YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Biographical Sketches

Preeminent Amerighns

Frederick G. Harrison

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VOLUME III.

BOSTON
E. W. WA-LKER CO.
Publishers

Copyright, 1892-189.3,
By E. W. Walker & Co.
Copybight, 1893,
By E. W. Walker Co.

PORTRAITS IN VOLUME III.

John Brown,
George Bancroft,
Charles Goodyear,
William H. Seward,
David G. Farragut,
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Franklin Pierce,
Hiram Powers,
Horatio Grbbnough,
Edwin Forrest,
Henry W. Longfellow,
John G. Whittibr,
Andrew Johnson,

Edgar Allan Poe,
Abraham Lincoln,
Hannibal Hamlin,
Oliver Wendell Holmes,
P. T. Babnum,
Elihu Burritt,
Charles Sumner,
Horace Greeley,
Wendell Phillips,
Henry Wilson,
John C. Fremont,
Stephen A. Douglas,
David D. Porter,
Henry Ward Beechbr.

JOHN BROWN,

From life.

JOHN BROWN.

HE character of few men in history has been
regarded by different classes of people in so
widely differing aspects, as that of John Brown
of Ossawatomie. By his contemporaries he
was either lauded to the skies, or detested as
worse than an outlaw, according as his critic
favored, or opposed, the principles underlying
his renowned attempt to destroy Am.erican
slavery. The calmer judgment of a later
generation has modified both verdicts, with,
indeed, a palpable leaning in favor of the man whose fearless
courage has never been disputed. The sense of the utter
injustice of enslaving a human being overwhelmed his judg
ment, and led him to attempt the impossible. It has been
said that he was insane. Well might his brain reel, who
had been an eye-witness of the barbarities committed in
Kansas by slaveholders — barbarities at which Hun and
Vandal would have paled. His execution was justly de
manded by the offended law, for his crime against the
security of society was of the first magnitude. It is
objected that the crimes of his judges were greater than
his. True they were, and verily they have met with more
terrible retribution.
John Brown was born at Torrington, Conn., May 9, 1800.
He was the son of a hard-working and God-fearing farmer,
and the grandson of a revolutionary patriot, from whom he
seems to have inherited that warhke spirit which showed

JOHN BBOWN.
itself in his old age, after a life of peaceful toil. He was
educated in the rigid, puritanic school of morality, and
in his character there were many points of resemblance to
the austere Roundhead of Cromwell's time. To the faith
in which he was brought up, he clung tenaciously to the
last, and in this respect he held a position almost unique
among the radical abolitionists of his day. When he was
five years old, his parents removed into the western wilder
ness, and at Hudson, Ohio, the quiet lad grew to be a sober
and industrious young man. He enjoyed few educational
privileges beyond those of his own home. His father had
adopted the tanner's trade, and John worked diligently with
him. At the age of sixteen he was sent east to attend an
academy at Plainfield, Mass. ; but after a brief period he
returned home.
In 1819, he left the paternal roof to establish a tannery
of his own, and in the following year he was married to"
his first wife, Diantha Lusk. For the next twenty years he
carried on the business of a tanner, farmer, and sheep-raiser,
with profit, becoming a man of commanding influence among
his neighbors. His large family was educated in the same
religious and political behefs as their father, and most faith
fully did they follow his teachings. During this period
John Brown several times changed his residence. In 1826,
he moved to Richmond, Pa., and was appointed postmaster
of that place during the administration of John Quincy
Adams. This position he continued to hold, singularly
enough, under General Jackson, although he had already
begun to be quite prominent as an abolitionist. From this
time forward the great aim of his life was the amelioration
of the condition of the colored race, and his mind dwelt
upon that single theme, until, to him, it overshadowed every
other moral question of the time. In 1835, he returned to
Ohio, this time to the town of Franklin. Here he caused
trouble in the church by admitting negroes to his own pew,

JOHN BROWN.
the custom being to restrict persons of color to the rear of
the house. Two years later came the great financial panic,
in which the Brown family suffered severely.
He gradually came to regard the extirpation of slavery
as a mission committed to him personally. About the year
1839, he made his compact or family covenant against the
national sin. His first wife died in 1832, and he married a
second in the following year. In his two families he had
twenty children, of whom the greater portion lived to matu
rity, and three of his sons lost their lives as he did, in the
contest with slavery. In 1840, he returned to Hudson, a
few years later removed to Akron, and, in 1846, in company
with a gentleman named Perkins, he established a wool com
mission house at Springfield, Mass. His business here was
not very successful, and, in 1849, he went to England with
a large quantity of wool, expecting to realize better prices
there than in Massachusetts. He remained abroad about
two months, visiting France and Germany, and holding
conferences with leading English abolitionists, to whom
he broached some of his schemes for the hberation of the
slaves, which were, however, quite coldly received. But
his commercial speculation resulted in a very serious loss.
His philanthropic schemes were interfering with his legiti
mate business, and he continued to devote himself more and
more to his one idea, until it took entire possession of him,
to the exclusion of all other concerns.
In the fall of 1849, he removed to North Elba, in the
State of New York, where Gerritt Smith, a kindred spirit,
had given a tract of land for the colonization of colored
persons. Brown undertaking to superintend their education.
Very little came of this well-meant attempt. At this time
Brown had ten living children, and two of his sons were
married. Of course, he lost no opportunity to aid escaping
negro fugitives. In 1851, he again returned to Akron, 0.,
where he was employed by his former partner as a farm

JOHN BROWN.
overseer. He still continued to raise wool, and sent specimens
of his products to the great London Exhibition in that year.
In 1854, the agreement between the friends and opponents
of African slavery, by which that institution was prohibited
in the " Louisiana Purchase " north of 36° 30', and outside
of Missouri, after it had been respected for exactly a gener
ation, was violated on the part of the slave-holders by the
erection of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, in which
the actual settlers might ultimately decide in favor either of
a free or a slave constitution. Emboldened by their success,
the slave-holders now claimed the right to emigrate to the
new territories with their human chattels, and that no one
could interfere with that right, so long as the Territorial
Government subsisted, and in this position they were sus
tained successively by the Pierce and Buchanan adminis
trations in the National Government. But the friends of
freedom at the North caught the alarm, organized Emigrant
Aid Societies, and sent settlers by the hundreds into Kansas.
The pro-slavery party quickly saw that they were being
outnumbered, and hastened to form a State Constitution
protecting slavery. As they were already in a minority,
owing to the superior enterprise of the Free-soilers, their
design could only be accomphshed by fraud. For this pur
pose, large bodies of armed men, who quickly became known
as Border Ruffians, were assembled in the neighboring slave
State of Missouri, passed over into Kansas, and controlled
the elections. Naturally enough the Free-soil party resented
this high-handed invasion of their territory and their rights,
and then followed the terrible Kansas outrages. Northern
settlers were driven from their homes, their dwellings were
burned, and they and their wives and little ones were hunted
like wild beasts. The atrocities committed during that law
less period are without a parallel in any civilized land, and
constitute a black page in our country's history which we
would willingly forget.

JOHN BROWN.
Among the emigrants who hoped to preserve the future
State of Kansas for freedom, were four of Brown's sons.
They, like their father, were by nature men of peace, and
went comparatively unarmed. But they soon found that if
they would retain their new possessions, they must defend
them. Accordingly, they sent for their father, and, in the
fall of 1855, he followed them, carrying with him an ample
store of arms and ammunition. John Brown quickly as
sumed the position of a leader, for which he was eminently
fitted. The details of the struggle in which he was engaged
for the next year are too harrowing for relation. Suffice it
to say, that in every action he displayed the courage of a
hero with the skill of an accomplished military leader ; but
he was called upon to undergo severe trials, for not only was
his property, and that of his sons, destroyed, but one of
those sons was murdered by a pro-slavery parson, while two
of the others were subjected to a shameful imprisonment.
John Brown was not insane, but he was maddened by the
cruel injustice of his enemies, and it is little wonder that
under such circumstances he should come to regard himself
as the chosen instrument to sweep the curse of slavery from
the land.
Brown and his sons left Kansas in October, 1856. The
following winter and spring were spent in visiting the prin
cipal Northern cities, relating the terrible scenes through
which he had passed, and soliciting aid for the suffering
settlers he had left behind ; but, as he pondered upon his
cherished plans, he became convinced that the proper place
to strike his first blow against slavery was not in the plains
of Kansas, where he could see that the Free-soilers must, in
time, prevail, from force of numbers ; but in the mountain
fastnesses of Virginia, where a small band of brave men,
like those led by Gideon of old, might perform wonders.
He now began to prepare for his great undertaking. His
plan, which, of course, recommended itself to no one of cool

JOHN BROWN.
judgment, was to secure a stronghold for his httle band,
which he confidently believed would quickly gain additional
force after his first success, and from this stronghold to sally
forth and seize the wealthy planters, compelling the liberation
of slaves as a ransom. In this way he fondly hoped to
operate until every black was set free ; and, though he met
with little encouragement, even from the most radical aboli
tionists, yet he bravely persisted in his extravagant designs.
He was obhged to make his preparations almost wholly at
his own expense. During the year 1857, he collected stores
of arms and a small body of men in Iowa, and these men
he caused to be regularly instructed in the art of warfare.
Among his military stores was a large number of pikes,
which he considered would be more effective in the hands of
inexperienced fighters than firearms.
In May, 1858, he went to Canada, where large numbers
of refugees from slavery were to be found, several of whom
he induced to join him. While there he formed his famous
" Provisional Constitution," which he considered would give
a shadow of legal right to his operations. A month later
found him in Southern Kansas in a fortified camp, and here
he began to put his plans into execution. In a sudden raid
into Missouri, his party captured several slaves, taking, at the
same time, sufficient property from their masters to compen
sate them for their past labor. These refugees were kept
for a while in Kansas ; but were not, of course, safe there,
so Brown and his armed followers conducted them into
Canada. It was a long and dangerous journey; but he
finally had the satisfaction of seeing the entire party safe on
free English soil. Great excitement prevailed in Missouri
on account of this raid, and large numbers of slaves were
removed from the Kansas border ; some were sold South, and
some few were fortunate enough to escape. John Brown's
name was now famous ; at the South it was execrated, at
the North hailed with a halting and timid applause.

JOHN BROWN.
He now became more guarded in his movements, and at
length disappeared entirely from public notice. Mysterious
rumors regarding him were rife; but gradually the excite
ment he had caused at the South began to subside. Late
in June, 1859, he leased a farm with several buildings near
Hagerstown, in Maryland, and here, with two of his sons,
he collected the materials he had provided. For over three
months he continued his preparations, so quietly as not to
excite the least suspicion of his identity among the country
people of the vicinity, by whom he was looked upon as a
peaceful and estimable neighbor. The arsenal at Harper's
Perry, Va., was the point at which he decided to make his
next attack, and the time was fixed for the 24th of October.
Eight days previous to that time, when he had collected at
his rendezvous only twenty-one men beside himself, he sud
denly modified his plan, and determined upon an immediate
descent on the village. He must inevitably have been cap
tured, in the end, even if he had waited for all his force,
and been successful at the outset ; but his eagerness to en
gage in what he now regarded as his divinely appointed
mission, quickly proved fatal to his cause.
On the night of the 16th of October, 1859, John Brown
and his band quietly occupied the armory, and, on the follow
ing morning, captured a number of citizens, and seized the
railroad bridge. He might even now have retired to his
fortified retreat, with his prisoners ; but his confidence in
a general rising of the slaves led him swiftly on to his doom.
By noon the Maryland and Virginia militia began to arrive,
and escape was impossible. A desultory fight was kept up
during the 17th, with loss of life on both sides. Two of
Brown's party were taken prisoners and murdered. None
of the prisoners taken by Brown were harmed in the least.
The most intense excitement prevailed. Toward evening
the remnant of the little band of insurgents took refuge in
the engine house, and prepared to defend themselves to the

JOHN BROWN.
death. John Brown's own demeanor throughout was heroic
in the extreme. With one son dead before him and another
dying in his arms, he gave his orders, and encouraged his
men as calmly as if he were conducting the devotions of his
family. During the night a body of United States regulars
arrived on the scene, and by daybreak two thousand troops
were thirsting for the blood of the misguided abolitionist.
Still he refused to surrender, until, at length, the door of the
engine house was forced open by the National troops, who
rushed in and overpowered the four remaining insurgents,
John Brown, who received a sabre cut and several bayonet
wounds after he was disarmed, one other white man, and
two negroes.
The people of Virginia, from their eccentric governor,
Henry A. Wise, in whose disordered imagination existed ser
vile insurrections, Northern rescues, war and bloodshed with
out limit, down to the meanest poor white who lorded it over
his single black chattel, were for two months in a frenzy of
excitement. Brown was removed to the jail at Charlestown,
Va., under a strong guard, and there, on the 25th of October,
his preliminary examination took place. During this and
his subsequent trial he maintained that calm and dignified
demeanor, which never deserted him, even to the end.
Though weak, and suffering severely from his wounds, he
was allowed no delay. He was indicted on the 26th, his
trial opened on the following day, and, on the 31st, he was
found guilty of treason, murder, and inciting slaves to re
volt, and was condemned to death. His three companions,
and three others, who were subsequently taken, suffered a
similar fate to that of their leader. During the trial, and
afterwards, through a committee of the National Congress,
the slaveholders moved heaven and earth to obtain evidence
implicating other Northern leaders in Brown's foolhardy
schemes ; but, to their great disappointment, not a particle
of such evidence was ever found.

JOHN BROWN.
John Brown was permitted to receive a visit from his wife
on the 1st of December, and the next day he suffered death
by hanging. His crime was expiated, and, though he reaUzed
it not, his great object was accomplished. His execution,
though generally acquiesced in as strictly legal, except by
the more extreme anti-slavery party, produced at the North
a wonderful revulsion of feeling against slavery, which,
only a few years later, rendered possible Abraham Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment.
John Brown's remains were delivered to his friends, and
interred with appropriate honors at his late home in North
Elba.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

Fr(im the portrait by Gustave Richter, of Berlin, bequeathed by
the historian to Harvard University.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

|EORGE BANCROFT was born at Worcester,
Mass., October 3, 1800. His father, a clergy
man, who had, in his younger days, carried a
musket at Lexington and Bunker Hill, was
desirous that he should be educated for the
ministry, and accordingly the naturally studi
ous disposition of the lad was carefidly en
couraged. When eleven years of age he was
sent to the Phillips Academy, at Exeter, N. H.,
that nursery of distinguished men, where he remained
two years, entering Harvard when only thirteen. In 1817,
he graduated with a good standing. Edward Everett, who
was at that time in Europe, fitting himself for the duties of
his Greek professorship at Harvard, suggested that another
graduate be sent abroad to receive the benefits of instruction
at the great German universities, preparatory to becoming a
tutor. The suggestion was acted upon, and Bancroft was
the fortunate man upon whom the choice fell. In the
summer of 1818, he went to Europe and became a student
at the University of Gottingen, where he entered upon a
very comprehensive range of studies, including ancient and
modern literature, European and Oriental languages, Natural
History, and Greek Philosophy, under the direction of the
ablest living teachers.
Mr. Bancroft possessed a vigorous constitution, well cal
culated to endure the strain imposed upon it by his severe
mental application. He soon began to look upon the pro-

GEORGE BANCROFT.
spective Harvard tutorship as only a temporary expedient,
and determined to devote himself to historical investigation
and composition, to which object his whole course of study
was made subservient. In 1820, having been made Doctor
of Philosophy, he left Gottingen for Berlin, where, in spite
of his extreme youth he met with a favorable reception from
William von Humboldt, and for Heidelberg, where he con
tinued his studies with the historian Schlosser. The closing
portion of his four years' residence in Europe was given to
travel, in the course of which we see this young man, who
had barely attained his majority, holding familiar inter
course with such master minds as Goethe, Manzoni, Bunsen,
and Humboldt. In May, 1822, he visited Lord Byron at
his residence near Leghorn, and soon afterward returned
to America.
He now taught Greek at Harvard for a year. He likewise
made a few attempts at preaching, but quickly gave up all
intentions of adopting the ministerial profession. In 1823,
he established in connection with a fellow-tutor, a school for
boys at Round HiU in Northampton, Mass., which attained
great celebrity in its day. The institution was beautifuUy
situated, and the boys, each of whom superintended the con
struction of a cabin for his residence, were contented and
happy. The educational venture was a success in every way,
except financially. Mr. Bancroft v/as connected with it for
seven years, retiring in 1830. Two years later the school
was abandoned. While at Northampton, Mr. Bancroft
printed a volume of poems, wrote reviews of high literary
merit, and published several educational works for the use
of his pupils, and also began to write that history of his
country which was destined to bring enduring fame to its
author, and of which Edward Everett wrote, " It does such
justice to its noble subject as to supersede the necessity of
any future work of the same kind."
Politically Mr, Bancroft was a Democrat, while the greater

GEORGE BANCROFT.
portion, if not the whole of his family connections were
Whigs, and it was out of deference to the feelings of these
relatives that he declined the seat in the Massachusetts
Legislature to which he was chosen, in 1830, by Democratic
votes. In 1834, he published the first volume of the "History
of the United States." So extensive and elaborate was his
research, and so painstaking his composition, that nearly
half a century was to elapse before he wrote the final chap
ters of his great work. For the three foUowing years, Mr.
Bancroft was a resident of Springfield, and during that time
he completed and published a second volume. The history
met with a very favorable reception from the reading pubhc,
and several editions were quickly disposed of.
While attaining distinction as a man of letters, Mr.
Bancroft was likewise becoming prominent as a political
writer in the interest of the Democratic party. He was
honored by the approbation of President Jackson, and, in
1838, President Van Buren made him collector of the port
of Boston. He held the office for three years, gaining a
knowledge of commercial affairs which was of great value
in connection with his subsequent career as a diplomatist.
The third volume of his history, which appeared in 1840,
completed the account of the colonization of America. In
1844, he was a candidate for the governorship of Massachu
setts, and though defeated by his Whig opponent. Governor
Briggs, he received a larger vote than had ever, up to that
time, been given to any Democratic candidate for office in
the Bay State.
When Mr. Polk made up his cabinet in 1845, Mr. Ban
croft received the appointment of Secretary of the Navy.
Through his orders the Californian ports were occupied by
American naval vessels, and whUe acting temporarily as
Secretary of War in 1846, he issued directions to General
Taylor for an aggressive movement of the land forces, and
so it will be seen that he bore a conspicuous part in precipi-

GEORGE BANCROFT.
tating the war with Mexico. His most important action,
whUe at the head of the Navy Department, was the estab
lishment of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. This
institution was opened by his authority on the 10th of
October, 1845. Mr. Bancroft retained his seat in the Cabi
net for eighteen months, when he resigned it upon being
accredited as Minister to the Court of St. James, which office
he held during the remainder of President Polk's adminis
tration. WhUe performing his public duties in the most
satisfactory manner, he availed himself of the courtesies
which were freely extended to him in England, to obtain,
both from the public archives, and from private sources, a
large amount of valuable historical material. After return
ing to the United States, in 1849, he took up his residence
in New York City, and did not again hold office untU after
the close of the Rebellion.
He now devoted himself for some years almost exclusively
to the great business of his life, and, between 1852 and
1860, pubhshed five additional volumes, covering the colonial
period, and bringing his history down to Bunker Hill and
the Declaration of Independence. He Was loyal during the
war, and deUvered a eulogy upon President Lincoln, at the
request of Congress; but he favored President Johnson's
reconstruction policy, and accepted from him, in 1867, the
appointment of Minister Resident to Prussia. It was fitting
that the distinguished scholar and statesman should be
selected to represent his government at the capital where his
education had been finished, and it was considered highly
complimentary by the Prussian Court. Mr. Bancroft, upon
his arrival in Berlin, was received with unusual honors, both
as a preeminent man of letters, and as the representative
of a nation which had just demonstrated its strength by
crushing the most formidable revolt in history.
Hitherto all European governments had denied the right
of any of their subjects to renounce their aUegiance and be-

GEORGE BANCROFT.
come citizens of the United States. Naturalized Americans
returned to visit their native land, only at the risk of suffer
ing arrest and being forced to perform mUitary duty. The
treaty with Prussia, by which that country agreed to recog
nize the rights of Germans naturalized in the United States,
is a lasting monument to the diplomatic skiU of Mr. Bancroft.
Great Britain and other European powers hastened to f oUow
the example set by Prussia, and entered into similar agree
ments, whereby the honor and dignity of our country was
greatly enhanced. Mr. Bancroft continued to reside at
Berlin for seven years as envoy successively to Prussia, the
North German Confederation, and the new Empire of Ger
many which was established in 1871, and it was only at his
own request that he was at length recalled, in 1874, by
President Grant.
He returned to America at the age of seventy-four, and
for ten years longer he was actively engaged upon his history,
and in other literary work. A ninth volume had appeared
in 1866, and the tenth was published in 1874, the two latter
covering the period of the Revolution. Two volumes more,
the story of the formation of the Constitution, in 1882,
were followed two years later by a revision of the entire
work, and then the hand of the venerable historian rested
from its labors. During these closing years of his life his
winter residence was in Washington, and his summers were
spent at Newport, where he enjoyed the soft breezes of the
sea in his beautiful viUa with its famous conservatory of
roses. Mr. Bancroft died at his home in Washington,
January 17, 1891.

CHARLES GOODYEAR.

From a portrait kindly placed at the disposal of the publishers by
the Goodyear Rubber Company.

CHARLES GOODYEAR.

N the middle of the sixteenth century, a
wandering French portrait painter chanced to
observe, in a nobleman's cabinet, some speci
mens of enamelled earthen-ware of great
beauty and rarity, the products of some far
away eastern land. The process by which
the beautiful enamel was produced was entirely
unknown in Europe, and the painter was seized
with an intense desire to discover the secret.
It became his one absorbing ambition, and
he dUigently prosecuted his investigations to
the exclusion of aU other business. His famUy were
neglected and destitute; he consumed his furniture and
even the very floors of his cottage to heat his furnaces.
After enduring the scorn and reproaches of relatives and
neighbors for sixteen long years, Palissy the Potter triumphed,
and received some measure of the reward which he so richly
deserved. A remarkable simUarity appears in many points between
the career of the persevering potter, and that of Charles
Goodyear, the inventor of the process by which india-rubber
is rendered fit for ordinary use. But while Palissy knew
for a certainty that the object of his endeavors had already
been accomplished, Goodyear, like Columbus, was sustained
solely by his faith, and that in spite of the uniform faUure
of all preceding experimenters, and the general opinion that
what he attempted was visionary and impossible.

CHARLES GOODYEAR.
The peculiar tropical product called caoutchouc, or india-
rubber, though in use by the natives of America when the
continent was discovered, seems to have been almost un
known in civUized countries, except, perhaps, as ballast for
saUing vessels, untU about the year 1770, when its property
of erasing lead-pencU marks was discovered. About 1820,
a Scotchman, named Mackintosh, began to use it in the manu
facture of water-proof fabrics, and the garments made from
the material which he produced were caUed by his name,
a name which has ever since been applied to simUar articles.
In the year 1820, a few of the rude, iU-shapen rubber shoes
made by South American Indians found their way to Boston,
and not long afterward a considerable cargo of them arrived,
and found ready sale. It was soon discovered that they
could easUy be made here, from the gum, but at such an
expense as to render competition with the imported shoes
impossible. But these galoshes, as they were caUed, and aU
other articles made from the gum in its natural state, pos
sessed great disadvantages ; the cold weather rendered them
stiff and unserviceable, heat reduced them to a sticky paste,
or altogether destroyed them.
About the year 1831, the manufacture of various articles
from india-rubber was commenced in the United States, and
its success was, at first, extraordinary. In 1833, the first
regular factory was estabUshed at Roxbury, Mass., and soon,
all over the country, similar factories sprang up almost as if
by magic. The new industry promised large profits, and
caused a popiUar craze. CapitaUsts eagerly invested their
money and confidently looked for large returns. But alas,
the beautiful fabrics were entirely unsuited to the extremes
of our climate. Goods manufactured in the winter, and
stored away for future use, were melted by the JiUy heats,
and thousands of doUars' worth of property was thus de
stroyed. Garments of rubber, when exposed to the rigors
of a New England winter, became hard, brittle, and valueless.

CHARLES GOODYEAR.
One after another the manufacturers became bankrupt, stock
holders were reduced to poverty, and the factories were
closed, until, by 1836, every company had ceased to exist.
It was in the year 1834, while the rubber industry was stiU
dragging out a lingering existence, that it came under the
notice of the man who was destined by heaven, as he came
afterward to believe, to discover the means by which it was
to be rescued from faUure, and raised to its present im
portance. Charles Goodyear was born in New Haven, Conn., Decem
ber 29, 1800. His father was a manufacturer of hardware,
and at this business Charles and his brothers were employed
at an early age. Charles seems to have been a steady, quiet
lad, with some desire to become a minister ; but, fortunately,
his father's inability to provide him with a college education
prevented him from mistaking his caUing. When seventeen
years old he went to PhUadelphia, and remained for four
years in the employ of a firm of hardware merchants. He
then became associated with his father, and the firm of
A. Goodyear & Son prospered for a number of years. In
1826, they established a warehouse at PhUadelphia, the first
in the country to make a specialty of domestic hardware.
Many of the articles which they made and sold were of their
own invention, prominent among them the steel hay-fork, for
which there was a very large demand. Charles Goodyear
now married, and looked forward to years of happiness.
Nothing of the kind was in store for him. The Goodyears,
who were themselves scrupulously honest, appear to have
supposed everybody else to have been the same, and so were
not sufficiently careful in the matter of giving credit, and,
in 1830, they found themselves unable to meet the demands
of their creditors. Charles Goodyear's conscientiousness pre
vented him from taking advantage of the bankrupt law, and,
during the next ten years of his life, he was frequently the
inmate of a debtor's prison.

CHARLES GOODYEAR.
Charles Goodyear was naturaUy of an inventive turn of
mind ; mechanical novelties were sure to be of interest to him.
As the country was now in the midst of the excitement
caused by the rubber fever, it was not unnatural that his
attention should be called to that interesting material. He
had, in fact, been for some years a student of its properties
and uses, when, in 1834, being unemployed in the city of
New York, he chanced to pass the salesroom of the Roxbury
Company. He at once became interested in some life-pre
servers which were on sale there. Examining them closely,
his genius was quick to perceive where a decided improve
ment coidd be made. Though recognizing at once the value
of the suggested improvement, the agent informed him that
it would be of little importance, unless some method could
be devised for bettering the quality of the material, as the
articles made from it were, from reasons already stated,
rapidly becoming unsalable. Goodyear believed that such a
method was possible, and immediately formed the determi
nation that he would find it out. During all the remainder
of his life he was constantly engaged in study and experi
ment concerning india-rubber, for he did not cease his efforts
when he had at length made the discovery of the means by
which it coiUd be made heat, cold, and acid proof, but con
tinued to exercise his ingenuity in devising new uses to which
this most valuable material could be put for the benefit of
mankind. His first experiments were made in prison, where he had
been placed by some hard-hearted creditor. After his release
they were continued at his home, with the aid of no more
convenient appUances than his common kitchen utensUs.
Absolutely without income, suffering frequently for food and
other necessaries of life, ridiculed by his acquaintances, de
pendent for his support and for that of his famUy upon what
small loans he could make among his friends, he persevered
without faltering or once losing faith in the final success of

CHARLES GOODYEAR.
his efforts. He moved into the country to save expense, and
disposed of his wife's jewelry and Unen, to get means to pay
his rent. He soon concluded that the gum in its natural
state could not be successfully treated. The product of
many weeks of his patient toil, beautiful indeed in design,
melted into a shapeless mass in the heat of the summer sun.
It was clear that some other ingredient must be added, and
all the money he could beg or borrow was expended in the
chemist's shops. In 1835, he fondly imagined he had found
the desired mixture. A combination of india-rubber with
magnesia, boUed with quicklime, produced such exceUent
results, that he was awarded a medal for the discovery by
the American Institute, and he easily secured a partner with
sufficient capital to commence operations in one of the old
abandoned rubber factories on Staten Island. But this ap
parent return of prosperity was only a delusive dream. His
material, though resisting heat and cold exceUently well, was
quickly rendered worthless by the application of acids.
Then also came the financial panic of 1836, in which his
partner's wealth was swept away, and the factory was forced
to suspend operations, and the salesroom in New York was
closed. Nothing daunted by this sudden dashing of his
new-formed hopes, the " india-rubber maniac " as he was now
frequently called, moved his family to Staten Island, and
there he and his wife managed, for some time, to continue
the manufacture of a few articles, and thus keep themselves
from actual starvation.
Failing to find any one else in New York who had any
confidence in his inventions, he next went to Roxbury, Mass.
There was a large amount of money invested here in the
extensive plant of the rubber works which was now lying
hopelessly idle. Goodyear succeeded in demonstrating to
the overseer of the factory the utility of his methods, and
again he commenced business. For several years now, it
seemed as if his trials were at an end. He was enabled once

CHARLES GOOD YEAR.
more to provide for his wife and children, and even began
to pay off some of his heavy burden of debt. In one year,
during this interval of prosperity, his income rose as high as
five thousand dollars. It was during these brighter years that
he finally found the requisite substance for which he had
so long looked in vain. One day, he observed one of his
assistants spreading sulphur over the fabrics to which he
was about to apply the india-rubber mixture. Tests proved
that the surface of the articles, at least, was perfectly cured,
or " vulcanized." Goodyear might easUy have taken advan
tage of another man's good fortune ; but no thought of the
kind entered his heart. He at once caused the workman,
whose name was Hayward, to have his discovery patented,
and then paid him liberally for the right to make use of it.
Sulphur was the long-sought ingredient ; but the proper mode
of combining it with the rubber was yet to be discovered.
And now that Goodyear had come so near to success, he
was doomed to his most bitter disappointments. Always on
the alert to devise new uses for india-rubber, he had in
vented a maU-bag of that material, and he secured from the
government a contract for a large number of them. They
were made, and were such a manifest improvement over the
ones in use, that they were universaUy admired by aU who
were permitted to see them. But the vulcanization existed
only on the surface. WhUe the bags were hanging up to dry,
they melted, rotted, became worthless for any purpose what
ever, and thus, at one feU stroke, the entire result of his few
years of prosperity was swept away, and Charles Goodyear
was again worse than pennUess. Friends who had aU along
believed in him now lost confidence, and tried to persuade
him to abandon the further pursuit of his chimera, and seek
some legitimate employment by which he might provide for
his family. But in spite of tiiese entreaties, in spite of his
feeble frame, worn down by years of mental and physical
toU, by days without food and nights without sleep, he was

CHARLES GOODYEAR.
never more enthusiastic, never more fuUy determined to
persevere than at the time of his most crushing defeat.
In the year 1839, he was in the town of Woburn, Mass.
One day a vessel containing a mixture of gum and sulphur
was overturned by accident during one of his interminable
series of experiments, and some of the contents dashed on
an overheated stove. Long years of study had made him
observant of the slightest trifles. After clearing up the
debris it quickly occurred to him to examine the portion
which had fallen on the stove, and behold, the great mystery
was unravelled. India-rubber, sulphur, and the appUcation
of the proper high degree of heat, that was the secret, and
it only remained to perfect the details. The winter im
mediately following his great discovery was the darkest
period of his Ufe. Hungry, forced to seU his children's
school-books even to keep them from starvation, sick, the
laughing-stock of the neighborhood, yet he was 30 upright
that he refused, in the midst of his greatest distress, to sell
his old patents to a firm in Paris, on the ground that they
would be worthless as soon as he had perfected his final
discovery. At length he gained the confidence of a brother-
in-law in New York, and once more found himself with
funds at his disposal with which to continue his experiments.
How expensive these must have been may be seen by the
fact, that in the five years which elapsed before the practical
workings of his discovery were fully developed, he used
forty-six thousand dollars of borrowed money, money which
he was never able wholly to repay, for when he died he left
nothing to his chUdren but a legacy of debts, and an example
of indomitable perseverance which was of more value than
money. Mr. Goodyear patented his invention in 1844. Hence
forth he was, indeed, raised above absolute need ; but he was
never to experience that degree of repose, which is necessary
in order to insure a peaceful old age. In the first place, his

CHARLES GOODYEAR.
habit of life had become so firmly fixed, that he could not
live without experimenting. He published a book in which
he enumerated several hundred distinct uses to which india-
rubber was already put, and his ever-active brain, which he
allowed no rest, was constantly evolving new ones. He was
even in the habit of keeping writing materials at his bedside,
that he might jot down new ideas which came to him in the
watches of the night. Then again, he was tormented by
law-suits. The decisions of the courts were in his favor,
but he was powerless to prevent infringements. He spent
several years in Europe, with no favorable financial results.
He had very complete exhibits of his inventions and manu
factures at London, in 1851, and at Paris, in 1855, receiving
medals of honor at both places, and was also decorated with
the Cross of the Legion of Honor. Mr. Goodyear died in
New York, July 1, 1860.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
From a portrait in the possession of the Department
of State at Washington, painted during
Mr. Seward's Secretaryship.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

pLLIAM HENRY SEWARD was born in the
village of Florida, N. Y., on the sixteenth day
of May, 1801. He developed a somewhat pre
cocious intellect, with an unusual fondness for
study, which led him to reverse the usual order
by running away to school, instead of from it.
His preUminary education was received in the
village school — not a very imposing institution
in those days — and was supplemented by an
academical course, after which he entered the
Sophomore class at Union College, being then
fifteen years of age. In 1819, he was en
gaged in teaching at the South, his graduation being thereby
deferred for a year, and he was unfavorably impressed by
his observations of the slave system, against whose encroach
ments upon free soU he took so determined a stand in his
later years. After taking his degree, in 1820, he applied
himself very closely to the study of the law for two years, at
the end of which time he was admitted to the bar at Utica.
In 1823, Mr. Seward became a resident of Auburn, and
entered into partnership with Elijah MUler, to whose
daughter he was married in the year following. Fortunate
family connections and genuine natural abUity united to
make his career a prosperous one from the first. No legiti
mate aid to popularity was neglected. He connected him
self with the militia, and was chosen colonel. In poUtics
he espoused the popular side, acting for some years with

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
the Democratic party, which then controlled the State and
Nation, with practicaUy no opposition. But the dominant
party, invulnerable to external attack, fell a prey to internal
dissention, caused by the unwUUngness of a large portion
of its members to submit to the dictation of the South in
national affairs, and to that of Van Buren and the Albany
Regency, in the affairs of the State. Mr. Seward's con
victions led him to take sides with the discontented minority,
and his first prominent position in politics was the chair
manship of a convention, held at Utica, in 1828, in favor
of the reelection of John Quincy Adams. His dignified
bearing on this occasion greatly enhanced his reputation.
He was nominated for Congress by the anti-Masons, but
declined, and for a whUe persevered in the vain attempt to
remain a Democrat and oppose Andrew Jackson. The elec
tion of General Jackson to the presidency caused the dis
ruption of the Democratic party in Western New York, and
Mr. Seward, with Weed and Fillmore, and others who became
men of note, went with the anti-Masons, they being the
only organized opposition to the democracy.
In 1830, Mr. Seward was elected, as an anti-Mason, to the
State Senate, by a handsome majority. He took his seat
in January, 1831, and held it, by repeated reelections, for
four years. Upon him devolved the leadership of the small
but growing opposition, and the important task was ably
performed. In the session of 1832, he made a speech on
the Bank question, the effect of which was to powerfuUy
strengthen the anti-Jackson party, now beginning to be
known as Whigs. In the following year he put himself on
record as an uncompromising enemy to treason in the form
of nullification, and in June accompanied his father to
Europe. The incidents of this tour were described in a
very able and interesting series of letters to the Albany
Evening Journal, of which his friend, Thurlow Weed, was
editor. His service in the New York Legislature closed with

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
the session of 1834, in the fall of which year he received
the Whig nomination, and more than the Whig vote, for
governor, but was defeated. For the next year or two
he was engaged as agent or arbitrator between a large cor
poration and its tenants, at the same time making, upon
occasion. Whig campaign speeches, and contributing his full
share to the triumph of that party in the State election of
1837. In the following year the Albany Regency was de
throned, and Mr. Seward was elected governor of New York.
The administration of Governor Seward compares favor
ably with that of any of the chief magistrates of the
Empire State. His position at the outset was a trying one,
owing to the insatiable horde of office seekers, who, in ac
cordance with the established evil custom, expected a clean
sweep of the Democrats from the power which they had
held for half a century, and the supply of places was
entirely inadequate to meet the demand. Among the more
important events which occurred during his term of office,
was the trial of the British subject, McLeod, in 1840, for
compUcity in the seizure of the Caroline by the Canadians
which threatened to disturb the relations between England
and America. Governor Seward was engaged in a contro
versy with the executive of Virginia, refusing the demands
of the latter for the surrender of certain persons, who had
aided in the escape of fugitive slaves, upon the ground that
such an act was not a crime in New York, though it might
be so by the law of Virginia. Mr, Seward was reelected
governor in 1840, though like General Harrison in the same
year, he was opposed by the third party Abohtionists, who
cast twenty-five hundred votes in New York. He decUned
to stand for a third term, foreseeing that his party was
doomed to defeat, owing to the defection of the Abohtionists,
sixteen thousand of whom withheld their votes from the
Whig candidate for governor in 1842, for no other reason
than that Henry Clay, a compromiser with slavery, would.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

two years later, be the Whig candidate for President, and,
consequently, when Mr. Seward returned to Auburn, as a
private citizen, on the first of January, 1843, he resigned
the governorship of the State mto the hands of a Democrat,
with whom, however, he remained upon the most cordial
terms, as he did with all o£ his successors, governors of
New York, of whatsoever party.
Six years of private life ensued, during which he attained
great eminence as a lawyer, among his celebrated cases being
the Cooper Ubel suit against the JVew York Tribune.
He deemed the nomination of Mr. Clay an unwise one, as
displeasing to the rapidly growing anti-slavery sentiment in
the North; but, nevertheless, he worked hard to save him
from defeat in the campaign of 1844, but in vain. He
Ukewise took an active part in the campaign of 1848, making
many speeches in New England and the Middle States, in
favor of General Taylor. By a vote of one hundred and
twenty-one to thirty, the New York Legislature in February,
1849, elected Governor Seward United States Senator, and
on the 4th of March, he entered upon his brUUant career
as a legislator and statesman, which was to cover the most
exciting twenty years of our national history ; as a legislator
during the period of the supremacy of the slave power, as
a statesman during the period of its downfaU.
Mr. Seward was a member of the Senate for two terms,
or twelve years. During all but the last three months of
that period the slavery question was the one absorbing topic
of pubhc interest. Three months before he left the Senate
for the cabinet, the misled people of South Carolma took
up arms against the Government, and the question, " ShaU
we have slavery?" gave way to the still more momentous
one, "ShaU we have a country?" The part taken by
Senator Seward in debate, in the course of the great con
troversy, was one of marked prominence. He made a firm
and noble stand against aU compromise with wrong, and no

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
man exerted a greater influence in moulding Northern senti
ment, and awakening the people to a sense of their danger.
In a speech in the Senate, March 11, 1850, he made his
famous aUusion to a " Higher Law," which furnished the
advocates of freedom with one of their most memorable
watchwords. In 1854, the Know-Nothings, or Americans, in the New
York Legislature combined with the Democrats to prevent
Mr. Seward's reelection, and their non-success was an occa
sion of rejoicing to the friends of free soil and free speech
all over the country. In February, 1856, the opponents of
the extension of slavery into the Territories met at Pittsburg,
and effected the national organization of the RepubUcan
party, with which party Mr. Seward became immediately
identified and acted during the remainder of his life. He
was proposed as its first presidential candidate ; but he with
drew his name before the balloting began at the Philadelphia
Convention, in June, 1856, at which Mr. Fremont was
nominated. After the defeat of the Republicans in Novem
ber, 1856, Mr. Seward rapidly gained in popularity, untU it
appeared to be a foregone conclusion that he would receive
the nomination in 1860. His departure for Europe, May 7,
1859, and his arrival home eight months later, after an ex
tended tour in Europe and the East, were made occasions
of grand public demonstrations in his honor. During his
absence had occurred the abortive attempt of John Brown,
and his execution. Sadly to their disappointment, the Con
gressional Investigating Committee were forced to clear Mr.
Seward of aU compUcity with that unfortunate affair.
The second National Republican Convention was held at
Chicago, on Mr. Seward's fifty-ninth birthday, May 16,
1860. Three baUots were taken for a candidate for Presi
dent. On the first two, Mr. Seward led, on the third Mr.
Lincoln was nominated. The former cheerfully acquiesced in
the decision of the convention, and soon entered into the

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
campaign with ardor. After visiting the Eastern States, he
made a vigorous canvass through the Northwest, making
elaborate speeches in which he predicted the speedy triumph
of Republican principles, and proceeded a;s far South as St.
Louis, where he was respectfully listened to by an imniense
audience composed for the most part of his violent political
adversaries. As soon as Mr. Lincoln's election was assured,
he offered Mr. Seward the position of Secretary of State,
which was accepted.
Mr. Seward assumed charge of the State Department,
March 5, 1861, and he managed its affairs with consummate
skill for eight years, in the midst of difficulties such as have
never been experienced by any other incumbent of the office,
before or since. In December, 1862, when the responsibUity
for the defeat of the National troops at Fredericksburg was
charged upon the Administration, an impertinent Senatorial
caucus demanded that the President should reorganize the
Cabinet, Thereupon Mr. Seward tendered his resignation
which was promptly rejected by Mr. Lincoln. On the even
ing of the 14th of April, 1865, at the moment that the
assassin Booth fired his fatal shot, another wretch entered
the residence of Secretary Seward, and attempted to kiU
him whUe he was lying helpless from accidental injuries
received a few days previously. The Secretary's son, and
First Assistant, Frederick W. Seward, was Ukewise attacked,
and more seriously injured than his father. The man Payne,
who committed these assaults, having faUed to accompUsh
his ultimate purpose, made his escape, but was soon appre
hended and fully identified, and suffered death with the
other conspirators.
Mr. Seward negotiated forty-four treaties with foreign
nations, all of them important, but among which we wiU
notice only three ; that with Great Britain, in 1862, providing
for the suppression of the slave trade, that with Russia, in
1867, by which the United States acquired the immense

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
territory of Alaska, and that with Denmark, in 1868, for the
purchase of the Island of St. Thomas. The latter treaty,
although accepted almost unanimously by the people of St,
Thomas, was rejected by the Senate of the United States,
He displayed profound statesmanship in so dealing with the
governments of Europe, as to prevent them from aiding
the Southern insurgents, and, at the same time, to maintain
imimpaired the national honor and dignity. In accordance
with the principles of the Monroe Doctrine, he insisted upon
the withdrawal of the French troops who were supporting
the Imperial government of MaximUian in Mexico, and he
demanded reparation from England for the damages caused
to American shipping by the rebel cruiser, Alabama, which
had been fitted out by her subjects. The French troops
evacuated Mexico, in March, 1867 ; but the negotiations with
England were stUl unfinished when Mr, Seward went out
of office. He supported President Johnson's reconstruction
policy, and was strongly opposed to his impeachment.
In March, 1869, Mr, Seward became once more a private
citizen, and the remainder of his life was spent in travel
and in literary work. Soon after leaving Washington, he
made a journey to Utah and California, and visited Alaska,
to see for himself the valuable territory which was acquired
for his country through his sagacity, at the rate of two
cents an acre. Later in the year he went to Mexico, where
he resided for three months at the expense of the grateful
people of that country, whom he had befriended in the time
of their trouble. In the faU of 1870, he set out on a voy
age around the world, which has been charmingly described
by his adopted daughter. His seventieth birthday was
celebrated while he was in Egypt. After his return to his
home at Auburn, in October, 1871, he occupied his time in
preparing his autobiography which was left unfinished by
the death of its distinguished author, which occurred October
10, 1872.

DAVID G. FARRAGUT.

From life.

DAVID G. FARRAGUT.

AVID GLASGOW FARRAGUT was born at
CampbeU's Station, not far from KnoxvUle,
in Tennessee, July 5, 1801, The earUest
years of the future admiral were spent in a
frontier settlement, exposed to the attacks of
Indians ; but the Farragut famUy subsequently
removed to New Orleans, the father, who was
a native of the Island of Minorca, having
entered the naval service of his adopted
country. When David was eight years of age
his mother fell a victim to the yellow fever,
and he was adopted by Commodore Porter of
the United States Navy, who most faithfully
performed the duties of a guardian for his
young ward. Farragut was taken to Washington and placed
at school, at first in that city, and afterward at Chester,
Penn. In December, 1810, not being yet ten years of age, he was
appointed midshipman, and after receiving some preliminary
instruction at Newport, R. I,, he was ordered to sea with
his guardian who had been assigned to the command of
the famous thirty-two gun ship, Essex, which saUed from
the Delaware, October 28, 1812, on a cruise which lasted
some two years, and which was rendered memorable by the
most exciting and romantic incidents.
Failing to fall in with Commodore Bainbridge's squadron,
the Essex, after capturing one valuable prize, rounded the

DAVID G. FARRAGUT.
Horn, February 14, 1813, and entered the Pacific. After
meeting with a cordial welcome from the authorities at
Valparaiso, Porter again put to sea, and during the ensuing
summer effected the capture of twelve British whalers and
merchantmen, freighted with cargoes of great value, one of
which prizes was placed in command of Midshipman Farragut.
With a fleet of captured vessels the Essex made her way
to the Marquesas Islands, where during their two months'
stay, officers and crews mingled freely with the natives,
aided one of the tribes in a- war against their neighbors,
and left many of the dusky belles heartbroken at their de
parture in December. On March 28, 1814, the Essex was
attacked off Valparaiso by a superior British armament and
forced to strike her colors. This was Farragut's first battle,
and he was not again to witness bloodshed for forty-eight
years. After the young prisoner's return to the United
States he spent another year at school at Chester. He
received honorable mention in Porter's report, but was too
young for promotion.
During the next five years Farragut made three voyages
to the Mediterranean and pursued his studies for some time
at Tunis, where he also learned the Arabic language. In
1823, he was ordered to the West Indies in command of
the Ferret to protect the American shipping in those waters
against the ravages of Cuban pirates, and upon his return
he married his first wife, a lady of Norfolk, Va., which place
was for many years, subsequently, his residence, when not
engaged in active duty. He was an efficient and highly
accomplished officer; but during these uneventful years of
peace, no opportunity offered in which to display his
extraordinary abUities which in more stirring times would
have entitled him to rapid promotion.
He was commissioned lieutenant January 23, 1825, and
was one of the officers of the frigate Brandywine, which
bore Lafayette back to France after his famous visit to

DAVID G. FARRAGUT.
the United States. After a winter at Gibraltar, and in
other European ports, he returned home in May, 1826. For
the next fifteen years his domestic life was saddened by the
continued iUness of his wife, the object of his constant
solicitude as a devoted husband, and his unwearying attention
as a faithful nurse. Fortunately, his official duties permitted
him to remain at home for the greater part of the time ; his
sea service being confined to two South American cruises,
and one in the Gulf of Mexico, In 1829, being on the
BrazUian station in the Vandalia, Lieutenant Farragut was
presented at Court, and witnessed the celebration in honor
of the Emperor's second nuptials. While again on the same
station, in 1834, in command of the Boxer, he was present
at the coronation of the youthful Pedro II,, who, after a
long and useful reign, was dethroned in 1889, and died in
exUe in December, 1891. In November, 1838, whUe com
manding the Erie, he observed the bombardment of San
Juan de UUoa in Mexico, by the French,
In the long intervals of inaction, Farragut was employed
sometimes in teaching the boys on the receiving ship at
Norfolk, sometimes at carpenter-work at which he became
quite an adept. He was first lieutenant of the Natchez
when she was sent, in January, 1833, to overawe the
Charleston NuUifiers, The officers and crew were on good
terms with the inhabitants, and rendered valuable assistance
in preserving property during a disastrous conflagration.
In December, 1840, Mrs, Farragut died.
On the 9th of September, 1841, Lieutenant Farragut
was promoted to the grade of commander, and, in the follow
ing November, again sailed for South American waters.
In June, 1842, he was assigned to the Decatur, and this
was his first independent command with fuU rank. The
cruise ended early in 1843, and then foUowed another four
years spent in receiving-ships, on court-martials, and in
general navy-yard duty. In December, 1843, Farragut re-

DAVID G. FARRAGUT.
married. Upon the breaking out of the Mexican War, he
applied for a ship, and, in 1847, was sent to Vera Cruz in
command of the Saratoga; but owing to some real or
fancied slight received from the commodore, Matthew C.
Perry, his relations with that famous commander became
unpleasant, and he obtained leave to return with his ship,
and was made second in command at the Gosport Navy Yard.
He was now engaged for some years in the study of gunnery,
and assisted in compUing the Code of Ordnance regulations.
In 1854, he desired to be detached for the purpose of
observing the course of the Crimean War ; this request was
not granted ; but he was ordered to California, to take charge
of the new Navy-yard at Mare Island, and on September
14, 1855, he received his captain's commission. After four
years spent on the Pacific coast, he again returned to the
East, and his last service previous to the CivU War was in
the Gulf of Mexico, of whose treacherous coasts he gained
an intimate knowledge destined to be of great value to him
and to his country. In 1859, he was in New Orleans, where
he attended the funeral of a brother, little knowing that
within two years he would have the Crescent City at the
mercy of the guns of his fleet.
When the War of the RebeUion opened, and Virginia
was forced to secede by her poUtical masters, David G,
Farragut determined without hesitation, to "stick to the
flag," under which he had served without reproach for haU
a century. Thereupon he was given to understand that
his presence woiUd no longer be tolerated in Norfolk, and,
turning his back on treason, he found a new home near New
York City. He had been for some time a member of the
Naval Retiring Board, and several months elapsed before he
was assigned to more active duty ; but in December, 1861,
he was summoned to Washington, and received that which
for more than fifty years had been the goal of his ambition,
the command of a fleet. He became commodore of the

DAVID G. FARRAGUT.
Western Gulf Squadron, with orders to cooperate with
General Butler in the capture of New Orleans, and the
opening of the Mississippi. About the middle of AprU,
1862, his fleet, the largest which had ever been assembled
under the American Flag, entered the river. Twenty-five
miles from the mouth, were Forts Jackson and St. PhUip,
which the rebels confidently relied upon to protect New
Orleans from an attack by water. After six days' bombard
ment, Farragut resolved to pass these formidable works,
which daring feat he accompUshed on the 24th in the face
of a galling fire in his flag-ship, the renowned Hartford,
accompanied by thirteen other steamers and gunboats.
Commodore Porter, the lately deceased Admiral of the Navy,
who was the son of Farragut's adoptive father, being left
behind with a flotUla of mortar-boats, to complete the re
duction of the forts. The civU authorities of New Orleans
suUenly submitted to Commodore Farragut on the 26th,
the rebel troops having "skedaddled" after destroying more
than eight mUlion dollars' worth of property. On the first
of May, the city was turned over to the tender mercies of
General Butler.
In June, 1862, Farragut ascended the river with his gun
boats, and attempted to demoUsh the batteries at Vicksburg ;
but they proved too strong, and it was reserved for General
Grant to accompUsh this undertaking a year later. On the
16th of July, Farragut's name was placed first in rank
upon the roll of the Navy, and he was commissioned Rear-
Admiral. For the next year he was chiefly engaged upon the
Mississippi, in obedience to his orders to "clear the river
through." March 14, 1863, his fleet attacked Port Hudson,
and the Hartford and one other ship succeeded in running
the gauntlet of batteries, four mUes in extent. Upon this
occasion and subsequently, he was accompanied by his son,
who acted as a signal-officer. After the faU of Vicksburg
and Port Hudson had re-opened the great river to navigation

DAVID G. FARRAGUT.
throughout its whole course. Admiral Farragut made a short
visit to the North, where he was received with the acclaims
of the people as a conqueror.
In January, 1864, he again proceeded to his command in
the Gulf. The only ports now open to blockade runners
were Wilmington in North Carolina, and Mobile in Alabama.
The closing of the latter port had been a favorite scheme
with Farragut, ever since his victory at New Orleans; but
it had not hitherto met with favor from the authorities
at Washington. Having at length received the requisite
orders, he proceeded to MobUe Bay, with eighteen vessels,
four of them iron-clad, harbingers of a new era in naval
warfare. Two forts guarded the entrance. On the 5th of
August, Farragut's fleet passed between them, amidst a
storm of death-dealing shot, and attacked the rebel gun
boats. AU the world knows how the old veteran gave his
orders during the thickest of the fight, lashed to the shrouds
of the Hartford. The artist's pencU and the poet's pen have
made the gaUant action immortal. The enemy's fleet was
quickly defeated, and their admiral wounded and taken
prisoner. One of the forts surrendered three days later;
but the other. Fort Morgan, did not succumb to the com
bined attack of the fleet and the land forces untU the 23d,
Not long after this signal victory, faUing health compeUed
the Admiral's retirement. In December he was welcomed
in New York with a pubhc ovation, and was presented by
the citizens with a purse of fifty thousand doUars. Congress
created the grade of Vice-Admiral, and the President con
ferred it upon the hero of the Bay Fight.
Admiral Farragut was holding a temporary command on
the James River, when the rebeUion coUapsed. Two days
after the faU of Richmond he visited that city, and shortly
afterward paid his respects to his old neighbors at Norfolk.
In July, 1866, having previously received from Congress a
special vote of thanks for his victory at MobUe, he was

DAVID G. FARRAGUT.
raised to the grade of Admiral, and in the foUowing year
assumed command of the European Squadron, Forty years
and more had elapsed since his last visit to these waters;
then he was an obscure lieutenant, now he was the fore
most naval commander of the age, and was everywhere
accorded the most distinguished honors. One very pleasant
incident in his almost royal progress was his visit to the
home of his ancestors in the Island of Minorca, where
he was enthusiasticaUy welcomed by the entire population.
The rule of the Ottoman government excluding war-ships
from the DardaneUes, was relaxed in his favor, a courtesy
never before shown to a person who was not of royal birth.
Admiral Farragut returned to America in November, 1868,
and during the ensuing summer visited the Pacific coast. He
died on the 14th of August, 1870, at the residence of the
Commandant of the Navy Yard at Portsmouth, N, H.,
having reached the age of sixty-nine years, of which sixty
had been spent in the service of his country.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

From life.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

T has been very pertinently remarked by an
English writer, that "Emerson has dealt
severely with his biographers" by living a
life singularly devoid of incident. Volumes
have been written, and wUl probably continue
to be written about his works and his influence ;
there is no end to the speculations and
criticisms concerning his teachings ; but his
wonderful reputation rests whoUy upon what
he wrote and what he said; what he did was
commonplace in the last degree. This preemi
nent American PhUosopher, Sage, Oracle,
Dreamer — call him what you will — was born
in Boston on the 25th of May, 1803. His father was a
Unitarian divine of some prominence, but of small means,
who died in 1811, leaving a widow who was forced to open
a boarding-house in order to obtain means to support her
five boys. Ralph, who was the second of these boys, had
been put at his books at a very tender age, but had made
slow progress at first, as his father complained that he had
not learned to read very correctly at the age of three. At
ten he entered the Boston Latin School, and he had at that
time already developed a talent for making verses. Four
years later he became a student at Harvard, defraying his
expenses by performing various services for the president
and the more favored scholars, and he graduated in 1821.
Upon leaving college, he engaged as assistant in a school

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
which had been estabUshed by his elder brother, and
assumed sole charge of the institution when his brother
went to Germany to complete his studies. He was quite
successful as a teacher, and by 1825, he had acquired suffi
cient means to enable him to enter the Cambridge Divinity
School, there to prepare himself for the ministerial profes
sion, which had been embraced by several generations of
his Emerson ancestors. His studies were interrupted by sick
ness and other causes, and before they were completed he was
"approbated to preach," receiving his license October 10,
1826, and preaching his first sermon at Waltham, five days
later. The foUowing winter and spring were spent in the
mUder climate of Florida, after which he returned to
Cambridge. Early in 1829, he was ordained assistant minister
of the Second Church in Boston, and soon became sole pastor
through the resignation of his colleague. In the faU of
this year he was married to Ellen Tucker, a lady of great
beauty, but extremely delicate, and in February, 1831, he
was left a widower. About a year after this bereavement,
he found that he could no longer conscientiously give his
approval to the few lingering traditions of orthodoxy to
which his congregation still clung, and dissolved his pastoral
relation, which he never again resumed, although he con
tinued for some years to preach occasionally. Henceforth
it was as an essayist and lecturer that he continued his
teachings, which, although ever inculcating the purest
morality, were in other respects widely divergent from those
of the great majority of the Christian Church,
On Christmas Day, in the year 1832, Mr, Emerson took
passage in a sailing vessel, for the south of Europe, After
passing the spring months in sunny lands, he turned his
steps toward Britain, where he sought the acquaintance of
kindred spirits, chief among these being Carlyle, with whom
he formed a lasting friendship. He returned to America
in October, 1833, and now began his long career as a public

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
lecturer. His writings, though appreciated by few at first,
came in time to be read by a wide circle of admirers, and
in the lyceum he never lacked a cultured audience, whether
his profundities were wholly intelligible to his hearers or
not. For two years he lived with his mother, at first at
Newton, and afterward at Concord, in the famous " Old
Manse," built by his grandfather. After his second mar
riage in 1835, he purchased a house in the same viUage,
Concord ever remained his home, and one never hears the
name of the poet or the town without instantly associating
the one with the other,
Emerson's first publication of note, his "Essay on
Nature," appeared in September, 1836, and almost simul
taneously he assumed the leadership of a small coterie of
like-minded thinkers, who elaborated the philosophical sys
tem known as Transcendentalism, difficult to define, but
which may perhaps be characterized as an exaltation of
reason at the expense of revelation and authority. His
views as defined in his Address to the graduating Divinity
class at Cambridge, July 15, 1838, met with unqualified
condemnation from the more orthodox portion of the com
munity, and many of the Unitarian pulpits were closed
against him. The Dial, a periodical which was the organ
of the Transcendentalists, was established in 1840 under the
editorship of Margaret Fuller, better known as the Ul-fated
Marchioness Ossoli, who was succeeded two years later by
Emerson himself, by whom it was conducted untU its demise
in April, 1844. His second series of Essays was published
in the latter year, the first having appeared in 1841 ; they
were foUowed in 1847 by a volume of Poems. These works
being reprinted in England, gave the phUosopher-poet a
transatlantic reputation.
Mr. Emerson's home life at Concord was one of ideal
beauty, though saddened by the death of his first-born son,
a boy of five, in 1842. He took a lively interest in town

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
affairs, and was esteemed as the best of neighbors. Simple
in his tastes, he was a generous host, and his house became
in time the Mecca of men of letters and culture, as weU as
of reformers of all shades, to whose theories Emerson
listened courteously, without himself becoming a fanatic on
any question. His chief support for many years was derived
from his lectures, which necessitated at times long journeys
and extensive tours, but he always rejoiced to be back in
the quiet home at Concord,
Having received invitations to lecture in England, Mr.
Emerson visited the mother country a second time, in the
autumn of 1847. He was kindly received, and addressed
nany attentive audiences, both in London and in the prov
inces. He returned from England in July, 1848, fuU of
pleasant recollections of his trip, which formed the theme
of several lectures, and of a book, "English Traits," pub
lished in 1856. A collection of miscellanies (1849), the
essay on " Representative Men" (1850), and that on the
" Conduct of Life" (1860), complete the list of his promi
nent works down to the time of the war. Emerson's position
on slavery was a conservative one, as long as conservatism
remained a virtue. Even as late as 1850, after the passage
of the Fugitive Slave Law, he said to the people of the
South, " We will never intermeddle with your slavery, but
you can in no wise be suffered to bring it to Cape Cod
or Berkshire." Subsequent events caused him to turn his
sympathy strongly toward abolitionism ; John Brown was
received at his home, and he contributed of his means to
aid in suppressing the Kansas horrors. The period of the
civil war brought financial reverses to Mr, Emerson, which
were, however, retrieved by the careful management of his
son-in-law ; but his voice and his pen were ever ready with
words of encouragement and cheer for the defenders of
his country.
About the year 1870, Mr, Emerson's powers began to show

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
signs of faUure. He perceived it himself before any one
else, and had hinted at it in his poem, " Terminus," in 1866,
" May Day " was published in 1867, his essay on " Society
and SoUtude " in 1870, Harvard College conferred upon him
the degree of Doctor of Laws, in 1866, and during the two
foUowing years he was a member of the Board of Overseers
of the University. For many years he had allowed himself
little, if any respite from his physical and mental toil, and
it was with a view to restoring, if possible, his waning ener
gies, that he was induced, in 1871, to make a pleasure trip
to California, This journey was keenly enjoyed by Mr.
Emerson, who was an ardent lover of nature, and proved
quite beneficial; but the partial destruction of his house
by fire, July 24, 1872, and the consequent fever induced
by his exposure on that occasion, caused a return of his
infirmity, which during the remainder of his life manifested
itself in a gradual faUure of his memory. He did not, how
ever, entirely cease his hterary activity for several years yet,
though obliged to depend to a considerable extent upon the
assistance of others. After the fire his friends generously
contributed over sixteen thousand doUars for the rebuilding
and refurnishing of his home, and another thousand was
added to enable him to give relief to his shaken nerves by
another voyage to the Old World. Accompanied by a
daughter, he saUed in October, 1872, and proceeded as far
as PhUae on the Nile. With health improved and spirits
renewed, he spent the foUowing spring among his EngUsh
admirers, and returned once more to his beloved Concord, in
May, 1873, being received by his feUow-townspeople with
heartfelt expressions of joy and welcome.
In 1875 he received the comphment of five hundred
votes for the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University, and
was beaten by Disraeli by only two hundred votes. About
the same time he was elected an associate of the French
Academy. More and more rapidly his memory became

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
obscured, and he was frequently at fault for a word to
express his ideas, yet he attended the semi-centennial of the
Unitarian Church at Concord, N, H,, in 1879 — it was wi|ihin
one day of the fiftieth anniversary of his own first wedding,
which had taken place in that church — and as late as 1881,
he addressed the Concord School of PhUosophy, with some
aid from one of his famUy. The preparation of his last
book, " Letters and Social Aims," was superintended by his
friend and Uterary executor, James EUiot Cabot. It was
made up for the most part from former lectures, for it
was peculiarly characteristic of Emerson that his writings
abounded in fine passages and striking aphorisms, which,
like gems, were equaUy beautiful when taken from their
old settings and placed in new ones. New England's most
distinguished man of letters died on the twenty-seventh day of
AprU, 1882, only a month after Longf eUow, her greatest poet.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
From a sketch in the possession of the publishers.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

ATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (or Hathorne, the
w being a fancy of the novelist's own) was
born at Salem, Mass,, July 4, 1804, His
father, a sea captain, having died abroad when
the son was only four years of age, the boy's
education was cared for by a maternal uncle.
He manifested a taste for reading while quite
young, and began to invent stories of his own.
He seems to have been a cheerful boy, joining
heartUy in the sports of his companions, except when an
unfortunate accident, rendering him for a time a cripple,
confined him to the house. Not until his fourteenth year,
during the temporary residence of the family in a new
settlement on the shores of Sebago Lake, in the State of
Maine, did he begin to acquire his " cursed habits of soli
tude," After about a year he was sent back to Salem to
continue his studies under a tutor, but he was left largely
to his own resources during his leisure hours, and so de
veloped the solitary and unsocial disposition which clung to
him through life. He amused himself for a while with a
little weekly journal which never got beyond the manuscript
stage. At seventeen he entered Bowdoin CoUege, at Bruns-
Avick, Me,, from which he graduated in 1825, in the same
class with the poet LongfeUow, Not much can be said with
regard to his college life, except that his English compo
sitions were admirable. He calls himself an " idle student,"
and was upon one occasion fined half a dollar by the faculty
for playing cards.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
After leaving college he returned to Salem, and for the
next ten or twelve years lived a very retired life in his
mother's house. Occasionally he made excursions to the
White Mountains, to Niagara, and elsewhere, and being a
fine and sharp observer of men and things, he found material
for many a tale in these journeys. He appears never to have
had any definite aim in life, beyond putting his thoughts
upon paper. Any other kind of work was irksome. And
so he dreamed and lived along into middle life, without trade
or profession, but possessing a rare imaginative faculty,
writing much, publishing some of his work, with little or
no profit, but destroying much more in fits of despondency.
His first publication, " Fanshawe," he disowned in his later
years. But though meeting with little success, he wrote on
with a dogged perseverance. For a short time in 1836, he
filled the uncongenial position of editor of a Boston mag
azine, from which fiction was carefuUy excluded. FinaUy,
in 1837, he collected his best work into one volume, under
the title of " Twice Told Tales." So little was he known,
and so little were his writings valued by the pubhc, that he
could not find a publisher willing to take the risk of bring
ing the book out, and it was only accomphshed at last by
the kindly aid of sympathizing friends; but he was fortu
nate in securing the favorable notice of his friend LongfeUow
for his venture, and after this his writings gradually worked
their way into popular favor.
His Uterary labors yet afforded him but a scanty income,
when George Bancroft, the historian, then collector of the
port of Boston, appointed Hawthorne as weigher and ganger
in the Boston Custom House, The duties of this office,
though far from being agreeable, were performed faithfuUy
from the early part of January, 1839, untU General Harrison
became president in 1841, and then Hawthorne gladly
yielded his place to the needy Whig who had to be provided
for. The pecuniary benefits of the position were very

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
welcome to the author, and he found sufficient leisure time
to complete another series of tales, which were pubUshed
under the title of " Grandfather's Chair." Soon after leaving
the employ of the Government, he joined that company of
transcendental socialists who had established, near Boston,
the once famous, but long since forgotten " Brook Farm,"
The cultured members of this community pleased themselves
with the idea that a little work would provide for their
physical needs, and then they could devote the greater part
of their time to study or contemplation. But they soon
made the sad discovery that even to gain a bare Uving called
for a greater amount of labor than was agreeable to persons
of such refinement. Hawthorne, himself, having arrived at
the conclusion that labor is brutalizing, abandoned the ex
periment after about a year's trial, in the course of which
he had sunk the thousand doUars which he had laid aside
whUe in the Custom House.
In July, 1842, Hawthorne married Miss Sophia Peabody
of Salem, and for the next four years made his home at
Concord, Mass,, where he had rented the old Emerson par
sonage to which he gave the now weU-known name of the
" Old Manse," This was one of the most pleasant periods of
his Ufe, His romances, abounding in scenes and incidents
drawn from the history and life of New England, steadily
gained in popularity, but did not yet sufficiently provide for
the support of his family, and he was glad to accept another
Government appomtment when his party returned to power,
for Hawthorne, while despising politics, called himself a
Democrat, In March, 1846, through the influence of Mr.
Bancroft, now in the Cabinet, he was made surveyor of the
port of Salem by President Polk. The story of his life in
the Salem Custom House, and of his queer, old-fashioned
associates, is most delightfully told in the introduction to
his " Scarlet Letter " — the most original and most successful
of his novels, which he published in 1850, shortly after he

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

was released from the drudgery of the surveyorship by
being again rotated out of office by a change in the adminis-

tration

The profits from the sale of the " Scarlet Letter," and a
generous donation from some of his friends (which he con
sidered as a loan and afterwards repaid) compensated him
for the loss of his official income. In July, 1850, he settled
with his famUy at Lenox, Mass., and there continued his
story writing, his literary reputation being now thoroughly
established. Early in 1851 he published " The House of
the Seven Gables." In the following November, he left
Lenox, and took up a temporary abode at West Newton,
writing while there the " BUthedale Romance," founded
upon his Brook Farm experiences. The summer of 1852,
saw the Hawthorne family (now including the three chUdren)
back in Concord, in a home of their own, purchased from
Bronson Alcott, to which they gave the name of "The
Wayside." One of Hawthorne's college associates, and his hfe-long
friend, was Franklin Pierce. When the ahnost unknown
New Hampshire statesman received the Democratic presi
dential nomination in 1852, he requested Hawthorne to
prepare a sketch of his life, for use as a campaign document.
Hawthorne, who well knew that Pierce, if successful, would
find an office for him, complied with the request. Whatever
may be thought of the merits of the production, it is cer
tainly a loyal tribute to a friend. Pierce was elected, and
Hawthorne's reward was the most dignified consulate in the
gift of the Government — that at Liverpool. He saUed for
Europe with his famUy in June, 1853, and entered upon his
Consular duties in August. The next four years were passed
in the duU routine of official business, and constitute a blank
in his literary life ; but the emoluments of his office placed
him above any fear of want for the rest of his life. He re
signed his office in June, 1857, and spent the remainder of

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
that year travelling in England. He then proceeded to the
Continent, where he resided for a year or more, chiefly at
Rome and Florence, and resumed his pen after it had been
idle for five or six years, to commence the last of his three
greatest novels, " The Marble Faun," It was pubUshed in
March, 1860, after he had again returned to England,
The Hawthornes came back to their home at Concord in
July, 1860, after an absence of seven years. The author
was eager to make up for lost time, but from various causes
he was hindered in his work. The state of his health, affected
unfavorably by his European residence, the tumults of civil
war, the criticisms excited by the lack, real or imaginary,
of patriotic tone in his sentiments as expressed in his later
writings, and the unfavorable reception in England, of his
last completed work, "Our Old Home," combined to make
him grow more and more melancholy. Early in 1864, he
attempted a Southern trip, but the shock caused by the
sudden death of his travelling companion, W. D, Ticknor,
in Philadelphia, hastened his own end. In May, his faithful
friend, ex-president Pierce, although just bereaved of his
own wife, planned an excursion for Hawthorne to the White
Mountains, and, taking him under his care, started with him
on the journey. On the eighteenth they stopped for the
night at Plymouth, N, H, ; on the following morning Pierce
found that his friend had ceased to breathe. Nathaniel
Hawthorne was dead.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.
G. P. A. Healy. Corcoran Gallery.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

I RANKLIN PIERCE, the son of a revolutionary
veteran and Democratic politician of note, was
born at Hillsborough, N, H,, November 23,
1804. We search in vain among the meagre
records of his youth for any indication of more
than an ordinary genius. He attended the
academies of Hancock and Francestown with
no premonitions that capricious Fortune would
one day confer upon him her most splendid
gift, for whose possession scores of men of
more brilliant talents were to spend their
strength in vain. He entered Bowdoin College in 1820, one
year in advance of his renowned friend, and only biographer,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, For two years his standing remained
very low, but by making extra exertions during the remain
ing two years, he was enabled to graduate, in 1824, among
the first in his class. His law studies were prosecuted at
Portsmouth, N. H., and at Northampton and Amherst in
Massachusetts. He was admitted to the bar in 1827, and
began his professional life in his native town. In the same
year his father was chosen governor of New Hampshire,
which of course smoothed the path of the young lawyer
toward poUtical preferment. The year 1828 witnessed a
change in the direction of the weather-vane of poUtics in
the Granite State, but it veered around all right again in
1829; Benjamin Pierce was once more chosen Governor,
and his son, FrankUn, was sent to represent HUlsborough

FRANKLIN PIERCE.
in the legislature, where he served for four years, the two
latter in the Speaker's chair. His courteous manners and
marked self-possession enabled him to discharge the duties
of a presiding officer to the general satisfaction of all.
Franklin Pierce was sent to Congress in 1833, and re
mained an inconspicuous member of the lower house during
the next four years, after which he was elected to the
National Senate. Possessing some merit as a debater, his
course, both in the House and in the Senate, was marked
by unswerving devotion to his party, and bhnd obedience to
the behests of the pro-slavery leaders, and that teUs the
whole story. In 1834 he was married to a daughter of
ex-President Appleton of Bowdoin, and after 1838, he made
his home in Concord. In that city, upon his retirement from
the Senate by voluntary resignation, in 1842, he resumed
the practice of his profession, meeting with exceUent local
success, but acquiring no national reputation.
MeanwhUe he declined aU civU preferment, even the
governorship of his State; but, in 1847, in response to
President Polk's caU for soldiers to serve in the war against
Mexico, he promptly enlisted as a private. Hardly had he
been mustered in, when he was appointed to the colonelcy
of one of the ten new regular regiments, and close upon
this honor followed his further advancement, in March, to
the rank of Brigadier-General. He arrived at Vera Cruz,
June 27, 1847. General Scott had proceeded as far as Puebla
on his triumphant march toward the Mexican capital, and
was resting there during the unsuccessful negotiations for
peace. Three weeks elapsed before the brigade under
General Pierce could be got in motion toward Puebla. He
was constantly harassed on the march by Mexican guerUlas,
who picked off every unfortunate soldier who chanced to
stray from the American ranks, but he met with Uttle or
no organized resistance. He effected a junction with the
main body of the army on August 6, and on the foUowing

FRANKLIN PIERCE.
day, General Scott began his advance upon Mexico, During
the action at Contreras on the 19th, Pierce's brigade was
ordered to make a feint upon the enemy's centre, whUe
another detachment attacked them in the flank. Owing to
delay on the part of the flanking party, the fighting in the
centre became quite spirited. The ground was rough, and
covered with bowlders and sharp stones. Pierce's horse
stumbled and threw him, so that he fell, nearly insensible,
and sustained a severe injury to one of his knees. Notwith
standing the pain, he persisted in remaining with his column.
During the action at Cherubusco on the following day, he
fainted from pain and exhaustion, but refused to be carried
from the field.
Santa Anna having begged for another armistice. General
Pierce was appointed one of the commissioners to arrange
for it, at Tacubaya, August 21st, After waiting two weeks.
General Scott perceived that the Mexicans were violating the
truce, and ordered an advance. Pierce was with his brigade
at Molino del Rey, but during the action at Chapultepec he
was unable to leave his bed. He entered the captured
capital with the victorious army, and remained there untU
December, when he returned home, to be enthusiasticaUy
received as a hero, by his feUow-townsmen, As soon as
peace was declared, he resigned his commission, and retired
to private hfe. He displayed during the nine months of
his service, more than ordinary ability as a commander, and
was highly esteemed by both officers and men,
Mr. Pierce's attitude on the question of slavery was per
fectly satisfactory to the South, The compromise measures
of 1850 received his hearty support, and he dutifully
opposed the Free-Soil wing of his party. He was chosen,
almost without opposition, as president of the New Hamp
shire Convention for the revision of the State Constitution,
in the faU of 1850, and again proved himself an accom
pUshed presiding officer. In June, 1852, the Democratic

FRANKLIN PIERCE.
National Convention, finding it impossible to agree upon
any one of the leading aspirants for the presidency, nomi
nated General Pierce on the forty-ninth ballot. His Whig
opponent was his late commander-in-chief. General Scott,
who received only forty-two electoral votes, whUe General
Pierce received two hundred and fifty-four. It was the rare
good fortune of the unknown subordinate not only to obtain
a larger electoral vote than any previous candidate (it has
only once since been exceeded) and to defeat the world-re
nowned warrior, but also to so totaUy demoralize the Whig
party that it never again made a presidential nomination.
Two months after his election, he suffered a severe blow in
the death of his only son, who was kUled in a raUroad dis
aster near Lawrence, Mass, The president-elect received the
heartfelt sympathy of his feUow-citizens of every party.
FrankUn Pierce took the oath of office as President of the
United States, March 4, 1853, upon a platform of pine
boards which had been especially brought from New
Hampshire for the purpose.
In his inaugural address. President Pierce asserted that no
change should be made in the status of the slavery question
during his administration. Without doubt he was honest in
making the promise, but he faUed to keep it. The South
demanded further concessions. They demanded the erection
of the two territories of Kansas and Nebraska, giving the
inhabitants permission to decide whether they shoidd or
should not establish slavery when they should form State
governments. This permission, which nulUfied the Missouri
Compromise, forbidding slavery north of 36° 30', was incor
porated into the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854, which re
ceived the assent of the President, forgetful of his promises,
who by thus surrendering to the South, alienated even his
own State. The resentment felt by the majority at the
North, resulted in the formation and rapid growth of the
Republican party. During the subsequent conflict in Kansas,

FRANKLIN PIERCE.
the Missouri ruffians received Mr. Pierce's sympathy and
official recognition, while in a message to Congress, he char
acterized the peaceable settlers from the free States as rebels.
The " Crime against Kansas " was a dark blot upon his
administration, and, unchecked, it was left to descend, like
an evil legacy, to that of his successor. A tract of land
known at the time as the Gadsden purchase, and now in
cluded in Arizona and New Mexico, was bought from
Mexico in 1854.
The domestic policy of Mr. Pierce's administration was
vicious ; but in its foreign relations, its course was much more
commendable. In June, 1853, a Hungarian refugee named
Koszta, a naturalized citizen of the United States, having
been seized by the Austrians at Smyrna and confined on
board a man-of-war, the commander of an American frigate
made a demand for his surrender, and when he enforced his
demand by promptly clearing his decks for action, the
refugee was released. This action, being approved of by
the United States government, tended to increase the re
spect shown to the American flag abroad. On the 31st
of March, 1854, a treaty of commerce was signed with
Japan, negotiated by Commodore M. C. Perry, one of the
first steps toward the civUization of that progressive nation
of the East. During the course of the Crimean war, the
British minister at Washington, and several prominent
British Consuls, were found to be engaged in enlisting
Americans to serve in the EngUsh army, and after a long
and unsatisfactory correspondence with the British govern
ment, the offenders against the neutrality laws were given
their passports. The recognition of Walker, the filibuster,
as President of Nicaragua hardly pertains to the department
of foreign affairs, as it formed a part and parcel of the
great scheme for the extension of slavery, which Mr. Pierce
did everything in his power to aid.
At the Democratic National Convention of 1856, Mr.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.
Pierce was a candidate for renomination, and his Southern
friends stood by him for several baUots, when his name was
withdrawn, and Mr. Buchanan was nominated. After the
close of his administration in March, 1857, Mr. Pierce made
an extended foreign tour, not returning to America untU
1860. The remainder of his life was passed in strict retire
ment at Concord. He held entirely aloof from politics, and
had no sympathy whatever for President Luicoln as he
guided the great struggle against treason. As a private
citizen, Mr. Pierce was a universal favorite. Ever ready to
aid those who were in distress, his kindness and generosity
were proverbial. He died October 8, 1869.

HIRAM POWERS.
From an original owned by the publishers.

HIRAM POWERS.

HE pyrotechnist, after displaying a succession of
blazing rockets, bursting sheUs, and briUiant
wheels, occasionally varies his entertainment
by lighting a simple colored fire, which resting
humbly on the ground, burns quietly and is
hidden from the view of a majority of the
spectators. But at the same time it spreads
a bright halo all around, whose steady radiance
is very pleasing when contrasted with the
previous flashings and whirlings and explosions.
In a simUar manner the biographer, after presenting to his
readers a succession of soldiers and statesmen, whose Uves
were crowded with incidents of dramatic interest, is some
times called upon to consider the career of a man no less
preeminent in his sphere than they in theirs; but who
passed through life more quietly, and whose fame rests
rather upon the productions of his genius than upon any
briUiant performances. Such were some of the historians
and poets, and such was Hiram Powers, one of the earUest
and most distinguished of American sculptors.
He was born in Woodstock, Vt., on the 29th of July,
1805, and Uved there until he was fourteen years of age,
when his father, despairing of being able to provide for
his large family on a New England farm, removed with them
to what was then the far West, the State of Ohio, and settled
at Cincinnati. The father soon died, leaving the emigrant
family destitute. Thrown thus entirely upon his own re-

HIRAM POWERS.
sources, Hiram showed that he possessed those quaUties
which go to constitute the self-made man; wUHngness to
labor, determination to succeed, and promptness in embracing
any opportunity that might offer for bettering his condition.
With these characteristics he combined the rarer ones un
looked for m one of his birth and education, of an artistic
taste, and a mechanical and inventive genius. Ever on the
alert to turn an honest penny, he was at length put in charge
of a readmg room in a hotel, by an elder brother, who had
attained to the editorship of a local newspaper. The enter
prise did not prove to be a paying one, and it was soon
abandoned. Powers not long afterward induced a charitably
disposed organ buUder and clock-maker to employ him in the
capacity of a biU collector, and his success ia that line led to
his becoming a workman in the factory. His employer was
not long in finding out that he had in Hiram Powers a valu
able assistant. A short space of time sufficed to make him
thoroughly famUiar with his new occupation, and he was
then made superintendent of the mechanical branch of the
business. About the time that Powers was thus raised above his
former condition of poverty, a plaster cast of Houdon's
Washington which he chanced to see aroused within him
his latent ambition to become a sculptor. He instinctively
felt that he possessed the abUity to perform similar work,
and began to seek earnestly for an opportunity to learn.
From his early boyhood he had delighted in fashioning
mechanical toys, and had been much admired for his
ingenuity by his playmates. He was fortunate in making
the acquaintance of a Prussian who was engaged in model
ling a statue of General Jackson, and from him he learned
many of the important principles of his art. His natm'al
talent for sculpture developed rapidly, and before long he
had acquired considerable local fame for the correctness of
the Likenesses which he executed in wax or clay.

HIRAM POWERS.
He was about twenty-three years of age when he found
a more congenial occupation than any in which he had yet
been engaged. Recommended by his skill in modelling and
his familiarity with clock mechanism, he was employed by
a Frenchman, named Dorfeuille, the owner of a museum,
to construct a series of automatons from wax and other
materials, with the proper machinery for putting them in
motion. He was quite successful, and for seven years he
continued to delight the not over critical audiences which
patronized his exhibition. The most celebrated group of
figures which he made, was a representation of the inhabi
tants of the Infernal Regions, in which demons, skeletons
and ghosts writhed in most orthodox torments. The some
what Dantesque idea of this entertainment is said to have
been suggested by the famous English authoress, Mrs,
TroUope, who was then living in Cincinnati, and who took
much interest in the artist's work. Among the numerous
circle of acquaintances which Powers formed in Cincinnati,
was a gentleman named Nicholas Longworth, who proposed
to estabUsh him as proprietor of the museum. Powers de
clined this offer, but as he was now married, and constrained
by the cares of an increasing family to seek a wider field,
he accepted that gentleman's aid in 1835, and removed to
Washington, During his two years' residence in the national capital,
he was busUy engaged in making models for busts of many
of the prominent men of the time, John Quincy Adams,
Calhoun, Chief Justice Marshall, Martin Van Buren, and
many others were among the number of his patrons. He
went to Marshfield with Daniel Webster, to obtain sittings,
and passed a most enjoyable week at the statesman's home.
His bust of President Jackson was a work of remarkable
accuracy, so that the Prussian Minister, Baron Krudener,
whose authority in matters of art was highly considered,
censured the artist for his fidelity to nature, it being con-

HIRAM POWERS.

trary to his notions of propriety to reproduce the luies and
wrinkles in the features of so exalted a personage as the
Chief Magistrate of the Nation. In 1837, Powers left
America, to seek in Italy those faciUties for prosecuting his
art which are to be found nowhere else in the world. He
was enabled to do this mainly through the liberaUty of
General Preston of South CaroUna, who advanced him a
thousand dollars, and authorized him to draw upon him
annually for a simUar sum for several years. Powers was
always profoundly grateful to this generous friend, although
he amply repaid him in after years in the choicest products
of his studio, and deeply regretted his pation's disloyalty
during the RebeUion, A son, who was born to Powers in
Florence, received the name of Preston, and has himself
obtained an honorable reputation as a sculptor.
He was welcomed to Italy by Greenough, who was almost
exactly of his own age, but whose advantages had been
immeasurably greater than his own. The two artists became
warm friends, and mutually aided each other in designing
mechanical contrivances and improved modeUing materials,
by which the drudgery of their art was lessened to a con
siderable degree. Powers was extremely painstaking and
faithful ; he was no dreamer, but aimed at a truthful dehne-
ation of nature, and neglected no means for attaining the
desired end, though sometimes taken to task by carping
critics for devoting too much of his time to the invention
and construction of patent files, " perforating machines," and
other labor-saving devices. His portrait busts have rarely
been exceUed. He was soon abundantly supplied with
orders, but hardly had he become fairly settled, when the
death of his eldest son unfitted him for a time for work.
He received flattering notice from native artists, as well as
from Thorwaldsen, who especially praised his head of
Webster, In the second year of his residence in Italy he
produced his first ideal piece, a statue of Eve, "fit," said

HIRAM POWERS.
the Danish sculptor already referred to, "to be any man's
masterpiece." A year later he conceived the design of the Greek Slave,
which was not however completed untU 1843, It was the
most famous piece of statuary produced since the days of
Canova, It is probably better known to-day, through its
numerous reproductions, than any other work of modern
art. It was purchased by an English gentleman, and exhib
ited by him, gratuitously, in London, in 1845, receiving high
encomiums which established the artist's reputation beyond
cavU. He subsequently made five replicas of this work, one
of which is now in the Corcoran GaUery at Washington.
Among his other ideal pieces may be mentioned the Fisher
Boy, II Penseroso, Proserpine, California, and the Statue of
America which was exhibited at the World's Fair of 1851.
All of these displayed remarkable vigor of conception, and
beauty of finish ; and they are justly esteemed as choice
treasures of art; but they do not constitute the artist's
highest claim to the grateful remembrance of his feUow-
countrymen. That rests upon his numerous busts and
statues of the distinguished men of his country, whose form
and features he has preserved for future generations in
almost living marble and bronze, and to which he devoted
his maturest thought and labors. Prominent among them
are the Franklin and the Jefferson in marble in the national
Capitol, Washington, the property of the State of Louisiana,
and Calhoun of South Carolina, and the Webster in bronze
before the Massachusetts State House.
Powers never returned to America, but made Florence his
permanent residence. He was, however, none the less an
American at heart, and would gladly have quitted his exile,
had he not been constrained to remain abroad by the
exigencies of his profession and from motives of economy.
He Uved for many years in a hired house, but toward the
close of his life he buUt a charming vUla just outside the

HIRAM POWERS.
Porta Romana, and near by, several of his married chUdren
also made homes for themselves. The American or the
English visitor was heartily welcome, both to his house and
to the spacious ateUer which he erected in his garden, whUe
he was held in high esteem by his Italian neighbors. The
patriotic American has just cause to be proud of the success
of Hiram Powers, who probably did more than any other
man to elevate American Art and American Genius ui the
eyes of Europeans. He died June 27, 1873, in his sixty-
eighth year.

HORATIO GREENOUGH.
From an original in the possession of Lawrence Curtis, Esq.,
of Boston.

HORATIO GREENOUGH.

|ORATIO GREENOUGH, the first American to
attain distinction as a sculptor, was born in
Boston, September 6, 1805, only a little more
than a month after his distino^uished contem-
porary, the subject, of the last sketch. In
early boyhood he began to manifest an extra
ordinary aptitude for executing ornamental
designs in wood and other materials. We are
told of beautifuUy carved daggers; a pistol
inlaid with arabesque designs; carriages with
horses and drivers neatly moulded in beeswax ;
a lion couchant, in butter; a figure of William' Penn, in
chalk, and many other youthful attempts which were the
wonder and admiration of his friends, from whom he re
ceived ample encouragement, A stone-cutter instructed him
in the use of tools better adapted to the purposes of art than
the sharp-pointed nails with which his first designs had been
made, A physician kindly loaned him a set of anatomical
models, and Binon, a French sculptor of some prominence,
gave him lessons in modelUng clay and allowed him to prac
tise in his studio. His father, a practical man of business,
did not discourage his artistic longings, but insisted that he
should pass through a regular academical and collegiate
course before beginning the systematic study of sculpture.
In every branch except mathematics he proved an exceUent
scholar. Horatio pursued his preparatory studies at Lancaster,

HORATIO GREENO UGH.
together with a younger brother, Henry, who became an
architect of note and died in 1883. In 1821, he entered
Harvard. WhUe at Cambridge it was his good fortune to
form the acquaintance of the distinguished painter, Wash
ington AUston, whose kindly advice was of the utmost
benefit in elevating his ideas of art. Without neglecting
his regular studies, he was able to devote considerable time
to landscape painting, and he also wrote very creditable
verses. The exterior form and proportions of the Bunker
HiU monument were adopted from a model constructed by
Horatio Greenough whUe at coUege. In 1825, at the close
of his senior year, having been prevented by his diffidence
from taking the part assigned to him at the commencement,
he took passage for MarseiUes, from whence he proceeded
to Rome, and at once began the dUigent study of his beloved
art. He entered upon the usual course of modeUing from life,
and from antiques, under the guidance of the illustrious
Dane, Thorwaldsen ; but before long a serious fit of sickness,
induced by overwork and malaria, necessitated his return to
America. His health was restored by the homeward voyage,
and he at once began to make portrait busts in his native
city. Early in the year 1828 he went to Washington, where
he received commissions from President Adams, Chief Justice
MarshaU and others, and he also obtauied sittings in
Baltimore and Philadelphia, In the following year he
returned to Italy, and after passing three months in tbe
great marble quarries of Carrara, he established himself at
Florence, which beautiful city became his home for the
greater portion of the remainder of his life. For a time
he suffered from the lack of patronage, which is nothing
uncommon to young artists ; but his distress was quickly
relieved by an anonymous contribution of money, probably
from his friends in Boston. Soon afterward he gained the
friendship of James Fenimore Cooper, who recognized the

HORATIO GREENOUGH.
sculptor's abUity, and gave him an order for a marble group,
the subject of which was suggested by one of Raphael's
paintings in the Pitti Palace. This group, which is now
known as " The Chanting Cherubs," arrived in Boston in
the spring of 1831, and being placed upon exhibition there,
attracted great attention. It is thus referred to in a letter
written by the famous noveUst, who had become its owner,
"It is the first effort of a young artist, who bids fair to
buUd for himself a name; it is more, it is the first group
completed by an American Sculptor."
Henceforth fortune smUed upon Greenough and he had
no lack of patrons. In September, 1831, he went to Paris,
where he remained for three months in the company of
Cooper and of S. F. B, Morse, who was yet an artist ; but
was ere long to lay down his brush to find his enduring fame
in a different line. During this visit he made a bust of
Lafayette. His friend. Cooper, now exerted his influence
to obtain for him a commission from the United States
government, and as the result of these efforts, Greenough
received from Congress, in 1832, an order for a colossal
statue in marble, of Washington. The execution of this
statue, the masterpiece of the artist, occupied some eight
years. It was placed in the Rotunda of the Capitol in 1842,
but it was subsequently removed to its present position in
the eastern court of the Capitol grounds ; against the wishes
of Greenough, who designed it especially for the interior of
a buUding. It represents the Father of his Country seated,
in Roman costume, the upper portion of the body almost
entirely nude. The novelty of this treatment of the subject
evoked much unfavorable criticism, and opinion is yet divided
as to the merit of the work. Greenough himself said of
it : " It is the birth of my thought, and I have sacrificed to
it the flower of my days and the freshness of my strength ;
its every lineament has been moistened with the sweat of
my toU and the tears of my exUe. I would not barter away

HORATIO GREENOUGH.
its associations with my name for the proudest fortune avarice
ever dreamed of," Some years after Congress gave the order
for the statue of Washington, another was given for an
ornamental group, which also occupied several years of
Greenough's time ; but was not brought to this country untU
after his death.
Besides these works of great magnitude, Greenough was
Ukewise busUy engaged in fiUing private orders, his most
pleasing works being his representations of chUdish figures.
In 1836 he made a brief visit to Boston. In a letter dated
at Paris, in AprU of that year, he says : " I ought to be
thankful, certainly, for so much success and comfort. If I
were to be cut off to-morrow, I should not have hved in vain,
either for happiness or for success. In the autumn of 1837,
he was married to Miss Louisa Gore, a Boston lady, and
moved into an elegant home in Florence, which became the
resort of aU the prominent American tourists who visited
the city, as weU as of the best ItaUan society. Life, for
him, was in these days a happy one. He teUs his brother,
" I pass my time agreeably, and assure you that the prospect
of a pleasant evening circle carries me through the toUs of
the day."
Greenough's next visit to his native land was in 1842, his
principal object being to oversee the placing of his statue.
He spent the winter in Washington, having requested of
Congress an appropriation of five thousand doUars for a
granite pedestal, and it is worthy of note that his bUl passed
upon the same day with that of his friend Professor Morse,
for the construction of the first Une of telegraph. He left
America again in July, 1843, returning by way of England,
where he spent a few weeks. He remained in Europe for
the next eight years, absorbed in his profession at his studio
in Florence, with an occasional holiday trip to Vienna, or
to the famous water cure establishment of Priessnitz at
Grafenberg. He became greatly attached to his ItaUan

HORATIO GREENOUGH.
home, but never forgot the land of his birth, with her free
institutions. He ever remained a true republican, Italy
was groaning under the iron heel of despotic Austria, and
Greenough was greatly disappointed at the non-success of
the patriotic rising of 1848, though he and his family were
not molested by the Germans, as he obtained from the
American Consul at Leghorn a smaU diplomatic office, which
protected him against the Austrian soldiery,
Horatio Greenough left Italy for the last time in 1851,
and came back to America with a half-formed intention of
remaining there permanently. His group for the national
Capitol was now finished, but the Government was tardy in
sending for it, and also in adjusting financial matters with
the artist who chafed under these delays and the seeming
injustice of the Government in refusing him the privUege
of exhibiting his work. The group, which he called " The
Rescue," but which is better known as " Civilization," now
adorns the Senate side of the magnificent central portico of
the Capitol. It represents a sturdy Western pioneer holding
a savage in his firm grasp, and averting the blow of the
upraised tomahawk from his crouching wife and chUd. It
is a striking emblem of the triumph of the Anglo-Saxon
over the Red Man. While anxiously awaiting its arrival,
Greenough received a commission for an equestrian statue
of Washington, and taking a studio at Newport, R. L, he
began work upon it with enthusiasm, at the same time writing
some magazine articles on art, and delivering a few lectures
on the same subject. He had already modeUed the horse,
when fatigue and excitement brought on an attack of brain
fever. He was removed to SomerviUe, Mass., and received
every possible care ; but on the 18th of December, 1852,
he died, in the maturity of his manhood and genius.

EDWIN FORREST.

From life.

EDWIN FORREST.

[DWIN FORREST, the greatest of American
tragedians, was born in PhUadelphia, March
9, 1806. He was the son of a Scotchman,
who after meeting with misfortune in mercan
tile business, ended his days, in 1819, as a
banker's clerk. He received but a meagre
schooling, and had little inclination to work;
was, in fact, a street arab ; but he was endowed
with a wonderfully tenacious memory, and great
powers of mimicry. He began to frequent the
theatre at an early age, formed an amateur
dramatic company among his companions, and
actuaUy made a public appearance before he was
eleven, in female attire; only, however, to be
hooted from the stage. Before long his extraordinary talents
as a declaimer began to attract attention, and friends were
found who provided for him a course of training in elocution ;
and on November 27, 1820, he made his debut as Norval.
He was received with applause, and repeated his success on
several occasions during the next two years, in which he
continued to work at a trade. He became a regular member
of a travelling theatrical company in October, 1822, and
thenceforth his Ufe was devoted solely to the drama.
For the first three years his lot was far from being a happy
one. He made his way from one city to another through
the West and South; sometimes pennUess, barefooted and
hungry, sometimes achieving a temporary success. His
repertoire was drawn from every department of the histrionic

EDWIN FOR BEST.
art; tragedy, comedy, minstrelsy, and even the circus ring
being laid under contribution according to the varied tastes
of his audiences. In May, 1825, he made his first appear
ance in Payne's tragedy of "Brutus," at New Orleans; a
play in which he gained great distinction in later years.
Soon after his return to the North, he filled an engagement
at Albany, where he supported the famous English actor,
Edmund Kean. He now rose very rapidly to that high
position on the stage which he held for so many years and
against so many rivals, abandoning comedy and devoting
his time and attention to tragedy alone. At the time he
attained his majority he had just terminated a successful
season at the Bowery Theatre in New York (then just buUt),
at forty dollars a week. So great had his popularity become
that the manager reengaged him for eighty nights, at two
hundred doUars a night.
Several years of uniform success on the American stage
now ensued, after which, in July, 1834, having acquired
both fame and fortune, he took his departure for Europe
and then spent two years in visiting many of the scenes
which had witnessed the life and actions of Bichelieu and
WiUiam Tell, of Coriolanus and Othello and Shylock, of
Dear and Jack Cade and Bichard. He returned to America
for a few weeks in the faU of 1836, being received by his
admirers in PhUadelphia and New York with unbounded
enthusiasm. For six performances in the latter city he re
ceived three thousand doUars. Returning to England, he
made his first appearance in the mother country, on the
17th of September, 1836, as " Spartacus " in TTie Gladiator.
His first EngUsh engagement was a pronounced success, and
after an absence of about a year, he again returned to
America, the recognized head of his profession. While in
England, he was married, in June, 1837, to Catherine Sin
clair, a union happy at first, but unfortunately not destined
to remain so.

EDWIN FORREST.
Rapidly increasing wealth, the welcome applause of the
miUtitude, and high social honors were his. Even political
distinction would have been his had he not declined it. But
the happiness which he might have enjoyed in so great a
measure was marred, and slowly undermined by his own
failings, chief among which were his imperious self-wiU and
his inordinate jealousy of professional rivals. WUliam
Charles Macready held the first place on the English stage
as Forrest did in this country. In 1843, when Forrest was
at the zenith of his fame, Macready, who was thirteen years
his senior, made his second appearance in America. Sixteen
years previously he had met with an indifferent reception
here, and now, brought into competition with his younger
contemporary, he suffered severely in the comparison, and
returned to England filled with hatred toward Forrest. Two
years later the American tragedian made his second profes
sional visit to England, when, to his astonishment and
indignation, his Macbeth was loudly hissed upon his opening
night. He very soon terminated his engagement, attributing
its failure, justly or unjustly, to Macready's influence. On
the 2d of March, 1846, Macready was playing Hamlet at
Edinburgh, when Forrest, who was in one of the boxes,
deliberately rose in his place and hissed his rival — a foolish
exhibition of temper which utterly rmned his own reputation
in Great Britain,
This contemptible players' quarrel was productive of most
disastrous consequences. It was renewed with increased
rancor upon the return of Macready to America in 1848,
and carried on for a time in the newspapers, Forrest abusing
Macready in very ungentlemanly terms, while the EngUsh-
man's replies were more dignified. Both parties had their
sympathizers. Macready attempted to play at the Astor
Place Opera House in New York on the 7th of May, 1849,
but was hooted from the stage by the mob. His friends,
including many of the first citizens, induced him to give

EDWIN FORREST.
another performance on the 16th, when, having secured the
protection of the police, they formed the large majority of
the audience. But outside the theatre there was a howling
mob of Forrest's friends, who soon begg-n to attack the
buUding. Macready was spirited away by a rear exit. Soon
the police became powerless, the rabble jeered at the reading
of the riot act, the Seventh regiment was called out, and
after receiving a shower of missiles, fired a volley of blank
cartridges. The mob stiU refusing to disperse, the troops
loaded with ball, and fired another voUey, kiUing twenty-two
men. Such was the tragic ending of the famous Astor
Place Riot, the outcome of the ungoverned temper of
Edwin Forrest.
The strong revulsion of feeling against Forrest which
these unfortunate occurrences aroused among the cultured
classes, was largely increased by the suit which he brought
against his wife in 1850, for a divorce. He lost his case,
while a counter suit brought by Mrs. Forrest, resulted in a
verdict in her favor, the tragedian being condemned to pay
her a large alimony. He resisted the judicial decrees, and
the lawyers managed to keep this famous case in the courts
for twelve years ; but he was finaUy obliged to yield. Never
of a cheerful disposition, his domestic infeUcity rendered
him morose and misanthropic, and even his continued suc
cess as an actor failed to bring him happiness. He retired
temporarily from the stage in 1857, and was engaged during
the next three years chiefly in seeking profitable investments
for his large fortune.
On the 17th of September, 1860, he began the most suc
cessful engagement of his Ufe, the crowning triumph of his
long career. It covered a hundred nights and included the
principal Northern cities. In spite of his advancing years
he was as eager as ever for popular applause, and he con
tinued to appear before enthusiastic audiences, unheedful
of the warnings of physical decay. In 1865 he suffered a

EDWIN FORREST.
partial paralysis, which left its indelible effects upon his
herculean frame. In AprU, 1866, he went to San Francisco,
making the voyage by way of the Isthmus, He was received
with all the enthusiasm to which his great reputation entitled
him, but alas ! it was evident that his old power was rapidly
deserting him. The audiences fell off rapidly, and he re
turned to his home in Philadelphia without completing his
engagement. He continued his connection with the stage
for five years longer, but with constantly decreasing success ;
he had become, in fact, but a wreck of his former self. His
final appearance as an actor, was at the Globe Theatre in
Boston, April 2, 1871, The heavy hand of disease was
upon him, but he recovered sufficiently to attempt public
readings, which were only disappointing to his hearers. He
read Othello at the Tremont Temple in Boston, December 7,
1872. Two days later he reached his home, where upon the
morning of the 12th he was found dead. His fortune was
bequeathed to found a Home for aged actors at his PhUa
delphia residence, and though a large portion of it fell into
the hands of the lawyers, it has been, and stUl continues to
be productive of much good in its peculiar field.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.
From an original owned by Miss Longfellow.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

lENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, the
greatest of American poets, was born on the
27th of February, 1807, in Portland, Me,,
and in that town he passed his boyhood days,
and received his schooling. His early sur
roundings, if not marked by affluence, were
at least those of comfort and culture, well cal
culated to develop and foster his inherent
genius. He had hardly entered his teens,
when his first poetic attempts found a place
in the local newspaper. In 1821 he became a
student at Bowdoin CoUege, and a classmate of
Nathaniel Hawthorne, His standing was high,
and whUe he was not unsocial, yet he showed no disposition
to engage in the sports and pranks of his less studious
fellows. During his college course he continued to write
verses which were accepted by magazine editors, and some
times paid for, and some of them received the high compli
ment of being attributed to Bryant, who indeed influenced
the young poet, as he himself acknowledged many years
later. He graduated in 1825.
Longfellow's father, who was a lawyer, wished his son
to adopt a profession, preferably his own, but the young
man's passionate desire to rise to literary eminence caused
him to look with some disfavor on this proposition, A
fortunate solution of the difficulty was found immediately
after the graduation. The newly-established Professorship

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
of Modern Languages at Bowdoin, was offered to Longfellow,
with the understanding that he should spend some years ia
Europe in preparatory study, and was readily accepted.
He sailed for New York in May, 1826, and arrived in Havre
a month later. He passed nine months in France, eight in
Spain, a year in Italy, and six months in Germany, diligently
studying the languages of these countries. The account of
his travels during these three years, as depicted in his letters
and in the first of his prose works, " Outre-Mer," published
in 1835, present to the reader a perfect ideal of a student's
life. The romantic memories of the scenes and experiences
of this delightful period ever Ungered in the poet's brain,
and doubtless added sweetness to his songs. A brief visit
to England rounded out his pleasant and profitable tour, and
he returned home in August, 1829,
LongfeUow resided at Brunswick, Me., for five and a half
years, engrossed in the duties of his professorship. During
that time he contributed a number of reviews to the North
American, and published several French and Spanish text
books, but he wrote little poetry, although, ia 1833, he
pubUshed a volume of poetic translations from the Spanish.
He was married in September, 1831. In December, 1834,
he accepted the chair of modern languages at Harvard, and
in the following AprU, accompanied by his wife, he went a
second time to Europe, with the intention of studying the
German and Scandinavian tongues. This tour, which occu
pied a year and a half, was saddened by the illness of Mrs,
Longfellow, which terminated fataUy at Rotterdam, on the
29th of November, 1835, In January, 1837, LongfeUow
entered upon his duties at Cambridge, and in the same year,
he resumed the composition of poetry, which he had almost
entirely neglected since his college days.
Very few among those who have earned for themselves
an honorable name, have attained eminence with less apparent
effort than Henry W, Longfellow. The course of his life

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
may appropriately be likened to that of a majestic river,
which flows on, ever gaining added momentum, but meeting
with few impediments. It is true that on one or two occa
sions, he experienced severe affliction, but it is also true that
no one ever found greater wealth of sympathy in his time
of sorrow. His daily familiar intercourse was with people
of the highest culture, whUe his simple and unaffected
courtesy and high scholarly attainments made him the centre
of a charmed circle. His official duties were such as to give
him just a sufficient amount of work to prevent his suffering
from the inactivity which he dreaded, and at the same time
they left him just a sufficient amount of leisure in which
to indulge his poetic fancies as he might feel disposed, and
they were relinquished after eighteen years just at the time
when routine labor became irksome. Truly his lines feU in
pleasant places. His poetry was spontaneous ; not a line of
it was ever written in response to the calls of necessity or
avarice. As his beautifid thoughts came to him, so he gave
them to the world ; but none of his verse was written to
order. How weU he loved to exercise those talents with
which he was endowed above his fellows, is shown by the
fact that only two out of the forty-six years which measure
the period of his literary activity, that only closed with his
death, witnessed any cessation of the labors of that pen
whose productions were, and stiU are, the deUght of two
great peoples, speaking one common tongue.
Shortly after going to Cambridge, Professor Longfellow
took rooms at the " Craigie Mansion," which had been the
headquarters of General Washington for the nine months
intervening between Bunker HUl and the fall of Boston.
Six years later he became its owner, and made it his home,
and probably no private house in America, save Mount
Vernon, was so familiarly known for the next generation,
to the people of this country, nor an object of such deep
interest to visitors from abroad. Two of Longfellow's

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
earlier works were prose writings. One of these we have
already noticed ; the second, a novel called " Hyperion," with
just enough of a plot to serve as a kind of common bond
for a series of exquisite descriptions, founded upon his
second European experiences, appeared in 1839, a month or
so previously to his first book of original poetry, " Voices of
the Night," This latter book includes five of his early
poems — aU that he considered worth saving of his youthful
effusions, though a number of them were, at a subsequent
time, collected and pubUshed without his approbation. It
was about this time that LongfeUow received and declined
the offer of a Professorship in the University of Alabama.
It is fair to presume that every reader of this sketch
is, to some extent, at least, famUiar with the writings of
LongfeUow, and many a gem among his shorter poems has
been indelibly impressed upon the memory of his admirers
(and who is not among the number ?) from the days of chUd
hood. We wiU therefore confine our notice to a few of the
more celebrated of his works. A second coUection, pubUshed
in 1841, contained the " ViUage Blacksmith " and " Excel
sior," and met with a quick sale. In the ensuing year,
LongfeUow was allowed a six months' vacation, about three
months of which were spent at a water-cure on the Rhine.
While journeying thither he visited the Belfry of Bruges,
which formed the theme of a poem, and gave a title to a
third collection, published several years later. Returning
by the way of England, he was for a time the welcome
guest of Charles Dickens. To beguUe the tedium of the
homeward sea-voyage, he wrote a series of "Poems on
Slavery," which were immediately published. He thus pub
Ucly put himself on record on the then unpopular side of the
controversy, though in such mUd and gentle terms, that the
more violent Abolitionists received the " Poems " but coldly.
By some of the more moderate of them, however, he was
offered a congressional nomination, and among this number

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
was our lamented Whittier, who wrote to him, " Our friends
think that they can throw for thee one thousand more votes
than for any other man," It is needless to say that the
honor was declined. The year 1843 was marked by the
appearance of the drama of "The Spanish Student," and
also by the poet's second marriage, which occurred on the
13th of July, For the next year or two, much of his time
was occupied in preparing for the press a volume of poems
by European authors, with critical notices.
As the years passed away, they brought not only prosperity
and fame, but domestic felicity as well. Sons and daughters
were added to the household, and every day the hospitable
mansion sheltered some old friend or some new guest. Even
the stranger was courteously received by the distuiguished
author, whose patience was often severely tried, but who never
wUlingly wounded the sensibilities of another, while chUdren
ever met with the poet's kindliest greetings. His correspond
ence grew to enormous proportions, yet, as far as was possible,
he tried to make some reply to even the most obscure writer
who did not make an unreasonable demand upon his time.
His reputation was fuUy estabUshed by the publication, in
1847, of his immortal poem, "Evangeline," for the inci
dents of which he was in some degree indebted to his friend
Hawthorne. Among aU his works, only his masterpiece,
" Hiawatha," disputes the preeminence with this sadly beauti
ful tale. " Hiawatha " was published in 1855, In the inter
val between these, his most famous works, he printed two
volumes of poetry and his last novel, "Kavanagh," and, in
September, 1854, resigned his Professorship.
Untrammelled by affairs, he continued to give free play
to a fruitful imagination, controUed by perfect taste. Vol
ume after volume of his verse was eagerly welcomed by
thousands of readers, delighting the happy, and soothing
the suffering. " The Puritan maiden PriscUla," the heroine
of " The Courtship of MUes Standish " (1858), was the poet's

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
ancestor, seven generations removed, Longfellow was weU
pleased with the distinction which came to him through his
literary successes; but he had no shadow of a desire for
political honors. His sympathies were, however, strongly
with the party which opposed slavery, especially after the
dastardly attack upon his most intimate friend. Senator
Sumner. During the eighteen years of his married life,
he was rarely long away from his f amUy, either at Cambridge,
or else at his summer home by the sea at Nahant. He was
eminently a home lover, and the
"  pause in the day's occupations

That is known as the Children's Hour,"
was an ever-welcome relief amid the constant activity to
which his preeminent position in society subjected him. His
happiness was at length sadly and suddenly overclouded by
the loss of his wife, who, in July, 1861, met death in the
terrible form of burning.
In March, 1863, LongfeUow's oldest son, not yet twenty
years of age, went to the war, as a Ueutenant of cavalry.
Late in November in the same year, just after the pubUcation
of the first series of the "Tales of a Wayside Inn,"
Lieutenant LongfeUow was severely wounded in battle, and
was brought home by his father, who had hastened to
Washington to receive him as he was brought from the front.
On the 27th of May, 1868, just as the "New England
Tragedies" were coming from the press, LongfeUow saUed
from New York on his last journey to Europe. He was
absent about eighteen months, and in England, France and
Italy he was received with honor, as one of the foremost
men of letters of the age. Oxford and Cambridge conferred
upon him their degrees — Harvard had done so years
before — and at theU own express request he was presented to
Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales. After his return
home, he continued to work upon a translation of Dante, which

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
had occupied him for several years, and which was published
in 1870. Two years later appeared " Christus," in its com
plete form. During the last ten years of his life, he pub
lished five volumes more, closing with " Ultima Thule," in
1880. Some of the single poems of his later years brought
extraordinary prices from wUling publishers. The Harpers
paid one thousand doUars each for " Keramos," and " Mori-
turi Salutamus," whUe Robert Bonner, of the Ledger, gave
four thousand doUars for the "Hanging of the Crane."
The incidents of his closing years, the present of the Chest
nut-tree chair, by the children of Cambridge, the general
celebration of his seventy-fifth birthday, and many others,
are stUl so fresh in the minds of all as not to require repe
tition. On the 24th of March, 1882, the beUs of Cambridge
toUed out the sad news that Henry W. Longfellow was dead,
that the beautiful, useful and blameless life was ended.
Portions of his works have been translated into every
civUized tongue, and a memorial in his honor has been placed
in Westminster Abbey, while " his memory is in the keeping
of those whom his song has charmed and blessed."

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

From life.

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

OHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, the sweet
singer of New England and its home life, was
born on the 17th of December, 1807, in
HaverhUl, Mass. He was the second of the
four chUdren of John and Abigail Hussey
Whittier, worthy members of the Society of
Friends, and to the faith and practices of that
branch of the Christian Church in which he
was reared, the poet ever remained faithful.
His parents were the owners of an Essex County farm,
which by dint of hard work and self-denial on their part,
provided for the family a decent living, but few, if any, of
the luxuries. He was sent to the district school when about
seven years of age as a matter of course, and before long
he began to show signs of his peculiar talent, by scribbUng
verses instead of attending to his lessons. It is a famUiar
story, retold in the boyhood Ufe of nearly every versifier ;
but Whittier's devotion to the poetic muse, which was much
encouraged by an elder sister, did not interfere to prevent
him from becoming an industrious worker upon the farm,
and, if some accounts are to be trusted, something of a
shoemaker as well. Nothing occurred to distinguish him
above other country boys, untU his nineteenth year, when
he found courage to maU a copy of some of his verses to a
Newburyport Weekly, the Free Press, whose editor was no
other than WUUam Lloyd Garrison, then just beginning his
famous career as an Abolitionist. The favorable reception

JOHN G. WHITTIER.
of this first poem led to further contributions, and the editor
sought out the modest anonymous author and earnestly en
couraged him to improve his talents as a writer. In 1827
Whittier spent six months in attendance at the HaverhUl
Academy, and he must have weU improved his opportunities,
for during the ensuing winter, he taught school at the
neighboring town of Amesbury, His faculties were rapidly
maturing ; none of his time was wasted in the ordinary
frivolities of youth.
He was already a contributor, both in prose and poetry,
to several periodicals, when, in the winter of 1829, he went
to Boston, for reading and study, and was entrusted with the
editorship of a protective tariff paper, known as the Manu
facturer. He was for a time a roommate of Garrison, who,
in his crusade against slavery, found a warm supporter in
Mr, Whittier, and the two became close friends for life.
Early in 1830, he returned to HaverhiU, and became editor
of the Gazette at that place, resigning the position after
about six months to accept the unexpected and flattering
offer of the editorship of the New England Weekly Beview,
at Hartford, Conn. He supported the political views of
Henry Clay and the National Republicans on questions of
tariff and finance, whUe favoring the most advanced reforms
with regard to slavery and temperance. He did not, like
his friend Garrison, eschew politics, and denounce the Con
stitution ; but his connection with public affairs was Umited,
for the most part, to the writing of essays and editorials,
and to voting, which he always considered the sacred duty
of a freeman. He visited his home in March, 1831, and
remained there until after his father's death in June, In
this year also appeared Mr, Whittier's first book, " Legends
of New England," partly poetry, which the author was
afterwards inclined to disown, and partly somewhat better
prose. On the 2d of January, 1832, he retired from the
Beview, on account of failing health, and because his pres-

JOHN G. WHITTIER.
ence was now needed on the farm at HaverhUl, of which he
was, for the following five years, the manager.
His pen did not remain idle ; it was at this time that he
began to use it in behalf of the anti-slavery cause, thus
deliberately casting his lot with a people who for thirty
years were to be subjected to social ostracism, personal
insult, and even bodily injury. The earliest of his writings
on this subject was a pamphlet entitled "Justice and
Expediency " which was issued in the year 1833. It was
in this year, which witnessed the downfall of slavery in the
British dominions, that Garrison visited England, and upon
his return took measures to establish the American Anti-
Slavery Society. A convention was held for this purpose
in PhUadelphia, to which Mr. Whittier was a delegate, and
of which he was chosen one of the secretaries. Early in
the following year, he aided in organizing a branch society
in his native town; but the unpopularity of the cause in
which he was engaged did not prevent his fellow-townsmen
from electing him a member of the General Court. The
year 1835 is long to be remembered on account of the dis
graceful acts of violence perpetrated in the free State of
Massachusetts and elsewhere, at the North, upon peaceful
men, by mobs of pro-slavery sympathizers. One such mob,
armed with a cannon, broke up a gathering at HaverhUl
upon a Sabbath evening in August. Mr, Whittier was at
the time in Concord, N, H., in company with the English
Abolitionist, George Thompson, and upon the same Sabbath
evening was personally assaulted and injured by a mob who
forced him to leave the town with his English friend. So
great was the popular rage against Mr. Thompson, that he
was concealed by Mr. Whittier at Haverhill during the next
two weeks. Two months later, whUe Mr. Whittier was in
Boston attending an extra session of the Legislature, he
witnessed the famous mob of respectable Whigs and Demo
crats who sought WUliam Lloyd Garrison's life. Mr.

JOHN a. WHITTIER.
Whittier was a member of the Legislature of 1836, but
appears not to have taken his seat, owing to the pressure of
other duties.
In 1836 Mr, Whittier pubUshed " Mogg Megone," a poem
based upon incidents in Indian Ufe. Much of his time
during the next three years was spent in PhUadelphia, he
having been appointed Secretary of the American Anti-
Slavery Society ; but from May to December, 1836, he again
edited the HaverhUl Gazette, and for three months in 1837
he resided in New York City. In 1837 he also began to
write for the Pennsylvania Freeman, of which he became,
in the ensuing year, the editor. Hardly had he entered
upon the duties of this latter office when he had another
disagreeable experience with Northern sympathizers with
slavery. The friends of free speech had erected Pennsylvania
Hall, that they might have a place in which to discuss the
great problems which were stirring society so deeply. The
new buUdiog was dedicated on the 16th of May, 1838, amid
the threatenings of the mob. On the next day an appeal
was made to the mayor to protect the property, but that
official not only declined to interfere, but actuaUy incited
the rabble to further violence, and during the following night
the haU was burned to the ground; the firemen "nobly"
(as a Southern journal expressed it) refusing to throw water
upon the flames. The entire outfit of the Freeman was
involved in the common ruin ; but new quarters were found,
and new type procured, and Mr, Whittier pluckUy remained
at his post for two years. In the summer of 1839, he made
a journey into Western Pennsylvania in the interest of the
Anti-Slavery Society.
Mr, Whittier resigned his position in February, 1840,
leaving Philadelphia for Massachusetts in May, and during
the rest of his life remained so constantly at home, that he
has been called by some a " recluse " or a " hermit " ; misno
mers both of them, for there was about our beloved poet no

JOHN G. WHITTIER.
trace of the churl which these titles hint at. He chose a
life of retirement that he miffht devote himself without
restraint to Uterary pursuits, and his innumerable admirers
are thankful that he elected so to do. He held no further
political office except that of Presidential Elector, he having
enjoyed the rare, if not unique distinction, of twice casting
his ballot for Abraham Lincoln for the office of President.
Mr. Whittier did not, however, return to the old farm at
HaverhiU, for it had just been sold ; but took up his resi
dence at Amesbury, whither the family had removed. The
household, beside the poet, who never married, consisted of
his mother, his sister Elizabeth, and an aunt who died in
1846. Mr, Whittier was a large contributor to periodicals,
besides issuing from time to time, the numerous volumes of
his poems, which are known and loved wherever the EngUsh
tongue is spoken, and to which further extended reference
is unnecessary. Many of his prose writings do not possess
an interest for the present generation equal to that which
they excited in the times for which they were speciaUy
prepared. In 1844, he resided for six months at Lowell,
while writing for the Middlesex Standard, and his experi
ences at that time were embodied in " The Stranger in
Lowell," From 1847 to 1859, he was a contributor to the
National Era of Washington, and was for some time its
associate editor. Later when the Atlantic Monthly was
established, he became one of its briUiant corps of writers.
In 1857 his mother died, after having lived to see her dis
tinguished son well along upon the highway of fame,
Mr, Whittier continued to be a resident of Amesbury for
a portion of the year, at least, until the close of his Ufe,
and there he has been laid to rest. After the death of his
sister in 1864, a niece came to preside over the household,
which was finally broken up at her marriage. After 1876,
he made his home principally with relatives at Danvers or
with friends at Newburyport, His publishers dealt gener-

JOHN G. WHITTIER.
ously with him, enabling him to spend the evening of his
days surrounded by every possible comfort, and in the pos
session of moderate wealth. With a constitution far from
rugged, he succeeded by the exercise of judicious care in
preserving his health and strength far beyond the aUotted
time of man. In 1889 a new edition of his complete works
was published, to which he added many new notes. Harvard
conferred upon him the degree of A.M. in 1860, and of
LL.D. in 1886. His eighty-fourth birthday was celebrated
in December, 1891, at the residence of Mr. Joseph Cartland,
at Newburyport, and as usual on these anniversaries, he was
the recipient of numerous tokens of affection from friends
in aU parts of the country. Advancing years brought with
them no diminution of the poetic fire, and there is no trace
of seniUty in his last bits of verse, birthday tributes to
Dr, Hohnes, written only a few weeks before the end of his
weU spent Ufe, Mr, Whittier died September 7, 1892, at
Hampton Falls, N, H., while visiting friends, and there is
none to take his place in Uterature or in the affections of the
people.

ANDREW JOHNSON.
From the painting by E. F. Andrews in the Corcoran Gallery.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

|HILE we are forced to confess that wealth and
high social position are often important factors
in the political advancement of individuals,
even in this land of repubUcan equality, they
are not of course always essential. Obscurity
of birth is popularly supposed to be no bar
to such advancement, although a reasonably
good education is usuaUy looked for in those
who desire to become servants of the people ;
but it too often happens that men of neither
birth, breeding nor fair intellectual develop
ment are placed in positions of trust. If, as is sometimes the
case, these persons are also morally deficient, the result can
only be bad, and the fact that such things are possible, con
stitutes one of the most dangerous weaknesses in our form
of government. When, however, the lack of culture and
education is offset by natural executive ability and honesty
of purpose, such men have made highly efficient pubhc
officers. They have not often risen to any very considerable
height, being usually contented with some municipal office,
or have occasionally attained to a seat in Congress. Excep
tions to this rule have not been rare, but perhaps the most
remarkable of them all is to be found in the career of
Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth President of the United
States. He was born in Raleigh, N, C, December 29, 1808. The
pedigree hunters have in his case been completely baffled.

ANDREW JOHNSON.
and it has only been ascertained that his father was a good-
natured, shiftless individual, who held the position of Con
stable, and was fortunate enough to secure a favorable
epitaph from a newspaper editor whom he had saved from
drowning, Andrew was four years old when his father died,
and at the age of ten he was bound apprentice to a tailor
for the term of seven years, as was then customary. That
he learned his trade thoroughly, and became a good work
man, is, of course, entirely to his credit, and in no manner
detracts aught from the dignity of any position which he
subsequently filled. He continued at his bench for many
years after he had become actively engaged in politics, and
indeed, made a complete suit of clothes, in a workmanUke
manner, as late as 1853, when he was Governor of the State
of Tennessee, in return for a shovel and pair of tongs which
were made for him by a judge who had begun Ufe as a
blacksmith, the object of both gentlemen being to show
that they were not ashamed of having learned honorable
trades, Mr, Johnson was, perhaps, even too much disposed
to take pride in alluding to his early employment. He did
not quite complete his apprenticeship, but ran away from his
master in 1824, He never attended any college, academy,
or school in his life, but whUe learning his trade, he also
learned to read from some books which came in his way,
with the assistance, perhaps, of some feUow-workman,
When he left Raleigh, he made his way to Laurens Court
House in South Carolina, and there obtained employment
as a journeyman taUor, He earned good wages, and having
laid by a moderate sum of money he returned to Raleigh
at the end of two years, and taking his mother with him,
emigrated westward into Tennessee, At GreenviUe in that
State, he opened a small shop, and soon afterward married.
If he signed the marriage register he must have done so by
making his mark, as he was at this time unable to write his
name. His wife, the daughter of a shoemaker, was some-

ANDREW JOHNSON
what more accomplished than himself, and in course of time
taught him to write and cipher. Both were ignorant of the
rules of grammar, and always remained so. After pro
specting a Uttle further, he returned to GreenvUle, and there
fixed his abode permanently. He was quite successful in
business and before long began to invest in real estate. He
became highly popular with the young men of the town, and
also with the working people, who were captivated by his
plain and homely eloquence and his utter lack of ostentation.
Before he was of age he was elected Alderman, and in 1830
he became mayor of the town. This office he held for three
years, and he had the further audacity to procure his election
as one of the Trustees of the Academy, being by no means,
however, the first illiterate man who has thought himself
competent to fill such a position.
Andrew Johnson was at this time of his life, clearly " one
of the boys," and at no subsequent period did he ever en
tirely divest himself of that natural coarseness of manner
which these associations greatly aggravated. At the same
time he gained a reputation for honesty which was un
doubtedly well merited, and for firmness which too often
degenerated into obstinacy. Among his worst failings were
profanity and intemperance, his fits of intoxication becoming
more and more frequent toward the close of ' his life. At
the first election under the new Tennessee Constitution of
1834, he presented himself as a candidate for the State
Legislature, The aristocratic leaders of the Tennessee de-
mocracy were disgusted with his presumption, but the poli
tician and his large following were too powerfiU to be
ignored, and he received the election. Owing to his oppo
sition to certain measures of internal improvement which
happened to be popular, he was defeated in 1837, but at the
ensuing election of 1839, pubUc opinion having undergone
a change, he was again chosen a member of the Legislature.
During the National Campaign of 1836, he supported Hugh

ANDREW JOHNSON.
L, White of Tennessee, one of the four candidates among
whom the Whig electoral vote was, in that year, divided;
but four years later he supported Van Buren, the regular
Democratic nominee, and was himself chosen a presidential
elector. In 1841 he was elected to the State Senate.
In 1843 Mr. Johnson entered Congress, of which he
remained a member for ten years. On most points he was
in accord with the Southern Democratic leaders ; with regard
to negro slavery, which they regarded as the sine qua non
of the prosperity of their section, he was quite indifferent.
He was a slave owner and a slave trader, and naturally his
vote was cast in favor of aU the measures which were con
cocted for fostering and extending slavery, but at the same
time he emphatically denounced the disloyal utterances of
Southern members, and on one important question he was
in direct opposition to the majority of them. Next to his
unwavering devotion to the Union, his most honorable claim
to distinction was his earnest labor in behalf of the National
Homestead law which brought him into antagonism with
the landed slaveholding aristocracy. At the close of his
fifth congressional term in 1853, Andrew Johnson was elected
Governor of Tennessee.
Governor Johnson's administration, which lasted four
years, was an able one, though unmarked by any events of
special interest. In 1857 he was elected to the United States
Senate, and in December of that year, this "poor white"
tailor took his seat in that dignified body. As the other
Southern members became more and more outspoken in their
treason, he firmly maintained his ground in opposition to
them. In May, 1858, he made a masterly speech in behalf
of the Homestead Bill which was not, however, passed by
both houses until 1860, and then only to be vetoed by
President Buchanan, greatly to the indignation of the Ten
nessee senator. The bill became a law in 1862, Mr, John
son's name was proposed in the Democratic convention of

ANDREW JOHNSON.
1860, as a candidate for President, but it was withdrawn
after the thirty-eighth ballot. In the ensuing election he
supported Mr, Breckinridge, but when, in consequence of
Mr, Lincoln's election, the great majority of the Southern
Senators and Representatives in Congress withdrew, Andrew
Johnson remained true to his country and retained his seat.
For this he was denounced by the rebel authorities, and
burned in effigy, his negroes were confiscated, and his invalid
wife driven from her home. Both in Congress and out of
it, he spoke noble words in defence of the Union, and his
arguments had great weight in keeping the border States
from following their Southern sisters in their course of folly.
On the 5th of March, 1862, Senator Johnson was ap
pointed by President Lincoln, Military Governor of Tennessee
with the rank of brigadier-general. A week later he arrived
at Nashville, which had recently been occupied by the Federal
troops, and assumed control of the State Government, He
removed the mayor, and other disloyal officials, silenced the
clergy, who were almost all rebel sympathizers, and took
vigorous measures to prepare the way for Tennessee's resto
ration to her place in the Union, In 1864 he received the
Republican nomination for Vice-President, as a compliment
to that wing of the old Democratic party to which he
belonged, and which had heartily cooperated in suppressing
the Rebelhon ; and, with Mr, Lincoln, he was elected by a
large majority. He was inaugurated Vice-President of the
United States on the 4th of March, 1865, his address and
his personal condition on that occasion being in the highest
degree discreditable. As is weU known, he had held his
office just six weeks, when, by the assassination of President
Lincoln, the Chief Magistracy of the Nation devolved upon
him. Though thus suddenly called upon to assume such high
responsibility, he proved himself qualified to deal with the
embarrassing difficulties with which he was confronted. The

ANDREW JOHNSON.
question of supreme importance was the restoration of order
and good government in the revolted States which had been
forced back to their allegiance, Mr. Johnson was disposed
to deal generously with the late enemies of his country while
taking due precaution to maintain the authority of the
National Government. The policy pursued by him was for
some time entirely satisfactory to the people, both North and
South, except only to some irreconcUable extremists in each
section ; but, upon the assembling of Congress in December,
some dissatisfaction began to be manifested in that body,
which was disposed to be somewhat more severe toward the
eleven " unreconstructed " States. Yet in January, 1866,
a resolution of confidence in the President passed the House
by a large majority. Unfortunately, Mr, Johnson took violent
offence at the Congressional opposition to his " policy," and
publicly expressed his resentment against certain members,
by name, in a very indecorous manner. From this time
onward the breach between the legislative and the executive
branches of the Government rapidly widened, producing
deplorable results.
President Johnson exercised the veto power very freely,
but in many cases the measures so rejected by him became
laws by a two-thirds vote of the two Houses, In July, 1866,
three members of his Cabinet resigned on account of their
disapproval of the calling of a Convention at PhUadelphia
to endorse his reconstruction policy. This Convention,
which met in August, was offset by another, held a month
later, and composed of opponents of the President, who was
himself at the time making that famous journey to Chicago
popularly known as " swinging round the circle," in which
the country witnessed the doubly mortifying spectacle of
a President indulging in coarse vituperation against the major
ity in Congress, and of the people, at many points, receiving
their Chief Magistrate with jeers and insult. In the closing
session of the Thirty- Ninth Congress acts were passed, over

ANDREW JOHNSON.
vetoes of course, whereby the power of the President to
remove from office was materially curtaUed, and military
governments were established in ten of the lately revolted
States — Tennessee having been fully restored, Mr, John
son, very unwisely, to say the least, repeatedly violated the
spirit, if not the letter of these acts, and attempted, with
partial success, to defeat the objects aimed at by Congress
in their passage. This conduct was so displeasing to the
majority in both Houses, that it was proposed, if possible,
to remove the President from office by the constitutional
method of impeachment,
A resolution for this purpose was defeated in the House
of Representatives in December, 1867, but the subsequent
action of the President in attempting to remove from office
the Secretary of War, without the necessary advice and con
sent of the Senate, proved to be the last straw in his offend
ing, and after the requisite preliminaries he was formally
impeached before the Senate by a committee of the House
of Representatives on the 4th of March, 1868. On the
following day the Senate was organized as a Court, presided
over by the Chief Justice, Salmon P. Chase, as prescribed
in the Constitution, and thus, for the first and only time in
the history of our country was a President of the United
States brought to trial for " high crimes and misdemeanors,"
This famous trial began on the 30th of March, 1868, and
continued until the 26th of May, Eleven counts or articles
of impeachment were preferred, only three of which were
finally acted upon, and in each case thirty-five Senators voted
" Guilty " and nineteen " Not Guilty," The necessary two-
thirds not having pronounced him guUty, the President was
consequently acquitted. During the remainder of his ad
ministration Mr. Johnson continued his opposition to Con
gress, and as far as lay in his power, restored to a full
enjoyment of all their former privileges those persons who
had been in arms against the Government. He sullenly re-

ANDREW JOHNSON.
fused to take any part in the inaugural ceremonies of his
successor. General Grant. One State, Nebraska, was admitted
during his administration, and the territory of Alaska was
purchased from Russia.
Andrew Johnson, after retiring from the presidency, issued
an address to the people in defence of his conduct whUe in
office, and strongly condemnatory of his opponents. He
returned to his home at Greenville, but not to rest, for he
soon plunged anew into the turmoU of politics. He was a
candidate for the United States Senatorship in 1870, and for
Representative in Congress in 1872, and on each occasion he
met with defeat, but in January, 1875, he was elected to the
Senate. He lived only a short time to enjoy his new honors.
On the 28th of July, 1875, he was stricken with paralysis
whUe visiting a married daughter in Carter County, Tenn,,
and he died on the 3 1st, having been an active politician
for forty-seven years.

EDGAR A. POE.
From the latest known portrait of the unfortunate poet.

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

— ^MONG the great writers of America there have
jl been few men of more brilliant genius than the
unfortunate poet and novelist whose life we are
now to consider. Conflicting accounts have been
given both of the date and place of his birth,
but it appears to be pretty definitely settled that
X it occurred at Boston on the 19th of January,
^ 1809. His parents, who were actors, died at
Richmond, Va,, within a few weeks of each
other, leaving him, at a tender age, utterly desti
tute — the exact date being again in dispute,
A gentleman of wealth, named Allan, who had
been familiar with the Poes, adopted the orphaned boy, and
provided generously for him, WhUe yet very young, Poe
attracted much attention by the ease with which he committed
to memory long passages of verse, and the charming manner
in which he recited them. In 1815, he was taken to England
by the Allan family, and was placed at school at Stoke-
Newington, one of the suburbs of London, where he remained
for the space of about five years. After returning to America,
he continued to reside with Mr, Allan at Richmond for five
years longer, during which time he attended a classical school.
He was an apt scholar, active and strong, an expert swimmer,
and made many friends. He began also, thus early in Ufe,
to develop a remarkable talent for extemporaneous story
telling, Poe entered the University of Virginia in 1825, and during

EDGAR ALLAN POE.
the year which he spent at that institution, he laid the foun
dation of those habits of gross dissipation which became the
curse of his existence, imparting to many of his writings a
weird and ghouUsh character, and terminating in ruin and
death. He was expelled from the University for intoxication
and gambling, and with regard to the next few years of his
life we are once more puzzled to reconcile the different
authorities. One account sends him, after leaving his guar
dian's house in a rage because the draft to pay his gambling
debts were dishonored, to Europe, fired with the desire to
emulate Byron by fighting for the Greeks, only, however, to
get himself into trouble at St. Petersburg and be sent home
by the American minister. Another, and probably a more
reliable account states that he entered the United States army
under an assumed name, in May, 1827, and having risen to
the rank of sergeant-major, effected a reconciliation with
Mr, Allan, through whose efforts he received his dischargfe
in April, 1829, It is certain that he temporarily regained
the favor of his patron, and that he was admitted to a cadet-
ship at West Point, in 1830, He published a volume of
poems anonymously at Boston in 1827, and another with his
name, at Baltimore, two years later,
Poe's life at the military academy was only a repetition
of what it had been at the university ; he was a favorite with
his mess and even with the officers, but he indulged his
habits of dissipation without restraint, to the total neglect
of all study. He left West Point in December, 1830, re
signing, according to his own statement ; but in the following
March, he was formally dismissed the service, having been
found guUty of neglect of duty and disobedience of orders,
by a court martial. Shortly afterward, he published, by
subscriptions obtained principally from the Corps of Cadets,
another small volume of poems, one which seems not to have
added very largely to his reputation, and which has shared
the common fate of such immature productions. None of

EDGAR ALLAN POE.
Poe's biographers has done any more than to guess at what
he did during the next two years; but the summer of 1833
found him in Baltimore, where he made his home with an
aunt, a widow with one daughter, Virginia Clemm, then a
girl of eleven. In October of this year he was the fortunate
winner of a prize of one hundred dollars which had been
offered by the proprietors of the Saturday Visitor, for the
best tale which should be sent to them. One of the judges
in the contest was John P, Kennedy, who, moved with com
passion on account of Poe's poverty and distress, provided
him with clothes and other comforts, and found for him such
literary hack-work as kept him from starvation for a year or
two. His writings now began to be received with consider
able favor by the public, and friends were not lacking to
assist and encourage ; but, unhappUy, the power of his will
was insufficient to resist the habit of intemperance, and he
became increasingly subject to fits of deep mental depression.
In September, 1835, Poe accepted the assistant-editorship
of the Southern Literary Messe7iger at Richmond, and it is
said that before removing from Baltimore he was married to
his cousin Virginia, though the story is hardly susceptible
of proof. The Clemms accompanied him to Baltimore,
however, and he continued to reside with them, and on the
16th of May, 1836, the two penniless cousins were publicly
married, the bride being but fourteen years of age, while
Poe was nearly that many years her senior. His constant
devotion to his chUd-wife, already stricken by the insidious
hand of disease, forms the brightest page in his mournful
history. For some time he worked diligently, contributing
to the Messenger a profusion of tales and critical reviews ;
but various causes combined to produce a misunderstanding
between the eccentric sub-editor and his chief, and in con
sequence Poe withdrew in January, 1837, During the
ensuing year he was without regular employment, but
wandered with his wife to Baltimore, PhUadelphia and New

EDGAR ALLAN POE.
York, selling the products of his fertUe brain to whoever
would pay him for them. At this time he wrote the longest
of his novels, " The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, of
Nantucket," which was published by the Harpers early in
1838, and was republished in England, where some of the
country editors -were so misled by the peculiar gravity of
Poe's style, as to print extracts from the work as genuine
" discoveries " of an actual navigator.
In the fall of 1838 he went to Philadelphia, and became
a contributor to the " Gentleman's Magazine," In May,
1839, he assumed the duties of editor at a salary of ten
dollars a week, being obliged, however, to devote but two
hours a day to the management of the magazine. This left
him much leisure time, which was sedulously employed in
writing fiction for which he was but poorly paid. It was a
hand to mouth existence at the best, and during his intervals
of reckless indulgence, he was in a state of abject poverty.
Among this year's productions were his " Tales of the Gro
tesque " and his " Conchologist's First Book," In 1840 the
magazine was enlarged and the name changed to " Graham's,"
Poe being retained as editor. The subscription list increased
rapidly, and soon " Graham's Magazine " stood in the front
rank of American periodicals. Some of Poe's most powerful
fiction and most caustic criticism appeared during this time,
" The Murders of the Rue Morgue," which was written in
1841, was pirated by two different French writers, and a
lawsuit between the rival journals in which the translations
were published, led to the discovery of the real author, who
soon acquired great popularity in France, One of Poe's
whimseys was the idea that no cryptogram or cipher could
be devised which could not be unravelled by human ingenuity,
and he actuaUy deciphered several very intricate ones which
were sent to him for the purpose of testing the correctness
of his theory. It was also in the year 1841, that Poe first
met Griswold, the earliest and most unkind of his biogra-

EDGAR ALLAN POE.
phers, and who, most unfortunately for the memory of the
former, was entrusted with the disposal of all his papers
after his death.
Poe's employers in Philadelphia manifested great kindness
towards him, and repeatedly overlooked his irregularities and
his querulous moods; but the limit of forbearance was
reached in the fall of 1842, and he was compelled to resign
his position. In addition to his other causes of distress, his
wife was now a confirmed invalid, requiring constant atten
tion ; the certainty of a fatal termination to her Ulness
greatly aggravated his fits of despondency, and his own
health became sadly undermined. A year or two of struggles
and deprivation now ensued, in the course of which he com
posed one of his most remarkable stories, the " Gold Bug,"
for which he was awarded a prize of a hundred doUars by
the proprietors of the " DoUar Monthly," At length, toward
the close of 1844, he removed from Philadelphia to New
York. His fame as a writer had preceded him, and so, alas,
had the reputation of his faiUngs; but he succeeded in
obtaining the position of sub-editor and critic on the Even
ing Mirror, then owned by Nathaniel P. Willis. He dis
appointed aU expectations by his punctuality and his close
application to duty, and the brief period of his connection
with the Mirror was rendered memorable by the appearance
of the greatest of his poems, the one which gave him en
during fame, and which has taken its place among the classics
of the language — " The Raven,"
In the spring of 1845, Poe joined the editorial staff of
the Broadway Journal, a periodical whose course, then just
commenced, was quickly run. In July he assumed its sole
supervision, and in October he became its nominal owner.
His attention to business became more and more spasmodic.
He would frequently reprint some of his old productions
rather than exert himself for fresh efforts, and he occasionally
appeared in public on the platform, A lecture on American

EDGAR ALLAN POE.
Poets was well received in New York in March, 1845, and
in the fall of that year he entertained a Boston audience with
a long and incomprehensible poem, which he supplemented
with a very fine rendering of " The Raven," In January,
1846, the Broadway Journal ceased to exist, and Poe was
again reduced to a dependence upon chance purchasers of
his compositions. A series of articles on the "Literati of
New York " proved quite popular with the reading pubUc,
but was hardly relished by those authors who became the
objects of his pitUess criticisms. In the summer of this
year he took a small cottage at Fordham, admirably suited
for a poet's home, and there for a few months he enjoyed
the last gleams of happiness which were to fall to his lot,
beclouded as they were with poverty, sickness and suffering.
The family became so destitute that in December, 1846, the
contributions of friends and admirers in their aid was found
to be a necessity.
The death of the young wife in January, 1847, was a blow
which though long expected, feU with crushing effect upon
the poet's highly sensitive organization. During the next year
he accomplished Uttle if anything beyond the composition of
his so-called prose poem, "Eureka," which bears evident
marks of an intellect deranged by poignant grief. Poe was
never able to stand alone, and the loss of his idolized com
panion was fatal, although he was watched over with the
most tender solicitude by his aunt, his wife's mother. In
1848 he delivered a few lectures in New York and other
cities for the purpose of raising money to start a magazine
of his own — always a darling project with him. After this
time he wrote nothing of importance ; his debauches became
more frequent and his periods of sobriety more Umited,
Late in the summer of 1849, he left his home at Fordham
for a Southern tour, but he fell, through the temptation of
evil companions in PhUadelphia, and was obUged to depend
on charity for the means to continue his journey to Richmond.

EDGAR ALLAN POE.
In the latter city, after repeatedly yielding to the baser im
pulses of his nature, he was taken in charge by his friends,
decently clothed, and furnished with an office in which to
write. Apparently a reform had been accomplished. He delivered
a lecture on temperance which was patronized by the ^lite
of the city, and once more he found a welcome in good
society. Furthermore, his addresses were accepted by a
widow lady with whom he had been on friendly terms in
his more youthful days, and preparations for a wedding were
nearly completed when he undertook a short business trip
to Philadelphia and New York, He reached Baltimore on
the 3d of October in a state of delirium. While in this
condition he was seized by a gang of roughs, and, it being
election day, he was forced to vote in as many polling places
as he could be dragged to, and then left to his fate. He
was discovered insensible, and conveyed to an hospital where,
four days later, October 7, 1849, he died, having reached
only his forty-first year ; a sad closing to one of the saddest
careers which the biographer was ever caUed upon to record.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

From life.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

HE Martyr-President, he who holds, second only
to Washington himself, the highest place in the
hearts of his loyal countrymen, was born in the
wilds of Kentucky, February 12, 1809, Here
he lived, his home a cabin of the rudest descrip
tion, until he was seven years old, when his
father, who was a farmer of the poorer class,
went with his family westward into the State of
Indiana, hoping to find a more favorable loca
tion. Twelve years or more of toU ensued, par
ticipated in from the outset to the fiUlest extent of his abUity
by the future president, who thus became thoroughly inured
to the hardships of a backwoodsman's life. During the period
of his boyhood and youth, he obtained barely one year's
schooling, all told, and very inferior schooling at that. The
mother soon sickened and died, and Thomas Lincoln presently
brought home another helpmeet, a widow with three children.
The new wife, a woman of energy who brought some little
property with her, took a kindly interest in the orphaned
children, and something of an improvement was made in the
Lincoln home, Abraham had managed to learn to read while
yet in Kentucky, and what books he could find in the grow
ing Indiana settlement, were eagerly devoured. Limited
though his opportunities might be, they were most faithfully
improved, and he formed the invaluable habit of acquiring
a thorough mastery of every branch of study to which he
applied himself. At school he often proved the peer or

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
even the superior of the teacher, what he read was carefuUy
stored away in his mind, and he developed a more than
ordinary faculty for imparting to others what he had himself
learned, in the form of a story, essay or oration. He was
likewise a willing worker, and being stout and strong, though
tall and awkward withal, he was much sought after by the
neighbors as a farm hand. Of a social nature, he learned,
by thus going among the people, much of their habits, and
of the politics of the day ; and a copy of the Revised
Statutes of Indiana, which he read at the home of a friend,
gave him some insight into the law. His interest in legal
matters was heightened by listening to the arguments of the
lawyers at the County Court, which young Lincoln would
walk fifteen mUes to attend, when he could find opportunity
to do so,
Abraham Lincoln made his first extended journey out into
the world at the age of nineteen, as bowhand on a flat-
boat. The voyage down the Ohio and the Mississippi to
New Orleans occupied some three months, and its novel ex
periences were of far greater value to him than the salary
which he received, eight dollars a month, rations, and a pre
paid return passage by steamboat. He saw enough of
African slavery during this trip and his subsequent one to
make him its earnest opponent. In 1830, the famUy made
another move westward, and settled near Decatur, in
Illinois, Abraham was now of age, and after assisting in
the erection of the new home, he left the paternal roof
forever. The summer of 1831 found him at New Salem in
charge of a general country store and a flouring mill, having
just returned from a second flatboat journey to New Orleans,
The annual election occurring soon after his arrival, he was
appointed election clerk, his first public office. His good
nature and honesty made him a prime favorite among the
citizens, whUe his muscular development and his skUl as a
wrestler, won the respect and admiration of the more dis-

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
orderly members of the community. All his spare time was
devoted to study, every book and newspaper which he could
by any means procure being carefully perused. Embracing
the political opinions of Henry Clay, he acquired, in a short
time, considerable local fame as a public speaker, and as a
debater he had no successful rival. The suspension of
business by his employer in the spring of 1832, left him out
of work, and he performed for a brief time the duties of a
soldier, this being his only mUitary experience until the time
when he should be caUed upon to assume the supreme com
mand of the armies and fleets of the United States,
Black Hawk, the renowned Sac chief, by his outrages on
the frontier settlers of Illinois, had precipitated the war
which is known by his name ; the governor caUed out the
militia for defence and Lincoln was among the volunteers.
He was chosen captain of his company, but his troops proving
mutinous, they were disbanded and he served through the
remainder of the war as a private. The campaign lasted
only a few months, and after the settlement of the difficulties,
Lincoln returned to New Salem without having seen an en
gagement. He had been induced to offer himself as a can
didate for the State Legislature, but was not at this time
elected, although he received the almost unanimous vote of
his own viUage. He now made a second trial of mercantile
life, becoming part owner of a store, but fortunately for his
country, he faUed completely. His partner turned out to be
a worthless fellow, and he gained nothing by his venture but
fresh debts. He was appointed postmaster in 1833, and tra
dition says that he carried the post-office in his hat. The next
occupation in which he was engaged was that of a land
surveyor, and having mastered the principles of his profes
sion, he foUowed it with success and profit for several years;
but the crisis of 1837 ruined his business, and he was even
obliged to part with his instruments in order to satisfy the
sheriff's execution. MeanwhUe he prosecuted his law studies

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
in a desultory way, and even pleaded a few cases in court,
for which, however, he received no recompense.
In 1834 Mr. Lincoln was elected to the Illinois Legislature,
being yet so poor that he was forced to borrow money to
buy clothes enough to make a respectable appearance at the
State capital, and he held his seat for eight years. His party,
which was in the minority, soon came to regard him as its
leader, and he was twice the Whig candidate for Speaker,
He took occasion to express his dissent from the extreme
pro-slavery resolution passed by the House, taking that
moderate position on the most important question of the
day, to which he constantly adhered until forced to take a
more radical view by the foUy and crime of the slaveholders
themselves. When the seat of Government was removed
from Vandalia to Springfield in 1837, Mr, Lincoln settled
permanently in the latter city. He was admitted to the bar
in 1836, '
After the close of his service in the legislature, Mr,
Lincoln devoted his entire attention to his practice for
several years, except during the presidential campaign of
1844, when he stumped lUinois in behalf of Henry Clay,
feeling the disappointment of the great Whig leader's defeat
very keenly. It is said that his admiration for Clay was
much diminished by the somewhat haughty bearing of the
latter upon the occasion of a meeting between the two a
little while later, in Kentucky, At all events, Lincoln, who
was a member of the Whig National Convention of 1848,
favored the nomination of Zachary Taylor, and afterward
aided materiaUy in the canvass. In November, 1842, he
was married to Mary Todd. The distinguished statesman
and diplomatist, Robert T. Lincoln, is the only survivor of
his chUdren, Abraham Lincoln was already a successful
lawyer when he was called upon, in 1847, to represent his
district in Congress, being the only Whig member of the
Illinois delegation.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
He remained in Congress only a single term, during which
he acted in accord with the principles of his party in general,
except that he maintained an attitude of uncompromising
hostility to the extension of slavery. He made a brief visit
to New England in 1848, speaking in favor of General
Taylor, but most of his time in this canvass was spent in
the West, After Taylor's election, he did not again take
any pronunent part in politics until 1854, his support of
General Scott in 1852 being only half-hearted, as he clearly
foresaw the downfall of the Whigs, now so hopelessly divided
among themselves on the question of slavery. In January,
1854, the Imp of Discord moved Stephen A. Douglas,
Senator from IlUnois, to introduce into the United States
Senate, the Kansas-Nebraska BUl, embodying his specious
theories of " Squatter Sovereignty," nullifying the Missouri
Compromise, and permitting the extension. North and'West,
of that foul blot upon our civilization which had for gener
ations rested like an incubus upon the States of the South,
The bUl became a law in May, and Mr, Lincoln shared in
the general indignation which was aroused at the North, In
the ensuing faU he held two memorable public discussions
with Senator Douglas in which he exposed, in a masterly
manner, the fallacies of his antagonist's arguments. Shortly
afterward the Illinois Legislature met to choose a coUeague
for Mr. Douglas, Lincoln was a candidate, but after several
ballots he directed his friends to give their support to Lyman
Trumbull, an anti-Douglas Democrat, who was consequently
elected. In 1856, Abraham Lincoln was one of the foremost
among the leaders in the movement which resulted in the
formation of the Republican Party, and he received consider
able support in the first National Convention of that party
as candidate for the Vice-Presidential nomination. He was
as yet comparatively unknown outside of his own State, but
the famous senatorial contest in 1858 gave hun a briUiant

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
national reputation as a statesman and a consummate master
of debate. The IlUnois Legislature, which was chosen in
that year, was to elect a successor to Senator Douglas, and
both parties selected in advance the candidates for whom the
Legislature should baUot, Mr. Douglas being named for
reelection by the Democrats, whUe Mr. Lincoln was the
choice of the Republicans. Seven joint debates took place
between the two at different points in the State, and the
public excitement was wrought up to the highest pitch. In
view of the fact that Southern politicians subsequently
represented Mr. Lincoln to their people as an AboUtionist
monster whose aim was to rob them of their slaves, it is
proper to state that during these debates he steadUy adhered
to the position which he had always taken — that Congress
ought not, could not interfere with slavery where it was
already established, and he distinctly announced that he did
not favor giving to colored people the rights of citizenship.
The contest resulted in Mr. Douglas's reelection, although
Mr, Lincoln had received a pluraUty of the popular vote.
The renown acquired by Mr, Lincoln in this canvass was
increased by his public addresses in various parts of the
country during the following year and in the early part of
1860, and especially by a very powerful speech delivered in
the Cooper Institute at New York, in February of the latter
year. The Republicans of lUinois at their convention in
May, 1859, nominated him for president, yet it was generally
thought that WilUam H. Seward would be the RepubUcan
candidate, until the convention, which met at Chicago in
May, 1860, made choice of Mr. Lincoln upon the third
ballot. At the election in the following November, he re
ceived one hundred and eighty electoral votes, the remaining
one hundred and twenty-three being divided among three com
petitors, Breckenridge, Bell and Douglas. Immediately the
traitors at the South put their machinery at work to destroy
the Union, By the 1st of February, 1861, seven States had

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
resolved themselves into independent sovereignties, and ten
days later Mr, Lincoln left his modest home in Springfield
for Washington, He was received with enthusiasm in the
different cities on the route ; but upon arriving at Philadel
phia he was warned of a plot for his assassination while
passing through Baltimore, At the solicitations of his friends,
he changed his plans slightly, so as to arrive at Washington
early on the morning of February 23d, some twelve hours
before he was expected. On the 4th of March, 1861, he
was inaugurated President of the United States, and assumed
the gravest responsibUities that ever rested upon an
American citizen.
The history of Mr. Lincoln's administration is essentiaUy
one with that of the most wicked of all rebellions against
just and lawful government. When he took the oath of
office, seven States were leagued together in open defiance
of the national authority, and four more soon followed their
evU example. Several weeks elapsed before it became evident
what the course of the President would be in this unpre
cedented emergency, and some good people even began to
fear that he was going to pursue the same weak and halting
policy as his predecessor had done ; but, in his wisdom, he
had determined that in the great war which was seen to be
inevitable, the enemies of his country should strike the first
blow. On AprU 12, 1861, Sumter was fired upon, and " the
last ray of hope for preserving the Union peaceably expired."
Troops were called for to defend the National Capital, and
retake the property of the Government which had faUen into
rebel hands. The regular army and the navy were aug
mented, and by proclamation the President closed the ports
of the South Atlantic and Gulf States, Congress having
been summoned to meet in extra session in July, confirmed
all these acts of the executive, and conferred upon Mr,
Lincoln ample powers to subdue the rebellion.
His first care was to provide for the safety of the city of

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington ; that accomplished, the difficult task followed of
so ordering the aggressive movements of the different armies
as not to needlessly irritate the people of the border States
who were wavering in their aUegiance. Thousands upon
thousands of brave soldiers hastened to the front, bnt a
thoroughly competent leader was yet to be found. The first
advance of the undisciplined and over-confident troops resulted
in the mortifying defeat of Bull Run in July. The Com
mander-in-Chief, Winfield Scott, the hero of two wars, unfitted
by his age and infirmities to cope with a powerful and weU
prepared foe, resigned, and was succeeded in November by
General McClellan, The latter enjoyed temporarily a won
derful degree of popularity, but he disappointed the hopes
of President and people, and his command was, in March,
1862, limited to the Army of the Potomac, His plans did
not commend themselves to Mr. Lincoln, but the President
deferred to the acknowledged military abUity of his sub
ordinate, untU McClellan, after a most aggravating series of
delays, was finally obliged to retreat before the foe after the
disastrous peninsular campaign in the spring and summer of
1862. The first two years of the war were unfavorable to
the national arms; so unfavorable, that many at the North
lost heart, whUe Northern sympathizers with treason, known
as "Copperheads," began to talk loudly of compromise or
surrender. In order to deal with the latter class of persons,
Mr, Lincoln was forced to suspend the act of habeas corpus,
European powers freely gave aid and comfort to the rebels,
and aU but acknowledged their independence. Amid aU
this storm of disaster, ihe Man at the Helm, Abraham
Lincoln, was true as steel, and guided the tempest-tossed
Ship of State with consummate wisdom, though weighed down
by the cares of his high office, to which also was added a
severe domestic affliction in the loss of his twelve-year-old
son, Willie.
The Northern people were at length brought to realize

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
that no permanent peace could ever be established untU the
great cause of the whole trouble — slavery — was removed.
Early in 1862, it was abolished in the Territories and in the
District of Columbia, where the jurisdiction of Congress was
supreme, and in accordance with Mr, Lincoln's recommend
ation, plans were discussed, and partiaUy adopted, by which
the general government should aid the States in providing
for gradual emancipation, and the colonization of those freed
men who might be willing to leave the country; but the
blind obstinacy of the Southern leaders, who were determined
to cling at aU hazards to their scheme for an independent
slave-holding nation, rendered these plans of no effect.
Harsher measures were necessary, and after a preliminary
warning, which was totally unheeded. President Lincoln, on
the 1st of January, 1863, issued his famous proclamation,
by which, with a few exceptions, all the slaves in ten States
were declared to be forever free.
Two years more of awful carnage ; but the tide had
turned. One after another the strongholds of the rebels
feU before the advance of the Union armies. In the early
days of July, 1863, the country was electrified by the almost
simultaneous victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the
former hurUng back the presumptuous foe who dared to
set his foot on Northern soU, the latter opening the Great
River to commerce, and giving to the nation the long-sought
mUitary leader. On the 19th of November, the field of
Gettysburg, purchased by the State of Pennsylvania, was
consecrated as a national cemetery for the loyal soldiers who
had fallen there, upon which occasion Abraham Lincoln
made that brief but most famous of aU his speeches, in
which he urged the Nation to renewed dUigence " that gov
ernment of the people, by the people, and for the people,
shall not perish from the Earth." On the 9th of March,
1864, he commissioned the hero of Vicksburg Lieutenant-
General. A great load was lifted from the shoulders of the

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
good President, as he now had a commander for his armies
in whom he could repose implicit confidence — Ulysses S.
Grant, In May, 1864, General Grant began his operations for the
reduction of the rebel capital, which was defended with a
bravery born of despair, and which only succumbed after
eleven months of bloodshed more terrible than any ever
witnessed by the armies of Wellington or Bonaparte. Presi
dent Lincoln visited the field of battle in person in June,
and returned to Washington, heartsick from the scene of
suffering and ruin which had met his eye, but with an un
shaken confidence in the final triumph of the right. At
the same time Sherman was dealing his giant blows in
Georgia, and the nation was in a whirl of excitement, un
equalled before or since. In the midst of it all the time
arrived for another presidential election. That there should
have been any opposition to Mr, Lincoln wiU be as incom
prehensible to our children as is to us the violent opposition
which was manifested toward Washington himself. The
regiUar Democratic nominee. General G, B, McClellan,
received his support largely from those politicians who had
done all in their power to thwart the Government in its
attempts to put down the rebellion, whUe President Lincoln
received the suffrages of all loyal men, Democrats as well
as Republicans, He was triumphantly reelected, receiving
two hundred and twelve electoral votes, including those of
the two States of West Virginia and Nevada, which had been
admitted during his administration, McClellan received
twenty-one votes, and the eleven rebellious States were
disfranchised. On the 4th of March, 1865, Mr. Lincoln began his second
administration. The clouds of war were rapidly rolling
away ; already the old flag had been replaced above the ruins
of Sumter, and in less than a month Richmond was occu
pied by the Federal troops, and the arch-traitor, Davis, was a

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
fugitive. President Lincoln was with the army at City
Point, and on AprU 3d he entered the deserted rebel capital,
not with the pomp of the conqueror — for that his great kindly
heart would not allow him to do — but to be haUed as the
savior of their race by the colored population. His work
was accomplished. The enthusiasm of the loyal North at
the collapse of the rebellion was unbounded, but it was
doomed to receive a fearful check. On the evening of the
14th of AprU, while seeking a brief respite from the crush
ing cares of state and the persecutions of a horde of office-
seekers, the great President, the best beloved of the rulers
of the earth, was shot and fatally wounded by the assassin,
Booth, and he died on the following day. Thus was ended
the life of a man in whose heart was "malice towards none,"
but " charity for all." Words fail to express the anguish
caused by the ruthless act at home, or the detestation
with which it was universaUy regarded abroad. So long
as America shall have a name among the nations of the
earth, so long wUl she cherish and revere the name of
Abraham Lincoln,

HANNIBAL HAMLIN.

From life.

HANNIBAL HAMLIN.

lANNIBAL HAMLIN was born in the town of
Paris, Me,, on the 27th of August, 1809, only
a little more than six months later than that
illustrious man with whom his name was to be
associated ; but his advantages in point of birth
and education were much superior to those of
President Lincoln. His father was a physician
and a farmer, and also held the position of
sheriff. His grandfather was a Revolutionary
officer. After attending the district school he
was sent to the Academy at Hebron, and was
there prepared to enter college ; but it was
finally decided that another of the six brothers
should enjoy that privilege, and Hannibal was in consequence
obliged to remain on the farm. After a time he was enabled,
by teaching school, to obtain means to purchase books, and
he then began to read law, but his studies were interrupted
by the death of his father, in 1828, and two years more were
spent in agricultural labor. Upon coming of age, in 1830,
he became interested in the pubUcation of The, Jeffersonian,
and learned to set type, being likewise a contributor to the
journal. He soon sold out, but remained in the printing-
office as a workman for some months, after which he resumed
the study of the law in the office of William Pitt Fessenden,
who was afterwards his colleague in the Senate, He was
admitted to the bar, at Paris, in 1833,
He married in the same year, and having settled upon the

HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
town of Hampden, a few miles from Bangor, as his residence,
he entered upon a highly successful career as a lawyer. It
was not long before he acquired a favorable reputation as a
lyceum orator, and he also became quite active as a Demo
cratic politician. He was a member of the Maine Legisla
ture of 1836, and also during the four succeeding years,
serving as Speaker of the House in 1837, and again in 1839
and 1840, In the latter year he received the nomination of
his party for Congress, The campaign was a memorable
one, being that in which General Harrison was elected to
the presidency, Mr, Hamlin introduced into the Pine Tree
State upon this occasion the novel feature of personal dis
cussion between the candidates, to add to the excitement ; but
the great Whig tidal wave reached Maine, at that time con
sidered safely Democratic, and he was defeated. At the
next election he was successful, and took his seat, in
December, 1843, as a member of the Twenty-Eighth
Congress, Among his first acts in Congress was one which fore
shadowed his course with regard to the question of slavery.
It was his vote against the celebrated "twenty-first rule " by
which the Abolitionists were denied the right of petition.
The obnoxious regulation was abrogated at the next session.
He also actively opposed the annexation of Texas; not
because he was unfavorable to an extension of the national
domain, but because he looked with alarm upon any increase
of the territory of that section of the country whose pros
perity was supposed to depend upon unpaid labor, Mr.
Hamlin served two terms in the House. In the Twenty-Ninth
Congress he was a member of the Committee on Naval
Affairs. Near the close of his second term it feU to his lot
to present the amendment known as the " Wilmot Proviso "
(its author, David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, being unavoid
ably absent), extending the provisions of the Missouri Com
promise to the territory which might be acquired from

HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
Mexico, either by conquest or purchase. The amendment
passed the House, as it had done once before, but it never
got through the Senate. In 1847 Mr. Hamlin was again
a member of the Maine Legislature,
In 1848, by the aid of a few Free Soil votes, he was
elected United States Senator, to fill the vacancy caused
by the death, in December, 1847, of ex-Governor John
Fairfield, He had been a candidate for the Senatorship
two years previously, but had failed of an election by the
single vote of an over-sensitive member of the Legislature
who had taken mortal offence at a bit of good-natured
pleasantry on the part of Mr, Hamlin, who was ever fond
of his joke. In 1851 he was reelected for the full term,
and about this time he abandoned the practice of the law,
thenceforth devoting time and talent to the service of his
State and Nation, untU at an advanced age he retired,
with nothing more than a comfortable living, to private life.
In the Senate he continued his opposition to all measures for
the extension of slavery ; but, like Mr, Lincoln, he thought
it unwise to interfere with the institution in those States
where it already existed. In obedience to his own ideas of
justice, as well as to the nearly unanimous voice of the
Maine Legislature, he voted against the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise in 1854, although President Pierce
entreated him to act with his party and against his convic
tions, as he himself did when he signed the Kansas-Nebraska
Bill. He maintained his connection with the Democratic
party for two years longer, waiting in the vain hope of
seeing the beneficial results so confidently promised by the
authors of the repeal. The atrocities in Kansas and the
unconcealed disloyalty of the Southern members decided
him to break with the democracy. On the 12th of June,
1856, in a powerful speech he pointed out why he could no
longer act with the majority in Congress, and resigned the
chairmanship of the Committee on Commerce. He at onee

HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
joined the Republican party, which had just come into
existence. Mr, Hamlin was not as conspicuous in debate as some of
his colleagues, but there was no more indefatigable worker
in the Senate, Very much against his inclination, he was,
in June, 1856, nominated by the Republicans for the gover
norship of his native State, Many even of his friends
prophesied his defeat, but he entered into the campaign with
great earnestness, visiting every important town and hamlet
in Maine, and making nearly a hundred speeches during the
months of July and August, The election in September
resulted in a complete victory for Mr, Hamlin, whose
majority was eighteen thousand, more than double that ever
given for any previous gubernatorial candidate in Maine,
He resigned his seat in the Senate and was inaugurated
governor, January 7, 1857, Nine days later he was re
elected to the Senate, and on the 20th of February he
resigned the governorship, after an administration which
had lasted only six weeks.
The vice-presidency of the United States has sometimes
been regarded as an undesirable office, since, as a rule, its
holder exercises only a very slight influence in the adminis
tration which he may at any moment be caUed upon to
conduct. Statesmen who have eagerly coveted the first place
in the Government have scorned the second. When the
Republican Convention of 1860, after nominating Abraham
Lincoln for the presidency, finished its work by conferring
upon Mr, Hamlin its more doubtful honor, he hesitated in
his acceptance, until he was assured that refusal would en
danger the success of the ticket. At the most momentous
election which our country has ever known Hannibal Ham
lin was chosen Vice-President, From the very outset he
was honored with Mr. Lincoln's confidence, and he retained
it during all the four eventful years in which he presided
over the deliberations of the National Senate, So cordial

HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
were the relations between them that it is said that no favor
which Mr, Hamlin asked of the President was ever refused.
Before the inauguration he was consulted by Mr, Lincoln
in regard to the composition of the Cabinet, He advised
the selection of WUliam H, Seward as Secretary of State,
notified him of his appointment, and urged him to accept.
He was also invited to name one of the members himself,
and proposed Mr, Welles as the head of the Navy Depart
ment, During the war he was frequently called upon by
the President for his advice. He earnestly favored the
arming of colored troops, and when at length the step was
decided upon, he personally carried the necessary orders to
the Secretary of War, The draft of the Emancipation
Proclamation was likewise submitted to him for his approval.
He was active in promoting the welfare of the Union
soldiers, and especially attentive to the needs of the Maine
troops. In short, in the exercise of every duty, whether
appertaining to his high office, or self-imposed, he proved
himself a stanch and enlightened patriot.
It is idle to speculate upon the probable turn which affairs
would have taken had Mr. Hamlin been reelected; suffice
to say that the wisdom of supplanting him at the close of
his term, in 1865, by Andrew Johnson, is very generally
doubted at the present day. Certain considerations were
supposed to render the change desirable at the time, but
they reflected in no way upon the merits or the abUity of
the " Old Carthaginian." He loyally supported the Repub
lican ticket in 1864, and shortly after his successor became
President Mr, Hamlin was appointed collector of the port
of Boston, He held this office for only a year, resigning
it when he considered it to be his duty to oppose the Presi
dent in his unfortunate contest with Congress, which, of
course, he could not do with propriety so long as he held
office under him. After an interval of two years of private
Ufe in his half-century of public service he was once more

HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
elected Senator, He took his seat March 4, 1869, and
having been again honored by a reelection in 1875, he held
it until March 3, 1881, voluntarUy declining to be a can
didate for the sixth time. In June following, President
Garfield appointed Mr, HamUn Minister to Spain.
Owing to the President's untimely death, he resigned this
position, but was immediately reappointed by President
Arthur, and sailed for Europe in October. His diplomatic
career was a brief one. He returned to America in January,
1883, followed by the best wishes of the Spanish king and
court. He passed the remainder of his life in retirement,
in summer cultivating his farm for recreation, and in winter
residing at Bangor, its most honored citizen. He retained
his activity to the last, as well as his taste for the pleasures
of society and his keen interest in political affairs. For
thirty-four years previous to his death he was a stranger
to sickness, and his long career was one of unblemished
integrity. Among his pecuUarities may be mentioned his
intense disUke for music ; and he was wont to boast that he
had never disappointed an audience when he was announced
to make a speech, and had never worn an overcoat. He
was twice married, his first wife dying in 1855, and his
second, who was her half-sister, and whom he married in
1856, surviving him, as do several sons, who have risen to
distinction. Death came suddenly and painlessly, in his
eighty-second year, upon the most appropriate day that could
be imagined — Independence Day, 1891. Our RepubUc cannot
too gratefuUy treasure the memories of men whose Uves
have been faithfuUy spent in her service, as was that of
Hannibal Hamlin.

O. W. HOLMES.
From the portrait by E. T. Billings [1824 —
painted for the Medical Library Association
of Boston, in 1889.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

LIVER WENDELL HOLMES, the son of Rev.
Abiel Holmes, a Congregationalist clergyman
of good New England lineage, was born in
the town of Cambridge, Mass., on the 29th
of August, 1809, He was a bright lad, and
had a most amiable disposition, but was
highly sensitive, and in his childish imagi
nation were pictured curious fancies about the
quaint old mansion, only recently taken down,
which was the home of his infancy and youth,
and about many of the familiar objects sur
rounding it, some of which fancies have been preserved in
those charming autobiographical sketches which have been,
and stUl continue to be, the delight of thousands of readers.
His earliest education was acquired in the schools of his
native town ; for five years he attended one at the " Port,"
where Margaret Fuller, afterward Countess Ossoli, and
Richard H. Dana were among the number of his compan
ions. He was no marvel of propriety or precocity, but con
fesses to about the average amount of whispering and
idleness during the hours of study.
At the age of fifteen, Oliver was sent to the PhUlips
Academy at Andover, to prepare for college. Probably the
elder Holmes cherished the hope that his first-born son would
there be attracted toward his own sacred profession, but the
young man's tastes were found not to lie in that direction.
While at the academy he showed unmistakable signs of a

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
poetic genius by his versified translation of portions of the
J5neid of Virgil. He remained at Andover only a year,
and in 1825 he entered Harvard, in a class, many of whose
members attained distinction, among whom we may name
S, F, Smith, the author of " America," James Freeman
Clarke, Unitarian divine, and Chief Justice Bigelow. Charles
Sumner entered the class just below him, while the historian
Motley, and his own second cousin, WendeU PhUUps, entered
during his junior year. Dr. Holmes was an excellent scholar,
but had a very respectable share in the pranks of the stu
dents, and did not attain a specially high rank. He began
to write, however, and at his graduation, in 1829, deUvered
the class poem.
For a year after graduating Holmes was engaged in legal
studies at the Dane Law School, of Harvard University, and
was also a contributor to the Collegian. In the autumn of
1830 he abandoned the law, and took up the study of
medicine, of which he made final choice for a profession.
It was in this year that his name first became widely known
as a writer, through the publication, at first in the columns
of the Boston Advertiser, of those ringing lines which
have been declaimed by every schoolboy for two generations,
" Aye ! tear her tattered ensign down ! "
called forth by the proposed razing of the most noted of
American vessels of war, the frigate Constitution, then at
the Charlestown Navy Yard. The poem, copied into nearly
every journal in the land, and issued as a broadside, not only
brought fame to its young author, but it also deterred the
Secretary of War from carrying into execution the plans for
the destruction of the honored relic. After havinsr con-
tinned two and a half years under the best medical in
structors of Boston, he saUed, in April, 1833, for Europe,
and he spent an equal length of time in the Old World,
chiefly in the hospitals and lecture-rooms of Paris, mingling
to some extent in the diversions of the gay capital.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Although Dr, Holmes rose to some eminence as a prac
titioner and a writer on medical subjects, and to very much
higher eminence as a teacher, his reputation in this direction
has been almost entirely overshadowed by his fame as a
poet, a philosopher, and a wit. One admiring critic has
credited him with the creation of a new species of literature,
while another has tritely observed that the exquisite humor
of his writings has benefited more individuals than ever
his doses or prescriptions. In 1833 he was one of the
authors of a coUection of miscellanies called the " Har
binger " ; in 1836 he published his first volume of poems.
In the latter year, after receiving from his Alma Mater the
degree of M, D., he began practice in Boston, the city of
his affections, whose praises he has loyally sung, which he
has declared to be the central point of the solar system,
and its State House the very hub around which that system
revolves. After two years of professional life in Boston, he accepted
the professorship of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth
College, which he held until about the time of his marriage,
in 1840, to Amelia Lee Jackson, a niece of the distinguished
physician under whom he had pursued his preliminary medi
cal studies. He then returned to Boston, and for the follow
ing seven years devoted his whole attention to the duties of
his profession. In 1847 he was installed in the Chair of
Anatomy and Physiology at the Harvard Medical School.
This position he held for thirty-five years, lecturing to four
classes weekly during eight months in each year. His
demonstrations were clothed in the most attractive language,
and often enlivened with the keen wit for which he has
become so celebrated the world over. He was eminently
popular with the students, and it was no uncommon thing
for the favorite professor to be greeted with hearty applause
upon entering the classroom or during his lecture. His
connection with the Medical School extended very nearly

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
over the entire period during which the institution was
located in North Grove Street, in Boston, or from the year
after it was established there until the year preceding its
removal to its present quarters adjoining Boston's magnificent
Public Library,
In 1849 Dr, Holmes relinquished his practice, and was
thus enabled to devote a much larger portion of his time to
literary composition, in which he took increasing pleasure.
In 1852 he delivered a lecture on the English Poets of the
Nineteenth Century, in the leading Northern cities, and for
several years subsequently he enjoyed a fair degree of popu
larity as a lyceum orator. It was not until his fifty-eighth
year that he gave to the world the first of the famous
" Breakfast Table " series, which are the most widely kuown
of his writings. It was in 1857 that he began the publica
tion of the " Autocrat " papers, in the first number of the
"Atlantic Monthly," The title of "The Autocrat of the
Breakfast Table " was identical with that of a coUection of
his forgotten youthful efforts, but the similarity ceased with
the title. The work was issued in book form in 1858, and
gave its author a celebrity which he happily yet lives to
enjoy. It was in 1858, also, that he left the house in which
he had resided since his marriage, and in which his three
children were born, and took up his abode on Charles Street,
in a house overlooking the river, and commanding a distant
view of his old home at Cambridge. His summers in earlier
years were spent at his seat in Pittsfield, Mass,, an inheritance
from his WendeU ancestry, who once owned the entire town.
Latterly his summers have been passed in the company of
his daughter, at Beverly Farms, Mass,
That Oliver Wendell Holmes holds the highest position
among American humorists few will be inclined to deny;
but his writings likewise include many essays and poems in
a more sober vein, biographical notices of Emerson and
Longfellow, two novels, " Elsie Venner," published in 1861,

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
and the " Guardian Angel," six years later, as well as
numerous papers read before medical societies or contributed
to medical journals. His severe strictures upon Homeopathy
will perhaps be regarded by many at the present day in the
light of witticisms rather than of scientific essays. The
greater portion of his productions have made their first
appearance in the "Atlantic Monthly," of which periodical
he was the sponsor, notably the " Professor at the Breakfast
Table," m 1859, and the " Poet," in 1872, He possesses a
most versatUe genius, and is especially happy in poetry
prepared for special occasions.
In 1871 Dr, Holmes removed to his present residence, on
Beacon Street, in Boston, The completion of his seventieth
year, in 1879, was made memorable by a breakfast given on
the 3d of December by the publishers of the " Atlantic
Monthly" at the Hotel Brunswick, On this occasion the
literati of the country vied with one another in doing honor
to the genial physician whose wise and witty sayings have
driven duU care away from so many of his feUow-beings,
Three years later he resigned his professorship and retired
from active life, though not from his literary labors. He
met his last class on the 28th of November, 1882, receiving
from them a " loving-cup," with emotions too deep for utter
ance. The active duties of his office were assigned to
another, but Dr, Holmes still retains the title of professor
emeritus. In 1886 The Autocrat visited England, and was
received as a brother among brethren by the most dis
tinguished men of learning and letters. A pleasant account
of this trip is to found in his "Hundred Days in Europe."
WhUe abroad he received the doctorate of laws from
Edinburgh, of letters from Cambridge, and the degree of
D, C, L. from Oxford, He has written less frequently since
passing his eightieth year, and some hints dropped in " Over
the Tea Cups " seem to indicate that he imagines himself to
be growing old, but his admirers feel that he is certainly

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
mistaken, and that the powers of the author of " The Broom
stick Train " are fully equal to those of the writer of " The
One Hoss Shay," It is with feeUngs of genuine satisfaction
that we leave our sketch of OUver WendeU Holmes
unfinished.

p. T. BARNUM.

From life

p. T. BARNUM.

^^SjERE the question to be asked, " What American
of our times acquired the highest degree
of notoriety?" we should unhesitatingly reply,
"P. T. Barnum," In this country his name is a
synonym for enterprise, audacity and shrewd
ness, and it has been added to the coUoquial
vocabulary of a foreign tongue. Among his
imitators and rivals in his chosen vocation of
catering to the popular demand for amusement
none could ever claim to be his peer. He was
preeminent in his profession; the world never
saw his like, and, now that he is gone, it wUl
long look in vain for his equal. Phineas
Taylor Barnum was born in Bethel, Conn,,
July 5, 1810. He was a farmer's boy, a good scholar, quick
at figures, and endowed with a remarkable propensity for
earning money, not by the sweat of his brow, but by trading
and commercial speculation. His first experience in mercan-
tUe business was as a clerk in a store which his father estab
lished at Bethel. In 1825 the father died, bankrupt, and
young Barnum was left penniless, the eldest of five chUdren.
He found employment at a store in a neighboring vUlage
and soon proved to be a valuable assistant. A year later he
accepted a more responsible position in New York City,
where he was well treated, and even intrusted with the duty
of purchasing goods; but he longed to be his own master.
An attack of small-pox in 1827, by forcing him to remain

p. T. BARNUM.
idle for some months, made a serious inroad into his savings.
After his recovery he opened a small public house in
Brooklyn, sold out with profit after a few weeks, and again
worked for a time on a salary. In 1828 he returned to his
native town and opened a store for the sale of confectionery
and small wares, which venture was quite successful. About
the same time he became agent for certain lotteries, from
which he derived a considerable income for several years.
On the Sth of November, 1829, being only in his twentieth
year, he was married.
In 1831 he opened a grocery store at Bethel, but the
profits of the business were so much reduced by bad debts
that he was glad to sell it out two years later, MeanwhUe,
in October, 1831, he had commenced the publication of a
newspaper at Danbury, the Herald of Freedom, and before
long found himself famous as the defendant in several Ubel
suits, one of them resulting in his imprisonment in the jaU
for sixty days. He remained a journalist untU early in the
year 1835, when he removed with his family to New York.
FaUing to find any suitable employment, he opened a board
ing-house on Frankfort Street, and also bought an interest
in a grocery. In the same year he had his first experience
of the profession in which he was to become so famous, that
of a showman. His first exhibit consisted of a decrepit old
negress, Joice Heth, who was said to be of very advanced
age, and to have been nurse to George Washington. He
was honestly convinced of the genuineness of her claims,
and showed her to paying houses in New York, Boston, and
elsewhere, untU her death, in the following year. He next
engaged an Italian acrobat, who performed sometimes under
his management, and was sometimes leased to other mana
gers. In AprU, 1836, Mr. Barnum joined a traveUing circus,
as ticket-seller and treasurer, retaining his Italian with him,
and the ensuing summer was spent in journeying through
the country, from New England as far south as North Caro-

p. T. BARNUM.
lina. The season ended in October, leaving him with a
handsome net gain, and he immediately took a portion of
the company, and started out on his own account.
For more than a year the great showman travelled through
the Southern States with his company, or rather his com
panies, for the circus was once disbanded and re-formed,
meeting with many changes of fortune, and the summer of
1838 found him in New York, ready for a new venture.
He advertised for a business partner with experience, and
from among the host of applicants he selected one with
whom he engaged in the manufacture of paste blacking.
This partnership was dissolved in January, 1840, Mr, Barnum
gaining more experience than profit by the transaction.
During the following summer he conducted a variety per
formance at the Vauxhall Gardens, in New York ; but not
meeting with much success, he gathered together a few
singers and dancers and once more took the road. He met
with so many disagreeable adventures during a tour of the
West and South that upon his return to New York in AprU,
1841, he resolved to quit the business. He next tried his
hand as a book-agent. He sold some thousands of volumes
in the next six months, and then found that, through dis
honest sub-agents, his capital had been exhausted. Mean
while he had again hired the VauxhaU Gardens, which he
managed with some success for a single season, but at its
close found himself reduced to the necessity of writing
theatre advertisements at four dollars a week, eking out a
poor living by contributing to the Sunday papers.
While his fortunes were at this low ebb Mr. Barnum
learned that the American Museum, on the corner of Broad
way and Ann Street, was for sale, and, with characteristic
assurance, he determined to become its owner. Without
capital of his own, he interested the owner of the buUding
in which the museum was located, and through his assistance,
after long and complicated negotiation with the proprietors.

p. T. BARNUM.
he took possession, in December, 1841, of a misceUaneous
coUection of curiosities, to which, as years passed on, he
made large additions, and which became the most celebrated
place of amusement in the world — Barnum's American
Museum. Within two years he was not only free from debt,
but had also bought the only rival estabUshment in the city,
and united it with his own. Every one is familiar with his
novel methods of advertising, and with the innocent hum
bugs with which he amused the people and made himself
notorious. The mermaid, the buffalo-hunt, and the woolly
horse were heartily laughed at by their victims, whUe the
more legitimate attractions of the museum were a source
of pleasure and instruction to thousands upon thousands of
patrons. In November, 1842, he engaged the services of
the celebrated dwarf, Charles S. Stratton, better known as
Tom Thumb, and after exhibiting him for a year in the
United States, he determined to take him abroad. He
accordingly left the museum in responsible hands, and sailed
for Liverpool, January 18, 1844,
This venture was remarkably successful from the com
mencement. In Liverpool and London throngs went to see
the diminutive American "General," Two appearances
before Her Majesty made the exhibition fashionable, and, in
addition to the liberal receipts, many valuable presents were
bestowed upon the little man by members of the nobUity,
In France and Belgium Mr, Barnum met with simUar suc
cess, and in October, 1844, after a brief business trip to
America, he returned with his wife and daughters and estab
lished his famUy in London, For over two years he contuiued
his tour, which extended throughout Great Britain and to
many important points on the Continent, and arrived home
in New York in February, 1847, with an abundance of
riches and fame. After travelUng with Tom Thumb for
another year through all parts of the United States, and
making a trip to Havana, Mr, Barnum, in the summer

P, T. BARNUM.
of 1848, ceased for a time to be a "straggler from home,"
and with a feeling of great relief settled down at Bridge
port, Conn,, which he had fixed upon as his residence, and
where he had built a palace which he called Iranistan. Here
he spent the two foUowing years, busying himself only with
the general oversight of his museum, whUe his subordinates
attended to the details.
The next enterprise planned by this extraordinary man
was perhaps the most remarkable in which he ever engaged.
On the 9th of January, 1850, through his agent in Europe,
he contracted with the "Swedish Nightingale," Miss Lind,
the most talented female vocalist the world has yet seen, for
a series of concerts in American cities. The undertaking
was one of great magnitude, but was carried to a successfiU
termination by its daring projector. Ninety-five concerts
in all, were given in nineteen cities, including Havana, the
first at Castle Garden, New York, September 11, 1850, the
last at Philadelphia, June 9, 1851, The receipts amounted
to over seven hundred thousand dollars, out of which Miss
Lind received as her share, above all expenses, a hundred
and seventy-six thousand dollars. After nine months of
constant anxiety, Mr, Barnum was glad to seek the re
tirement of his Connecticut home once more. In the wel
fare of the city of Bridgeport he took a deep interest, and
was active in the promotion of various enterprises whereby
to increase its prosperity. The shrewdest of men are some
times caught napping, and Mr. Barnum was to prove no
exception to the rule. In 1855 he was induced to connect
himself with a clock company which appeared, after the
closest investigation, to be perfectly reUable, but which
unfortunately was unsound, and in the summer of 1856 the
prince of showmen discovered that he had endorsed to the
extent of over half a mUlion doUars paper which was almost
worthless, except for his signature. He managed to pay his
honest personal debts, and then became bankrupt.

P, T. BARNUM.
After so many years of earnest labor, spent in amassing
a competence, he was now compelled to commence anew.
He was not of course reduced to a state of destitution, for
in his prosperity he had settled a goodly amount of property
upon his wife; but the greater part of the income from this
was used for the benefit of his creditors. He made an as
signment of everything that remained, including Iranistan,
and removed to New York, where he lived as economically as
possible. Expressions of sympathy and proffers of assistance
came in great numbers, but he declined aU aid, preferring
to extricate himself from his difficulties by his own exertions.
Only a few among his friends proved false, but he was con
stantly harassed by the persecutions of note shavers, and
finally determined to go abroad, to gain reUef and, if pos
sible, to mend his fortunes. He sailed for England early in
1857, accompanied by Tom Thumb, and the greater part of
his time for the next two years was spent in Europe, quietly
managing various exhibitions in Great Britain, HoUand and
Germany, He also delivered his famous lecture upon Money
Getting to a hundred and fifty attentive audiences, including
the students at Cambridge and Oxford, with whom he had
exciting, though not unpleasant experiences. By March, 1860,
he had succeeded in getting himself firmly upon his feet
again, and was once more the owner and manager of the
American Museum, which in October of that year was
honored by a visit from the Prince of Wales and his suite.
For the next five years Mr. Barnum was indefatigable in
his endeavors to procure novelties of every conceivable
nature from the four quarters of the globe with which to
entertain his patrons. One of the most interesting episodes
of this period of prosperity was the marriage of Tom Thumb
to Miss Warren, one of the showman's "curiosities," which
occurred in February, 1863, At length there was another
turn of the tide; on the 13th of July, 1865, the museum
and its valuable contents were destroyed by fire, entaiUng a

p. T. BARNUM.
loss of half a million. The insurance was small, but Mr.
Barnum realized nearly two hundred thousand dollars by
the sale of his lease to James Gordon Bennett, of the New
York Herald. He soon procured new quarters, and in four
months' time he opened his second museum. In the summer
of 1866 he accepted an engagement to lecture in the West,
addressing upwards of sixty audiences, and receiving one
hundred doUars for each lecture, all of which was devoted
to charitable purposes. But a singular fatality seemed to
attend him. During his financial troubles Iranistan was
burned, and in March, 1868, his new museum shared the
fate of its predecessor. The three conflagrations destroyed
about a mUlion dollars' worth of Mr, Barnum's property,
and he was yet to suffer twice more in a like manner. He
now retired for a few years from the show business, except
that he continued in business relations with Tom Thumb,
and he took advantage of this resting spell to visit Cuba and
California with a party of English friends. But idleness
was irksome to a man of such active temperament, and in
1871 he gathered together his famous Hippodrome and
Circus, which, with frequent changes of name and personnel,
continued under his direction untU his death, exhibiting not
only in every section of the United States, but even in
England, Our readers wUl require no description of the
" Greatest Show upon Earth," which has outlived its cele
brated founder. Fire destroyed a portion of it in New
York, in December, 1872, and again at the Bridgeport
winter quarters in November, 1887. In November, 1873,
during the absence of Mr, Barnum in Europe, his wife died,
at the city residence in New York.
From Barnum as a showman, we now turn to Barnum as
a citizen. Allusion has already been made to his public
spirit in connection with the city of Bridgeport, He was
very generous, and gave away large sums of money in
charities, both public and private. He was highly esteemed

p. T. BARNUM.
by his fellow-townsmen, and was upon several occasions
the recipient of political honors from them. Mr. Barnum
was a Democrat previous to the War, and in 1853 de
clined the nomination as governor of Connecticut by that
party. In 1860 he became a RepubUcan, and although
too far advanced in years to fight for the Union himself,
he suppUed four substitutes, besides giving UberaUy in
aid of the cause of freedom. In 1865 he was elected to
the Connecticut Legislature as representative from Fairfield,
and distinguished himself by opposing the raUroad ring and
by his support of the amendment for the abolition of slavery.
He was reelected in the following year, and in 1867 was
nominated for Congress by the RepubUcans, but was de
feated. Mr. Barnum was married a second time, in 1874,
to an English lady, and subsequently made frequent visits
to his wife's home in the mother country. In AprU, 1875,
he was elected and inaugurated mayor of the city of Bridge
port. He had long been an earnest advocate of total absti
nence, and he took occasion in his address to the city councU
to allude pointedly to the evils of the Uquor traffic. He
decUned a reelection, but in 1877 he was again chosen a
member of the General Assembly, this time to represent
Democratic Bridgeport, carrying the election as a Repub
Ucan by his personal popularity among his neighbors. He
subsequently served a fourth term, Mr. Barnum's wonder
fully active and eminently useful life was ended on the 7th
of April, 1891, his death being due solely to his advanced
age.

ELIHU BURRITT.
From life, by J. W. Allderige.

ELIHU BURRITT.

ILIHU BURRITT was born in New Britain,
Conn,, December 8, 1810, Though his educa
tional advantages during childhood were not
great, his fondness for study and his eagerness
to acquire knowledge were remarkable. At the
age of eighteen he was apprenticed to a black
smith, and in due time became an expert work
man. His spare moments, early and late, were
given to his books, and while laboring at the
forge he subjected himself to severe mental
discipUne by working out intricate arithmetical
problems. At the close of his apprenticeship he
attended for three months an academy taught by an elder
brother, although he could UI afford the consequent loss of
wages. The greater part of the term was devoted to mathe
matics, but after returning to his anvU he took up Latin,
Greek, and French, thus beginning a patient and persistent
course of study, pursued indeed without any definite aim
beyond the enjoyment which it afforded, the result of which
was to make him one of the world's most noted Unguists,
In the winter of 1831, desiring to spend another three
months exclusively in study, he went to New Haven, where
he could find superior facilities for so doing, made himself
to some extent the master of several of the Continental
languages, translated the lUad without assistance, and began
to learn Hebrew, Returning to New Britain, he tried teaching,
but after a year he found that his health was suffering, and

ELIHU BURRITT.
sought a more active occupation. He now became a travel
ling salesman for a manufacturer of his village, and after
some time set up a grocery store on his own account;
but in the general bankruptcy of 1837 his little capital
was swept away. Forced by this disaster to resume his
original calling, he proceeded on foot to Boston, where he
proposed to take passage for some foreign port, but, not
finding a suitable opportunity, he settled in Worcester, Mass,,
where he found both work and easy access to books. With
one after another of the languages of Europe and Asia he
became more or less famUiar, until he was able to read in
thirty-four of them, ancient and modern.
Such a remarkable intellectual development gave Mr.
Burritt far more than a local reputation. In 1838 the Royal
Antiquarian Society of France appropriately acknowledged
the receipt of a communication from him, correctly written
in the obscure Celto-Breton dialect. He was commonly
spoken of as the " Learned Blacksmith," and is indeed most
widely known under that appellation at the present day,
although it was not as a linguist, but as a reformer that he
won his most enduring laurels. He was proffered the ad
vantages of Harvard University by Edward Everett and
others, but regard for his health compelled him to decline.
In 1839 he edited for a short time a periodical caUed the
" Literary Gemini," designed to aid students in French, and
printed partly in French and partly in English, In the fol
lowing year he made his first appearance as a lecturer, his
subject being " Application and Genius," He modestly in
stanced his own accomplishments in proof of his assertion
that genius is a myth, and that by hard work and appUcation
alone can success be achieved. The lecture attracted marked
attention, and was many times repeated, in various parts of
the country.
It was not long after this that Mr, Burritt's attention was
called, in an indirect way, to the subject which for many

ELIHU BURRITT.
years lay nearest his heart, — the promotion of universal peace
among the nations of the earth. Bidding a temporary adieu
to his favorite studies, he devoted his time and energies to
the welfare of his fellow-men with a forgetfulness of self
which calls for the highest encomiums. In 1844 he estab
lished, in Worcester, the Christian Citizen, which he con
ducted for nine years, either personally or by means of
assistants, in the interest of peace, anti-slavery, temperance,
and Uke reformatory movements. He also made use of the
lyceum platform to disseminate his principles, and sent out
slips of paper containing brief printed essays devoted to the
cause of peace to newspapers throughout the land for re
publication. These slips were headed by a dove and olive-
branch, and were known as "olive leaves," Some of them,
finding their way across the water, fell into the hands of the
advocates of peace in England, at a time when many hot
headed politicians were clamoring for war as the only means
of settling the Oregon Boundary difficulties. Of course
such a war would have been ruinous to the commerce of both
countries, so some of the leading merchants, making common
cause with those who opposed war from principle, resolved to
send friendly addresses to the merchants of the American
cities urging peaceful arbitration, Elihu Burritt was se
lected as the agent through whom to send these communica
tions, and he received a cordial invitation to visit the mother
country. He had long cherished a desire to make a tour through
England on foot, and it was in the expectation of realizing
his hopes in this direction that he took passage on the
Hibernia in June, 1846, Hardly had he landed on the other
side, however, when it became apparent that he had found
a new field of labor. He changed his plans entirely, and
instead of a few months, he spent over three years in Europe,
making public speeches, at first to smaU audiences in private
houses, later to large and enthusiastic gatherings, editing

ELIHU BURRITT.
and publishing periodicals, and endeavoring in all ways to
advance the interests of peace and harmony between nations
and individuals. For the next twenty-five years of his life
Elihu Burritt was an " international man," and the greater
part of his time was passed abroad ; but this did not in any
measure lessen his love for his own country, and he was
everywhere received and honored as an American.
WhUe making his way to London on foot he halted on
the 29th of July at Pershore, in the midst of the fruit-pro
ducing district of Worcestershire, and there formed the
nucleus of a society which was known as the " League of
Universal Brotherhood," which came in time to include
among its membership many of the most famous of England's
phUanthropists. The society was formally organized in
London, in May, 1847. He addressed his first audience in
the great metropolis in November, 1846. Unaccustomed to
the peculiarities of a large English audience, he had much
difficulty at first in making himself heard, and became weU-
nigh discouraged, but was reassured by the hearty applause
and expressions of approval which followed the close of his re
marks. He was thenceforth a power among those whose noble
aim — visionary as it then seemed, and may yet seem to many
— was to abolish war, with all its attendant train of evUs.
In the early part of the year 1847 he visited Ireland, and
was an eye-witness of the desolation caused by the famine ;
and it was through his representations that large supplies of
food were sent from the United States for the reUef of the
improvident peasantry. In September, 1847, he began to
develop his scheme for facilitating intercourse between the
Old and the New World, and thereby strengthening the
ties of friendship, by reducing the ocean postage to a penny.
He made public addresses on the subject in aU parts of the
British Islands, and without doubt aided materially in ex
tending to international correspondence the postal reforms
already effected by Rowland HiU in Great Britain.

ELIHU BURRITT.
Shortly after the deposition of Louis PhUippe from the
throne of France, in February, 1848, EUhu Burritt visited
Paris, to assist in making arrangements for a " Peace Con
gress," which it was proposed to hold in that city. After
remaining there a week he returned to England, and the
following six months were spent in untiring efforts to interest
the British public in the coming gathering, which, owing to
the state of bloodshed and anarchy existing in Paris, it was
finally decided to hold in Brussels. At the Belgian capital,
in September, 1848, occurred the first Peace Congress, and,
in spite of the discouraging aspect of affairs in Europe at
that revolutionary period, it was weU attended, Mr. Burritt
being chosen vice-president for America. Prominence was
given in the discussions to the idea of treaties of arbitration,
which should do away with the necessity for appeals to arms
among civUized people. In 1848 Mr, Burritt published in
London a collection of his writings, under the title of
" Sparks from the Anvil." He was a pleasing writer, and
this work, as well as subsequent ones, had a wide circulation.
Mr. Burritt's genius for self-direction was as remarkable
as his genius for self-education. WhUe constantly cooper
ating with other reformers, both in America and Europe,
he preferred individual methods of action, and rarely worked
long in connection with any single associate. He was very
strong-wUled, and no amount of detail or drudgery could
turn him from a purpose, once fixed. In April, 1849, he
was again in Paris, conferring with prominent men with
regard to a second Congress, In June, having spent several
months in preparatory work, he took part in a monster dem
onstration at Exeter Hall, London, in favor of Richard
Cobden's parUamentary resolution in favor of arbitration.
In October he attended the Peace Congress at Paris, and
was one of its secretaries. This notable gathering, which
was presided over by Victor Hugo, was made up of dele
gates from aU the leading nations of the earth, who were

ELIHU BURRITT.
received with honor and treated with marked respect by the
French Government, Soon after its close the distinguished
Apostle of Peace returned to America, and was accorded a
royal welcome by his friends and neighbors at New Britain.
In 1850, after attending to his business interests in
Worcester, he undertook a lecturing tour, which included
nearly every State in the Union. His theme was stUl Peace,
in the near approach of whose reign his faith continued
strong. So great had his fame now become, that it was no
unusual thing for him to have hotel and steamboat accom
modations placed freely at his disposal. He met and con
versed with many of the leading statesmen of the day, who
listened with respectful attention to the statement of his
views, if they did not share his enthusiasm. While at
Washington he listened to the eulogies upon John C.
Calhoun, in the national House of Representatives. On the
15th of May he saUed from Boston for Liverpool, where he
arrived a fortnight later, and immediately resumed his phil
anthropic labors. In August he attended a Peace Congress
at Frankfort, after which he endeavored, in company with
others, to bring about a reconcUiation between the Danes
and the people of Sleswick, who were then at war ; and he
actually succeeded in inducing the beUigerents to consent
to a conference. He remained upon the Continent for six
months, and arranged with the publishers of a number of
the leading journals for the insertion of timely articles
bearing upon the question of universal peace. The expense
of this enterprise was borne by an association of ladies, the
" Olive-Leaf Mission," which he formed after his return to
England in the spring of 1851.
During the two following years Burritt continued his labors
in England and elsewhere, lecturing, writing and pubUshing,
In 1850 he had issued another volume of miscellanies. He
was a secretary of the fourth Peace Congress, held at
London in July, 1851, simultaneously with the Great Ex-

ELIHU BURRITT.
hibition, and in the ensuing year he was the bearer of
fraternal addresses between English and French cities. In
1853 he was back in America, preaching peace and cheap
ocean postage ; but he found the people absorbed in the
struggle over slavery, and he was himself drawn into the
discussion. He assumed the editorship of the Citizen of the
World, published at Philadelphia, and through its columns
he for several years enthusiasticaUy advocated the plan of
compensated emancipation, until John Brown at Harper's
Ferry, and the rebels at Sumter, made an end of his hopes
of a peaceful solution of the vexed question. He went abroad
again in 1854, and spent another year in England, HoUand
and Prussia. When the War of the RebeUion broke out,
Elihu Burritt, saddened by the apparent fruitlessness of his
twenty years of incessant toil, retired to his native vUlage
of New Britain, and devoted himself to the cultivation of
the little farm of which he was the owner, and to the
publication of a weekly paper called the North and South.
In 1863 Mr, Burritt went to England, and he resided in
that country for the following seven years. His first sum
mer was devoted to a pedestrian tour of the Island, from
London northward, the next one to a similar tour in the
southwestern counties. Two delightful volumes were the
outcome of these tramps, the best-known and most inter
esting of his writings, his "Walk from London to John
O'Groat's," and his " Walk from London to Land's End."
In 1865 he was, much to his surprise, appointed United
States Consular Agent for the Birmingham District, The
duties of the office were not onerous, and during the four
years of his incumbency he found time to resume his lin
guistic studies, as well as to engage in literary work. He
was unmarried, and his establishment at Harborne, near
Birmingham, the only real home he ever possessed, was pre
sided over by two of his nieces. He also published several
works while in England, the principal ones being the

ELIHU BURRITT.
"Mission of Suffering," "Walks in the Black Country,"
and a collection of lectures and speeches. At the expiration
of his term of office, he spent a few weeks at Oxford, and
then crossed the ocean for the last time. Most of the re
mainder of his life was passed at the home of a sister in
New Britain, his time being occupied in agricultural and
literary pursuits. His pen was constantly active, and he
occasionally made short lecturing tours. He took a lively
interest in the affairs of the town, especially in matters re
lating to education, and he was ever watchful for opportu
nities to relieve distress and benefit his feUows, His death,
which occurred March 6, 1879, was due to consumption.
Well deserving of honor is the memory of this pure-nunded
scholar and writer, of whom the Poet Longfellow said,
" Nothing ever came from his pen that was not wholesome
and good."

CHARLES SUMNER.
By Edgar Parker, Faneuil Hall.

CHARLES SUMNER.

JHARLES SUMNER was born in Boston, Janu
ary 6, 1811, He was not among the number
of those who have made their way in the world
in the face of early poverty and disadvantages,
for his father was a substantial citizen, a lawyer
of merit, and came to be sheriff of his county.
Charles inherited a liking for the law, and re
ceived every possible encouragement in his
efforts to become a leading member of that pro
fession. He was naturally studious, had a retentive memory,
and was not embarrassed by the financial difficulties against
which so many young men have to struggle. It is no matter
of surprise that, under such a combination of favorable
circumstances, he should make an early start in the brUUant
career which nature had marked out for him. He was a
Franklin Medal scholar at the Boston Latin School, graduated
at Harvard in the class of 1830, and after receiving the in
structions of the ablest of living jurists, Mr, Justice Story,
he was admitted to the bar, at Worcester, Mass,, in 1834.
His profound knowledge of the law commanded general
admiration, and quickly obtained for him an extensive prac
tice. He was appointed reporter to the United States Circuit
Court, and published three volumes of reports, which have
been quoted as authority on both sides of the water. In
1837 he went to Europe, to obtain by observation a more
complete insight into legal science and the customs of juris
prudence. Of course he again enjoyed every advantage

CHARLES SUMNER.
which distinguished influence and his own high social stand
ing could procure. While sitting on the bench at West
minster, by invitation of the Lord Chief-justice, an interest
ing point of law arose, and his lordship asked Mr. Sumner
if any American decision would bear upon the case. Mr.
Sumner replied in the negative, but promptly cited a de
cision of King's Bench on the very point. His acuteness
in thus remmding the court of its own ruUngs gained him
much celebrity among English lawyers, A year's residence
in the mother country not only made him familiar with many
of her renowned scholars and statesmen, but it also inspired
him with admiration for En owlish institutions and manners,
without in the least lessening his ardent love for his native
country. From England he proceeded to France, where he
visited the famous law schools, and to Italy, where he studied
art under the guidance of the American sculptor, Crawford,
He likewise mastered the Italian language and made a critical
study of Italian literature. He subsequently visited Ger
many, and early in 1840 he returned to America, having
his mind richly stored, and being splendidly equipped for
the great work which lay before him.
He resumed his practice, but, impatient of detaU, and of
the drudgery of courts, he never attained very high rank
as an attorney. He turned his attention to general Uterature
and to the consideration of the great principles which form
the groundwork of aU jurisprudence. His associations were
with men of learning and culture; the cause he was to
plead was that of a down-trodden race, the jury he addressed
was the whole body of his countrymen. In 1843 he became
lecturer in the Cambridge law school ; from 1844 to 1846 he
edited twenty volumes more of law reports, to which he
added a series of ably written biographical notices of the
legal and judicial celebrities mentioned in the text. In poUtics
he was a Whig, but, to all appearance, he deliberately threw
away his chances for preferment, by espousing the cause of

CHARLES SUMNER.
freedom, and refusing to foUow his party associates in their
endeavors to preserve peace by compromise with wrong. On
the 4th of July, 1845, he delivered an oration before the
Boston City authorities, in which the injustice and inhumanity
of the impending war with Mexico was strongly condemned,
as was likewise the slave power, which had forced the war
upon the country. A profound impression was created by
this speech, and by subsequent ones in a similar vein. The
invaluable aid of Charles Sumner's scholarly eloquence was
hailed with delight by the opponents of slavery; but the
conservative Whigs regarded him as a disturbing element,
while the slaveholders and their Northern friends looked
upon him with hatred, although he advocated only constitu
tional measures and was opposed to all forms of violence.
" Loyalty to principle is higher than loyalty to party,"
said Charles Sumner at the Massachusetts Whig State Con
vention in September, 1847. Acting upon this principle a
year later, he abandoned the Whigs forever, and identified
himself with the free-soil movement, supporting Mr. Van
Buren for the presidency. He was nominated for Congress,
but was not elected. In December, 1848, he made a forcible
argument in the Supreme Court of the State against the
constitutionality of establishing separate schools for colored
pupUs. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, in 1850,
aroused his deepest indignation, which found expression in
words of burning eloquence in his address before the Free-
SoU Convention at Faneuil Hall in October.
On the 24th of April, 1851, Mr, Sumner was elected
United States Senator by the combined votes of the Demo
crats and Free SoUers of the Massachusetts Legislature,
This famous coalition was brought about mainly by the
agency of Henry Wilson, then president of the State Senate,
and afterward Mr, Sumner's colleague at Washington. The
contest had lasted more than three months, and Mr. Sumner
received, on the final ballot, only the exact number necessary

CHARLES SUMNER.
the country was in a fever of excitement over John Brown's
raid and his subsequent execution,
Mr, Sumner earnestly advocated the election of Abraham
Lincoln, and throughout his administration remained on the
most confidential terms with him. He was among the first
to declare for emancipation, and, at the close of the war, for
the extension of the rights of citizenship to the blacks.
When the withdrawal of the Southern members in 1861
left the Republicans in control of the Senate, Mr. Sumner
became chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations,
which position he held until February, 1871, when he was
removed, in consequence of his disagreement with President
Grant, In 1863, and again in 1869, he was reelected to
his seat in the Senate, which he occupied for twenty-three
years successively, a period longer than that for which any
other Senator from Massachusetts has enjoyed the honor.
He was married in 1866, but did not live happily with his
wife, and a divorce ensued in 1873, Senator Sumner was
opposed to the policy of President Johnson, and took a
prominent part in the famous struggle between President
and Congress, casting his vote in favor of conviction on the
Impeachment trial.
Mr. Sumner's relations with President Grant were un
pleasant, although he did not oppose his first election. His
dissatisfaction with the President's course, especially in the
matter of the proposed annexation of the RepubUc of San
Domingo, was heightened by the removal of his friend, John
L, Motley, from the English mission, and finally resulted in
his total estrangement, not only from the administration, but
from the Republican party as weU. In the presidential
election of 1872, he joined with the Democrats in favor of
Horace Greeley, but out of personal regard for his colleague,
Henry Wilson, the Republican candidate for the Vice-presi
dency, he decided not to take an active part in the campaign,
and accordingly he made a short visit to Europe. WhUe

CHARLES SUMNER.
there he was nominated by the Democrats for the office of
governor of Massachusetts, but decUned to stand. The
great fire in Boston in November, 1872, swept away much
of his property, and he made arrangements for a lecturing
tour, but his health was again rapidly failing, and he was
obUged to cancel his engagements.
Having introduced a resolution into the Senate for the
removal of the names of battlefields of the Rebellion from
the regimental colors of the army, he was censured by vote
of the Massachusetts Legislature, at the special session in
December, 1872, but this censure was rescinded and annulled
in February, 1874, Upon the very day in which his col
league. Senator Boutwell, read the rescinding resolution in
the Senate, Mr, Sumner was attacked with severe pains
in the heart, and he died on the following day, March 11th,
at his Washington residence. Senator Sumner was a man
of high culture and exquisite taste, delighting to surround
himself with a profusion of rare and beautiful objects of
art. His death was sincerely mourned by his State and
country, and by none more deeply than by the people of
that race for whose upraising he gave his life.

HORACE GREELEY.

From a painting h\ J. Riit^er of Hrdokhn, N. Y. Its owne'',
Thomas N. Rooker, secretary of'the Tribune Association, who
has been connected with the Tribune from its first issue, vouches
for it as the best likeness of Mr. Greeley in existence. He says
in his letter to the publishers : " My desire to have a good portrait
of Mr. Greeley published, induces me to allow my picture to be
copied. ".

HORACE GREELEY.

pRACB GREELEY was born February 3, 1811,
in Amherst, in the State of New Hampshire.
The prince of journaUsts learned to read before
he was three years old, and was sent to school
' at a very early age. As he grew in stature,
a thirst for knowledge grew with him. He
read at every opportunity, and every obtainable
book and newspaper was carefully treasured;
but at the same time he faithfuUy performed
the portion of farm work which was aUotted
to him. When young Horace was ten years
of age, his father became a bankrupt, lost his farm, and was
forced to seek a home beyond the limits of New Hampshire,
where he might be secure from the persecutions of his credi
tors. It was found in Westhaven, Vt. Some of the debts
which the father left unpaid were canceUed many years later
by the son. Horace Greeley led much the same life in the
Green Mountain State as he had done previously, but as the
family was poorer he had to work harder. He soon dis
covered that he could learn little or nothing from such
teachers as were placed over him, and he gave up going to
school. His great aspiration was to become a printer, and
as early as his eleventh year his desire had grown into a
fixed determination. About the same time, young as he
was, he began to take an interest in politics, and before long
he became a close observer and an inteUigent judge of affairs.
In the year 1826 Horace Greeley was apprenticed to a

HORACE GREELEY.
printer in East Poultney, Vt. His father soon afterward
removing to Pennsylvania, he was left to be the architect of
his own fortunes. His personal appearance was that of a
gawky country lad, and gave no indication of his genius.
Such, however, was the gentleness of his manner, and the
maturity of his judgment, that he very quickly lived down
the attempts of his fellow-workmen to annoy him, and
became a prime favorite. The mysteries of his trade were
quickly mastered, as if by intuition; it was clear that the
young man had chosen his vocation wisely. His apprentice
ship lasted a little over four years, and although he received
only forty doUars annually in money, he managed to save a
Uttle to aid his father in paying for his new lands. Twice
during that time he paid his parents a visit, walking a large
part of the six hundred mUes distance. In the meantime
he had become not only an expert printer, but also an able
debater, had adopted the anti-masonic notions which were
then rife, and had rendered considerable assistance in editing
the local paper. In June, 1830, the printing office was
closed, and Horace Greeley, out of work, made his way once
more to his father's home in Pennsylvania. After several
unsuccessful attempts to get settled in country printing
offices, the ungainly youth at length decided to go to New
York, and there he arrived August 18, 1831, utterly friend
less, and with only ten dollars in his pocket.
His first experiences of city Ufe were discouraging, but
after a time he obtained work, and labored industriously,
early and late. He was frugal and saving, and so would
have money to spare of a Monday morning whUe the other
journeymen were in need and forced to become borrowers.
But it was uphUl work for the first year or so. Employers
became bankrupt, and his awkward personal appearance was
against him. But at length he formed a partnership with
the foreman of the office in which he was eraployed at the
time. Their capital was one hundred and fifty dollars, and

HORACE GREELEY.
they obtained a smaU amount of credit, and so Horace
Greeley became senior member of the firm of Greeley &
Story, Printers. Their first work was the printing of a cheap
daily newspaper. The first number of the Morning Post
appeared January 1, 1833, and the last about three weeks
later; but the new firm continued to have a good run of
business. Only a few months elapsed before the partner was
drowned, another was taken, and the firm style changed to
Greeley & Co, Now, as aU through his life, Mr, Greeley
was distinguished by his intense application to the business
in hand. He would become so deeply absorbed in his work
as to be oblivious to what was going on around him, even
forgetting sometimes whether or no he had dined. Another
characteristic of the distinguished journalist was his entire
indifference to his personal appearance. His clothes never
fitted him; but he was always scrupulously clean. About
this time James Gordon Bennett, who had attained some
celebrity as a newspaper writer, caUed upon Mr. Greeley and
urged him to join with him in the publication of a daily.
Mr, Greeley decUned, and Mr, Bennett found assistance
elsewhere, established the New York Herald, and became
Mr, Greeley's life-long rival. In March, 1834, Greeley &
Co, commenced the publication of the New Yorker, a
weekly newspaper, independent in politics. This enterprise,
which was carried on for seven years, did not prove finan
cially successful, owing in great measure to Mr, Greeley's
lack of business abiUty ; but it served to bring him promi
nently before the American public as an editor and writer.
As the New Yorker did not afford him a Uving, he was
obliged to become a contributor to other periodicals, and
during the year 1838 he edited, in addition to his own paper.
Hie Jeffersonian, the organ of the Albany Whigs, spending
haK of each week in the latter city. During the exciting
presidential campaign of 1840, he published another weekly,
called the Log Cabin, in the interest of General Harrison

HORACE GREELEY.
and the Whigs, whereby his reputation as a political writer
was greatly enhanced; but his utmost exertions up to this
time, faUed to relieve him from his load of debts, and
the anxiety consequent upon such embarrassment. In July,
1836, Mr. Greeley was married in Warrenton, N, C, and
he took advantage of his wedding trip to make his first
visit to Washington,
Mr, Greeley established the newspaper which made him
the most famous of American editors in the year 1841,
The first number of the Daily Tribune appeared on the
10th of AprU, and the new journal rapidly gained the favor
of the public. It remains to-day, in fulfilment of the ardent
wishes of its founder, his most worthy memorial. Mr,
Greeley was fortunate in obtaining a thoroughly efficient
business manager and partner, Thomas McElrath. He
became connected with the Tribmie in July, and its success
was assured. Soon afterward, a weekly edition was com
menced into which the New Yorker and the Log Cabin
were merged. The amount of editorial work which Mr,
Greeley performed was enormous ; three columns, or fifteen
pages of foolscap being an ordinary day's production from
his pen. His articles were written rapidly, and his chirog-
raphy was the despair of the typesetters,
Mr, Greeley travelled extensively in the summer of 1842,
visiting the scenes of his boyhood in Vermont and New
Hampshire, the home of his parents in Pennsylvania, the
National Capital, Niagara, and other points of interest, and
for four weeks a delightful series of descriptive letters took
the place of his editorials. About this time, and for several
years afterward, he advocated a mild form of socialism, a
modification of the doctrines of Fourier, His views were
grossly misrepresented and vigorously assaUed by rival editors,
and, after defending them for awhile, he gradually allowed
the subject to drop. After the defeat of Henry Clay in
1844, Mr, Greeley began to take part in the abolition

HORACE GREELEY.
movement, having previously meddled very Uttle with the
slavery question, bnt rather opposed its discussion by the
people of the North as uselessly irritating. On the 5th of
February, 1845, the Tribune office was totally destroyed by
fire, involving Mr. Greeley in a pecuniary loss of eight
thousand dollars above his insurance, but the publication of
the paper was not delayed, nor its success in any way
impaired by this unfortunate circumstance.
The great editor's pen was at times terribly caustic ; he
incurred the hostility even of the Whig press, and became
the butt of unlimited ridicvde and abuse; but the people
continued to buy the Tribune, and Mr. Greeley kept on
expressing his honest convictions in a fearless manner, ex
posing fraud and deceit wherever he chanced to find them.
In the fall of 1848, Mr. Greeley was elected a Member of
Congress, to fill a vacancy, his term lasting only three months,
and expiring on the 4th of March, 1849. In 1851 he made
a voyage to Europe, and spent three months in investigating
the manners and customs of the Old World, the results of
his observations being recorded in the Tribune. He also
acted as one of the jurors at the great Exhibition in London,
and was called upon to give testimony before a committee
of the House of Commons, on the question of taxing news
papers. It is believed that the abolition of advertisement
duties in England, was due to his evidence on this occasion.
Nearly all of the comparisons made by Mr, Greeley between
European institutions and those of America, were in every
way favorable to his native country.
In 1852 occurred the final struggle of the Whig party
to gain the control of the National Government. Mr.
Greeley faithfully supported General Scott, and then sub
mitted with a good grace to the crushing defeat which his
party experienced. For a year or so he considered himself
as done with politics, and devoted his attention to the pro
motion of reforms of various kinds. It was at this time

HORA CE GREELE Y.
also that he began to be interested in agriculture, and pur
chased the famous farm at Chappaqua, where for many years
it was his custom to spend one day of each week in directing
operations. His opposition to slavery grew steadily stronger,
and doubtless he exercised a more widespread influence than.
any other single man, in moulding the sentiments of the
people of the North, and in uniting them in defence of
their free institutions. In 1855 he again visited Europe,
WhUe in Paris he had the singular experience of being
confined in a debtor's prison, at the instance of a certain
French sculptor who had had a statue damaged two years
before at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in New York, of
which Mr. Greeley had been one of the directors. The
account of his few days' confinement made very interesting
reading for the patrons of the Tribune.
Upon the advent of the Republican party Mr. Greeley
joined its ranks. During the progress of the slavery con
troversy in the Pierce and Buchanan administrations, much
of his time was spent in Washington, as an observor of the
Congressional proceedings. In that city, in January, 1856,
he was assaulted on the street by Albert Rust, a congressman
from Arkansas, who had taken offence at some statements
in one of Mr. Greeley's letters to the Tribune. Though
the consequences were less serious, the spirit which prompted
this violence was the same as that which moved "BuUy"
Brooks to strike down Charles Sumner in the Senate only
a few months later. In the same year Mr. Greeley was
presented by a grand jury in Virginia for circulating the
Tribune in that State with the intent to excite the negroes
to revolt. In the summer of 1859 he made the overland jour
ney to California. It was before the days of the locomotive on
the prairies, and the lumbering old emigrant wagon was the
best conveyance to be had for a long portion of the distance.
At Salt Lake City he had an interview with the Mormon
President, Brigham Young. His reception in California

HORACE GREELEY.
was very cordial, and while in his political addresses he, of
course, supported the principles of the RepubUcans, he won
the admiration of all parties by his earnest advocacy of a
Pacific Railroad. He returned to New York by way of
Panama. But Horace Greeley, wonderfully successful in his pro
fession, pure and industrious in his life, kind-hearted to a
fault, was not exempt from that fancy for official distinction,
not always blameworthy, but which has been destructive to
the happiness of so many of our public men. He was, for
many years, a co-worker in politics with WUUam H. Seward ;
but, conceiving himself sUghted by the senator in the dis
tribution of political favors, he withdrew from the alliance
in 1854. In 1860 he was a member of the National Con
vention of the Republican Party, and it was largely owing
to his influence that Mr, Seward lost the nomination, which
was given to Abraham Lincoln, This was remembered
against him by Mr, Seward's friends in the following year,
when Mr, Greeley aspired to the Senatorship, and his
cherished hope was defeated.
When the clouds of war began to lower over the land,
Mr, Greeley was inclined to favor the peaceful separation
of the Southern States ; but after such a course was seen
to be impracticable he gave his hearty support to the forcible
suppression of the rebelUon, In July, 1864, he was author
ized by Mr, Lincoln to precede to Niagara, there to treat
with certain commissioners, so called, from the insurgents,
and if possible to arrange for a basis upon which to conclude
peace. The conference was fruitless, as Mr, Greeley was of
course unable to propose any other terms than unconditional
surrender, which the rebels were not yet ready to accept.
At the close of the war, he favored a general amnesty, and
on the 14th of May, 1867, his name headed the list of signa
tures upon the bail-bond which restored the traitor Davis to
liberty.

HORACE GREELEY.
Mr. Greeley was among the number of the RepubUcans
who became dissatisfied with the course of President Grant,
and in May, 1872, he accepted at their hands a presidential
nomination. Two months later the nomination was endorsed
by the Democratic National Convention. The campaign
which followed was conducted with extreme bitterness on
both sides, and in it the now aged editor took an active
part, until caUed to the bedside of his dying wife. Close
upon his bereavement foUowed his defeat at the poUs, and
he sank, heart-broken, under an attack Qf brain-fever; and
before the electoral vote was counted, the disease had done
its fatal work. He died at PleasantvUle, N. Y., November
29th. Personal and poUtical eccentricities were forgotten
in the universal feeling of regret caused by the loss of this
our " later Franklin." Mr. Greeley was the author of works
on political economy and agriciUture, of a history of the
war, and a volume of personal recoUections.

WENDELL PHILLIPS.
Painted by Frederick P. Vinton [1846- ]. Faneuil Hall.

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

jENDELL PHILLIPS, the son of John PhiUips,
first mayor of Boston, was born in that town
November 29, 1811. As a boy he was strong
and active, a good scholar, and a famous de
claimer. He entered the Latin School during
his father's mayoralty, and in 1827 became a
student at Harvard. The historian, Motley, was
a classmate, Josiah Quincy became president of
the college in his sophomore year, and Lyman
Beecher was the leading divine of Boston.
After graduating with honor in 1831, PhiUips
went to the Harvard Law School — the friend
and f eUow-student of Charles Sumner — and was admitted to
the bar in September, 1834. After a short trip to PhUadel
phia and New York, during which he made the acquaintance
of Aaron Burr, and a brief time spent in the office of a
classmate at LoweU, where he formed a friendship with an
errand boy named Benjamin F. Butler, he began practice in
Boston. But he was destined to achieve no brilliant success
in the law ; his life work was to lie in another direction. On
October 21, 1835, he was surprised and shocked by the
appearance of a mob in the streets of Boston, a mob com
posed largely of respectable citizens. It had broken up an
assemblage of women, and its present purpose was to lynch
WiUiam Lloyd Garrison, upon whose head the price of five
thousand dollars had been placed by the State of Georgia.
Only with extreme difficulty did the mayor of the city pre-

WENDELL PHILLIPS.
vail upon his cultured and aristocratic friends to abstain
from committing a murder. The disgraceful occurrence
aroused the indignation of Wendell PhUlips, and hastened
the avowal of the anti-slavery sentiments which he had
already begun to cherish.
Mr. PhUlips made his first speech in behalf of abolition at
Lynn, Mass., June 14, 1837, and in December of the same
year he electrified his first audience in Faneuil Hall, whose
historic walls were to become so famUiar with the tones of
the " silver-tongued orator." Henceforth he was the most
eloquent champion of the great reformatory movement. In
taking this step, the young lawyer turned his back on all
hopes of political preferment, and found himself degraded
from the ranks of the exclusive "society" in which he had
hitherto moved. Fortunately for himself, he was not de
pendent upon his profession for support, having inherited
from his father an independent fortune, and he was therefore
prepared to meet the social ostiacism to which he was sub
jected. It was at this time that he began his career as a
public lecturer, soon attaining a popularity which continued
undiminished to the day of his death. His lecture on " Lost
Arts," delivered for the first time in 1838, was repeated in
after years more than two thousand times, and netted its
author over a hundred and fifty thousand doUars, When
engaged to speak by lyceum committees, and asked his terms,
he was accustomed to reply, that if a purely literary lecture
was desired he should charge a certain price (and it was
usually a high one), but if he should be permitted to speak
upon the subject of slavery, the lecture would be given
gratis, and he would bear his own expenses.
Mr. Phillips' wife, to whom he was married in 1837, was
a life-long invalid who claimed a large share of his time and
attention. In June, 1839, he went with her to Europe,
Two winters were spent in Italy, and the intervening sum
mer in visiting England and various health resorts upon the

WENDELL PHILLIPS.
Continent, They returned home in July, 1841, after an
absence of two years, unfortunately with no improvement
in Mrs, Phillips' condition. In 1842 Mr, PhUUps forswore
his allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, which
the radical abolitionists characterized as a " covenant with
death and an agreement with hell," closed his law office, and
from that time onward he declined to exercise the right of
franchise, and held aloof from all political relations with his
fellow-citizens. The unwisdom of such a course is now
apparent, but no one doubts that he acted in accordance with
his conscientious convictions of duty. His imitators, of whom
there was a considerable number, were known at that day
as " come-outers," For many years sugar was banished from
his table, and garments made wholly or in part of cotton were
excluded from his wardrobe, because sugar and cotton were
the products of slave labor.
Isolated socially and politically, Wendell PhUlips made it
the business of his life to arouse the people, to point out the
evils of the slave system, and to denounce the schemes of
its upholders, leaving for more practical minds the task of
devising proper methods of action; he became, in short,
America's first and foremost Agitator. Other questions,
indeed, came in for a share of his attention, and in the end
superseded the slavery question, after that had been finaUy
settled ; but it was in the great anti-slavery struggle that he
won his laurels and achieved his success. Each aggression
on the part of the South, each obsequious concession on the
part of Northern politicians, was arraigned by Mr. PhUlips
with an eloquence which wonderfully swayed the minds of
his hearers. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850
called forth his fierce denunciations of the great Massachu
setts statesman who had promoted the measure. He became
an active member of the " Vigilance Committee " of Boston
Abolitionists, which harbored escaping slaves and aided them
on their way to Canada. Numbers of such persons were

WENDELL PHILLIPS.
saved from their pursuers; but two of them, Thomas Sims,
in AprU, 1851, and Anthony Burns, in May, 1854, were
formally returned to their masters, a rescue being prevented
in each case by a strong mUitary force. Foul blots upon
the fair fame of the city, at whose mention true Bostonians
even now hang their heads in shame. His strictures upon
the course of the Government in the Burns case led to his
arrest ; but he was never brought to trial.
Mr, Phillips was not among the number of those with
whom John Brown consulted in regard to his plans for
liberating the slaves ; but he was outspoken in his admiration
of the heroism displayed in the attack upon Harper's Ferry.
After the execution of Brown in December, 1859, Mr,
Phillips accompanied his remains from New York to North
Elba and there pronounced the funeral oration over them.
Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, much mob
violence was manifested toward Mr, Phillips and his asso
ciates, so that it was necessary to provide him at times with
an armed escort when he spoke in public, the pro-slavery
mayor refusing to protect him. Like Greeley, he would have
been willing to allow the Southern States to secede without
opposition, but the shot fired at Sumter made a Union man
of him again. He saw that it was hopeless to attempt to '
disarm treason by moral suasion alone. In May, 1863, he
witnessed with pride the departure from Boston of the first
black regiment raised at the North, the 54th Massachusetts,
which he had himself aided in organizing,
Mr. PhUlips' support was chiefly derived from his income
as a lyceum lecturer; the death of the courtly Edward
Everett left him the most highly polished orator in the land,
and also (such was the change in public sentiment) the most
popular one. A volume of his " Speeches and Lectures "
was published in 1863. In 1865, WiUiam Lloyd Garrison
retired from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery
Society, and was succeeded by Wendell PhUlips, who con-

WENDELL PHILLIPS.
sidered the work of the organization unfinished so long as
the rights of citizenship were withheld from the freedmen.
When the last wrong was righted by the passage of the
Fifteenth Amendment, there was no further use for the
society. It was dissolved April 9, 1870, and the great
Agitator transferred his activity to other fields. He was
especially earnest during the remainder of his life in the
cause of temperance. In the fall of 1870 he accepted a
nomination for the governorship of Massachusetts from the
Labor and Prohibition parties ; but was defeated, as he was
in the succeeding year in his efforts to secure the RepubUcan
nomination for General Butler. He advocated the reelection
of President Grant in 1872,
Mr, PhiUips was a man of high ciUture, conversant with
several languages, and spoke French fluently. His integrity
no man ever questioned, his generosity was noble. He gave
away a fortune in private charities. His habits of life were
simple. When driven from his home of forty years by the
march of improvement, he selected another house in one of
the least aristocratic quarters of his beloved Boston, His
last appearance in public was at the Old South Meeting
House in his native city, December 26, 1883, He died on
the 2d of the following February, his latest thought being
for the dear companion who, for years a helpless invalid,
survived him about a twelvemonth.

HENRY WILSON.
By Edgar Parker. Faneuil Hall.

HENRY WILSON.

EREMIAH JONES COLBATH was born in
Farmington, N, H,, February 16, 1812, of
parents who though very poor, were respectable
and intelligent. At ten years" of age he was
regularly indentured to a neighboring farmer,
and he worked faithfuUy for his master untU
he became of age. No academy or coUege
opened their doors to him, and his schooUng
was limited to a month in each winter season ;
but he devoted the chance leisure moments to
the reading of useful books, of which he is
said to have perused about a thousand during
the eleven years of his apprenticeship. He entered manhood
with a strong physical frame, a well balanced judgment, a
very fair amount of general information, and eighty-four
doUars in money, the proceeds of the sale of the six sheep
and the yoke of cattle which he received with his freedom.
It was at this time that he had his name changed, by act
of the New Hampshire Legislature, to Henry WUson.
He soon became dissatisfied with the meagre wages of the
husbandman, and determined to learn a trade. After a
fruitless search for an opportunity to do so in his native
State, his attention was directed to the shoe-making industry,
which at that day was yet in its infancy, each workman
making a shoe entire, instead of performing only his own
special portion of the series of operations which constitute
the modern method. He ascertained that good wages could

HENRY WILSON.
be earned at the trade in Natick, Mass,, and thither in
December, 1833, he took his journey on foot. He contracted
with a man to instruct him in return for five months' labor,
but he soon found he had made a bad bargain. In seven
weeks' time he was able to set up on his own account, and
paid his instructor fifteen dollars to cancel the contract. The
quality of the shoes then made at Natick was coarse and
inferior, and Henry Wilson soon became as skilful as the
best, and by laboring regularly sixteen hours a day, and
sometimes for two days and a night without sleep, he was
able to outstrip all others in the amount of work performed.
It was his ambition to obtain means to complete his studies,
with the ultimate view of becoming a lawyer. In the vUlage
debating society he developed and strengthened the rare
argumentative genius which was to make him a power in the
nation, while the eloquence of Webster and Everett awakened
newer and higher aspirations within him. As might have
been expected, his strength was not equal to the strain thus
put upon it, and in the spring of 1836 he visited Washing
ton, by advice of his physician. The revolting spectacle of
the slave pen, the auction block, and the field gang under
the driver's lash made an impression upon him which was only
deepened by the congressional debate to which he listened.
He returned to Massachusetts an avowed abolitionist.
Having now accumulated about seven hundred doUars,
Mr, Wilson devoted a year's time to study in the academies
at Strafford, Wolfsborough and Concord, N, H, In 1837,
the man with whom he had deposited his savings became
bankrupt, and Henry Wilson was forced to return to Natick,
not only penniless, but in debt. During the following
winter he taught school, and at the close of the term he
found himself square with the world, and in possession of
surplus capital to the amount of twelve doUars, which he
immediately invested in the shoe business. This he con
ducted for ten years with constantly increasing success, and

HENRY WILSON.
when, owing to the pressure of public business, he re
linquished it, he had become the employer of over a hundred
hands, toward whom he was uniformly just and generous.
In 1839 he was a candidate for election to the Legislature,
nominated by the advocates of temperance, but was de
feated. In 1840 he was married. His only son, Lieutenant-
Colonel Henry Hamilton Wilson, died in the service of his
country shortly after the close of the Rebellion,
His poUtical career may be said to have commenced in
1840, when he made his appearance in public as a young
Whig orator, and took the stump for General Harrison, He
rose rapidly into prominence, and his satisfaction at the
brUUant success of his party was heightened by his own
election to the General Court, He served two terms in the
Lower House at this time, and was again a member in 1846,
He was an unsuccessful candidate for a seat in the State
Senate in the faU election of 1842, but was a member of
that body in 1844 and 1845, He continued during these
years to act with the Whig party, although by no means
pleased with the attitude of that party as a whole, upon the
question of slavery, to which he was an uncompromising
foe, and against which he directed his most earnest efforts.
In December, 1845, he was the bearer of a remonstrance to
Congress, signed by sixty-five thousand of the people of
Massachusetts, against the admission of Texas, The re
monstrance met with the usual fate of such appeals in the
old days when Cotton was king, and when Whig and Demo
crat aUke served him in- all humility — it was laid on the
table and ignored, Mr, WUson was a member of the mili
tary Committee of the State Senate, While a farmer in
New Hampshire he had joined the mUitia, and his interest
in mUitary affairs had been continued in his new home. In
1843 he was chosen major of the First Artillery Regiment,
and in 1846 he was promoted to the colonelcy. Shortly
afterward he was commissioned brigadier-general, and for

HENRY WILSON.
the ensuing five years he held the command of the third
brigade of the Massachusetts miUtia.
In 1848 Mr, WUson ceased to act with the Whig party,
in consequence of the action of its National Convention, to
which he was a delegate, in nominating General Taylor, who
was a slaveholder, and from this time untU 1854, he was an
influential member of the Freesoil organization, being for
four years chairman of the State Committee, In order to
disseminate the principles of the new party, he purchased a
newspaper in Boston, which he edited and published for
about two years, at a personal loss of several thousand doUars,
He held a seat in the Massachusetts Legislature of 1850, and
was, in that year, the master-spirit of a coalition between the
FreesoUers and the Democrats of the State, a political
movement, which in the boldness of its conception, and the
importance of its results, has had no equal in the history of
Massachusetts, Mr, WUson was himself elected to the State
Senate, and was made its president. The governorship, and
the vacancy in the National Senate caused by the resignation
of Daniel Webster, were fiUed by Democrats, whUe Charles
Sumner was elected United States Senator for the long term,
Mr, Wilson again presided over the State Senate in 1852,
and was made chairman of the National FreesoU committee,
but was defeated by a narrow margin in the congressional
election. In the foUowing year he was an active member of
the State Constitutional Convention, and again met with
defeat as the Freesoil nominee for governor,
Henry Wilson, to quote his own words, "believed the
anti-slavery cause to be the great cause of our age in
America," AU other issues were comparatively so unim
portant, that he was ready to aUy himself with any political
party which seemed to him most likely to advance the great
interests of human freedom, and to the frequent charges of
vacillation which were brought against him, he made reply
that, with him, party success was of no moment when compared

HENRY WILSON.
with the triumph of justice and right. Convinced, after
thorough trial, that the ends he had in view were not to be
furthered by remaining in the FreesoU party, he decided,
in March, 1854, to support the American organization,
hoping it might be made to assist the anti-slavery movement.
With regard to his own State, he was not disappointed, for
there the Americans, who in the fall elections made a
clean sweep, overwhelming not only the Whigs and Demo
crats, but likewise the nascent Republican party, which,
singularly enough, had placed his own name at the head of
its ticket, elected a radical anti-slavery Legislature, By this
legislature Henry Wilson was elected United States Senator.
He took his seat on the 10th of February, 1855, and held
it, by repeated and almost unanimous reelections, for eighteen
years, only resigning his membership in the Senate to
become its president.
At the National Council of the Americans, held in Phila
delphia in June, 1855, it became evident that the party was
as fully under the control of the slave power as the older
parties were, and Senator Wilson, after a manly defence of
the principles which neither entreaties nor threats coiUd
induce him to surrender, withdrew from the organization.
In this and the foUowing year he was earnest and foremost
in the work of effecting a fusion of all the friends of Union
with Freedom, the outcome of which was, as is well known,
the National Republican party, with which he was ever
afterward identified. With his scholarly colleague, Charles
Sumner, he made a noble stand in the Senate against the
insolent assumptions of social and political supremacy on the
part of the Southern members. With great force and elo
quence he denounced the Dred-Scott decision, the outrages
in Kansas, the hunting of fugitives, and all the varied forms
in which the aggression of the slave power was manifested.
The reply to the irrefutable logic of the Massachusetts
senators was the cowardly blow which fell upon the head of

HENRY WILSON.
Mr, Sumner on the 22d of May, 1856. Mr. WUson was
profoundly moved by the occurrence, which he characterized
as " brutal, cowardly and murderous," He received a chal
lenge from the ruffian Brooks, Mr, Sumner's assaUant, which
he refused to accept, not from any lack of courage, but out
of respect to the laws of his country. In the fall of 1856
he visited Canada, and took part in the railroad jubUee at
Montreal, replying with great acceptance to the toast in
honor of the President of the United States,
The well-being of the working people — the bone and sinew
of the nation — was an object of Mr, Wilson's especial solici
tude. From them he had his origin, and he never ceased
to feel an honest pride in classing himself among them.
Any word spoken disparagingly of the mechanic touched
him to the quick, and was deeply resented. No nobler
tribute was ever paid to the dignity of labor than that con
tained in his reply to Senator Hammond of South Carohna,
March 20, 1858, Senator Wilson was an advocate of the
Pacific railroad and simUar improvements tending to enhance
the prosperity of the country. With John Brown's raid in
1859 he had no sympathy, though he frankly expressed his
admiration for the courage and endurance of its unfortunate
projector. With the people of his own State he was ex
tremely popular, and was a favorite speaker at pubUc gather
ings of every nature. By a legislative resolve, approved
June 16, 1860, he was tendered the thanks of the Common
wealth for his able defence of the principles of freedom, as
'a senator and a citizen.
When the CivU War broke out. Senator WUson opposed
all compromise schemes, as being only surrender in disguise.
He had long served on the military committee, and was its
chairman during the war, when its duties were of the utmost
importance. Alluding to the extra session called by Presi
dent Lincoln in 1861, General Scott said of Senator WUson,
" He has done more work in that short session than all the

HENRY WILSON.
chairmen of the miUtary committees have done for the last
twenty years," His activity in behalf of the Union troops
gained for him the enviable title of " Soldiers' friend," He
was a personal witness of the first disaster to the Union arms
at BuU Run, Mr, Lincoln would gladly have made him a
brigadier-general, but he rightly judged that his presence
was more necessary in the Senate than in the field. How
ever, after the adjournment of Congress, he hurried back to
Massachusetts, and in forty days tune he raised over twenty-
two hundred recruits from the best material of the Old Bay
State, A portion of these recruits formed the Twenty-
Second regiment, of which Senator WUson accepted the
colonelcy, and he accompanied it to the front in October,
1861. He soon resigned his commission, but remained in
the field as aide-de-camp to General McCleUan, untU recaUed
to attend to his senatorial duties.
He enjoyed the full confidence of the President, and gave
his whole energies to support him in putting down the Rebel
lion, Many of the most important laws passed during this
troublous period were prepared by him personally ; and
nearly eleven thousand mUitary nominations passed under his
scrutiny previous to their confirmation. After the close of
the war he supported the series of measures by which Con
gress provided for the restoration of the rebel States, and in
so doing was of course obliged to oppose President Johnson,
for whose conviction he gave his vote at the impeachment
trial in 1868, In the spring of 1867 he made a tour through
the South, addressing generally courteous audiences at many
of the principal cities. In May, 1870, he lost his devoted
wife ; his only son had died more than three years previously.
As a partial relief from his weight of public care and
private grief. Senator WUson spent the summer of 1871 in
Europe, He travelled extensively, naturally finding more to
interest him in the every-day life of the people, and the
practical workings of the governments, than in glittering

HENRY WILSON.
pageantry and galleries of art. In the ensuing year he
published the first volume of his most important Uterary
work, " The History of the Rise and FaU of the Slave Power
in America,"
Henry Wilson was elected Vice-president of the United
States in November, 1872, after a canvass in which he himself
bore a prominent part, and was inaugurated March 4, 1873,
Well-merited honor for the " Natick Cobbler ! " But although
he had exchanged the onerous duties of a member of the
senate for the lighter ones of its presidiag officer, he allowed
himself no repose from the activity which had become a part
of his nature, untU compelled to heed reluctantly the warn
ings of failing health. Soon after the opening of the
regular session of Congress in December, 1873, he retired
from the chair, but in the year foUowing he regained his
strength sufficiently to be able to preside over the Senate as
usual. In the spring of 1875 he made a tour of the South
west, again making numerous public addresses, A shock of
paralysis at Boston, in September, was foUowed by a more
severe one at Washington, in November, and on the 22d of
the month he died, at his room in the National Capitol,
Mr, WUson was an earnest advocate of total abstinence, his
private character was blameless, and, generous to a fault, his
entire property at the time of his death did not equal in
amount his year's salary. In every position of trust and
responsibility in which he was placed, he acqmtted himself
with honor. After imposing funeral ceremonies his remains
were laid to rest beside those of his parents, his wife, and his
soldier son, in the beautiful DeU Park Cemetery of Natick.

J. C. FREMONT.
From life, by L. H. Doremus.

JOHN C. FREMONT.

fOHN C, FREMONT, the "Pathfinder," was born
at Savannah, Ga,, January 21, 1813, His
master passion for exploration and adven
ture was an inheritance from his father, a
native of France, who, having married whUe
making a tour of this country, decided to
make it his home. Mr. Fremont taught
French for a time, after his marriage, and
then, accompanied by his wife, he resumed his
travels through the southern and southwestern
sections of the United States, in the course of
which his eldest son, John Charles, the subject
of this sketch, was born. Five years later, Mr. Fremont
died, and his widow, with her three chUdren, took up her
abode at Charleston, S, C.
Young Fremont was an apt scholar, and at the age of
fifteen was sufficiently advanced in his classical studies to
enter the Junior class at Charleston College; but he did
not complete his course, since his boyish passion for a beauti
ful West Indian lady caused him to neglect his studies to
such an extent that the faculty ordered his expulsion.
Being soon cured of his infatuation, he applied himself
sedulously for some years, to private study, and became well
qualified as a teacher in the scientific and mathematical
branches. During the nuIUfication troubles of 1833, the
sloop-of-war Natchez was sent to Charleston for the pro-

JOHN C. FREMONT.
tection of the Custom House. After the difficulties were
adjusted, she saUed for a cruise in South American waters,
Fremont being appointed to accompany her as mathematical
instructor. The cruise occupied about two years, at the end
of which time the young professor returned to Charleston
with so exceUent a record that the officers of the college
hastened to make some atonement for their former harsh
action, by conferring upon him his degrees, as if he had
regularly graduated. He shortly afterward went to Balti
more to compete for the position of Naval Professor of
Mathematics, but after successfuUy passing his examination,
and receiving the appointment, he resigned his office to
devote his attention to the study of surveying and civil-
engineering. After due preparation, Fremont joined Captain Williams
of the United States topographical corps, and was employed
in the exploration of the mountain passes in the CaroUnas
and Tennessee, preparatory to the construction of a Une of
railway from Charleston to Cincinnati. After the suspension
of this work in the fall of 1837, he assisted in a miUtary
reconnoisance of the Cherokee country in Georgia, soon to
be wrested from its aboriginal owners. In 1838 and 1839
he took part in two expeditions under the command of Jean
Nicholas NicoUet, whose assistant he was, which were sent
out by the Government to explore the vast northwestern
region which was at that time an almost unknown country.
On the 7th of July, 1838, he was appointed second
lieutenant in the topographical engineers. While residing
at Washington, engaged in drawing up a report of these
expeditions, he made the acquaintance of Jessie Benton,
daughter of Thomas H, Benton, United States Senator from
Missouri, A mutual attachment sprung up between the two
young people — Jessie was only fifteen — but it was frowned
upon by the senator, and the presumptuous lieutenant was
temporarily gotten rid of by being sent away to make a

JOHN C. FRJ^MONT.
survey of the Des Moines River. This work was completed
in a remarkably short time, and Fremont hurried back to
Washmgton. Findmg that no impression could be made
upon the hard heart of the father, the lovers decided to
brook restraint no longer, and were married on the 19th of
October, 1841, " suddenly and unpremeditatedly," as General
Fremont himself very naively expressed it in his " Memoirs,"
forty-five years afterwards — in point of fact, a runaway match.
The union, so romantically formed, proved to be a most for
tunate one, and in after years the honored name of Jessie
Fremont became as famUiar to the American people as that
of her distinguished husband.
Senator Benton yielded gracefuUy to the inevitable, and
became reconciled to his son-in-law. It happened most
fortunately that he was himself an enthusiast upon the
subject of the exploration and development of our great
Western possessions, and through his influence Lieutenant
Fremont was placed in command of an expedition to the
Rocky Mountauis, which set out from the Missouri frontier
in June, 1842, the guide being the famous Christopher, or
Kit, Carson. In his conduct of this expedition, Fremont
displayed rare talent and heroic courage, and his report to
the Government was not only a highly valuable pubUc
document, but a work of literary merit as well, and was as
fuU of incidents of thriUing interest as any romance. His
explorations extended to the head-waters of the Colorado,
and included an ascent of the highest peak of the Wind
River range, in what is now the State of Wyoming. The
peak has since received his name. His extensive additions
to geographical knowledge gained for him flattering notices,
both at home and abroad, and caused him to be styled the
Humboldt of America.
No sooner had Fremont completed his report than he
received orders for a second expedition, and in May, 1843?
he set out with a larger company and a better equipment

JOHN C. FREMONT.
than before. Crossing the Rockies by the South Pass, as he
had done on the previous journey, he entered Salt Lake
vaUey in September. Three or four years later, the Mormon
people, when forced to leave their lUinois settlement, avaU-
ing themselves of Fremont's map, foUowed upon his traU,
and took possession of the region they have since occupied.
FoUowing the vaUeys of the Columbia tributaries, he pushed
on to Fort Vancouver in the present State of Washington,
then claimed as a British possession. Although he had now
fully carried out his instructions, he decided to return by a
new and untried route, and to investigate the Great Basin
between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada.
Depending upon erroneous information, and without a guide,
the command begun its homeward march in November, but it
was overtaken in the wUderness by the storms of winter.
Reduced to great extremity, Fremont decided that the only
hope of safety was to cross the mountains, and attempt to
reach the white settlements in California. The gallant
company, with impUcit faith in their intrepid leader, followed
him through the snows of the Sierras, which the savages had
declared to be impassible. The sufferings of the party were
intense, and it was only after forty days' struggle with cold
and starvation, having been forced to kUl some of their
horses for food, that the emaciated and half-crazed traveUers
reached Sutter's Fort, near the present city of Sacramento, in
February, 1844,
Resuming his journey on the 24th of March, Fremont led
his company up the beautiful valley of the San Joaquin, five
hundred mUes to the southward, and then, skirting the Great
Basin, he arrived at Utah Lake, May 23, one of his men
having been killed by the Indians. In eight months the
"Pathfinder" had made a circuit of thirty-five hundred
mUes, and had never lost sight of snow. He arrived home
in the foUowing August, welcomed by the plaudits of an
admiring people. In January, 1845, at the special instance

JOHN C. FREMONT.
of General Scott, he received the double brevet of lieutenant
and captain.
Fremont's third and largest expedition, his last one under
governmental authority, set out in the spring of 1845. His
main object was to find the best overland communication with
the Pacific, and he followed approximately with his sixty men
the route now taken by the Central Pacific RaUroad. CaU-
fornia was at that time Mexican territory, and war was on
the point of breaking out between Mexico and the United
States, and although Fremont obtained permission from the
authorities at Monterey to refit and continue his peaceful
enterprise, the commanding general, under orders from
Mexico, peremptorily ordered him to retire from the country
in March, 1846. The Mexicans threatened violence, but did
not venture to attack the Americans, who retired. Fremont
had hardly crossed the boundary into Oregon, when he
received orders from Washington to look after the interests
of the United States in California. He retraced his steps,
and upon arriving in the Sacramento Valley, he joined
his little band with a body of American settlers who had
been ordered to leave the country or become Mexican citi
zens, assuming command of the combined forces. A few
conflicts with the Mexican troops followed, in which the
latter were totally defeated. California was declared inde
pendent, and Fremont was chosen chief magistrate. When
it became known that war had been declared, the Californians
gladly surrendered their independence, lowered the "bear-
flag," and raised the Stars and Stripes, Commodore J, D,
Sloat of the Navy taking possession of the country in the
name of the United States. Cooperating with the naval
force under Commodore R. F. Stockton, Sloat's successor,
who had received orders from Washington to establish a civU
government, Fremont achieved the conquest of California,
and was by the commodore, in January, 1847, appointed
military commander and governor. He now held the rank

JOHN C. FREMONT.
of Lieutenant-Colonel in the United States Army, but a
large portion of the forces under his command consisted of
naval volunteers which he had raised at the request of
Stockton. But, in the meantime, Brigadier-General S. W. Kearney,
after subjugating New Mexico, had arrived in California, too
late to take any prominent part in the reduction of that
province, and no doubt piqued at the brilliant success of his
young subordinate. He wished to detach Fremont and his
naval battalion from Commodore Stockton, between whom
and himself a bitter feud existed, and soon claimed the
supreme command, but Fremont declined to receive orders
from him until his authority was confirmed by the War
Department, That having been done, Kearney assumed the
governorship, March 1, 1847, and Fremont was shortly
afterward placed under arrest, charged with extravagance,
maladministration and disobedience, and sent to Washington,
where he arrived in September, He demanded an immediate
court-martial, which was convened in November, and on
January 31, 1848, was found guilty of disobedience and
unmUitary conduct, and sentenced to dismissal from the
service. President Polk, while approving the verdict, set
aside the penalty, but Fremont, considering himself unjustly
treated, declined to accept his clemency, and resigned his
commission. In October, 1848, he headed an independent exploring
party, organized at his own expense, following along the
upper waters of the Rio Grande in search of a raUroad route
to California, and again he experienced a terrible winter in
the mountains, a third of his men being starved or frozen to
death. After his arrival in the Golden State, he commenced
mining operations upon the famous Mariposa estate which he
had purchased from its Mexican owner two years previously.
His title to this estate became the subject of an expensive
lawsuit, which was finally decided in his favor in 1855. In

JOHN C. FREMONT.
the course of tbe year 1849, Mr, Fremont was joined by
his family, and he became a citizen of California. A consti
tution was formed in September, and in December, the first
legislature of the new State elected Mr, Fremont United
States Senator. He proceeded at once to Washington, but
owing to the bitter opposition of the pro-slavery party to
California's free constitution, it was not until the 9th of
September, 1850, that the State was admitted to the Union.
Its senators took their seats on the following day, Mr.
Fremont drawing the short term which expired in March, 1851.
His actual service in the Senate lasted only three weeks, as
sickness prevented him from attending the winter session.
During the year 1850, he was the recipient of a gold medal
from the King of Prussia and one from the Royal Geographi
cal Society of London, in acknowledgment of his eminent
services to his country, and to the scientific world,
Mr. Fremont now spent a year in California, and another
in Europe, after which he returned to make his fifth and last
transcontinental exploration. Setting out in August, 1853,
he crossed the Rockies in the present State of Colorado.
When the party reached the Mormon settlements in Southern
Utah early in February, 1854, they had subsisted for fifty
days on horse flesh. During his temporary residence in New
York, in 1855, Mr. Fremont's name began to be mentioned
in connection with the presidential nomination of the new
Republican party, and that nomination he received in June,
1856, An exciting canvass ensued in which the Republicans
manifested unbounded enthusiasm for their candidate, who
secured the votes of eleven out of the sixteen free States, He
was the last candidate for the presidency who was, or who
ever wiU be, defeated by the votes of slaveholders. His suc
cessful Democratic competitor was James Buchanan,
Mr, Fremont made a second visit to Europe in 1860, and was
there when the War of the RebeUion broke out. He at once
proceeded to use his personal means and credit for the pur-

JOHN C. FREMONT.
chase of munitions of war for the Government, and in so
doing he was brought into competition with accredited rebel
agents. While in London he learned that he had been com
missioned Major-General, and hastening home, was placed in
command of the Department of the West, with his head
quarters at St, Louis, The disunion element in Missouri
being very defiant. General Fremont assumed control of the
Civil Government, and on August 31, 1861, he issued his
famous proclamation placing the State under martial law, and
emancipating the slaves of rebels in arms. President Lincoln,
without questioning Fremont's right to issue this proclamation,
saw fit to annul the emancipation clause. In September,
General Fremont put his troops in motion southward, with
the intention of driving the rebels out of Missouri, and then
marching on to New Orleans; but he was hampered in his
movements by the authorities at Washington, who listened too
wUlingly to false reports from rebel sympathizers, who charged
Fremont with incapacity and extravagance. He was, how
ever, making rapid headway against the enemy, and his body
guard under Major Zagonyi had just routed a body of insur
gents more than ten times their number, when, on the 2d of
November, he was superseded by General Hunter.
In the ensuing spring, that of 1862, he was placed in
command of the Mountain Department, comprising parts of
Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, and on the 6th of June
defeated a superior rebel force at Cross Keys in the Shenan
doah Valley. Shortly afterward his corps was included in
the Army of Virginia, commanded by General Pope, and
deeming it inconsistent with his dignity to serve under one
who had formerly been his subordinate, and had disobeyed
his orders, he was relieved, at his own request, and so ended
his military career.
He was nominated for the presidency in 1864, by a con
vention of Republicans opposed to Mr, Lincoln. He with
drew his name, but refused to accept either office or patronage

JOHN C. FREMONT.
for SO doing. For the remaining years of his life he was a
private citizen, with the exception of the four years, from 1878
to 1882, when he was Governor of Arizona. His connection
with Pacific raUroads proved disastrous to his fortune ; not
only were the millions which the Mariposa mines had produced
for him swept away, but by becoming involved in the law
suits brought against these roads by foreign bondholders, he
was subjected to infinite annoyance and was even charged
with complicity with frauds, for which not the faintest vestige
of blame now attaches to his memory. One volume of his
Memoirs was published in 1886, but the work was never
brought to completion. General Fremont died in New York
City July 13, 1890, in his seventy-eighth year, only a few
months after the Government had done him the tardy justice
of placing his name upon the retired army list.

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.
From a painting in the Representatives' Hall at the Illinois
State Capitol, Springfield.

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.

N the 23d of AprU, 1813, in the town of Brandon,
on the western slope of the green hills of Vermont,
was born a boy who was destined to a brUUant
career as a politician, a career aUke remarkable
for its rapid progress and its untimely close. He
was of Puritan ancestry, the son of a physician,
and his name was Stephen Arnold Douglas.
His father dying when Stephen was but a few
months old, his youthful training devolved upon
the mother, who lived to witness the successes of
her son, and to see him laid in the tomb. He
was provided with a good common school educa
tion, and up to his fifteenth year was engaged
in ordinary farm work. He then learned, or
attempted to learn, the cabinet-maker's trade, but this occu
pation was so detrimental to his health, that after about a
year and a half he abandoned it. Having spent another
year in advanced studies at Brandon Academy, he left Ver
mont to accompany his mother and step-father to Canandaigua,
N. Y,, at which place he attended an academy and read law
untU he was twenty.
In 1833 he set out with about a hundred dollars in his
pocket, to seek his fortune in the West. A fit of sickness so
reduced his little store, that upon arriving at Winchester,
IU,, he had less than half a dollar remaining. Chance
directed his steps to a country vendue, at which the auctioneer.

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.
having been suddenly left without a clerk, ventured to offer
the position to the intelligent if somewhat shabby appearing
stranger. It was, of course, joyfully accepted by Mr.
Douglas, who earned six dollars for his three days' work,
and what was of far more importance, he gained the good-
wUl and confidence of the people, so that they organized a
school, of which he was appointed master. During the few
months in which he was engaged in teaching, he continued
his law studies, and occasionally pleaded a petty case in
court, and in the following year he was admitted to the bar
and opened an office in JacksonvUle.
In less than a year from the time at which he began
practice, Mr. Douglas was appointed Attorney-General of
lUinois, and from that time until his death, he was almost
uninterruptedly in the public service. He was elected to
the Legislature, but resigned his seat in 1837 to accept from
President Van Buren the position of Register of the Land
Office at Springfield, and this.position was in its turn resigned
a year later, when he contested a seat in Congress, He had
been the youngest member of the Legislature, and it was only
in the interval between his nomination for congressional
honors and his defeat by only five votes, that he attained
the constitutional age of twenty-five which is required of
representatives. Enthusiastic in his support of the principles
of the Democratic party, he aided in carrying his State for
Van Buren in 1840, and was himself chosen as one of the
five electors of Illinois. In December of the same year, he
was made Secretary of State of Illinois, but retained that
office only until the following February, when he became a
judge of the Supreme Court of the State, and in 1843 he
resigned the judgeship to take his seat as a member of the
National House of Representatives.
Mr. Douglas was twice reelected. He quickly became a
recognized leader on the Democratic side, and gave his sup
port to all the measures which were promoted by that party ;

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.
especially the annexation of Texas, which was successfuUy
accomplished, and the settlement of the Oregon boundary at
54° 40' which was not. He likewise sustained President
Polk's administration in the war with Mexico which it forced
upon the country. Although elected to the thirtieth Congress
in 1846, he did not take his seat in the Lower House, having
been in the meantime chosen United States Senator, Swiftly,
and without hindrance, he had risen from the obscurity of
his rural home to this proud eminence, before reaching his
thirty-fourth year. Neither wealth nor position was his by
inheritance, yet both came to him through the energetic
use of his native gifts. Open, frank and generous, he
wielded an influence over the masses which has been rarely,
if ever, equalled ; logical and self-confident, rather than
eloquent, endowed with more common sense than learning, he
was a match for the ablest debaters. He was slightly under
the average height, though stoutly built, and this circumstance,
in connection with his great popularity, gained for him the
sobriquet of the " Little Giant," In April, 1847, a month
after he had entered the Senate, Mr, Douglas was married to
a North Carolina lady, who died in 1853,
The State of Illinois is deeply indebted to Senator Douglas,
who by obtaining government grants for railroads, and in
every other possible way, was tireless in his endeavors to
advance her prosperity. He opposed the WUmot Proviso,
but favored the extension of the boundary Une between free
and slave territory, 36° 30', westward to the Pacific, The
compromise measures of 1850 received his support, as they
did that of many another seeker for votes, irrespective of
party; for Mr. Douglas, having attained aU but the highest
position, was hard hit by the presidential fever. He was re
elected to the Senate in 1852, In the same year his name
was presented to the Democratic National Convention, but
Mr, Pierce unexpectedly took the prize for which he longed.
The position of Senator Douglas on the slavery question

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.
differed materiaUy from that of the pro-slavery extremists,
and he became the leader of that wing of the Democratic
party which held, with him, that the people of the Territories
had the right to decide whether slavery should or should not
exist within their borders. This was his famous doctrine of
" Popular Sovereignty," or as it was sometimes sneeringly
termed, " Squatter Sovereignty," and its apparent justice
gained for it considerable favor at the North. The doctrine
was embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska BUl in 1854, which
was reported by Mr. Douglas, as Chairman of the Committee
on Territories. Much of the iadignation which the measure
aroused at the North was vented upon its author ; he was
hung in effigy in various places, and even in his own Illinois
where he had been almost idolized for twenty years, he
experienced a serious loss of popularity. In Chicago he was
denied a hearing, and narrowly escaped personal injury.
But while the Kansas-Nebraska BUl was so obnoxious to the
majority in the free States, it was regarded at the South as
only a half-way measure at best, and what Uttle gratitude
they might feel toward Mr. Douglas in that his bUl authorized
the territorial settlers to foster slavery, was forgotten when
they considered that it also authorized them to prohibit it,
should they see fit.
On the 9th of November, 1857, a State Constitution was
adopted by a convention which had been in session for about
two months at Lecompton, Kan. The people of the terri
tory were to be allowed to choose whether they would have
this constitution " with slavery " or " without slavery," but
were not permitted to reject it entirely, and in any case, the
slaves already in Kansas were not to be interfered with.
President Buchanan in his message to the opening session of
the thirty-fifth Congress, urged the admission of Kansas
under this constitution, but Mr. Douglas dissented, almost
alone among the senators of his party, claiming that the
principle of " popular sovereignty " required that the consti-

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.
tution should be submitted to the people for acceptance or
rejection. On December 21, a vote was taken in Kansas
upon acceptance "with or without slavery," and the free
State men declining to take part in the farce, the constitution
with slavery was accepted by a very large majority. On
January 4, 1858, a vote was taken by order of the Territorial
Legislature, when the pro-slavery party refusing in their turn
to go to the polls, the constitution was almost unanimously
rejected. On the 2d of February, President Buchanan,
ignoring the latter action, transmitted the Lecompton Consti
tution to Congress, with a message advising the admission of
Kansas as a slave State. The Committee on Territories, to
whom the matter was referred, reported in favor of admission,
but Senator Douglas presented a minority report, and upon
the ground that it deprived the people of Kansas of the
power of regulating their domestic institutions, he combated
the Lecompton constitution at every stage of the debate,
which lasted until April 30, when it was decided to again
submit the constitution to a popular vote, by which it was
finally rejected.
The famous canvass for the Illinois senatorship in 1858,
has been referred to in our sketch of Abraham Lincoln. The
result was favorable to Mr. Douglas, who was a third time
elected to the Senate. Shortly after the opening of Congress
in December, however, he was made to feel the resentment
of the administration, which was entirely under the control
of the slaveholders, by being displaced from the chairmanship
of the Committee on Territories. He had a second time
failed to secure the presidential nomination in 1856, but he
was now the first choice of the Northern wing of his party,
and was received with great consideration in an extended
tour through the country. In a letter defining his position,
written in the summer of 1859, Mr. Douglas declared it to
be his intention to decline any nomination, upon a plat
form which should favor the revival of the African slave-

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.
trade, or affirm the doctrine that Congress possessed the right
to establish slavery in the Territories, He took a prominent
part in the bitter congressional debates on slavery in the early
part of the year 1860.
The Democratic National Convention met at Charleston,
April 23, 1860. The Southern politicians had long before
determined, not only to oppose Mr. Douglas, but to disrupt
the party, that there might be no doubt of the choice of a
Republican president, giving them their desired pretext for
rebellion. A week was consumed in preliminary action, and
then the majority of the Southern delegates seceded. A large
majority of the remaining members were supporters of Mr,
Douglas, but not the necessary two-thirds, and after fifty-
seven ballots, the convention adjourned, to meet at Baltimore
in June, The seceders also adjourned without making a
nomination, ReassembUng on June 18, the convention, after
another secession had taken place, nominated Mr, Douglas
for President, The malcontents nominated John C, Breckin
ridge, then Vice-president of the United States, but soon to
be guUty of treason to his country.
Mr, Douglas immediately took the stump, and throughout
the campaign he labored with ceaseless energy, totaUy regard
less of the limitations of his physical strength, his watchword
being. Non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the
Territories. In serving his party, he was no more scrupu
lous than the average politician, and his desire to be president
was fatally strong, and yet he nobly dared to declare himself,
above all, a patriot. Asked if Mr, Lincoln's election would
justify the South in secession, he replied that if Lincoln
should be elected, he, " as his firmest and strongest irrecon
cUable opponent," would sustain him in the exercise of every
constitutional function ; and this promise, made in the flush
of anticipated success, was faithfully kept in the agony and
humiliation of defeat. After the October elections had surely
foreshadowed the victory of his opponent, he continued to

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.
address audiences nightly, and in the cities of the South he
urged his hearers to stand by the Union in any event.
His defeat was overwhelming. Only one State, Missouri,
gave him its entire electoral vote, and he received in aU only
twelve out of a total of three hundred and three votes. But
in spite of his disappointment, he at once set to work to stem
the rising tide of disunion, and the crowning glory of his Ufe
was his magnanimity in coming to the support of his success
ful rival in the hour of his country's danger. After the close
of the extra session of the Senate in March, 1861, he returned
to his IlUnois home to rally his countrymen in defence of the
Union. On the 25th of April he addressed the IlUnois
Legislature, upon the special request of the members of that
body, although the RepubUcans were largely in the majority.
A month later, his stiength, which had been during the
excitement of the campaign, largely sustained by stimulants,
gave way under the intense strain, and on the 3d of June,
1861, in the city of Chicago, he died, only forty-eight years
old, his last coherent words expressing his love for his country
and his detestation of her enemies. His second wife, to
whom he was married in 1856, survived him.

D. D. PORTER.
From a portrait by Carl J. Becker painted in 1 886, for presenta-
.- .- tion to the Government by the admiral's family.

DAVID D. PORTER.

IHE distinguished naval commander, David Dixon
Porter, inherited the abUities and the virtues
of a long Une of seafaring ancestry. He was
the great-grandson of a captain in the mer
chant marine of colonial days, grandson of an
officer of the Revolutionary navy, and son of
the famous commodore who captured the first
British warship in the War of 1812. He was
born at Chester, Pa., June 8, 1813, while his
father was scouring the Pacific in the Essex.
At the age of eleven he entered the Columbian University at
Washington, D. C, remaining there for a brief period only,
after which he saUed on his first voyage, with his father, in
the John Adams, sent to chastise the pirates which infested
the sea in the neighborhood of the West Indies. The senior
Porter resigned his commission in 1826, in consequence of
having been court-martiaUed for an excess of zeal in resent
ing an insult from the Spanish authorities at Porto Rico.
Shortly afterward, father and son offered their swords to the
young Mexican Republic, the former receiving a high com
mission, the latter that of midshipman. Some three years
were spent in this service, and the young man was for a time
a prisoner in the hands of the Spaniards at Havana. In
1829, Commodore Porter entered the diplomatic service of
his country, and his son, on the 2d of February in that year.

DAVID D. PORTER.
obtained his midshipman's warrant in the United States
navy, in which he was to serve, with spotless honor, for
sixty-two years.
A series of uneventful Mediterranean cruises occupied his
time for the ensuing six years, and in July, 1835, he became
passed midshipman. His promotion to the rank of lieuten
ant took place February 27, 1841, he having been for several
years previously employed in the Coast Survey, to which
branch of the service he again returned in 1845 after another
tour of duty at sea in the Mediterranean and South Atlantic.
In 184^6 he was stationed at the naval observatory, and in
the same year he was employed by the state department in a
special mission to Hayti and San Domingo. Upon returning
to the United States he found that war had broken out with
Mexico, and he at once made application for active service.
He was ordered to the Gulf in charge of recruits, and report
ed to Commodore Perry as executive officer of the Spitfire,
being subsequently appointed her commander for his heroism.
He was under fire at the bombardment of Vera Cruz in
March, 1847, and on the 16th of June he commanded a
detachment which captured Fort Iturbide and tbe city of
Tobasco. He remained on the Gulf coast throughout the
war, taking part in every engagement, and displaying marked
talent as a leader, while his great strength and his personal
bravery made him an antagonist to be feared.
After the close of the war he again engaged in the coast
survey, and in 1849 he was granted leave of absence. For
the next four years he held command of a California mail
steamer, and at the expiration of his furlough he was placed
in charge of the navy yard at Portsmouth, N. H. In April,
1860, after consultation with President Lincoln he took com
mand of the Powhattan, carried reenforcements to Fort
Pickens,^ besieged by Bragg, and saved it to the Union. He
then took part in the blockade of the mouths of the Missis
sippi, and the rebel cruiser Sumter having succeeded in

DAVID D. PORTER.
getting to sea, he gave chase in the Powhattan, foUowing the
enemy among the West India Islands for upwards of ten
thousand mUes, but unfortunately he was unable to capture
him. He was shortly afterward raised to the rank of com
mander. He was again consulted by the navy department
with reference to the expedition against New Orleans. The
command was offered to him, and modestly declined, upon
the ground that neither his rank nor his previous achieve
ments entitled him to such distinction ; but at his request
it was conferred upon Captain Farragut, who was, it wiU be
remembered, his brother by adoption.
He was made second in command of the expedition which
was destined to render famous the names of Farragut and
Porter. To his especial charge was entrusted the fleet of
mortar-boats which for over a hundred and forty-four hours
poured an incessant fire into Forts Jackson and St. Philip,
and to him on the 28th of AprU, four days after Farragut
had passed by them to capture the Crescent City, they were
surrendered. His victory was appropriately recognized by
the navy department. The bombardment of Vicksburg, on
June 28, in which he participated, was productive of no sub
stantial results. Porter did not take his mortar-boats above
the city with Farragut's fleet, but remained a few miles below,
and totally routed a land force of rebels who attempted to
surprise and capture his flotiUa on the 1st of July. In Octo
ber he was appointed to the command of the Mississippi
squadron with the local rank of Acting Rear-Admiral, and
during the closing months of the year 1862 he cooperated
with General Sherman on the Mississippi and the Yazoo, in
his unsuccessful attack upon Vicksburg, Sherman being
superseded by McClernand, Porter accompanied the latter
up the Arkansas River, and on the 11th of January, 1863,
assisted in the capture of Arkansas Post, with five thousand
prisoners. Again he proved himself a hero, leading the naval
attack in person, and though General McClernand, in a spirit

DAVID D. PORTER.
of jealousy, failed to give him due credit. Congress honored
him by a vote of thanks.
At the close of January, Porter returned to the vicinity of
Vicksburg, where General Grant was now in command. In
the month of March he led an expedition into a weird and
gloomy tangle of bayous in a vain attempt to pass above the
rebel batteries at Haine's Bluff on the Yazoo, in order to
enable General Grant to gain a position in the rear of Vicks
burg. The dense vegetation, together with the obstructions
placed in the way by the enemy, finaUy compeUed him to
reUnquish the enterprise. Grant now formed his plans for
attacking Vicksburg from the south, for which he was at the
time severely criticised, even by his own subordinates. But
the ever courageous and energetic Porter assured the gen
eral of his support, and the two commanders were in perfect
accord. The army was moved down the western side of the
river, and on the 16th of April the gunboats again ran the
gauntlet of the batteries of Vicksburg, Porter in the Benton,
leading the way as he always did when in action. Grand
Gulf was bombarded on the 29th, and occupied by Porter
four days later. His movements were rapid and effective.
Dropping down the Mississippi, he ascended the Red River
and captured Alexandria, and in little more than a week he
was once more above Vicksburg and in possession of Haine's
Bluff on the Yazoo, which now became the Northern limit of
Grant's lines of investment, and his base of suppUes. Vicks
burg, the Gibraltar of the Mississippi, was surrendered to
General Grant, July 4, 1863, and for his invaluable aid in
bringing about this memorable success of the Federal arms.
Porter was commissioned a Rear-Admiral, and again received
the thanks of Congress.
During the remainder of the year 1863, Admiral Porter
was engaged in keeping the Mississippi clear, and his fleet
did effective work in the unfortunate Red River expedition in
March and April, 1864. Later in the year he was placed in

DAVID D. PORTER.
command of the North Atlantic Squadron. After the closing
of Mobile harbor by Farragut, the only remaining port of
consequence held by the rebels was WUmington, N, C, and
in December, 1864, a combined military and naval force was
sent to reduce Fort Fisher, at the mouth of the Cape Fear
River, fifteen mUes below that city. General Butler com
manded the land forces, and Admiral Porter the fleet of sixty-
five vessels. A bombardment of an hour and a quarter, on
the 24th, by the guns of the latter so weakened the enemy's
works, in the opinion of Admiral Porter, that they would
readily have yielded to a determined assault; but General
Butler was less daring, or at least less confident of success
than the intrepid admiral, and he withdrew his army to
Hampton Roads without striking a blow. Porter, much
chagrined at the non-success of the enterprise, was eager to
make a second attempt, and urged the Government to send
troops at once to cooperate with his fleet. Orders to that
effect having been given, he rapidly refitted at Beaufort, and
returned to the scene of action. The military force was some
what augmented, and placed in command of General Terry,
On the 13th and Mth of January, 1865, Porter bombarded
the fort, untU it was " reduced to a pulp " as his report says,
and on the 15th, after one of the most desperate hand-to-
hand conflicts of the war. Fort Fisher surrendered. The
last port through which foreign assistance could reach the
tottering "confederacy" was thus closed, and Porter re
ceived, for the fourth time, a weU-merited vote of thanks.
After the capture of Richmond, Admiral Porter escorted
President Lincoln to that city in his flagship, the Malvern.
HostUities were now at an end, and in September, 1865,
Porter was appointed superintendent of the Naval Academy,
which under his regune reached a high state of proficiency,
and became the leading institution, of its kind, iu the
world. He held the position for four years, and during the
remainder of his life he was engaged in special duty on land.

DAVID D. PORTER.
being retained upon the active list to the last. In the com
parative leisure of his later years, he indulged his artistic and
literary tastes, and published a Ufe of his father, and a naval
history of the Rebellion, beside several novels and numerous
magazine articles. He was raised to the rank of Vice-
Admiral in July, 1866, and that of Admiral in August, 1870,
upon the death of David G. Farragut, his only predecessor
in that grade in the American navy. He died suddenly at
his residence in Washington, February 13, 1891, only one
day before his equal in rank in the army, General W- T.
Sherman, and was buried at Arlington with the highest
military honors.

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

From life.

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

[ERICA'S most famous pulpit orator, Henry
Ward Beecher, was born June 14, 1813, at
Litchfield, Conn,, in the third year of the pastor
ate of his father. Dr. Lyman Beecher. He was
deprived of a mother's care at the age of three
years, but her place was worthily fiUed by the
step-mother whom he ever regarded with tender
affection. The vein of humor which character
ized Dr. Beecher was reproduced and intensified
in the fun-loving boy Henry. Few of the
pleasures with which the chUdren of the present
day are famUiar were known to the large family of the
poorly paid Connecticut pastor, yet health and contentment
brought happiness to the domestic circle. In the vUlage
school, Henry showed himself to be no great lover of books,
and he did not make satisfactory progress in his studies, when
at the age of ten he was sent to a private school in the
neighboring town of Bethlehem, A year later he was placed
under the care of an elder sister who carried on a school for
girls at Hartford, but his incorrigible fondness for fun and
mischief caused him to be sent back to Litchfield, No one
could have predicted for such a lad the brUUant future which
lay before him.
He was nearly thirteen years of age when his father
removed to Boston in 1826; and the verdant country lad
soon fell in with the ways of his city playmates. He entered
the Latin School, but found more delight in perusing tales
of the sea than in conning his Csesar and Virgil. He was

HENRY WARD BEECHER.
SO strongly attracted toward the life of a sailor, that it was
at length determined to remove him from the temptations of
city life, and he was accordingly placed at the Mount Pleasant
Institute at Amherst, Mass,, where he remained for three
years, in the course of which he united with his father's
church, gave up all thoughts of a seafaring life, and decided
to adopt the clerical profession. He entered Amherst
College in 1830, and graduated in 1834. During his college
days he adopted the anti-slavery sentiments which he after
ward upheld so zealously, and began to speak in public, his
first lecture being delivered at Brattleboro, Vt., and netting
him the sum of ten dollars. He also contributed to his own
support by teaching at Hopkinton and other Massachusetts
towns, and occasionally by preaching.
Mr. Beecher pursued his theological studies under his
father, who had become president of the Lane Seminary,
in 1832, and for three years he was again an inmate of his
father's home at Cincinnati. During the pro-slavery riots in
that city in 1836, Mr. Beecher was sworn as a special consta
ble. Being observed upon one occasion, in the act of running
bullets in a mold, he was asked what he meant to do with
them, when he grimly replied, " To kUl men." Subsequent
manifestations of this same militant spirit wiU be met with
later in his life, when his righteous indignation was aroused
by injustice and wrong. In the spring of 1837, he gradu
ated from Lane Theological Seminary, read his "trial
lecture," and was licensed to preach. He soon received a
call to become pastor of the little Presbyterian church at
Lawrenceburg, Ind. He now made a hurried trip to New
England and on August 3, 1837, he was married to Eunice
White BuUard of West Sutton, Mass. The young couple
began life with few comforts and no luxuries, but with hearts
full of present happiness and of confidence for the future.
Mr. Beecher was his own sexton, and his meagre stipend was
augmented by a small allowance from the Home Missionary

HENRY WARD BEECHER.
Society. He was as yet only a Ucentiate, and when he sought
orduiation, he encountered the opposition of the Old Sch*ool
Presbyterians, who very naturally distrusted the orthodoxy
of the son, when they regarded the father as an arch-heretic.
The upshot of the matter was, that the Lawrenceburg church
declared itself independent, and Mr. Beecher was ordained
by the New School faction.
He remained in his first pastorate a Uttle less than two
years, preaching his fareweU sermon July 28, 1839. He had
accepted an invitation to become first pastor of the newly
formed Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, where
he labored with constantly increasing success for eight years.
He now began to come into prominence by his identification
with various secular reformatory movements, notably with
that for the aboUtion of slavery, and he likewise became
interested in agriculture, spending a portion of his leisure
time in the management of his garden. For some years he
was editor of the Indiana Farmer and Gardener. His fame
as a preacher and lecturer spread rapidly, and at length it
reached the East, where his father's name had been a tower
of strength. Various efforts were made to induce him to
enter a more extended field, but they met with no favorable
response from him, until the formation of the Plymouth
Congregational Church of Brooklyn, in June, 1847, the
pastorship of which he decided, after much hesitation, to
accept. Mr. Beecher preached his first sermon in Brooklyn, October
10, 1847, and a month later he was formally installed in the
pastorate which terminated only at his death, more than
thirty-nine years afterward. The liberality of his reUgious
views, and the freedom with which he denounced slavery
and all sorts of moral and political corruption, alarmed some
of his more conservative hearers, who warned him that he
would ruin both himself and his church ; but such warnings
only incited him to keep on in his chosen course. Those who

HENRY WARD BEECHER.
did not like his sentiments, need not hire pews in his church.
But the pews continued to be fiUed and the ehurch increased
rapidly. The building which they occupied was destroyed by
fire in January, 1849. A year later the well-known spacious,
though unassuming edifice was dedicated which was destined
to become the most celebrated of American churches. Ex
cept in rare cases of sickness, or temporary absence from the
country, Mr. Beecher was seldom away from his pulpit on
Sunday. His congregation increased untU they fUled every
available seat and standing place, and throngs were often
turned away. No other preacher of this country has had
such a powerful hold upon his audiences as Henry Ward
Beecher, In 1850 he made his first visit to Europe, and though
constrained to declare that " the only pleasant thing about
going to sea was the going ashore," he keenly enjoyed his
two months' sojourn among the churches, the castles, the
ruins and the historical monuments of the Old World. In
1854 he purchased a farm of nearly a hundred acres at
Lenox, Mass. For three or four years he made it his sum
mer home, when, on account of the distance from New York,
it was disposed of. An earnest preacher of the gospel of
peace, he fully realized that there are times when lasting
peace can only be secured by conflict with its disturbers.
Consequently, when the lawless hordes of Missouri slave
holders invaded Kansas, he counted it no derogation of his
sacred office to counsel armed resistance on the part of the
settlers, and he actively assisted the Emigrant Aid Society
in their work of forwarding weapons of defence to the free
State men. A collection was taken up in his church to raise
funds wherewith to purchase Sharpe's rifles, and a quantity
of these having found their way into Kansas in boxes labelled
"Bibles," the rifles became widely known as "Beecher's
bibles." In the presidential campaign of 1856, he made many
addresses in behalf of John C. Fremont ; but he declined to

HENRY WARD BEECHER.
consider a proposition to go to Congress, unless, as he wittily
suggested, it should come from the American Board of Mis
sions. In 1859 he bought his PeekskUl estate which in time
brought additional fame to its owner as an amateur agricul
turalist. Here, in 1878, was erected his sumptuous country
seat, " Boscobel." Academical honors had no more attraction
for Mr. Beecher than poUtical preferment, and in 1860 he
refused the title of D.D, proffered him by Amherst CoUege,
Mr. Beecher strongly advocated the election of Abraham
Lincoln to the presidency. When traitors insulted the flag
at Sumter, and plunged the nation into war, he was lecturing
in Cincinnati. Hurrying home, he was met by his first-born
son with the words " Father, may I enlist ? " " If you don't,
I wiU disown you," said the patriotic divine, and he looked
to it that the young man was provided with proper equip
ments. He was active in procuring recruits and in caring
for their welfare, and his church became a veritable maga
zine of military and hospital stores. One entire regiment,
the 67th New York, was raised and equipped through his
instrumentality. For many years he had been a contributor
to the Independent, and in December, 1861, he assumed the
editorship. In the conduct of this journal he evinced the
same desire to make his feUow-men better and happier, and
the same ardent devotion to his country, as he did in the
pulpit or upon the rostrum.
In June, 1863, Mr. Beecher felt compelled to seek relief
for his overtasked energies in a second voyage to Europe,
The management of the Independent was entrusted to
Theodore Tilton, the associate editor, and through the favor
of Mr, Beecher, TUton eventuaUy became editor-in-chief.
When Mr. Beecher saUed from the United States, the cause
of the Union appeared to be in a desperate strait; when he
reached England, he found sympathy with the rebels openly
expressed; but in Paris, he received the glad tidings of
Vicksburg and Gettysburg. In an interview with Leopold,

HENRY WARD BEECHER.
King of Belgium, he ventured the opinion that the crater
of Vesuvius was no less perUous a position than the throne
of Mexico, and the accuracy of his judgment was made
manifest in the mournful fate of Carlotta, King Leopold's
daughter, who lost husband and reason through the attempt
to establish that throne in opposition to the wUl of the
people. It was not his intention to appear before an EngUsh
audience, but after his return from the Continent in October,
he determined to do so, and, if possible, to correct the
erroneous ideas of the British public in regard to the struggle
in America. He addressed five great gatherings in Man
chester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, and at Exeter Hall
in London; and in every instance he was confronted by a
violent mob, which strove to prevent him from being heard ;
but the great preacher's coolness and determination overcame
all obstacles, and he was largely influential in turning the
current of English opinion in favor of the North.
On the 8th of April, 1865, Mr. Beecher sailed in the
Arago for Charleston, S. C, to deliver the address at the
raising of the old flag over the remains of Fort Sumter,
This impressive ceremony took place on the 14th, just four
years from the day upon which Major Anderson evacuated
the fort. In words of impassioned eloquence, Mr. Beecher
voiced the universal exultation over the defeat of the re
bellious Southerners, with no touch of vindictive feeling
toward the misguided men who had essayed in vain to destroy
the Union. " RebeUion has perished, but there flies the same
flag that was insulted," But, alas ! the echo of the guns
that saluted the restored Stars and Stripes had hardly died
away before the hand of the assassin turned a nation's joy
into grief. Upon arriving at Hilton Head on the return
voyage, Mr, Beecher learned the sad news of President
Lincoln's death,
Mr, Beecher's views upon reconstruction coincided more
nearly with those of President Johnson than with those of

HENRY WARD BEECHER.
the congressional majority, and in consequence of this, an
estrangement took place between him and the management
of the Independent, which resulted in his final withdrawal
from aU connection with that paper. He thereby incurred
the enmity of Theodore Tilton, who, conspUing with certam
other enemies of Mr, Beecher, charged him with a heinous
crime. In a civU suit which grew out of this distressing
" scandal " the jury disagreed, nine, however, being in favor
of Mr. Beecher; but an ecclesiastical trial completely vin
dicated his good name. His church stood loyally by him in
his trouble, raising his salary, for the "trial year," to
one hundred thousand dollars.
In 1884, Mr, Beecher, who had acted with the RepubUcan
party ever since its organization, declared in favor of Mr,
Cleveland, the Democratic nominee. On the 19th of June,
1886, he saUed a third time for England, being accompanied
down New York harbor by three thousand of his admirers.
His reception in Great Britain was extremely cordial, in
marked contrast to that accorded him upon his previous visit,
nearly a quarter of a century before. On the 5th of July he
was entertained at dinner by the Lord Mayor of London,
He was absent four months, during which time he preached
seventeen times, made nine addresses, and delivered fifty-eight
lectures. Upon his return to America, he declined a reception
by the City CouncU of Brooklyn, and resumed his pastoral
duties, which he was discharging with his accustomed energy
when a stroke of apoplexy caused his death, after a very brief
illness, on the Sth of March, 1887, His income from his
lectures and writings and from other sources had been large,
and he left a considerable fortune to his heirs. From 1870
to 1881 he was editor of the Christian Union. He wrote
one romance, and many of his contributions to periodicals
were published in book form. He also published one volume
of a " Life of Christ," and was about to resume work upon it
at the time of his death.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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