CORNELIUS VANDERBILT
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT.
In 1829, when he was thirty-five, he began to build steamboats, and operated them on the Hudson River, on Long Island Sound, and on the route to Boston. When he was forty his property was estimated at $500,000.When the gold-seekers rushed to California, in 1848-1849, Mr. Vanderbilt established a line by way of Lake Nicaragua, and made large profits. He also established a line between New York and Havre.
During the Civil War Mr. Vanderbilt gave the Vanderbilt, his finest steamship, costing $800,000, to the government, and sent her to the James River to assist when the Merrimac attacked the national vessels at Hampton Roads. Congress voted him a gold medal for his timely gift.
In 1863 he began to invest in railroads, purchasing a large part of the stock of the New York and Harlem Railroad. His property was at this time estimated at $40,000,000. He soon gained controlling interest in other roads. His chief maxim was, "Do your business well, and don't tell anybody what you are going to do until you have done it."
In February, 1873, Bishop McTyeire of Nashville, Tenn., was visiting with the family of Mr. Vanderbilt in New York City. The first wife was dead, and Mr. Vanderbilt had married a second time. Both men had married cousins in the city of Mobile, who were very intimate in their girlhood, and this brought the bishop and Mr. Vanderbilt into friendly relations. One evening when they were conversing about the effects of the Civil War upon the Southern States, Commodore Vanderbilt, as he was usually called, expressed a desire to do something for the South, and asked the bishop what he would suggest.
The Methodist Church at the South had organized Central University at Nashville, but found it impossible to raise the funds needed to carry on the work. Thebishop stated the great need for such an institution, and Mr. Vanderbilt at once gave $500,000. In his letter to the Board of Trust, Mr. Vanderbilt said, "If it shall through its influence contribute even in the smallest degree to strengthening the ties which should exist between all geographical sections of our common country, I shall feel that it has accomplished one of the objects that has led me to take an interest in it."
Later, in his last illness, he gave enough to make his gift a million. The name of the institution was changed to Vanderbilt University. Mr. Vanderbilt died in New York, Jan. 4, 1877, leaving the larger part of his millions to his son, William Henry Vanderbilt. He gave $50,000 to the Rev. Charles F. Deems to purchase the Church of the Strangers.
Founder's Day at Vanderbilt University is celebrated yearly on the late Commodore's birthday, May 27, the day being ushered in by the playing of music and the ringing of the University bell.
Bishop McTyeire, who, Mr. Vanderbilt insisted, should accept the presidency of the University, used to say, "My wife was a silent but golden link in the chain of Providence that led to Vanderbilt University."
When an attractive site of seventy-five acres of land was chosen for the buildings, an agent who was recommending an out-of-the-way place protested, and said, "Bishop, the boys will be looking out of the windows there."
"We want them to look out," said the practical bishop, "and to know what is going on outside."
The secretary of the faculty tells a characteristic incident of this noble man. "He once cordially thankedme for conducting through the University building a company of plain country people, among whom was a woman with a baby in her arms. 'Who knows what may come of that visit?' said he. 'It may bring that baby here as a student. He may yet be one of our illustrious men. Who knows? Who knows? Such people are not to be neglected. Great men come of them.'"
Vanderbilt University now has over seven hundred students, and is sending out many capable scholars into fields of usefulness.
Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, the son of Cornelius, gave over $450,000 to the University. His first gift of $100,000 was for the gymnasium, Science Hall, and Wesley Hall, the Home of the Biblical Department. Another $100,000 was for the engineering department. At his death, Dec. 8, 1885, he left the University by will $200,000.
Mr. Vanderbilt's estate was estimated at $200,000,000, double the amount left by his father. It is said that he left $10,000,000 to each of his eight children, the larger part of his fortune going to two of his sons, Cornelius and William K. Vanderbilt.
He gave for the removing of the obelisk from Egypt to Central Park, $103,000; to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York City, $500,000. His daughter Emily, wife of William D. Sloan, gave a Maternity Home in connection with the college, costing $250,000. Mr. Vanderbilt's four sons, Cornelius, William, Frederick, and George, have erected a building for clinical instruction as a memorial of their father.
Mr. Vanderbilt gave $100,000 each to the Home andForeign Missions of the Primitive Episcopal Church, to the New York Missions of that church, to St. Luke's Hospital, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the United Brethren Church at New Dorp, Staten Island, and to the Young Men's Christian Association. He gave $50,000 each to the Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, the New York Bible Society, the Home for Incurables, Seamen's Society, New York Home for Intemperate Men, and the American Museum of Natural History.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, the grandson of Commodore Vanderbilt, has given $10,000 for the library, and $20,000 for the Hall of Mechanical Engineering of Vanderbilt University. He has also given a building to Yale College in memory of his son, a large building at the corner of Madison Avenue and Forty-fifth Street to his railroad employees for reading, gymnasium hall, bathrooms, etc., $100,000 for the Protestant Cathedral, and much to other good works.
Another son of William H., George W. Vanderbilt, who is making at his home in Asheville, N.C., a collection as complete as possible of all trees and plants, established the Thirteenth Street Branch of The Free Circulating Library in New York City, in July, 1888, and has supported a normal training-school.
A daughter of William H., Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard, has given to the Young Women's Christian Association in New York the Margaret Louisa Home, 14 and 16 East Sixteenth Street, a handsome and well-appointed structure where working-women can find a temporary home and comfort. The limit of time for each guest is four weeks. The house contains fifty-eight single andtwenty-one double rooms. It has proved a great blessing to those who are strangers in a great city, and need inexpensive and respectable surroundings.
It is stated in the press that Mrs. Frederick Vanderbilt uses a generous portion of her income in preparing worthy young women for some useful position in life,—as nurses, or in sewing or art, each individual having $500 expended for such training.
"The death of Baron Hirsch," says the New YorkTribune, April 22, 1896, "is a loss to the whole human race. To one of the most ancient and illustrious branches of that race it will seem a catastrophe. No man of this century has done so much for the Jews as he.... In his twelfth century castle of Eichorn in Moravia he conceived vast schemes of beneficence. On his more than princely estate of St. Johann in Hungary he elaborated the details. In his London and Paris mansions he put them into execution. He rose early and worked late, and kept busy a staff of secretaries and agents in all parts of the world. He not only relieved the immediate distress of the people, he founded schools to train them to useful work. He transported them by thousands from lands of bondage to lands of freedom, and planted them there in happy colonies. In countless other directions he gave his wealth freely for the benefit of mankind without regard to race or creed."
Baron Hirsch died at Presburg, Hungary, April 20, 1896, of apoplexy. He was the son of a Bavarian merchant, and was born in 1833. At eighteen he became a clerk in the banking-firm of Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt, and married the daughter of the former. Hewas the successful promoter of the great railway system from Budapest to Varna on the Black Sea. He made vast sums out of Turkish railway bonds, and is said to have been as rich as the Rothschilds.
He gave away in his lifetime an enormous amount, stated in the press to have been $15,000,000 yearly, for the five years before his death.
The New YorkTribunesays he gave much more than $20,000,000 for the help of the Jews. He gave to institutions in Egypt, Turkey, and Asia Minor, which bear his name. He offered the Russian Government $10,000,000 for public education if it would make no discrimination as to race or religion; but it declined the offer, and banished the Jews.
To the Hirsch fund in this country for the help of the Jews the baron sent more than $2,500,000. The managers of the fund spent no money in bringing the Jews to this country, but when here, opened schools for the children to prepare them to enter the public schools, evening schools for adults, training-schools to teach them carpentry, plumbing, and the like; provided public baths for them; bought farm-lands for them in New Jersey and Connecticut, and assisted them to buy small farms; provided factories for young men and women, as at Woodbine, N.J., where 5,100 acres have been purchased for the Hirsch Colony, and a brickyard and kindling-wood factory established. The baron is said to have received 400 begging letters daily, some of them from crowned heads, to whom he loaned large amounts. The favorite home of the baron was in Paris, where he lost his only and idolized son Lucien, in 1888, at the age of twenty. Much of the fortune that was to be theson's the father devoted to charity, especially to the alleviation of the condition of the European Jews, in whom the son was deeply interested. Many millions were left to Lucienne, the extremely pretty natural daughter of his son Lucien.
Isaac Rich left to Boston University, chartered in 1869, more than a million and a half dollars. He was born in Wellfleet, Mass., in 1801, of humble parentage. At the age of fourteen he was assisting his father in a fish-stall in Boston, and afterwards kept an oyster-stall in Faneuil Hall. He became a very successful fish-merchant, and gave his wealth for noble purposes.
Unfortunately, immediately after his death, Jan. 13, 1872, the great fire of 1872 consumed the best investments of the estate, and the panic of 1873 and other great losses followed; so that for rebuilding the stores and banks in which the estate had been largely invested money had to be borrowed, and at the close of ten years the estate actually transferred to the University was a little less than $700,000.
This sum would have been much larger had not the statutes of New York State made it illegal to convey to a corporation outside the State, like Boston University, the real estate owned by Mr. Rich in Brooklyn, which reverted to the legal heirs. It is claimed that Mr. Rich was "the first Bostonian who ever donated so large a sum to the cause of collegiate education."
The Hon. Jacob Sleeper, one of the three originalincorporators of the University, gave to it over a quarter of a million dollars. The College of Liberal Arts is named in his honor.
Boston University owes much of its wide reputation to its president, the Rev. Dr. William F. Warren, a successful author as well as able executive. From the first he has favored co-education and equal opportunities for men and women. Dr. Warren said in 1890, "In my opinion the co-education of the sexes in high and grammar schools, as also in colleges and universities, is absolutely essential to the best results in the education of youth.
"I believe it to be best for boys, best for girls, best for teachers, best for tax-payers, best for the community, best for morals and manners and religion."
More than sixty years ago, in 1833, at its beginning, Oberlin College gave the first example of co-education in this country. In 1880 a little more than half the colleges in the United States, 51.3 per cent, had adopted the policy; in 1890 the proportion had increased to 65.5 per cent. Probably a majority of persons will agree with Dr. James MacAlister of Philadelphia, that "co-education is becoming universal throughout this country."
Concerning Boston University, the report prepared for the admirable education series edited by Professor Herbert B. Adams of Johns Hopkins University, says, "This University was the first to afford the young women of Massachusetts the advantages of the higher education. Its College of Liberal Arts antedated Wellesley and Smith and the Harvard Annex. Its doors, furthermore, were not reluctantly opened in consequenceof the pressure of an outside public opinion too great to be resisted. On the contrary, it was in advance of public sentiment on this line, and directed it. Its school of theology was the earliest anywhere to present to women all the privileges provided for men. In fact, this University was the first in history to present to women students unrestricted opportunities to fit themselves for each of the learned professions. It was the first ever organized from foundation to capstone without discrimination on the ground of sex. Its publications bearing upon the joint education of the sexes have been sought in all countries where the question of opening the older universities to women has been under discussion."
Boston University, 1896, has at present 1,270 students,—women 377, men 893,—and requires high grade of scholarship. It is stated that "the first four years' course of graded medical instruction ever offered in this country was instituted by this school in the spring of 1878."
Mr. Fayerweather was born in Stepney, Conn., in 1821; he was apprenticed to a farmer, learned the shoemaker's trade in Bridgeport, and worked at the trade until he became ill. Then he bought a tin-peddler's outfit, and went to Virginia. When he could not sell for cash he took hides in payment.
Afterwards he returned to his trade at Bridgeport, where he remained till 1854, when he was thirty-three years old. He then removed to New York City, and entered the employ of Hoyt Brothers, dealers in leather. Years later, on the withdrawal of Mr. Hoyt, the firm name became Fayerweather & Ladew. Mr. Fayerweather was a retiring, economical man, honest and respected. At his death in 1890, he gave to the Presbyterian Hospital, St. Luke's Hospital, and Manhattan Eye and Ear Infirmary, $25,000 each; to the Woman's Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital, $10,000 each; to Yale College, Columbia College, Cornell University, $200,000 each; to Bowdoin College, Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth, Wesleyan, Hamilton, Maryville, Yale Scientific School, University of Virginia, Rochester, Lincoln, and Hampton Universities, $100,000 each; to Union Theological Seminary, Lafayette, Marietta, Adelbert, Wabash, andPark Colleges, $50,000 each. The residue of the estate, over $3,000,000, was divided among various colleges and hospitals.
Who died April 7, 1893, in New York City, gave away, between 1879 and 1884, to Seney Hospital in Brooklyn, $500,000, and a like amount each to the Wesleyan University, and to the Methodist Orphan Asylum, Brooklyn. To Emory College and Wesleyan Female College, Macon, Ga., he gave $250,000; to the Long Island Historical Society, $100,000; to the Brooklyn Library, $60,000; to Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N.J., a large amount; to the Industrial School for Homeless Children, Brooklyn, $25,000, and a like amount to the Eye and Ear Infirmary of that city. He also gave twenty valuable paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The givers to colleges have been too numerous to mention. The College of New Jersey, at Princeton, has received not less than one and a half million or two million dollars from the John C. Greene estate.
Johns Hopkins left seven millions to found a university and hospital in Baltimore.
The Hon. Washington C. De Pauw left at his death forty per cent of his estate, estimated at from two to five million dollars, to De Pauw University, Greencastle, Ind. Though some of the real estate decreased in value, the university has received already $300,000, and will probably receive not less than $600,000, or possibly much more, in the future.
Mr. Jonas G. Clark gave to found Clark University, Worcester, Mass., about a million dollars to be devotedto post-graduates, or a school for specialists. Mr. Clark spent about eight years in Europe studying the highest institutions of learning. Matthew Vassar gave a million dollars to Vassar College for women at Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Ezra B. Cornell gave a million to Cornell University at Ithaca, N.Y. Mr. Henry W. Sage has also been a most munificent giver to the same institution. Dr. Joseph W. Taylor of Burlington, N.J., a physician and merchant, and member of the Society of Friends, founded Bryn Mawr College for Women, at Bryn Mawr, Penn. His gift consisted of property and academic buildings worth half a million, and one million dollars in invested funds as endowment.
Mr. Paul Tulane gave over a million to Tulane University, New Orleans. George Peabody gave away nine millions in charities,—three millions to educational institutions, three millions to education at the South to both whites and negroes, and three millions to build tenement houses for the poor of London, England.
Of Cleveland, Ohio, left a half-million dollars for the foundation of an art gallery and school. His family were among the pioneer settlers, and their purchases of land in what became the heart of the city made their children wealthy. He was born in Cleveland, July 8, 1819, and died in the same city, Dec. 5, 1890.
He married Miss Fanny Miles, of Elyria, Ohio, and spent much of his life in foreign travel and in California, where they had a home at Pasadena. His fortune was the result of saving as well as the increase in real-estate values.
Mr. John Huntington made a somewhat larger gift for the same purpose. Mr. H. B. Hurlbut gave his elegant home, his collection of pictures, etc., valued at half a million, and Mr. J. H. Wade and others have contributed land, which make nearly two million dollars for the Cleveland Art Gallery and School. Mr. W. J. Gordon, of Cleveland, Ohio, gave land for Gordon's Park, bordering on Lake Erie, valued at a million dollars. It was beautifully laid out by him with drives, lakes, and flower-beds, and was his home for many years.
Formerly a resident of Cleveland, but in later years a manufacturer at Toronto, Canada, at his death, in the spring of 1896, left a million dollars in charities. To Victoria College, Toronto, $200,000, all but $50,000 as an endowment fund. This $50,000 is to be used for building a home for the women students. To each of two other colleges, $100,000, and to each of two more, $50,000, one of the latter being the new American University at Washington, D.C. To the Salvation Army, Toronto, $5,000. To the Fred Victor Mission, to provide missionary nurses to go from house to house in Toronto, and care for the sick and the needy, $10,000. Many thousands were given to churches and various homes, and $10,000 to ministers worn out in service. To Mr. D. L. Moody's schools at Northfield, Mass., $10,000. Many have given to this noble institution established by the great evangelist, and it needs and deserves large endowments. The Frederick Marquand Memorial Hall, brick with gray stone trimmings, was built as a dormitory for one hundred girls, in 1884, at acost of $67,000. Recitation Hall, of colored granite, was built in 1885, at a cost of $40,000, and, as well as some other buildings, was paid for out of the proceeds of the Moody and Sankey hymn-books. Weston Hall, costing $25,000, is the gift of Mr. David Weston of Boston. Talcott Library, a beautiful structure costing $20,000, with a capacity for forty thousand volumes, is the gift of Mr. James Talcott of New York, who, among many other benefactions, has erected Talcott Hall at Oberlin College, a large and handsome boarding-hall for the young women.
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, one sees an interesting picture of this noted giver, painted by Alexander Cabanel, commander of the Legion of Honor, and professor in the École des Beaux Arts of Paris.
Miss Wolfe, who was born in New York, March 8, 1828, and died in New York, April 4, 1887, at the age of fifty-nine, was descended from an old Lutheran family, her great-grandfather, John David Wolfe, coming to this country from Saxony in 1729. Two of his four children, David and Christopher, served with credit in the War of the Revolution. After the war, David and a younger brother were partners in the hardware business, and their sons succeeded them.
John David Wolfe, the son of David, born July 24, 1792, retired from business in the prime of his life, and devoted himself to benevolent work. He was a vestryman of Trinity Parish, and later senior warden of Grace Church, New York. He gave to schools and churches all over the country, to St. Johnland on Long Island, to the Sheltering Arms in New York, the High School at Denver, Col., the Diocesan School at Topeka, Kan., etc. He was a helper in the New York Historical Society, and one of the founders of the American Museum ofNatural History in New York. He was its first president when he died, May 17, 1872, in his eightieth year, leaving only one child, Catharine, to inherit his large property.
A portion of Miss Wolfe's seven millions came from her mother, Dorothea Lorillard, and the rest from her father. She was an educated woman, who had read much and travelled extensively, and, like her father, used her money in doing good while she lived. Her private benefactions were constant, and she went much among the poor and suffering.
She built in East Broadway a Newsboy's Lodging House for not less than $50,000; the Italian Mission Church in Mulberry Street, $50,000, with tenement house in the same street, $20,000; the house for the clergy of the diocese of New York, 29 Lafayette Place, $170,000; St. Luke's Hospital, $30,000; Home for Incurables at Fordham, $30,000; Union College, Schenectady, N.Y., $100,000; Schools in the Western States, $50,000; Home and Foreign Missions, $100,000; American Church in Rome, $40,000; American School of Classical Studies at Athens, $20,000; Virginia Seminary, $25,000; Grace House, containing reading and lecture rooms for the poor, and Grace Church, $200,000 or more. She paid the expense of the exploring expedition to Babylonia under the leadership of the distinguished Oriental scholar, Dr. William Hayes Ward, editor of theIndependent. A friend tells of her sending him to New York, from her boat on the Nile, a check for $25,000 to be distributed in charities. She educated young girls; she helped those who are unable to make their way in the world.
Having given all her life, she gave away over a million at her death in money and objects of art. To the Metropolitan Museum of Art she gave the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe collection, with pictures by Rosa Bonheur, Meissonnier, Gérôme, Verboeckhoven, Hans Makart, Sir Frederick Leighton, Couture, Bouguéreau, and many others. She added an endowment of $200,000 for the preservation and increase of the collection.
One of the most interesting to me of all the pictures in the Wolfe collection is the sheep in a storm, No. 118, "Lost," souvenir of Auvergne, by Auguste Frederic Albrecht Schenck, a member of the Legion of Honor, born in the Duchy of Holstein, 1828. Those who love animals can scarcely stand before it without tears.
Others besides Miss Wolfe have made notable gifts to the Museum of Art. Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt gave, in 1887, Rosa Bonheur's world-renowned "Horse Fair," for which he paid $53,500. It was purchased at the auction sale of Mr. A. T. Stewart's collection, March 25, 1887.
Meissonnier's "Friedland, 1807" was purchased at the Stewart sale by Mr. Henry Hilton for $66,000, and presented to the museum. Mr. Stephen Whitney Phoenix, who gave so generously to Columbia College, was also, like Mr. George I. Seney, a great giver to the museum.
Of Baltimore gave to the Medical School of Johns Hopkins University over $400,000, that women might have equal medical opportunities with men.
President Daniel C. Gilman, in an article on Johns Hopkins University, says, "Much attention had been directed to the importance of medical education for women; and efforts had been made by committees of ladies in Baltimore and other cities to secure for this purpose an adequate endowment, to be connected with the foundations of Johns Hopkins. As a result of this movement, the trustees accepted a gift from the committee of ladies, a sum which, with its accrued interest, amounted to $119,000, toward the endowment of a medical school to which 'women should be admitted upon the same terms which may be prescribed for men.'
"This gift was made in October, 1891; but as it was inadequate for the purposes proposed, Miss Mary E. Garrett, in addition to her previous subscriptions, offered to the trustees the sum of $306,977, which, with other available resources, made up the amount of $500,000, which had been agreed upon as the minimum endowment of the Johns Hopkins Medical School. These contributions enabled the trustees to proceed to the organization of a school of medicine which was opened to candidates for the degree of doctor of medicine in October, 1893."
Several women have aided Johns Hopkins, as indeed they have most institutions of learning in America. Mrs. Caroline Donovan gave to the university $100,000 for the foundation of a chair of English literature. In 1887 Mrs. Adam T. Bruce of New York gave the sum of $10,000 to found the Bruce fellowship in memory of her son, the late Adam T. Bruce, who had been a fellow and an instructor at the university. Mrs. William E. Woodyear gave the sum of $10,000 to found five scholarships as a memorial of her deceased husband. Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull endowed the Percy Turnbull memorial lectureship of poetry with an income of $1,000 per annum.
"Whenever our people gratefully point out their benefactors, whenever the Germans in America speak of those who are objects of their veneration and their pride, the name of Anna Ottendorfer will assuredly be among the first. For all time to come her memory and her work will be blessed." Thus spoke the Hon. Carl Schurz at the bier of Mrs. Ottendorfer in the spring of 1884.
Anna Behr was born in Würzburg, Bavaria, in a simple home, Feb. 13, 1815. In 1837, when twenty-two years old, she came to America, remained a year with her brother in Niagara County, N.Y., and then married Jacob Uhl, a printer.
In 1844 Mr. Uhl started a job-office in Frankfort Street, New York, and bought a small weekly paper called theNew-Yorker Staats-Zeitung. His young wife helped him constantly, and finally the weekly paper became a daily.
Her husband died in 1852, leaving her with six children and a daily paper on her hands. She was equal to the task. She declined to sell the paper, and managed it well for seven years. Then she married Mr. Oswald Ottendorfer, who was on the staff of the paper.
Both worked indefatigably, and made the paper more successful than ever. She was always at her desk."Her callers," saysHarper's Bazar, May 3, 1884, "had been many. Her visitors represented all classes of society,—the opulent and the poor, the high and the lowly. There was advice for the one, assistance for the other; an open heart and an open purse for the deserving; a large charity wisely used."
In 1875 Mrs. Ottendorfer built the Isabella Home for Aged Women in Astoria, Long Island, giving to it $150,000. It was erected in memory of her deceased daughter, Isabella.
In 1881 she contributed about $40,000 to a memorial fund in support of several educational institutions, and the next year built and furnished the Woman's Pavilion of the German Hospital of New York City, giving $75,000. For the German Dispensary in Second Avenue she gave $100,000, also a library.
At her death she provided liberally for many institutions, and left $25,000 to be divided among the employees of theStaats-Zeitung. In 1879 the property of the paper was turned into a stock-company; and, at the suggestion of Mrs. Ottendorfer, the employees were provided for by a ten-per-cent dividend on their annual salary. Later this was raised to fifteen per cent, which greatly pleased the men.
The New YorkSun, in regard to her care for her employees, especially in her will, says, "She had always the reputation of a very clever, business-like, and charitable lady. Her will shows, however, that she was much more than that—she must have been a wonderful woman." A year before her death the Empress Augusta of Germany sent her a medal in recognition of her many charities.
Mrs. Ottendorfer died April 1, 1884, and was buried in Greenwood. Her estate was estimated at $3,000,000, made by her own skill and energy. Having made it, she enjoyed giving it to others.
Her husband, Mr. Oswald Ottendorfer, has given most generously to his native place Zwittau,—an orphan asylum and home for the poor, a hospital, and a fine library with a beautiful monumental fountain before it, crowned by a statue representing mother-love; a woman carrying a child in her arms and leading another. His statue was erected in the city in 1886, and the town was illuminated in his honor at the dedication of the library.
When Mr. Stone, who was a dry-goods merchant of Boston, died in Malden, Mass., in 1878, it was agreed between him and his wife, Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, that the property earned and saved by them should be given to charity.
While Mrs. Stone lived she gave generously; and at her death, Jan. 15, 1884, over eighty years old, she gave away more than $2,000,000. To Andover Theological Seminary, to the American Missionary Association for schools among the colored people, $150,000 each, and much to aid struggling students and churches, and to save mortgaged homes. To Wellesley College to build Stone Hall, $110,000; to Bowdoin College, Amherst, Dartmouth, Drury, Carleton, Chicago Seminary, Hamilton, Iowa, Oberlin, Hampton Institute, Woman's Board for Armenia College, Turkey, Olivet College, Ripon, Illinois, Marietta, Beloit, Robert College, Constantinople, Berea, Doane, Colorado, Washburne, Howard University, each from five to seventy-five thousand dollars. She gave also to hospitals, city mission work, rescue homes, and Christian associations. For evangelical work in France she gave $15,000.
The giver of over one million and a half dollars was born at Easthampton, Mass., July 17, 1795.
He was the son of the Rev. Payson Williston, first pastor of the First Church in Easthampton in 1789, and the grandson of the Rev. Noah Williston of West Haven, Conn., on his father's side, and of the Rev. Nathan Birdseye of Stratford, Conn., on his mother's.
As the salary of the father probably never exceeded $350 yearly, the family were brought up in the strictest economy. At ten years of age the boy Samuel worked on a farm, earning for the next six years about seven dollars a month, and saving all that was possible. In the winters he attended the district school, and studied Latin with his father, as he hoped to fit himself for the ministry.
He began his preparation at Phillips Academy, Andover, carrying thither his worldly possessions in a bag under his arm. "We were both of us about as poor in money as we could be," said his roommate years afterward, the Rev. Enoch Sanford, D.D., "but our capital in hope and fervor was boundless." Samuel's eyes soon failed him, and he was obliged to give up the project of ever becoming a minister. He entered the store of Arthur Tappan, in New York, as clerk; but ill health compelled him to return to the farm with its out-door life.
When he was twenty-seven he married Emily Graves of Williamsburg, Mass. She brought to the marriage partnership a noble heart, and every willingness to help. The story is told that she cut off a button from the coat of a visitor, with his consent, learned how it was covered, and soon furnished work for her neighbors as well as herself.
After some years Mr. Williston began in a small way to manufacture buttons, and the business grew under his capable management till a thousand families found employment. He formed a partnership with Joel and Josiah Hayden at Haydenville, for the manufacture of machine-made buttons in 1835, then first introduced into this country from England. Four years later the business was transferred to Easthampton.
Mr. Williston did not wait till he was very rich before he began to give. In 1837 he helped largely towards the erection of the First Church in Easthampton. In 1841 he established Williston Seminary, which became a most excellent fitting-school for college. During his lifetime he gave to this school about $270,000, and left it at his death an endowment of $600,000.
He was also deeply interested in Amherst College, establishing the Williston professorship of rhetoric and oratory, the Graves, now Williston, professorship of Greek, and some others. "He began giving to Amherst College," writes Professor Joseph H. Sawyer, "when the institution was in the depths of poverty and well-nigh given over as a failure. He saved the college to mankind, and by example and personal solicitation stimulated others to give." He built and equipped Williston Hall, and assisted in the erection of other buildings.
He aided Mary Lyon, in establishing Mount Holyoke Seminary, gave to Iowa College, the Protestant College in Beirut, Syria, and to churches, libraries, and various other institutions.
He was active in all business enterprises, as well as works of benevolence. He was president of the Williston Cotton Mills, the First National Bank, Gas Company, and Nashawannuck (suspender) Company, all at Easthampton. He was the first president of the Hampshire and Hampden Railway, president of the First National Bank of Northampton, also of the Greenville Manufacturing Company (cotton cloths), member of both branches of the Legislature until he declined a re-election, one of the trustees of Amherst College, of the Westborough, Mass., Reform School, on the board of an asylum for idiots in Boston, a corporate member of the American Board, a trustee of Mount Holyoke Seminary, etc.
Mr. Williston overcame the obstacles of poor eyesight, ill health, and poverty, and became a blessing to tens of thousands. His wife was equally a giver with him. The Rev. William Seymour Tyler, D.D., of Amherst College, said at the semi-centennial celebration of Williston Seminary, June 14-17, 1891, "I knew its founders. I say 'founders,' for Mrs. Williston had scarcely less to do than Mr. Williston in planning and founding the building and endowing the seminary, as in all the successful measures and achievements of his remarkable and useful life; and the few enterprises in which he did not succeed were those in which he did not follow her advice. I knew the founders from the time when, at the beginning of their prosperity, theirhome and their factory were both in a modest wing of Father Williston's parsonage, until they had created Williston Seminary, made Easthampton, following out their great and good work, and entered into their rest."
Five children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Williston, but all died in childhood. They adopted five children, two boys and three girls, reared them, and educated them for honored positions in life.
Mr. Williston died at Easthampton, July 17, 1874; and his wife, two years younger than he, died April 12, 1885. Both are buried in the cemetery at Easthampton, to which burying-ground Mr. Williston gave, at his death, $10,000. He lived simply, and saved that he might give it in charities.
One of the best charities our country has ever had bestowed upon it is the million-dollar gift of Mr. Slater, and the million and a half gift of Mr. Hand, for the education of the colored people in the Southern States. Other millions of dollars are yet needed to train these millions of the colored race to self-help and good citizenship.
Mr. John Fox Slater was born in Slatersville, R.I., March 4, 1815. He was the son of John Slater, who helped his brother Samuel to found the first cotton manufacturing industry in the United States.
Samuel Slater came from England; and setting up some machinery from memory, after arriving in this country, as nobody was permitted to carry plans out of England, he started the first cotton-mill in December, 1790. A few years later his brother John came from England, and together they started a mill at Slatersville, R.I.
They built mills also at Oxford, now Webster, Mass., and in time became men of wealth. Mr. Samuel Slater opened a Sunday-school for his workmen, one of the first institutions of that kind in this country.
His son John early developed rare business qualities,and at the age of seventeen was placed in charge of one of his father's mills at Jewett City, near Norwich, Conn. He had received a good academical education, had excellent judgment, would not speculate, and was noted for integrity and honor. He became not only the head of his own extensive business, but prominent in many outside enterprises.
His manners were refined, he was self-poised and somewhat reserved, and very unostentatious, thereby showing his true manhood. He read on many subjects,—finance, politics, and religion, and was a good conversationalist.
As he grew richer he felt the responsibility of his wealth. He gave generously to the country during the Civil War; he contributed largely to the establishment of the Norwich Free Academy and to the Congregational Church in Norwich with which he was connected, and to other worthy objects.
He determined to do good with his money while he lived. After the war, having given largely for the relief of the freedmen, he decided to give to a board of trustees $1,000,000, for the purpose of "uplifting the lately emancipated population of the Southern States and their posterity by conferring on them the blessings of Christian education."
When asked the precise meaning of the phrase "Christian education," he replied, "that in the sense which he intended, the common school teaching of Massachusetts and Connecticut was Christian education. That it is leavened with a predominant and salutary Christian influence."
He said in his letter to the trustees, "It has pleasedGod to grant me prosperity in my business, and to put it into my power to apply to charitable uses a sum of money so considerable as to require the counsel of wise men for the administration of it." In committing the money to their hands he "humbly hoped that the administration of it might be so guided by divine wisdom as to be, in its turn, an encouragement to philanthropic enterprise on the part of others, and an enduring means of good to our beloved country and to our fellow-men."
Mr. Slater's gift awakened widespread interest and appreciation. The Congress of the United States voted him thanks, and caused a gold medal to be struck in his honor.
Mr. Slater lived to see his work well begun, intrusted to such men as ex-President Hayes at the head of the trust, Phillips Brooks, Governor Colquitt of Georgia, his son William A. Slater, and others. He died May 7, 1884, at Norwich, at the age of sixty-nine.
The general agent of the trust for several years was the late Dr. A. G. Haygood of Georgia, who resigned when he was made a bishop in the Methodist Church. Since 1891 Dr. J. L. M. Curry of Washington, D.C., chairman of the Educational Committee, and author of "The Southern States of the American Union" and other works, has been the able agent of the Slater as well as Peabody Funds. Dr. Curry, member of both National and Confederate Congresses, and minister to Spain for three years, has been devoted to education all his life, and gives untiring industry and deep interest to his work.
The Slater Fund is used in normal schools to fitstudents for teaching and for industrial education, and much of it is paid in salaries to teachers.
Dr. Curry, in his Report for 1892-1893, gives a list of the schools aided in that year, all of which he visited during the year. To Bishop College, Marshall, Tex., with 248 colored students, $1,000 was given for normal work and manual training; to Central Tennessee College, Nashville, with 493 students, $2,000, to pay the teachers in the mechanical shop, carpentry, sewing, cooking, etc.; to Clark University, Atlanta, Ga., 415 students, $2,500, mostly to the mechanical department, etc.; to Spelman Female Institute, Atlanta, with 744 pupils, $5,000; the institute has nine buildings, with property valued at $200,000.
To Claflin University, Orangeburg, S.C., with 635 students, both men and women, $3,096, chiefly to the industrial department,—iron-working, harness-making, masonry, painting, etc.; to Hampton Normal Institute, Hampton, Va., the noble institution to which General S. C. Armstrong gave his life, $5,000, for training girls in housework, to the machine-shop, for teachers in natural history, mathematics, etc. There are nearly 800 pupils in the school.
To the Leonard Medical School, Shaw University, Raleigh, N.C., $1,000. The medical faculty are all white men. To the university itself, with 462 pupils, $2,500; to the Meharry Medical College, Nashville, 117 men and four women, $1,500; to the State Normal School, Montgomery, Ala., with 900 students, $2,500; to the Normal and Industrial Institute, Tuskegee, Ala., with 400 men and 320 women, $2,100, given largely to the departments of agriculture, leather and tin,brick-making, saw-mill work, plastering, dressmaking, etc. "This institution is an achievement of Mr. Booker T. Washington, a graduate of Hampton Normal Institute," says the Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1891-1892. "Opened in 1881 with one teacher and thirty pupils, it attained such success that in 1892 there were 44 officers and teachers and over 600 students. It also owns property estimated at $150,000, upon which there is no encumbrance. General S. C. Armstrong said of it, 'I think it is the noblest and grandest work of any colored man in the land.'"
To Straight University, New Orleans, La., with 600 pupils, the Slater Fund gave $2,000. The late Thomas Lafon, a colored man, left at death $5,800 to this excellent institution; to Talladega College, Talladega, Ala., with 519 students, $2,500; to Tougaloo University, Tougaloo, Miss., with 392 students, $3,000. This institute, under the charge of the American Missionary Association, began twenty-five years ago with one small building surrounded by negro cabins. Now there are ten buildings in the midst of five hundred acres. Most of these institutions for colored people have small libraries, which would be greatly helped by the gift of good books.
In nine years, from 1883 to 1892, nearly $400,000 was given from the Slater Fund to push forward the education of the colored people. Most of them were poor and left in ignorance through slavery; but they have made rapid progress, and have shown themselves worthy of aid. TheAmerican Missionary, June, 1883, tells of a law-student at Shaw University who helped to support his widowed mother, taught a school of 80scholars four miles in the country, walking both ways, studying law and reciting at night nearly a mile away from his home. When admitted to the bar, he sustained the best examination in a class of 30, all the others white.
TheHoward Quarterly, January, 1893, cites the case of a young woman who prepared for college at Howard University. She led the entire entrance class at the Chicago University, and received a very substantial reward in a scholarship that will pay all expenses of the four years' course.
Mr. La Port, the superintendent of construction of the George R. Smith College, Sedalia, Mo., was born a slave; he ran away at twelve, worked fourteen years to obtain money enough to secure his freedom, is now worth $75,000, and supports his aged mother and the widow of the man from whom he purchased his freedom.
The highest honor at Boston University in 1892 was awarded to a colored man, Thomas Nelson Baker, born a slave in Virginia in 1860. The class orator at Harvard College in 1890 was a colored man, Clement Garnett Morgan.
Was born in Madison, Conn., July 16, 1801. He was descended from good Puritan ancestors, who came to this country in 1635 from Maidstone, Kent, England. His grandfather on his father's side served in the War of the Revolution, and his ancestors on his mother's side both in the old French War and the Revolutionary War.
Daniel, one of seven boys, lived on a farm till he was about sixteen years of age, when he went to Augusta,Ga., in 1818, with an uncle, Daniel Meigs, a merchant of that place and of Savannah. Young Hand proved most useful in his uncle's business; in time succeeded him, and became one of the leading merchants of the South. Some fifteen years before the war Mr. Hand took into business partnership in Augusta Mr. George W. Williams, a native of Georgia, who later established a business in Charleston, S.C., Mr. Hand furnishing the larger part of the capital. The business in Augusta was given in charge to a nephew, and Mr. Hand temporarily removed to New York City.
When the Civil War became imminent, Mr. Hand went South, was arrested as a "Lincoln spy" in New Orleans; but no basis being found for the charge, was released on parole that he would report to the Confederate authority at Richmond. On his way thither, passing the night in Augusta, he would have been mobbed by a lawless crowd who gathered about his hotel, had not a few of the leading men of Atlanta hurried him off to jail in a carriage with the mayor and a few friends as a guard.
Reporting at Richmond, Mr. Hand was allowed to go where he chose, if within the limits of the Confederacy, and chose Asheville, N.C., for his home until the war ended, spending his time in reading, of which he was very fond, and then came North.
The Confederate Courts at Charleston tried to confiscate his property, but this was prevented largely through the influence of Mr. Williams. Some years later, when the latter became involved, and creditors were pressing for payment, Mr. Hand, the largest creditor, refused to secure his claim, saying, "If Mr.Williams lives, he will pay his debts. I am not at all concerned about it." The money was paid by Mr. Williams at his own convenience after several years.
Mr. Hand had married early in life his cousin, Elizabeth Ward, daughter of Dr. Levi Ward of Rochester, N.Y., who died early, as well as their young children. Mr. Hand remained a widower for more than fifty years.
Bereft of wife and children, fond of the Southern people, yet heartily opposed to slavery, and realizing the helplessness and ignorance of the slaves, Mr. Hand decided to give to the American Missionary Association $1,000,894.25, the income to be used "for the purpose of educating needy and indigent colored people of African descent, residing, or who may hereafter reside, in the recent slave States of the United States of America.... I would limit," he said, "the sum of $100 as the largest sum to be expended for any one person in any one year from this fund." The fund, transferred Oct. 22, 1888, was to be known as the "Daniel Hand Educational Fund for Colored People."
Upon Mr. Hand's death, at Guilford, Conn., Dec. 17, 1891, in the family of one of his nieces, it was found that he had made the American Missionary Association his residuary legatee. About $500,000 passed into the possession of the Association, to be used for the same purpose as the million dollars; and about $200,000, it is believed, will eventually go to the organization after life-use by others.
The American Missionary Association is a noble society, organized in 1846 and chartered in 1862, for helping the poor and neglected races at our own doors, byestablishing churches and schools in the South among both negroes and whites, in the West among the Indians, and in the Pacific States among the Chinese.
The Rev. Dr. A. D. Mayo says, in his book on the Southern women in the recent educational movement in the South, "Perhaps the most notable success in the secondary, normal, and higher training of colored youth has been achieved by the American Missionary Association.... At present its labors in the South are largely directed to training superior colored youth of both sexes for the work of teaching in the new public schools. It now supports six institutions called colleges and universities, in which not only the ordinary English branches are taught, but opportunity is offered for the few who desire a moderate college course." Fisk University of Nashville, which has sent out over 12,000 students, is one of the most interesting.
The American Missionary Association assists 74 schools for colored people with 12,000 pupils, 198 churches for the same with over 10,000 members and a much larger number in the Sunday-schools; 14 churches among the Indians with over 900 members; 20 schools among the Chinese at the West with over 1,000 pupils and over 300 Christian Chinese.
Mr. Hand's noble gift aids about fifty schools in the various Southern States from its income of over $50,000 yearly.
Mr. Hand was a man of fine personal presence, of extensive reading, and wide observation. He gave, says his relative, Mr. George A. Wilcox, "for the well-being of many, both within and without the family connection, who have come within the province of deservedassistance; befriending those who try to help themselves, whether successfully or not, but unalterably stern in his disfavor when idleness or dissipation lead to want." He gave the academy bearing his name to his native town of Madison, Conn. He joined the First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Ga., when he was twenty-eight years of age, and was for thirty years its efficient Sunday-school superintendent. He organized a teachers' meeting, held every Saturday evening, which proved of great benefit.
He always loved the Scriptures. He said one day to a friend, as he laid his hand on his well-worn Bible, "I always read from that book every morning, and have done so from my boyhood, except in a comparatively few cases of unusual interruption or special hindrance."
He was often heard to say, "I have now a very short time for this world, but I take no concern about that; no matter where or when I die, I hope I am ready to go when called."
The temperance work needs another Daniel Hand to furnish a million dollars for its labors among the colored men of the South, where, says the thirtieth annual report of the National Temperance Society, "the saloon is everywhere working their ruin. It destroys their manhood, despoils their homes, impoverishes their families, defrauds their wives and children, and debauches the whole community."
The National Temperance Society, whose efficient and lamented Secretary, John N. Stearns, died April 21, 1895, was organized in 1865. It has printed and scattered over 900,000,000 pages of total-abstinence literature. With its board of thirty managers representingnearly all denominations and temperance organizations, ever on the alert to assist in making and enforcing helpful laws and to lessen the power of the liquor traffic, it is doing its work all over the nation. Says one who has long been identified with this organization, "I believe there is no Missionary Society, either Home or Foreign, that is doing more for the cause of Christ than this society, especially in saving the boys and girls; and yet, so far as I know, it receives less donations than any other society, and very rarely a legacy." Mr. William E. Dodge, the well-known merchant of New York, left the Society, by will, $5,000. Mr. W. B. Spooner of Boston, and Mr. James H. Kellogg of Rochester, N.Y., each left $5,000.
It is a hopeful sign of the times when laws are passed in thirty-nine States and all the Territories requiring the teaching of the nature and effects of alcoholic drinks upon the human system. It is encouraging when a million members of Christian Endeavor societies pledge themselves "to seek the overthrow of this evil at all times in every lawful way." Our country has given grandly for education; it will in the future give more generously to reforms which help to do away with poverty and crime.
George T. Angell, the president and founder of "The American Humane Education Society," and president and one of the founders of "The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals," deserves, with the late lamented Henry Bergh of New York, the thanks of the nation for their noble work in teaching kindness to dumb creatures, and preventing cruelty. No charity can lie nearer to my own heart than the societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals.
Mr. Angell, now seventy-three years of age,—he was born at Southbridge, Mass., June 5, 1823,—the son of a minister, a graduate of Dartmouth College, a successful lawyer, gave up his practice of seventeen years, in 1868, to devote himself and his means, without pay, to humane work all over the world. He has enlisted the highest and the lowest in behalf of dumb animals. He has spoken before schools and conventions, before legislatures and churches, before kings and in prisons, in behalf of those who must patiently submit to wrong, and have no voice to plead for themselves.
Mr. Angell helped to establish the first "American Band of Mercy;" and now there are nearly 25,000 bands, with a membership of between one and two millionpersons, all pledged "to try to be kind to all living creatures, and try to protect them from cruel usage."
He has helped to scatter more than two million copies, in nearly all European and some Asiatic languages, of Anna Sewell's charming autobiography of an English horse, "Black Beauty," telling both of kind and cruel masters. Ten thousand copies have recently been printed for circulation in the schools of Italy.
A thousand cruel fashions, such as that of docking horses, or killing for mere sport, will be done away when men and women have given these subjects more careful thought.