboring to improve it. 
 
 In 1858 Mr. Hoe purchased the patent rights and manu¬ 
 factory of IsSac Adams, in Boston, and for some years car¬ 
 ried on the manufacture of the Adams press from that 
 place. He also established a manufactory in England, 
 where he conducted a profitable business in both the Adams 
 and the Hoe press. Over a million and a half of dollars 
 were invested in these establishments in New AMrk, Boston, 
 
360 
 
 KINGS or FORTUNE. 
 
 and London, in land, buildings, and stock. The firm 
 manufactured presses of all kinds, and all materials used 
 by printers except type and ink. They also manufactured 
 circular saws, made according to Mr. Hoe’s process. 
 
 Mr. Hoe at sixty years of age, was still as vigorous and 
 active as many a younger man. Besides being one of the 
 most prominent and distinguished inventors and manufac¬ 
 turers in the country, he was justly esteemed for his many 
 virtues and his commanding business talents. He was still 
 the active head of the house which he carried to such 
 a brilliant success, and the possessor of an ample fortune, 
 which his genius and industry had secured to him. He 
 was courteous and obliging to all, and very liberal to those 
 whose needs commended them to his benevolence. 
 
 Tlie ten-cylinder press costs fifty thousand dollars, and is 
 regarded as cheap at that immense sum. It is one of the most 
 interesting inventions ever made. Those who have seen it 
 working in the subterranean press-rooms of the journals of the 
 great metropolis will not soon forget the wonderful sight. The 
 ear is deafened with the incessant clashing of the machinery; the 
 jn-inted sheets issue from the sides of the huge engine in an un¬ 
 ceasing stream ; the eye is bewildered with the mass of lines and 
 bands; and it seems hard to realize that one single mind could 
 ever have adjusted all the various parts to work harmoniously. 
 
 The following is a description of the ten-cylinder steam 
 printing-press long used in the office of the Xew Yo,^'k World. 
 It was one of the best specimens of its kind to be seen in 
 the great city: 
 
 The dimensions of the press are as follows: Entire length, 40 feet; 
 width, 15 feet; height, IG feet. The large horizontal cylinder in the 
 center is about 41 feet in diameter, and on it are placed the “forms” of 
 type for the four pages of one side of the paper. Each of these consti- 
 
RICHARD M. HOE. 
 
 361 
 
 tutes a segment of a circle, and the whole four occupy a segment of only 
 about one-fourth of the surface of the cylinder, the other three-fourths 
 being used as an ink-distributing surface. Around this main cylinder, 
 and parallel with it, are ten smaller impression cylinders, according to 
 the number of which a press is termed a four, six, or ten-cylinder press. 
 The large cylinder being set in revolution, the form of types is carried 
 successively to all the impression cylinders, at each of which a sheet is 
 introduced and receives the impression of the types as the form passes. 
 Thus as many sheets are jjrinted at each revolution of the main cylinder 
 as there are impression cylinders around it. One person is required at 
 each impression cylinder to supply the sheets of paper, which are taken 
 at the proper moment by fingers or grij)pers, and after being printed are 
 conveyed out by tapes and laid in heaps by means of self-acting flyers, 
 thereby dispensing with the hands required in ordinary machines to 
 receive and pile the sheets. The grippers hold the sheet securely, so 
 that the thinnest newspaper can be printed without waste. 
 
 The ink is contained in a fountain placed beneath the main cylinder, 
 and is conveyed by means of distributing rollers to the distributing sur¬ 
 face on the main cylinder. This surface being lower or less in diam¬ 
 eter than the form of types, passes by the impression cylinders with¬ 
 out touching them. For each impression there are two inking rollers, 
 which receive their supply of ink from the distributing surface of the 
 main cylinder, and raise and ink the form as it passes under them, after 
 which they again fall to the distributing surface. 
 
 Each page of the paper is locked up on a detached segment of the 
 large cylinder, called by the compositors a “ turtle,” and this constitutes 
 its bed and chase. The column-rules run parallel with the shaft of the 
 cylinder, and are consequently straight, while the head, advertising, and 
 dash-rules are in the form of segments of a circle. The column-rules are 
 in the form of a wedge, with the thin part directed toward the axis of 
 the cylinder, so as to bind the type securely, and at the same time to 
 keep the ink from collecting between the types and the rules. They are 
 held down to the bed by tongues projecting at intervals along their 
 length, which slide into rebated grooves, cut crosswise in the face of the 
 bed. The spaces in the grooves between the column-rules arc accurately 
 fitted with sliding blocks of metal even with the surface of the bed, the 
 ends of the blocks being cut away underneath to receive a projection on 
 22 * 
 
362 
 
 KIXGS OF FOETUNE. 
 
 the sides of the tongues of the column-rules. The form of type is locked 
 up in the bed by means of screws at the foot and sides, by which the type 
 is held as secure'y as in the ordinary manner upon a flat bed, if not even 
 more so. The speed of the machine is limited only by the ability of the 
 feeders to supply the sheets. Twenty-five hundred is about as many as 
 a man can supply in an hour, and multiplying this by ten—one man 
 being at each cylinder—we have 25,000 sheets an hour as the capacity 
 of the press. 
 
 Col. Eichard M. Hoe, though over seventy years of age, 
 is still recognized as one of the most gifted inventors of the 
 world. A few years ago he placed before the public a 
 still grander triumph than the “Lightning Press” had 
 been. This was the Web printing machine, the joint pro¬ 
 duction of Mr. Hoe and Mr. S. D. Tucker, one of his 
 employes. In this press, instead of single sheets, a roll of 
 paper reeled off by machinery is used. This roll is a con¬ 
 tinuous sheet, four and one-half miles long, and runs 
 through the machine at the rate of 750 feet or more a 
 minute, passing between one type cylinder and its impres¬ 
 sion cylinder to print one side, and then through a second 
 pail’ to print the other side. 
 
 Still later Mr. Hoe’s genius gave birth to another invention, 
 which now appears to be the nc plus ultra of printing 
 presses. It is aptly named the “Presto,” and prints, cuts and 
 folds thirty-five thousand copies per hour, and can be almost 
 instantly adjusted to meet the requirements of a four, six, 
 eight, ten or twelve page paper. This is the king of printing 
 presses, and with it perfection in that line of invention would 
 seem to have been reached, but the nature of Mr. Hoe’s past 
 triumphs renders any prediction of future results extremely 
 hazardous. 
 
SAMUEL COLT. 
 
 3G3 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 SAMUEL COLT. 
 
 AIMUEL COLT was born at Hartford, Connect¬ 
 icut, on the 19th of July, 1814. He was de¬ 
 scended from one of the original settlers of that 
 city, and his father, who possessed some means, 
 was a man of great energy, intelligence, and 
 enterprise. The senior Colt began life as a merchant, and after- 
 uard became a manufacturer of woolen, cotton, and silk goods. 
 The mother of our hero was the daughter of Major John Cald¬ 
 well, a prominent banker of Hartford, and is said to have been 
 a woman of superior character and fine mental attainments. 
 
 It was within the power of the parents of Samuel Colt to 
 give him a thorough education, and this they were anxious to 
 do; but he was always so full of re.stless energy that he greatly 
 {ireferred workir ' the factory to going to .school. He loved 
 to be where he coimt hear the busy looms at work, and see the 
 play of the intricate machinery in the great building. In order 
 to gratify him, his father placed him in his factory at the age of 
 ten years, and there he remained for about three years, leaving 
 it only at rare intervals and for short periods of time, which he 
 passed in attendance upon school and Avorking on a faimi. 
 When he was thirteen his father declared that he would not 
 permit him to grow up without an education, and sent him to 
 
364 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 but his experience, though uncomfortable enough, failed to con¬ 
 quer his restless spirit. While at sea in the Coroo he had an 
 abundance of leisure time for reflection, but instead of devoting 
 it to meditating upon the folly of his course, he spent it in 
 inventing a revolving pistol, a rough model of which he cut in 
 wood with his jack-knife. This was the germ of the inven¬ 
 tion which afterward gave him such fame, and it is not a little 
 singular that the conception of such a weapon should have 
 come to a boy of fourteen. 
 
 a boarding-school at Amherst, Massachusetts. He did not re¬ 
 main there long, for the spirit of adventure came over him mth 
 such force that he could not resist it. He ran away from 
 school and shipped as a boy before the mast on a vessel bound 
 for the East Indies. The ship was called the Coroo, and was 
 commanded by Captain Spaulding. 
 
 The voyage was long, and the lad was subjected to great 
 hardships, which soon convinced him that running away to sea 
 was not as romantic in real life as in the books he had read, 
 
SAMUEL, COLT. 
 
 3615 
 
 Returning home, he became an apprentice in his father’s fac¬ 
 tory at Ware, Massachusetts. He was put into the dyeing and 
 bleaching department, and was thoroughly trained in it by Mr.. 
 William T. Smitli, a scientific man, and one of the best practi¬ 
 cal chemists in New England. Young Colt manifested a re¬ 
 markable aptitude for chemistry, and when but a mere boy was 
 known as one of the most successful and dexterous manipulators 
 in New England. 
 
 When he had reached his eighteenth year, the old spirit of 
 restlessness came over him again, and he embarked in an unu¬ 
 sually bold undertaking for one so young, in wliich, however, 
 he was much favored by the circumstance that he was very 
 much older in appearance than in reality, commoidy passing 
 for a full-grown man. Assuming the name of Dr. Colt, he 
 traveled throughout the Union and British America, visiting 
 nearly every town of two thousand inhabitants aiu^over, lectur¬ 
 ing upon chemistry, and illustrating his lectures with a series of 
 skillful and highly popular experiments. Ilis tour was entirely 
 successful, and he realized in the two years over M’hich it ex¬ 
 tended quite a handsome sum. The use which he made of the 
 money thus acquired was characteristic of the man. 
 
 He had never abandoned the design of a revolving jiistol 
 which he had conceived on board the Coroo, and he now set to 
 work to perfect it, using the proceeds of his lectures to enable 
 him to take out patents in this country and in Europe. He 
 spent two years in working on his model, making inq)rovements 
 in it at eVery step, and by 1835 had brought it to sueh a state 
 of excellenee that he was enabled to apply for a j)atent in the 
 United States. His application was successful. Before it was 
 decided, however, he visited England and France, and patented 
 his invention in those countries. Though now only twenty-one 
 years old, he had given seven years of study and labor to his 
 
366 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 '^revolver,” and had brought it to a state of perfection which 
 was far in advance of his early hopes. 
 
 “At this time, and, indeed, for several years after, he was not 
 aware that any person before himself had ever conceived the 
 idea of a fire-arm with a rotating chambered breech. On a 
 subsequent visit to Europe, while exploring the collection of 
 fire-arms in the Tower of London and other repositories of 
 weapons of war in England and on the continent, he found 
 several guns having the chambered breech, but all were so con¬ 
 structed as to be of little practical value, being far more liable 
 to explode prematurely and destroy the man who should use 
 them than the objects at which they might be aimed. Unwil¬ 
 ling, howevei’, to seem to claim that which had been previously 
 invented, he read before the Institution of Civil Engineers in 
 England (of which he was the only American associate), in 
 1851, an elaborate paper on the subject, in which he described 
 and illustrated, with appropriate drawings, the various early 
 inventions of revolving fire-arms, and demonstrated the princi¬ 
 ples on which his were constructed.” 
 
 Having secui’ed patents in the United States and in the 
 princi[)a-l countries of Europe, Mr. Colt exerted himself to or¬ 
 ganize a company for the manufacture of his revolver. He 
 met with considerable opposition, for it was commonly asserted 
 that his pistol would never be of any practical value. The 
 wise ones said it was too complicated for general use, and that 
 its adoption would be attended by the killing or maiming of 
 the majority of those who used it. The inventor disregarded 
 the«e birds of ill omen, however, and, jjei’severing in his efforts, 
 finally succeeded in securing the aid of some capitalists in Xew 
 York. A company was formed in 1835, called the “Patent 
 Arms Comjiany,” with a capital of 8300,000, and an armory 
 was established at Paterson, Xew Jersey. Mr. Colt then 
 
SAMUEL COLT. 
 
 367 
 
 endeavored to induce the Government of the United States to 
 adopt tlie arm in the military and naval service. Strange as 
 it now seems, however, the officers of the army and navy were 
 not disposed to regard the revolver with favor. They declared 
 that the percussion cap was entirely unreliable, and that no 
 weapon requiring it could be depended on with certainty; that 
 there was great danger that two or more of the charges would 
 explode at the same time ; and that the arm was liable to get out 
 of order very easily. They further protested that it was much 
 more difficult to repair than the arms then in nse, and that this 
 alone rendered it unfit for adoption by the Government. Not¬ 
 withstanding these objections were fully met by ISIr. Colt, wdio 
 ex|)laiued carefully the principles of his weapon, it w'as two years 
 before the Government consented to give the revolver a trial. 
 
 In 1837, the Florida war raged with great violence, and the 
 Seminoles, secure in their fastnesses in the Everglades, were 
 enabled to bid defiance to all the efforts of the army of the 
 Unit^‘d States. Their superior skill in the use of the rifle 
 gave them an advantage which the bravery and determination 
 of our troops could not overcome. In this emergency, the 
 Government consented to make a trial of Colt’s revolver. A 
 regiment under lacutcnant-Colonel Harvey was armed with this 
 weapon, and its success was so marked from the first that the 
 Government promptly gave an order for more, and ended by 
 making it the principal arm of the troops in Florida. The 
 savages were astounded and disheartened at seeing the troops 
 fire six or eight times without reloading; and when the war 
 was brought to a close, as it soon was, it was ]ilain to all that 
 the revolver had ])layed a decisive part in the struggle. It 
 was a great triumph for Colonel Colt, but in the end proved a 
 source of misfortune. Tlie speedy termination of the war put 
 an end to the demand for liis weapon, and his business fell off 
 
368 
 
 KINGS OF FOETUNE. 
 
 SO greatly that in 1842 the Patent Arms Company was com¬ 
 pelled to elose its establishment and wind up its affairs. 
 
 For five years none of the revolvers were manufactured, and, 
 meanwhile, the stock whicli had been put in the market was 
 entirelv exhausted by the demand wliich had set in from Texas 
 and tlie Indian frontier. In 1847 the war with Mexico began, 
 and General Taylor, who had witnessed the performance of the 
 revolver in Florida, w'as anxious to arm the Texan Rangers 
 with that weapon. He sent Captain Walker, the .commander 
 of the Rangers, to Colonel Colt to purchase a supply. Walker 
 w^as unsuccessful. Colt had parted with the last one that he 
 possessed, and had not even a model to serve as a guide in 
 making others. The Government now gave him an order for 
 one thousand, winch he agreed to make for $28,000; but there 
 wais still the diffieulty caused by having no model to work by. 
 In this dilemma, he advertised extensively for one of his old 
 pistols, to serve as a model, but failing to proeure one, w'as 
 compelled to make a new' model. This w’as really a fortunate 
 circumstance, as he made several improvements in the W'eapon, 
 wliich officers who had used it suggested to him, so that hia 
 wea})ons were very much better than the old ones. Having no 
 factory of his own. Colonel Colt hired an armory at Whitney- 
 ville, near New Haven, wliere he ju'oduced the first thousand 
 pistols ordered by the Government. These gave entire satisfac¬ 
 tion, and further orders from the War Department eame in 
 rapidly. Colonel Colt now hired and fitted up larger and more 
 complete workshops in Hartford, and began business on his owm 
 aecount, supplying promjitly every order that was given him. 
 The weapon proved most effective during the IMexican War, 
 and the orders of the Government w'ere sufficiently large to 
 allow the inventor to reap a handsome profit from them, and 
 lay the foundations of his subsequent business success, 
 
SAMUEL COLT. 
 
 309 
 
 At the close of the war, Colonel Colt was apprehensive that 
 the demand for his weapon wonld again drop off, as it had done 
 after the Florida cani])aign; but he was agreeably disappointed. 
 The success of the revolver in INIcxico liad made it generally 
 and favorably known thronghont the country, and there was 
 now a steady and even a growing demand for it. The discovery 
 of gold in California, which so quickly followed the cessation 
 of ho.stilities, greatly stimulated this demand, for the most 
 essential of the gold .seeker’s outfit was a revolver; and 
 the extraordinary emigration to vVnstralia, which .set in some¬ 
 what later, still further extended the market for his weaiion. 
 Convinced by this time that there wonld be no considerable 
 falling oft“ in his orders, Colonel Colt began to take stejis to 
 a.s.snre the permanency of his business. • 
 
 The experience of the American ofllicers during the Mexican 
 War enabled them to point out many improvements to the in¬ 
 ventor, who promptly ado[)ted them. This made his pistol 
 almo.st a new weapon, and the most formidable small arm 
 then in use. He oblained a new patent for it, as thq^ im¬ 
 proved, and it was adopted by the Government as the regu¬ 
 lar arm of the army and navy, different sizes being made for 
 each service. The Crimean and Indian wans, which followed 
 soon after, brought the inventor large orders from the Brit¬ 
 ish Government, and during the next few years his weapon 
 was formally introduced into tlie armies of the leading States 
 of Europe. 
 
 His success was so rapid that, as early as 1851, it became 
 neco.s.sary to provide still more ample accommodations for his 
 manufactory. The next year he began the execution of a plan, 
 the magnitude of which caused many of his friends to tremble 
 for his future ])rosperity. He resolved to build the large.st and 
 piost perfect armory’ in the worklj one which should enable him 
 
370 
 
 KINGS OP POKTUNE. 
 
 to manufacture his weapons with greater rajiidity and nicety 
 than liad ever yet been possible. 
 
 Just to the south of the Little or Mill River there was a 
 piece of meadow land, about two hundred and fifty acres in 
 extent, generally regarded as useless, in consequence of its 
 being submerged every spring by the freshets in the river. 
 Colonel Colt bought this meadow for a nominal sum, and, to 
 the astonishment of the good people of Hartford, proceeded 
 to surround it with a strong dike, or embankment. This 
 embankment was two miles in length, one hundred and fiftv 
 feet wide at the base, from thirty to sixty feet wide at the 
 toj), and from ten to twenty-five feet high. Its strength 
 was further increased by planting willows along the sides; 
 and it was thoroughly tested just after its completion by 
 a freshet of unusual severity. Having drained the meadow. 
 Colonel Colt began the erection of his armory upon the 
 land inclosed by the embankment. It was constructed of 
 Cortland stone, and consisted of three buildings—two long 
 edifices, with a third connecting them in the center, the whole 
 being in the form of the letter H. The front parallel was five 
 hundred by sixty feet, the rear parallel five hundred by forty 
 feet, and the central building two hundred and fifty by fifty 
 feet—the front parallel and central building being three stories 
 in height. Connected with these buildings were other smaller 
 edifices for offices, warerooms, watchmen’s houses, etc. 
 
 In 1861, the demand for the arms had become so enormous 
 that the armory was doubled in size, the new buildings being 
 similar in style to the old. “In this establishment there is 
 amjile accommodation for the manufiicture of one thousand 
 fire-arms jier day,” which is more than the arsenals at Har¬ 
 per’s Ferrv and Springfield combined could turn out in the 
 same time previous to the war, In 1801, Colt’s armory turned 
 
SAMUEL COLT. 
 
 371 
 
 out about one hundred and twenty thousand stand of arms, 
 and in 1860, the two armories before mentioned made about 
 thirty-five thousand between them. A ])ortion of the armory 
 at Hartford is devoted to the fabrieation of the macliinery 
 invented by Colonel Colt for the manufacture of his pistols. 
 This machinery is usually sold to all parties purchasing the 
 right to manufacture the revolver. Colonel Colt supplied in 
 this way a large part of the machinery used in the Govern¬ 
 ment manufactory at Enfield, in England, and all of that used 
 in the Imperial armory at Tulin, in Russia. Near the armory, 
 and in the area inclosed by the dike. Colonel Colt ei’ected a 
 number of tasteful cottages for his workmen, and warehouses 
 for otlier kinds of business. His entire expenditure upon his 
 land and buildings here amounted to more than two million 
 five hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 “Among his other cares, the intellectual and social welfare 
 of his numerous employes were not forgotten. Few mechanics 
 are favored with as convenient residences as those he has erected 
 for them; and a public hall, a library, courses of lectures, con¬ 
 ceits, the organization of a fine band of music, formed entirely 
 from his own workmen, to whom he presented a superb set of 
 musical instruments, and of a military company of his opera¬ 
 tives, provided by him with a tasteful uniform, and otherwise 
 treated by him with great liberality, were among the methods 
 by which he demonstrated his sympathy with the sons of 
 toil.” 
 
 The Hartford armory is the largest and most complete in the 
 world, in extent and perfection of machinery. All the articles 
 needed with the revolver, such as the powder flask, balls, lubri¬ 
 cator, bullet molds, cartridges, etc., are made here on a large 
 scale. The establishment is a noble monument to the inventive 
 genius and business capacity of its founder. 
 
372 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 In addition to his inventions of fire-arms, Colonel Colt 
 invented a submarine battery, wbicb was thoroughly tested 
 by the officers of the United States Navy, and is said to be 
 one of the most formidable engines for harbor defense ever 
 known. He also invented a submarine telegraph cable, which 
 he laid and operated with perfect success, in 1843, from Coney 
 Island and Fire Island to the city of New York, and from the 
 Merchants Exchange to the mouth of the harbor. His insu¬ 
 lating material consisted of a combination of cotton yarn with 
 asphaltum and beeswax; the whole was inclosed in a lead pipe. 
 This was one of the most successful experiments of the early 
 days of submarine telegraphy, and entitles Colonel Colt to a 
 consj)icuous place in the list of those who brought that science 
 to perfection. 
 
 After the ])crmanent establishment of his business, in 1847 
 and 1848, Colonel Colt’s success was rapid. He acquired a 
 large fortune, and built an elegant and tasteful mansion in 
 Hartford, where he resided, surrounded with all the luxu¬ 
 ries of wealth and taste. In 1855, he married Miss Elizabeth 
 Jarvis, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Jarvis, of Portland, Connect¬ 
 icut, a lady of great beauty and superior character and accom¬ 
 plishments. She still survives him. 
 
 He repeatedly visited Europe after his settlement at Hart¬ 
 ford, and as the excellence of his wxnipons had made his name 
 famous the world over, he was the i'ecii)ient of many attentions 
 from the most distinguished soldiers of Europe, and even from 
 some of the monarchs of the Old World. In 1856, being oa 
 a visit to Russia, with his family, he was invited with them 
 to bo present at the coronation of the Emperor Alexander 
 II. He was decorated by nearly all the Governments of 
 Europe, and by some of the Asiatic sovereigns, with orders 
 of merit, di])lomas, medals, and rings, in acknowledgment of 
 
SAMUEL COLT. 
 
 the great services he had rendered to the world by his in¬ 
 vention. 
 
 He died, at his residence in Hartford, on the 10th of Jan¬ 
 uary, 18(52, in the forty-eighth year of his age. The coin- 
 iminity of which he was a member lost in him one of its most 
 enterprising and pnblic-spirited citizens, and the country one 
 ot the best representatives of the American character it has 
 ever produced. 
 
SAMUEL F. E. MORSE. 
 
SAMUEIv F. B. MORSE. 
 
 377 
 
 CHAPTER XXIL 
 
 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 Samuel finley breese morse was the 
 
 J 
 
 eldest son of the late Jedediah Morse, one of the 
 most distinguished Presbyterian clergymen of 
 New England. He was born at Charlestown, 
 IMassachusetts, on the 27th of April, 1791, was 
 carefully educated in the common schools of his native town, 
 and at an early age entered Yale College, where he graduated 
 in 1810. He exhibited an early fondness for art as well as 
 studies of a scientific character, and while a student at Y"alc 
 displayed an especial aptness for chemistry and natural jdnloso- 
 phy. Upon leaving college he decided to adopt the profession 
 of an artist, and was sent abroad to study under the tuition of 
 West and Copley and Allston. 
 
 “When Allston was painting his ‘Head ^lan Restored to 
 Life,’ in London,” says Mr. Tuckerman, in his Book of the 
 Artists, “he first modeled his figure in clay, and explained to 
 Morse, who was then his pupil, the advantages resulting from 
 a plan so frequently adopted by the old masters. His young 
 countryman was at this time meditating his first composition— 
 a dying Hercules—and proceeded at once to act upon this sug¬ 
 gestion. Having prepared a model that exhibited the upper 
 part of the body—which alone would be visible in the picture— 
 
378 
 
 KINGS OK FORTUNE. 
 
 he submitted it to Allston, who recognized so much truth in 
 the anatomy and expi’cssion that he urgently advised its com¬ 
 pletion. After six weeks of carefid labor, the statue was finished 
 and sent to West for inspection. That venerable artist, u 2 )on 
 entering the room, put on his spectacles, and as he walked 
 ai'ound the model, carefully examining its details and general 
 clfect, a look of genuine satisfaction beamed from bis face. He 
 rang for an attendant and bade him call his son. ‘ Look here, 
 Raphael,’ he exclaimed, as the latter appeared; ‘did I not 
 always tell you that every painter could be a sculptor?’ We 
 may imagine the delight of the student at such commendation. 
 The same day one of his fellow jmpils called bis attention to a 
 notice issued by tbc Adclphi Society of Arts, offering a ju'ize for 
 the best single figure, to be modeled and .sent to the rooms of 
 tbc association within a certain period. The time fixed would 
 expire in three days. Morse profited by the occasion, and 
 ])laced his ‘Dying Hercules’ with the thirteen other specimens 
 already entered. He was consequently invited to the meeting 
 of the society on the evening when the decision was to be an- 
 nounecd, and received from the hands of the Duke of Norfolk, 
 the presiding officer, and in the presence of the foreign ambas.sa- 
 dors, the gold medal. Perhaps no American ever started in the 
 career of an artist under more flattering auspices; and we can 
 not wonder that a beginning so succe.ssful encouraged the young 
 painter to devote himself assiduously to study, with a view of 
 returning to his own country fully prepared to illustrate tlie 
 historical department of the art.” 
 
 Morse spent four years in Europe in close study, and was 
 then obliged to return to America by lack of means to carry on 
 his education in the Old World. He had not indeed reached 
 the high degree of jn’oficaency which he liad hopc'd to obtain 
 before returning home, but he was possessed of natural talents 
 
SAMUEL F. B. MOESE. 
 
 379 
 
 and acquired skill which fairly entitled him to recognition as 
 one of our leading ai'tists. 'fhii recognition never came to him, 
 liowevcr, and his artist life in this country was a series of sor¬ 
 rowful disa{)pointments. He found no opportunity of devoting 
 himself to the higher branches of his art, and was obliged to 
 confine himself entirely to portrait painting as a moans of 
 liveliliood. His artist career is thus referred to by Mr, 
 Tuckerman: 
 
 “Morse went abroad under the care of Allston, and was the 
 pupil of West and Copley. Hence he is naturally regarded l)y 
 a later generation as the connecting bond that unites the present 
 and the past in the brief annals of our artist history. But his 
 claim to such recognition does not lie altogether in the fact that 
 he was a pioneer; it has been worthily evidenced by his con¬ 
 stant devotion to the great cause itself. Younger artists speak 
 of him with affection and respect, because he has ever been 
 zealous in the promotion of a taste for, and a study of, the fine 
 arts. Having entered the field at too early a period to realize 
 the ])romise of his youth, and driven by circumstances from the 
 high aims he cherished, misanthropy was never sulfercd to grow 
 out of personal disappointment. He gazed revcrentlv upon the 
 goal it was not permitted him to reach, and ardentlv encour¬ 
 aged the spirit which he felt was only to be developed when 
 wealth and leisure had given his eonntrvmen opportunities to 
 cultivate those tastes upon the ])revalenee of wliich the advance¬ 
 ment of his favorite pursuit dejamds. When, after the failure 
 of one of his elaborate projects, he resolved to establish himself 
 in New York, he was grieved to find that many ])cttv dissen¬ 
 sions kept the artists from each other. He made it his business 
 to heal these wounds and reconcile the animosities that thus 
 retarded the progress of their common object. He sought out 
 
 and won the confidence of his isolated brothers, and one eveu- 
 
 23 
 
380 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE, 
 
 ing invited them all to his room ostensibly to eat strawberries 
 and cream, but really to beguile them into something like 
 agreeable intercourse. He had experienced the good effect of 
 a drawing club at Charleston, whei’e many of the members 
 were amateurs; and on the occasion referred to covered his table 
 with prints, and scattered inviting casts around the apartment. 
 A very ])leasant evening was the result, a mutual understanding 
 was established, and weekly meetings unanimously agreed upon. 
 This auspicious gathering was the germ of the National Aca¬ 
 demy of Design, of which Morse became the first pi’esident, 
 and before which he delivered the first course of lectures on the 
 fine arts ever given in this country.” 
 
 In 1829 Mr. Morse went abroad for the j^urpose of com¬ 
 pleting his art studies. He remained in Europe for more than 
 three years, residing in the principal cities of the Continent. 
 During his absence he was elected “ Profes.sor of the Litera¬ 
 ture of the Fine Arts” in the University of the City of New 
 York. He set out on his rctui’n home to accejit this professor¬ 
 ship in the autumn of 1832, .sailing from Havre on board the 
 packet-ship “Sully.” 
 
 As has been stated, he had manifested a decided fondness 
 for Chemistry and Natural Philosophy while at Y'ale College, 
 where he was a pupil of Professor Silliman in the former 
 science, and of Professor Day in the latter, and after his de¬ 
 parture from college he had devoted all his leisure time to the 
 pursuit of these studies. So great was his fondness for them 
 that some of his friends declared their belief that he ought to 
 abandon art and devote himself to science. In 1826-27 he 
 had delivered, at the Athemeum in New Y'ork, the course of 
 fine-art lectures to which reference has been made, and on al¬ 
 ternate nights of the same season Professor J. Freeman Dana 
 had lectured upon electro-magnetism, illustrating his feoiarks 
 
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 381 
 
 with the first electro-magnet (on Sturgeon’s principle) ever seen 
 in this country. Morse and Dana had been intimate friends, 
 and had often held long conversations upon the subject of mag¬ 
 netism, and the magnet referred to had at lengtli been given to 
 tlie former by Professor Torrey. The interest which he had 
 thus conceived in this instrument had never diminished, and 
 his investigations and studies had never ceased, so that at the 
 time of his depai’tnre from France in the “Sully,” in 1832, he 
 was one of tlie best informed men upon the subject to be found 
 in any country. 
 
 Among his fellow-passengers were a number of persons oi' 
 intelligence and cultivation, one of whom had but recently 
 witnessed in Paris some highly interesting experiments witifi 
 the electro-magnet, the object of which w'as to prove how 
 readily the electric spark could be obtained from the magnet, 
 and the rapidity with which it could be disseminated. To 
 most of the passengers this relation was deeply interesting, but 
 to all save one it was merely the recital of a curious experi¬ 
 ment. That one exception was IMr. Morse. To him the de¬ 
 velopment of this newly-discovered property of cleetrieity was 
 more than interesting. It showed him his true mission in life, 
 the way to his true destiny. Art was not his proper field now, 
 for however great his abilities as an artist, he was posse.ssed of 
 genius of a higher, more useful type, and it was henceforth his 
 duty to employ it. He thought long and earnestly upon the 
 subject which the words of his fellow-passenger had so freshlv 
 called np, pacing the deck under the silent star.s, and rocked in 
 his wakeful berth bv the ocean whose terrors his venius was 
 to tame, and whose vast depths his great invention was to set 
 at naught. He had long been convinced that electricity was to 
 furnish the means of rapid communication between distant 
 points, of whmh the world was so much in need; and the ex- 
 
382 
 
 KINGS OF FOETUNE. 
 
 periments which his new acquaintance had witnessed in Paris 
 removed from his mind the last doubt of the feasibility of the 
 scheme. Being of an eminently practical character, he at once 
 set to work to discover how this could be done, and succeeded 
 so well that before the “ Sully” reached Xew York he had con¬ 
 ceived “ not merely the idea of an electric telegraph, but of an 
 electro-magnetic and chemical recording telegraph, substantially 
 and essentially as it now exists,” and had invented an alpha¬ 
 bet of signs, the same in all important respects as that now in 
 use. “ The testimony to the paternity of the idea in Morse’s 
 mind, and to his acts and drawings on board the ship, is ample. 
 His own testimony is corroborated by all the passengers (with 
 a single exception), who testified with him before the courts, 
 and was considered conclusive by the judges; and the date ot‘ 
 1832 is therefore fixed by this evidence as the date of Morse’s 
 conception, and realization also—so far as the drawings could 
 embody the conception—of the telegraph system which now 
 bears Ids name.” 
 
 But though invented in 1832, it was not until 1835 (during 
 which time lie was engaged in the discharge of the duties of 
 his professorship in tlie University of the City of Xew York) 
 that he was enabled to complete his first recording instrument. 
 This was but a poor, rude instrument, at the best, and was 
 very far from being equal to his perfected invention. It em¬ 
 bodied his idea, however, and was a good basis for subsequent 
 inqirovements. By its aid he was able to send signals from a 
 given point to the end of a wire half a mile in length, but as 
 vet there was no means of receiving them back again from the 
 other extremity. He continued to experiment on his invention, 
 and made several improvements in it. It was plain from the 
 first that he needed a duplicate of his instrument at the other 
 end of his wire, but he was unable for a long time to have one 
 
SAMUEL r. B. MORSE, 
 
 383 
 
 made. At length he acquired the necessary funds, and in July, 
 1837, had a duplicate instrument constructed, and thus jicr- 
 fectcd his plan. His telegraph now worked to his entire sat¬ 
 isfaction, and he could easily send his signals to the remote end 
 of his line and receive replies in return, and answer signals 
 sent from that terminus. Having brought it to a successful 
 completion, he exhibited it to large audiences at the University 
 of New A^ork, in September, 1837. In October, 1837, Pro¬ 
 fessor INIorse filed a caveat to secure his invention, but his 
 patent was not obtained until 1840. 
 
 He now entered upon that period of the inventor’s life which 
 has proved so disastrous to many, and so wearying and dis¬ 
 heartening to all—the etfort to bring,his invention into general 
 use. It was commonly believed that, although the invention 
 was successfid when used for such short distances as had been 
 tried in the City of New A"ork, it would fail when tested by 
 longer lines. Morse was confident, however, that this was not 
 the case, and in December, 1837, he went to Washington to 
 solicit from the Government an appropriation for the construc¬ 
 tion of an experimental line from Washington City to Balti¬ 
 more—a distance of forty miles. This line he declared would 
 thoroughly test the practicability and utility of the telegraph. 
 His petition was laid before Congress, and a committee ap¬ 
 pointed to consider it. He stated his plan to this body, and 
 proved its practicability by actual experiments with his in¬ 
 struments. Considerable interest in the subject was thus 
 aroused in Congress and throughout the country, but he de¬ 
 rived no benefit from it. If men spoke of his telegraph, it 
 was only to ridicule it, or to express their doubts of its success. 
 This was especially the case in Congress, and it was very uncer¬ 
 tain whether that body would sustain the report from the com¬ 
 mittee in favor of the invention. The session wore away in 
 
384 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 this manner, and at length ended without any action being 
 taken in the matter. 
 
 Having failed to secure the assistance of Congress, Professor 
 Morse went to Europe in the spring of 1838, for the purpose 
 of enlisting the aid of the governments there in bringing his 
 invention into use. He was unsuccessful. In England a 
 patent was refused liim, and in France he merely obtained a 
 worthless brevet d’invent ion. He tried several other countries, 
 but was equally unsuecessful in all, and he returned home 
 almost disheartened, but not entirely cast down. For four 
 years he had to struggle hard for a living. He was very poor, 
 and, as one of his friends has since declared, had literally “to 
 coin his mind for bread.” His sturdy independence of char¬ 
 acter would not allow him to accept assistance from any one, 
 although there were friends ready and even anxious to help 
 him in his troubles. Alone and manfully he fought his way 
 through these dark days, still hopeful of success for his inven¬ 
 tion, and patiently seeking to improve it wherever opportu¬ 
 nity presented itself At length, in 1840, he^received his long- 
 delayed patent from the General Government, and, encouraged 
 bv this, determined to make another effort to bring his tele- 
 gi’ajdi into use. 
 
 He was not able to do so until the session of Congress of 
 1842-43, when he presented a second petition to that body, ask¬ 
 ing its aid in the construction'of an experimental line between 
 Baltimore and Washington. He had to encounter a great de¬ 
 gree of skepticism and ridicule, with many other obstacles, not 
 the least of which was the difficulty of meeting the expense of 
 remaining in Washington and urging his invention upon the 
 Government. Still he persevered, although it seemed to be 
 hoping against hope, as the session drew near its close, and his 
 scanty stock of money grew daily smaller. On the evening of 
 
SAMUKI.. F. 15. :^rOR.SE. 
 
 385 
 
 the 3d of Miirch, 1843, lie returned from the Ca[)itol to Iiis 
 lodgings utterly disheartened. It was the last night of the 
 session, and nothing had been done in the matter of his peti¬ 
 tion. He sat up late into the night arranging his affairs so as 
 to take his departure for home on the following day. It was 
 useless to remain in Washington any longer. Congress would 
 adjourn the next day. and his last hope of suece.ss had been 
 shattered. 
 
 On the mornino; of the 4th of Mareh he came down to the 
 breakfast-table gloomy and despondent. Taking up the morn¬ 
 ing journal, he ran over it listlessly. Suddenly his eye rested 
 upon a paragraph whieh caused him to spring to his feet in 
 complete amazement. It was an announcement that, at the 
 very last hour of the session of the previous night, a bill had 
 been passed by Congress appropriating the sum of thirty thou¬ 
 sand dollars for the purpose of enabling Pr(tfes.sor Mor.se to 
 construct an experimental line of telegraph bctw'cen Baltimore 
 and Washington. He could scarcely believe it real, and, as 
 soon as possible, hastened to the Capitol to seek authentic in¬ 
 formation. The statement was confirmed by the proper author¬ 
 ities, and Morse’s dearest wish was realized. The hour of his 
 triumph was at hand, and his long and patient waiting was re¬ 
 warded at last. • 
 
 Work on the telegraph line was immediately begun, and car¬ 
 ried on actively. At first, an insulated wire was buried under 
 ground in a lead pipe, but this failing to give .sati.sfaetion, 
 the wire was elevated upon ])oles. On the 27th of May, 1844, 
 the line was completed, and the first trial of it made in the 
 presence of the Government officials and many other distin¬ 
 guished men. Professor Morse was confident of success; but 
 this oeension was a period of the most intense anxiety to him, 
 for he knew that his entire future was staked upon the result 
 
386 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 of this liour. Among the company present to witness the trial 
 was the Secretary of the Treasury, John C. Spencer. Although 
 very much interested in the undertaking, he was entirely igno¬ 
 rant of the principles involved in it, and, therefore, very ap¬ 
 prehensive of its failure. It was u[)on this occasion that he 
 asked one of Pi’ofessor INIorse’s assistants how large a bundle 
 could be sent over the wires, and if the United States mail 
 could not be sent in the same way. 
 
 When all was in I’cadiness, Professor INIorse seated himself at 
 the instrument, and sent his first message to Baltimore. An 
 answer was promptly returned, and messages were sent and 
 replies received with a rapidity and accuracy which ])laced the 
 triumph of the invention beyond the possibility of doubt. Con- 
 gratidations were showered upon the inventor, who r«ceived 
 them as calmly as he had previously borne the scoffs of many 
 of these same men. A'et his heart throbbed all the while with 
 a brilliant triumph. Fame and fortune both rose proudly 
 before him. He had won a great victory, and conferred a 
 lasting benefit upon his race. 
 
 The success of the experimental line brought Professor Morse 
 numerous offers for the use of his invention. Telegraph com¬ 
 panies were organized all over the countiy, and the stock issued 
 by them was taken up as fast as ofFCred. At the present day, 
 not only the United States, but the whole woj-ld, is covered with 
 telegraph lines. In July, 1862, just eighteen years after the 
 completion of INIorse’s experimental line, it was estimated that 
 the lines then in operation throughout the world amounted to 
 an aggregate length of 150,000 miles. The INIorse system is 
 adopted on the principal lines of the United States, on all 
 the lines of the Eastern continent, and exclusively on all 
 the continental lines of Europe, “ from the extreme Bussian 
 north to the Italian and Spanish south, eastward through the 
 
SAMUEL P. B. MORSE. 
 
 387 
 
 Turkish empire, south into Egypt and northern Africa, and 
 through India, Australia, and parts of China.” 
 
 The rapid growth of tlie telegraph interest of the United 
 States placed Professor Morse in the possession of a large for¬ 
 tune, which was greatly increased by the adoption of his in¬ 
 vention in Europe, The countries which had refused him 
 patents at first now did honor to his genius. Nor was he the 
 only gainer by this. In France, especially, the benefits of his 
 invention were great. The old system of semaphore telegraphs 
 had been an annual expense to the government of that country 
 of 1,100,000 francs, but INIorse’s telegra})h yielded to the French 
 Government, in the first three years after its introduction, a 
 total revenue of 6,000,000 francs. 
 
 Fortune was not Morse’s only reward. Honors wei'C show¬ 
 ered upon him from all parts of the world. In 1848, his ahna 
 mattr, Yale College, conferred on him the complimentary 
 degree of LL.D., and he afterward was made a member of 
 nearly all the American scientific and art academies. From 
 European Governments and scientific and art associations he 
 received more honors than have ever fallen to the-share of 
 any other American. In 1848, he received from the Sultan of 
 Turkey the decoration of the Niahann IfdcJiar in diamonds, and 
 subsequently gold medals of scientific merit were awarded him 
 by the King of Prussia, the King of Wiirtemburg, and the Em- 
 ])eror of Austria. The gift of the King of Prussia was set in a 
 massive gold snuff-box. In 1856, the Emperor Napoleon HI 
 gave him the Cross of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor; 
 in 1857, he received from the King of Denmark the Cross of 
 Knight of the Danebrog; and in 1858, the Queen of Spain sent 
 him the Cross of Knight Commander of the order of Isabella 
 the Catholic. In 1859, a convention of the representatives of 
 the various European powers met in Paris, at the instance of 
 
388 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 the Emperor Napoleon III, for the purpose of determining 
 upon the best means of giving Professor ISIorse a eollective 
 testimonial. France, Russia, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, Aus¬ 
 tria, Sardinia, Tuscany, Turkey, and the Holy See were repre¬ 
 sented, and their deliberations resulted in the presentation to 
 Professor Morse, in the name of their united governments, of 
 the sum of 400,000 francs, as an honorary and personal reward 
 for his labors. In 1856, the telegraph companies of Great 
 Britain gave him a banquet in London, at which ^Mr. William 
 Fothergill Corke, himself the distinguished inventor of a sys¬ 
 tem of telegraphy, presided. 
 
 Professor Morse was also the inventor of submarine telegra¬ 
 phy. In 1842 be laid tlie first submarine telegraph line ever put 
 down, across the harbor of New York, and for this achieve¬ 
 ment receiv'ed the gold medal of the American Institute. On 
 the IGth of August, 1843, he addressed a communication to 
 the Secretary of the Treasury, in which he avowed his belief 
 that a telegraphic cable could and would be laid across the 
 Atlantic ocean, for the purpose of connecting Europe and 
 America. His words upon this occasion clearly prove that the 
 idea of the Atlantic telegraph originated with him. They were 
 as follows : “ The practical inference from this law is, that a 
 telegraphic communication on the electro-magnetic j)lan may 
 with certainty be established across the Atlantic ocean. Start¬ 
 ling as this may now seem, I am confident the time will coma 
 when this project will be realized.” 
 
 In February, 1854, Mr. Cyrus W. Field, of New A"ork, 
 ignorant of Professor IMorse’s views upon this subject, wrote to 
 him to ask if he considered the working of a cable across the 
 Atlantic practicable. The Professor at once sought an inter¬ 
 view with ^Ir. Field, and assured him of his entii-e confidence 
 in the undertaking. He entered heartilv into Mr. Field’s 
 
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 389 
 
 scheme, and rendered great aid in the noble enterprise which 
 has been described elsewhere in these pages. He was present 
 at each attempt to lay the cable, and participated in the final 
 triumph by which his prediction, made twenty-three years pre¬ 
 vious, was verified. 
 
 Professor Morse resided during the winter in the city of 
 New York, and passed his summers at his beautiful country 
 seat near Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson. He bore his great 
 honors with the same modesty which marked his early 
 struggles, and was the center of a host of friends whom he 
 had attached to himself by the tenderest tie^. 
 
 His death occurred in New York, April 2, 1872, his age 
 being eighty-one years. He was buried amid tokens of na¬ 
 tional regret. He lived to see the system he invented used in 
 almost every region of the globe and everywhere that civ¬ 
 ilized people dwelt. He lived to see the two continents 
 joined into one by means of great cables, over which the 
 instrument he invented flashed messages from the whole 
 world. During one of his visits to Paris he became 
 acquainted with Daguerre, and on his return to this coun¬ 
 try he constructed the proper apparatus, and took the first 
 sun pictures ever made in the United States. Besides all 
 his other work, he was quite a voluminous writer on scien¬ 
 tific subjects. Since his death the value of his inventions 
 to the human race has been constantly increasing, until he 
 may now be looked upon as one of the greatest public bene¬ 
 factors of any age. 
 
CYRUS H. McCOEMICK. 
 
CYRUS HALL MCCORMICK. 
 
 898 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIT. 
 
 CYKUS HALL McCOKJIICK. 
 
 
 HE stories of tlie Arabian Nights, which so 
 frequently thrill the imagination of the 
 reader, have been equaled by the vast strides 
 of the human intellect during the last one hundred 
 years. What magician’s wand could evolve won¬ 
 ders that would have attracted the fancy of the 
 ancients with greater interest than harvesting the golden 
 grain of continents at the hum of swift-flying machinery, 
 urged* on by vast troops of horses and a hurrying army of 
 men? Yet in these days, when space has been annihi¬ 
 lated and weeks reduced to hours, this wonderful feat 
 of garnering grain is yearly accomplished before the eyes of 
 tlie world. Indeed, it may be said of the farmer, that he 
 can “ mount upon wings as eagles, and run and not be 
 weary,” so rapidly can he accumulate treasures and so easily 
 can he accomplish results. If Providence selected any 
 one man, through whom this millennial age of the farmer 
 has been brought about, that man was, beyond all question, 
 Cyrus Hall McCormick, the far-famed inventor, through 
 whom it has been made possible to accomplish harvesting 
 by machinery. The success of this great pioneer turned 
 
394 
 
 KINGS 01* FORTUNE. 
 
 the thoughts of a large class of men to a new channel of 
 thinking. If grain could be harvested so rapidly, it 
 must be preserved with equal rapidity; if such quick 
 reaping was possible, the number of acres in grain must 
 be correspondingly increased; if the meadows could be 
 mowed by steel blades as rapidly as horses could keep them 
 in motion, with equal rapidity must the hay be preserved 
 and stored away in a place of safety. One thought has led 
 to another; and now to accomplish these various objects, 
 we have the separator run by steam, the plowman riding 
 instead of walking, and opening up four furrows instead of 
 one; the light-running hay rake glides across the field and 
 outstrips the mower; the hay fork, drawn by horses, car¬ 
 ries its burden Avith ease from the ground to the mow, 
 turning an otheiuvise weary task into playtime for the 
 farmer; and faster than the harvester reaps the field, does the 
 grain drill deposit in the earth the soAvings for another year. 
 These are but some of the implements that have followed as 
 a necessity the invention of the reaper by Cyrus Hall 
 McCormick; and Avhile to each individual inventor some 
 applause is due, yet at each neAv thought thus eAmh^ed, the 
 mind promptly reA^erts to the great fundamental idea brought 
 forth by the great inventor. 
 
 As Virginia is the mother of Presidents and was the prime 
 moA^er of that great struggle which established liberty in 
 the Western Hemisphere, so this old dominion gave to the 
 Avorhl the man Avho has liberated the farmer from the thral¬ 
 dom of inefficient instruments to Avhich he had been reduced 
 in all ages, preceding the one in Avhich Ave are privileged to 
 live. On WalniAt Grove Farm, Kockbridge County, of that 
 State, there lived Robert Hall McCormick, a well-to-do 
 
CYRUS HALL MCCORMICK. 
 
 395 
 
 farmer, whose industrious habits'had placed him in easy cir¬ 
 cumstances. The farm was at a great distance from any 
 workshop, and, being extensive, this gentle.man had, as a 
 matter of necessity, supplied himself with carpenter and 
 blacksmith shops, and the means of making and repairing 
 most of the tools and farming implements of the time. 
 Being an inventive genius, he constructed several ma¬ 
 chines for threshing and hemp-breaking, and in 1816 
 devised a reaping machine, which, proving to be a fail¬ 
 ure, Avas condemned and abandoned as a relic of disappointed 
 hope. In later years, he began experimenting a sec¬ 
 ond time, and added some improA^ements to the machine. 
 HaAOug tested its operation in a field of grain on his farm, 
 he became convinced that the principle upon which it aaus 
 constructed could never be practically successful in cutting 
 any promiscuous crop of grain as it stands in the field. 
 Having come to this conclusion, he determined to abandon 
 all further efforts at making the machine a success. 
 
 Robert McCormick and his Avife Mary Ann were of 
 superior intelligence and strength of character, and of such 
 industry as to succeed in life and furnish their children a 
 good education. To these there was born, February 15, 1809, 
 Cyrus Hall McCormick, the subject of this biography. He 
 greAv up into habits of industry, obedience and strict moral¬ 
 ity, being taught by his parents that the fear of the Lord 
 is the beginning of Avisdom, and thus Avas shaped his future 
 life and character, and thus Avas he made capable of the 
 great things he afterAvards accomplished. He inherited his 
 father’s inventive turn of mind, and very early in life saw 
 that agriculture stood in great need of inventions to enable 
 it to achieve its highest possibilities. Opportunities for 
 
396 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 exercising liis talent were offered on the farm. Many a long 
 day the hoy Cyrus spent in shops on the homestead, tinker¬ 
 ing with plows and harrows, and making himself familiar 
 with the use of farming implements. By this means he 
 became expert in the use of tools and in devising methods 
 of overcoming mechanical difficulties. He became so dex¬ 
 terous in the use of tools, that when only fifteen years old, 
 he constructed a grain cradle to be used by himself in the 
 harvest field, and over many a broad acre of grain on the 
 old Virginia farm did he swing this primitive harvester of 
 his boyhood as the forerunner of the great one which was 
 to come. The first effort of this brilliant genius in the 
 improvement of agricultural machinery, after having made 
 this cradle, was the construction of a hill-side plow for 
 throwing alternate furrows on the lower side, being thus a 
 right or left hand plow. The patent for this in 1831 was 
 followed two years later by letters patent for a self-sharp¬ 
 ening horizontal plow, which Avas very superior to the first 
 one constructed. This superior plow Avas simple, strong and 
 durable, and did excellent work on leA^el and hilly ground. 
 It is most probable that the inventor AV’ould have reaped 
 large reAvards from this ploAv, had it not been for the fact 
 that about this time his mind and efforts were directed in 
 the interest of another invention. 
 
 The abandoned reaper of his father lay near the work¬ 
 shop frequented by Cyrus. The problem of cutting grain 
 by machinery absorbed his thoughts day and night in that 
 quiet old home. Though the father discouraged the efforts 
 of the boy, regarding them only as a waste of time, the 
 youth was not set back, but, seemingly inspired by the 
 old machine of his father, he continued his efforts till they 
 
CYKUS HALL MCCORMirK. 
 
 397 
 
 resulted in victory. He soon hecaine convinced that grain 
 standiiig in a field must he acted on in a mass, and that the 
 cutting must he done hy an edged instrument, having a 
 rapid reciprocating motion to make it eil'ective as it advanced. 
 As these ideas matured in his mind, he began, in a crude 
 way at first, to outline the salient points of a great invention; 
 the sickle to cut, the platform to receive the falling grain 
 when cut, and the reel to bring the standing grain within 
 the action of the cutting edge. To effect these combinations 
 taxed his inventive ingenuity to the utmost, but throixgh his 
 inherent traits of patience and perseverance, he conquered 
 every obstacle and came out triumphant. On the Walnut 
 Grove farm tt)-day stands his father’s workshop, wherein, 
 with his oxvn hands, Cyrus made and fashioned every piece 
 of the machine, both wood and iron, which has made his 
 name a household word throughout the farming world. The 
 inventor Avas but Wenty-tAvo years old Avhen his reaper Avas 
 completed; it A\ms in 1831, the year in Avhich his father 
 had abandoned a similar undertaking. The first trial of the 
 machine Avas on the farm of John Steele, a neighbor Avho 
 had a piece of six acres of oats. The machine haiwested 
 this grain and proved a success, to the astonishment of 
 all Avho Avitnessed its trial. The year folloAA'ing this trial, 
 the reaper cut fifty acres of Avheat. For seA^eral years, 
 Avhile experimenting Avith it, he deemed it best to post¬ 
 pone preparing machinery for the market. It is evident 
 that the iiiA^entor himself did not at first grasp the full 
 value of his iiiA^ention, for, an opportunity to embark in 
 the iron-smelting business being presented, he engaged in 
 it, belieAnng that it Avouhl furnish a broader field for the exer¬ 
 cise of his ambition, and secure him larger profits than any 
 
398 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 other business in which he could enffagre. Havinof thus 
 concluded, the reaper was for a time overlooked. It is per¬ 
 haps fortunate for the world that the panic of 1837 occurred, 
 though it brought ruin to every section of the land. In the 
 midst of this panic Mr. McCormick’s partner mortgaged his 
 own private property to his family friends, and left the 
 smelting interests and Mr. McCormick to do the best they 
 could. This misfortune was shared by hi? father’s Avhole 
 family, who united in their efforts, and, by natural industry, 
 good management, and unflinching fidelity, at length extri¬ 
 cated themselves, though at the sacrifice on the part of 
 Cyrus of everything but honor and integrity. This calamity 
 was but a blessing in disguise, and though mourning a 
 disaster, life was really issuing out of death. Reverses quick¬ 
 ened his energies, and, without discouragement, he turned his 
 attention once more to the reaping machine, with the full 
 determination of succeeding in the enterprise. 
 
 The business being entirely new, and the public not 
 acquainted with it, few machines could be sold in the first 
 years of his undertaking. Farming being limited in extent 
 to a few Eastern States, and his plans of operation being in 
 their incipiency, his earliest efforts at manufacturing were 
 to make a few machines by hand on the farm, and sell them 
 as best he could. In this way he worked along for a few 
 years under the protection of his first patent, which was 
 issued to him in 1834. 
 
 Being most observant, and noticing the western march 
 of empire, he soon began to realize that the young West 
 was the field where he could hope to accomplish results 
 commensurate with his energy and determination. Accord¬ 
 ingly, in 1815, he removed to Cincinnati, for the purpose of 
 
CYEUS HALL MCCKKMICK. 
 
 899 
 
 establishing himself there, and during that year he obtained 
 a second patent for several valuable improvements. By the 
 time he had advanced thus far in his efforts, it began to be 
 well known that a machine had been invented ta cut grain 
 by horse-power. Several Inindred machines had been built 
 at Cincinnati, and sold in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, at 
 points that were accessible by river navigation. A few 
 of these machines made in 1845 were sent into Kentucky, 
 Missouri and Tennessee. The use of the reaper into more 
 northern sections was introduced through an arrangement 
 the following year, whereby a firm in Brockport, New York, 
 built the machine on a royalty. 
 
 Additional patents for valuable improvements were pro¬ 
 cured by Mr. McCormick in 1847, and in subsequent 
 }"ears. Year by year he kept up the Avork of experi¬ 
 menting and improving, a task he continued during his 
 entire life, for he never seemed satisfied with present attain¬ 
 ments, but was ever pressing onward for something higher 
 and better. 
 
 While this initial work of introducing the reaping machine 
 was going on at Cincinnati, the vast plains of the West were 
 one unbroken Avilderness; but thither the tide of emigration 
 Avas tending, and it was not long till Mr. McCormick realized 
 that Chicago Avas destined to be the metropolis of the great 
 West, and thither,' in 1847, he removed, aiiel in this great 
 commercial center took up his permanent abode. On his 
 arrival he speedily perfected arrangements Avhereby he was 
 enabled to erect works and to manufacture seven hundred 
 machines in 1848, and so successful was the new business 
 that the next year the manufacture was increased to fifteen 
 hundred machines. 
 
400 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 It required more nerve and Virain and superior judg¬ 
 ment and good business tact, to build up such an enterprise in 
 those early days than to carry on the same at the present 
 time, though the amount of business done now may be 
 greater than that accomplished then by thirty-fold. This 
 is true of Inisiness in many a channel, but it has an especial 
 significance Avhen applied to the enterprise of Mr. McCor¬ 
 mick; for not a mile of the present superb railway system of 
 the West was then in existence, and the slow-going canal 
 boat was the only means of transporting machines from Chi¬ 
 cago to the interior river towns, from which places the 
 farmer had to wagon them from fifty to seventy-five miles 
 to his homo 
 
 The success of the invention having become an assured 
 fact, Mr. McCormick spent much of his time abroad, bring¬ 
 ing his invention to the notice of European agriculturists. 
 He attended the first world's fair in London in 18 -jI. His 
 reaper was on exhibition in the American department, and 
 during the early days of the exposition it was the subject of 
 much ridicule. The London T'lincs alluded to it as some¬ 
 thing like a cross between an Astley chariot, a wheelbai’- 
 row and a fiying machine.” A few weeks later, however, 
 this despised A^ankee invention was put at work in the 
 English grain fields, and the tendency of thought was changed; 
 ridicule was turned into admiration and widespread enthu¬ 
 siasm. After prolonged tests, when the great council medal 
 was awarded its inventor on the ground of the “originality 
 and value of his American reaper,” the same journal made 
 haste to correct its errors, and frankly admitted that the 
 reaper was equal in value to the cost of the entire exhibition. 
 The public press of two continents now sounded the praises 
 
CYRUS HALL MCCORMICK. 
 
 401 
 
 of Mr. McCormick, avIio had iin^ented a machine which has 
 done as much for bettering the condition of mankind as the 
 telegraph, the locomotive or the printing-press. 
 
 The London Jonrncd of Commerce, Aug. 29, 1851, said: 
 “Among all the agricultural implements exhibited in the 
 “great exhibition, and their number and variety are A'ery 
 “great, the great medal has been aAvarded to one, and that of 
 “ American invention; it is Mr. McCormick’s Virginia Reaper. 
 “At an early period after the opening of the exhibition, it 
 “ was made an especial subject of sneers in the newspapers, as 
 “ one of the awkward and outlandish traps from the United 
 “ States. It has been thoroughly tested on different farms, 
 “and now attracts perhaps more attention than any other 
 “ object in the exhibition. The Kohinoor is voted below coii- 
 “ tempt by the side of the Virginia Reaper. You doubtless 
 “have seen the hearty commendation of it in the Times. 
 “ Some English gentlemen of great mark have expressed to 
 “me the opinion that it is the mo:h valuable and important 
 “contribution made to England by the exhibition.” 
 
 At subsequent international exhibitions, he was 
 equally triumphant in securing the highest prizes. At the 
 Paris Exposition in 1855, he was awarded the grand gold 
 medal; seven years later, the Fair at London bestowed upon 
 him the grand prize gold medal; the same year, at a 
 field trial in Lancashire, England, he received the silver 
 medal, the highest prize awarded; in 1803, he received the 
 grand gold medal given at Hamburgh and the Lvo grand 
 gold medals given at Vienna; he Avas made the recipient at 
 Paris, in 1807, of the grand prize, the highest honor of that 
 great exposition, together with the decoration of the Cross of 
 the Legion of Honor; he receRed two bronze medals, the 
 
402 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE, 
 
 highest prize given at Philadelphia in 1876, when the 
 nations of the world assembled in representation, to witness 
 the celebration of our hundredth anniversary; at the expo¬ 
 sition in Paris, which followed in 1878, he received the only 
 grand prize given for harvesting machines, together with 
 the decoration of the Officer of the Legion of Honor, with 
 the election by the French Institute as a member of the 
 Academy of Science in the department of Rural Economy, 
 “as having done more for the cause of agriculture than any 
 other living man;” the same year he obtained the grand gold 
 medal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, in a 
 competitive trial of self wire-binding harvesting machines. 
 In 1879 the’lMcCormick machines were awarded the highest 
 prize at the International Exhibition at Sidney, and in 1880 
 the highest award — a gold medal — for every variety of har¬ 
 vesting machinery at the World’s Fair at Melbourne, Aus¬ 
 tralia; in August of the succeeding year, the McCormick 
 Twine Binder received from the Royal Agricultural Society 
 of England, the gold medal for the most perfect twine binder, 
 after competition at Derby, England, with all the prominent 
 machines from Great Britain and America. At Christ’s 
 Church, New Zealand, 1882, Grozetto, Italy, and Louisville, 
 1883 and 1884, he was equally triumphant in obtaining the 
 highest prize. We suppose Mr. McCormick has been the 
 recipient of more honors from the hands of his fellow-men 
 of all ranks and stations — from the hired laborer in the har¬ 
 vest field to the emperor on his throne — than any other 
 inventor of his day; and yet he was one of the most modest 
 and unassuming of men while rounding out the measure of 
 his life at the head of the great business bearing his name, 
 and in the midst of his happy family, in deeds of benevo¬ 
 lence and philanthropy. 
 
CYRUS HALL MCCORMICK. 
 
 403 
 
 In 1858, Mr. McCormick married a daughter of Melzar 
 Powler, and niece of Judge E. G. Merrick, of Detroit, a 
 beautiful, accomplished and refined lady, Avhose gentleness, 
 charity and good deeds have shed luster on the position she 
 occupies. This happy union was blessed with a family of 
 three daughters and four sons. Two of the children died in 
 infancy. His eldest son, Cyrus H. McCormick, Jr., has, 
 since his father’s death, been elected President of the 
 McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. 
 
 Mr. McCormick was a Presbyterian, and his Christianity 
 took a practical turn during his life. His desire for doing 
 good was gratified by deeds of wisdom, judgment and gen¬ 
 erosity. He donated one hundred thousand dollars to have 
 the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of the Northwest 
 located at Chicago, and during all the struggles of this 
 institution in after years, he continued to supply its empty 
 treasury with funds as its necessities demanded, until the 
 original donation was increased nearly fourfold. He donated 
 twenty thousand dollars to Washington and Lee Univer¬ 
 sities ; endowed a professorship in Union Theological Semi¬ 
 nary with thirty thousand dollars, and, through his 
 timely assistance, imparted new life and energy to many 
 a struggling church and college. In the city of his adop¬ 
 tion, he erected many of its most costly and ornate business 
 blocks, and when the great fire of 1871 laid all in ashes, he 
 was among the first to spring forward with plans and means 
 for rebuilding on a still grander scale. No impediment was 
 too great, no combination of difficulties too intricate, and no 
 opposition too strong for him to overcome. This trait was 
 peculiarly exemplified in 1871, when his great reaper works, 
 with every vestige of machinery and patterns, were destroyed. 
 
404 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Being at an advanced age, lie was advised by his friends to 
 retire from active business, lie then being in possession of a 
 large fortune, but the fixed purpose of the man was exem¬ 
 plified in the reply: “ I know of no better place for a man 
 to die than in the harnessand so he rebuilt the reaper works 
 on a grander scale than ever. During the last years of his life 
 rheumatic affections interfered with his much loved exercise 
 on horseback, and enforced sedentary habits began to tell on 
 his general health. After a brief illness, he died at his 
 home May 13, 1884, having completed the seventy-fifth 
 year of his life. Up to his death, though a confii’med 
 invalid, his mental powers continued vigorous, and tho 
 energy, foresight and comprehensive grasp with which he 
 disposed of all the knotty business problems incident to 
 such an extended business as he presided over, were remarka¬ 
 ble for one in his physical condition. 
 
 In the death of Mr. Cyrus Hall McCormick, America lost, 
 a grandly representative citizen, and the world one of its 
 greatest benefactors. Unpretending man as he was, he had 
 been the guest of kings and emperors. He lived a life of 
 the highest order of nobility, himself a king without a crown. 
 His Avere the victories of peace. To his fertile brain the 
 world stands indebted for one of the most valuable of labor- 
 saving machines; to his industry, generosity and enterprise, 
 the city of Chicago, and the religious denomination to which 
 he belonged, owes a debt of gratitude which money is power¬ 
 less to liquidate. Mr. McCormick was in every respect a 
 typical American. He was also a natural inA^entor, and, 
 unlike most inA'entors, he was a good business man, possessing 
 a spirit of restless energy and enterprise that faced every 
 obstacle and yielded to no antagonism. 
 
CYRUS HALL MCCORMICK. 
 
 4(Jo 
 
 His name will go down to posterity as one of the great 
 benefactors of the human race, whose victories have been 
 won in the successful effort to lessen toil and bless mankind. 
 The works of such a man, founded on industry, determina¬ 
 tion, honesty, and Christian faith, shall live through all 
 time, and are his best monument, and through them, “he, 
 being dead, yet speaketh.” 
 
 It is estimated that there are at this time 500,000 
 McCormick machines in existence, capable of harvesting 
 annually 150,000,000 acres of grain and grass, an area 
 almost equal to the entire surface of the great States of 
 New Yoijk, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, requiring an 
 army of 500,000 men and 1,000,000 horses, and furnishing 
 employment for tens of thousands engaged in handling and 
 transporting the vast grain crops of the world. 
 
 In view of these wonderful achievements of the McCor¬ 
 mick reaping machines, how prophetic now seems the utter¬ 
 ance of an eminent American Statesman regarding it some 
 years ago. In 1859 the late Hon. Reverdy Johnson, in an 
 argument before the Commissioner of patents, said that 
 “ the McCormick reaper had already contributed an annual 
 income to the whole country of over fifty-five million dollars 
 at least, which must increase through all time.” 
 
 This prophecy has been more than realized, and undoubt¬ 
 edly this avant-courier of civilization will continue its march 
 onward, conquering and to conquer, as it has in the past, 
 until every available acre of this great continent shall be 
 reclaimed, and made to bloom as the garden of the Lord. 
 
• « 
 
 .^PjldL . A v^. 
 
 [s 
 
IV. 
 
 EDITORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 JAMES GORDON BENNETT. 
 
 AMES GORDON BENNETT was born at New 
 Mill, Keith, in Bantfshire, on the north-eastern 
 coast of Scotland, about the year 1800. His 
 relatives were Roman Catholies, and he was 
 brought up in a Catholic family of French origin. 
 In his fourteenth year, having passed through the primary 
 schools of his native place, he entered the Roman Catholic 
 Seminary at Aberdeen, for the purpose of studying for the 
 priesthood of that Church. During the two or three years 
 which he passed here he was a close student, and acquired the 
 basis of an excellent education. 
 
 In 1817 he came into possession of a copy of Benjamin 
 Franklin's autobiography, which had been recently published 
 in Scotland. The perusal of this little book changed the course 
 of his whole life. It induced him to abandon all thoughts of 
 the priesthood, and to try his fortune in the New World, in 
 which the great philosopher had succeeded so well before him. 
 A little more than a year later he left Glasgow, and in May, 
 1819, being now about twenty years old, landed at Halifax, 
 
 407 
 
408 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Xova Scotia. Ho had less than twenty-five dollars in his purse^ 
 knew no vocation save that of a book-keeper, and had not a 
 friend on this side of the ocean. 
 
 He seciu’ed a few pupils in Halifax, and gave lessons in 
 book-keeping, but his profits were so small that ho determined 
 to reach the United States as soon as possible. Accordingly he 
 made his way along the coast to Portland, IMaine, where he 
 took passage for Boston in a small schooner. He found great 
 difficulty in procuring employment, for Boston then, as now, 
 offered but few inducements to new-comers. He parted with 
 his last penny, and was reduced to the most pressing want. 
 For two whole days he Avent without food, and a third day 
 Avould doubtless have been added to his fast had he not been 
 fortunate enough to find a shilling on the Common, with which 
 he procured the means of relieving his hunger. He now ob¬ 
 tained a .salesman’s place in the bookstore of Messrs. AVells & 
 Lilly, who, upon discovering his fitness for the place, trans¬ 
 ferred him to their printing-office as proof-reader; but his em- 
 ployers failed about two years after his connection with them 
 began, and he was again thrown out of employment. 
 
 From Boston he Avent, in 1822, to Xcav T^ork, where he ob¬ 
 tained a situation on a newspaper. Soon after his arriA'al in the 
 metropolis he A\’as offered, by Mr. Wellington, the proprietor of 
 the “ Charleston (S. C.) Courier,” the position of translator from 
 the Spanish, and general assistant. He accepted the offer, and 
 at once repaired to Charleston. He remained there only a fcAv 
 months, hoAvever, and then returned to Xcav York. 
 
 He noAv proposed to open a “ Permanent Commercial School,” 
 at 148 Fulton Street, and advertised to teach the usual branches 
 ‘Hn the inductive method.” His advertisement set forth that 
 his pupils would be taught “reading, elocution, penmanship, 
 and arithmetic; algebra, astronomy, hi.story, and geography; 
 
JA.MKS (iOIU)OX BKNNETT. 
 
 401> 
 
 moral philosophy, commercial law, ami political economy; 
 English grammar and composition, and, also, if required, the 
 French and Spanish languages by natives of those countries.’’ 
 This elaborate scheme was never put into execution, as Mr. 
 Bennett did not receive a sufficient number of applications to 
 warrant him in opening the school. He next attempted a 
 course of lectures on political economy at the old Dutch Church 
 in Ann Street, but this enterprise was also a pecuniary failure. 
 In 1825 he purchased the “ New York Courier,” a Sunday paper, 
 but did not succeed with it. He continued to write for the 
 press, principally for one or two papers, selling his articles 
 where he could, and in 1826 formed a regular connection with 
 the “National Advocate,” a Democratic journal. To his duties 
 in this position he applied himself with an energy and industry 
 never surpassed, and rarely equaled, in his profession. He took 
 an active part in politics, and wrote regularly and constantly 
 for his paper, acquiring considerable reputation by his articles 
 against the tariff and on ^anks and banking. He now em¬ 
 barked in journalism as the business of his life, and with the 
 determination to succeed. In order to win success, he knew 
 he must first learn to master himself. He neither smoked, 
 drank, nor gambled. He»indulged in no species of dissipation, 
 but was temperate and prudent in all things. A few years 
 later he said of himself, “I eat and drink to live, not live to 
 eat and drink. Social glasses of wine are my aversion; public 
 dinners are my abomination; all species of gormandizing my 
 utter .scorn and contempt. When I am hungry, I eat; when 
 thirsty, drink. Wine or viands taken for society, or to stimu¬ 
 late conversation, tend only to dissipation, indolence, poverty, 
 contempt, and death.” 
 
 In 1827 the “National Advocate” changed hands, and, under 
 its new })roprietors, supported John Quincy Adams for Presi- 
 
410 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 dent. Mr. Bennett, being a supporter of Martin Van Buren, 
 then a United States Senator, resigned his position on the paper, 
 and soon after, in connection with the late M. M. Noah, estab¬ 
 lished “ The Enquirer,” which warmly espoused the cause of 
 Andrew Jackson in the Presidential canvass of 1828. About 
 this time he became a recognized member of the Tammany 
 Society. 
 
 In the spring of 1828 he went to Washington, where he re¬ 
 sided for some time as the correspondent of “ The Enquirer.” 
 In looking through the library of Congress one day, he found 
 an edition of Horace Walpole’s letters, which he read with a 
 keen relish. These suggested the idea of a series of similar 
 letters to his own paper, and he at once put his plan into exe¬ 
 cution. His letters were written and published. They were 
 spicy,” pleasant in style, full of gossip about the distinguished 
 personages who thronged the capital every winter, and, withal, 
 free from any offensive personality. They were read with 
 eagerness, and widely copied by the press throughout, the coun¬ 
 try. Yet he was poorly paid for them, and at a time when he 
 had made a “ real hit ” was forced to labor hard for a bare sub¬ 
 sistence. He did all kinds of literary w'ork. He wrote edito¬ 
 rials, letters, sketches, poetry, stories, police reports, in short, 
 every thing that a newspaper had use for, and yet his earnings 
 were barely more than sufficient to afford him a decent support. 
 
 In 1829, the “Courier and Enquirer” were united under one 
 management, and Mr. Bennett was made assistant editor, with 
 James Watson Webb as his chief. In the autumn of that 
 year he became associate editor. Says Mr. James Parton (by 
 no means an ardent admirer of Mr. Bennett): 
 
 “During the great days of the ‘Courier and Enquirer,’ from 
 1829 to 1832, when it was incomparably the best newspaper 
 on the continent, James Gordon Bennett was its most efficient 
 
JAMES GORDON BENNETT. 
 
 411 
 
 liaud. It lost him in 1832, when the paper abandoned General 
 Jackson and took up Nicholas Biddle, and in losing him lost 
 its chance of retaining the supremacy among American news¬ 
 papers to this day. We can truly say that at that time jour¬ 
 nalism, as a thing by itself and for itself, had no existence in 
 the United States. Newspapers were mere appendages of 
 party, and the darling object of each journal was to be recog¬ 
 nized as the organ of the party it supported. As to the public, 
 the great public, hungry for interesting news, no one thought 
 of it. Forty years ago, in the city of New York, a copy of a 
 newspaper could not be bought for money. If any one wished 
 to see a newspaper, he had either to go to the office and sub¬ 
 scribe, or repair to a bar-room and buy a glass of something 
 to drink, or bribe a carrier to rob one of his customers. The 
 circulation of the ‘Courier and Enquirer’ was considered some¬ 
 thing marvelous when it printed thirty-five hundred copies a 
 day, and its business was thought immense when its daily ad¬ 
 vertising averaged fifty-five dollars. It is not very unusual 
 for a newspaper now to receive for advertising, in one day, six 
 hundred times that sum. Bennett, in the course of time, had a 
 chance been given to him, would have made the ‘ Courier and 
 Enquirer’ powerful enough to cast off all party ties, and this he 
 would have done merely by improving it as a vehicle of news. 
 But he was kept down upon one of those ridiculous, tantaliz¬ 
 ing, corrupting salaries, which are a little more than a single 
 man needs, but not enough for him to marry upon. This sal¬ 
 ary was increased by the proprietors giving him a small share 
 in the small profits of the printing-office; so that, after fourteen 
 years of hard labor and Scotch economy, he found himself, on 
 leaving the great paper, a capitalist to the extent of a few hun¬ 
 dred dollars. The chief editor of the paper which he now 
 abandoned sometimes lost as much in a single evening at the 
 
412 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 card-table. It probably never occurred to him that this poor, 
 ill-favored Scotchman was destined to destroy his paper and all 
 the class of papers to which it belonged. Any one who exam¬ 
 ines a file of the ‘ Courier and Enquirer ’ of that time, and 
 knows its interior circumstances, will see plainly enough that 
 the possession of this man was the vital element in its pros- 
 peritv. He alone knew the rudiments of his trade. He alone 
 had the physical stamina, the indefatigable industry, the 
 sleepless vigilance, the dexterity, tact, and audacity needful 
 for keeping up a daily newspaper in the face of keen com¬ 
 petition.” 
 
 Mr. Bennett left the “Courier and Enquirer” in 1832, the 
 cause of his action being the desertion of General Jackson 
 by that journal. He at once started a cheap partisan paper, 
 called “ The Globe,” devoted to the interests of Jackson and 
 Van Buren. It failed to receive the support of the Democratic 
 party, however, and went down after a precarious existence of 
 thirty days. * 
 
 Undismayed by this failure, Mr. Bennett removed to Phila¬ 
 delphia, and invested the remainder of his capital in a daily 
 Democratic journal, called “ The Pennsylvanian,” of which he 
 was the principal editor, laboring hard to win for it the assist¬ 
 ance and support of the party. He had rendered good and 
 admitted service to the Democracy, but was to experience the 
 ingratitude for which political organizations are proverbial. 
 He applied to Martin Van Buren and other prominent leaders 
 of the party to aid him in securing a loan of twenty-five hun¬ 
 dred dollars for two years, which sum would have enabled him 
 to establish his paper on a paying basis, but the politicians 
 turned deaf ears to his appeals, and his paper failed, after a 
 brief and desperate struggle. 
 
 He came back to Xew York about the beginning of 1835, a 
 
JAMKS GORDON BENNETT. 
 
 413 
 
 little sore from his luisuecessfLil battle with fate, but far from 
 being dismayed or cast down. His failures to establish party 
 organs had convinced him that success in journalism does not 
 depend upon political favor, and he determined to make one 
 more effort to build up a paper of his own, and this time one 
 which should aim to please no party but the public. That 
 there was need of an independent journal of this kind he felt 
 sure, and he knew the people of the country well enough to be 
 confident that if such a journal could be properly placed before 
 them, it would succeed. The problem wdth him was how to 
 get it properly before them. He had little or no money, and 
 it required considerable capital to carry through the most insig¬ 
 nificant effort of the kind. He made several efforts to inspire 
 other persons with his confidence before he succeeded. One of 
 these efforts Mr. Parton thus describes, in his Life of Horace 
 Greeley: “An incident connected with the job-office of Greeley 
 & Co. is perhaps worth mentioning here. One James Gordon 
 Bennett, a person then well known as a smart writer for the 
 press, came to Horace Greeley, and, exhibiting a fifty-dollar 
 bill and some other notes of smaller denominations as his cash 
 capital, wanted him to join in setting up a new daily paper, 
 ‘ The New York Herald.’ Our hero declined the offer, but 
 recommended James Gordon to apply to another printer, 
 naming one, who he thought would like to share in such an 
 enter})rise. To him the editor of ‘ The Herald ’ did apply, 
 and with success.” 
 
 The j)arties to whom Mr. Greeley referred Mr. Bennett were 
 two young printers, whom he persuaded, after much pains¬ 
 taking, to print his paper and share with him its success or 
 failure. He had about enough cash in hand to sustain the 
 paper for ten days, after which it must make its own way. He 
 proposed to make it cheap—to sell it at one penny per co])y, 
 
414 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 and to make it meet the current wants of the day. The “ Sun/' 
 a penny paper, was already in existence, and was paying well, 
 and this encouraged Mr. Bennett to hope for success in his own 
 »^terprise. 
 
 He rented a cellar in Wall Street, in which he established 
 iis office, and on the 6th of May, 1835, issued the first num¬ 
 ber of “ The Morning Herald." His cellar was bare and pov¬ 
 erty-stricken in appearance. It contained nothing but a desk 
 made of boards laid upon flour barrels. On one end of this 
 desk lay a pile of “ Heralds” ready for purchasers, and at th^ 
 other sat the proprietor writing his articles for his journal and 
 managing his business. Says Mr. William Gowans, the famous 
 Nassau-Street bookseller: “ I remember to have entered tl)e 
 subterranean office of its editor early in its career, and pur¬ 
 chased a single copy of the paper, for which I paid the sum of 
 one cent United States currency. On this occasion the pro¬ 
 prietor, editor, and vendor was seated at his desk, busily en¬ 
 gaged in writing, and appeared to pay little or no attention to 
 me as I entered. On making known my object in coming in, 
 he requested me to put my money down on the counter and 
 help myself to a paper, all this time he continuing his writing 
 operations. The office was a single oblong underground room; 
 its furniture consisted of a counter, which also served as a desk, 
 constructed from two flour barrels, perhaps empty, standing 
 apart from each other about four feet, with a single plank 
 covering both; a chair, placed in the center, upon which sat 
 the editor busy at his vocation, with an inkstand by his right 
 hand; on the end nearest the door were placed the papers 
 for sale.” 
 
 Standing on Broadway now, and looking at the marble 
 palace from which the greatest and wealthiest newspaper in the 
 Union sends forth its huge editions, one finds it hard to real- 
 
JAMES GORDON BENNETT. 
 
 417 
 
 ize that just fifty-three years ago this great journal was born 
 in a cellar, an obscure little penny sheet, with a poor man for 
 its proprietor. Yet such was the beginning of “The New York 
 Herald.” 
 
 The prospect was not a pleasant one to contemplate, but Mr. 
 Bennett did not shrink from it. He knew that it was in him 
 to succeed, and he meant to do it, no matter through what 
 trials or vicissitudes his path to fortune lay. Those who heard 
 his expressions of confidence shook their heads sagely, and said 
 the young man’s air-castles would soon fade away before the 
 blighting breath of experience. Indeed, it did seem a hopeless 
 struggle, the effort of this one poor man to raise his little 
 penny sheet from its cellar to the position of “ a power in the 
 land.” He was almost unknown. He could bring no support 
 or patronage to his journal by the influence of his name, or by 
 his large acquaintance. The old newspaper system, with its 
 clogs and dead-weights, was still in for(;e, and as for newsboys 
 to hawk the new journal over the great city, they were a race 
 not then in existence. He had to fight his battle with poverty 
 alone and without friends, and he did fight it bravely. He was 
 his own clerk, reporter, editor, and errand boy. He wrote all 
 the articles that appeared in “ The Herald,” and many of the 
 advertisements, and did all the work that was to be performed 
 about his humble office. 
 
 “The Herald” was a small sheet of four pages of four 
 oolumns each. Nearly every line of it was fresh news. Quo¬ 
 tations from other papers were scarce. Originality was then, 
 as now, the motto of the establishment. Small as it was, tlie 
 paper was attractive. The story that its first numbers were 
 scurrilous and indecent is not true, as a reference to the old 
 files of the journal will prove. They were of a character sim- 
 iHr to that of “ The Herald ” of to-day, and were marked by 
 
418 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 the same industry, tact, and freshness, which make the paper 
 to-day the most salable in the land. 
 
 Said j\Ir. Parton: “ The first numbers were filled with non¬ 
 sense and gossip about the city of Xew York, to which his 
 poverty confined him. He had no boat with which to board 
 arriving ships, no share in the pony express from Washington, 
 and no correspondents in other cities. All he could do was to 
 catch the floating gossip, scandal, and folly of the town, and 
 pi’esent as much of them every day as one man could get upon 
 paper by sixteen hours’ labor. He laughed at every thing and 
 every body,—not excepting himself and his squint eye,—and 
 though his jokes were not always good, they were generally 
 good enough. People laughed, and were willing to expend a 
 cent the next day to see what new folly the man would com¬ 
 mit or relate. We all like to read about our own neighbor¬ 
 hood ; this paper gratified the i)ropensity. 
 
 “The man, we repeat, had really a vein of poetry in him, 
 and the first numbers of ‘The Herald’ show it. He had oc¬ 
 casion one day to mention that Broadway was about to be paved 
 with wooden blocks. This was not a very promising subject 
 for a poetical comment, but he added : ‘ When this is done, 
 every vehicle will have to wear sleigh-bells, as in sleighing 
 times, and Broadway will be so quiet that you can pay a com¬ 
 pliment to a lady, in passing, and she will hear you.’ This 
 was nothing in itself; but here was a man wrestling with fate 
 in a cellar, who could turn you out two hundred such jiara- 
 graphs a week, the year round. INIcn can growl in a cellar; 
 t4iis man could laugh, and kee]> laugiiing, and make the float¬ 
 ing population of a city laugh^with him. It must be owned, 
 too, that he had a little real insight into the nature of things 
 around him—a little Scotch sense, as well as an inexhaustible 
 fund of French vivacity. Alluding, once, to the ‘hard money’ 
 
JAMES GORDON DENNETT. 
 
 410 
 
 cry by which the lying politicians of the day carried elections, 
 he ex 2 )loded that nonsense in two lines: ‘ If a man gets the 
 wearable or the eatable he wants, what cares he if lie has gold 
 or jiaper money ?’ He devoted two sentences to the Old School 
 and New School Presbyterian controversy: ‘Great trouble 
 among the Presbyterians just now. The question is whether or 
 not a man can do any thing toward saving his own soul.’ He 
 had also an article ujion the INIethodists, in which he said that 
 the two religions nearest akin were the Methodist and the Roman 
 Catholic. We should add to these trifling specimens the fact 
 that he uniformly maintained, from 1835 to the crash of 1837, 
 that the jirosperity of the country was unreal, and would end 
 in disaster.” 
 
 These things served the end for which they were intended. 
 They brouglit “The Herald ” conspicuously before the public. 
 While engaged in them, the proprietor was anxiously planning 
 the means of making his paper a great netespaper. He worked 
 sixteen or seventeen hours each day. He rose before five o’clock 
 in the morning, and gave three hours to writing his editorials 
 and the witty paragraphs to which allusion has been made. 
 At eight o’clock he went to his cellar, or “ office,” and was at 
 his post there during the morning, selling his papei’s, receiving 
 advertisements, and often writing them for those who were not 
 able to prepare them, doing such other work as was necessary, 
 and finishing his editorial labors. At one o’clock he went into 
 Wall Street, gathering uj) financial news and interesting items 
 of the street. He returned to his office at four o’clock, and 
 remained there until six, when the business of the day was 
 over. In the evening he went to the theater, a ball, concert, 
 or some public gathering, to pick up fresh items for his paper. 
 
 All this while, however, he was losing money. He had a 
 heavy load to carry, and though he bore it unflinchingly and 
 
420 
 
 KINGS OF KOill'tfNE. 
 
 determinedly, the enterprise seemed doomed to failure for lack 
 of funds. At this juncture, he resolved to make the financial 
 news of the day a special feature of “ The Herald.” The mon¬ 
 etary affairs of the country were in great confusion—a confu¬ 
 sion which was but the prelude to the crash of 1837; and Wall 
 Street was the vortex of the financial whirlpool whose eddies 
 were troubling the whole land. Every body was anxious to get 
 the first news from the street, and to get it as full and reliable 
 as possible. At this time, too, our relations with France were 
 exceedingly critical—a circumstance which served to increase 
 the trouble in financial matters. Appreciating the anxiety 
 which was generally felt on this subject, Mr. Bennett resolved 
 to create a demand for “ The Herald ” among the business men 
 of the country. On the 13th of June, 1835, just five weeks 
 after the establishment of the paper, he printed his first money 
 article—the first that ever a])pcared in an American newspaper. 
 It was as follows: 
 
 COifMERCIAL. 
 
 Stocks yesterday maintained their prices during the session of the 
 Board, several going up. Utica went up 2 per cent.; the others sta¬ 
 tionary. Large quantities were sold. After the Board adjourned and 
 the news from France was talked over, the fancy stocks generally went 
 down 1 to 11 per cent.; the other stocks quite firm. A rally was made 
 by the bulls in the evening under the trees, hut it did not succeed. There 
 will he a great fight in the Board to-day. The good jieople up town are 
 anxious to know what the brokers think of Mr. Living.ston. We shall 
 find out, and let them know. 
 
 The cotton and flour markets rallied a little. The rise of cotton in 
 Liverpool drove it up here a cent or so. The last shippers will make 
 2i per cent. Many are endeavoring to produce the impression that there 
 will be a war. If the impression prevails, naval stores will go up a 
 good deal. Every eye is outstretched for the “Constitution.” Hudson, 
 of the Merchants News Room, says he will hoist out the first flag. Gil- 
 
jAMEb GORDON BENNETT. 
 
 421 
 
 pin, of the Exchange News Room, says he will have her name down in 
 his room one hour before his competitor. The latter claims having beat 
 Hudson yesterday by an hour and ten minutes in chronicling the “Eng¬ 
 land.” 
 
 Tlie money article was a success, and appeared regularly in 
 “ The Herald ” after this. It created a demand for the paper 
 among the merchants, and increased its cireulation so decidedly 
 that at the end of the third month the daily receipts and ex¬ 
 penditures balanced each other. Mr. Bennett now ventured to 
 engage a cheap police reporter, wdiich gave him more time to 
 attend to other duties. 
 
 The paper now seemed on the point of becoming a success, 
 when it received a severe and unlooked-for blow. The print¬ 
 ing-office was burned down, and the gentlemen wdio had printed 
 “The Herald ” w’ere so much discouraged that they refused to 
 renew their connection with it. Mr. Bennett knew that he was 
 too near to success to abandon the enterj)rise, and courageously 
 put his wits to work to devise means to carry on the paper. 
 By the greatest and most indomitable exertions he managed to 
 secure the means of going on with it, and bravely resumed its 
 publication alone. 
 
 A few months after this the “great fire” swept over New 
 York, and laid nearly the whole business portion of the city 
 in ashes. This was Mr. Bennett’s opportunity. The other 
 journals of the city devoted a brief portion of their space to 
 general and ponderous descriptions of tijic catastrophe, but ISIr. 
 Bennett went among the ruins, note-book and pencil in hand, 
 and gathered up the most minute particulars of the fire. He 
 spent one-half of each day in this way, and the other half in 
 writing out reports of what he thus learned. These rc'ports 
 he published in “The Herald.” They were free, graphic, off¬ 
 hand sketches of the fire and its consequences, and were so full 
 
422 
 
 KINGS OS’ FORTUNE. 
 
 and complete that they left little or nothing connected with 
 the incidents they described to be added. Mr. Bennett also 
 went to the expense of publishing a picture of the burning of 
 the Merchants Exchange, and a map of the burnt district— 
 a heavy expense for his little journal. The result proved the 
 sagacity of his views. “ The Herald ” reports of the fire 
 created a heavy demand for the paper, and its circulation in¬ 
 creased rapidly. Yet its success was not assured. 
 
 When his first year closed, Mr. Bennett found his paper still 
 struggling for existence, but with a fair prospect of success, if it 
 could follow up tlie “ hit ” it had made with its reports of the 
 fire. About this time he received an offer from Dr. Benjamin 
 Brandreth to advertise his pills in ‘'The Herald,” and a con¬ 
 tract was at once concluded between them. The money thus 
 paid to the paper was a considerable sum, and proved of the 
 greatest assistance to it. All the money received was con¬ 
 scientiously expended in the purchase of news. The circulation 
 grew larger as its news facilities increased, and for some yeai-s 
 its proprietor expended all his profits in making the paper more 
 attractive. 
 
 At the close of the fifteenth month of its career Mr. Bennett 
 increased the size of “The Herald,” and raised the price of it 
 to two cents per copy. His success was now assured, and con¬ 
 tinued to increase, as, under his able and far-seeing manage¬ 
 ment, his paper expanded and enlarged its facilities for secur¬ 
 ing and making public the promptest and most reliable news of 
 the day. After that time his success was unvarying. He has 
 made “The Herald” the leading newspaper of the world, for 
 no other journal upon the globe could compare with it in 
 liberality and energy in the collection of news or in prompt¬ 
 ness and completeness of detail in laying it before the public. 
 Its growth was slow, but sure. Every step had been won by 
 
JAMES GORDON BENNETT. 
 
 423 
 
 hard and conscientious labor, as well as by the force of real 
 genius. Other journals have been compelled to follow the ex¬ 
 ample of “The Herald,” but none have surpassed it. It still 
 stands at the head of the newspaper press of the world, and we 
 are justified in believing that it will continue to stand there as 
 long as the present owner controls it. 
 
 Instead of the little penny sheet of fifty years ago, “ The 
 New York Herald” of to-day is an immense journal, gener¬ 
 ally of twenty and often of twenty-four pages of six columns 
 each, making a total of from 120 to 144 closely printed 
 columns of matter. From four to nine pages are filled 
 with advertisements, classified with the utmost exactness. No 
 reader has to search the paj)er over for the article or advertise¬ 
 ment he wishes to see; each subject has its sej)arate place, which 
 can be discovered at a glance. Its advertisements have refer¬ 
 ence to every trade, profession, or calling known to civilized 
 man, and are a faithful mirror of the busy age in which wc live. 
 Its news reports are the freshest, most com})lete, and most 
 graphic of any American journal, and are collected at an expen¬ 
 diture of more time, care, and money than any other journal 
 secs fit to lay out. It has its correspondents in all parts of the 
 world, and when news is worth sending, these are instructed to 
 spare no pains or exjiense in transmitting it at once. During 
 the late war it had a small army of attaches in the field, and its 
 reports were the most eagerly sought of all by the })ublic. 
 During the Abyssinian war its importers and correspondents fur¬ 
 nished the London press with reliable news advance, of their 
 own correspondents. Any price is paid for news, for it was 
 the chief wish of Mr. Bennett that “The Herald” should 
 be the first to chronicle the events of the day. 
 
 “ The Herald ” office is now located at the corner of Bi'oadwav 
 and Ann Street. The building, of white marble, is five stories 
 
424 
 
 KINGS OK KOKTCNE. 
 
 in height, and is one of the handsomest in the country. It is 
 the most complete newspaper establishment in existence. It 
 has two cellars, in which are placed the two steam-engines that 
 drive the huge presses which strike off the various editions of 
 “The Herald.” Every thing is in perfect order, and the ma¬ 
 chinery shines like polished gold and silver. The proprietor’s 
 eye was upon the whole establishment, and he was quick to 
 notice and reprimand a fault. The street floor contains the busi¬ 
 ness office of the journal, a magnificent room, gorgeous with 
 marble, plate-glass, black walnut, and frescoes. The edito¬ 
 rial rooms are above, and near them are the reporters’ rooms. 
 The top floor constitutes the finest composing room in the 
 world, from which speaking-tubes and vertical railways com¬ 
 municate with all the other parts of the building. Every 
 department of the paper has a responsible head, and the 
 most rigid discipline prevails throughout the office. There 
 are twelve editors, thirty-five reporters, and four hundred 
 and fifty-three other employes, making a total force of five 
 hundred men engaged upon “The Herald.” The circulation 
 of the various editions of the paper amounts to tens of 
 thousands. It is to be found in every town of importance 
 in the land, and its daily receipts from advertisements alone 
 are counted by tens of thousands of dollars. 
 
 Latterly Mr. Bennett rarely wrote for the paper. He as¬ 
 sembled his editors in his council at noon every day, heard 
 their suggestions, decided what topics should be treated in 
 the next day’s issue, and assigned to each man the subject 
 upon which he was to write. In his absence his place at the 
 council-board was filled by his son, or by the managing ed¬ 
 itor. Mr. Bennett in this way exercised a close supervision 
 over all the articles that appeared in “ The Herald,” and 
 imparted to them a considerable share of his personality. 
 
JAMES aOEDON BENNeTT. 
 
 425 
 
 Mr. Bennett married, and had two children, a son, James 
 Gordon Bennett, jr., who succeeded his father in the owner¬ 
 ship of the “The Herald,” and a daughter. He is said to 
 have been a courtly and agreeable host, and one who rarely 
 failed to send away his visitors with a pleasant impression 
 of himself. 
 
 In person he was tall and firmly built, and walked with a 
 dignified carriage. His head was large, and his features 
 prominent and irregular. He had a thoroughly Scotch face, 
 and was cross-eyed. His forehead was broad and high, 
 betokening great capacity and force of character. His expres¬ 
 sion was firm and somewhat cold—that of a man who had 
 had a hard fight with fortune, and had conquered it. He 
 was reserved in his manner to strangers, but always courteous 
 and approachable. To his friends he was genial and unre¬ 
 served. He was finely educated, and was said to be a man 
 of excellent taste. His favorite studies were history and 
 biography, and he pursued them with a keen relish. His 
 home was one of the most elegant in the city. He was proud 
 of his success, and very proud of the fact that he owed it to 
 himself alone. While he was building the neiv “Herald” 
 office, he was waited on by the president of one of the 
 national banks of the city, who said to him: 
 
 “Mr. Bennett, we know that you are at great expense in 
 erecting this building, besides carrying on your immense 
 business. If you want any accommodation, you can have it 
 at our bank.” 
 
 “Mr. - ,” replied Mr. Bennett,” before I purchased the 
 
 land, or began to build, I had on deposit two hundred and 
 fifty thousand dollars in the Chemical bank. There is not a 
 dollar due on ‘ The Herald ’ building that I can not pay. I 
 
426 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 would pay off tlie mortgage to-morrow, if the owner would 
 allow me to do so. When the building is opened, I shall 
 not owe one dollar to any man, if I am allowed to pay. I 
 owe nothing that I can not discharge in an hour. I have 
 not touched one dollar of the money on deposit in the bank, 
 and while that remains I need no accommodation.” 
 
 The founder of America’s greatest newspaper died June 
 1, 1872, at the age of seventy-seven years. His son who 
 succeeded him in the management of The Herald, has con¬ 
 ducted it to the present time with singular ability. It has 
 grown vastly in wealth and influence during the past few 
 years. A year before his death the elder Bennett con¬ 
 ceived and set under way an expedition into Central Africa, 
 under the charge of Henry M. Stanley, then a valued mem¬ 
 ber of The Herald staff. The twofold object of this 
 expedition was to discover the whereabouts of Livingston, 
 the great explorer, who had long been lost to the world 
 amid African jungles, and to make explorations in the 
 heart of the unknown country. The expedition was emi¬ 
 nently successful in carrying out both its purposes. Mr. 
 Stanley w’on for himself the title of a great explorer. 
 Several years after his flrst explorations he was again sent 
 to Africa by the younger Bennett, and there rendered great 
 service in the cause of science Following in other fields 
 the example of his father the present proprietor of The 
 Herald sent an exploring party to the Arctic regions. His 
 latest enterprise has been the securing of a special tele¬ 
 graphic cable to the Old World. 
 
ROBERT BONNER. 
 
 427 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 ROBERT BONNER. 
 
 OBERT BONNER was born in the north of 
 Ireland, near tlie town of Londonderry, ahotit 
 the year 1824. He came to this country when 
 a mere child, and was brought np in the State 
 of Connecticut, where he received a good com¬ 
 mon-school education.. 
 
 Manifesting a decided liking for the printer’s trade, he was 
 placed at an early age in the office of the “ Hartford Courant,” 
 where he took his first lessons in the art of setting type. He 
 entered upon the business with the determination to learn it 
 thoroughly, and when he had mastered his trade soon acquired 
 the reputation of being the best workman in Hartford. As a 
 compositor, he was not only neat and thorough, but was re¬ 
 markably rapid as well. On one occasion, when the “Courant” 
 was endeavoring to publish the “President’s Message” in ad¬ 
 vance of all its competitors, Mr. Bonner is said to have worked 
 at the rate of seventeen hundred ems an hour—a feat absolutely 
 un|)aralleled. 
 
 In 1844, he removed to New York and engaged in the 
 office of a new journal, called the “American Republican,” 
 then lately established as the organ of the American jiarty in 
 that city, upon which he worked steadily during its brief 
 
428 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 career. His wages were stuall, and it was only by practicing 
 the most rigid economy that he could live upon them. 
 
 When the “ Republican ” suspended publication, Mr. Bon¬ 
 ner was employed in the office of the “ Evening Mirror,” pub¬ 
 lished by Morris, Mdllis & Fuller. Here he made himself so 
 useful, that the business of getting up or displaying advertise¬ 
 ments attractively was soon left entirely to him. His taste in 
 this department was almost faultless, and the advertisements of 
 the “Mirror” soon became noted for their neat and handsome 
 appearance. 
 
 At this time there was published in New York a small, 
 struggling paper, exclusively mercantile in its character, called 
 the “ Merchants’ Ledger.” This paper was almost entirely 
 dependent upon its advertising patronage, and the attention 
 of its proj)rietor was called to Mr. Bonner’s skill, as exhibited 
 in the “Mirror,” in displaying advertisements to the greatest 
 advantage. The result was that Mr. Bonner received an otfer, 
 which he accepted, to take charge of this pa])er. This was the 
 origin of his connection with the Journal which he has since 
 rendered famous. 
 
 Being fond of composition, he m.ade frequent contributions to 
 the editorial columns of the pajier, which w’ere well received 
 by the general public, but which seem to have aroused the petty 
 jealousy of the proprietor of the “ Ledger.” 
 
 Soon after forming his connection with the “Ledger,” I\Ir. 
 Bonner purchased it. From his boyhood up, it had been his 
 ambition to become the proprietor of a journal which should 
 be carried out upon his own ideas, and he believed that the 
 “Ledger” offered him the best means of doing this. It M'.as 
 generally doubted at that time that a literary paper could 
 flourish in New York—Boston and Philadelphia having ap¬ 
 parently monopolized such enterprises, Mr. Bonner^ however^ 
 
ROBERT BONNER. 
 
 429 
 
 Iiad a clearer view of the matter, and was convinced from the 
 first that tlie great center of American industry was the very 
 best place for such an undertaking. He proceeded very cau¬ 
 tiously at first, however, changing the character of his pa 2 )er 
 very gradually, from a commercial to a literary journal. 
 
 At this time Fanny Fern was the great literary sensation 
 of the day. She had just published her “ Ruth Hall,” which 
 had attracted universal attention, and had given rise to a sharp 
 discussion in the |)ublic jircss as to whether she was the sister 
 of N. R. Willis or not. Mr. Bonner resolved to profit by her 
 sudden notoriety, and requested her to write a story for the 
 “ Ledger,” for which he offered to jiay her twenty-five dollars 
 per column. She declined the 2 )ro 2 TOsition. lie then offered 
 her fifty dollars a column, and, iqion a second refusal, increased 
 his offer to seventy-five dollars « column. She was ])leased 
 with the energy exhibited by Mr. Bonner, and flattered by his 
 eagerness to .secure her service.s, but declared that she w'ould 
 write no more for the newspapers. A little later Mr. Bonner 
 was offered a story from her, about ten columns long. He at 
 once acce^ked her proposition, and upon the receijit of the man¬ 
 uscript sent her a check for one thousand dollars. 
 
 With this story began that wonderful career of the “Ledger” 
 which seems more like a dream than hard reality. The story 
 was double-leaded,^ and made to fill twenty columns of the 
 paper. The “Ledger” it.self was changed from its old style 
 to its present form, and made a ])urely literary journal. The 
 price paid for the story was unjiaralleled in the hi.story of 
 American journalism, and Mr. Bonner spread the announce¬ 
 ment far and wide that he was publishing a serial for wdiich he 
 had given one hundred dollars a column. His advertisements 
 were to be seen in almost every newsjiaper of respectable cir¬ 
 culation throughout the Union. In form they were different 
 
430 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 from any that had preceded them. “ Fanny Fern writes for 
 the ‘ Leilger.’ ” “ Buy the ‘ New York Ledger/ ” etc., appeared, 
 
 dozens of times repeated, until men were absolutely tired of 
 seeing the announcement. Nothing had ever been brought to 
 the public notice so prominently before. For awhile people 
 were astonished at the audacious boldness of “ the ‘Ledger^ 
 man.’’ Then they began to buy the paper. Since then the 
 demand for it has steadily increased. 
 
 The venture was successful. Fanny Fern’s reputation and 
 INIr. Bonner’s energy and boldness made a demand for the 
 “ Ledger,” at once, and out of the profits of the story for which 
 he liad paid such an unheard-of price Mr. Bonner purchased a 
 haudsome residence in New York City. 
 
 There was as much originality as boldness in the peculiar 
 style in which Mr. Bonner -adv^ertised his j)aper. As before 
 stated, nothing of the kind had ever been seen before, and the 
 novelty of the announcements at once attracted attention. It 
 was .seen that they were expensive also, and people naturally 
 felt some curiosity to see for themselves the paper for which a 
 man was willing to assume such risk and expense. These an¬ 
 nouncements sometimes covered a whole })age of a daily paper; 
 sometimes the page would be almost entirely blank, with only 
 a few lines in each column containino; the announcement. 
 Again the advertisement would be the opening chapters of a 
 story, which would be sure to excite the curiosity of the reader, 
 and induce him to purchase the remaining ch^ipters in the 
 “Ledger” itself It is to the credit of the “ Ledger” that it 
 rarely loses a subscriber. It has become a family paper. 
 
 A recent writer thus refers to Mr. Bonner’s early experience 
 in adv'ertising:— ^ 
 
 “ His mode of advertising was new, and it excited both 
 astonishment and ridicule. His ruin was predicted over and 
 
ROBERT BONNER. 
 
 431 
 
 over again. But as he paid as he went along, he alone would 
 be the sufferer. He was assailed in various ways. Men sneered 
 at his writers, as well as at the method in which he made them 
 known. He had no competition. Just then it was announced 
 that the Harpers were to put a first-class weekly into the field. 
 The announcement was hailed with delight by many classes. 
 Men who had been predicting Bonner’s ruin from the start 
 were anxious to see it accomplished. He had agents in all the 
 leading cities in the land. These held a monopoly of the 
 ‘ Ledger.’ The book men and newspaper men, who were left 
 out, were quite willing to have the ‘ Ledger ’ go under. The 
 respectability and wealth of the house, its enterprise, with the 
 class of writers it could secure, made the new paper a danger¬ 
 ous rival. Mr. Bonner concluded to make the first issue ser¬ 
 viceable to himself. His paragraph advertising was considered 
 sensational, and smacking of the charlatan. He resolved to 
 make it respectable. He wrote half a column in sensational 
 style: 'Buy Harper’s Weekly!’—'Buy Harper’s M^eekly!’— 
 ' Buy Harper’s \Veekly! ’—' Buy Harper’s AYeekly ! ’—and so 
 on through the half column. Through his advertising agent 
 he .sent this advertisement to the 'Herald,’ 'Tribune,’ and 
 ' Times,’ and paid for its insertion. Among the astonished 
 readers of this ' Ledger ’ style of advertising were the quiet 
 gentlemen who do business on Franklin S(piare. The commu¬ 
 nity were a.stonished. 'The Harpers are waking up!’ 'This 
 is tnc Bonner style!’ 'This is the way the Ledger man 
 does it! ’ were heard on all sides. The young Harpers were 
 congratulated by the book men every-where on the enterprise 
 with which they were pushing the new publication. They 
 said nothing, and took the joke in good part. But it .settled 
 the respectability of the 'Ledger’ style of advertising. It is 
 
 now imitated by the leading publishers, insurance men, and 
 26 
 
432 
 
 KINGS or FORTUNE. 
 
 most eminent dry goods men in tlie country. The sums spent 
 by Mr. Bonner in advertising are perfectly marvelous. He 
 never advertises unless he has something new to present to the 
 public. He pays from five to twenty-five thousand dollars a 
 week when he advertises.” 
 
 Mr. Bonner well knew that all his advertising would be 
 worth nothing in the end unless he made the “ Ledger ” worthv 
 of the public patronage, and he exerted himself from the first 
 to secure tlie .services of a eorps of able and popular writers. 
 In his arrangements with Ids contributors, he inaugurated a 
 system of liberality and justness which might well put his 
 rivals to shame. 
 
 Wlien IMr. Everett was engaged in his noble effort to assist 
 the ladies of the Mount Vernon A.ssociation in purchasing the 
 home and tomb of Washington, Mr. Bonner proposed to him 
 to write a .series of })apers for the “ Ledger,” for which he 
 offered him ten tliousand dollars, the money to be ajipropriated 
 to the piu’chase of IMount Vernon. Mr. Everett accepted the 
 offer, and the celebrated Mount Vernon Papers were the result. 
 This was a far-sighted move on the part of Robert Bonner. 
 TFnder ordinary circumstances Mr. Everett would probably have 
 declined to “ write for the 'Ledger;’” but in a cause so worthy 
 he could not refuse. The association of his name with the 
 journal was of incalculable .service to it, and the Mount Ver¬ 
 non Papers were to its proprietor his very best advertisement. 
 (We are viewing the matter commercially.) The sale of the 
 paper was wonderfully increased, and a golden harvest was 
 reaped. 
 
 This connection of Mr. Everett with the “ Ledger ” led to a 
 warm personal friendship between himself and its proprietor, 
 which was broken only by the statesman’s death—a circum¬ 
 stance which speaks volumes for the private worth of the 
 
ROBERT BONNER. 
 
 433 
 
 younger man. Mr. Everett continued to write for the paper 
 after his Mount Vernon articles were finished, and is said to 
 have earned over fifty thousand dollars by his able contri¬ 
 butions to it. 
 
 Soon after the completion of the Mount Vernon Papers, 
 Mr. Bonner secured the services of George Bancroft, the his¬ 
 torian, who contributed a series of admirable articles. Mr. 
 Everett’s connection with the “ Ledger ” had settled the ques¬ 
 tion that it was not beneath the dignity of the most eminent 
 literateur in the land to write for it. Fanny Fern’s husband, 
 Mr. James Parton, Alice and Phoebe Carey, Mrs. Soiithworth, 
 and a host of others have helped, and still help, to fill its 
 columns. 
 
 But perhaps its most profitable contributor, next to Mr. 
 Everett, is Henry Ward Beecher. That wonderful gift of the 
 great preacher which enables him to touch so constantly upon 
 subjects nearest to the hearts of most men, would make him in¬ 
 valuable to any paper. Mr. Bonner was struck with this after 
 hearing him preach several times, and resolved to secure his 
 services for the “ Ledger.” He proposed, to the parson’s utter 
 astonishment, that Mr. Beecher should write a story for the 
 paper, and coupled it with the ofler of a sum which many per¬ 
 sons would consider a fortune. The field was utterly new to 
 Mr. Beecher. Novel-writing was something he had never even 
 thought of; but after some hesitation he accepted the offer. 
 Soon after this, the publication of “ Norwood ” was begun in 
 the columns of the “ Ledger.” The story was longer than was 
 at first agreed upon, and Mr. Bonner paid its author a hand¬ 
 some sum in addition to the amount originally offered. The 
 reward was princely, but not out of proportion to the service 
 rendered by Mr. Beecher, who has won thousands of readers for 
 the paper. Mr. Beecher still writes for the “ Ledger,” and 
 
434 
 
 KINGS OF FOETUNE. 
 
 there is no present prospect of his genial and useful contribu¬ 
 tions coining to a close. 
 
 Mr. Bonner has made his paper useful to young people as 
 well as those of maturer years. Each number contains articles^ 
 briefly and pointedly written, upon some popular and useful 
 topic, so that thousands find not only amusement, but valu¬ 
 able hints and profitable instruction in the “ Ledger.” 
 
 It was for a long time the custom of the newspaper press to 
 indulge in sneers at the “ Ledger,” and, at the least, to treat it 
 with a species of mild contempt. In order to stop this, its 
 proprietor secured and published a series of articles from James 
 Gordon Bennett of “The Herald,” Henry J. Raymond of “The 
 Times,” and Horace Greeley of “The Tribune.” By thus 
 identifying the leading journalists of the country with his en- 
 teriirise, he eflectually silenced the scoflers, and with them the 
 “ lesser lights ” of the press. 
 
 It was said by some over-careful persons that the “Ledger’*’ 
 was not a proper paper for young persons to read. Mr. Bon¬ 
 ner at once secured the services of the Presidents of the twelve 
 jirincipal colleges of the Union, and articles from each of these 
 gentlemen appeared in his paper. After this it was not to be 
 presumed that a journal which had ampng its contributors 
 twelve such distinguished guides of youth could be unfit for 
 any one to read. 
 
 In order to make still less room for doubt on this subject, a 
 si'i’ies of articles by twelve distinguished clergymen soon after 
 appeared in the “ Ledger.” 
 
 Indeed, the greatest care is exercised to exclude from the 
 columns of the paper any thing savoring in the least of im¬ 
 purity. It is the proprietor’s aim to make it a help as well as 
 an amusement to its readers, and his object is to elevate, not to 
 degrade them. 
 
ROBERT BONNER. 
 
 435 
 
 The “Ledger” now circulates over three hundred thousand 
 copies per week, and is growing in the public favor. From 
 the profits of his business Mr. Bonner has built a splendid 
 marble publishing-house at the corner of William and Spruce 
 Streets, in New York, from which the “ Ledger” is now issued. 
 It is one of the most complete establishments in the world, and 
 is fitted up with every convenience necessary to the perform¬ 
 ance of the work upon the paper in the most perfect and ex- 
 'peditious manner. Mr. Bonner has created all this by his own 
 energy and business talent, and richly deserves the success he 
 enjoys. He resides in an elegant mansion in New York, and 
 has also a handsome country seat at Morrisania, in Westchester 
 County. He is married, and has a family. 
 
 Mr. Bonner’s great wealth has enabled him to achieve a dis¬ 
 tinction of another kind. He is famous as the owner of the 
 finest horses in America. His stables are located in Twenty- 
 seventh Street, and are the most perfect of their kind in this 
 country. They contain every thing needed for the comfort and 
 care of the horses, and the men employed in them are thoroughly 
 skilled in their business. The horses are seven in number. 
 First on the list is “Dexter,” who has made his mile in the 
 unprecedented time of 2:171 in harness, and 2:18 under the 
 saddle. He is the fastest horse in the world. “ Lantern,” a 
 splendid bay, fifteen and a half hands high, has made his mile 
 in 2: 20. “Pocahontas,” the most perfectly formed horse in 
 existence, has made her mile in 2 : 23; while “ Peerless,” a fine 
 gray mare, has followed close on to her in 2: 231. “ Lady 
 
 Palmer ” has made two miles with a three hundred and fifty 
 pound wagon and driver in 4: 59, while her companion, “ Flat- 
 bush Mare,” has made a two-mile heat to a road wagon in 
 5: 01}. The “ Auburn Horse,” a large sorrel, sixteen and a half 
 hands high, with four white feet and a white face, was declared 
 
436 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 by Hiram Woodruff to be the fastest horse he ever drove. 
 These horses cost their owner over two hundred thousand dol¬ 
 lars, and he would not part with them for double that sum. He 
 does not race them for money, but drives them for his own use., 
 and holds the reins himself. 
 
L AW y E K S. 
 
 C HAT TER XXVI. 
 
 •TOHN MARSHALL. 
 
 le writer’s mind the most perfect specimen of 
 American lawyer known to oiir history was 
 TN Marshall, of Virginia, Chief Justice of 
 United States. Profoundly learned in the 
 •, irresistible in argument, and ]H).ssessed of an 
 elo(pience which drew men in throngs to listen to him, he was 
 also the soul of honor. Neither in his jirivate nor professional 
 life could the most malicious find an action open to reproach. 
 Simple and earnest as a child, he was yet a tower of strength 
 to the cause of justice. Occupying the highest place in our 
 judiJary system, he was never unduly elated by his honors, 
 and while gaining and awarding fortunes in the discharge of his 
 ])rofessional duties, he was himself so true a man that the most 
 brazen suitor would not have dared to otfer him a bribe. He 
 was in all things the simple, honest gentleman, the fearless ad¬ 
 vocate, the just judge, and the meek and earnest follower of his 
 Saviour. Although belonging to a jiast generation, his story is 
 presented here becau.se I wish to offer to those who seek to fol- 
 
 437 
 
438 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 low him in his noble calling the purest and highest model our 
 history affords. 
 
 John Marshall was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, on 
 the ‘24th of September, 1755. 71'' was the oldest of a family 
 
 of fifteen children, and was the son of Colonel Thomas Marshall, 
 a planter of moderate fortune. During the Revolution, Colonel 
 Mar.h all eominanded a regiment of Virginia troops, and won 
 considerable distinction at the battles of the Great Bridge, Ger¬ 
 mantown, Brandywine, and Monmouth. At the Brandywine 
 the regiment bore the brunt of the attack of the British army, 
 led by Cornwallis in jierson. 
 
 John Marshall was born in a region so thinly settled as to 
 be almost cut off from civilization. The people were plain and 
 even rough in their habits, and the mode of life which pre¬ 
 vailed in his native county doubtless did much to lay the foun¬ 
 dation of those habits of simplicity for which he was noted in 
 after life. Schools were almost unknown in this region, and 
 such as were in operation were so rude in character that Colonel 
 Marshall, who was a man of education and culture, decided 
 not to attempt to train his children in them. Being unable to 
 raise the means of sending them to better schools in other parts 
 of the Colony, he determined to become their teacher himself, 
 and applied himself to his task with a devotion which was sig¬ 
 nally rewarded by the brilliant career of his eldest son. He 
 laid especial weight upon their acquiring a thorough knowledge 
 of the English language and of history, and sought to cultivate 
 in them a love for the poetry of their native tongue. Referring 
 in after life to his father’s devoted labors. Judge iMarshall once 
 said, with great feeling, “To him I owe the solid foundation of 
 all my success in life.” John Marshall did ample justice to his 
 father’s labors, and when only fourteen years old was thor¬ 
 oughly familiar with the writings of Shakespeare, Drydeu, 
 
JOHN MAKSHALL, 
 
 439 
 
 Milton, and Pope, and could repeat by heart nearly the whole 
 of the “ Essay on ^lan.” These poets were always his favorites, 
 and in mature life he would quote them with readiness and the 
 keenest relish. 
 
 He showed such marked talent that his father determined to 
 make an effort to secure him a better education than his private 
 labors could impart to him, and accordingly sent him for a 
 year to the school of the Rev. Mr. Campbell, in Westmoreland 
 County, where he received a good drilling in English and 
 Latin. At this school began his acquaintance with James 
 Monroe, who was then one of Mr. Campbell’s pupils. Return¬ 
 ing home at the end of the year, he continued his studies 
 under the Rev. Mr. Thompson. 
 
 He studied hard and was an industrious reader. Poetry and 
 romance were his favorites, but he read history with the deep¬ 
 est interest. He was quiet and thoughtful in manner, and full 
 of a dreamy, poetic enthusiasm. He loved to wander in the 
 thick woods, and would })ass many of his leisure hours in gaz- 
 iim at the beauties of nature. His constitution was a sound 
 
 o 
 
 and vigorous one, and he was not only fond of manly and 
 athletic sports, but excelled in them. He had no inclination 
 toward dissipation, and the simple, healthful life of his home 
 was calculated to develop his physical powers to the utmost. 
 Colonel Marshall did not neglect the moral training of his 
 ehildron, but always impressed upon them the importance of 
 Christianity as the basis of their eharacters, rearing them in 
 that simple code of true gentility which was so dear to our 
 fathers, but of which we of to-day are fast losing sight. 
 
 Being destined for the bar, young Marshall began his legal 
 studies at the age of eighteen, but in two years they were inter¬ 
 rupted by the troubles with Great Britain, which terminated 
 in open hostilities. A volunteer company was raised in the 
 
440 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 neighborhood, and John Marshall promptly attached himself 
 to it. He took a prominent part in the questions of the day, 
 and expressed himself boldly in favor of resistance. In 1775 
 Patrick Henry made his memorable appeal for volunteers to 
 drive the Loyalist Governor, Lord Dunmore, out of Virginia. 
 Three companies were immediately organized in Marshall’s 
 neighborhood. Among these were the famous Culpepper 
 Minute Men.” Marshall’s father was elected major of the 
 regiment, and he himself was chosen a lieutenant in the Minute 
 Men. The force at once hastened to the lower counties, and 
 bore a conspicuous part in the battle of Great Bridge. In 
 July, 1776, Marshall’s company was assigned to the Eleventh 
 Virginia Regiment of the Continental Army, and sent North. 
 In May, 1777, he was made captain of his company. He par- 
 ticipated in the fight at Iron Hill, and in the battles of Ger¬ 
 mantown, Brandywine, and Monmouth, and shared the suf¬ 
 ferings of the army at the memorable encampment of Valley 
 Forge. Until the close of 1779 he was constantly in active 
 service. He was always patient, cheerful, and hopeful. lu 
 the severest hardships to which the army was exposed his 
 spirits never sank. One of his comrades said that he did more 
 than any other man to keep alive the hopes of the army dur¬ 
 ing the terrible winter at Valley Forge, and another has de¬ 
 clared that “the officers of the Virginia line appeared to idolize 
 him.” His conduct attracted the attention of Washington, who 
 conceived a warm friendship for him, and Marshall, on his part, 
 returned the friendship of his chief with a feeling almost of 
 worship. Washington frequently appointed him deputy judge 
 advocate during the winter. 
 
 At the close of 1779 he went to Virginia to take command 
 of a new corps which the Legislature was about to raise. The 
 project remaining under discussion for some months, he passed 
 
JOHN MARSHALL,. 
 
 441 
 
 the time in attendance upon a course of lectures on law, delivered 
 by George Wythe, and a cour.se of lectures on natural philoS" 
 ophy, delivered by the Rev. Dr. Madison, afterward Bishop of 
 Virginia, at William and Mary College, in ^Villiamsburg. 
 The next summer he received his license to practice law. 
 Meanwhile, the project for raising troops had taken the shape 
 of a definite failure, and he now set out to rejoin the army. 
 Too poor to pay his passage to the North, he walked the entire 
 distance from Williamsburg, Virginia, to Philadelphia, upon 
 reaching which city he was so travel-worn and shabby in ap¬ 
 pearance, that the landlord of the hotel at which he wished te 
 stop refused him admittance. He joined the army in due time, 
 and remained with it until the spring of 1781, when he re¬ 
 signed Ids commission, a few months before the close of the 
 war. 
 
 With the return of peace the courts were again thrown open, 
 and Marshall began that brilliant legal career which has made 
 him one of the most famous men in our history. His success 
 was marked from the first, as his professional talents were such 
 as to make themselves felt anywhere, and his personal popu¬ 
 larity aided him greatly in overcoming the difficulties which 
 lie in the path of a young aspirant to legal honors. In 1782, 
 the people of Fauquier elected him to the House of Delegates 
 in the General Assembly of the Commonwealtli, and in the 
 fall of that year he was appointed one of the Council of State. 
 In January, 1783, he was married to Miss Mary Willis Am¬ 
 bler, with whom he lived in the most perfect happiness for over 
 fifty years. His bride was a woman of great personal beauty, 
 and in every respect a fitting helpmate for such a man—than 
 which no higher tribute could be paid her. About this time, 
 Mr. Marshall decided not to return to Fauquier, but to locate 
 himself permanently in Richmond, where he could enjoy many 
 
442 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 more professional advantages. In spite of this, however, his 
 old friends in Fauquier re-elected him to the Legislature, and 
 in 1787 he sat in that body as representative from the county 
 of Henrico. 
 
 He was very plain and even careless in his personal attire, 
 and this often led to amusiiifr occurrences. Soon after he began 
 the practice of his profession in Richmond, he was strolling 
 through the streets one morning, dressed in a plain linen suit 
 and a straw liat. The hat was held under his arm, and was 
 filled with cherries, of which he ate as he walked. In passing 
 the Eagle Hotel, he stopped to exchange salutations with the 
 landlord, and then continued his walk. Sitting near the land¬ 
 lord, on the hotel porch, was a Mr. P-, an elderly gentle¬ 
 
 man from the country, who had come to the city to engage 
 counsel in an important case which was to be tried in a day or 
 two. The landlord referred him to Marshall as the best lawyer 
 in the city; but the old gentleman was so much prejudiced 
 against the young advocate, by his careless appearance, that he 
 
 refused to engage him. On entering court, Mr. P-was a 
 
 second time referred to Marshall by the clerk of the court, and 
 a second time he refused to employ him. At this moment en¬ 
 tered Mr. V-, a venerable-looking legal gentleman, in a 
 
 powdered wig and black coat, whose dignified appearance pro¬ 
 duced such an impression on Mr. P- that he engaged him 
 
 at once. In the first case which came on, Marshall and ^Ir. 
 
 V-each addressed the court. ‘‘The vast inferiority of his 
 
 advocate was so apparent that at the close of the case Mr. P- 
 
 introduced himself to young INIarshall, frankly stated the preju¬ 
 dice which had caused him, in opposition to advice, to employ 
 
 Mr. V-; that he extremely regretted the error, but knew 
 
 not how to remedy it. He had come to the city with one hun¬ 
 dred dollars as his lawyer’s fee, which he had paid, and had 
 
JOHN MARSHALL. 
 
 443 
 
 but five left, which, if Marshall chose, he would cheerfully give 
 him for assisting in the case. Marshall, pleased with the inci¬ 
 dent, accepted the offer, not, however, without passing a sly 
 joke at the omnipotence of a powdered wig and black coat.” 
 
 In 1788, Mr. Marshall was elected to the Virginia Convention 
 which met in June of that year for the purpose of considering 
 the question of the adoption or rejection of the Federal Consti¬ 
 tution. The debates in this body were among the most bril¬ 
 liant in history. Marshall took a decided stand in favor of the 
 Constitution, and is believed to have done more than any other 
 man, save Mr. Madison, to secure its adoption. He added 
 greatly to his reputation by his labors in this body, and the 
 close of the session found his practice very much enlarged. 
 He was anxious to devote himself entirely to his professional 
 duties; but he was urged so vehemently to accept a seat in the 
 Legislature from the city of Richmond, tliat he was forced to 
 consent. He sat in that body from 1789 to 1791, and in those 
 sessions which were marked by the brilliant contests between 
 the Federalists and Republicans took a decided stand with the 
 former, and sustained his position by an array of arguments 
 against which his opponents w'ere powerless. The struggle was 
 one of great bitterness, but Marshall, although victorious in it, 
 made no enemies among his antagonists. 
 
 For the next three years he devoted himself industriously to 
 his profession, appearing in public only to defend with masterly 
 eloquence the course of President M^ashington with reference 
 to the insolent conduct of Citizen Genet, the French Agent. 
 In 1795, he was again elected to the Legislature, ‘Liot only 
 without his approbation, but against his known wi.shes;” but 
 yielding to the desires of his friends he took his seat in that 
 body. The great question of the day was the adoption of “Jay’s 
 Treaty” with Great Britain. In Virginia, a bitter opposition 
 
444 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 assailed the treaty, and the entire State rang with denunciations 
 of it. Even the influence of Washington was powerless to stay 
 the tide of popular passion excited against the treaty and those 
 who upheld it. Meetings were held in Richmond, and the treaty 
 was fiercely denounced. Marshall now came to the rescue, and 
 before a meeting of the citizens of that place made such an 
 unanswerable argument in favor of the treaty, that the men 
 who had been foremost in assailing it now united in the adop¬ 
 tion of resolutions indorsing the policy of the Administration. 
 In the Legislature his efforts were equally successful, and the 
 opponents of the Administration were forced to abandon their 
 constitutional objections to the treaty, and to content them¬ 
 selves with a simple denial of the expediency of the measure 
 at that time. President Washington attached so much impor¬ 
 tance to these services that he offered to his old friend and 
 comrade the position of Attorney-General of the United States, 
 but Marshall declined the offer, as he wished to devote him¬ 
 self to his practice, which had now become very lucrative. 
 He continued to sit in the Legislature, which did not interfere 
 with his private business, and remained the constant and vigi¬ 
 lant friend of ^Vashington’s Administration. In 1796, he was 
 offered the post of Minister to France, as Mr. Monroe’s suc¬ 
 cessor, but he declined it for the same reason which had made 
 him refuse the Attorney-Generalship. In 1797, when the 
 offer was repeated, this time by President Adams, Marshall 
 yielded to the entreaties of Washington, and went to France 
 with Pinckney and Gerry, as Envoy Extraordinary, The 
 object of the mission was to remove the obstructions placed 
 by France in the way of American commerce. The Envoys 
 were unsuccessful, but a correspondence took place between 
 Marshall and Talleyrand, which was a source of great satisfac¬ 
 tion to American publicists, and raised Marshall still higher 
 
JOHN MARSHALL. 
 
 445 
 
 in their esteem and confidence. Upon his return home in 
 1798, he was given a public reception in New York by the 
 citizens, and a public dinner by the two Houses of Congress, 
 “as an evidence of aftection for his person, and of their 
 grateful approbation of the patriotic firmness with which he 
 had sustained the dignity of his country during his important 
 mission.” He subsequently took a prominent part in support 
 of the measures of retaliation directed against France by the 
 Administration, which were sharply assailed by the opposition. 
 He resumed his practice in Richmond, but was again drawn 
 from it by a message from Washington, who requested him to 
 visit him at Mt. Vernon. He did so, and the result was that 
 he yielded to the solicitations of his old chieftain, and con¬ 
 sented to accept a seat in Congress. He was elected to the 
 Lower House of that body in 1799. During the canvass. 
 President Adams offered him a seat in the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, but he declined it. 
 
 His career in Congress was brief, but brilliant. The Fed¬ 
 eralist party was hard pressed by the Republicans, and he 
 promptly arrayed himself on the side of the former, as the 
 champion of the Administration of John Adams. The excite^ 
 ment over the “ Alien and Sedition Laws ” was intense, but he 
 boldly and triumphantly defended the course of the Adminis¬ 
 tration. Mr. Binney says of him that, in the debates on the 
 great constitutional questions, “he was confessedly the first 
 man in the House. When he discussed them, he exhausted 
 them; nothing more remained to be said; and the impression 
 of his argument effaced that of every one else.” 
 
 His great triumph was his speech in the Jonathan Robbins 
 affair. Robbins had committed a murder on board an English 
 ship-of-war, and had sought refuge from punishment in the 
 United States. In accordance with one of the provisions of 
 
446 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Jay’s Treaty, his surrender had been demanded by the British 
 Minister, on the ground that he was a British subject, and he 
 had been surrendered by President Adams. The ojjposition in 
 Congress made this act a pretext for a famous assault upon the 
 Administration, and a resolution was introduced into the House 
 of Representatives by Mr. Livingston, censuring the President 
 for his course in the matter. This resolution produced an ex¬ 
 tended debate in the House, in the course of which Marshall 
 defended the President in a speech of great force and eloquence. 
 Judge Story has said of this speech, that “it was r^ponse sam 
 repliquc —an answer so irresistible that it admitted of no reply. 
 It silenced opposition, and settled then and forever the points 
 of national law upon which the controversy hinged.” 
 
 In May, 1800, Mr. Adams offered IMarshall a seat in his 
 Cabinet as Secretary of War, but before he coidd enter upon 
 the duties of that office he was made Secretaiy of State, in 
 which capacity he acted for a short while, conducting several 
 important negotiations during that time, and leaving behind 
 him several of the most magnificent state papers to be found 
 in our archives. During his occupancy of this position, it 
 became necessary to appoint a Cliief Justice of the United 
 States, and Marshall took advantage of the occasion to urge 
 upon the President the propriety of tendering the place to a 
 distinguished gentleman who had been a faithful friend to the 
 Administration; but Mr. Adams quietly informed him that he 
 had made up his mind to confer the honor upon the man best 
 suited to it, and that he had sent to the Senate the name of 
 John Marshall, of Virginia. This appointment, which came 
 to him entirely unsolicited, was made on the 31st of January, 
 1801, and was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. 
 
 He held the position of Chief Justice for more than thirty- 
 four years, and this period is justly regarded as the most bril- 
 
JOHN MARSHALL. 
 
 447 
 
 liant portion of the history of our highest court, a court of 
 which a famous judge has said: 
 
 “The decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States 
 have raised the renown of the country not less than they have 
 confirmed the Constitution. In all parts of the world its judg¬ 
 ments are spoken of with respect. Its adjudications of prize 
 law are a code for all future time. Upon commercial law it 
 has brought us nearly to one system, befitting the probity of a 
 great commercial nation. Over its whole path, learning and 
 intelligence and integrity have shed their combined luster.” 
 
 Although holding so high a post in the General Government, 
 he continued to take a warm intei'est in the affairs of his native 
 State, and in 1828 was a delegate to the Charlottesville Con¬ 
 vention, which met for the purpose of recommending to the 
 Legislature a system of internal improvements best suited to 
 the needs of the State. In 1829, he was a member of the 
 Convention which met in Richmond for the purpose of revis¬ 
 ing the Constitution of the State. Though now quite old and 
 feeble, he took an active part in the debates of the Convention, 
 and was mainly instrumental in effecting the settlement of the 
 disputes between the eastern and western sections of the State. 
 
 In 1805, Judge Marshall published, in five volumes, his 
 “ Life of AVashington.” The first volume was devoted to the 
 history of the Colonies, from their settlement to the commence¬ 
 ment of the Revolution. This work has always held the first 
 position in our Revolutionary annals, and w'on for its author a 
 place in the front rank of American writers. It is, all in all, 
 tlie best biography of Washington in existence. 
 
 Sterling honesty was exemplified in Judge IMarshall’s whole 
 
 career. His word was indeed as good as his bond. He would 
 
 never argue in behalf of a cause which he had reason to think 
 
 unjust, and he scorned to take a legal advantage at the expense 
 27 
 
448 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 of moral honesty. He once indorsed a bond to the amount 
 of several thousand dollars. The drawer failed, and Marshall 
 paid it, although he knew he could avoid it, as the holder 
 had forfeited his claim in law by requiring more than legal 
 interest. 
 
 He was generous to a fault. Once, as he passed through 
 
 Culpepper County, he met with Captain S-, one of his old 
 
 comrades in the Revolution. In the course of the conversation 
 
 which ensued, S- told him that his estate was burdened 
 
 with a mortgage for $3,000, which was about to fall due, and 
 that, as he was unable to pay it, he saw nothing but ruin in 
 store for him. At his departure, Marshall handed a note to 
 the servant who brought his horse to the door, and told him to 
 give it to his master. This was done as Marshall was riding 
 away, and upon opening the note Mr. S-found that it con¬ 
 
 tained a check for the amount of the mortgage. Mounting his 
 horse, he soon overtook Marshall, and, though he thanked him 
 warmly for his generosity, refused to accept it. Marshall stren¬ 
 uously urged its acceptance, but the other 2 )ersistently refused. 
 Finally, the former suggested a compromise. Marshall took 
 up the mortgage, and thus satisfied the first claim, but as his 
 friend was never prosperous, he never asked for the payment 
 of the debt. 
 
 William Wirt has left us the following description of his per¬ 
 sonal appearance: ‘‘He is tall, meager, emaciated; his muscles 
 relaxed, and his joints so loosely connected as not only to dis¬ 
 qualify him apparently for any vigorous exertion of body, but 
 to destroy every thing like harmony in his air or movements. 
 Indeed, in his whole appearance and demeanor,—dress, atti¬ 
 tudes, gesture, sitting, standing, or walking,—he is as far re¬ 
 moved from the idolized graces of Lord Chesterfield as any 
 other gentleman on earth.” 
 
JOHN MARSHALL. 
 
 449 
 
 In spite, however, of this ungainly person,” says a writer, 
 '‘no one was a greater social favorite than the Chief Justice. 
 The people of Richmond regarded his eccentric figure with 
 strong personal atfection as well as resj^ect. The black eyes, 
 under their bushy gray brows, beamed with good nature, and 
 the lips M'ere habitually smiling. The courtesy af the Judge 
 was one of his most beautiful traits. It was the spontaneous 
 exhibition of the simple and kindly emotions of his heart. 
 Pure benevolence and philanthropy displayed itself in every 
 word which he uttered. He gave his hand to the plain yeo¬ 
 man clad in homes 2 )un as courteously and sincerely as to the 
 greatest personage in the countiy. He had the same simple 
 smile and good-humored jest for both, and seemed to recognize 
 no difference between them. It was instruetive to estimate in 
 the good Chief Justice the basis and character of true polite¬ 
 ness. John Randolph, one of the most fastidious and aristo¬ 
 cratic of men, left his opinion that Marshall’s manner was per- 
 feet good breeding. In dress and bearing, it would be difficult 
 to imagine any one more simple than Judge Marshall. He 
 presented the apjiearance of a plain countryman, rather than a 
 Chief Justice of the United States. He had a farm in Fau¬ 
 quier County, and another near Richmond, and he would often 
 return from the latter to take his seat on the bench with burrs 
 sticking to his clothes. His great passion was the game of 
 quoits, and he was a member of the club which met, as it 
 still meets, at Buchanan’s Spring, near the city, to play at this 
 game. Here the Governor of Virginia, the Chief Justice, and 
 the most eminent lawyers of the Court of Appeals, were found 
 by a French gentleman, Baron Quinet, with their coats off, 
 gayly pitching quoits, with the ardor of a party of urchins. In 
 these simple amusements passed the hours of leisure which 
 Judge Marshall could steal from his exhausting judicial toil. 
 
450 
 
 KrKGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 At sucli times he seemed to become a boy again, and to forget 
 the ermine. His fondness for other social enjoyments was great. 
 He was the center of a brilliant circle of men, many of whom 
 were famous, and the tradition of their dinner parties, and the 
 jests which they circulated, is still preserved.” 
 
 It was his custom always to provide for his table himself 
 when at home, and he might be seen every morning at the 
 Shockoe Hill Market, with his basket on his arm, engaged in 
 making his purchases. Upon one of these occasions he noticed 
 a fashionably-dressed young man, swearing violently because he 
 could not find any one willing to carry home for him a turkey 
 which he had just purchased, and which his foolish pride would 
 not permit him to carry himself. Approaching him quietly, 
 the Judge asked where he lived, and upon being told, said, “I 
 am going that way, and will carry it for you.” Taking the 
 turkey, he set out and soon reached the young man’s door. 
 Upon receiving his turkey, the young man thanked him for his 
 trouble, and asked, “ How much shall I pay you ? ” “ Oh, 
 
 'lothing,” replied the Judge, smiling, “you are welcome. It 
 was on my way, and no trouble.” So saying, the Judge de¬ 
 parted, and the young man, with a faint suspicion of the 
 truth, turned to a bystander, and asked, in some confusion, 
 “ Who is that polite old gentleman who brought home my 
 turkey for me?” “That is John Marshall, the Chief Justice 
 of the United States,” was the reply. “ Why, then, did he 
 bring home my turkey?” .stammered the fop. “ To give you a 
 deserved rebuke,” said the gentleman, “ and to teach you to 
 conquer your silly pride.” 
 
 Reference has been made to his carelessness in regard to his 
 personal appearance. A wager was once laid among his friends 
 in Richmond that he could not dre.ss him.self without leaving 
 about his clothing some mark of his carelessness. The Judge 
 
JOHN MARSHALL. 
 
 451 
 
 good-humoredly accepted the wager. A supper was to be given 
 to him upon these conditions. It‘ his dress was found faultless 
 upon that occasion, the other parties were to pay for the enter¬ 
 tainment; but if any carelessness could be detected about his 
 dress or in his appearance, the expense was to fall upon him. 
 Upon the appointed evening the gentlemen and the Judge met 
 at the place agreed upon, and to the surprise of all, the Judge’s 
 dress seemed faultless. He appeared the very perfection of 
 neatness and taste. The supper followed, the Judge being in 
 high glee over his victory. Near the close of the repast, how¬ 
 ever, one of tlie guests, wlio sat next to Judge Marshall, chanced 
 to drop his napkin, and stooping down to pick it up, discov¬ 
 ered that the Judge had put on one of his stockings with the 
 wrono; side out. Of course the condition of affairs was imme- 
 diately reversed, and, amid roars of laughter, the Chief Justice 
 acknowledged his defeat. 
 
 The means of locomotion in the Southern States beino; lim- 
 ited in the days of Judge Marshall, it was his custom to travel 
 about the country, when holding his circuit courts, in an old- 
 fashioned and very much dilaj)idated gig. His plain and even 
 rusty appearance often led him into ludicrous adventures, which 
 he related to his friends with keen enjoyment. At other times 
 people to whom he was personally unknown were astonished to 
 find that this shabbily-dressed old man was the famous Chief- 
 Justice Marshall. One of his adventures is thus related by an 
 eye-witness: 
 
 “ It is not long since a gentleman was traveling in one of 
 the counties of Virginia, and about tlie close of the day stopj)ed 
 at a public-house to obtain refreshment and spend the night. 
 He had been there but a short time when an old man alighted 
 from his gig, with the apj)arent intention of becoming his fel¬ 
 low-guest at the same house. As the old man drove up, he 
 
452 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 observed that both the shafts of his gig were broken, and that 
 they were held together by withes formed from the bark of a 
 hickory sapling. Our traveler observed, further, that he was 
 plainly clad, that his knee-buckles were loosened, and that 
 something like negligence pervaded his dress. Conceiving him 
 to be one of the honest yeomanry of our land, the courtesies of 
 strangers passed between them, and they entered the tavern. It 
 was about the same time that an addition of three or four young 
 gentlemen was made to their number—most of them, if not all, 
 of the legal profession. As soon as they became conveniently 
 accommodated, the conversation was turned by the latter upon 
 an eloquent harangue which had that day been delivered at the 
 bar. The other replied that he had witnessed the same day 
 a degree of eloquence no doubt equal, but that it was from 
 the pulpit. Something like a sai*castic rejoinder was made to the 
 eloquence of the pulpit, and a warm and able altercation ensued, 
 in which the merits of the Christian religion became the subject 
 of discussion. From six o’clock until eleven the young champions 
 wielded the sword of argument, adducing with ingenuity and 
 ability every thing that could be said pro and con. During 
 this protracted period, the old gentleman listened with all the 
 meekness and modesty of a child, as if he was adding new in¬ 
 formation to the stores of his own mind; or perhaps he was 
 observing, with philoso{)hic eye, the faculties of the youthful 
 mind, and how new energies are evolved by repeated action; 
 or, perhaps, with patriotic emotion, he was reflecting upon the 
 future destinies of his countrj’, and on the rising generation 
 upon whom these future destinies must devolve; or, most prob¬ 
 ably, ■with a sentiment of moral and religious feeling, he was 
 collecting an argument which—characteristic of himself—no art 
 would be ‘ able to elude and no force resist.’ Our traveler re¬ 
 mained a spectator, and took no part in what was said. 
 

f 
 
JOHN MARSHALL. 
 
 455 
 
 At last one of the young men, remarking that it was im¬ 
 possible to combat with loug-establishetl })reju(lices, wheeled 
 around, and, with some familiarity, exclaimed, ‘ Well, my old 
 gentleman, what think you of these things?’ If, said the trav¬ 
 eler, a streak of vivid lightning had at that moment crossed 
 the room, their amazement could not have been greater than it 
 was with what followed. The most eloquent and unanswerable 
 appeal was made, for nearly an hour, by the old gentleman, that 
 he ever heard or read. So perfect was his recollection, that 
 every argument used against the Christian religion was met in 
 the order in which it was advanced. Hume’s sophistry on the 
 subject of miracles was, if possible, more perfectly answei'cd 
 than it had already been done by Campbell. And in the whole 
 lecture there was so much simplicity and energy, pathos and 
 sublimity, that not another word was uttered. An attempt to 
 describe it, said the traveler, would be an attempt to paint the 
 sunbeams. It was now a matter of curiosity and inquiry who 
 the old gentleman was. The traveler concluded it was the 
 ])reacher from whom the pul[)it eloquence was heard ; but no— 
 it was the Chief Justice of the United States.” 
 
 Judge Marshall was a sim[)le and earnest Christian, and held 
 in the deepest abhorrence the fashionable skepticism of his day. 
 Ilis conduct was consistent with his profession, and to the last 
 this good and great man repeated night and morning the 
 simple prayer he had learned at his mother’s knee. 
 
 For many years he suffered from an affection of the bladder, 
 and was at length compelled to resort to a surgical operation 
 for relief. This had the desired effect, but he was soon after 
 taken with an attack of “ liver complaint.” He repaired to 
 Philadelphia for medical treatment, but failed to derive any 
 benefit from it, and died in that city on the Gth of July, 1835. 
 
 His body was conveyed to Richmond for interment, and he 
 
456 
 
 KINGS OP POKTUNE. 
 
 now sleeps by the side of his wife in the Shockoe Hill Cem¬ 
 etery in that city. The spot is marked by a plain slab of 
 marble, over which the weeds and the rank grass are growing, 
 and on wdiich may be read the following inscription, dictated 
 (saving the last date) by himself: 
 
 “ John Marshall, son of Thomas and Mary Marshall, was 
 born 24th of September, 1755; intermarried wTh Mary Willis 
 Ambler, the 3d of January, 1783: departed this life the 6th 
 day of July, 1835.” 
 
JAMES T. BRADY. 
 
JAMES T. BRADY. 
 
 459 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIL 
 
 JAMES T. BRADY. 
 
 HE father of Janies T. Brady Avas born in Tre- 
 land, and came to this country during the second 
 AA^ar AAuth England, and just after his marriage. 
 IMr. Brady opened a school for boys, in Ncav 
 A"ork, soon after his arriA'al, and it AA’as in that 
 city, on the 9th of April, 1815, that his eldest son, James 
 Topham Brady, aa^us born. Other children folloAA-ed, there 
 being seven in all, two boys (James T., and Judge John R. 
 Brady) and five girls. IMr. Brady, senior, A\'as a man of rare 
 abilities, and his Avife Avas a Avoman of great jiersonal beauty 
 and high character, “ one of those mothers,” says a distinguished 
 gentleman, Avho kneiv her, “aa'Iiosc quiet virtues shed their 
 blessed influence over families, and are felt so long in their 
 durable etfect upon children.” 
 
 Janies T. Brady greAV up Avith a sound, vigorous constitution, 
 and at an early age Avas put at his studies in his father’s school. 
 He Avas only seven years old Avhen he began, and though so 
 young, he Avorked hard, storing his “big head”—Avhich seemed 
 too big for the little feet beloAV it—AA'ith knoAA'ledge. He 
 endeared himself very greatly to his school-felloAvs, and formed 
 Avitli several of them friendships Avhich continued through life. 
 “He was so noted,” says one of his former school-felloAvs, “for 
 
460 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 his loving kindlineas as a boy, that it almost obliterates every 
 other recollection.” His amiable traits developed with his 
 years. He always delighted in acts of kindness, and could 
 never bear to give pain, even to the most insignificant animal 
 or insect. He detested hunting and fishing, which he regarded 
 as a needless sacrifice of life. Yet while so tender and gentle 
 ill his disposition, he was brave and fearless, unusually inde¬ 
 pendent, and, above all, as mirthful and fond of a jest at fifty 
 as at sixteen. 
 
 Before he had completed his education, his father abandoned 
 the profession of teaching for that of a lawyer, and young 
 Brady entered his office as office-boy and student, it being his 
 desire to become an advocate. He was bright, quick-witted, 
 and remarkably apt in his studies. His buoyant spirits and 
 ready repartee often led him into encounters with his elders, 
 who were generally forced to confess that his tongue was too 
 much for them. His father encouraged him to form his own 
 opinions, and to hold them tenaciously until convinced of his 
 error. He made rapid progress in his legal studies, and soon 
 acquired such proficiency in the management of the details of 
 the office business that every thing which did not absolutely 
 need his father’s personal attention was left to him. 
 
 Although fond of social enjoyment, and full of the fire and 
 joyfulness of youth, he knew how to seclude himself from the 
 pleasures he relished so much. He was a hard and faithful 
 student, allowing nothing to draw him from his books when he 
 meant to devote himself to them. He read not only law, but 
 history, poetry, biography, romance, in short, every thing that 
 could store his mind with useful knowledge or add to its natural 
 graces. He slept at the office, and often sat up the entire night 
 engaged in study. Abbott speaks as follows of the early studies 
 of Napoleon II., and it requires no straining of language or 
 
JAMES T. BRADY. 
 
 461 
 
 ideas to apply his remarks to this portion of the life of James 
 T, Brady: “So great was his ardor for intellectual improve¬ 
 ment that he considered every day as lost in which he had not 
 made perceptible progress in knowledge. By this rigid mental 
 discipline he acquired that wonderful power of concentration hy 
 which he was ever enabled to simplify subjects the most diffi> 
 cult and complicated.” Mr. Brady, senior, was very proud of 
 the energy and talent displayed by his son, and when the latter 
 was nineteen years old the father said to a friend who had been 
 speaking to him of the promise of the boy: “Yes, sir; he is 
 a boy of great promise, a boy of splendid intellect and noble 
 character. Young as he is, I regard him as a walking encyclo- 
 poedia; his mind seems to gild every subject it touches.” 
 
 In the year 1835, when but twenty years old, Mr. Brady 
 was admitted to the bar. “There were giants in those days” 
 at the New York bar, and the young man was now enter¬ 
 ing an arena in which his powers were to be tested to the 
 utmost. His native eloquence was well known to his friends, 
 and naturally he was not ignorant of it; but he did not, like so 
 many young men in his calling, trust entirely to his powers of 
 pleading. He had long since recognized the truth of Lord 
 Erskine’s declaration that “no man can be a great advocate 
 who is no lawyer,” and had stored his mind with a knowledge 
 of the theories of his profession which few men in coming to 
 the bar have ever equaled. 
 
 In his first important case he was opposed to Charles 
 O’Conor, and was unsuccessful. He was engaged in a suit to 
 recover a certain sum of money from an insurance company, 
 which his client claimed was due him for certain goods which 
 had been destroyed by fire. As Brady himself saw, he had a 
 very weak case, and Mr. O’Conor had no trouble in demolish- 
 ing it; yet the young counsel conducted it with a skill and an 
 
462 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 eloquence which made him from that hour a marked man in his 
 j)rofession. Yet he had to contend against that obstacle which 
 meets most public men at the outset of their careers—the feel¬ 
 ing which actors call “stage fright.” He said that on this 
 occasion every thing around him grew suddenly black, and he 
 could not even see the jury. By steadying himself against his 
 table, and keeping his eyes in the direction of the jury, he con¬ 
 tinued to speak until he had recovered his self-control. 
 
 The case which brought him most prominently before the 
 public, and wdiich may be said to have established his fame as 
 a lawyer, was a peculiar one. Some newsboys had been arrested 
 for selling the “Sunday Morning News” on the morning of the 
 Sabbath day. It was claimed that the selling of the paper on 
 the streets on Sunday was contrary to law, and that the boys 
 disturbed the congregations in the churches by their cries. 
 One of these boys had been arrested at the instance of Mr. 
 Gerard, and this brought on a suit to determine the rights of 
 the lads, in which INIr. Brady appeared for the newsboys. Con¬ 
 siderable feeling was manifested on the subject, and when the 
 trial came on the court-room was crowded. The verdict of the 
 jury was against him, but Mr. Brady won a remarkable tri¬ 
 umph by his management of the case, and the whole city rang 
 with his eloquence. So great was the effect of his speech upon 
 the audience, that many of them who were total strangers to 
 him crowded around him as he left the court-house to congrat¬ 
 ulate him. Though defeated in the verdict of the jury, tlus 
 case w'as a great triumph for Mr. Brady. It established his 
 fame as an advocate, and advanced him at once to a foremost 
 place at the bar. Business flowed in upon him more rapidly 
 than he could attend to it, and from this time to the close of 
 his labors he was always in the possession of a large and lucra¬ 
 tive practice. 
 
JAMES T. BEADY. 
 
 463 
 
 Mr. McKeon has said of him: ‘‘We may refer to the period 
 of his introduction to the bar of this city as an epoch in its 
 history. In looking back at the past, we see rising before us 
 George Wood, ti'eading with no uncertain step through the 
 labyrinth of the law of real property; Daniel Lord, following, 
 with his legal eye, commerce over the long and dreary waste 
 of waters; David Graham, the younger, and Ogden Hoffman, 
 standing in ffdl pano])ly of intellectual power before our crim¬ 
 inal tribunals. Into the lists where stood these proud knights 
 young Brady sprang, ready to contend with the mightiest of 
 them. How well he contended many of you well remember, 
 and the honors paid to his memory are justified by the tri¬ 
 umphs he has won.” 
 
 He grew raj)idly in po])ularity, and in the esteem and confi¬ 
 dence of his fellow-citizens, and was intrusted with numerous 
 cases of a class which had rarely until then been seen in the 
 hands of a young lawyer. His practice soon extended into the 
 Supreme Court of the State, which at that time met quarterly, 
 at New York, Albany, Utica, and Rochester. The practice of 
 this court was entirely in the hands of men of high standing in 
 tlieir profession,—the great lawyers of the State,—and it was 
 no slight honor to our young lawyer to hold a place, and a 
 proud place, too, among them. 
 
 He won additional honors in the famous India-rubber suits, 
 which have been mentioned elsewhere in this volume, acting as 
 one of the counsel of Charles Goodyear, and being associated 
 with Daniel Webster. Brady applied himself with intense 
 energy to master the case, and when the trial came off at Tren¬ 
 ton, in the United States Circuit Court, before Justices Grier 
 and Dickerson, he opened the case in a speech which lasted two 
 (lays, and which Daniel Webster said in the beginning of his 
 remarks had so exhausted it as to leave him nothing to say. 
 
464 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Turning to Mr. Brady, INIr. Webster said, ‘'You have cut a 
 higlnvay through this case, and if it is won, it will be because 
 of the manner in which you have brought it before the court.” 
 The suit was won by Goodyear. 
 
 “In connection with the India-rubber cases is a fact which 
 testifies to his character. A salary of twenty-rive thousand 
 dollars a year for life was offered to be settled on him by the 
 rubber company, if he would advise a certain course; but not 
 deeming it right, he rejected the offer. When in France, in 
 1851, the rubber cases coming in controversy there, Mr. Bi’ady 
 substantially gave in French, to Etienne Blanc, the French ad¬ 
 vocate, the materials for his brief.” 
 
 Mr. Brady practiced law for thirty-four years, and during 
 the major part of that time there was scarcely a case of great 
 importance, in either the civil or criminal courts, in which he 
 did not figure. He Avas compelled to refuse case after case 
 from lack of time to give to it; and yet he frequently found 
 time to respond to the appeals of the courts to defend men 
 indicted for capital offenses who were unable to pi’ocure coun¬ 
 sel. In some of these cases he had scarcely any chance of 
 preparation, but he always managed to secure the acquittal of 
 his client, in spite of this drawback. The spirit of kindliness 
 which had so endeared him to his boyhood’s friends pervaded 
 every action of his maturer life, and he never displayed more 
 energy, more unceasing vigilance, more irresistible eloquence, 
 than when pleading the cause of some poor Avretch Avho could 
 only reAA'ard him Avith his thanks. 
 
 His readiness in mastering a case AA'as remarkable, and AAas 
 greatly assisted by his profound knowdedge of the laAV. As a 
 rule, in the ordinary run of cases, it AA-as merely necessary for 
 him to comprehend the particular case under consideration, 
 since he Avas already familiar Avith the laAV bearing upon it 
 
JAMES T. BRADY. 
 
 465 
 
 This readiness is admirably illustrated in the following remi¬ 
 niscence related of him by the Hon. Luther R. Marsh. Mr. 
 Marsh was engaged in a ease of great importance, in which he 
 desired Mr. Brady’s assistance in the trial. Marsh had thor¬ 
 oughly and patiently studied the case, but Brady was totally 
 ignorant of it. Nevertheless, he told Mr. Marsh he would do 
 his best, and that he (Marsh) must open the ease as fully and 
 exhaustively as he could, without reference to him. Mr. Marsh 
 did so, and says that when he sat down he thought he had 
 exhauded the ease, and was wondering what Brady could find 
 to say in addition to it. To his astonishment and delight, 
 Brady rose, and in his argument presented seven new and 
 telling points. 
 
 In the examination of a witness, he could be severe and 
 decisive when he had occasion to suspect that the person 
 was trying to evade the tiaith; but in general his manner 
 was kind and considerate, and he succeeded in eliciting evi¬ 
 dence by his forbearance whieh others could not have extorted 
 by bullying. Upon one occasion, he was convinced that a 
 witness was about to relate a “made-up” story, and he at 
 once fixed upon the man a look so piercing that the fellow 
 was overwhelmed with confusion and could not go on with 
 his evidence. Brady promptly changed his tactics, sent for 
 a glass of water for the witness, and soothed him so effect¬ 
 ually that the heart of the man was won, and, abandoning 
 his false tale, he made a simple statement of the truth. 
 
 The independence of character exhibited by Mr. Brady has 
 already been adverted to. Having once traced out the line of 
 duty, nothing could make him sw’erve from it, and he was as 
 bold in the defense of the rights of his clients as of his own. 
 Mr. Edwards Clarke, from whose excellent memoir is gleaned 
 much of the information upon which this sketch is based, re- 
 
466 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 lates the following incidents in illustration of this quality of 
 the man: 
 
 ‘‘ The trial of Baker for the murder of Poole furnished a 
 notable instance of Mr. Brady’s intrepidity in behalf of a client. 
 It was at the height of the ‘Know-Nothing’ excitement, and 
 Poole, after receiving the fatal bullet, having exclaimed, ‘ I die 
 an American,’ succeeded in causing himself to be regarded as a 
 martyr to the cause. Lingering for days Avith—as the post¬ 
 mortem proved—a bullet deeply imbedded in his heart, the in¬ 
 terest and excitement became intense; and on the day of his 
 funeral twenty thousand men walked in solemn procession be¬ 
 hind the coffin of the martyred ‘ rough.’ In such a state of 
 ])ublic feeling. Baker was put on trial for his life. At the 
 opening of the charge by the judge, aroused by its tenor, Mr. 
 Brady seized a pen and commenced writing rapidly, indigna¬ 
 tion showing itself in his set lips and frowning brow. The 
 moment the judge ceased he was on his feet, and began: ‘You 
 have charged the jury thus and thus. I protest against your 
 so stating it.’ The judge said he would listen to the objections 
 after the jury had I’etired. ‘No!’ exclaimed the indignant 
 orator, ‘I choose that the jury should hear those objections;’ 
 •ind, defying interference, he poured forth impetuously forty- 
 live separate and formal objections, couching them all em¬ 
 phatically in words of personal protest to the judge. The force 
 of the judge’s charge on that jury was pretty effectually broken. 
 The indignation of the advocate at this time Avas real, not sim¬ 
 ulated ; and he, at least, of the New A"ork bar dared to def5 
 and to denounce injustice, even when clad in ermine. 
 
 “Another instance of his intrepidity before a judge was in 
 the Busteed case. The judge had threatened to coiiA’ict him 
 for contempt. Busteed had apologized, and Brady also, Avith 
 his matchless grace and courtesy, had tendered Busteed’s 
 
JAMES T. BEADY. 
 
 4G7 
 
 apology; but the judge still said that he should send him to 
 prison. ‘You will, will you?’ said Brady; ‘I say you will 
 not.’ And, citing authority after authority against his power 
 to do so, he dared him to thus stretch his prerogative. The 
 judge thought best to excuse Mr. Busteed.” 
 
 Perhaps one of the best instances of his moral courage to 
 be found was his conduct with reference to the late Edwin M. 
 Stanton. He was associated with Mr. Stanton in the Sickles trial, 
 and conceived a warm pevsonal attachment to him. Mr. Brady 
 remained a Democrat to the last, and was an active member 
 of Tammany Hall. Upon one occasion, during a meeting of 
 the Tammany Committee, when the name of Stanton was re¬ 
 ceived with hisses and yells of objurgation, Brady rose, and 
 facing the crowd told them “ that he knew they hated Edwin 
 M. Stanton, but he, a Democrat, knew him, and held him in 
 his heart of hearts.” It was a bold declaration, considering the 
 time and place, even for one so highly esteemed as James 
 T. Brady. 
 
 As before remarked, Mr. Brady never relied upon his elo¬ 
 quence alone for success at the bar. He had a profound re¬ 
 spect for his profession, and scorned its trickeries. He worked 
 faithfully over the cases intrusted to him, studied them care¬ 
 fully, and never brought them to trial till he was thorough 
 master of the law bearing upon them. This enabled him fre¬ 
 quently to present issues which a less learned man would uot 
 have dreamed of. AVhen he was retained as counsel for Hunt¬ 
 ington the forger, he conceived the idea that the man was 
 morally unaccountable for his deed, and his theory of moral in¬ 
 sanity, as develo]>ed by him in this case, is one of the most 
 jiowcrful arguments upon the subject to be found in any lan¬ 
 guage. He I’cad every thing he could find on the subject 
 
 of insanity, and when he went into court there was .lot a physi- 
 28 
 
468 
 
 KINGS OP PORTUNE. 
 
 ciau in the land better informed with respect to it than he. 
 The cases in which he was frequently engaged required an 
 unusual acquaintance with medical jurisprudence, and he was 
 regarded as one of the best authorities on the subject in the 
 country. 
 
 His power ov^er a jury was remarkable. He never lost sight 
 of the “ twelve peers,” and by his dexterous management soon 
 had them so thoroughly under the influence of his magnetic 
 mind that they hung upon his words, followed his every act, 
 laughed or cried as he willed, and seemed capable of thinking 
 only as he permitted them. He defended fifty-one men fcr 
 their lives in the course of his practice, and brought them all 
 off in safety. 
 
 Mr. Clarke, from whose memoir I have already quoted, re¬ 
 lates the following incidents in his career; 
 
 “ The case of a young man charged with murder, in what 
 was claimed to be an accidental fracas, attracted a good deal of 
 interest. He was a Mason, and that society applied to Mr. Brady 
 to defend him, tendering twenty-five hundred dollars as a fee; 
 but for some cause he declined the case. Not long after, one 
 afternoon, a neatly-dressed, modest young girl came to the office 
 and asked for Mr. Brady. Told to walk into his private office, 
 she timidly approached his desk, and saying, ' Mr. Brady, 
 they are going to hang my brother, and you can save him. 
 I’ve brought you this money; please don’t let my brother die,’ 
 she burst into tears. It was a roll of two hundred and fifty 
 dollars, which the poor girl had begged in sums of five and ten 
 dollars. The kind-hearted man heard her story. ‘ They shall 
 not hang your brother, my child,’ said he, and putting the roll 
 of bills in an envelope, told her to take it to her mother, and 
 he would ask for it when he wanted it. The boy was cleared. 
 In Mr. Brady’s parlor hangs an exquisite picture, by Durand, 
 
I 
 
 \ 
 
 t r 
 
JAMES T. BRADY. 
 
 471 
 
 with a letter on the back asking hirii to accept it as a mark of 
 appreciation for his generous kindness in defending this poor 
 boy. Mr. Brady prized that picture. 
 
 “Once when, in the heiglit of his appeal to the jury, a dog 
 began barking vigorously, he whirled around, shook his finger 
 at the dog and said, gravely, with the quickness of thought, 
 ‘ I am Sir Oracle, and when I ope my lips let no dog bark!’ 
 
 “An Irishman once came to his office: ‘And are yez Misther 
 Brady?’ ‘ I am ; come in, Patrick. What is it yon wish ?’ ‘I 
 ax yer pardon ; I ought n’t to intrude upon yez.’ ‘ But what is 
 it, Patrick?’ ‘Well, yer honor, it is n’t for the likes o’ me to 
 bo coinin’ troublin’ yer honor.’ ‘But tell me what you want, 
 Pat.’ ‘Well, yer honor, I came to see ye about a friend of 
 mine as met wid an accident.’ ‘An accident?’ said Mi’. Brady; 
 ‘then why don’t you go for a doctor?’ ‘Arrah, sure, you’re 
 the docther for my friend; he had an accident which wants yer 
 honor.’ ‘Well, what xoas it?’ ‘Well, yer honor, he was 
 arristcd for a thrifle of a burglary, shure.’ Quick as hlr. Brady 
 was, with the I'cadinoss of his race, for repartee, he sometimes 
 met his match among his own countrymen. lie was once ex¬ 
 amining an unwilling witness who persistently called him Mr. 
 O’Brady. At length, even his proverbial good nature being a 
 little ruffled, he said to the witness: ‘You need not call me 
 Mr. O’Brady. I’ve mended my name since I came here and 
 drojiped the O.’ ‘Have ye, now? ’Pon my sowl it’s a pity ye 
 didn’t mend yer manners at the same time.’” 
 
 In politics Mr. Brady was a Democrat of the States-Rights 
 school, yet he always maintained that it was the duty of the 
 citizen to render the promptest obedience to the General Gov¬ 
 ernment. At the outset of the late war he gave his siqiport to 
 the Government in its war measures, though he did not sepa¬ 
 rate himself from the Democratic party. lie was frequently 
 
472 
 
 KINGS or FORTUNE. 
 
 solicited by his friends to accept political honors, but he steadily 
 refused, saying that he wanted no honors outside of his profes¬ 
 sion. 
 
 In person INIr. Brady was slender and delicate in appearance. 
 What attracted the gazer at once was his massive head—a head 
 which measured in its circumference twenty-four and three- 
 eighths inches. Age seemed to have no effect upon his face. 
 Severe mental labor in the course of years took away some of 
 the rosy hues of youth, but otherwise it continued as fresh and 
 as winning as when a boy. 
 
 Mr. Brady never married, but no one was more widely re¬ 
 moved from the typical old bachelor than he. If he had no 
 family of his own, he was the head of a family of devoted rela¬ 
 tives, who gave him ample scope for tlie exercise of the domes¬ 
 tic affections which were so strong in him. Very soon after 
 entering upon the practice of his ])rofession his parents died, 
 leaving his brother and five sisters, all much younger than 
 himself, helpless. The young lawyer at once declared that the 
 care of tliese dear ones should be his first thought, and he de¬ 
 voted himself to his practice with redoubled energy, in order to 
 provide for them. He brought his personal expenses down to 
 a low figure, and resolutely kept them there, yet all the while 
 he was lavish in his generosity to those whom he loved. He 
 once said to a friend who asked him why he had never married: 
 “When my father died he lefl five daughters, who looked to 
 me for support. All the affection whicli I could have had for 
 a wife went out to those sisters, and I have never desired to 
 recall it.’’ He transferred a share of this affection to the chil¬ 
 dren of those sisters and of his brother, and was never so hapjiy 
 as when in their company. In his will he mentions one of his 
 nieces as his “ dearly beloved Toot.” 
 
 He was very fond of literature, especially of poetry, and 
 
JAMES T. BRADY. 
 
 473 
 
 devoted a considerable portion of his time to literary efforts of 
 his own. His great fame as a lawyer so overshadowed the 
 success he won in literature that few besides himself knew how 
 much pleasure the popularity of his writings gave him. 
 
 In the exercise of his profession Mr. Brady won a large for¬ 
 tune. His income was princely during the greater part of his 
 life, but he saved comparatively little. He delighted in giving 
 to others. His relatives were the constant recipients of substan¬ 
 tial evidences of his affection for them, and his charities to the 
 poor were in keeping with his generous nature. He could not 
 look upon suffering unmoved, and “ never turned his face from 
 any poor man.” 
 
 His last appearance in public was at the Gerard dinner, 
 where he was as brilliant and genial as ever. He seemed to 
 have a foreboding of his approaching end, however, for the 
 next day he said to one of his family: “I feel that it is the last 
 time I shall ever appear on a like public occasion.” His fears 
 were prophetic. He was seized with an attack of paralysis on 
 the morning of the 9th of February, 1869, and breathed his 
 last at five o’clock in the afternoon of the same day. He died 
 in the communion of the Catholic Church, and was buried from 
 St. Patrick’s Cathedral, in the city of New York. His death 
 drew forth expressions of sympathy and respect from all parts 
 of the Union and from men of all shades of opinion. All tilt 
 that a good and usefid man, a great advocate, and an incorrup¬ 
 tible citizen had been taken away. 
 
 His was a happy fate. He died in the fullness of his fame, 
 before age had weakened his faculties or chilled his heart, 
 and dying thus, it may be said of him, as he once said of 
 another, that he was “a man who had no guile iu his na¬ 
 ture, and who died leaving no living creature to rejoice at his 
 death.” 
 
YI. 
 
 ARTISTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 
 BENJAMIN WEST. 
 
 ^ r a time when America was regarded in Europe 
 as a savage region, and when Americans were 
 looked upon as little better than barbarians by 
 the people of the mother country, it was no slight 
 achievement for an American artist to rise by the 
 
 force of his genius to the proud position of President of the 
 Royal Academy of Great Britain. 
 
 The man who won this triumph was Benjajiin WivST. He 
 was born in S[)ringfield, Pennsylvania, on the 10th of October, 
 1738. His parents were Quakers, plain, simple people, who 
 feared God, lived a just life, and desired above all other things 
 that their children should become pious and useful men and 
 women. The old mansion-house where the future artist was 
 horn was situated in Chester County, and is still .standing. It is 
 not far from Philadelphia, and the })laec is now called Westdale. 
 His father’s family emigrated from England to America with 
 William Penn, at his second visit, in 1699. John West mar¬ 
 ried the daughter of Thomas Pearson, by whom he had ten 
 children. Of these, Benjamin was the youngest son. His 
 
 4:75 
 
476 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 mother was a woman of great piety, and, being once in attend¬ 
 ance upon a memorable religious revival, at which she was ter¬ 
 ribly agitated by the prcaeting of one Edward Peckover, an 
 itinerant Quaker minister, was taken with premature labor, of 
 which Benjamin West was born. 
 
 It was predicted that a child who had been brought into the 
 world under such circumstances would be a man of more than 
 ordinary fame, and the good mother treasured these prophecies 
 in her heart, and watched the career of her boy with the keen¬ 
 est interest. 
 
 When he was but seven years old, he was left one day to 
 watch beside the cradle of the infant child of his eldest sister, 
 wlio, though married, was still living at home. Being unusu¬ 
 ally silent for a long time, his mother concluded that she 
 Avould go and see what he was doing. Upon entering the room 
 where he had been left with his charge, she saw him kneeling 
 by a chair which he had placed close up to the cradle, gazing 
 at the infant, and making what she supposed to be marks on 
 a paper wdiich lay on the chair. Stealing up behind him softly, 
 she saw to her astonishment that this boy, only seven years old, 
 had executed, with black and red ink and a pen, an accurate 
 though rude likeness of the sleeping babe. This was the first 
 evidence he had ever given of his predilection for art, and was 
 indeed a most surprising performance for so young a child. 
 
 The next summer a party of Indians came to Springfield to 
 pay their annual visit, and to please them little Benjamin 
 showed them some sketches of birds and flowers which he had 
 executed with pen and ink. The savages w'ere delighted with 
 them, and presented him with the red and yellow pigments 
 with which they colored their ornaments. In addition to this 
 gift, they taught him how to prepare these colors, to wdiich he 
 added another, namely, indigo, wdiich his mother gave him 
 
BENJAMIN WEST. 
 
 479 
 
 from her laundry. His colors were rude enough, but his pen¬ 
 cils were ruder. They were made of the hairs which he had 
 pulled from a cat s back and fastened in the end of a goose- 
 quill. Soon after this, a relative from Philadelphia, chancing 
 to visit the old homestead, was struck with the talent of the 
 little fellow, and upon his return to the city sent him a box of 
 colors, with pencils and canvas and a few prints. He was only 
 Mine years old, but he was a born artist. He had neVer seen 
 any painting of merit, and the few prints which his relative 
 gave him were the most finished productions he had ev'cr seen. 
 The box of colors was his most precious possession, and it 
 opened to him new fields of enjoyment. The day of its arrival 
 he gave himself up entirely to the pleasure of examining it. 
 “ Even after going to sleep,” says his biographer, “ he awoke 
 more than once during the night, and anxiously put out his 
 hand to the box, which he had placed by his bedside, half 
 afraid that he might find his riches only a dream. Next morn¬ 
 ing he rose at break of day, and, carrying his colors and can¬ 
 vas to the garret, proceeded to work. Every thing else was 
 now unheeded; even his attendance at school was given up. 
 As soon as he got out of the sight of his father and mother, 
 he stole to his garret, and there passed the hours in a vTorld 
 of his own. At last, after he had been absent from school 
 some days, the master called at his father’s house to inquire 
 what had become of him. This led to the discovery of his 
 secret occupation. His mother, proceeding to the garret, found 
 the truant; but so much was she astonished and delighted by 
 the creation of his pencil, which also met her view when she 
 entered the apartment, that, instead of rebuking him, she 
 could only take him in her arms and kiss him with transports 
 of alfection. He made a new composition of his own out of 
 two of the engravings, which he had colored from his own 
 
480 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 feeling of the proper tints; and so perfect did the appearance 
 already appear to his mother, that, although half the canvas 
 yet remained uncovered, she would not suflFer him to add 
 
 another touch to what he had done. Mr. Galt, West’s biog¬ 
 
 rapher, saw the picture in the state in which it had thus been 
 left sixty-seven years afterward ; and the artist himself used to 
 acknowledge that in none of his subsequent efforts had he been 
 able to excel some of the touches of invention in this his fii’st 
 essay.” 
 
 His next effort was a landscape, which comprehended a view 
 of a river, with vessels in the stream and cattle browsing on 
 
 the banks. He could not have been much over ten years of 
 
 age at this time, and the picture, though insignificant in itself, 
 is remarkable as the work of a child. He subsequently pre¬ 
 sented it to his friend, Mr. William Henry, of Lancaster, 
 whose family still retain possession of it. He visited Phila- 
 deljihia soon after, and received a few simple instructions in the 
 practical portion of his art, after which he went about through 
 the towns of the vicinity of his home, painting portraits of his 
 friends. At length he was sent for by Mrs. Ross, of Lancaster, 
 a lady famed for her great beauty, to paint the portraits of her¬ 
 self and her family—a great honor for a lad of twelve. 
 
 It was in Lancaster, in the year 1750, that he made the ac¬ 
 quaintance of Mr. William Henry. That gentleman became 
 deeply interested in the precocious boy, and frequently came to 
 watch him at his portrait-painting. One day he said to Ben¬ 
 jamin, that if he (Henry) could paint equally well he would 
 not waste his time upon portraits, but would devote himself to 
 historical subjects. In the course of the conversation to which 
 this remark gave rise, Mr. Henry proposed to him to make an 
 attempt in this direction, and suggested to him ‘^The Death of 
 Socrates” as his first subject. The little artist frankly avowed 
 
BENJAMIN WEST. 
 
 48i 
 
 that he had never heard of the great philosopher, and Mr. Henrv 
 at once went to his library and brought out a volume of Plu¬ 
 tarch, from which he read to the boy the beautiful story of the 
 wise man’s death. West listened with the deepest interest, and 
 expressed his perfect readiness to undertake the task, but 
 feared he would have difficulty in painting the figure of the 
 slave who presented the poison, and which he thought ought to 
 be naked, since he had hitherto painted only men with their 
 clothes on. Mr. Henry had in his employ a young man of fine 
 appearance, and ujion hearing West’s objection at once sent for 
 him. As the workman entered the room Henry pointed to 
 him, and said to West, “There’s your model.” West took the 
 hint, painted the picture, which was purchased by Mr. Henry, 
 and thenceforth determined that in his art he would look only 
 into nature for his models. 
 
 At the age of sixteen he returned to Springfield. He was 
 anxious to continue his career as an artist, and as his parents 
 were satisfied that he was now old enough to enter upon some 
 permanent occupation, they agreed that his wishes should be 
 submitted to a public meeting of the Society of Friends. The 
 meeting was called, and the matter was laid before them, the 
 boy himself being present. His relatives and friends were all 
 very proud of his talents, but as the profession of an artist was 
 so entirely at variance with all Quaker habits and ideas, they 
 felt that the subject was one which ought not to be rashly de¬ 
 cided. Silence prevailed for a long time after the opening of 
 the meeting, but at length John Williamson, moved by the 
 Spirit, rose and addressed the assemblage, declaring his belief 
 that as the youth had not derived his fondness for art from any 
 of his associations or surroundings, and since it was so mani¬ 
 festly a special gift from the Creator, it was their plain duty to 
 bid him go forward in the path that had been marked out for 
 
482 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 him, and to wish him God-speed in his efforts. At the close of 
 his remarks silence again fell upon the assembly. Then the 
 women rose, and approaching the lad, one by one, kissed him 
 on the cheek, and the men, laying their hands on his head,. 
 ])rayed that the Lord might verify in his life the value of the 
 gift which had induced them, in spite of their religious tenets 
 on the subject, to allow him to enter upon the permanent exer¬ 
 cises of the profession so dear to his heart. 
 
 Thus was he dedicated to his art, and at the same time sep¬ 
 arated to a certain degree from his Quaker brethren. Not 
 long after this’ he violated every principle of the Quaker dis¬ 
 pensation by volunteering under Major Sir Peter Halket to go 
 in search of the remains of Braddock’s army. 
 
 In 1756, at the age of eighteen, he established himself in 
 Philadelphia as a portrait painter, and soon after removed to 
 New York, where he painted portraits at five guineas a head, 
 occasionally attempting an historical piece. When he was 
 twenty years old he made a visit to Europe—a visit which de¬ 
 cided his destiny. A famine in the south of Europe induced a 
 Philadelphia merchant to dispatch a vessel laden with fiour to 
 Leghorn, and his son, who was to take passage in the ship, pro¬ 
 posed to West to accompany him, and thus secure an oppor¬ 
 tunity of seeing the art-treasures of the Old World. West 
 promptly accepted the invitation, and some of his friends in 
 New York provided him with an outfit for the voyage. Upon 
 arriving at Gibraltar, the vessel was boarded 1^ a British 
 officer, who proved to be a kinsman of the son of the owner 
 of the ship, and he not only passed them without molestation, 
 but enabled them to secure unusual facilities in the voyage up 
 the Mediterranean. West arrived in Rome in July, 1759, 
 and was kindly received by the English Lord Grantham, to 
 ■whom he bore letters of introduction. 
 
BENJAMIN WEST. 
 
 483 
 
 Among the distinguished persons whom Mr. West found 
 in Rome, was the celebrated Cardinal Albani. At an even¬ 
 ing j)arty, the Cardinal became curious to witness the effect 
 which the works of art in the Belvidere and Vatican 
 would produce on the young artist. The whole company, 
 which consisted of the principal Roman nobility and strangers 
 of distinction then in Rome, were interested in the event, and 
 it was arranged, in the course of the evening, that, on the fol¬ 
 lowing morning, they should accompany West to the palaces. At 
 the hour appointed, the company assembled, and a procession 
 consisting of upwards of thirty of the most magnificent equip¬ 
 ages in the capital of Christendom, and filled with some of the 
 most erudite characters in Europe, conducted the young Quaker 
 to view the masterpieces of art. It was agreed that the 
 ‘ Apollo ’ should be first submitted to his view, because it was the 
 most perfect work among all the ornaments of Rome, and, con¬ 
 sequently, the best calculated to produce that effect which the 
 company were anxious to witness. The statue then stood in a 
 case, inclosed with doors, which could be so opened as to dis¬ 
 close it at once to full view. West was placed in the situation 
 where it was seen to the most advantage, and the spectators ar¬ 
 ranged themselves on each side. When the kee 2 )er threw open 
 the doors, the artist felt himself surprised with a sudden recol¬ 
 lection altogether different from the gratification which he had 
 expected, and without being aw’are of the force of what he said, 
 exclaimed, ‘My God ! how like it is to a young INIohawk war¬ 
 rior.’ The Italians, observing his surprise and hearing the ex¬ 
 clamation, were excessively mortified to find that the god of 
 their idolatry was compared to a savage. They mentioned 
 their chagrin, and asked West to give some more distinct ex¬ 
 planation, by informing them what sort of people the Mohawk 
 Indians were. lie described to them their education, their dex- 
 
484 
 
 KINGS OP POBTUNE. 
 
 terity with the bow and arrow, the admirable elasticity of their 
 limbs, and how much their active life expands the chest, while 
 the quick breathing of their speed in the chase dilates the nos¬ 
 trils with that apparent consciousness of vigor which is so 
 nobly depicted in the ‘Apollo.’ ‘ I have seen them often,’ 
 added he, ‘ standing in that very attitude, and pursuing with an 
 intense eye the arrow which they had just discharged from the 
 bow.’ The Italians were delighted with this descriptive ex¬ 
 planation, and allowed that a better criticism had never been 
 pronounced on the merits of the statue.” 
 
 Soon after his arrival in Rome, West painted a portrait of 
 Lord Grantham, which won him considerable reputation. It 
 was at first attributed to Raphael Meugs, but when the true 
 artist was announced, and the cireumstances of his history be¬ 
 came known. West found himself suddenly famous, with orders 
 enough to place him at ouee in eomfortable cireumstances. Car¬ 
 dinal Albani and Lord Grantham were very kind to him dur¬ 
 ing his stay in Rome, and Raphael Meugs advised him to make 
 a careful tour of study through the Italian art eapitals. While 
 in Rome he painted two pietures, “ Cimon and Iphigenia,” and 
 “Angeliea and Medora,” which were well received, and during 
 this period he was elected a member by the Academies of Flor¬ 
 ence, Bologna, and Parma. He made the tour advised by 
 Meugs, remaining in Italy several years. Thence he proceeded 
 to France, where he passed a short time in studying the French 
 masters, after Avhich he went to England, intending to sail 
 from that eountry for America, where he had left his heart 
 behind him in the keeping of a young Quakeress of Phila¬ 
 delphia. 
 
 He reached London in 1763, and while continuing his stu¬ 
 dies here, whither his reputation had preceded him from Italy, 
 undertook some commissions for Archbishop Drummond and 
 
BEXJAMIN WEST. 
 
 485 
 
 several other church dignitaries. These attracted general ad¬ 
 miration, and his countrymen residing in London were prompt 
 to recognize and proclaim his genius. Pie had relatives living 
 in England, so that he was not an entire stranger there. IIis 
 success was marked from the first, and his friends urged him to 
 profit by so favorable a beginning, give up his idea of returning 
 to America, and make his permanent home in England. This 
 he at length decided to do, and devoted himself with increased 
 ardor to his labors. In two years he considered himself suffi¬ 
 ciently well established to send to Philadelphia for his betrothed. 
 This lady, Miss Elizabeth Shewed, came out to England under 
 the care of his father, and in the same year, 1765, ^V’’est was 
 married to her in London. She was a lady of great amiability 
 of character, and by the English Avas often spoken of as the 
 Philadelphia beauty. 
 
 Soon after his arrival in England he produced a large paint¬ 
 ing on a subject from Tacitus, “Agrippina Landing with the 
 Ashes of Germanicus.” It was a decided success. George the 
 Third was deeply impressed with it, and congratulated AVest 
 warmly upon its merits. At the same time the king gave him 
 a commission for a painting,—the subject to be “ The Death of 
 Regulus,”—and thus began the friendshij) between the monarch 
 and the artist, which lasted for nearly forty years. He Avas a 
 hard Avorker, and during his long life his pictures followed each 
 other in rapid succession. They are estimated by a writer in 
 BlackAvood’s Magazine at three thousand in number. Mr. 
 Dunlap says that they Avould cover a Avail ten feet high and a 
 quarter of a mile long if arranged side by side on a flat surface. 
 The most famous are his “Death of AVolfe;” “ Ilegulus, a 
 Prisoner to the Carthaginians;” “The Battle of La Hogue;” 
 “The Death of Bayard;” “Hamilcar Swearing the Infant 
 Hannibal at the Altar;” “The Departure of Regulus;” 
 
486 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 “Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus ;” “Christ 
 Healing the Sick; ” “ Death on the Pale Horse; ” “ The De¬ 
 scent of the Holy Ghost on the Saviour in the Jordan;” “The 
 Crucifixion;” and “Christ Rejected.” 
 
 The picture which brought him most prominently before the 
 public, and which placed his popularity beyond dispute, was 
 “ The Death of Wolfe at Quebec.” It was fashionable at this 
 time to treat nothing but subjects from ancient history, and 
 when West announced his intention of painting a picture of 
 contemporary history his friends warned him that he was incur¬ 
 ring a serious risk. Nevertheless he finished his “Death of 
 Wolfe,” and it was exhibited in the National Gallery. The 
 public “ acknowledged its excellence at once, but the lovers of 
 old art—called classical—complained of the barbarism of boots, 
 buttons, and blunderbusses, and cried out for naked warriors, 
 with bows, bucklers, and battering rams.” Lord Grosvenor 
 was much pleased with the picture, and finally purchased it, 
 though he did so with hesitation, daunted to some extent by 
 the fierce storm of opposition with which the critics received it. 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, then the President of the Royal Academy, 
 and the Archbishop of York, called on West and protested 
 against his barbarous innovation, but he declared to them that 
 “the event to be commemorated happened in the year 1759, in 
 a region of the world unknown to Greeks and Romans, and at 
 a period of the world when no warrior who wore classic cos¬ 
 tume existed. The same rule which gives law to the historian 
 should rule the painter.” When the king saw the picture he 
 was delighted both with it and West’s originality, and declared 
 that he was sorry Lord Grosvenor had been before him in pur¬ 
 chasing it. This was the inauguration of a new era in British 
 art, and Sir Joshua Reynolds was obliged to declare, “West 
 has conquered. I foresee that this picture will not only become 
 
BENJAMIN WEST. 
 
 487 
 
 one of the most popular, but will occasion a revolution in art.” 
 This frank avowal was as honorable to Sir Joshua as to West. 
 
 West painted for George the Third a number of subjects 
 taken from the early history of England, and received from the 
 same monarch a commission for a series of paintings illustrat¬ 
 ing the progress of revealed religion, with which the king 
 designed to ornament the chapel at Windsor Castle. Of these 
 twenty-eight were finished when the Prince of Wales, afterward 
 George the Fourth, came into power as Prince Regent, and the 
 commission was withdrawn. The artist then began a series of 
 grand religious subjects, upon which he was still engaged when 
 death called him to rest from all his labors. Of those which 
 were completed, “Death on the Pale Horse” and “Chri.st 
 Healing the Sick ” are the best known in this countrv. 
 
 In 1792, upon the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds, West was 
 made President of the Royal Academy. The king wished to 
 confer upon him the honor of knighthood, but he declined it, 
 alleging that he was not wealthy enough to support the dignity 
 of the position. In consequence of dissensions in the Academy, 
 West resigned his presidency in 1802. The post was filled for 
 a year by James Wyatt, the architect, and at the close of that 
 time West was re-elected by every ballot but one—that of 
 Fuseli, who voted for Mrs. Lloyd, a member of the Academy, 
 declaring that he considered “one old woman as good as an¬ 
 other.” AYest continued in this office until his death. 
 
 The close of his life was blessed with ample means, and, as he 
 was in the full possession of all his faculties and covered with 
 art’s supremest honons, it may be regarded as the happiest por¬ 
 tion of his career. His house was always open to Americans 
 visiting England, and few things pleased him more than to 
 listen to news from his native village. He was a kind and 
 
 judicious friend to young arti.sts, especially to those of his 
 29 
 
488 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE, 
 
 own country studying in England, and took a lively pleasure 
 in their success. Leigh Hunt, whose mother was a relative 
 of "West, has left us the following description of him: 
 
 “The appearance of West was so gentlemanly that the mo¬ 
 ment he changed his gown for a coat he seemed to be full 
 dressed. The simplicity and self-possession of the young Qua¬ 
 ker, not having time enough to grow stiff—for he went early 
 to Rome—took up, I suppose, with more ease than most would 
 have done, the urbanities of his new position. Yet this man, 
 so well bred, and so indisputably clever in his art, whatever 
 might be the amount of his genius, had received a homely or 
 careless education, and pronounced some of his words with a 
 puritanical barbarism; he would talk of his art all day. There 
 were strong suspicions of his leaning to his native side in pol¬ 
 itics, and he could not restrain his enthusiasm for Bonaparte. 
 How he managed these matters with the higher powers in 
 England I can not say.” 
 
 Possessed originally of a sound and vigorous constitution, 
 which he had not weakened by any species of dissipation. West 
 lived to a good old age, and died in London on the 11th of 
 March, 1820, in his eighty-second year. He was buried in 
 St. Paul’s Cathedral, by the side of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and 
 under the same great dome which covers the tombs of Nelson 
 and Wellington. 
 
JOHN ROGERS. 
 
 489 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 JOHN ROGERS. 
 
 is scarcely a family of means and taste 
 country but is the possessor of one or 
 of Rogers’s groups in plaster. You see 
 in every art or book-store window, and 
 ,re constantly finding new admirers, and 
 rendering the name of the talented sculptor more and more a 
 household word. 
 
 John Rogers, to whom the world is indebted for this new 
 branch of art, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on the 30th 
 of October, 1829. His ancestors were among the original set¬ 
 tlers of the colony, and have resided in Salem for generations. 
 His father, a merchant of moderate means and good reputation, 
 was anxious to train his son to some regular and profitable 
 business. As the basis of this, he gave the boy a good educa¬ 
 tion in the common schools of the town, and in 1845, when he 
 was sixteen years old, placed him in a dry-goods store in Bos¬ 
 ton to learn the business. He remained there for two years. 
 
 He gave early evidence of his artistic genius, and when a 
 mere child had shown a taste and talent for drawing which 
 increased with his years, and made him eager to become an 
 artist. His parents, however, were desirous of seeing him rich 
 rather than famous, and did all in their power to discourage 
 
490 
 
 KINGS or FORTUNE. 
 
 him from making choice of a vocation which they considered 
 but little better than vagabondage. They magnified the diffi¬ 
 culties and trials of an artist’s career, and so far succeeded in 
 their efforts that he entirely abandoned his wish to make art a 
 means of livelihood. He was not willing to forsake it alto¬ 
 gether, however—he was too true an artist at heart for that— 
 but contented himself for the time with continuing his efforts, 
 merely as a means of personal enjoyment. 
 
 In 1847, feeling satisfied that he was not suited to a mer¬ 
 cantile life, jVIr. Rogers gave up his clerkship in Boston, and 
 obtained a place in the corps of engineers engaged in the con¬ 
 struction of the Cochituate Water Works. Here he had a fine 
 opportunity for cultivating his talent for drawing, but the con¬ 
 stant labor which he underwent so injured his eyes that he was 
 compelled to give up his position. His physician advised him 
 to make an ocean voyage for the purpose of re-establi.sbing hi.s 
 health. Acting upon this advice, he made a short visit to 
 Spain, and returned home very much improved by the voyage 
 and the rest his eyes had enjoyed. 
 
 In 1848, soon after his return to this country, he entered a 
 machine shop in Manchester, Xew Hampshire, to learn the 
 trade of a machinist. He worked at this trade for a period 
 of seven years, applying himself to it with great diligence and 
 determination, and acquiring much mechanical skill and a 
 thorough knowledge of the trade. He rose steadily through 
 the various grades of his new calling—from the bench of the 
 apprentice to the post of draughtsman in the designing de¬ 
 partment. 
 
 During this period he devoted himself enthusiastically to his 
 art. Soon after his return from Spain, he had observed a 
 young man modeling a figure in clay, and by closely observ¬ 
 ing him had learned the process, which until then was unknown 
 
JOHN EOGEKS. 
 
 491 
 
 to him. The labor of the youth pleased him very much, and 
 the more because he saw in it a new means of artistic expres¬ 
 sion. He at once procured some clay, and, taking it to his 
 room, commenced to practice upon the lesson which he had 
 just received. From this time forward he continued his art 
 labors, giving to them all the leisure time he could spare from 
 his duties in the shop, where he was compelled to work from 
 five A. M. until seven p. m. He would go to his room after 
 supper, and by the light of a tallow caudle work late into the 
 night, modeling figures in clay, and bringing new fancies into 
 shape. He says that frequently, although exhausted by his 
 severe labor at the shop, he would be unable to sleep until 
 he had molded into clay the idea which possessed his mind. 
 These night studies, superadded to his daily duties, proved 
 very trying to him. Yet he persevered, encouraged by his 
 success with his figures. He endeavored to persuade some of 
 his relatives to aid him in securing a better education as an 
 artist, such as would have enabled him to abandon the ma¬ 
 chine shop; but they turned a deaf ear to him, and he was 
 thus compelled to continue his daily task, which, under these 
 circumstances, naturally grew more and more irksome. 
 
 In 1856, he was enabled to better his condition for a short 
 time. He was ofiFered the place of manager of a railroad 
 machine-shop at Hannibal, Missouri, and promptly accepted it. 
 In six months, however, he was out of employment, the panic 
 of 1857 having caused the machine-shop to suspend operations. 
 Having a little money in hand, which he had saved from his 
 wages, he resolved to visit Europe, and study the works of the 
 great masters in his art, and, if he could, to take lessons in 
 sculpture from some competent teacher in the Old World. He 
 went to Paris and Rome, remaining in those cities for a period 
 of eight months, and endeavoring to share the enthusiasm for 
 
492 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 the great works around him which the artist world manifested. 
 At the end of that time he came home convinced that classic 
 art had no attractions for him, and was almost ready to declare 
 that he had none of the true inspiration of an artist. 
 
 He did not stop long in the East upon his return. Going 
 West at once, he obtained a situation in the office of the Surveyor 
 of the city of Chicago. In this position he worked hard and 
 faithfully, and his employers soon found that in him they had 
 obtained a prize. 
 
 Meantime, although so much disheartened by his failure to 
 accomplish any thing in Europe, he did not abandon his art 
 studies, but continued to model figures in clay, and shortly after 
 his arrival in Chicago, gave one of his groups to some ladies 
 of that city, to be sold at a fair in behalf of some benevolent 
 purpose. This was the “ Checker Players,” and was the first 
 of his efforts ever submitted to the public. Its success was im¬ 
 mediate. It proved one of the most attractive features of the 
 fair, and the newspapers pronounced it one of the most satis¬ 
 factory evidences of native genius ever seen in Chicago. Mr. 
 Rogers was much pleased with its success, and soon followed 
 it with “ The Town Pump,” one of his most popular com¬ 
 positions. 
 
 The popularity which these efforts attained, opened John 
 Rogers’s eyes to a correct perception of his true mission in life. 
 He was not capable of accomplishing any thing in classic art, 
 but here was a field in which a renown, unique and brilliant, 
 might be won, and in which he might endear himself to thou¬ 
 sands of hearts in the great world in which he lived. Both 
 fame and wealth seemed opening up before him. He did not 
 hesitate long, but resolved to follow the leadings of his genius. 
 Having heard that a new process of flexible molds had been 
 invented, by which the most intricate designs could be cast with 
 
JOHN EOGEKS, 
 
 ease, he came to New York in 1859, bringing with him his 
 “ Checker Players ” and “ Town Pump,” and the model of a 
 new group on which he was then engaged. Seeking an Italian 
 familiar with the new process, he engaged him to cast his fig¬ 
 ures in piaster by means of it, and from him he learned how 
 to practice the new method himself. 
 
 He now put forth his “ Slave Auction,” which he had mod¬ 
 eled in Chicago and brought to New York with him. The 
 antislavery excitement was then at its height, and this effort 
 aroused the sympathy and won Mr. Rogers the support of the 
 greater part of the people of the Northern States. There was a 
 large demand for the group, and Mr. Rogers soon found him¬ 
 self obliged to employ assistance to fill the orders which kept 
 crowding in upon him. By selecting a subject which was of 
 the deepest interest to the people of the country, he had thus 
 attracted attention to his merits, and he felt sure that by keep¬ 
 ing the people supplied with works illustrative of the topics 
 of the day, he would win the success to which he aspired. 
 
 He now ventured to establish himself permanently in New 
 York, and, renting the garret of a Broadway building, set up 
 his studio in it, and issued this modest card: “ John Rogers, 
 Artist, Designs and Executes Groups of Figures in Composi¬ 
 tion at his Studio, 599 Broadway.” The success of his works 
 had been so marked as to induce him to believe that he would 
 have no difficulty in establishing a permanent business, and he 
 set to work with enthusiasm. In quick succession he produced 
 his “Fairy’s Whisper” and “Air Castles,” the latter of which 
 is the only commission he has ever executed. The war began 
 soon after, and supplied him with an abundance of popular 
 subjects. These war subjects attracted universal attention, and 
 sold as rapidly as he could supply them. A New York journal 
 thus describes the “ sensation ” which they created in that city: 
 
494 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE, 
 
 ‘‘All day, and every day, week in and week out, there is an 
 ever-changing crowd of men, women, and children standing 
 stationary amid the ever-surging tides of Broadway, before the 
 windows of Williams & Stevens, gazing with eager interest 
 upon the statuettes and groups of John Rogers, the sculptor. 
 These works appeal to a deep popular sentiment. They are not 
 pretentious displays of gods, goddesses, ideal characters, or stu¬ 
 pendous, world-compelling heroes. They are illustrations of 
 American domestic and especially of American military life— 
 not of our great generals or our bold admirals, or the men 
 whose praises fill all the newspapers, but of the common sol¬ 
 dier of the Union; not of the common soldier, either, in what 
 might be called his high heroic moods and moments, when, with 
 waving swoixi and flaming eye, he dashes upon the enemy’s 
 works, but of the soldier in the ordinary moments and usual 
 occupations of every-day camp life. For the last year or more 
 Mr. Rogers has been at work mainly on groups of this latter 
 class and character. Thus he has given us ‘The Returned Vol¬ 
 unteer, or How the Fort was Taken,’ being a group of three 
 gathered in a blacksmith’s shop, the characters consisting of the 
 blacksmith himself, standing with his right foot on the anvil 
 block, and his big hammer in his hands, listening eagerly, with 
 his little girl, to a soldier who sits close by on his haunches, 
 narrating ‘how the fort was taken.’ We have also another 
 group of three, ‘ The Picket Guard,’ spiritedly-sketched, as in 
 eager, close, and nervous search for the enemy; the ‘ Sharp¬ 
 shooters,’ another group of three, or rather of two men and a 
 scarecrow, illustrating a curious practice in our army of deceiv¬ 
 ing the enemy; the ‘Town Pump,’ a scene in which a soldier, 
 uniformed and accoutered, is slaking his thirst and holding 
 blessed converse beside the pump with a pretty girl who has 
 oome for a pail of water; the ‘Union Refugees,’ a pathetic 
 
JOHN ROGERS. 
 
 495 
 
 and noble group, consisting of a stalwart and sad-faced East 
 Tennesseean or Virginian, who, accompanied by his wife, who 
 leans her head upon his bosom, and by his little boy, who looks 
 up eagerly into his face, has started otf from home with onjy 
 his gun upon his shoulder and his powder-horn by his side, to 
 escape the tyranny of the rebels ; ‘ The Camp Fire, or Making 
 Friends with the Cook,’ in which a hungry soldier, seated upon 
 an inverted basket, is reading a newspaper to an ‘ intelligent 
 contraband,’ who is stirring the contents of a huge and ebul¬ 
 lient pot hung over the fire; MVounded to the Rear, or One 
 More Shot,’ in which a soldier is represented as dressing his 
 wounded leg, while his companion, with his left arm in a sling, 
 is trying to load his gun to take another shot at the enemy, at 
 whom he looks defiantly; ‘ Mail Day,’ which tells its own story 
 of a speculative soldier, seated on a stone and racking his poor 
 brains to find some ideas to transcribe upon the paper which 
 he holds upon his knee, to be sent perchance to her he loves ; 
 ‘The Country Postmaster, or News from the Army,’ which, 
 though a scene from civil life, tells of the anxiety of the sol¬ 
 dier’s wife or sweetheart to get tidings from the brave volun¬ 
 teer who is periling his life on the battle-field; ‘ The Wounded 
 Scout, or a Friend in the Swamp,’ representing a soldier, torn, 
 and bleeding, and far gone, rescued and raised up by a faithful 
 and kind-hearted negro—which we think is one of the best, if 
 not the very best, of Mr. Rogers’s works; and lastly, a group 
 called ‘ The Home Guard, or IMidnight on the Border,’ in 
 which a heroic woman, accompanied by a little girl, is repre¬ 
 sented as stepping out, pistol in hand, to confront the assail¬ 
 ants of her humble home.” 
 
 In 1862 Mr. Rogers removed his studio to the corner of 
 Fifth Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street, where he still remains. 
 He has followed up the earlier productions named above with 
 
496 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 “The Bushwhacker,” a scene representing a Tennessee loyalist 
 dogging the footsteps of the Southern army; “ Taking the Oath 
 and Drawing Katious,” the best and certainly the most popular of 
 his works,—a group of four, representing a Southern lady with 
 her little boy, compelled to take the oath of allegiance in order 
 to obtain rations for her family. A negro boy, bearing a bas¬ 
 ket for his mistress, leans on the barrel watching the proceed¬ 
 ing with the most intense interest. The woman’s face is won¬ 
 derful, and it expresses eloquently the struggle in her breast 
 betwoen her devotion to the South and her love for the boy 
 before her, and the officer tendering the oath almost speaks the 
 sympathy wdiich her suffering has awakened in him. The 
 other works of our artist are “Uncle Ned’s School,” “The 
 Charity Patient,” “ The School Examination,” “ The Council 
 of War,” “The Courtship in Sleepy Hollow,” “The Fugitive’s 
 Story,” “ Challenging the Union Vote,” and “ Rip Van 
 Winkle.” 
 
 The process by w'hich these exquisite groups are produced is 
 exceedingly simple, but is one requiring considerable skill and 
 delicacy of mani])ulation, and although the casting could readily 
 be done by competent assistants, ]\Ir, Rogers conscientiously 
 gives his personal attention to every detail of the process. The 
 artist takes a mass of wet clay of the desired consistency and 
 size, and fashions it roughly wuth his hands to something like 
 the proper shape. “ It is sometimes necessary to make a little 
 frame of wire upon which to lay the clay, to hold it in its 
 proper place, the w'ire being easily made to take any form. 
 The rough figure is then finished w'ith the molding stick, which 
 is simply a stick of jfine w'ith a little spoon of box-w’ood at¬ 
 tached to each end, one spoon being more delicate than the 
 other. With this instrument the artist works upon the clay 
 with surprising ease. The w’^ay in which the works are repro- 
 
JOHN ROGERS. 
 
 407 
 
 duced is as follows: When tlie clay model is com})lete, a single 
 plaster cast is taken for a pattern, and is finished with the 
 most scrnjjulous care by Mr. Kogers himself. This cast is 
 used as a pattern for making whatever number of molds may 
 be needed to supply the demand for any particular group or 
 statue. The molds are made of glue softened with water, so as 
 to be about as limber as India-rubber. This is poured over 
 the pattern while in a warm and liquid condition; it is, there¬ 
 fore, necessary to surround the ])attern with a stiff case to hold 
 the glue in place. This case is made of plaster, and is built up 
 by hand around the pattern. When the glue has become suffi¬ 
 ciently hard, it is cut by a thin sharp knife and pulled off the 
 pattern. The parts are put together and bound by cord, mak¬ 
 ing a perfect glue mold. The plaster of Paris is then poured 
 into the mold inverted. A nund^er of crooked pieces of wire 
 are also placed in the mold to strengthen the figure. In about 
 twenty minutes the })laster sets so as to allow the case to be 
 opened, and the glue mold to be pulled off. To his proficiency 
 in the mechanical part of his art Mr. Rogers attributes a con¬ 
 siderable measure of his success, as it enables him to execute 
 with, facility every suggestion of his imagination, and to secure 
 the perfect reproduction of his woi’ks by those to whom he in¬ 
 trusts that labor.” 
 
 By placing his works at popular prices, ranging from $10 to 
 $25 each, Mr. Rogers has insured the largest sale and greatest 
 popularity for them, and has thus become a national benefactor. 
 It is now within the power of every person of moderate means 
 to possess one or more of his exquisite groups, and in this way 
 the artist has not only secured to himself a sure means of 
 wealth, but has done much to encourage and foster a popular 
 love for, and appreciation of, the art of which he is so bright 
 an ornament. 
 
498 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 It was a bold venture to depart so entirely from all the pre¬ 
 cedents of art, but the result has vindicated both the artist’s 
 genius and his quick appreciation of the intelligence of his 
 countrymen. “ We can not enter into the feelings of ancient 
 Greece,” says a popular journal, in summing up his efforts, 
 “ and our artists who spend their time in attempting to repro¬ 
 duce that ancient art are only imitators. Their works interest 
 only a small class of connoisseurs, and that interest is an anti¬ 
 quarian interest. It is not a vital, living interest, such as a 
 Greek felt in his own work. It is not the natural, healthful, 
 artistic feeling, the feeling for the beauty of realities, except in 
 so far as it represents the feeling for the eternal attributes of 
 beautiful form. It is an effort on the part of our artists to 
 impose the forms and features of another age upon this one,—a 
 task as impossible in art as in society, religion, and national 
 politics.” 
 
 Mr. Rogers is now in his fifty-sixth year, and of all our 
 American artists is, perhaps, the one best known to the masses, 
 and the most popular. He is of medium height, cai’ries himself 
 erectly, and is quick and energetic in his movements. His face 
 is frank, manly, and open, and the expression, though firm and 
 resolute,—as that of a man who has fought so hard for success 
 must be,—is winning and genial. He is a gentleman of great 
 cultivation of mind, and is said by his friends to be one of the 
 most entertaining of companions. In 1865 he married a 
 daughter of Mr. C. S. Francis, of New York, and his fondness 
 for domestic life leads him to pass his leisure hours chiefly bj 
 his own fireside. 
 
HIRAM POWERS. 
 
 501 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 HIRAM POWERS. 
 
 [RAM POWERS was born in Woodstock, Ver¬ 
 mont, on the 29th of July, 1805. He was the 
 eiglith in a family of nine children, and was the 
 son of a farmer who found it hard to provide his 
 little household with the necessaries of life. 
 He grew up as most New England boys do, sound and vigor¬ 
 ous in health, passing the winters in attendance upon the dis¬ 
 trict schools, and the summers in working on the farm. “The 
 only distinctive trait exhibited by the child was mechanical in¬ 
 genuity ; he excelled in caricature, was an adept in constructive¬ 
 ness, having made countless wagons, windmills, and weapons 
 for his comrades, attaining the height of juvenile reputation as 
 the inventor of what he called a ‘ patent fuse.’ ” 
 
 The Powers family lived just over the river, opposite the 
 village, and all joined heartily in the effort to keep the wolf 
 from the doors. Mr. Powers, Sen., was induced to become 
 security for one of his friends, and, as frequently happens, lost 
 all he had in consequence. Following close upon this dis¬ 
 aster came a dreadful famine in the State, caused by an almost 
 total failure of the cro]is. “I recollect,” says Mr. Powers, “we 
 cut down the trees, and fed our few cows on the browse. We 
 lived so long wholly on milk and potatoes, that we got almost 
 
602 
 
 KINGS OP FOBTUNE. 
 
 to loathe them. There were seven of us children, five at home, 
 and it was hard work to feed us/’ 
 
 One of the sons had managed to secure an education at Dart¬ 
 mouth College, and had removed to Cincinnati, where he was 
 at this time editing a newspaper. Thither his father, discour¬ 
 aged by the famine, determined to follow him. Accordingly, 
 placing his household goods and his family in three wagons, 
 and being joined by another family, he set out on the long 
 journey to the West. This was in 1819, when young Hiram 
 was fourteen years old. It cost him a sharp struggle to leave 
 his old home, and as they climbed the hills beyond Woodstock 
 he lingered behind with his mother to take a last view of the 
 place. They crossed the State, and passing through western 
 New York came to the vicinity of Niagara Falls. They were 
 near enough to the great cataract to hear its solemn roar sound¬ 
 ing high above the silent woods. Tlie boy was eager to visit 
 it, but the distance was too great to the falls, and he was forced 
 to relinquish this pleasure. Continuing their journey west¬ 
 ward, they reached the Ohio River, down which stream they 
 floated on a flatboat until they came to Cincinnati, then a city 
 of fourteen thousand inhabitants. 
 
 « 
 
 Through the assistance of his eldest son, the editor, Mr. 
 Powers was enabled to secure a farm not far from Cincinnati, 
 and removing his family to it, began the task of clearing and 
 cultivating it. Unfortunately for the new-comers, the farm was 
 located on the edge of a pestilential marsh, the poisonous ex¬ 
 halations of which soon brought the whole family down with 
 the ague. Mr. Powers the elder died from this disease, and 
 Hiram was ill and disabled from it for a whole year. The 
 family was broken up and scattered, and our hero, incapable of 
 performing hard work so soon after his sickness, obtained a 
 place in a produce store in Cincinnati, his duty being to watch 
 
HIRAM POWERS. 
 
 503 
 
 the principal road by which the farmers’ wagons, laden with 
 grain and corn whisky, came into the city, and to inform the 
 men in charge of them that they could obtain better prices for 
 their produce from his employers than from any other mer¬ 
 chants in the city. It was also a part of his duty to help to 
 roll the barrels from the wagons to the store. He made a very 
 good “drummer,” and gave satisfaction to his employers, but 
 as the concern soon broke up, he was again without employ¬ 
 ment. 
 
 His brother, the editor, now came to his assistance, and made 
 a bargain with the landlord of a hotel in the city to establish 
 a reading-room at his hotel. The landlord was to provide the 
 room and obtain a few paying subscribers ; the editor was to 
 stock it with his exchange newspapers, and Hiram was to be 
 put in charge of it and receive what could be made by it. The 
 reading-room was established, but as the landlord failed to com¬ 
 ply with his agreement. Powers was forced to abandon the 
 undertaking. 
 
 “About that time,” said he, in relating his early life to the 
 Rev. Dr. Bellows, some years ago, “looking around anxiously 
 for the means of living, I fell in with a worthy man, a clock- 
 maker and organ-builder, who was willing to employ me to col¬ 
 lect bad debts in the country. He put me on an old horse 
 which had one very bad fault. He was afflicted with what the 
 Western people called the ‘swaleys,’ and could not go down¬ 
 hill. I frequently had to dismount and back him down, as 
 the only way of getting along. The road often lay through 
 forests and clearings, in mire, and among the roots of the 
 beeches, with which my jDoor beast was constantly struggling. 
 I would sometimes emerge from a dark wood, five miles 
 thrqugh, perhaps, and find myself near a clearing where the 
 farmer’s house I was seeking lay, half a mile off the road. 
 
604 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Picking up a stout club to defend myself against the inevitable 
 dog, which, in the absence of men-folks, guarded every log- 
 house, I plodded across the plowed field, soon to be met by the 
 ferocious beast, who, not seeing a stranger more than once a 
 month, was always furious and dangerous. Out would come, 
 at length, the poor woman, too curious to see who it was that 
 broke up her monotonous solitude, to call oflP the dog, who gen¬ 
 erally grew fiercer as he felt his backer near him, and it was 
 commonly with a feeling as of a bare escape of my life that I 
 finally got into the house. It w'as sad enough, too, often to 
 find sickness and death in those fever-stricken abodes—a wan 
 mother nursing one dying child, with perhaps another dead 
 in the house. ISIy business, too, was not the most welcome. 
 I came to dun a delinquent debtor, who had perhaps been in¬ 
 veigled by some peddler of our goods into an imprudent pur¬ 
 chase, for a payment which it was inconvenient or impossible 
 to make. There, in the corner, hung the wooden clock, the 
 payment for which I was after, ticking otf the last minutes of 
 the sick child—the only ornament of the poor cabin. It was 
 very painful to urge my business under such circumstances. 
 However, I succeeded, by kindness, in getting more money than 
 I expected from our debtors, who would always pay when they 
 could. I recollect, one night, almost bewailing my success. I 
 had reached the entrance of a forest, at least nihe miles through, 
 and finding a little tavern there, concluded it w’as prudent to 
 put up and wait till morning. There were two rough-looking 
 fellows around, hunters, with rifles in their hands, whose ap¬ 
 pearance did not please me, and I fancied they looked at each 
 other significantly when the landlord took ofl* my saddle-bags 
 and weighted them, feeling the hundred dollars of silver I had 
 collected. I was put into the attic, reached by a ladder, and, 
 barricading the trap-door as well as I could, went to sleep with 
 

HIRAM POWERS. 
 
 607 
 
 one eye open. Nothing, however, occurred, and in the morn¬ 
 ing I found my wild-looking men up as early as I, and was not 
 a little disturbed when they proposed to keep me company 
 across the forest. Afraid to show any suspicion, I consented, 
 and then went and looked at the little flint-pistol I carried, 
 formidable only to sparrows, but which was my only defense. 
 
 ‘‘About two miles into the “wood, my fierce-looking friends, 
 after some exchange of understanding as to their respective 
 ways and meeting-point, started off on different sides of the 
 road in search of game, as they said, but, as I feared, with the 
 purpose of robbing and perhaps murdering me at some darker 
 spot in the forest. I had gone perhaps two miles farther, when 
 I heard the breaking of a twig, and, looking on one side, saw a 
 hand signaling me to stop. Presently an eye came out behind 
 the tree, and then an arm, and I verily thought my hour had 
 come. But, keeping straight on, I perceived, almost instantly, 
 to my great relief, two fine deer, who appeared not at all dis¬ 
 turbed by a man on horseback, though ready enough to fly 
 from a gun, and began to suspect that the robber I was 
 dreading was, after all, only a hunter in the honest pursuit 
 of his living. The crack of the rifle soon proved that the 
 deer, and not my saddle-bags, were the game aimed at, and I 
 found my imagination had for twelve hours been converting 
 very harmless huntsmen into highwaymen of a most malicious 
 aspect.” 
 
 His employer was so well pleased with the success of his 
 young collector that he offered to give him a place in the fac¬ 
 tory, saying there would always be plenty of rough work at 
 which an inexperienced hand could employ himself. “I could 
 refuse no proposition that promised me bread and clothes,” 
 said he, “for I was often walking the streets hungry, with my 
 
 arms pressed close to my sides to conceal the holes in my coat 
 30 
 
508 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE, 
 
 sleeves.” His first task was to thin down with a file some 
 brass plates which were to be used as parts of the stops of an 
 organ. Powers was expected to do merely the I'oiigh work, 
 after which the plates were to pass into the hands of the reg¬ 
 ular finisher. His employer, knowing that the task was one 
 which would require time, told him he would look in in a few 
 days, anti see how he had succeeded. The young man’s me¬ 
 chanical talent, on which he had prided himself when a boy in 
 Vermont, now did him good service, and he applied himself 
 to his task with skill and determination. When his employer 
 asked for the plates, he was astonished to find that Powers 
 had not only done the rough work, but had finished them 
 much better than the regular finisher had ever done, and this 
 merely by his greater nicety of eye and his undaunted en¬ 
 ergy. He had blistered his hands terribly, but had done 
 his work well. His employer was delighted, and, finding 
 him so valuable an assistant, soon gave him the superintend¬ 
 ence of all his machinery, and took him to live in his own 
 family. 
 
 As has been stated, his employer’s business was the manu¬ 
 facture of organs and clocks. Powers displayed great skill in 
 the management of the mechanical department of the business, 
 and this, added to the favor shown him by the “boss,” drew 
 upon him the jealousy of the other workmen. There hung in 
 the shop at this time an old silver bull’s-eye watch, a good 
 time-piece, but very clumsy and ungainly in appearance. 
 Powers was anxious to become its owner. Being too poor to 
 buy it, he hit upon the following expedient for obtaining it. 
 He had carefully studied the machine used in the shop for 
 cutting out wooden clock wheels, and had suggested to his 
 employer several improvements in it. The workmen, how¬ 
 ever, had ridiculed his suggestions, and had denounced as the 
 
HIRAM POWERS. 
 
 509 
 
 most barefaced presumption his belief that be could improve a 
 machine which had come all the way from Connecticut, where, 
 they said, people were supposed to know something about 
 clocks. Nevertheless, he maintained his opinions, and told his 
 employer that if he would give him the silver watch, he would 
 invent a much better machine. His offer was accepted, and in 
 ten days he produced a machine, not only nnich simpler than 
 the old one, but capable of performing twice as much and 
 better work. The workmen promptly acknowledged his suc¬ 
 cess, and his employer gave him the watch. “The old watch,” 
 said he, a few years ago, “has ticked all my children into ex¬ 
 istence, and three of them out of this world. It still hangs at 
 the head of my bed.” 
 
 About this time, in a chance visit to the Museum in Cincin¬ 
 nati, he saw a plaster cast of Houdon’s “Washington.” It 
 was the first bust he had ever seen, and he says it moved him 
 strangely. He had an intense desire to know how it was done, 
 and a vague consciousness that he could do work of the same 
 kind if he could find an instructor. The instructor he soon 
 found in a German living in the city, who made plaster casts 
 and busts, and from him he learned the secret of the art. He 
 proved an apt pupil, and surprised his teacher by his 2 )roficiency. 
 His first effort at modeling from life was the bust of a little 
 daughter of Mr. John P. Foote. She sat to him during the 
 hours he could spare from his regular work. His model was 
 made of beeswax, as he was afraid that clay would freeze or 
 stiffen. His success encouraged him very greatly. “I found I 
 had a correct eye,” said he, “and a hand which steadily im- 
 jwoved in its obedience to my eye. I saw the likeness, and 
 knew it depended on the features, and that, if I could copy the 
 features exactly, the likeness would follow just as surely as the 
 blood follows the knife. I found early that all the talk about 
 
510 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 catching the expression was mere twaddle; the expression would 
 take care of itself if I copied the features exactly.” 
 
 The true principles of his art seemed to come to him natu¬ 
 rally, and having the genius to comprehend them so readily, he 
 had the courage to hold on to them often in the face of adverse 
 criticism. While conscious of having a perfectly cori’ect eye, 
 however, he did not scorn the humbler method of obtaining 
 exactness by mathematical measurement. The following inci¬ 
 dent, whieh he related to Di’. Bellows, illustrates this: 
 
 “One of the first busts I ever made was of an artist, a 
 Frenehman, who came over with Mrs. Trollope. He proposed 
 to paint my pieture, while I was to make his bust. He was 
 older, and considered himself much my superior, and, indeed, 
 undertook to be my instructor. I was to begin. His first 
 canon was that I was to use no measurements, and he quoted 
 Michael Angelo’s saying—‘A sculptor should carry his com- 
 pa.s.scs in his eyes, not in his fingers.’ I humbly submitted to 
 his authority, and finished the bust without a single measure¬ 
 ment. He was very triumphant at what he called the suceess 
 of his method. I begged permission of him, now that the bust 
 was completed, to verify my work by the dividers. He gra- 
 eiously eonsented, and I was pleased to find how nearly I had 
 hit the mark. A few imperfoetions, however, apjjcared, and 
 the.se, in spite of his objections, I corrected without his knowl¬ 
 edge, for I was determined to have the bust as near right as 
 I could make it. It had taken me, however, at least five times 
 as long to measure the distances with my eyes as it would have 
 done to measure them with the calipers, and I saw no advan¬ 
 tage in the longer and more painful efibrt. The measurements 
 are mer.e preparations for the artist’s true work, and are, 
 like the surveyor’s lines, preparatory to the architeet’s labor. 
 When my subject, in his turn, undertook my portrait, he was 
 
HIRAM POWERS. 
 
 511 
 
 true to his own princijiles, and finished it without measure¬ 
 ments. I then, though with some horror at my temerity, 
 asked permission to verify his work with the dividers, and 
 found at the first stroke a difference of at least half an inch in 
 the distance between the eyes. Pie looked very much morti¬ 
 fied, but said that it was done to ‘give the effect.’ I have 
 had no misgivings since about the economy and wisdom of 
 using the calipers freely. P^o be useful, they must be ap¬ 
 plied with the greatest precision—so small are the differences 
 upon which all the infinite variety in human countenanees de- 
 j)ends. IVitli the aid of my careful measurements, I do in one 
 day what it would cost me a w'eck or two’s work to accomplish 
 without, and I am then able to give my exclusive attention to 
 the modeling.” 
 
 He did not regularly devote himself to his art, however, but 
 remained in the employment of the organ and clock maker for 
 some time longer, giving his leisure hours to constant practice. 
 When he was about fwenty-tliree years old, a Frenchman 
 named Plerview opened in Cincinnati a museum of natural 
 history and wax figures. Idie latter had been very much 
 broken and disfigured in transportation, and their owner, in 
 despair, begged Powers to undertake the task of restoring them. 
 The figures were representations of distinguished men and 
 women, and as Powers readily saw that it. would be impossible 
 to repair them without having jiropcr likenesses as his guides, 
 he proposed to the Frenchman to make an entirely new com¬ 
 position of the old materials, and one which should attract 
 attention by its oddity. This was agreed to, and the result was 
 a hideous and ungainly figure, which Powers j)ropo8ed should 
 be eallcd the “ King of the Cannibal Islands,” but to his amaze¬ 
 ment the Frenchman advertised it as the embalmed body of a 
 South Sea man-eater, “secured at immense expense.” Powers 
 
512 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 declared to his employer that the audience would discover the 
 cheat and tear down the museum; but the “ man-eater ” drew 
 immense crowds, and was regarded as the most w'onderful 
 natural curiosity ever seen in the West. The Frenchman was 
 so well pleased with it that he employed the artist permanently 
 as “inventor, wax-figure maker, and general mechanical con¬ 
 triver in the museum. 
 
 Powers remained in the Frenchman’s employ for seven years, 
 hoping all the while to earn money enough to devote himself 
 entirely to art, which had now become his great ambition. 
 His experience was not a pleasant one. Some of it was so 
 singular, not to say ludicrous, that he shall relate one portion 
 of it in his own language : 
 
 “ One of the first things I undertook, in company with 
 Herview, was a representation of the infernal regions after 
 Dante’s description. Behind a grating I made certain dark 
 grottoes, full of stalactites and stalagmites, with shadowy ghosts 
 and pitchforked figures, all calculated to work on the easily- 
 excited imaginations of a Western audience, as the West then 
 was. I found it very popular and attractive, but occasionally 
 some countryman would suggest to his fellow-spectator that a 
 little motion in the figures would add much to the reality of 
 the show. After much reflection I concluded to go in among 
 the figures dressed like the Evil One, in a dark robe, with a 
 death’s-head and cross-bones wrought upon it, and with a lob¬ 
 ster’s claw for a nose. I had bought and fixed up an old elec¬ 
 trical machine, and connected it with a wire, so that, from a 
 wand in my hand, I could discharge quite a serious shock 
 upon any body venturing too near the grating. The plan 
 worked admirably, and excited great interest; but I found act¬ 
 ing the part of wax-figure two hours every evening in the cold 
 no sinecure, and was put to my wits to devise a figure tliat 
 
HIRAM POWERS. 
 
 513 
 
 could be moved by strings, and which would fill my place. I 
 succeeded so well that it ended in my inventing a whole series 
 of automata, for which the old wax-figures furnished the mate¬ 
 rials, in part, and wiiich became so ])()pular and so rewarding, 
 that I was kept seven years at the business, my employer prom¬ 
 ising me, from time to time, an interest in the business, which 
 he quite forgot to fulfill. When, at last, I found out the vanity 
 of my expectations, I left him. lie knew I kept no accounts, 
 but he did not know that I reported all the money he gave me 
 to my wife, who did keep our accounts. He tried to cheat me, 
 but I was able to baffle him through her prudence and method. 
 For I had married in this interval, and had a wife and cliii- 
 dren to supjiort.” 
 
 Powers was now thirty years old, and had acquired consider¬ 
 able reputation in Cincinnati as an artist. His abilities coming 
 to the notice of Mr. Nicholas Longworth, of that city, that good 
 genius of young men of talent called on him and offered to 
 buy out the museum and establish him in the business. The 
 offer was declined with thanks. IMr. Longworth then })roposed 
 to send him to Italy to study his ])rofession, but this, too, being 
 declined, Mr. Longworth urged him to go to Washington and 
 try his fortune with the public men of the country. To this 
 Powers consented, and, aided by his generous friend, he re¬ 
 paired to the national capital in 1835, and spent two years 
 there. During this ])eriod he modeled busts of Andrew Jack- 
 son, J. Q. Adams, Calhoun, Chief Justice Marshall, Woodbury, 
 Van Buren, and others. Being unable to secure a model of 
 Webster in Washington, the statesman invited him to go with 
 him to Marshfield for that purpose. Powers accepted the invi¬ 
 tation, and declares that he looks back upon his sojourn there 
 as one of the most delightful portions of his life. 
 
 General Jackson was very kind to him, and won his lasting 
 
514 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 esteem and gratitude. Upon being asked if he would sit for his 
 bust, tlie old hero hesitated, and, looking at the artist nerv¬ 
 ously, asked : “ Do you daub any thing over the face ? Because,” 
 he added, I recollect poor Mr. Jefferson got nearly smothered 
 when they tried to take his bust. The plaster hardened before 
 they got ready to release him, and they pounded it with mal¬ 
 lets till they nearly stunned him, and then almost tore off a 
 piece of his ear in their haste to pull off a sticking fragment of 
 the mold. I should not like that.” Powers assured him that 
 such a terrible process would not be necessary, but that he only 
 wished to look at him for an hour a day, sitting in his chair. 
 The General brightened up at once, and cordially told him it 
 AYOuld give him pleasure to sit for him. He at once installed 
 the artist in a room in the AVhite House, and gave him a sitting 
 of an hour every morning until the model was done. 
 
 Mr. Powers regards the bust of Jackson as one of his best 
 efforts, and the President himself was very much ])leased with 
 it. After he had completed his model, Mr. Edward Everett 
 brought Baron Krudener, the Prussian ^Minister to ^Yashing- 
 ton, to see it. The Baron was a famous art critic, and poor 
 Powers was terribly nervous as he showed him the bust. The 
 Baron examined it closely, and then said to the artist, “ A"ou 
 have got the General completely: his head, his face, his cour¬ 
 age, his firmness, his identical self; and yet it will not do! 
 Y"ou have also got all his wrinkles, all his age and decay. You 
 foi’set that he is President of the United States and the idol 
 of the people. Y"ou should have given him a dignity and ele¬ 
 gance he does not possess. A^ou should have employed your 
 art, sir, and not merely your nature^ The artist listened in 
 silence, and IMr. Everett stood by without saying a word, 
 “ conscious,” as he afterward confessed, “ of a very poor right 
 to speak on such a subject,” after listening to so famous a 
 
HIRAM POWERS. 
 
 515 
 
 critic. “ I did not dare,” says Powers, “ in my humility and 
 reverence for these two great men, to say what I wanted to in 
 reply; to tell the Baron that my ‘art’ consisted in concealing 
 art, and that my ‘ nature’ was- the highest art I knew or could 
 conceive of. I was content that the ‘ truth ’ of my work had 
 been so fully acknowledged, and the Baron only confirmed my 
 resolution to make truth my only model and guide in all my 
 future undertakings.” 
 
 One of his sitters in Washington was Senator Preston, of 
 South Carolina, who conceived such an interest in him that he 
 wi-ote to his brother. General Preston, of Columbia, South Car¬ 
 olina, a gentleman of great wealth, urging him to come to the 
 artist’s assistance, and send him to Italy. General Preston at 
 once responded to this appeal, of which Powers was ignorant, 
 and wrote to the artist to draw on him for a thousand dollars, 
 and go to Italy at once, and to draw on him annually for 
 a similar sum for several years. Powers was profoundly 
 touched by this noble oflPer, and accepted it as frankly as it 
 had been made. He sent his models to Italy, and took his 
 departure for the Old World in 1837. Speaking of Mr. Pres¬ 
 ton’s generosity, he afterward said: '‘I have endeavored 
 to requite his kindness by sending him works of mine, equal 
 in money value to his gifts; but I can never extinguish my 
 great obligations. I fear he do n’t like me since the war,—for 
 I could not suppress my strong national feelings for any man’s 
 friendship,—but I like and honor him ; I would do any thing 
 in my power to show him my inextinguishable gratitude.” 
 
 He reached Florence in advance of his models, and while 
 waiting for them made two busts, one of a professor in Harvard 
 College, and the other of an American lady. A severe domestic 
 affliction, however, which came u])on him soon after his arrival 
 in Italy, affected him so greatly that he was not able to return 
 
516 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 to his work for a long time. Then he applied himself to his 
 busts, which were warmly praised by the artists in Florence 
 and by his countrymen traveling abroad. Thorwaldsen visited 
 him in his studio, and pronounced his bust of Webster the best 
 work of its kind in modern times, and praises from other dis¬ 
 tinguished artists were equally as warm. Orders came in rap¬ 
 idly from English and Italians, and from Americans in Europe, 
 and the sculptor soou had as much business as he could attend 
 to. He gave his leisure time to work on an ideal figure, which, 
 when completed, was purchased by an English gentleman of 
 wealth. This was “The Greek Slave,” the most popular of all 
 his works. Duplicates of it were exhibited in America and at 
 the Crystal Palace in England, and won him ])raise from all 
 quarters. Tins single work established his fame as an artist, 
 and brought him orders from all ])arts of the civilized world. 
 His statue of “ Eve,” which had preceded “The Greek Slave” 
 by a year, had been pronounced by Thorwaldsen fit to be any 
 man’s master-piece, but it had not created such a furore as 
 “ The Greek Slave.” Subsequently he made an exquisite bust 
 of the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, with which the Grand Duke 
 was so pleased that he called on Powers, and asked him as a 
 favor to himself to apply to him whenever he could do him a 
 service. Powers asked permission to take a cast of the Venus, 
 and this much-coveted boon, which had been denied to other 
 artists for years, was at once granted to him. 
 
 Since then his works have been numerous. Among these 
 are “ The Fisher Boy,” of which three duplicates in marble 
 have been made; “ II Penseroso ; ” “ Proserpine,” a bust; 
 “California;” “America,” modeled for the Crystal Palaee at 
 Sydenham, England; “ M'ashington ” and “Calhoun,” portrait 
 statues, the former for the State of Louisiana, and the latter for 
 the State of South Carolina; and “Benjamin Franklin” and 
 
HlEAM POWERS. 
 
 517 
 
 "Thomas Jefferson,” in the Capitol at Washington. His works 
 are all marked by beauty and vigor of conception as well as by 
 exquisite finish. Beautiful as his ideal figures are, he yet excels 
 in his busts and statues of the great men of his native land. 
 His “ Jefferson” and "Franklin” are wonderful works, and his 
 “ Calhoun ” is said to be almost life-like. This last was wrecked 
 on the coast of Long Island on its voyage to America, and 
 remained in the sea for some time, but being well packed was 
 found, when raised, to be only slightly damaged by the water. 
 
 Mr. Powers resided in Italy almost continuously after 
 first going abroad. Motives of economy controlled his 
 action, for he would gladly have returned to his own land 
 had he felt justified in doing so. He thus stated the reasons 
 which influenced his long residence abroad. 
 
 Sculpture is universal. The human form is of no country, and may he 
 studied with equal advantage at home and abroad. The opportunities 
 of studying it abroad are so immeasurably greater than at hqme, that I 
 do not see how it is possible, without great loss, to neglect them. 
 
 1. It is impossible to model -successfully without living models ; and in 
 America, in my time, it was almost at the peril of reputation, both for 
 model and sculptor, th.at an artist employed the living model, even if he 
 could procure it. Now, I understand, a few models may be obtained in 
 New York; but they are so rare and so expensive, that it is almost ruin¬ 
 ous to employ them. It costs two or three dollars there to secure a 
 model which here may be had for half a day for forty cents. There is 
 no want of models here; but their history is a sad one, and makes 
 one often seriously lament the necessity for employing them. Young 
 women, especially, are driven to this employment by the want of bread. 
 I have numerous offers of their services made by parents who are in 
 great distress. I make it a point to discourage all who come to me from 
 entering the business, and am only conquered when I feel sure that, if 
 I decline, they will be driven to other studios. I prefer only professional 
 models, already thoroughly committed to the calling, as I shrink from 
 the responsibility of leading any into so perilous a vocation. They are 
 
518 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 usually accompanied by their mothers, and I strive to treat them in a 
 way to save their self-respect and delicacy—a very hard task, which too 
 often breaks down in less scrupulous hands. 
 
 2. The opportunities of anatomical studies are here nearly perfect, and 
 free from all expense. The medical schools not only illustrate anatomy 
 by surgery on the cadaver, but standing by the side of the dead body 
 is a living one, in which the action of the muscles dissected before the 
 student may be studied in life. These colleges are open to all artists, 
 and furnish the best possible schooling in anatomy, a thorough ac¬ 
 quaintance with which is indispensable to the sculj)tor, and can only be 
 obtained in America at great cost. 
 
 3. Marble is no cheaper here than in New York, the long sea-carriage 
 costing no more to America than the short land-carriage does from the 
 quarries to Florence or Rome. But good workmen, who can not be dis¬ 
 pensed with, are so abundant and so cheap here, so rare and so dear at 
 home, that that alone is a decisive reason for coming abroad. Even here 
 it is a heavy expense to procure sufficient and competent workmen ; at 
 home it is almost at ruinous cost and with nearly insuperable difficulty. 
 I have two workmen — as good, certainly, as the best in America—to the 
 finest of whom I pay only four dollars a day. He could make twice 
 that cutting weeping-willows on American tomb-stones. What could he 
 not justly demand in wages from a New York sculptor? I employ a 
 dozen workmen in my studios; the poorest, at work on pedestals and 
 rough work, earn about half a dollar a day; the moderately skilled, a 
 little over a dollar. The whole cost me about fifteen dollars per day, 
 which is wonderfully low. Then, my rent—which could’not, for my ex¬ 
 tensive accommodations, be less than two thousand five hundred dollars 
 a year in any eligible position which the public would visit—reaches 
 only about four hundred and fifty dollars annually. 
 
 But, 4. The general expenses of maintaining a family are so much 
 less here than at home, that a man without capital, possesssing a pro¬ 
 fession so slow in reaching its pecuniary returns as an artist’s, finds an 
 immense inducement to live abroad. It is true that, music and accom¬ 
 plishment in languages apart, the opportunities of a substantial educa¬ 
 tion for one’s children are not as good here as at home. There arc, how¬ 
 ever, less temptations to vice, and less exposures to the American habit 
 of hard drinking among young men; but, no doubt, the general in- 
 
HIRAM POWERS. 
 
 519 
 
 fluences here, in the way of developing a manly, energetic, and self-rely¬ 
 ing character, are less favorable than at home. There is a softness, a 
 disposition to take life easy, and a want of moral earnestness in Italy, 
 which are not favorable to youthful ambition and independence. On 
 the other hand, the money-getting propensities and social rivalries of 
 America tend to harden human character, and to bring out a severe 
 selfishness which is offensive. On the whole, the balance is on our side, 
 and, other things apart, American youth are better brought up in 
 America. But the artist must make this sacrifice to his art. 
 
 Mr. Powers died in his pleasant home in Florence, June 
 27, 1873, after a lingering illness of more than a year’s 
 duration. His age was sixty-eight years. He deeply loved 
 his art until the last, and was never so happy as when sur¬ 
 rounded by the familiar objects in his own studio. Among 
 his latest ideal productions were “ The Last of His Tribe,” 
 a “Head of Jesus Christ,” and a statue of an Indian 
 maiden. The bronze statue of Webster in the State House 
 grounds at Boston was one of his latest works. Mr. Powers 
 was one of the most genial of men. He never outlived his 
 great fondness for his own country, and his countrymen 
 always found a hearty welcome at his home in the beauti¬ 
 ful, old Italian city. Among his many useful labors was an 
 invention of a process of modeling in plaster, which, by 
 obviating the necessity of taking a clay model, relieved to a 
 large extent the preliminary work of the sculptor. For 
 many months previous to his death he was afflicted with a 
 painful bronchial complaint, and was by it shut off from 
 the pleasures of his art, which he always so keenly enjoyed. 
 The tidings of his death carried genuine sorrow wherever 
 art is honored and true manhood respected. Hawthorne, 
 in his Italian Note Boo.k, gives charming glimpses of the 
 sculptor’s artistic and social life. During the darkest houi’s 
 
620 
 
 KINGS OF FOETUNE. 
 
 of the late rebellion his heart was ever with his native 
 country, although his associations drew strongly in the 
 other direction. His name will long be honored as that of 
 a great artist and true patriot. 
 
 Mr. Powers was a genuine American, notwithstanding his 
 long residence abroad, and had always a warm welcome for 
 his countrymen visiting his studio. He was a favorite with 
 the younger artists, who found in him a kind and judicious 
 friend. Scorning servile imitation, he exhibited in his works 
 the freshness of his youth and the genuine originality which 
 was the basis of his fame. 
 
..n 
 
1 
 
 DAVID SWING. 
 
 1 ;, 
 
 i' 
 
VTT. 
 
 DIVINES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 DAVID SWING. 
 
 HE ancestors of the Rev. David Swing emigrated 
 to this country from Germany before all 
 the thirteen original colonies had been estab¬ 
 lished. He was the youngest son of David 
 Swing, and was born on the 18 th of April, 
 1830, in tlie city of Cincinnati, Ohio. At this 
 place his father was engaged for many years in the steam¬ 
 boat business on the Ohio, where he was regarded with respect 
 and esteem by all who knew him, being a man of recognized 
 ability and Avorth. He represented a noble and generous 
 manhood, and led an unblamable life, though technically 
 he Avas not a Christian. I]i 1832 the scourge of cholera 
 sAvept over the land, and numbered among its victims this 
 valuable citizen. The widoAved mother was a devoted 
 Christian, and now haA’ing under her care two sons whom 
 the scourge Avas kind enough to spare, instilled into the 
 mind of David those principles of the Christian life which 
 he has ahvays so faithfully illustrated. 
 
 The misfortune of the family through unrelenting 
 cholera, caused them to change their locality, which probably 
 resulted in great advantage to the youth destined to develop 
 
 521 
 
522 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 into an eminent divine. Keedsburgli, Ohio, became their 
 home when David was only seven years old, his mother 
 having married a second time before reaching this place. 
 After a residence of three years in this locality, the family 
 settled on a farm near Williamsburgh in the same State, 
 where David busied himself for eight years in farming, and 
 obtaining at the public school, during the ■winter, as much 
 information as possible. If it happened that his farm life 
 would permit his going to school at other times, he was sure 
 to take advantage of the opportunity. 
 
 This farm life was a great advantage to him. The rude 
 life in the country enabled the youthful Swing to lay the 
 foundation of that sturdy manhood and remarkable self¬ 
 poise which his recent life has so conspicuously manifested. 
 The absence of books or teachers for so much of the time, 
 served to develop the observing, reflecting and rational 
 faculties of his mind, and rendered him a student of nature. 
 By the exercise of muscle his physique grew \dgorous, 
 whereby he has since been able, without breaking down, to 
 perform a vast amount of public service and intellectual 
 labor. 
 
 “Hearing and doing vre build on the rock. 
 
 Hearing alone, we build on the sand. 
 
 Both wll be tried by the storm and the flood, 
 
 But only the rock that trial can stand.” 
 
 The beauty and fertility of his illustrations and the 
 originality of his thought must, in part, be traced to his 
 meditative life upon the farm. Though without literary 
 advantages such as an ambitious youth would crave, he 
 advanced so rapidly, that at the age of eighteen he had fitted 
 himself to enter the Miami University at Oxford, Ohio. 
 
DAVID SWING. 
 
 523 
 
 At this institution he spent four years, pursued the classical 
 course, and graduated in 1852. 
 
 While taking his course, he decided upon the profession 
 toward which his thoughts were tending, and upon leaving 
 the university, he commenced the study of divinity, having 
 as an instructor the Kev. Dr. Rice, of Cincinnati. After 
 prosecuting his studies in this direction about two years, 
 he received an invitation from the authorities of his Alma 
 Mater to act as instructor of Greek and Latin. He accepted 
 the chair to which he was invited, and returned to Oxford, 
 where he performed the duties of Professor of Ancient 
 Languages for thirteen years, and in the most acceptable 
 manner. The position did not require him to relinquish 
 his efforts as a minister, and from time to time he 
 engaged in preaching, accomplishing as much thereat as the 
 burdensome duties of his position would permit. Not long 
 after accepting the professorship, he was married to Miss 
 Elizabeth Porter, daughter of Dx’. Porter, a physician of 
 Oxford. The wedding took place in 1854. 
 
 Twelve years after his marriage, he accepted an invita¬ 
 tion to remove to Chicago, and take charge of tlie West¬ 
 minster Church. Success and reputation attended his efforts. 
 He performed his work with such oi’iginality and liberality', 
 that he attracted to his church a large number of people, 
 beyond the pale of his congregation; and the thorough 
 Christian spirit which permeated his efforts led to a union 
 between his congregation and the North Presbyterian 
 Church, and the two became united under the name of the 
 Fourth Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Ill fortune soon fell to this assemblage. During the 
 first year of the union, the church edifice and the homes of all 
 31 
 
524 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 its five hundred parishioners, with the exception of two, were 
 swept away by the great Chicago fire. “ From this fearful 
 calamity. Prof. Swing saved nothing; all his furniture, 
 library, and intellectual work of years, were destroyed in 
 the conflagration, and he and his wife and two daughters 
 spent the eventful night of October 9 th, without shelter, on 
 the open prairie.” The Standard Hall was then occupied 
 as a place of meeting, but a year had not passed before the 
 room was too small for the increasing numbers who flocked 
 to hear him. This new demand was met by an arrangement 
 made for occupying McVicker’s Theater; and thither were 
 attracted by his preaching crowds of the most intelligent 
 and thoughtful people of Chicago, and strangers sojourning 
 in the city. It was with feelings of regret that he trans¬ 
 ferred himself from this broad and congenial field of labor, 
 in the heart of the city, and resumed the duties of his 
 former pastorate, upon the rebuilding of the church edifice, 
 at the corner of Rush and Superior streets. The throngs 
 who had followed him to McYicker’s Theater, continued 
 their support of him, and the Fourth Presbyterian Church 
 was soon crowded by anxious members, and strangers, 
 desiring to hear him. Now occurred an event designed for 
 his overthrow, but it resulted to his advantage, and gained 
 for him a widespread fame, and an advantage which he did 
 not previously possess. Rev. Francis L. Patton, Professor 
 in the Chicago Theological Seminary, instituted a series of 
 ecclesiastical persecutions, which, though seriously inter¬ 
 fering with his work, increased the momentum of his rapidly 
 onward course, and influenced Prof. Swing to sever relations 
 which he had supposed would continue for life. 
 
 On the 13th of April, 1874, charges were brought 
 
DAVID SWING. 
 
 525 
 
 against him by Francis L. Patton, to the effect that he was 
 guilty o£ holding and teaching heresy, though the charges 
 were presented in modified language. The first general 
 charge was that Prof. Swing had not been zealous and faith¬ 
 ful in maintaining the truth of the Gospel, and faithful and 
 diligent in the exercise of the duties of his ofiice as a 
 Presbyterian minister; the second charge provided that 
 Prof. Swing did not receive and adopt the Presbyterian con¬ 
 fession of faith as containing the system of doctrine taught 
 in the Holy Scriptures. An attempt was made to support 
 these charges by twenty-eight specifications, consisting 
 mostly of extracts from Prof. Swing’s sermons and other 
 public utterances, which, taken out of their places, and dis¬ 
 connected from the explanatory passages which occurred in 
 other parts of his discourses and writings, were made to 
 seem subversive of the Presbyterian system of faith. 
 
 These opposing persons on the general issue of heresy, 
 were brought face to face. The trial occupied more than 
 six weeks, and excited almost universal interest. The pro¬ 
 ceedings were daily reported in the newspapers, and 
 throughout the entire country the utmost anxiety was 
 manifested in regard to the disposition which the Chicago 
 Presbytery would make of the charge of heresy, preferred 
 against one of the most learned, conscientious, thoughtful 
 and earnest men of the time. The Presbytery was com¬ 
 posed of sixty-one members, who, when the time for voting 
 arrived, declared, with the exception of thirteen, that the 
 charges were not sustained. 
 
 The defense was ably conducted under the lead of the 
 Rev. George C. Noyes, followed by Prof. Swing himself, 
 who spoke in his own defense. To the assistance of these 
 
526 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 was added the defense made by the Rev. R. W. Patterson, 
 one of the most noble and revered members of tlie Pres¬ 
 bytery, and whose name in Chicago is a synonym of judicial 
 ability and fairness. He favored immediate acquittal, and 
 presented an elaborate and exliaustive argument in its sup¬ 
 port. Other eminent Presbyters presented able and con¬ 
 vincing papers, successfully vindicating the prosecuted. 
 Prof. Swing’s own speeches in his defense, explaining his 
 objectionable words, and in vindication of his general con¬ 
 formity to the Presbyterian standards while exercising his 
 inalienable right of private judgment, in interpreting both 
 the church standards and the Scriptures, were masterly 
 elforts, and displayed a degree of coolness, good nature, 
 self-poise, logic, and satire, which have been rarely, if ever, 
 excelled in a similar case. Indeed he succeeded most 
 admirably at several points in putting his prosecutor on the 
 defensive, and in showing that he had himself, according to 
 his own method of dealing with Pi'of. Swing, failed to be 
 “ zealous and faithful in maintaining the truths of the Gos¬ 
 pel.” The conflict was not settled by the vote of acquittal, 
 for upon the rendering of the verdict, Dr. Patton gave notice 
 that he intended to take an appeal. His church adhered to 
 him, requesting that he continue as their pastor as though 
 nothing had happened, and to this he consented, preaching to 
 crowded houses and intelligent and anxious listeners. But 
 the preHous announcement of his prosecutor was car¬ 
 ried out, and continued persecutions led him reluctantly 
 to withdraAv from the Presbytery of Chicago, under 
 Avhose jurisdiction it was possible that a single member could 
 compel him to spend his A^aluable time in personal vindica¬ 
 tion and defense. After his Avithdi’awal he still continued 
 
DAVID SWING. 
 
 627 
 
 the pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church, feeling that 
 he had much support, for his friends came to his defense, 
 and received in a chivalric manner the blows which this 
 mediaeval attack had aimed at his head. Seeing that he was 
 allowed to continue his pastorate. Rev. Patton sought to 
 inculpate the Presbytery itself, for allowing one charged of 
 heresy to labor as pastor over one of its churches. This 
 effort proved the culmination of the controversy, for Prof. 
 Swing brought matters to a close by resigning his pastorate. 
 
 Things were now in a state of chaos; his congregation 
 was confused, and the persecuted pastor had not decided 
 what course to take. At this juncture the friends of Prof. 
 Swing instituted the movement which has resulted in the 
 Central Church. Fifty gentlemen subscribed 01,000 each 
 per annum, for three years, to sustain the new movement. 
 McVicker’s Theater was secured, and that great edifice for 
 about two years was filled from parquette to gallery mth 
 audiences which hung with deep interest upon the lips of 
 the favorite preacher. The movement was completely 
 successful, and the gentlemen who pledged the funds for its 
 support Avere never called lapon to make any payment, the 
 church being abundantly able to meet all its demands. The 
 financial interests of the organization are managed by trustees 
 whom the fifty men appointed. At length it Avas decided 
 that a permanent place for Avorship should be arranged. 
 The members of the concrre"ation being scattered over a 
 large part of the city, it Avas necessary that a central locality 
 be selected. After much consideration and several attempts, 
 a portion of ground on State street Avas purchased, and a 
 large building erected thereon. In the center of this build¬ 
 ing is Music Hall, arranged to meet all demands of a large 
 
528 
 
 KINGS OF FOBTUNE, 
 
 assemblage both as to taste and the gratification of eye and ear. 
 Below the Music Hall are various rooms for offices and 
 places of business. This structure is owned by a stock 
 company, organized under the lead of church members, 
 though the corporation is composed of those who invested 
 in the bonds as a business enterprise. The rooms of the 
 building are rented continually at good rates, and the income 
 to the stockholders is quite a paying per cent. The Central 
 Church rents the Music Hall, and pays the stockholders 
 annually, it being understood that the Music Hall shall be 
 regarded as the permanent place of worship for Prof. 
 Swing’s church. 
 
 Prayer-meeting is held each Friday evening in Apollo 
 Hall, a room of the building Avherein the church assembles, 
 the exercise being a lecture by the pastor of the church, 
 instead of promiscuous effort among the members. There 
 are three Sunday schools under the general charge of this 
 church. The North Side Mission school has a membership 
 of 3,000, who are accommodated by the best Sunday school 
 room in the country. This school has been in operation 
 seven years. The other mission school has a membership of 
 250, and is located on the corner of Halsted and 12th streets. 
 The home school comprises about 100 members. There 
 are two sewing schools, by which young girls from seven to 
 tweh e years old are taught needle work. These meet each 
 Saturday at 215 Clyborne street and number 450. The other 
 sewing school has an attendance of eighty children. Another 
 enterprise is their Kindergarten, the largest in the city, 
 which is conducted five days in the -week, and attended by 
 200 children. On the mission property located at 245 
 Clyborne street the church has spent $35,000. 
 
DAVID SWING. 
 
 629 
 
 From the preceding it is seen that the operations of this 
 new movement have established a great and noble church, 
 extending its influences through all grades of society, and 
 operating as a great benefaction to the city of Chicago. 
 Their manner of operation is worthy the highest commen¬ 
 dation. No collections are made in the assembly of the 
 congregation, and no obligations hang over the church. All 
 expenditures are paid twelve months in advance, and on the 
 beginning of each year they are all met, leaving a residue 
 of funds in the treasury. The building wherein they wor¬ 
 ship is estimated as worth a half million of dollars. This 
 investment does not lie dormant in some huge j)ile of 
 architecture, but is hourly yielding a large interest on the 
 money expended, tlius setting an example by which myriads 
 of churches could increase their financial influence and spir¬ 
 itual good. Througli the result of aii accident, this church, 
 under the informal ministrations of Prof. Swing, has grown 
 into a great beneficence to the city of Chicago, and its influ¬ 
 ence will continue to exist so long as it is sustained by such 
 earnest and enthusiastic men as are now aiding in its pros¬ 
 perity. “Broad and catholic in his spirit, erudite and 
 scholarly in his culture, clear and forcible in his speech, 
 sententious and biilliant in his rhetoric, (priet but pungent 
 in his satire, gentle yet powerful in his })ersuasion, log¬ 
 ical and keen as a rapier in his argument, genial and 
 winning in his tones and methods, and noble and manly 
 in his bearing, both in public and private, Prof. David 
 Swing is one of the men whom Chicago delights to honor, 
 and one whom its l)est people regard as an honor to our city; 
 one of its most eminent men.” 
 
530 
 
 KINGS OF FOKTUNE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 XE of the most remarkable men in the American 
 ministry is Peter Cartwright, the “Backwoods 
 Preacher.” Sixty-seven years of ministerial labors 
 have passed over his head, and yet he still con¬ 
 tinues in the field in which he has done such good 
 sei’vice, and retains all the popularity and much of the fire of 
 his younger days. 
 
 He was born in Amherst County, Virginia, on the 1st of 
 September, 1785. His father had been a soldier in the Revo¬ 
 lutionary War, and his mother was an orphan. Shortly after 
 the close of the war, the Cartwrights removed from Virginia 
 to Kentueky, which was then an almost unbroken wilderness. 
 The journey was accompanied with considerable danger, as the 
 Indians were not yet driven west of the Ohio, but the family 
 reached their destination in safety. For two years they lived 
 on a rented farm in Lineoln County, Kentueky, and at the end 
 of that time removed to what was called the Green River 
 Country, and settled in Logan County, nine miles south of 
 Russellville, the county seat, and within one mile of the State 
 line of Tennessee. 
 
 The portion of Logan County in which young Cartwright’s 
 childhood and youth were passed was the very last place one 
 
PETEH CAETWRIGHT, 
 
 631 
 
 Would have oared to bring up a candidate for the ministry. It 
 was called “Rogue’s Harbor,” and was thickly settled with 
 fugitives from justice from all parts of the Union. They actu¬ 
 ally constituted a majority of the inhabitants of the district, and 
 when the respectable citizens sought to bring them to justice 
 they readily “swore each other clear,” and thus set the law at 
 defiance. They carried on such a course of outrage and vio¬ 
 lence that the respectable citizens were at length compelled to 
 combine for defence against them by means of an organiza¬ 
 tion known as the Regulators. Several fierce encounfers took 
 place between the desperadoes and the Regulators, in which 
 many lives were lo.st, before the supremacy of the law was 
 established. 
 
 “ When my father settled in Logan County,” says Mr. Cart¬ 
 wright, “ there was not a newsjiaper printed South of Green 
 River, no mill short of forty miles, and no schools worth tlie 
 name. Sunday was a day set apart for hunting, fishing, horse¬ 
 racing, card-playing, balls, dances, and all kinds of jollity and 
 mirth. We killed our meat out in the woods, wild, and beat 
 our meal aud hominy with a pestle and mortar. We stretched 
 a deer-skin over a hoop, burned holes in it with the prongs of 
 a fork, sifted onr meal, baked our bread, eat it, and it was first- 
 rate eating, too. We raised, or gathered out of the woods, our 
 own tea. We had .sage, bohea, cross-vine, S])ice, and sassafras 
 teas in abundance. As for coffee, I am not sure that I ever 
 smelled it for ten years. We made our sugar out of the water 
 of the maple-tree, and our molasses, too. These were great 
 luxuries in those days. We raised our own cotton and flax. 
 We water-rotted our flax, broke it by hand, scutched it, picked 
 the seed out of the cotton with our fingei’s; our mothers and 
 sisters carded, spun, and wove it into cloth, and they cut and 
 made our garments and bed-clothes, etc. And when we got on 
 
532 
 
 KINGS or FOBTUNE. 
 
 a new suit thus manufactured, and sallied out into company, we 
 thought ourselves as big as any body.” 
 
 Young Peter grew up in this rough country with a constitu¬ 
 tion of iron, and a fair share of Western courage, independency 
 and energy. He was sent by his father to a neighboring 
 school, but the teacher was an indifferent one, and he learned 
 merely to read and write and cipher imperfectly. 
 
 He w'as a “wild, wicked boy,” he tells us, and grew up to 
 delight in horse-racing, card-playing, and dancing. His father 
 seems to have enjoyed having so dashing a son, but his mother, 
 who was a pious woman, took his course seriously to hear^. 
 and wept and prayed over her boy as only a Christian mother 
 can. She often talked to him, and moved him .so deeply that 
 he frequently vowed to lead a better life; but his pleasures 
 were loo tempting, and he fell back again into his old habits. 
 His father presented him with a race-horse and a pack of 
 cards, and he became known among his youthful companions 
 as one of the most fearless riders and the luckiest fellow at 
 cards in the county. The good mother wept and prayed all 
 the more, and the boy hid his cards from her to keep her from 
 burning them. 
 
 In 1801, when he was sixteen years old, a change came over 
 him. He had been out with his father and brother to attend 
 a wedding in the neighborhood. The affair was conducted 
 with all the uproarious merriment incident to those days, and 
 when Peter returned home and began to think over it, he felt 
 condemned at having passed his time in such a manner. “ IMy 
 mother was in bed,” .says he. “It seemed to me, all of a sud¬ 
 den, my blood rushed to my head, my heart palpitated, in n 
 few minutes I turned blind, an awful impression rested on my 
 mind that death had come to me and I was unprepared to die. 
 I fell on my knees and began to ask God to have mercy on 
 
PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 533 
 
 me. My mother sprang from her bed, and was soon on her 
 knees by my side, praying for me, and exliorting me to look 
 to Christ for mercy, and then and there I promised the Lord 
 if he would spare me I would seek and serve Him, and I never 
 fully broke that promise. My mother prayed for me a long 
 time. At length we lay down, but there was little sleep for 
 me. Next morning I rose, feeling wretched beyond expression. 
 I tried to read in the Testament, and retired many times to 
 secret prayer through the day, but found no relief. I gave up 
 my race-horse to my father and requested him to sell him. 1 
 went and brought my pack of cards and gave them to mother, 
 who threw them into the fire, and they were consumed. I 
 fasted, watched, and prayed, and engaged in regular reading 
 of the Testament. I was so distressed and miserable that I 
 was incapable of any regular business.” 
 
 Several months passed away, during which time Peter had 
 seasons of comfort and hopes of forgiveness, but during the 
 greater portion he was wretched and miserable, filled with such 
 a fear of the devil that he was almost convinced that Satan 
 was really present with him to keep him from God. A camp¬ 
 meeting, held in the vicinity of his father’s house, in the spring 
 of 1801, completed his conversion and gave him ])eace. 
 
 “To this meeting,” says he, “I repaired a guilty, wretched 
 sinner. On the Saturday evening of said meeting I went, with 
 weej)ing multitudes, and bowed before the stand, and earnestly 
 prayed for mercy. In the midst of a solemn struggle of soul, 
 an impression was made on my mind as though a voice said 
 to me: ‘Thy sins are all forgiven thee.’ Divine light flashed 
 all around me, unspeakable joy sprang up in my soul. I rose 
 to my feet, opened my eyes, and it really seemed to me as if 
 I was in heaven; the trees, the leaves on them, and every 
 thing seemed, and T really thought were, praising God. ]\Iy 
 
534 
 
 KINGS OK FORTUNE. 
 
 mother raised the shout, my Christian friends crowded around 
 me and joined me in praising God. . . I have never doubted 
 that the Lord did, then and there, forgive my sins and give me 
 religion.” He went on his way rejoicing, and in June, 1801, 
 was formally received into the Metliodist Episcopal Church. 
 In May, 1802, he was appointed an exhorter. He shrank 
 from accepting the position, as he distrusted his own abilities, 
 but finally yielded to his presiding elder’s wishes and entered 
 upon his work. In the fall of that year his parents removed 
 to Lewiston County, toward the mouth of the Cumberland 
 River. 
 
 Although he was but eighteen years old, his presiding elder 
 had detected in him signs of unusual promise, and had resolved 
 to bring him into active labor for the Church at once, and 
 accordingly, upon his departure for his new home, Peter was 
 given authority to lay out and organize a new circuit, the plan 
 of which he was to submit to the presiding elder for approval. 
 The boy hesitated, frightened by the magnitude of the task, but 
 being encouraged by his superiors, accepted the trust, and thus 
 began his labors as a preacher of the \yord. U})on reacliing his 
 new home, he attended a tolerably good school in tlie vicinity, 
 hoping to acquire a better education, but the pupils and teacher 
 persecuted him so sorely that he was obliged to withdraw. De¬ 
 termining to lose no time in waiting for an education, he at 
 once began the work of preaching. Being possessed of strong 
 natural sense, a ready wit, and being thoroughly imbued with 
 the spirit of frontier life, he was just the man to carry the Gos- 
 pel home to the hearts of the rude pioneers of the great West. 
 His manner was tliat of a backwoodsman, and he had no city 
 airs and graces to offend the plain, rough people to whom he 
 preached. He was emphatically one of them. He offered them 
 the plain Gospel, and gave theological theories a wide berth. 
 
PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 535 
 
 His plan of operations was adajitod to the rudest intellect. It 
 was to thunder the terrors of the law into the ears of his con¬ 
 verts, or, in his own words, to “ shake them over hell until they 
 smelt brimstone right strong,” and make them see the fearful 
 condition in which they lay by reason of their sin. Man was 
 to him a wretched, degraded creature, and the only way to bring 
 him to God was to drive him there by the terrors of the law. 
 Our preacher had very little faith in the quieter, more persua¬ 
 sive means of grace. His first effort was to give the souls of his 
 hearers a good shaking up, bring them face to face with hell and 
 its torments, and then, having forced them to flee from the wu’ath 
 to come, to trust to their future Christian experience for the 
 means of acquiring a knowledge of the tender mercies of the 
 Saviour. It must be confessed that this was the only plan open 
 to him in the field in which he labored. The people to whom 
 he preached were a rude, rough set, mainly ignorant and super¬ 
 stitious, and many of them sunk in the depths of drunkenness 
 and viciousness. The Western country was almost a wilder¬ 
 ness. Vast forests and boundless prairies lay on every hand, 
 with but here and there a clearing with a solitary log cabin in 
 it, or but two or three at the most. The peoj)le lived in the 
 most perfect solitude, rarely seeing any but the members of their 
 own households. Solitude and danger made them siqierstitions, 
 and the absence of schools kept them in ignorance. They di-ank 
 to keep off the blues, and when they came together for amuse¬ 
 ment they made the most of their opportunities, and plunged 
 into the most violent sjiorts, which were not always kept within 
 the bounds of propriety. Churches were as -scarce as schools, 
 and until the iNIethodi.st circuit riders made their appearance in 
 the West, the people were little better than heathen. The law 
 had scarcely any hold upon the.«e frontier.smen. They were 
 wild and untamed, and personal freedom w'as kept in re.straint 
 
536 
 
 KINGS OF FOBTUNE. 
 
 mainly by the law of personal accountability. They were gen¬ 
 erous and improvident, frank, fearless, easy-going, and filled 
 with an intense scorn for every thing that smacked of Eastern 
 refinement or city life. They were proud of their buckskin 
 and linsey-woolsey clothes, their squirrel caps, and their horny 
 hands and rough faces. They would have been miserable in a 
 city mansion, but they were lords and kings in their log-cabins. 
 To have sent a preacher bred in the learned schools of New 
 England to such a people would have been folly. The smooth 
 cadences, the polished gestures, and, above all, the manuscript 
 sermon of a Boston divine, would have disgusted the men and 
 women of the frontier. What cared they for predestination or 
 free-will, or for any of the dogmas of the schools? They wanted 
 to hear the simple, fundamental truths of the Gospel, and they 
 wanted to hear them from a man of their own stamp. They 
 wanted a “fire and brimstone” preacher, one whose fiery elo¬ 
 quence could stir the very depths of their souls, and set their 
 simple imaginations all ablaze ; one who could shout and sing 
 with true Western abandon ; who could ])reach in his shirt¬ 
 sleeves, sleep with them on the bare ground, brave all the dan¬ 
 gers of a frontier life, and, if necessary, thrash any one who 
 dared to insult him. Such was the man for these sturdy, 
 simple Western folk, and such a man they found in Peter 
 Cartwright. 
 
 Peter went at the task before him with a will. The country 
 being sparsely settled, people had to travel a long way to get to 
 church, and it became a matter of expediency for the clergy to 
 hold religious gatherings at .stated points, and to continue them 
 for several days, so that those who desii’ed to attend might be 
 able to avoid the necessitv of going home everv evening and 
 
 ;ning back next day. Church edifices being scarce, the.se 
 meetings were held in the woods, and a large encampment was 
 
PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 537 
 
 formed by the people in attendance. This was the origin of 
 the camp-meeting system, which for many years was the only 
 effective way of spreading the Gospel in the West. It was at 
 a camp-meeting that Peter obtained religion, and he has ever 
 since been a zealous advocate of, and a hard worker at, 
 them. From the first he was successful. The fame of the “boy 
 preacher” went abroad into all the land, and peo])le came in 
 to the camp from a hundred miles around to hear him. He 
 had little education, but he knew his Bible thoroughly, and 
 was a ready speaker, and, above all, he knew how to deal with 
 the peojile to whom ho preached. He made many conveifs, 
 and from the first took rank as the most popular jn-eacher in 
 the West. 
 
 Peter not only believed in the overruling power of God, but 
 he was firmly convinced of the active and personal agency of 
 the devil in human affairs. Many of the follies and faults of 
 the peo})lc around him took place, he averred, beenuse they 
 were possessed of devils. Eacli caiinji-meeting was to him a 
 camj)aign against Satan, and in his opinion Satan never failed 
 to make a good fight for his kingdom. Certainly some very 
 singular things did occur at the meetings at which he was pres¬ 
 ent, and, naturally, perhaps, some persons began to believe that 
 Peter Cartwright possessed supernatural powers. The follow¬ 
 ing incident, related by him, not only explains some of the 
 phenomena to which I allude, but also the manner in which he 
 was regarded by some of the unconverted : 
 
 “A new exercise broke out among us, called the ‘ jerks,’ which 
 was overwhelming in its effects upon the bodies and minds of 
 the people. No matter whether they were saints or sinners, 
 they would be taken under a warm song or sermon, and seized 
 with a convulsive jerking all over, which they could not by any 
 possibility avoid, and the more they resisted, the more they 
 
538 
 
 KINGS or FORTUNE. 
 
 jerked. If they would not strive against it, and pray in good 
 earnest, the jerking would usually abate. I have seen more 
 than five hundred persons jerking at one time in my large con¬ 
 gregations. Most usually persons taken with the jerks, to ob¬ 
 tain relief, as they said, would rise up and dance. Some would 
 run, but could not get away. Some would resist; on such the 
 jerks were very severe. 
 
 “ To see those proud young gentlemen and young ladies, 
 dressed in their silks, jewelry, and prunella, from top to toe, 
 take the jerks, would often excite my risibilities. The first 
 jerk or so you would see their fine bonnets, caps, and combs fly, 
 and so sudden would be the jerking of the head that their long, 
 loose hair would crack almost as loud as a wagoner’s whip. 
 
 '‘At one of my appointments, in 1804, there was a very large 
 congregation turned out to hear the ‘ Kentucky boy,’ as they 
 called me. Among the rest there were two very finely dressed, 
 fashionable young ladies, attended by two brothers with loaded 
 horsewhips. Although the house was large, it was crowded. 
 The two young ladies, coming in late, took their seats near 
 where I stood, and their two brothers stood in the door. I 
 was a little unwell, and I had a phial of peppermint in ray 
 pocket. Before I commenced preaching I took out my phial 
 and swallowed a little of the peppermint. While I was preach¬ 
 ing the congregation was melted into tears. The two young 
 gentlemen moved off to the yard fence, and both the young 
 ladies took the jerks, and they were greatly mortified about 
 it. . . . 
 
 "As I dismissed the assembly, a man stepped up to me and 
 warned me to be on my guard, for he had heard the two 
 brothers swear they would horsewhip me when meeting was 
 out for giving their sisters the jerks. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘I’ll see 
 to that,’ 
 
PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 539 
 
 “ I went out and said to the young men that I understood 
 they intended to horsewhip me for giving their sisters the 
 jerks. One replied that he did. I undertook to expostulate 
 with him on the absurdity of the charge against me, but he 
 swore I need not deny it, for he had seen me take out a phial 
 in which I carried some truek that gave his sisters the jerks. 
 As tfliick as thought came into my mind how I would get clear 
 jf my whipping, and, jerking out the pe{)permint phial, said I, 
 ‘Yes; if I gave your sisters the jerks I'll give them to you.’ 
 In a moment I saw he was scared. I moved toward him, he 
 backed, I advanced, and he wheeled and ran, warning me not 
 to come near him or he would kill me. It raised the laugh on 
 him, and I escaped my whipping. 
 
 “I always looked upon the jerks as a judgment sent from 
 God, first, to bring sinners to repentance, and, secondly, that 
 God could work with or without means, and that he could 
 work over and above means and do whatsoever seemeth him 
 good to the glory of his grace and the salvation of the world. 
 There is no doubt in my mind that, with w'eak-minded, ignorant, 
 and superstitious persons, there was a great deal of sympathetic 
 feeling with many that claimed to be under the influence of 
 this jerking exercise, and yet with many it was perfectly in¬ 
 voluntary. It was on all occasions my practice to recommend 
 fervent prayer as a remedy, and it almost universally proved an 
 eft’ectual antidote.” 
 
 The exeitement of the religious revivals plunged many of the 
 people into excesses. They prophesied, dreamed dreams, and 
 saw visions, and troubled the young preacher exceedingly, but 
 he set his face sternly against all such disorders, and j)ronounced 
 their visions and messages to be from the devil. One of these 
 dreamers came to him one day and told him he had a message 
 
 from licaven for him, 
 
 53 
 
540 
 
 KIKGS or FORTUNE. 
 
 “ said Cartwright, “what is it?” 
 
 “It has been revealed to me,” said the fellow, “that you are 
 never to die, but are to live forever.” 
 
 “ Who revealed that to you ? ” 
 
 “ An angel.” 
 
 “Did you see him?” asked Cartwright, dryly. 
 
 “O, yes; he was a beautiful, white, shining being.” 
 
 “ Did you smell him?” asked Peter, bluntly. 
 
 The man looked at him in amazement, and the preacher con¬ 
 tinued, sternly, “ Well, did the angel you saw smell of brim¬ 
 stone ? He must have smelled of brimstone, for he was from a 
 region that burns with fire and brimstone, and consequently 
 from hell, for he revealed a great lie to you if he told you I 
 was to live forever.” 
 
 The dreamer turned olf abrujitly, and disappeared amidst the 
 jeers of the crowd that had listened to the conversation. 
 
 On the 16th of September, 1806, Mr. Cartwright was or¬ 
 dained a deacon in the Methodist Episco 2 )al Church by Bishop 
 Asburv, and on the 4th of October, 1808, Bishop McKendree 
 ordained him an elder. Upon receiving deacon’s orders he 
 was assigned to the Marietta Circuit. His appointment dis¬ 
 mayed him. Says he : “ It was a poor, hard circuit at that time. 
 Marietta and the country round were settled at an early day by 
 a colony of A'ankees. At the time of my appointment I had 
 never seen a Yankee, and I had heard dismal stories about 
 them. It was said they lived almost entirely on pumpkins, 
 molasses, fat meat, and bohea tea; moreover, that they could 
 not bear loud and zealous sermons, and they had brought on 
 their learned preachers with them, and they I’ead their sermons 
 and were always criticising us poor backwoods preachers. M"heu 
 my appointment was read out it distressed me greatly. I went 
 to Bishop Asbury and begged him to supply my place and let 
 
PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 641 
 
 me go home. The old father took me in his arras and said: 
 ‘ O, no, luy son; go in the name of the Lord. It will make a 
 man of you.’ 
 
 “Ah, thought I, if this is the way to make men, I do not 
 want to be a man. I cried over it bitterly, and prayed, too. 
 But on I started, cheered by my presiding elder. Brother J. 
 Sale. If I ever saw hard times, surely it was this year; yet 
 many of the people were kind and treated me friendly. I had 
 hard work to keep soul and body together. The first Meth¬ 
 odist house I came to the brother was a Universalist. I crossed 
 over the Muskingum River to Marietta. The first Methodist 
 family I stopped with there, the lady was a member of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, but a thorough Universalist. 
 She was a tliin-faccd, Roman-nosed, loquacious Yankee, glib 
 on the tongue, and you may depend upon it I had a hard 
 race to keep n]> with her, though I found it a good school, for 
 it set me to reading my Bible. And here permit me to say, 
 of all the isms I ever heard of, they were here. These de¬ 
 scendants of the Puritans were generally educated, but their 
 ancestors were rigid prcdestinarians, and as they wei’e some¬ 
 times favored with a little light on their moral powers, and 
 could just ‘ see men as trees walking,’ they jumped into Deism, 
 Universalism, Unitarianism, etc., etc. I verily believe it was 
 the best .sclu)oj I ever entered. They waked me up on all 
 sides; Methodism was feeble, and I had to battle or run, and 
 I resolved on the former.” 
 
 Just before he was made an elder, Mr. Cartwright left his 
 circuit, and went home on a visit to recruit. He had made a 
 good fight with ])overty during his labors, and at the time of 
 his departure for home he was in a condition sufficiently hard 
 to test any man’s fortitude. “ I had been from my father’s 
 house for three years, ” says he; “ was five hundred miles from 
 
542 
 
 KINGS OP POETUNE. 
 
 home, my horse had gone blind, ray saddle was worn out, my 
 bridle reins had been eaten up and replaced (after a sort) at 
 least a dozen times, and my clotheS|had been patched till it 
 was difficult to detect the original. I had concluded to make 
 my way home and get another outfit. I was in jNIarietta, and 
 had just seventy-five cents in my poeket. How I would get 
 home and pay my way I could not tell.” 
 
 He did reach home, however, after many characteristic ad¬ 
 ventures, and obtained another outfit, and while there he took 
 an important step—he married. “After a mature deliberation 
 and prayer, ” he says, “I thought it was my duty to marry, and 
 was joined in marriage to Frances Gaines, on the 18th of Au¬ 
 gust, 1808, which was her nineteenth birthday.” Peter and 
 his bride knew that a hard life was in store for them, but they 
 felt strong in the love they bore each other. They were simjjle 
 backwoods folk, and their wants were few. “ When I started 
 as a traveling jireacher,” he said fifty-three years afterward, “a 
 single preacher was allowed to receive eighty dollars per an¬ 
 num if his circuit would give it to him; but single ju’eachers in 
 those days seldom received over thirty or forty dollars, and 
 often much less; and had it not been for a few presents made 
 us by the benevolent friends of the church, and a few dollars 
 we made as marriage fees, we must have suffered much more 
 than we did. But the Lord provided, and, strange as it may 
 ajipear to the present generation, we got along without starving 
 or going naked.” There is something awe-inspiring in the 
 simple trust in God which this good man displayed in every 
 stage of his life. Once satisfied that he was in the path of 
 duty, he never allowed the future to trouble him. He pro¬ 
 vided for it as far as he could, and left the rest to the IMa.ster 
 whose work he was doing. Poverty and hardship had no ter¬ 
 rors for this brave young coujile, and it was very far from 
 
PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 543 
 
 their thoughts to wait until a better day to marry. They would 
 go out hand in hand into the world and meet their trials 
 together. Children would come, they knew, and those littk 
 mouths would have to be fed, but they would be industrious, 
 saving, and patient, and “God would provide.” 
 
 Peter Cartwright’s mission was to plant the Methodist Epis¬ 
 copal Church in the West as well as to preach the Gospel. For 
 that end he worked and prayed. The Methodist Episcopal 
 Church was his haven of safety. Without, all was storm and 
 darkness; within its fold all was peace and light. He believed 
 his church to be the best door to heaven, if indeed it was not 
 in his estimation the only one. He was a fanatic, pure and 
 simple, as regarded his own denomination, but a fanatic full of 
 high and noble purposes, and one whose zeal was productive 
 only of good. This fanaticism was necessary to the success of 
 his labors. It was his perfect belief that his was the only 
 church in which sinners could find perfect peace that carried 
 him through the difficulties which encompassed him. Men 
 were dying all around him, and they must come into hi.% 
 church. They had other denominations close at hand, but 
 they, in his estimation, would not do. The Methodist Episco- 
 ])al Church was a necessity for sinners, therefore it must be 
 planted in all parts of the land. No sacrifice "was too great 
 for the accomplishment of this object. He has lived to sec 
 those sacrifices rewarded, to see his church one of the most 
 numerous and powerful religious bodies in the country. 
 
 Being so zealous in behalf of his own church, it is not 
 strange that he should have clashed frequently with other de’ 
 nominations. He got along very well with the majority, but 
 with the Baptists and Universalists he was always on the war 
 path. The latter especially excited his uncompromising hos¬ 
 tility, and he never failed to attack their doctrines with all his 
 
644 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 forces wherever ho encountered them. “I have thought,” says 
 he, “and do still think, if I were to set out to form a plan to 
 contravene the laws of God, to encourage wickedness of all 
 kinds, to corrupt the morals and encourage vice, and crowd 
 hell with the lost and the wailings of the damned, the Univer- 
 salist plan should be the plan, the very plan that I would 
 adopt. 
 
 “A few years ago,” he continues, “I had a neighbor who 
 professed to be a confirmed Universalist. He contended witli 
 me that there was no devil but the evil disposition in man, and 
 that there was no hell but the bad feelings that men had when 
 they did wrong: that this was all the punishment any body 
 would suffer. When this neighbor’s father lay on his dying 
 bed (a confirmed Universalist, professedly) there was a faithful 
 minister of Christ who believed it his duty to visit this old 
 Universalist, warn him of his danger, and try to awaken his con¬ 
 science, if not seared, to a just view of his real situation. The 
 minister, however, failed in his faithful attemjit and well-meant 
 endeavors, for the old man, then on his dying pillow, was 
 greatly offended at the preacher, and told him that he did not 
 thank him for trying to shake his faith in his dying moments. 
 This neighbor of mine, and son of this old, hardened sinner, 
 was greatly enraged at the pi’eacher, and cursed and abused 
 him in a violent manner. A few days after the demise of the 
 old man, he, in a furious rage, began to abuse and curse the 
 preacher in my presence, and said : 
 
 “ ‘ D-him; I wish he was in hell and the devil had him.’ 
 
 “I stopped him short by .saying, ‘Pooh, pooh, man, what 
 (ire you talking about? There is no hell but the bad feelings 
 that a man has when he docs wrong, and no devil but the evil 
 disposition that is in man.’ Thus auswering a fool according 
 to his folly. 
 
PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 645 
 
 “ ‘Well/ said he, ‘ if there is no hell there ought to be, to put 
 
 « 
 
 such preachers in.’ 
 
 “‘Now, sir,’ said I, ‘you see the utter untenableness of your 
 creed, for a man even in trying to do good honestly draws 
 down your wrath, and, in a moment, you want a hell to put 
 him into and a devil to torment him for giving you an offense, 
 and doing what no good man ought to be offended about. 
 But God must be insulted, his name blasphemed, his laws 
 trampled under foot, yet he must have no hell to put such a 
 wretch in, no devil to torment him. Now I would be ashamed 
 of myself if I were in your place, and let the seal of truth close 
 my lips forever hereafter.’ 
 
 “Although he was confounded, he still clave to his God-diS' 
 honoring doctrine, waxing worse and worse, till it was generally 
 believed he was guilty of a most heinous crime.” 
 
 Argumentative battles were not the only troubles Cartwright 
 had to encounter from Universalists. They came to his revivals, 
 he says, to hoot and create disturbance. At one of these meet¬ 
 ings two sisters, Universalists in belief, were ju’esent. They 
 came to “ make fun,” but one of them was overcome by Cart¬ 
 wright’s preaching, and went up to the mourner’s bench to be 
 prayed for. When her sister heard of it, she commenced to 
 make her way to the altar, with the angry determination to 
 force the penitent from it. “ I rose and met her in the crowded 
 aisle,” says Mr. Cartwright, “and told her to be calm and 
 desist. She made neither better nor worse of it than to draw 
 back her arm and give me a severe slap in the face with her 
 open hand. I coTifcss this rather took me by surprise, and, as 
 the common saying is, made the fire fly out of my eyes in tre¬ 
 mendous sparkling brilliancy, but, collecting my best judgment, 
 I caught her by the arms near her shoulders and wheeled her 
 to the right about, moved her forward to the door, and said, 
 
546 
 
 KINGS OP POKTUNE. 
 
 ‘ Gentlemen, please open the door; the devil in this Universalist 
 lady has got fighting hot, and I want to set her outside to 
 cool.’ The door was opened, and I landed her out,” 
 
 Concerning his tilts with the Baptists, he has given a mass 
 of curious reminiscences, from which we take the following : 
 
 “ We preached in new settlements, and the Lord poured out 
 his S})irit, and we had many convictions and many conversions. 
 It was the order of the day, (though I am sorry to say it,) that 
 we were constantly followed by a certain set of proselyting Bap¬ 
 tist preachers. These new and wicked settlements were seldom 
 visited by these Baptist preachers until the Methodist preachers 
 entered them; then, when a revival was gotten up, or the work 
 of the Lord revived, these Baptist preachers came rushing in, 
 and they generally sung their sermons ; and when they struck 
 the long roll, or their sing-song mode of preaching, in substance 
 it was : ‘ Water ! water! You must follow your blessed Lord 
 down into the water!’ I had preached several times in a large, 
 populous, and wicked settlement, and there was serious atten¬ 
 tion, deep convictions, and a good many conversions; but, be¬ 
 tween my occasional appointments these preachers would rush 
 in and try to take off our converts into the water; and indeed 
 they made so much ado about baptism by immersion that the 
 uninformed would suppose that heaven was an island, and there 
 was no way to get there but by diving or sivimming.’’ 
 
 He once preached a sermon on the true nature of baptism, at 
 which were present the daughters of a Baptist minister, one of 
 whom was converted. That night it rained violently, and all 
 the neighboring streams overflowed their banks. Riding along 
 the next day, he met the Baptist minister on the road. 
 
 “ We’ve had a tremendous I'ain,” said Cartwright. 
 
 “ Yes, sir,” said the Baptist brother, “ the Lord sent this rain 
 to convince you of your error,” 
 
PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 547 
 
 ^‘Ah ! what error ? ” 
 
 “ Why, about baptism. The Lord sent this flood to convince 
 you that much water was necessary.” 
 
 “ Very good, sir,” said Cartwright, “ and in like manner he 
 sent this flood to convince you of your error.” 
 
 ‘‘What error?” asked the Baptist brother. 
 
 “Why,” replied Cartwright, triumphantly, “to show you 
 that water comes by pouring, and not by immersion.” 
 
 Free and easy as he was in his manner, our preacher had a 
 deep sense of the dignity of his mission, and he was resolved 
 that others should share the feeling, and accord him, in his min¬ 
 isterial capacity, the respect and deference that were his due. 
 His manner of accomplishing- this was characteristic, as the fol¬ 
 lowing incident will show: Traveling on his circuit in 1805, he 
 put uji on one occasion at the house of an old man known as 
 Father Teel, a whimsical old fellow, and supposed to be Cart¬ 
 wright’s match in oddity. He had been warned that the old 
 man, though a good Methodist, showed little deference to preach¬ 
 ers. It was his custom to rise early, and, as soon as dressed, to 
 give out his hymn, sing it himself, and then go to prayers, -with¬ 
 out waiting for his family to get up. He served preachers in 
 the same way. Cartwright resolved to beat him at his own 
 game, but the old man was too wary for him. 
 
 “Just as day broke,” says Cartwright, “I awoke, rose up, 
 and began to dress, but had not nigh accomplished it when I 
 heard Teel give out his hymn and commence singing, and about 
 the time I had got dressed, I heard him commence praying. 
 He gave thanks to God that they had been spared during the 
 night, and \vere all permitted to see the light of a new day, while 
 at the same time I suppose every one of his family was fast 
 asleep. I deliberately opened the door and walked out to the 
 well, washed myself, and then walked back to my cabin. Just 
 
548 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE, 
 
 as I got to the door, the old brother opened his door, and, 
 seeing me, said, ‘ Good morning, sir. Why, I did n’t know 
 you were up.’ 
 
 “ ‘Yes, said I, ‘ I have been up some time.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Well, brother,’ said he, ‘ why did you not come in to 
 prayers?’ 
 
 “ ‘ Because,’ said I, ‘ it is wrong to pray of a morning in the 
 family before we wash.’ 
 
 “The old brother passed on, and no more was said at that 
 time. That evening, just before we were about to retire to rest, 
 the old brother set out the book and said to me: ‘ Brother, 
 hold prayers with us.’ 
 
 “ ‘No, sir,’ said I. 
 
 “ Said he, ‘ Come, brother, take the book and pray with us.’ 
 
 “ ‘ No, sir,’ said I; ‘ you love to pray so well, you may do 
 it yourself.’ 
 
 “ He insisted, but I persistently refused, saying: ‘ You are 
 so fond of praying yourself, that you even thanked God this 
 morning that he had spared you all to see the light of a new 
 day, when your family had not yet opened their eyes, but were 
 all fast asleep. And you have such an absurd way of holding 
 prayers in your family, that I do not wish to have any thing 
 to do with it.’ 
 
 “ He then took the book, read, and said prayers, but you 
 may rely on it, the next morning things were much changed. 
 He waited for me, and had all his family up in order. He 
 acknowledged his error, and told me it was one of the best 
 reproofs he ever got. I then prayed with the family, .and after 
 that all went well.” 
 
 Among his clerical brethren was a poor hen-pecked husband, 
 whose wife was possessed of a temper that made her the terror 
 of the neighborhood. Cartwright had often been invited by the 
 
PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 649 
 
 poor man to go home with him ; “ but,” he says, “ I frankly 
 confess I was afraid to trust myself,” but at length, yielding to 
 his importunities, he went home with his oppressed brother, 
 intending to spend the night with him. His visit roused the 
 fury of the wife, and “ I saw in a minute,” says our preacher, 
 “that the devil was in her as big as an alligator, and I deter¬ 
 mined on my course.” The woman held her tongue until after 
 su})per, when her husband asked her kindly to join them in 
 prayers. She flew into a rage, and swore there should be no 
 praying in her house that night. Cartwright tried to reason 
 with her, but she cursed him roundly. Then, facing her sternly, 
 he said, “ Madam, if you were my wife, I would break you of 
 your bad ways, or I would break your neck.” 
 
 “ The devil you would,” said she. “ Yes, you are a pretty 
 Christian, aint you?” 
 
 She continued cursing him, but Cartw'right sternly bade her 
 hold her peace, and let them pray. She declared she w'ould not. 
 
 “ Now,” said he to her, “ if you do not be still, and behave 
 yourself, I ’ll put you out of doors.” 
 
 “ At this,” says he, “ she clenched her fist and swore she was 
 one-half alligator and the other half suappiiig-turtle, and that 
 it would take a better man than I w'as to put her out. It w'as 
 a small cabin we were in, and we were not far from the dooi, 
 which was then standing open. I caught her by the arm, and 
 swinging her round in a circle, brought her right up to the 
 door, and shoved her out. She jumped up, tore her hair, 
 foamed, and such swearing as she uttered w’as seldom equaled, 
 and never surpassed. The door, oi- sliutter of the door, was 
 very strongly made, to keep out hostile Indians; I shut it tight, 
 barred it, and went to prayer, and I prayed as best I could; but 
 I have no language at my command to describe my feelings. 
 At the same time, I was determined to conquer, or die in the 
 
550 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE, 
 
 attempt. While she was raging and foaming in the yard and 
 around the cabin, I started a spiritual song, and sung loud, to 
 drown her voice as much as possible. The five or six little 
 children ran and squatted about and crawled under the beds. 
 Poor things, they were scared almost to death. 
 
 ‘‘ I sang on, and she roared and thundered on outside, till 
 she became perfectly exhausted, and panted for breath. At 
 length, when she had spent her force, she became perfectly calm 
 and still, and then knocked at the door, saying, ‘ Mr. Cart¬ 
 wright, please let me in.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Will you behave yourself if I let you in ? ’ said I. 
 
 “ ‘ O yes,’ said she, ‘ I will; ’ and throwing myself on my 
 guard, and perfectly self-possessed, I opened the door, took her 
 by the hand, led her in, and seated her near the fire-place. She 
 had roared and foamed until she was in a high perspiration, and 
 looked pale as death. After she took her seat, ‘ O,’ said she, 
 ‘ what a fool I am,’ 
 
 “ ‘ Yes,’ said I, ‘ about one of the biggest fools I ever saw in 
 all my life.’ .... Brother C. and I kneeled down, and 
 both prayed. She was as quiet as a lamb.” 
 
 Six months later, our preacher tells us, this woman was con¬ 
 verted, and became “ as bold in the cause of God as she had 
 been in the cause of the wicked one.” 
 
 In 1823, Mr, Cartwright resolved to move across the Ohio, 
 and selected Illinois as his new home. The reasons which in¬ 
 fluenced his actions are thus stated by him : 
 
 “ I had seen with painful emotions the increase of a disposi¬ 
 tion to justify slavery .... and the legislatures in the 
 slave States made the laws more and more stringent, with a 
 design to prevent emancipation. ^Moreover, rabid abolitionism 
 spread and dreadfully excited the South. I had a young and 
 growing family of children, two sons and four daughters; was 
 
tETER CARTWRIGHT 
 
 551 
 
 poor, owned a little farm of about one hundred and fifty acres; 
 lands around me were high and rising in value. My daughters 
 would soon be grown up. I did not see any probable means 
 by which I could settle them around or near us. Moreover, I 
 had no right to expect our children to marry into wealthy fami¬ 
 lies, and I did not desire it, if it could be so; and by chance 
 they might marry into slave families. This I did not desire. 
 Besides, I saw there was a marked distinction made among the 
 people generally between young people raised without work 
 
 and those that had to work for their living.I 
 
 thought I saw clear indications of Providence that I should 
 leave my comfortable little home, and move into a free State or 
 territory, for the following reasons: First, I would get entirely 
 clear of the evil of slavery. Second, I could raise my children 
 to work where work was not considered a degradation. Third, 
 I believed I could better my temporal circumstances, and pro¬ 
 cure lands for my children as they grew up. And fourth, I 
 could carry the Gospel to destitute souls that had, by removal 
 into some new country, been deprived of the means of grace.” 
 
 It was the last reason, no doubt, that decided our preacher. 
 Men of his stamp were needed west of the Ohio. Kentucky 
 was becoming too old a State for him, and he felt that his true 
 field of labor was still on the frontier, and thither he turned his 
 steps. Setting out first on horseback to seek an eligible loca¬ 
 tion, he reached Sangamon County, Illinois, where he bought a 
 claim on Richland Creek. He then returned to Kentucky and 
 wound up his affairs there, obtained a regular transfer from 
 the Kentucky Conference to the Indiana Conference, which 
 then controlled Illinois, and in October, 1824, set out for his 
 new home in Sangamon County. A great affliction overtook 
 him on the wav, in the death of his third daughter, who was 
 killed by the falling of a tree upon their camp. The affliction 
 
552 
 
 KINGS OP PORTUNE. 
 
 was made more grievous by the heartless refusal of the people 
 in the vicinity to render them any aid. “ We were in great 
 distress/’ he says, “ and no one even to pity our condition. 
 . . . . I discovered that the tree had sprung up, and did 
 
 .not press the child ; and we drew her out from under it, and 
 carefully laid her in our feed trough, and moved on about twenty 
 miles to an acquaintance’s in Hamilton County, Illinois, where 
 we buried her.” 
 
 Leaving that lonely little grave behind them, they hurried on 
 to their new home. Springfield, the capital of the State, was 
 but a small collection of shanties and log huts, and Sangamon 
 County was the extreme frontier. It was the most northern 
 county of Illinois, and just beyond it lay the unbroken Indian 
 country. Numbers of Indians roamed through the Sangamon 
 River bottom, and spent their winters there. It was as wild 
 and unsettled a region as our preacher could have desired, and 
 one which gave him a fine field for the exercise of his peculiar 
 abilities. Mr. Cartwright was promptly received into the In¬ 
 diana Conference, and he lost no time in looking about him. 
 He at once established his family in their new home, and then 
 set about his work. The work was hard, and money was scarce. 
 The first year he traveled the Sangamon Circuit he received 
 forty dollars, and the next year sixty dollars, which he says was 
 a great imjji’ovement in his financial affairs. He was successful 
 from the first, and in the two years referred to added one 
 hundred and sixty persons to the Methodist Church in this 
 thinly settled district. For forty-six years he has labored in 
 this region, adding many souls to the kingdom of God. 
 
 Arduous as his labors had been in the Kentucky Confer¬ 
 ence, they now increased very greatly. He had a larger amount 
 of territory to travel over, people were more scattered, and the 
 dangers to be encountered were greater. In 1827, he was 
 
PETEE CAETWEIGHT. 
 
 553 
 
 made presiding elder, and given the Illinois District, then a 
 very extensive region, and in 1828 Galena charge was added 
 to this district. The district thus enlarged extended from the 
 mouth of the Ohio River to Galena, the entire length of the 
 present State of Illinois, and over this immense distance our 
 preacher was obliged to travel four times in the year. The 
 journeys were made either on horseback or in an old-fashioned 
 sulky or one-seat gig. There were miles of lonely prairie and 
 many rapid streams to cross, and roads, bridges, or ferry-boats 
 were almost unknown. Yet Peter Cartwright was not the man 
 to be deterred by obstacles. When he set out on his othcial 
 journeys, he allowed nothing that it was possible to overcome 
 to prevent him from kee])ing his appointments. In crossing 
 the prairies, he would guide liimself by the points of timber, 
 for there were no roads over these vast plains. Gftentimes the 
 streams to be crossed were swollen, and then he would swim 
 his horse across them, or ride along the shore until he found a 
 tree fallen over the current. Stripping himself, he would carry 
 his clothes and riding equipments to the opposite bank, and 
 then, returning, mount his horse and swim him across the river. 
 Dressing again, he would continue his journey, and jierhaps 
 repeat the proceeding several times during the day. When 
 overtaken by night, he would seek a {)lace in some grove, and, 
 lighting a fire with his tinder-box and steel, tie u|) his horse, 
 and, throwing himself on tlic ground, sleep as peacefully as on a 
 bed of down. Sometimes night would come on before he had 
 crossed the prairie or made his way to the timber point he was 
 aiming for, and then he would sit down on the ground, in the 
 darkness and alone, and, holding his horse by the bridle, await 
 the return of light to enable him to see his landmark. Some¬ 
 times he would find a little log-hut with a settler’s family in it, 
 and he says it was “a great treat” to come upon one of these 
 
554 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 lonely cabins and enjoy the privilege of a night’s lodging. If 
 the family were Methodists, there was sure to be preaching that 
 night; and if they were strangers to that clfurch, our preacher 
 set to work at once to convert them. He labored faithfully, 
 faring hard, and braving dangers from which his city brethren 
 would have shrunk appalled. He carried the Gospel and the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church into all parts of the great State of 
 Illinois, and even into Iowa and the Indian country. 
 
 In 1832, the first Illinois Conference met in the town of 
 Jacksonville, and Mr. Cartwright attended it. He had now 
 been a traveling preacher for twenty-eight years, and, as he 
 felt himself sorely in need of rest, he asked and obtained a 
 superannuated relation for one year. On the same day. Bishop 
 Soule, who presided at the Conference, came to him to ask his 
 advice with reference to the Quincy District. It was very im¬ 
 portant, but the bishop could not find a presiding elder willing 
 to take charge of it, as it was an almost unbroken wilderness. 
 The bishoj) was in sore distress, as he feared that he would be 
 obliged to merge it into another district. The spirit of the 
 backwoods preacher at once took fire, and, declaring that so 
 important a field ought not to be neglected, he expressed his 
 willingness to relinquish his superannuated relation and accept 
 the charge. The bishop took him at his word and appointed 
 him to the district, which he served faithfully. His adventures 
 in traveling from place to place to fill his appointments are 
 intensely interesting, and I would gladly reproduce them here 
 did the limits of this chapter permit. 
 
 It required no small amount of courage to perform the vari¬ 
 ous duties of a backwoods preacher, and in this quality our 
 preacher was not deficient. He was frequently called upon to 
 exercise it in his camp meetings. These assemblies never failed 
 to gather large crowds from all parts of the surrounding country. 
 
PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 655 
 
 and among others came numerous rowdies, whose delight it was 
 to annoy the prea(;hers and worshipers in every conceivable 
 way. Cartwright put up with the annoyance as long as he 
 could, and then determined to put a stop to it. He believed 
 in fighting the devil with fire, and put down many a disturb¬ 
 ance. The following is the way he went about it: 
 
 “Our last quarterly meeting was a camp meeting. We had 
 a great many tents and a large turnout for a new country, and, 
 perhaps, there never was a greater collection of rabble and row¬ 
 dies. They came drunk and armed with dirks, clubs, knives, 
 and horsewhips, and swore they would break up the meeting. 
 After interrupting us very much on Saturday night, they col¬ 
 lected on Sunday morning, determined on a general riot. At 
 eight o’clock I was appointed to preach. About the time I 
 was half through my discourse, two very fine-dressed young 
 men marched into the congregation with loaded horsewhips, 
 and hats on, and rose up and stood in the midst of the ladies, 
 and began to laugh and talk. They were near the stand, and I 
 requested them to desist and get off the seats; but they cursed 
 me and told me to mind my own business, and said they would 
 not get down. I stopped trying to preach, and called for a 
 magistrate. There were two at hand, but I saw they were both 
 afraid. I ordered them to take these two men into custody, 
 but they said they could not do it. I told them as I left the 
 stand to command me to take them, and I would do it at the 
 risk of my life. I advanced toward them. They ordered me 
 to stand ofp, but I advanced. One of them made a pass at my 
 head, but I closed in with him and jerked him off the seat. A 
 regular scuffle ensued. The congregation by this time were all 
 in commotion. I heard the magistrates giving general orders, 
 commanding all friends of order to aid in suppressing the riot. 
 
 In the scuffle I threw my prisoner down, and held him fast; 
 
 £8 
 
556 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 he tried his best to get loose. 1 told him to be quiet, or I 
 would pound his chest well. The mob rose and rushed to the 
 rescue of the two prisoners, for they had taken the other young 
 man also. An old, drunken magistrate came up to me, and 
 ordered me to let my prisoner go. I told him I should not. 
 He swore if I did not he would knock me down. I told him 
 to crack away. Then one of my friends, at my request, took 
 hold of my prisoner, and the drunken justice made a pass at 
 me; but I parried tlie stroke, and, seizing him by the collar 
 and the hair of the head, and fetching him a sudden jerk for¬ 
 ward, brought him to the ground and jumped on him. I told 
 liim to be quiet, or I would pound him well. The mob then 
 rushed to tlie scene; they knocked down seven magistrates, 
 several preachers, and others. I gave up my drunken j)risoner 
 to another, and threw myself in front of the friends of order. 
 Just at this moment, the ringleader of the mob and I met; he 
 made three passes at me, intending to knock me down. The last 
 time he struck at me, by the force of his own effort he threw 
 the side of his face toward me. It seemed at that moment 1 
 had not power to resist temptation, and I struck a sudden 
 blow in the burr of the ear and dropped him to the earth. 
 Just at this moment, the friends of order rushed by hundreds 
 on the mob, knocking them down in every direction.” 
 
 Once, while crossing a river on a ferry-boat, he overheard a 
 man cursing Peter Cartwright and threatening dire vengeance 
 against him, and boasting that he could “ whij) any preacher 
 the Lord ever made.” This I’oused our preacher’s ire, and 
 accosting the man, lie told him he was Peter Cartwright, and 
 that if he wanted to whip him he must do so then. The 
 fellow became confused, and said he did not believe him. 
 
 tell you,” said Cartwright, sternly, “I am the man. 
 Now, sir, you have to whip me, as you threatened, or quit 
 
PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 557 
 
 cursing me, or I will jmt you in the river and baptize you in 
 the name of the devil, for you surely belong to him.” “This,” 
 says Cartwright, “settled him.” 
 
 Once, having gone into the woods with a young man who 
 had sworn he would whip him, he sprained his foot slightly 
 in getting over a fence, and involuntarily jdaced his hand to 
 his side. “ j\Iy redoubtable antagonist,” says he, “ had got on 
 
 the fence, and, looking down at me, said, ‘D- you, you 
 
 are feeling for a dirk, are you?’ 
 
 “As quick as thought it occurred to me how to get clear of 
 a whipping. 
 
 “‘Yes,’ said I, ‘and I will give you the benefit of all the 
 dirks I have,’ and advanced rapidly toward him. 
 
 “He sprang back on the other side of the fence from me; I 
 jumped over after him, and a regular foot race followed.” 
 
 “ It may be asked,” says the old man, naively, “ what I 
 would have done if this fellow had gone with me to the woods. 
 This is hard to answer, for it was a part of my creed to 
 love every body, but to fear no one, and I did not permit my¬ 
 self to believe that any man could whip me until it was tried, 
 and I did not permit myself to premeditate expedients in such 
 cases. I should no doubt have proposed to him to have prayer 
 first, and then followed the openings of Providence.” 
 
 Mr. Cartwright was from the beginning of his ministry an 
 ardent advocate of temperance, and, long before the first tem¬ 
 perance society was organized in the country, he waged a fierce 
 war against dram-driid<ing. This fearless advocate of temper¬ 
 ance came very near getting drunk once. lie had stojiped 
 with a fellow preacher at a tavern kejit by an Otterbein 
 Methodist, who, thinking to play them a trick, jnit whisky 
 into the new cider which he offered them. Cartwright drank 
 sparingly of the beverage, though he considered it harmless, but, 
 
558 
 
 KINGS OF FOETUNE. 
 
 “ with all my forbearance,” he says, “ presently I began to feel 
 light-headed. I instantly ordered our horses, fearing we were 
 snapped for once. . . When we had rode about a mile, 
 
 being in the rear, I saw Brother Walker was nodding at a 
 mighty rate. I suddenly rode up to Brother Walker and 
 cried out, ‘ Wake up! wake up! ’ He roused up, his eyes 
 watering freely. ‘ I believe,’ said I, ‘ we are both drunk. Let 
 us turn out of the road and lie down and take a nap till we 
 get sober.’ But we rode on without stopping. We were not 
 drunk, but we both evidently felt it flying to our heads.” 
 
 In 1826 Mr. Cartwright was elected to the Legislature Oi. 
 the State, and at the expiration of his first term was reelected 
 from Sangamon County. He was induced to accept this posi¬ 
 tion because of his desire to aid in preventing the introduction 
 of slavery into the State. He had no liking for political strife, 
 however, and was disgusted with the dishonesty which he saw 
 around him. “1 say,” he declares, “without any desli'e to 
 speak evil of the rulers of the people, I found a great deal of 
 corruption in our Legislature, and I found that almost every 
 measure had to be carried by a corrupt bargain and sale which 
 should cause every honest man to blush for his country.” 
 
 He was full of a quaint humor, which seemed to burst out 
 from every line of his features, and twinkle merrily in his bright 
 eyes. Often in the midst of his most exciting revivals he could 
 not resist the desire to fasten his dry jokes upon one of his con¬ 
 verts. No man loved a joke better, or was quicker to make a 
 good use of it. He was traveling one day on his circuit, and 
 stopped for the night at a cabin in which he found a man and 
 woman. Suspecting that all was not right, he questioned the 
 woman, and drew from her the confession that the man was her 
 lover. Her husband, she said, was away, and would not return 
 for two days, and she had received this man in his absence. 
 
ft 
 

PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 561 
 
 Cartwright then began to remonstrate witli the guilty pair upon 
 their condiiet, and while he was sjieaking to them the hus¬ 
 band’s voice was heard in the yard. In an agony of terror the 
 woman implored Cartwright to assist her in getting her lover 
 out of the way, and our preacher, u]ion receiving from each a 
 solemn promise of reformation, agreed to do so. There was 
 standing by the chimney a large barrel of raw cotton, and as 
 there was no time to get the man out of the house, Cartwright 
 put him into the barrel and piled the cotton over him. 
 
 The husband entered, and Cartwright soon engaged him in 
 conversation. The man said he had often heard of Peter Cart¬ 
 wright, and that it was the common opinion in that part of the 
 country that among his other wonderful gifts our preacher had 
 the power to call up the devil. 
 
 “That’s the easiest thing in the world to do,” said Cart¬ 
 wright. “Would you like to see it?” 
 
 The man hesitated for awhile, and then expressed his readi¬ 
 ness to witness the performance. 
 
 “Very well,” said Cartwright; “take your stand by your 
 wife, and do n’t move or speak. I ’ll let the door open to give 
 him a chance to get out, or he may carry the roof away.” 
 
 So saying, he opened the door, and, taking a handful of cot¬ 
 ton, held it in the fire and lighted it. Then plunging it into 
 the barrel of raw cotton, he shouted lustily, “Devil, rise!” In 
 an instant the barrel was wrapped in flames, and the lover, in 
 utter dismay, leaped out and rushed from the house. The hus¬ 
 band was greatly terrified, and ever afterward avowed himself 
 a believer in Cartwright’s intimacy with “Old Scratch,” for 
 had he not had ocular proof of it ? 
 
 Riding out of Springfield one day, lie saw a wagon some dis¬ 
 tance ahead of him containing a young lady and two young 
 men. As he came near them they recognized him, though ho 
 
562 
 
 KINGS OK FORTUNE. 
 
 was totally uiuicquainted with them, and began to sing camp- 
 meeting hymns with great animation. In a little while the 
 young lady began to shout, and said, “ Glory to God ! Glory 
 to God !” and the driver cried out, “Amen ! Glory to God!” 
 
 “ ]\Iy first impressions,” says Mr, Cartwright, “ were, that 
 they had been across the Sangamon River to a camp meeting 
 that I knew was in progress there, and had obtained religion, 
 and were happy. As I drew a little nearer, the young lady 
 began to sing and shout again. The young man who was not 
 driving fell down, and cried aloud for mercy; the other two, 
 shouting at the top of their voices, cried out, ‘ Glory to God ! 
 another sinner down.’ Then they fell to exhorting the young 
 man that was down, saying, ‘Pray on, brother; pray on, 
 brother; you ’ll soon get religion.’ Presently up jumped the 
 young man that was down, and shouted aloud, saying, ‘ God has 
 ble.ssed my soul. Halleluiah! halleluiah! Glory to God!”’ 
 
 Thinking that these were genuine penitents, Cartwright rode 
 rapidly toward them, intending to join in their rejoicings; but 
 as he drew near them, he detected certain unmistakable evi¬ 
 dences that they were shamming religious fervor merely for the 
 purpose of annoying him. He then endeavored to get rid of 
 them, but as they were all going the same direction, the party 
 iu the wagon managed to remain near him by driving fast when 
 he tried to pass them, and falling back when he drew up to let 
 them go ahead. “ I thought,” says our preacher, “ I would 
 ride up and horsewhip both of these young men ; and if the 
 woman had not been in company, I think I should have done 
 so; but I forebore.” 
 
 In a little while the road plunged into a troublesome morass. 
 Around the worst part of this swamp wound a bridle path, by 
 which Mr. Cartwright determined to escape his tormentors, who 
 would be compelled to take the road straight through the 
 
PETEll CAETVVRIGMT. 
 
 563 
 
 swainp. The party in the wagon saw his object, and forgetting 
 prudence in their eagerness to keep up with him, whipped their 
 horses violently. The horses bounded olf at full speed, and the 
 wagon was whirled through the swamp at a furious rate. 
 When nearly across, one of the wheels struck a large stump, and 
 over went the wagon. “ Fearing it would turn entirely over 
 and catch them under,” says Mr. Cartwright, “ the two young 
 men took a leap into the mud, and when they lighted they sunk 
 up to the middle. The young lady was dressed in white, and 
 as the wagon went over, she sprang as far as she could, and 
 lighted on all fours; her hands sunk into the mud up to her 
 arm-pits, her mouth and the whole of her face immersed in the 
 muddy water, and she certainly w’ould have strangled if the 
 young men had not relieved her. As they hel])ed her up and 
 out, I had wheeled my horse to see the fun. I rode up to the 
 edge of the mud, stopped my horse, reared in my stirrups, and 
 shouted, at the top of my voice, ‘ Glory to God! Glory to God! 
 Halleluiah! another sinner down ! Glory to God! Halleluiah! 
 Glory ! Halleluiah ! ’ 
 
 “ If ever mortals felt mean, these youngsters did; and well 
 they might, for they had carried on all this sport to make light 
 of religion, and to insult a minister, a total stranger to them. 
 When I became tired of shouting over them, I said to them : 
 
 “ ‘ Now, you poor, dirty, mean sinners, take this as a just 
 judgment of God upon you for your meanness, and repent of 
 your dreadful wickedness; and let this be the last time that you 
 attempt to insult a preacher ; for if you repeat your abominable 
 sport and persecutions, the next time God will serve you worse, 
 and the devil will get you.’ 
 
 “ They felt so badly that they never uttered one word of 
 reply.” 
 
 Our preacher was determined that his work should be recog- 
 
564 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 nized, and as he and his fellow traveling ministers had done a 
 good work on the frontier, he was in no humor to relish the 
 accounts of the religious condition of the West, which the mis¬ 
 sionaries from the East spread through the older States in their 
 letters home. “ They would come,” says he, “ with a tolerable 
 education, and a smattering knowledge of the old Calvinistic 
 system of theology. They were generally tolerably well fur¬ 
 nished with old manuscript sermons, that had been preached, or 
 written, perhaps a hundred years before. Some of these ser¬ 
 mons they had memorized, but in general they read them to 
 the people. This way of reading sermons was out of fashion 
 altogether in this Western world, and of course they produced 
 no effect among the people. The great mass of our Western 
 people wanted a preacher that could mount a stump or a block, 
 or stand in the bed of a wagon, and, without note or manuscript, 
 quote, expound, and apply the word of God to the hearts and 
 consciences of the people. The result of the efforts of these 
 Eastern missionaries was not very flattering; and although the 
 Methodist preachers were in reality the pioneer heralds of the 
 cross through the entire West, and although they had raised 
 up numerous societies every five miles, and notwithstanding we 
 had hundreds of traveling and local preachers, accredited and 
 useful ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ, yet these newly- 
 fledged missionaries would write back to the old States hardly 
 any thing else but wailings and lamentations over the moral 
 wastes and destitute condition of the West.” 
 
 The indignation of our preacher was fully .shared by the peo- 
 pie of the West, who considered themselves as good Chri.stians 
 as their New England brethren, and the people of Quincy 
 called a meeting, irrespective of denomination, and pledged 
 themselves to give Peter Cartwright one thou-sand dollars per 
 annum, and pay his traveling expenses, if he would “go as a 
 
PETER CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 505 
 
 niissiduary to the New England States, and enlighten them on 
 this and other subjects, of which they were profoundly igno¬ 
 rant.” Circumstances beyond his control prevented his accept¬ 
 ance of this otfer. “ How gladly and willingly would I have 
 undertaken this labor of love,” says he, “and gloried in enlight¬ 
 ening them down East, that they might keep their home- 
 manufactured clergy at home, or give them some honorable 
 employ, better suited to their genius than that of reading old 
 musty and worm-eaten sermons.” 
 
 Our preacher did visit New England in 1852, not as a mis¬ 
 sionary, however, but as a delegate to the General Conference 
 which met that year in Boston. His fame had preceded him, 
 and he was one of the marked men of that body. Every one 
 had heard some quaint story of his devotion to his cause, his 
 fearlessness, or his eccentricities, and crowds came out to hear 
 him preach. But our backwoods preacher was ill at ease. The 
 magnificence of the city, and the prim decorum of the Boston 
 churches, subdued him, and he could not preach with the fire 
 and freedom of the frontier log chapel. The crowds that came 
 to hoar him were disajipointed, and more than once they told 
 him so. 
 
 “ Is this Peter Cartwright, from Illinois, the old Western 
 pioneer?” they asked him once. 
 
 He answered them, “ I am the very man.” 
 
 “Well,” said several of them, “brother, we are much disap¬ 
 pointed; you have fallen very much under our expectations, 
 we expected to hear a much greater sermon than that you 
 preached to-daj'.” 
 
 It was a regular Bostonian greeting, and it not only mortified 
 and disheartened the old pioneer, but it irritated him. “ I 
 tell you,” says he, “they roused me, and ))rovoked what little 
 religious patience I had. ... I left them abru[)tly, and in very 
 
566 
 
 KINGS OF POKTUKE. 
 
 gloomy mood retreated to my lodgings, but took very little rest 
 in sleep that night. I constantly asked myself this question: 
 Is it so, that I can not preach ? or what is the matter ? I under¬ 
 went a tremendous crucifixion in feeling.” 
 
 The result was that he came to the conclusion that he could 
 preach, and that the people of Boston had not “sense enough 
 to know a good sermon when they heard it.” A little later old 
 Father Taylor, that good genius of the Boston Bethel, a man 
 after Cartwright’s own heart, came to him and asked him to 
 preach for him, and this, after hesitating, our preacher agreed 
 to do, upon the condition that he should be allowed to conduct 
 •the services in regular Western style. . 
 
 “In the meantime,” says he, “I had learned from different 
 sources that the grand reason of my falling under the expecta¬ 
 tions of the congregations I had addressed was substantially 
 this: almost all those curious incidents that had gained cur¬ 
 rency throughout the country concerning IMethodist preachers 
 had been located on me, and that when the congregations came 
 to hear me, they expected little else but a bundle of eccentrici¬ 
 ties and singularities, and when they did not realize according 
 to their anticipations, they were disappointed, and that this was 
 the reason they were disappointed. So on the Sabbath, when 
 I came to the Bethel, we had a good congregation, and after 
 telling them that Brother Taylor had giv’en me the liberty 
 to preach to them after the Western fashion, I took my 
 text, and after a few common-place remarks, I commenced 
 giving them some Western anecdotes, which had a thrilling 
 effect on the congregation, and excited them immoderately— 
 I can not say religiously; but I thought if ever I saw animal 
 excitement, it was then and there. This broke the charm. 
 During my stay, after this, I could pass anywhere for Peter 
 Cartwright, the old pioneer of the West. I am not sure that 
 
PETEB CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 567 
 
 after this I fell under the expectations of my congregations 
 among them.” 
 
 Peter Cartwright died at his home, near Pleasant Plains, 
 Sangamon County, Ill., September 25, 1872. He had 
 reached the great age of eighty-seven years, and was vigor¬ 
 ous and full of youthful spirit and energy almost to the 
 last. During his many years of preaching and heroic labor 
 in the West he traveled eleven circuits ai^d twelve presiding 
 elders’ districts. Some idea of the vast amount of work he 
 accomplished in the great cause of religion, to which his 
 long life was devoted, may be gained from the statement of 
 results put down in numbers. He received into the church ' 
 during his earnest career in the cause of God more than 
 10,000 persons. He baptized more than 12,000 persons. 
 He pronounced on an average four discourses a week for 
 thirty-three years, and preached in all more than 15,000 
 sermons. This is a record with which those of few preach¬ 
 ers of any age can be compared. It is doubtful if so great 
 an amount of service was ever rendered by any other indi¬ 
 vidual, acting as a humble preacher and relying simply on 
 the Gospel. 
 
 The labors of this old pioneer preacher make up the 
 history of the West. Where he first reared his humble log- 
 hut, smiling farms and tasteful mansions cover the fertile 
 prairies of the West; cities and towns mark the spot where 
 his backwoods camp-meetings drew thousands into the king¬ 
 dom of God; the iron horse dashes with the speed of the wind 
 over the boundless prairies which he first crossed with 
 only the points of timber for his guides; the floating 
 palaces of the West plow the streams over which he swam 
 his horse or was ferried in a bark canoe; and stately churches 
 
568 
 
 KINGS OF fortune. 
 
 stand where the little log chapels of the infant West were 
 built by him. It was a long and a noble life upon which 
 he looked back in his old age, the only survivor of the heroic 
 band who started "n ith him to carry Christ into the Western 
 wilds. He outlived all his father’s family, every member 
 of the class he joined in 1800, every member of the Western 
 Conference of 1804, save perhaps one or two, Gvery member 
 of the General Conference of 1816, the first to which he was 
 elected, all his early bishops, every presiding elder under 
 whom he ever ministered, and thousands of those whom he 
 brought into the Church. “I have lived too long,” he once 
 said, in a lecture; but we take issue with him. He did not 
 live too long whose declining age was cheered by the glorious 
 fruition of the seed sown in his youth and prime. Few, 
 indeed, are given so great a privilege; and few, having lived 
 so long and worked so hard, could say with him, that during 
 such a long and exposed career, “I have never been over¬ 
 taken in any scandalous sin, tliough my shortcomings and 
 imperfections have been without number.” A man who can 
 boast such a record, though he be as poor in purse as this 
 simple-hearted backwoods preaclier, has earned a Great For¬ 
 tune indeed, for liis treasure is one that can not be taken from 
 him, since it is laid up in Heaven, “ where neither moth nor 
 rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through 
 nor steal.” 
 
VIII. 
 
 * AUTHORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 jHEREVER the English language is spoken, th' 
 name of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has 
 become a household word, and there is scarcely a 
 library, however humble, but can boast a well- 
 worn volume of his tender songs,—songs that 
 
 “ Have power to quiet 
 
 The restless pulse of care, 
 And come like the benediction 
 That follows after prayer.” 
 
 He was born in the city of Portland, Maine, on the ‘27th of 
 February, 1807, and was the son of the Hon, Stephen Long¬ 
 fellow, a distinguished lawyer of that city. The house in 
 which he was born was a square wooden -structure, built many 
 years before, and large and roomy. It stood upon the out¬ 
 skirts of the town, on the edge of the sea, and was separated 
 from the water only by a wide street. From its windows the 
 dreamy boy, who grew up within its walls, could look out upon 
 
 5G9 
 
570 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 the dark, mysterious ocean, and, lying awake in his little bed 
 in the long winter nights, he could listen to its sorrowful roar as 
 it broke heavily upon the shore. That he was keenly alive to 
 the fascination of such close intimacy with the ocean, we have 
 abundant proof in his writings. 
 
 He was carefully educated in the best schools of the city, and 
 at the age of fourteen entered Bowdoin College,'at Brunswick, 
 where he graduated in his nineteenth year. He was an indus¬ 
 trious student, and stood high in his classes. He gave brilliant 
 promise of his future eminence as a poet in several productions 
 written during his college days, which were published in a 
 Boston journal called the “ United States Literary Gazette.” 
 Among these were the “Hymn of the Moravian Nuns,” “The 
 Spirit of Poetry,” “Woods in Winter,” and “Sunrise on the 
 Hills.” 
 
 Upon leaving college he entered his father’s office, in Port¬ 
 land, with the half-formed design of studying law, which he 
 nev'er carried into execution, as more congenial employment 
 soon presented itself to him. In 1826 he was appointed Pro¬ 
 fessor of Modern Languages and Literature at Bowdoin College, 
 with the privilege of passing several years abroad for observa¬ 
 tion and study. He accepted the appointment with unaffected 
 delight, and promptly went abroad. He passed his first year 
 in France, studying the language and literature of that country, 
 and the next in Spain, engaged in similar pursuits. Italy 
 claimed his third year, and Germany his fourth. He traveled 
 extensively, and made many pleasant acquaintances among the 
 most gifted men and women of the Old AVorld. Returning 
 home toward the close of 1829, he entered upon the active 
 duties of his professorship, and for five years held this position, 
 winning considerable distinction by his academic labors. 
 
 During his professorship our poet married, and the years 
 
HENRY VV. LONGFELI.OW, 
 
 571 
 
 that followed were very happy and very quiet. The life he led 
 at Bowdoin was peaceful, and in a measure retired, giving him 
 ample opportunity for study and for laying the sure foundation 
 of his future fame. During this period of his life he contrib¬ 
 uted articles to the “ North American Review,” and extended 
 his acquaintance gradually among the literary men of New 
 England. He was fond of recalling the experiences of his life 
 abroad, and being unwilling that they should be lost from his 
 memory, determined to transmit them to paper before they 
 faded quite away. These sketches he finally concluded to give 
 to the public, under the title of “ Outre Mer; or. Sketches from 
 Beyond Sea.” They appeared originally in numbei’s, and were 
 published by Samuel Colman, of Portland. They were well 
 received, and brought Professor Longfellow into notice in New 
 England. Soon afterward he published a translation of the ode 
 upon “Coplas de Manrique,” by his son, Don Jose Manrique, 
 which won him additional credit. His fugitive poems had 
 become very popular, and had made his name familiar to his 
 countrymen, but as yet he had not collected them in book form. 
 
 In 1835, on the resignation of Mr. George Ticknor, he was 
 appointed Professor of IModern Languages and Belles Lettres 
 in Harvard College, and accepted the position. Before enter¬ 
 ing upon his duties, however, he resolved to devote two years 
 more to foreign travel and improvement, and ac'cordingly sailed 
 for Europe the second time. Before leaving America, how¬ 
 ever, he committed the publication of ‘'Outre Mer” to the 
 Harpers, of New A"ork, who issued it complete in two vol¬ 
 umes in 1835. Its ])opularity was very decided. Soon after 
 reaching Europe, Mr. Ijongfellow was visited with a sad be¬ 
 reavement in the loss of his wife, who died at Rotterdam. He 
 devoted this European visit to the northern part of the conti¬ 
 nent, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and Holland, an<l to Eng- 
 
572 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 land, and spent some time in Paris. Returning in the autumn 
 of 1836, he entered upon his duties at Harvard, and made his 
 home in Cambridge. He continued his contributions to the 
 “North American Review,” and a number of fugitive pieces 
 flowed from his pen into print. 
 
 In the summer of 1837 he went to live in the house which 
 has ever since been his home. This is the old Craigie House, 
 in Cambridge, famous in our history as having been the head¬ 
 quarters of Washington during the siege of Boston. It had 
 been built by Colonel John Vassal about the middle of tlie 
 last century, and had finally passed into the hands of Andre'^ 
 Craigie, “ Apothecary General to the Northern Provincijil 
 Army” of the infant Republic. Craigie had ruined himself 
 by his lavish hospitality, and his widow, a stately old lady, 
 and worthy in every respect of a better fate, had been reduced 
 to the necessity of letting rooms and parting with the greater 
 portion of the lands which had belonged to the mansion. Mr. 
 Longfellow had been attracted to the house not only by its 
 winning and home-like appearance, but by its historical asso¬ 
 ciations. Mrs. Craigie had decided at the time to let no more 
 rooms, but the young professor’s gentle, winning manner con¬ 
 quered her determination, and she not only received him into 
 the old mansion, but installed him in the south-east corner 
 room in the second story, which had been used by Washing¬ 
 ton as his bed-chamber. 
 
 It was just the home for our poet. Its windows looked out 
 upon one of the loveliest landscapes in New England, with the 
 bright river winding through the broad meadow beyond the 
 house, and the blue Milton Hills dotting the distant back¬ 
 ground. The bright verdure of New England sparkled on 
 every side, and the stately old elms that stood guard by the 
 house screened it from the prying eyes of the passers on the 
 
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 573 
 
 public road. The whole place was hallowed to its new inmate 
 by the memories of the brave soldiers, wise statesmen, and bril¬ 
 liant ladies who had graced its heroic age, and of which the 
 stately hostess was the last and worthy representative. The old 
 house was as serene and still as the dearest lover of quiet could 
 wish. The mistress lived quite apart from her lodger, and left 
 him to follow the bent of his own fancies; and rare fancies they 
 were, for it was of them that some of his best works were born 
 in this upper chamber. Here he wrote Plyperion,” in 1838 
 and 1839. Its publication, which was undertaken by John 
 Owen, the University publisher in Cambridge, marked an 
 era in American literature. Every body read the book, and 
 every body talked of it. It was a poem in prose, and none 
 the less the work of a poet because professedly “ a romance 
 of travel.” The young read it with enthusiasm, and it sent 
 hundreds to follow Paul Flemming’s footstej)s in the distant 
 Fatherland, where the “ romance of travel ” became their guide¬ 
 book. The merchant and the lawyer, the journalist and the 
 mechanic, reading its pages, found tllat the stern realities of 
 life had not withered up all the romance of their natures, and 
 under its fascinations they became boys again. Even Horace 
 Greeley, that most practical and unimaginative of men, became 
 rapturous over it. It was a great success, and established the 
 poet’s fame beyond all question, and since then its popularity 
 has never waned. 
 
 In 1840, he published the ^‘Voices of the Night,” which he 
 had heard sounding to him in his haunted chamber. This was 
 his first volume, and its popularity was even greater than that 
 of “ Hyperion,” although some of the poems had appeared 
 before, in the “ Knickerbocker Magazine.” In 1841, he pub¬ 
 lished his volume of “Ballads, and Other Poems,” which but 
 
 added to his fame, and the next year bade the old house under 
 34 
 
574 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 the elms a temporary adieu, and sailed for Europe, where he 
 passed the summer on the Rhine. On the voyage home, he 
 composed his “ Poems on Slavery,” and soon after his return 
 Avrote “ The Spanish Student,” a drama, “ which smells of the 
 utmost South, and was a strange blossoming for the garden of 
 Thomas Tracy.” 
 
 In 1843 the stately mistress of the old house died, and Pro¬ 
 fessor Longfellow bought the homestead of Andrew Craigie, 
 with eight acres of land, including the meadow, which sloped 
 down to the pretty river. There were very few prouder 
 or happier moments in his life than that in Avhich he first felt 
 that the old house under the elms was liis. A"et he must have 
 missed the stately old lady who first had admitted him to a 
 })lace in it, and whom he had grown to love as a dear friend. 
 Slie seemed so thoroughly a part and parcel of the place, that he 
 must have missed the rustle of her heavy silks along the wide 
 and echoing halls, and have listened some time for the sound 
 of her old-fashioned spinet in the huge drawing-room below, 
 and, entering the room where she was wont to receive her 
 guests, he must have missed her from the old window where 
 she was accustomed to sit, Avith the open book in her lap, and 
 her eyes fixed on the far-off' sky, thinking, no doubt, of the 
 days Avhen in her royal beauty she moved a queen through 
 the brilliant home of Andrew Craigie. A part of the A’en- 
 eration Avhich he felt for the old house had settled upon its 
 ancient mistress, and the poet doubtless felt that the complete¬ 
 ness of the quaint old establishment AA'as broken up Avheu she 
 passed aAA’ay. 
 
 In 1846, Mr. LongfelloAV published “ The Belfry of Bruges, 
 and Other Poems;” in 1847, “Evangeline” (by many consid¬ 
 ered his greatest work); in 1850, “Seaside and Fireside;” in 
 1851, “ The Golden Legend; ” in 1855, “ The Song of Hia- 
 
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 575 
 
 watha;’’ in 1858, “The Courtship of Miles Standish; ” in 
 1863, “The Wayside Inn; ” in 1866, “The Flower de Luce;” 
 in 1867, his translation of the “ Divina Comniedia,” in three 
 volumes; and in 1868, “The New England Tragedies.” Be¬ 
 sides these, he published, in 1845, a work on the “ Poets and 
 Poetry of Europe,” and in 1849,Kavanagh,” a novel. 
 
 Mr. Longfellow continued to discharge his dutips in the 
 University for seventeen years, winning fresh laurels every 
 year, and in 1854 resigned his position, and was succeeded in 
 it by Mr. James Bussell Lowell. He now devoted himself ex¬ 
 clusively to his profession, the income from his writings afford¬ 
 ing him a handsome maintenance. In 1855, “The Song of 
 Hiawatha” was given to the public, and its appearance may be 
 styled an event in the literary history of the world. It was 
 not only original in the story it told, and in the method of 
 treatment, but the rhythm was new. It was emphatically an 
 American poem, and was I’eceived by the poo]Je with delight. 
 It met with an immense sale, and greatly increased its author’s 
 popularity with his countrymen. 
 
 In 1861 a terrible affliction befell the poet in his family. 
 He had married, some years after the death of his first wife, a 
 lady vdiose many virtues had endeared her to all who knew her. 
 She was standing by the open fire in the sitting-room, one day 
 in the winter of 1861, when her clothing took fire, and before 
 her husband, summoned by her cries, could extinguish the 
 flames, she was terribly burned. Her injuries were internal, 
 and she soon afterwards daed. 
 
 In 1868, Mr. Longfellow again visited Europe, and remained 
 abroad more than a year. His reception by all classes of the 
 people of the Old "World was eminently gratifying to his coun¬ 
 trymen. This welcome, so genuine and heartfelt, was due, 
 however, to the genius of the man, and not to his nationality. 
 
676 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 He had overstepped the bounds of country, and had made 
 himself the poet of the English-speaking race. A man of vast 
 learning and varied acquirements, thoroughly versed in the ways 
 of the world, he was still as simple and unaffected in thought 
 and ways as when he listened to and wondered at the dashing of 
 the wild waves on the shore in his boyhood’s home. A most 
 gifted and accomplished artist, he was faithful to nature in all 
 things. Earnest and aspiring himself, he has given to kis poems 
 the ring of a true manhood. There is nothing bitter, nothing 
 sarcastic in his writings. He views all things with a loving 
 eye, and it was the exquisite tenderness of his sympathy with 
 his fellow-men that enabled him to find his way so readily to 
 their hearts. Without seeking to represent the intensity of 
 passion, he deals with the fresh, simple emotions of the human 
 soul, and in his simplicity lies his power. He touches a chord 
 that finds an echo in every heart, and his poems have a human¬ 
 ity in them that is irresistible. We admire the “ grand o*ld 
 masters,” but shrink abashed from their sublime measures. 
 Longfellow is so human, he understands us so well, that we turn 
 instinctively to his simple, tender songs for comfort in sorrow, 
 or for the greater perfection of our happiness. 
 
 Perhaps I can not better illustrate the power of his .sim¬ 
 plicity than by the following quotations: 
 
 There is no flock, however watched and tended, 
 
 But one dead lamb is there! 
 
 There is no fireside, howsoe’er defended, 
 
 But has one vacant chair! 
 
 The air is full of farewell to the dying, 
 
 And mournings for the dead; 
 
 The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, 
 
 Will not be comforted. 
 
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Let us be patient! These severe afflictions 
 Not from the ground arise, 
 
 But oftentimes celestial benedictions 
 Assume this dark disguise. 
 
 V-'e see but dimly through the mists and vauors. 
 Amid these earthly damps; 
 
 Wliat seem to us but sad funereal tapers,- 
 May be heaven’s distant lamps. 
 
 There is no death! What seems so is transition: 
 This life of mortal breath 
 
 Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 
 
 Whose portal we call Death. 
 
 She is not dead — the child of our affection— 
 
 But gone unto that school 
 
 Where she no longer needs our poor protection, 
 And Christ himself doth rule. 
 
 In that great cloister’s stillness and seclusion, 
 
 By guardian angels led, 
 
 Safe from temptation, safe from sin’s pollution, 
 
 She lives, whom we call dead. 
 
 Day after day we think what she is doing 
 In those bright realms of air; 
 
 Year after year, her tender steps pursuing. 
 
 Behold her grow more fair. 
 
 Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken 
 The bond which nature gives, 
 
 Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken. 
 May reach her where she lives. 
 
 Not as a child shall we again behold her; 
 
 For when with raptures wild 
 
578 
 
 KINGS OF FORTtJNE. 
 
 In our embraces we again enfold her, 
 
 She will not be a child— 
 
 But a fair maiden, in her Father’s mansion. 
 
 Clothed with celestial grace. 
 
 And beautiful with all the soul’s expansion 
 Shall we behold her face. 
 
 And though at times impetuous with emotion, 
 
 ^ And anguish long suppressed, 
 
 The swelling heart heaves, moaning like the ocean, 
 That can not be at rest— 
 
 We will be patient, and assuage the feeling 
 We can not wholly stay; 
 
 By silence sanctifying, not concealing. 
 
 The grief that must have way. 
 
 From THE GOLDEN LEGEND. 
 
 Chamber of Gottlieb and Ursula.— Midnight .— Elfie 
 standing hg their bedside weeping. 
 
 The wind is roaring; the rushing rain 
 Is loud upon the roof and window-pane, 
 
 As if the wild Huntsman of Eodenstein, 
 
 Boding evil to me and mine, 
 
 Were abroad to-night with his ghostly train I 
 In the brief lulls of the tempest wild, 
 
 The dogs howl in the yard; and hark! 
 
 Some one is sobbing in the dark. 
 
 Here in the chamber. 
 
 It is I. 
 
 Elsiel \v^hat ails thee, my poor child? 
 
 Scene. — The 
 
 Gottlieb. 
 
 Elsie. 
 
 Ursula. 
 

 UENRV \V. EoNGEeLLOW. 679 
 
 JElsie. 
 
 I am disturbed and much distressed, 
 
 Gottlieb. 
 
 In thinking our dear Prince must die; 
 
 I can not close my eyes, nor rest. ^ 
 
 What wouldst thou? In the Power Divine 
 
 His healing lies, not in our own; 
 
 It is in the hand of God alone. 
 
 Elsie. 
 
 Nay, He has jiut it into mine. 
 
 And into my heart. 
 
 Gotti.ieb. 
 
 Thy words are wild. 
 
 Ursula. 
 
 What dost thou mean? my child! my child! 
 
 Elsie. 
 
 That for our dear Prince Henry’s sake 
 
 I will myself the offering make. 
 
 And give my life to purchase his. 
 
 Ursula. 
 
 Am I.still dreaming, or awake? 
 
 Thou speakest carelessly of death. 
 
 And yet thou knowest not what it is. 
 
 Elsie. 
 
 ’Tis the cessation of our breath. 
 
 Silent and motionless we lie; 
 
 And no one knoweth more than this. 
 
 I .saw our little Gertrude die; 
 
 She left off breathing, and no more 
 
 I smoothed the pillow beneath her head. 
 
 She was more beautiful than before. 
 
 Like violets faded were her eyes; 
 
 By this we knew that she was dead. 
 
 Through the open window looked the skies 
 
 Into the chamber where she lay. 
 
 And the wind was like the sound of wings. 
 
 As if angels came to hear her away. 
 
 Ah! when I saw and felt these things, 
 
 I found it difficult to stay; 
 
 I longed to die, as she had died, 
 
 And go forth with her, side by side. 
 
 The saints are dead, the martyrs dead, 
 
 And Mary, and our Lord; and I 
 
 Would follovv in humility 
 
 The way by them illumined. 
 
580 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Ursula. 
 
 Elsie. 
 
 Ursula. 
 
 Elsie. 
 
 Gottlieb. 
 
 Ursula. 
 
 Elsie. 
 
 Ursula. 
 
 Gottlieb. 
 
 My child! my child! thou must not die. 
 Why should I live ? Do I not know 
 The life of woman is full of woe? 
 
 Toiling on, and on, and on. 
 
 With breaking heart, and tearful eyes. 
 
 And silent lips, and in the soul 
 The secret longings that arise, 
 
 Which this world never satisfies! 
 
 Some more, some less, but of the whole 
 Not one quite happy; no, not one! 
 
 It is the malediction of Eve! 
 
 In place of it, let me receive 
 The benediction of Mary, then. 
 
 Ah, woe is me! Ah, woe is me! 
 
 Jlost wretched am I among men. 
 
 Alas! that I should live to see 
 Thy death, beloved, and to stand 
 Above thy grave! Ah, woe the day! 
 
 Thou wilt not see it. I shall lie 
 Beneath the flowers of another land; 
 
 For at Salerno, far away 
 
 Over the mountains, over the sea. 
 
 It is appointed me to die! 
 
 And it will seem no more to thee 
 Than if at the village on market day 
 I should a little longer stay 
 Than I am used. 
 
 Even as thou sayest! 
 
 And how my heart beats when thou stayest I 
 I can not rest until my sight 
 Is satisfied with seeing thee. 
 
 What, then, if thou wert dead ? 
 
 Ah me. 
 
 Of our old eyes thou art the light! 
 
 The joy of our old hearts art thou ! 
 
 And wilt thou die? 
 
 Ursula. 
 
 Not now! not now I 
 
henry W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 581 
 
 Elsie. 
 
 Gottlieb. 
 
 Elsie. 
 
 Gottlieb. 
 
 Ursula. 
 
 Gottlieb. 
 
 Christ died for me, and shall not I 
 Be willing for my Prince to die? 
 
 You both are silent; you can not speak. 
 This said I, at our Saviour’s feast, 
 
 After confession, to the priest, 
 
 And even he made no reply. 
 
 Does he not warn us all to seek 
 The happier, better land on high. 
 
 Where flowers immortal never wither; 
 
 And could he forbid me to go thither? 
 
 In God’s own time, my heart’s delight! 
 When He shall call thee, not before! 
 
 I heard Him call. When Christ ascended 
 Triumphantly, from star to star. 
 
 He left the gates of heaven ajar. 
 
 I had a vision in the night. 
 
 And saw Him standing at the door 
 Of His Father’s mansion, vast and .splendid. 
 And beckoning to me from afar. 
 
 I can not stay ! 
 
 She speaks almost 
 As if it were the Holy Ghost 
 Spake through her lips and in her stead! 
 What if this were of God? 
 
 Ah, then 
 
 Gainsay it dare we not. 
 
 Amen! 
 
 The old house under the elms, the poet’s home, and dear, 
 as such, to every lover of poetry, is a stately building, 
 of the style of more than one hundred years ago, and is a very 
 hoine-like place in its general appearance. Entering by the 
 main door-way, which is in the center of the house, the visitoi 
 finds himself in a wide, old-fashioned hall, with doors opening 
 upon it on either hand. 
 
 “The library of the poet is the long north-eastern room 
 
582 
 
 KINGS ON FORTUNE. 
 
 upon the lower floor/’ said a writer thirty-two years ago. “ It 
 opens upon the garden, which retains still the quaint devices of 
 an antique design, harmonious with the house. The room is 
 surrounded with handsome book-cases, and one stands also 
 between two Corinthian columns at one end, which imparts 
 dignity and richness to the apartment. A little table by the 
 northern window, looking upon the garden, is the usual seat of 
 the poet. A bust or two, the rich carvings of the cases, the 
 spaciousness of the room, a leopard-skin lying upon the floor, 
 and a few shelves of strictly literary curiosities, reveal not only 
 the haunt of the elegant scholar and poet, but the favorite 
 resort of the family circle. But the northern gloom of a New 
 England winter is intolerant of this serene delight, this beautiful 
 domesticity, and urges the inmates to the smaller room in front 
 of the house, communicating with the library, and the study 
 of General Washington. This is still distinctively ‘the study,’ 
 as the rear room is ‘ the library.’ Books are here, and all the 
 graceful detail of an elegant household, and upon the walls hang 
 crayon portraits of Emerson, Sumner, and Hawthorne. 
 
 “ Emerging into the hall, the eyes of the enamored visitor 
 fall upon the massive old staircase, with the clock upon the 
 landing. Directly he hears a singing in his mind: 
 
 “ ‘ Somewhat back from the village street, 
 
 Stands the old-fashioned country-seat; 
 
 Across its antique portico 
 
 Tall poplar trees their shadows throw, 
 
 And from its station in the hall 
 An ancient time-piece says to all, 
 
 “ Forever—never ! 
 
 Never—forever! ” ’ 
 
 But he does not see the particular clock of the poem, which 
 stood upon another staircase, in another quaint old mansion,— 
 
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 583 
 
 although the verse belongs truly to all old clocks in all old 
 country-seats, just as the ‘ Village Blacksmith ’ and his smithy 
 are not alone the stalwart man and dingy shop under the 
 ‘spreading chestnut-tree’ which the Professor daily passes on 
 his way to his college duties, but belong wherever a smithy 
 stands. Through the meadows in front flows the placid 
 Charles.” 
 
 So calmly flowed the poet’s life. The old house had other 
 charms for him besides those with which his fancy invested 
 it when he first set foot within its walls, for here came to 
 him the joys and sorrows of his maturer life, and here “when 
 the evening lamps were lighted,” came to him the memories 
 of the loved and lost, who Avere waiting for him in the better 
 land. Here, too, clustered the memories of those noble 
 achievements in his glorious career which made him now 
 and for all times the people’s poet. Others, as the years go 
 by, will woo us with their lays, but none so winningly and 
 tenderly as this our greatest master. There was but one 
 David in Israel, and when he passed aAvay no other filled his 
 place. 
 
 The gentle poet whom the world had learned to love so 
 well died at his home, in Cambridge, March 24, 1882. 
 During the previous summer his physical condition gave 
 his friends great cause for alarm, and it became necessary 
 for him to quit work entirely. This Avas a great grief to 
 liim, for his books and his AVTiting had become his chief 
 solace after the death of many dear associates. He received 
 many telegrams and letters of sympathy from distinguished 
 persons. He received his last visitors March 18. They 
 were two Boston lads, who came on his invitation. His 
 death was very quiet, as his life had been. The turbulence 
 
584 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 which has made the lives of so many great poets miserable 
 was unknown to him. “ Like his verse, his life was pure, 
 serene and strong.” Among his last great works was a 
 translation of Dante, which is universally admired for its 
 accuracy and melody. The five children of the poet sur¬ 
 vive him. Onslow, the oldest, is married, and engaged in 
 business in Boston. Ernest is an artist and writer of recog¬ 
 nized merit. His three daughters live in the vicinity of the 
 old Cambridge home. Alice is a writer, Edith is the wife 
 of Eichard H. Dana, and Anna is a lady of cultivated tastes, 
 who is very fond of letters. The writings of their father 
 constantly grow in popularity, being even more highly 
 prized in England than in this country. The sale of Long¬ 
 fellow’s poems is exceedingly large, surpassing that of the 
 works of any other poet 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 587 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIY. 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 HERE came to the old town of Salem, in the 
 Province of Massachusetts, in the early part of the 
 seventeenth century, an English family named 
 Hawthorne—Puritans, like all the other inhabi¬ 
 tants of that growing town. They proved their 
 fidelity to Puritan principles b}" entering readily into all the super¬ 
 stitions of the day, and became noted for the zeal with which they 
 persecuted the Quakers and hung the witches. The head of the 
 family was a sea captain, and for many generations the men of 
 the family followed the same avocation, “a gray-haired shi|)- 
 master, in each generation, retiring from the quarter-deck to the 
 homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place 
 before the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale, which 
 had blustered against his sire and grandsire.” 
 
 Of such a race came Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was 
 born at Salem, on the 4th, of July, 1804. His father was a sea 
 captain, and died of the yellow fever at Havana, in 1810. His 
 mother was a woman of great beauty and extreme .sensibility, 
 and it was from her that Nathaniel derived the peculiarities 
 of character which distinguished him through life. The death 
 of her husband filled her with the profoundest grief, and 
 though the violence qf her sorrow subsided with time, she 
 
588 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 passpd the remainder of her life in strict seclusion, constantly 
 grieving in her quiet way for her departed lord. Her son 
 grew up to the age of ten in this sad and lonely house, passing 
 four of the most susceptible years of his life in the society of his 
 sorrowful mother. He became a shy boy, and avoided the com¬ 
 pany of other children. His health began to suffer from the 
 effects of such an unnatural state of affairs, and at the age of ten 
 he was sent to live on a farm belonging to the family, on the 
 shore of Sebago Lake, in Maine. The active out-door life which 
 he led here entirely restored his health, which was naturally 
 strong and vigorous; here, also, he acquired that fondness for 
 boating which was his chief amusement in after years. Return¬ 
 ing to Salem, he completed his studies in the preparatory 
 schools, after which he entered Bowdoin College, where he 
 graduated in 1825, at the age of twenty-one. He was a class¬ 
 mate of Longfellow and George B. Cheever, with whom he was 
 only slightly acquainted ; and he formed a warm and lasting 
 friendship with Franklin Pierce, who was in the class next 
 before him. Longfellow has preserved a recollection of him in 
 his student days as “a shy youth in a bright-buttoned coat, flit¬ 
 ting across the college grounds.” 
 
 After graduating, he went back to his home in Salem, where 
 he resided for many years, leading a life of seclusion, which 
 he passed in meditation and study. His strong literary in¬ 
 clination now vented itself in efforts which were in every way 
 characteristic of the man. He wrote numerous wild tales, the 
 most of which he burned, but a few of which found their way 
 into the newspapers and magazines of the country. They were 
 full of a wild gloominess, and were told with a power which 
 proved that their author was no ordinary man. Few, however, 
 dreamed that they were the work of the pale recluse of Salem, 
 for he led a life of such strict seclusion that not even the mem- 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 589 
 
 bers of bis own family could tell with certainty what he did. 
 His days "were passed in his chamber, and at night he took long 
 walks alone on the sea-shore or into the woods. He shunned 
 all society, and seemed to find companionship only in nature, 
 and in the creations of his fancy. Yet he was not a morose or 
 unhappy man. On the contrary, he seems to have been a very 
 happy one, full of generous and kindly feelings, and finding 
 only a strange pleasure where others would have found bitter¬ 
 ness and cynicism. Like the melancholy Jacques, he might 
 have said of his pensive shyness, “ It is a melancholy of mine 
 own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many 
 objects; . . . which, by often rumination, wraps me in a 
 
 most humorous sadness.” 
 
 In 1837 he collected his published talcs, which, while they 
 had charmed a few cultivated readers, had scarcely been noticed 
 by the masses, and published them in a volume to which he 
 gave the name of‘‘Twice-Told Tales.” The book was well 
 received by the public, but its circulation was limited, although 
 IMr. Longfellow warmly welcomed it in the “North American 
 Review,” and pronounced it the “work of a man of genius and 
 a true jioet.” Still it was neglected by the masses, and Haw¬ 
 thorne says himself that he was at that time “the most un¬ 
 known author in America.” There was more truth in this 
 assertion than lies on its face, for the people who read the book 
 supj)osed that the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne was merely a 
 pseudonyme, and declared that as Nathaniel was evidently 
 selected by the author because of the fondness of the old-time 
 Puritans for Scripture names, so Hawthorne was chosen by him 
 as expressive of one of the most beautiful features of the New 
 England landscape. The merits of the l)Ook were too genuine, 
 however, for it to lack admirers, and the small class which 
 greeted its first appearance with delight gradually increased, 
 
590 
 
 KINGS or FORTUNE. 
 
 and finally the demand for the book became so great that in 
 1842 Hawthorne ventured to issue a second series of “Twice- 
 Told Tales,” the most of which had appeared in the “Demo¬ 
 cratic Review,” then edited by his friend O’Sullivan. Of these 
 volumes, Mr. George William Curtis says: “They are full of 
 glancing wit, of tender satire, of exquisite natural description, 
 of subtle and strange analysis of human life, darkly passionate 
 and weird.” 
 
 In 1838 George Bancroft was Collector of the Port of Bos¬ 
 ton, and, having been deeply impressed with the genius dis¬ 
 played in the first volume of “ Twice-Told Tale.s,” sought out 
 Hawthorne and offered him a })lace in the Bo.ston Custom- 
 House as weigher and gauger. Hawthorne accepted the posi¬ 
 tion, and at once entered upon his duties. Leaving his soli¬ 
 tude and the weird phantoms that had been his companions 
 for so long, he ])as.sed immediately into the busy bustle of the 
 great New England port. It was a new world to him, and 
 one which interested him keenly. His duties kept him con¬ 
 stantly on the wharf, and threw him daily into contact with 
 captains and sailors from all parts of the world. He became a 
 great favorite with these, and they told him many a strange 
 story of their adventures and of the sights they had seen in 
 distant lands, and these, as they were listened to by him, took 
 each a distinctive form in his imagination. Not less interest¬ 
 ing to him were the men among whom his duties threw him. 
 Thev were more to him than the ordinary beings that thronged 
 the streets of the great city, for they had been victorious iu 
 manv a battle with the miglity deeji, and they had looked 
 on the wondrous sights of the far-off lands of the Old 
 World. Queer people they were, too, each a Captain Cuttle 
 or a Dirk Hatteraick in himself, and many an hour did the 
 dreamy writer spend with them, apparently listening to 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 
 
 501 
 
 their rude stories, but really making keen studies of the men 
 themselves. 
 
 He discharged his duties faithfully in the Boston Custom- 
 House, performing each with an exactness thoroughly charac¬ 
 teristic of him, until 1841, when the accession of President 
 Harrison to power obliged him to withdraw to make way for 
 a Whig. 
 
 From the Custom-house he went to live at Brook Farm as 
 one of that singular community of dreamers and enthusiasts 
 which was to inaugurate a new era of men and things in thi?. 
 world, but which came at last to a most inglorious termina¬ 
 tion. He was thrown into intimate association here with many 
 who have since become prominent in our literary history, and 
 for some of them conceived a warm attachment. He took his 
 share of the farm labors, to which he was very 2 )artial, but 
 remained at the community less than a year, and then re- 
 turned to Boston. In his “ Blithedale Romance” he has 
 given us a picture of the life at Brook Farm, though he de¬ 
 nies having sketched his characters from his old associates at 
 that place. 
 
 In 1843 he married Miss Peabody, a member of a family 
 distinguished for their various achievements in the world of 
 letters. Besides being an artist of no mean jiretensions, she 
 was herself a writer of considerable promise, though her writ¬ 
 ings had no other critics than her liimily and most intimate 
 friends. “Her husband shrank from seeing her name in the 
 reviews, and in this, as in all other things, his feelings were 
 sacredly respected by her.” She wais a lady of rare strength 
 pf character and great beauty, and was in every respect a fit¬ 
 ting wife for such a man. The twenty-one years of tlu'ir 
 wedded life make up a jicriod of unbroken happiness to both. 
 
 Hawthorne was verv proud of his wife, and in his quiet way 
 35 
 
592 
 
 KINGS OP FOETUNE. 
 
 never failed to-show it. Their friends often remarked that the 
 wedded life of this happy pair seemed like one long courtship. 
 
 Hawthorne took his bride on his wedding-day to a new 
 home. He had rented the old parsonage adjoining the battle¬ 
 field of Concord, from whose windows the pastor of those 
 heroic days had watched his congregation fight the British in 
 his yard. It was a gloomy and ])artially dilapidated “Old 
 Manse,” and doubtless Hawthorne had chosen it because of its 
 quaint aspect. He has himself drawn the picture of it, and 
 given us an exquisite collection of “ Mosses ” from it. It lay 
 back from the main road, and was appi’oached by an avenue of 
 ancient black-ash trees, whose deep shade added much to the 
 quiet appearance of “ the gray front of the old parsonage.” It 
 was just the home for him, and here passed three of the hajipi- 
 est years of his life. Here he wrote his “Mosses from an Old 
 ]\Ianse,” and here his first child was born. 
 
 The life he led at Concord was very secluded. He avoided 
 the society of the village people, who sought in vain to pene¬ 
 trate his retirement and satisfy their curiosity concerning him. 
 But they were disappointed. He lived on in his deep seclu¬ 
 sion, happy in having his wife and child with him, but caring 
 for no other society. During the day he remained in his study, 
 which overlooked the old battle-field, or, passing down the 
 lawn at the back of the house to the river, spent the afternoon 
 in rowing on the pretty stream. At night he would take long 
 walks, or row up the river to the bridge by which the British 
 crossed the stream, and enjoy his favorite luxury—a bath. 
 The village people were full of curiosity to know something 
 about him, for he was absolutely unknown to them ; and any 
 one who understands what the curiosity of a New England 
 villager is can readily imagine the feelings with which the 
 people of Concoi’d regarded their mysterious neighbor. They 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 593 
 
 were never satisfied, however, for Hawthorne slirank from pry¬ 
 ing eyes with indescribable horror. He kept his ways, and 
 compelled them to let him alone. Pie could easily avoid the 
 town in his walks or his rides upon tlie river, and he was 
 rarely seen passing through the streets unless compelled to do 
 so by matters wliich needed his attention iu Concord. 
 
 Yet the “Old Manse” was not without its guests. Haw¬ 
 thorne was a man of many friends, and these came often to see 
 him. They were men after his own heart, and among them 
 were Emerson, Ellery, Channing, Thoreau, Whittier, Long- 
 lellow, and George William Curtis. The last-named has left 
 us this pleasant picture of our author in the midst of his 
 friends: 
 
 “ During Plawthorne’s first year’s residence in Concord, I 
 had driven up with some friends to an esthetic tea at Mr. 
 Plmersou’s. It was in the winter, and a great wood-fire blazed 
 upon the hospitable hearth. There were various men and 
 women of note assembled, and I, who listened attentively to all 
 the fine things that were said, was for some time scarcely aware 
 of a man who sat upon the edge of the circle, a little withdrawn, 
 his head .slightly thrown forward upon his breast, and his bright 
 eyes clearly burning under his black brow. As I drifted down 
 the stream of talk, this pei’son who sat silent as a shadow looked 
 to me as Webster might have looked had he been a poet—a kind 
 of poetic Webster. He rose and walked to the window, and 
 stood quietly there for a long time, watching the dead white 
 landscape. No appeal was made to him, nobody looked after 
 liim, the conversation flowed as steadily on as it every one 
 understood that his silence was to be respected. It was the 
 same thing at table. In vain the silent man imbibed esthetic 
 tea. Whatever fancies it inspired did not flower at his lips. 
 Jlut there was a light in his eye which assured me that nothing 
 
594 
 
 ZINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 was lost. So supreme was his silence, that it presently engrossed 
 me to the exclusion of every thing else. There was brilliant dis¬ 
 course, but this silence was much more poetic and fascinating. 
 Fine things wei’e said by the philosophers, but much finer things 
 were implied by the dumbness of this gentleman with heavy 
 brows and black hair. When pre.sently he rose and went, Em- 
 er.son, with the ‘slow, wise smile’ that breaks over his face, 
 like day over the sky, said: ‘ Hawthorne rides well his horse 
 of the night.’” Later on, after lie knew him better, Curtis 
 added to this picture, “ His own sympathy was so broad and 
 sure, that, although nothing had been said for hours, his com¬ 
 panion knew that not a thing had escaped his eye, nor had a 
 single pulse of beauty in the day, or scene, or society failed to 
 thrill his heart. In this way his silence was most social. 
 Every thing seemed to have been said.” 
 
 At the clo.se of the third year of his residence at Concord, 
 Hawthorne was obliged to give up the “Old iSIanse,” as the 
 owner was eoming back to occupy it. The Democrats had now 
 come into power again under Hr. Polk, and Hr. Bancroft was 
 in the Cabinet. The Secretary, mindful of his friend, pro¬ 
 cured him the ])Ost of Surveyor of the Port of Salem, and 
 Hawthorne went with his little family to live in his native 
 town. The Salem Custom-house was a sleepy sort of a jilace, 
 and his duties were merely nominal. He had an abundance 
 of leisure time, and from that leisure was born his masterpiece, 
 “The Scarlet Letter” — the most iiowerfnl romance which evei 
 
 t * 
 
 flowed from an American author’s ]>en. It was published in 
 1850, and in the preface to it the reader will find an excellent 
 de.scription of the author’s life in Salem. He held his posi¬ 
 tion in that ])lace for three years, and then the election of 
 General Taylor obliged him to retire. 
 
 lie withdrew to the Berkshire Hills, and took a house in 
 
NATMAMKL KAWTHOlii^fJ. 
 
 505 
 
 the town of Lenox. It was a little red cottage, and was sit¬ 
 uated on the shore of a diminutive lake called the Stockbridge 
 Bowl. He was now the most famous novelist in America, and 
 had thousands of admirers in the Old World. His “Scarlet 
 Letter” had won him fame, and had brought his earlier works 
 more prominently before the {)ubli(! than ever. 
 
 During his residence at Lenox, he wrote “ The House of the 
 Seven Gables,” which was published in Boston in 1851. It 
 was not less successful than the “Scarlet Letter,” though it 
 was not so finished a piece of workmanship. 
 
 Yet, though so famous, he was not freed from the trials 
 incident to the first years of an author’s life. Mr. Tuckerman 
 says of him at this time: “He had the fortitude and pride, as 
 well as the sensitiveness and delicacy, of true and high genius. 
 Not even his nearest country neighbors knew aught of his 
 meager larder or brave economies. He never complaine<l, 
 even when editors were dilatory in their remuneration and 
 friends forgetful of their promises. When the jjoor author 
 had the money, he would buy a beefsteak for dinnei’; when he 
 had not, he would make a meal of chestnuts and potatoes. 
 He had the self-control and the probity to fulfill that essential 
 condition of self-respect, alike for those who subsist by brain 
 work and those who inherit fortunes—he always lived within 
 his income; and it was only by a kind of pious fraud that a 
 trio of his oldest friends occasionally managed to pay his rent.” 
 H is friend and publisher, Mr. Tieknor, “received and invested 
 the surplus earnings of the absentee author when American 
 Consul at Liverpool, and had obtained from Hawthorne a 
 promise on the eve of his departure for his post, . . that 
 
 he would send him all he could spare from his official income, 
 to be carefully nursed into a competence for his family. Never 
 was better advice given or wiser service performed by pub* 
 
596 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 lisher to author. The investments thus made became the 
 means of comfort to the returned writer in the maturity of his 
 years and his fame.” 
 
 In 1852 he returned to Concord and purchased a small 
 house whicli had once been the residence of the philosopher 
 Alcott. Here he made his permanent home and gathered about 
 him his household treasures. In the Presidential campaign of 
 
 1852, his friend Franklin Pierce was the candidate of the 
 Democracy, and Hawthorne wrote a short biography of him 
 which was used by the Democrats as a campaign document. 
 It was a labor of love, for the friendship that had been begun 
 between these two men in their college days had never been 
 broken, and though naturally averse to every thing that savored 
 of ])olitics, our author made this contribution to the cause of his 
 friend with all the heartiness of his nature. Pierce was pro¬ 
 foundly touched by this unexpected aid, for he knew how 
 utterly Hawthorne detested political strife, and when seated in 
 the Presidential chair he showed his appreciation of it by offer¬ 
 ing his friend the consulship to Liverpool—one of the most 
 lucrative offices within the gift of the executive. Hawthorne 
 broke up his home in Concord and sailed for Liverpool in 
 
 1853, and remained there until 1857, when he resigned his 
 consulship and traveled on the continent with his family, resid¬ 
 ing for some time in Italy for the benefit of his health. His 
 European residence had the effect of drawing him out of his 
 shyness and reserve to a certain extent, and during the closing 
 years of his life he was more social with the pensons about 
 him than he had ever been. After his return he went back to 
 Concord, where he enlarged and beautified his old home, in¬ 
 tending to remain there for the balance of his life. He wrote 
 the ‘‘Marble*Faun” and “Our Old Home” just after his 
 return from Europe. The former was suggested by his resi- 
 
JSTATIIANI EL HAWTHOKXE. 
 
 597 
 
 dence in Italy, and the latter was a collection of English 
 sketches and reminiscences. 
 
 The war between the two sections of tlie country affected 
 him very deeply. It seemed to him a terrible tragedy, to 
 which there could be no end but utter ruin for the country. 
 He sympathized strongly with the cause of the Union, but at 
 the same time his heart bled at the sufferings of the jicople of 
 the south. It was one long agony to him, and only those who 
 knew him intimately can understand how much he suffered 
 during this unhappy period. 
 
 Mr. IMoncure D. Conway gives the following reminiscence 
 of him about this titne ; “I passed a night under the same 
 roof with him at the house of Mr. Fields, his publisher. He 
 seemed muchAlejectcd. Mr. Fields had invited a little com¬ 
 pany, but, after the first arrivals, Hawthorne made his escape 
 to his room, from which he did not emerge until the next 
 morning at breakfast time. He then came in with the amus¬ 
 ing look of a naughty child, and ])leaded that he had become 
 lost the night before in Defoe’s ghost stories until it was too 
 late to make his appearance in the company. He must, I 
 should think, have been contemplating some phantasmal pro¬ 
 duction at that time, for I remember his asking me many ques¬ 
 tions about the ghost-beliefs of the negroes, among whom I had 
 passed my early life.” 
 
 Besides the works already mentioned, Hawthorne was the 
 author of “True Stories from History and Biogra])hy” and 
 “The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls,” both ]>ublished in 
 1851; “The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Talcs,” pub' 
 lished in 1852; and “Tanglewood Tales,” published in 1853, 
 all juveniles. At the time of his death he was engaged upon 
 a novel which was to have been published in the “Atlantic 
 Monthly,” but it was left incomplete. 
 
598 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 In the spring of 1864 his friend and publisher, Mr. W. D. 
 Ticknor, of Boston, seeing how feeble Hawthorne had become, 
 asked him to accompany him on an excursion, hoping that a 
 rapid cliange of scene and cheerful company would benefit him. 
 They set out in April, and went direct to Philadelphia. Upon 
 arriving at the hotel, Mr. Ticknor was suddenly taken very ill, 
 and died on the 10th of April in his friend’s arms. Haw¬ 
 thorne was profoundly shocked by this melancholy occurrence, 
 and it is said that he never fully recovered from its effects upon 
 him. His melancholy seemed to deepen, and though his 
 friends exerted themselves to cheer him, he seemed to feel that 
 his end was near. Ex-President Pierce, hoping to rouse him 
 from his sad thoughts, induced him to accompany him on an 
 excursion to the Wliitc Mountains. Upon reaching Plymouth, 
 which they took on their route, they stopped at the Pemigewas- 
 set House for the night. Mr. Pierce was so full of anxiety 
 concerning his friend, who had been quieter and sadder than 
 usual that day, that he went softly into his room in the middle 
 of the night to look after him. Hawthorne was lying very 
 still, and seemed to be sleeping sweetly. Mr. Pierce stole softly 
 awav, fearing to disturb him. In the morning he went back 
 to rouse his friend, and found him lying lifeless in the position 
 he had noticed in the night. He had been dead some hours. 
 
 The announcement of Hawthorne’s death caused a feeling of 
 deep sadness in all parts of the Union. His body was taken 
 to Concord for burial, and was accompanied to the grave by the 
 best and most gifted of the laud, to each of whom he had en¬ 
 deared himself in life. 
 
EDWIN BOOTH 
 
IX. 
 
 ACTORS. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXY. 
 
 EDWIN BOOTH. 
 
 HERE are many persons wlio remember the elder 
 Booth, the “ Great Booth,” as he was called, in 
 his palmy days, when the bare announcement of 
 his name was sufficient to cram our old-fashioned 
 theaters from pit to dome. He was sublime in 
 the stormy passions which he delineated, and never failed to 
 draw down from the gods of the gallery the uproarious yells 
 with which they testify their approval; even the more dignified 
 occupants of the boxes found themselves breaking into outbursts 
 of applause wliich they were powerless to restrain. He was a 
 favorite with all elasses, and a deserved one, and the lovers of 
 the drama looked forward with genuine regret to the ])eriod 
 when he should be no longer with them. They felt that the 
 glories of the stage would pass away with him. It was in vain 
 that they were told that he had sons destined to the same pro¬ 
 fession. They shook their heads, and said it was impossible that 
 the mantle of the great tragedian should rest upon any of his 
 sons, for it was then, as now, a popular belief tha^ great men 
 
 599 
 
600 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 never have great children. How very much these good people 
 were mistaken we will see in the progress of this chapter. 
 
 One of these sons was destined in the course of time to 
 eclipse the fame won by his fathei-, and to endear himself to the 
 American people as a more finished, if less stormy, actor. This 
 was liluwiN Booth. He was born on his father’s farm near 
 Baltimore, Maryland, in 1833, and after receiving a good com¬ 
 mon-school education, began his training for the .stage. The 
 elder Booth was quick to see that his boy had inherited his 
 genius, and he took great pains to develop the growing powers 
 of the lad, and to incline them toward those paths which his 
 experience had taught him were the surest roads to success. 
 He took him with him on.his starring engagements, and kept 
 him about him so constantly that the boy may be said to have 
 grown up on the stage from his infancy. He was enthusiastic¬ 
 ally devoted to his father, and it was his delight to .stand at the 
 wings and watch the great tragedian in his personations, and 
 the thunders of applau.se which proclaimed some fresh triumph 
 were sweeter to the boy, perhaps, than to the man. 
 
 In 1849, at the age of sixteen, he made his first appearance 
 on the stage as Tyrrell, in “ Richard III.,” and gave great satis¬ 
 faction by his rendition of the character. From this time he 
 continued to appear at various places with his fatlier, and in 1851 
 won his fir.st great .succe.ss in the city of Xew York. His father 
 was playing an engagement at the Chatham Theater at the time, 
 and was announced for Richard III., which was his master- 
 jiiece. When the hour for performance came, he was too ill to 
 appear. The manager was in despair, for the house was filled 
 with a large audience, who were impatient for the appearance 
 of the humpbacked king. In this emergency Edwin Booth 
 offered to take his father’s plaee, and the manager, pleasc'd with 
 the novelty of the proposal, accepted it. Young Booth was 
 
EDWIN BOOTH. 
 
 601 
 
 but eighteen years old, and had not even studied the part, and 
 it was a perilous thing to venture before an audience in a role 
 in which one of his name had won such great fame. But he 
 was confident of his own powers, and he had so often hung 
 with delight upon his father’s rendition of tlie part, that he 
 needed but a hasty reference to the book to perfect him in the 
 text. He won a decided triumph, and the public promptly 
 acknowledged that he gave promise of being an unusually fine 
 actor. 
 
 In 1852 Mr. Booth w^ent to California, and engaged for the 
 “ utility business.” He spent two years in careful and patient 
 study in the humbler walks of his profession, learning its de¬ 
 tails, and doing much of the drudgery essential to a thorough 
 knowledge of his art. In 1854, he went to Australia, and 
 played a successful ontragement there, stojiping on his way at 
 several of the Pacific islands. On his return, he played an en¬ 
 gagement, with marked siu'cess, at the Sandwich Islands, and 
 then went back to California. 
 
 In 1857 he returned to Xew York, and, on the 4th of May, 
 appeared at Burton’s Theater, in the character of Richard III. 
 A writer who witnessed his performance on that occasion thus 
 speaks of him: “The company w'as not strong in tragedy; 
 the young actor came without reputation ; the season was late. 
 But he conquered his place. His Richard was intellectual, 
 brilliant, rapid, handsome, jiictiiresque, villainous. But the vil¬ 
 lainy Avas servant to the ambition—not master of it, as a coarse 
 plaver makes it. The action was original; the dress was jier- 
 feet—the smirched gauntlets and flnng-ou mantle of the schem¬ 
 ing, busy <lnke, the splendid vestments of the anointed king, 
 the glittering armor of the mnnareh in the field. His clear 
 \)eantv, his wonderful voice—which he had not learned to use— 
 his grace, his fine artistic sense, made all triumphs seem pos- 
 
602 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 sible to this young man. Evidently there was great power iu 
 the new actor—power untrained, vigor ill directed. But what 
 was plainest to be seen, was the nervous, iinjnilsive tempera¬ 
 ment, which would leave him no rest save in achievement. He 
 might come back to us a robustious, periwig-pated fellow, the 
 delight and wonder of the galleries. He might come back the 
 thorough artist, great in repose as in action. But it was clear 
 enough that what he was then in Richard, in Richelieu, in Sir 
 Edward Mortimer, he would never be again.” 
 
 He followed this appeai-ance by a general tour through the 
 country, and returned to Xew York in 1858, where he won 
 fresh laurels. In 1860 he reappeared at Burton’s Theater, 
 then called the ^Vinter Garden, and added Hamlet to his role. 
 He had improved greatly during the time tliat had elapsed 
 since his last appearance at this theater, and had gained very 
 much in power and artistic finish. The most critical audiences 
 in the country received him with delight, crowded his houses, 
 and hailed his efforts with thunders of applau.se. This season 
 silenced all the critics, and placed him among the great actors 
 of the Ameri(!an stage. He bore his honors modestly, aud 
 though he was proud of the triumphs he had won, they did not 
 satisfy him. There were still greater succe.sses to be acliieved 
 before the highe.st honors of his jwofes.s’ion could be his, and it 
 was upon these that his eye was fixed from the first. The ap¬ 
 plause which greeted him in every city in which he appeared 
 only served to stimulate him to fresh exertions. 
 
 In the summer of 1861, he visited England, and played an 
 ensasement at the Havmarket Theater in London, where he 
 was favorably received by the British playgoers. At the close 
 of this ('iigagement, he spent a year on the continent, in travel 
 and in the study of his profession. He also made careful 
 studies of the scenes of the great historic dramas of the Eng- 
 
EDWIN BOOTH. 
 
 603 
 
 lish stage, both in England and on the continent, and of the 
 dresses and other appointments needed for them. By thor¬ 
 oughly familiarizing himself with these details, he has been able 
 to produce his plays with entire fidelity to history. 
 
 Returning once more to New York, he a 2 )peared at the 
 Winter Garden, in the winter of 1863-64, in a series of Sliake- 
 spearean revivals. He jilayed Hamlet for over one hundred 
 nights, and followed it during that season and the next with 
 ‘‘Merchant of Venice” and “Othello” (in the latter 2 )laying the 
 parts of Othello and lago on alternate nights). During the same 
 seasons he apjieared also in “ Richelieu,” “ Ruy Bias,” “ The 
 Fool’s Revenge,” and “Don Cajsar de Bazan.” These jierform- 
 ances were extended into the season of 1866-67, when they 
 were suddenly cut short by the total destruction of the Winter 
 Garden Theater by fire on the night of the 23d of March, 1867. 
 In this fire Mr, Booth lost his entire wardrobe, including 
 many relics of his father, Kemble, and Mrs. Siddons. 
 
 The destruction of a theater has seldom drawn forth a more 
 universal exjircssion of regret than that which jiourcd in u 2 )on 
 Mr. Booth from all jiarts of the country. It was feared that 
 the loss of his valuable wardrobe would be irremediable, as 
 indeed it was in a certain sense. All over the Union a gen¬ 
 eral wish was ex 2 )ressed that the great actor should have a new 
 theater in some of our large cities, and one which should be 
 worthy of his genius. Mr. Booth liad chosen the city of New 
 York for his jiermanent home, and after the destruction of the 
 Winter Garden Theater began to arrange his jilans for the erec¬ 
 tion of a new building of his own, which he was resolved should 
 be the most magnificent and the best a^ijiointed theater in the 
 world. The site chosen was the south-eastern corner of the 
 Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street in New T^ork, and in the 
 summer of 1867 the work of clearing away the old buildings 
 
604 
 
 KINGS OP FORTUNE. 
 
 and digging the foundations of the new theater was begun. It 
 was carried forward steadily, and the building was completed 
 and opened to the public in January, 1869. 
 
 It is in the Rennaissance style of architecture, and stands 
 seventy feet high from the sidewalk to the main cornice, crown¬ 
 ing which is a Mansard roof of twenty-four feet. “The theater 
 proper fronts one hundred and forty-nine feet on Twenty-third 
 Street, and is divided into three parts, so combined as to form 
 an almost perfect whole, with arched entrances at either ex¬ 
 tremity on the side, for the admission of the public, and on the 
 other for another entrance, and the use of the actors and those 
 employed in the house. On either side of these main entrances 
 are broad and lofty windows; and above them, forming a part 
 of the second story, are niches for statues, sun’ounded by coupled 
 columns resting on finely sculptured pedestals. The central or 
 main niche is flanked on either side by quaintly contrived blank 
 windows; and between the columns, at the depth of the recesses, 
 are simple pilasters sustaining the elliptic arches, which serve 
 to top and span the niches, the latter to be occupied by statues 
 of the great creators and interpreters of the drama in every age 
 and country. The finest Concord granite, from the best quar¬ 
 ries in New Hampshire, is the material used in the entire facade, 
 as well as in the Sixth Avenue side. . . The glittering granite 
 mass, exquisitely poised, adorned with rich and appropriate 
 carving, statuary, columns, pilasters, and arches, and capped by 
 the springing French roof, fringed with its shapely balustrades, 
 ofiers an imposing and majestic aspect, and forms one of the 
 architectural jewels of the city.” 
 
 In its internal arrangements the theater is in keeping with 
 its external magnificence. Entering through a sumptuous ves¬ 
 tibule, the visitor passes into the magnificent auditorium, which 
 is in itself a rare piece of decorative art. The seats are admi- 
 
EDWIN BOOTH. 
 
 605 
 
 rably arranged, each one commanding a view of the stage. 
 Tlie floor is richly carpeted, and the seats are luxuriously 
 upholstered. Three elegant light galleries rise above the par¬ 
 quet. The walls and ceiling are exquisitely frescoed, and or¬ 
 namented with has reliefs in plaster. The proscenium is beau¬ 
 tifully frescoed and carved, and is adorned with busts of the 
 elder Booth and the proprietor of the theater ; and in the sides 
 before the curtain are arranged six sumptuous private boxes. 
 The curtain is a beautiful landscape. The decoration of the 
 house is not done in the rough scenic style so common in the 
 most of the theaters of the country, but is the perfection of fres- 
 coe painting, and is capable of bearing the closest examination. 
 The stage is very large, and slopes gradually from the rear to 
 the footlights. The orchestra pen is sunk below the level of the 
 stage, so that the heads of the musicians do not cut off‘ the view 
 , of the audience. The dressing of the stage is novel. The side 
 scenes or wings, instead of being placed at right angles to the 
 s])ectator as in most theaters, are so arranged that the scene ap¬ 
 pears to extend to the right and left as well as to the rear. In 
 this way the spectator is saved the annoyance of often looking 
 through the wings, a defect which in most theaters completely 
 dispels the illusion of the play. The scenery here is not set by 
 hand, but is moved by machinery, and with such regularity and 
 jirecision that these changes have very much the effect of “ dis¬ 
 solving views.” The scenes themselves arc the works of highly 
 educated artists, and never degenerate into the rough daubs with 
 which most jflaygoers ai’o familiar. The building is fire-proof, 
 and is warmed and ventilated in a peculiar manner. The great 
 central chandelier and the lights around the cornice of the audi¬ 
 torium are lighted by electricity. 
 
 The plays presented here are superbly put on the stage. The 
 scenery is strictly accurate when meant to represent some his- 
 
606 
 
 KINGS OF FOP.TUNE. 
 
 toric locality, and is the finest to be found in America. Per¬ 
 haps the grandest stage picture ever given to an audience was tlie 
 grave-yard scene in “Hamlet,” which “held the boards” for 
 over one hundretl nights last winter. The dresses, equipments, 
 and general “make up” of the actors are in keeping with the 
 scenery. Even the minutest detail is carefully attended to. 
 Nothing is so unimportant as to be overlooked in this estab¬ 
 lishment. 
 
 It is Mr. Booth’s eustom to open the season with engage¬ 
 ments of other distinguished actors, and to follow them himself 
 about the beginning of the winter, and to continue his per¬ 
 formances until the approach of spring, when he again gives 
 way to others. AVhen he is performing, it is impossible to pro¬ 
 cure a seat after the rising of the curtain. Every available 
 jilace is filled, and thousands come from all parts of the 
 country to see him. Sometimes it is necessary to secure seats 
 a week in advance. 
 
 Mr. Booth is still apparently in the prime of life. In 
 person he is over the medium height, and is weU built 
 Ilis hair is black and is worn long, and his dark eyes are large 
 and dreamy. His face is that of a poet, strikingly handsome, 
 with an expression of mingled sweetness and sadness playing 
 over it. He wears neither beard nor moustache. He dresses 
 simply and without ornament, and is grave and retiring in his 
 demeanor. He is exceedingly amiable in disposition, and is 
 the center of a large circle of devoted friends. He has been 
 married twice, and has one child, a daughter, by his first wife. 
 He is a man of irreproachable life, and in every thing a high- 
 toned gentleman, and it is the high character he bears not less 
 than his genius that has enabled him to do such honor to his - 
 profession. He is very wealthy, and is in a fair way to become 
 a millionaire. 
 
EDWIN BOOTH. 
 
 C07 
 
 As an actor Mr. Booth is witliout an equal. His impersona¬ 
 tions are marked by rare genius and by the most careful study. 
 His Hamlet is perhaps his most finished part, as his Richelieu 
 is the most popular with the masses. It has been said that his 
 Hamlet is not Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and this may be true ; but 
 it is so exquisite, so perfect, that whether it be the conception 
 of Shakespeare or Edwin Booth, it is the most powerful, the 
 most life-like counterfeit of “the melancholy Dane” ever seen 
 on any stage, and leaves nothing to be desired. His persona¬ 
 tion of the grim old cardinal, whose decrepit body is alone sus¬ 
 tained by his indomitable will, is masterly, and we see before 
 us, not Edwin Booth, the actor of to-day, but the crafty, unscru¬ 
 pulous, witty, determined prime minister of France, who bonds 
 kings and princes to his will. It is absolutely life-like, and to 
 those who have seen the portraits of the old cardinal in the 
 museums of France, the accuracy with which Booth has counter¬ 
 feited the personal appearance of Richelieu is positively start¬ 
 ling. The plays are so superbly set upon the stage that we 
 lose sight of the little space they occupy, and seem to be gazing 
 upon a real world. His Richard has such a strong humanity 
 in it, that it more than half vindicates the humpbacked tyrant’s 
 memory, and the death scene of this play, as given by Booth, 
 is simply appalling. 
 
 It is in vain, however, that we select special characters or 
 attem])t descriptions of them. No one can truly understand 
 Edwin Booth’s acting without seeing it. He has studied his 
 heroes so profoundly, analyzed their characters so subtly, and 
 entered so heartily into sympathy with them, that he has 
 become able, by the aid of his wonderful genius, to entirely 
 discard his own personality, and assume theirs at will. 
 
 Mr. Booth has steadily risen in power and finish as an actor, 
 
 for his labors have been unceasing. Great as his triumphs 
 36 
 
608 
 
 KINGS OK FORTUNE. 
 
 have been, he does not regard himself as freed from the neces¬ 
 sity of study. His studies has’e become* more intelligent than 
 in former years, but not the less faithful. He has the true 
 artist’s aspiration after the rarest perfection in his art, though 
 to those of us without the charmed circle it is difficult to see 
 how he can excel his present excellence. Yet that he does 
 so we have nndoubted proof, for we see him rising higher in 
 the admiration and esteem of the world every year, and each 
 year we gather fresh laurels to twine around his brows. 
 
 He has steadily educated his audiences, and has deviated the 
 standard of his art among his countrymen. He has shown 
 them w’hat fine acting really is, and has taught them to enjoy 
 it. He has kept them true to the legitimate drama, and has 
 done more than any other man to rescue the American stage 
 from the insignificance with wliich it was threatened. It speaks 
 volumes for him as an actor and a mana<rer, that when New 
 \ ork seemed wholly given np to ballet, burlesque, and opera 
 boufi'e, he was able to make the almost forgotten masterpieces 
 of Shake.speare the most popular and most profitable dramatic 
 ventures of the year. 
 
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JOSEPH Jefferson. 
 
 Cll 
 
 CHAPTER XXXYI. 
 
 JOSEPH JEFFERSON. 
 
 HE subject of this sketch is one of a race of 
 actors. His great-grandfather was a contempo¬ 
 rary of some of the brightest ornaments of tlie 
 English stage, and was himself a famous actor 
 and the intimate friend of Garrick, Sam Foote, 
 and Barr. He was a man of amiable and winning disposition, 
 and was strikingly handsome in person. He occupies a prominent 
 place in the history of the English stage, and is said to have 
 been, socially, one of the most brilliant men of his day. He 
 died in 1807. In 1795 his son came to America. Of him, 
 Dunlap, in his “History of the American Stage,” says, refer¬ 
 ring to him, in February, 1797: “He was then a youth, hut 
 even then an artist. Of a small and light figure, well formed, 
 with a singidar physiognomy, a nose pei’fectly Grecian, and 
 blue eyes full of laughter, he had the faculty of exciting mirth 
 to as great a degree by power of feature, although handsome, 
 as any ugly-featured low comedian ever seen.” F. C. Wemyss 
 has said of him at a later day: “Mr. Joseph Jefferson was an 
 actor formed in Nature’s merriest mood — a genuine son of 
 Momus. There was a vein of rich humor running through 
 all he did, which forced you to laugh despite of yourself. He 
 discarded grimace as unworthy of him, although no actor ever 
 
612 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 possessed a greater command over the muscles of his own face, 
 or the faces of his audience, compelling you to laugh or cry at 
 his pleasure. His excellent personation of old men acquired 
 for him, before lie had reached the meridian of life, the title of 
 ‘Old Jefferson.’ The astonishment of strangers at seeins: a 
 
 o o 
 
 good-looking young man pointed out on the street as Old Jef¬ 
 ferson, whom they had seen the night previous at the theater 
 tottering appai'ently on the verge of existence, was the greatest 
 compliment that could be paid to the talent of the actor. His 
 vei’satility was astonishing—light comedy, old men, pantomime, 
 low comedy, and occasionally juvenile tragedy. Educated in 
 the very best school for acquiring knowledge in his profession, 
 . . Jefferson was an adept in all the trickery of the stage, 
 
 which, when it suited his purpose, he could turn to excellent 
 account. . . In his social relations, he was what a gentle¬ 
 
 man should be—a kind husband, an affectionate father, a warm 
 friend, and a truly honest man.” The second Jefferson enjoyed 
 a brilliant career of thirty-six years in this country, and died 
 in 1832, during an engagement at the theater at Harrisburg, 
 which was then managed by his son. This son, named Joseph, 
 after his father, was born in Philadelphia in 1804, and died at 
 the age of thirty-eight. He was not so famous as an actor as 
 his father or grandfather, but like them passed his life on the 
 stage. He had a decided talent for painting, and was jiartially 
 educated as an artist, but he never accomplished any thing with 
 his pencil. He was a man of most amiable disposition, and was 
 possessed of scores of warm and devoted friends; but he was a 
 poor business manager, and was always more or less involved 
 in pecuniary troubles. He married Mrs. Burke, the famous 
 vocalist, and mother of Burke, the comedian. 
 
 To this couple, in the city of Philadelphia, was born the 
 Joseph Jefferson of to-day, on the 20th of February, 1829. 
 
JOSEI>H JEFEERSON. 
 
 613 
 
 This boy was literally brought up on the stage, as he made his 
 first appearance upon the boards in a combat scene at the Park 
 Theater in New York, when he was but three years old. He 
 soon after went with his parents to the West. Olive Logan 
 says of him, at this period of his life, “While they were both 
 still children, he and my sister Eliza used to sing little comic 
 duets together on the stage of various western towns.’’ 
 
 He received as good a common-school education as the rapid 
 manner in which he was moved about from place to place 
 would permit, and was carefully trained in the profession of an 
 actor, to which he was destined by his jiarents, and to wliich he 
 was drawn by the bent of his genius. He appeared in public 
 frequently during his boyhood, but his first appearance as a 
 man was at Chanfrau’s National Theater, in 1849. He met 
 with fair success, and from that time devoted himself entirely 
 and carefully to his profession. He began at the bottom of the 
 ladder of fame, and gradually worked his way up to his jiresent 
 high position. Playing engagements in various minor tlieaters 
 of the United States, he at length secured a position as low co¬ 
 median at Niblo’s Garden in New York, where he won golden 
 opinions from the critical audiences of the metropolis. In 1857, 
 he closed a most successful engagement as low comedian at 
 the theater in Richmond, Virginia, and with that engagement 
 ended his career as a stock actor. He had by careful and 
 patient study rendered himself capable of assuming the highest 
 place in his profession, and these studies, joined to his native 
 genius, had made him famous throughout the country as the 
 best low comedian of the day. 
 
 Feeling that he had now a right to the honors of a “star” in 
 his profession, and urged by the j)nblic to assume the position 
 to which his genius entitled him, he began a series of engage¬ 
 ments thoughout the Union, in which he more than fulfilled 
 
614 
 
 KINGS OK KOETGNE. 
 
 the expectations of his friends. He was received with delight 
 wherever he went, and at once became the most popular of 
 American comedians. 
 
 About a year or two later, he left the United States and 
 made a voyage to Australia, through which country he trav¬ 
 eled, playing at the principal towns. He was extremely suc¬ 
 cessful. His genial, sunny character won him hosts of friends 
 among the people of that far-otf land, and his great genius as 
 an actor made him as famous there as he had been in his own 
 country. Australia was then a sort of theatrical El Dorado. 
 The prices paid for admission to the theaters were very higli, 
 and the sums offered to distinguished stars in order to attract 
 tliem thither were immense. Mr. Jefferson reaped a fair share 
 of this golden harvest, and at the close of his Australian en¬ 
 gagements found himself the possessor of a handsome sum. It 
 was this which formed the basis of his large fortune; for, 
 unlike his father, he is a man of excellent business capacity, 
 and understands how to care for the rewards of his labors, so 
 that they shall be a certain protection to him in his old age, 
 and an assistance to those whom he shall leave behind him. 
 
 Returning to the United States, Mr. Jefferson appeared with 
 increased success in the leading cities of the Northern and 
 Western States. His principal success at this time was won in 
 the character of Asa Trenchard, in the play of “Our American 
 Cousin.” His personation of the rough, eccentric, but true¬ 
 hearted Yankee was regarded as one of the finest pieces of act¬ 
 ing ever witnessed on the American stage, and drew crowded 
 houses wherever he went. His range of characters included 
 the most refined comedy and the broadest farce, but each delin¬ 
 eation bore evidence of close and careful study, and was marked 
 by great originality and delicacy. Tliere was in his perform¬ 
 ances a freshness, a distinctiveness, and, above all, an entire free- 
 
JOSEPH JEFFEKSON. 
 
 015 
 
 dom from any tiling coarse or offensive, which charmed his 
 audiences from tlie first. One of his critics has 'well said of 
 him: “As Caleb Plummer he unites in another way the full 
 appreciation of mingled humor and pathos—the greatest deli¬ 
 cacy and affection with rags and homely speech. As Old 
 Phil Stapleton he is the patriarch of the village and the incar¬ 
 nation of content. As Asa Trenchard he is the diamond in 
 the I’ough, combining shrewdness with simjilicity, and elevat¬ 
 ing instead of degrading the Yankee character. As Dr. 
 Ollapod, and Dr. Pangloss, and Tobias Shortcut, he has won 
 laurels that would make him a comedian of the first rank. 
 His Bob Acres is a picture. There is almost as much to look 
 at as in his Pip Van Winkle. There is nearly the same 
 amount of genius, art, experience, and intelligence in its jier- 
 sonatioii. Hazlitt says that the author has overdone the part, 
 and adds that ‘ it calls for a great effort of animal spirits and 
 a peculiar aptitude of genius to go through with it;’ Mr. Jef¬ 
 ferson has so much of the latter that he can—and to a great 
 extent does—dispense with the former recpiisite. Ilis quiet 
 undercurrent of humor subserves the same j)urpose in the 
 role of Bob Aeres that it does in other chai’acters. It is full 
 of points, so judieiously chosen, so thoroughly apt, so naturally 
 made and so characteristically preserved, that the part with 
 Jefferson is a great one. The man of the ‘oath referential, or 
 sentimental swearing,’ makes the entire scope of the part an 
 ‘echo to the sense.’ Even in so poor a farce as that of ‘A 
 Regular Fix,’ Mr. Jefferson makes the eccentricities of Hugh 
 de Brass immensely funny. The same style is j)reserved in 
 every character, but with an application that gives to each a 
 separate being.” 
 
 After a season of great success in this country ISlr. Jefferson 
 decided to visit England. He appeared at the Adel[)hi The- 
 
616 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 ater, in London, and at once became as popular as he had been 
 at home. His Asa Trenchard, in “ Our American Cousin,” 
 was received by the English with delight; but his greatest tri¬ 
 umphs were won in Boucicault’s version of “Rip Van Winkle,” 
 which he has since immortalized. This play was first produced 
 at the Adelphi, where it enjoyed an uninterrupted run of nearly 
 two hundred nights. 
 
 Returning to the United States in the autumn of 1867, Mr. 
 Jefferson appeared at the Olympic Theater, in New A"ork, in 
 the play of “Rip Van Winkle.” Since then he has traveled 
 extensively throughout the United States, and has devoted 
 himself exclusively to the character of Rip Van Winkle; so 
 exclusively, indeed, that many persons are ignorant of his great 
 merits in other roles. By adopting this as his specialty, he 
 has rendered himself so perfect in it that he has almost made 
 the improvident, light-hearted Rip a living creature. A writer 
 in a popular periodical draws the following graphic sketch of 
 his performance of this character: 
 
 If there is something especially charming in the ideal of Rip Van 
 Winkle that Irving has drawn, there is something even more human, 
 sympathetic and attractive in the character reproduced by Jefferson. A 
 smile that reflects the generous impulses of the man; a face that is the 
 mirror of character; great, luminous eyes that are rich wells of expres¬ 
 sion ; a grace that is statuesque without being studied; an inherent lazi¬ 
 ness which commands the respect of no one, but a gentle nature that 
 wins the affections of all; poor as he is honest, jolly as he is poor, un¬ 
 fortunate as he is jolly, yet possessed of a spontaneity of nature that 
 springs up and flows along like a rivulet after a rain; the man who can 
 not forget the faults of the character which Jefferson pictures, nor feel 
 like taking good-natured young Rip Van Winkle by the hand and offer¬ 
 ing a support to tottering old Rip Van Winkle, must have become har¬ 
 dened to all natural as well as artistic influences. It is scarcely neces¬ 
 sary to enter into the details of Mr. Jefferson’s acting of the Dutch Tam 
 
JOSEPH JEFFERSON. 
 
 617 
 
 O’Shanter. Notwithstanding the fact that the performance is made up 
 of admirable points that might be enumerated and described, the picture 
 is complete as a whole and in its connections. Always before the pub¬ 
 lic; preserving the interest during two acts of the play after a telling 
 climax; sustaining the realities of his character in a scene of old super¬ 
 stition, and in which no one speaks but himself,—the impersonation 
 requires a greater evenness of merit and dramatic effect than any other 
 that could have been chosen. Eip Van Winkle is imbued with the 
 most marked individuality, and the identity is so conscientiously pre¬ 
 served that nothing is overlooked or neglected. Mr. Jefferson’s analysis 
 penetrates even into the minutiae of the part, but there is a perfect unity 
 in the conception and its embodiment. Strong and irresistible in its 
 emotion, and sly and insinuating in its humor, Mr. Jefferson’s Rip Van 
 Winkle is marked by great vigor, as well as by an almost pre-Eaphaelite 
 finish. 
 
 The bibulous Rip is always present by the ever-recurring and favorite 
 toast of “Here’s your goot healt’ and your family’s, and may dey live 
 long and prosper.” The meditative and philosophic Rij) is signaled by 
 the abstract “ Ja,” which sometimes means yes, and sometimes means no. 
 The shrewd and clear-sighted Rip is marked by the interview with 
 Derrick Van Beekman. The thoughtful and kind-hearted Rip makes 
 his appearance in that sad consciousness of his uselessness and the little 
 influence he exerts when he says to the children, talking of their future 
 marriage: “ I thought maybe you might want to ask me about it,” 
 which had never occurred to the children. The improvident Rip is 
 discovered when Dame Van Winkle throws open the inn window-shut¬ 
 ter, which contains the enormous score against her husband, and when 
 Rip drinks from the bottle over the dame’s shoulder as he promises to 
 reform. The most popular and the most thriftless man in the village; 
 the most intelligent and the least ambitious; the best-hearted and the 
 most careless;—the numerous contrasts which the role presents demand 
 versatility in design and delicacy in execution. They are worked out 
 with a moderation and a suggestiveness that are much more natural than 
 if they were presented more decidedly. The sympath}' of Mr. Jefferson’s 
 creation is the greatest secret of its popularity. In spite of glaring 
 faults, and almost a cruel disregard of the family’s welfare. Rip Van 
 Winkle has the audience with him from the very beginning. His inef- 
 
618 
 
 KINGS OF FOETUNE. 
 
 fably sad but quiet realization of his desolate condition when bis wife 
 turns him out into the storm, leaves scarcely a dry eye in the theatre. 
 His living in others and not in himself makes him feel the changes of 
 his absence all the more keenly. His return after his twenty years’ 
 sleep is painful to witness; and when he asks, with such heart-rending 
 yet subdued despair, “Are we so soon forgot when we are gone?” it is 
 no wonder that sobs are heard throughout the house. His pleading 
 with his child Mecnie is not less affecting, and nothing could be more 
 genuine in feeling. Yet all this emotion is attained in the most quiet 
 and unobtrusive manner. Jefferson’s sly humor crops out at all times, 
 and sparkles through the veil of sadness that overhangs the later life of 
 Kip Van Winkle. His wonder that his wife’s “clapper” could ever be 
 stopped is expressed in the same breath with his real sorrow at hearing 
 of her death. “Then who the devil am I?” he asks with infinite wit 
 just before he pulls away at the heartstrings of the audience in refusing 
 the proffered assistance to his tottering steps. He has the rare faculty 
 of bringing a smile to the lijis and a tear to the eye at the same time. 
 From the first picture, which presents young Rip Van Winkle leaning 
 carelessly and easily upon the table as he drinks his schnapps, to the 
 last picture of the decrepit but happy old man, surrounded by his family 
 and dismissing the audience with his favorite toast, the character, in Mr. 
 Jefferson’s hands, endears itself to all, and adds another to the few real 
 friendships which one may enjoy in this life. 
 
 7 
 
 Mr. Jefferson is a thoroughly American actor. Abandoning 
 all .sensational shams, he devotes himself to pure art. His high¬ 
 est triumphs have been won in the legitimate branches of his pro¬ 
 fession, and won by the force of his geniu.s, aided only by the most 
 careful study and an intelligent analysis of the parts a.ssumed 
 by him. He has the happy faculty of entering into perfect 
 sympathy with his characters, and for the time being he Is less 
 the actor than the individual he personates. It is this that 
 gives the sparkle to his eye, the ring to his laughter, and the 
 exquisite feeling to his pathos; and feeling thus, he is quick to 
 establish a sympathy between himself and his audience, so that 
 
JOSEPH JEFFERSON. 
 
 619 
 
 he moves them at will, convulsing them with laughter at the 
 sallies of the light-hearted Rip, or dissolving them in tears at 
 the desolations of the lonely old man, so soon forgot after he 
 has gone. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson has inherited from his father the genial, sunny 
 disposition for which the latter was famous. He is an essen¬ 
 tially cheerful man, and trouble glances lightly off from him. 
 He is generous to a fault, and carries his j>urse in his hand. 
 Misfortune never appeals to him In vain, and many are the good 
 works he has done in the humbler walks of his own calling. 
 He is enthusiastically devoted to his profession, and enjoys his 
 acting quite as much as his auditors. In putting his pieces on 
 the stage, he is lavish of expense, and whenever he can control 
 this part of the performance, it leaves nothing to be desired. 
 Some years ago he brought out “A Midsummer Kight’s Dream ” 
 at a Philadelphia theatei’, in a style of magnificence rarely wit¬ 
 nessed on any stage. The scenery was exquisite, and was a 
 collection of artistic gems. The success of the piece was very 
 decided in Philadelphia, but when it was reproduced, Avith the 
 same scenery and appointments, in a 'Western city, the public 
 would scarcely go to see it, and the theater incurred a heavy 
 loss in consequence. Jefferson’s remark to the manager, when 
 the failure became apparent, was characteristic: “ It Is all right.” 
 said he. “ 'We have done our duty, and have made an artistic 
 Bufccess of the piece. If the people will not come to see it, it 
 is more their misfortune than ours.” 
 
 He has inherited also from his father considerable talent as 
 an artist, and sketches with decided merit, though he makes no 
 pretensions to artistic skdl. In his vacations, which he passes 
 in the country, his sketch-book is his constant companion. He 
 is a famous sportsman and fisherman, and in the summer is 
 rarely to be found without his gun and rod. It is his delight 
 
620 
 
 KINGS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 to tramp over miles of eountry in search of game, or to sit 
 quietly in some cozy nook, and, dropping his line into the water, 
 pass the hours in reveries broken only by the exertion necessary 
 to secure a finny prize. 
 
 Not long since his love of art led him to buy a jianorama 
 merely because he admired it. He; put it in ch.arge of an agent 
 in whom he knew he could confide, and started it on a tour 
 throughout the country. In a month or two he received a 
 gloomy letter from the agent, telling him that the exhibition 
 had failed to dra.w spectators, and that he despaired of its ever 
 paying expenses. “ Never mind,” wrote Jeiferson in reply, “ it 
 will be a gratification for those who do go to see it, and you may 
 draw on me for what money you need.” The losses on the 
 panorama, however, were so great that Jefferson was compelled 
 to abandon it. 
 
 Several years before the death of John Sefton, Jefferson paid 
 him a visit at his home in Paradise Valley, during one of his 
 summer rambles. Upon reaching Sefton’s farm, he found the 
 owner “ with his breeches and coat sleeves both rolled up, and 
 standing in the middle of a clear and shallow stream, where one 
 could scarcely step without spoiling the sports cf the brook 
 trout, which sparkled through the (Tystal waters. Sefton stood 
 in a crouching attitude, watching, with mingled disappoint¬ 
 ment and good humor, a little pig which the stream was 
 carrying down its current, and which, pig-like, had slipped 
 from the hands of its owner in its natural aversion to being 
 washed. Jefferson, with the true instinct of an artist, drojiped 
 his fishing tackle and took his sketch-book to transfer the ludi¬ 
 crous scene to paper. Sefton appreciated the humor of the situa¬ 
 tion, and only objected when Jefferson began to fill in the back¬ 
 ground with a dilapidated old barn, at which the old gentleman 
 demurred on account of its wretched appearance. The artist 
 
JOSEPH JEFFEESOK. 
 
 621 
 
 insisted that it was picturesque, however, and proceeded to put 
 it down. Sefton had to submit; but he had his revenge, by 
 writing back to New York that ‘ JetFerson is here, drawing the 
 worst “ houses” I ever saw.’ ” 
 
 In private life, Mr. Jefferson is a cultivated gentleman, and 
 is possessed of numbers of warm and devoted friends. He has 
 been married twice. The first Mrs. Jefieison was a Miss 
 Lockyer, of New York, and by her he had two children, a son 
 and a daughter. The former is about eighteen years of age, 
 and is destined to his father’s profession, in which he has already 
 shown unusual promise. The present Mi's. Jefferson was a Miss 
 Warren, and is a niece of tlie veteran actor, William Warren, 
 of Boston. She was married to her husband early in 1868, and 
 has never been an actress. 
 
 ]\Ir. Jefferson is the possessor of a large fortune, acquired in 
 the exercise of his profession, and being thus comfortably situa¬ 
 ted, is enabled to enjoy more rest from his labors than falls to 
 the lot of most American actors. He resides in Orange County, 
 New Jersey, about an hour’s ride from New York, where he has 
 a handsome country seat, which he has adorned with all the 
 attractions that wealth and taste can command. 
 
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