USA > New Mexico > Men of our day; or, biographical sketches of patriots, orators, statemen, generals, reformers, financiers and merchants, now on the stage of action > Part 42
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"You'd scarce expect one of my age, To speak in public on the stage."
When he was six years old, his father removed to a larger farm in Bedford, New Hampshire, which he had undertaken to work " on shares," and until his tenth year, Horace's school- ing was combined with a pretty fair share of work. " Here," he says, "I first learned that this is a world of hard work.
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Often called out of bed at dawn to "ride horse to plow" among the growing corn, potatoes, and hops, we would get as much plowed by nine to ten o'clock A.M., as could be hoed that day, when I would be allowed to start for school, where I sometimes arrived as the forenoon session was half through. In winter, our work was lighter; but the snow was often deep and drifted, the cold intense, the north wind piercing, and our clothing thin, besides which, the term rarely exceeded, and sometimes fell short of, two months. I am grateful for much-schooling in- cluded-to my native State; yet, I trust her boys of to-day generally enjoy better facilities for education at her common schools than they afforded me half a century ago." Young Greeley had no right to attend the school at Bedford, as he did not belong to the district-yet he was complimented by a per- mission granted by an express vote of the school committee, that "no pupils from other towns should be received" at their school, " except Horace Greeley alone." Among the few adjuvants to knowledge which the boy enjoyed, was the weekly newspaper which came to his father's house, " The Farmer's Cabinet," mild in politics and scanty, if not heavy, in its literary contents ; but, for all that, a " connecting link" between the little homestead and the great outside, unknown world. Perhaps it uncon- sciously strengthened the youth's impulse toward becoming a printer and a newspaper man.
For, it is related of him, that previously to this, while one day watching, most intently, the operation of shoeing a horse, the blacksmith observed to him: " You'd better come with me and learn the trade." "No," was the prompt reply, "I'm going to be a printer," a positive choice of a career by so diminutive a specimen of humanity, which mightily amused the bystanders. In his tenth year, however, a change had come to the family fortunes. His father, like many other hard-working farmers in
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New Hampshire, was not able to "weather the storm," which made the year 1820 memorable to many as " hard times." He failed, and having made an " arrangement with his creditors" (for he was a truly honest man), gave up his farm, temporarily, and removed to another in the adjoining town of Bedford, where he commenced the raising of hops, mostly on shares. In two years, however, despite his industry, he came back to his old Amherst home poorer than ever ; and, finally, became utterly bankrupt, was sold out by the sheriff, and fled from the State to avoid arrest. He wandered away to Westhaven, Rutland county, Vermont, where he fortunately succeeded in hiring a small house, to which, in January, 1821, he brought his family. Stripped of all but the barest necessities, the little family now commenced life literally anew. Horace's life at Westhaven, during the next five years, was much the same as before- plenty of hard work-rough fare, and an insatiable cramming of book knowledge, varied, sometimes, by playing draughts, or " checkers," in which game he is a great proficient. Yet the Yankee element was strong within him. He was always doing something, and he always had something to sell. He saved nuts and pitch pine roots for kindling wood, exchanging them at the country store for articles which he needed.
The only out-door sport which the boy seemed to like, was " bee-hunting," which frequently yielded a snug little sum of pocket-money ; and when a peddler happened along with books in his wagon, or pack, the hard earned pennies were pretty sure to leave Horace's pockets. But, while he could earn, he had little or no faculty of bargaining, or of making money. In his eleventh year, he heard that an apprentice was wanted in a news- paper office at Whitehall; and, true to his old fancy of becom- ing a printer, he trudged over there on foot, a distance of nine miles, but was refused the place on account of his youth.
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Westhaven, at that time, was a desperate place for drinking, and Horace and his brother had early imbibed a thorough aver- sion to the use of intoxicating liquors and tobacco. Asking his father, one day, what he'd give him if he would not drink a drop of liquor till he was twenty-one; his father thinking it, perhaps, a mere passing whim of the boy's, replied "I'll give you a dollar." It was a bargain, and from that day to this, Horace has not knowingly taken into his system any alcoholic liquid, and has been a distinguished and fearless advocate of teetotalism. During his Westhaven life, also, he became- although surrounded by orthodoxy, and descended from ortho- dox parents-by the natural process of his own reasoning, a Universalist-yet he never entered a church, or heard a sermon, of that faith, until he was twenty years old. This all arose from his chance reading, in a school book, of the history of Demetrius Poliorcetes, one of Alexander the Great's generals, whose conduct towards the ungrateful Athenians, as related by the earlier historians, presents an example of magnanimity, as sublime as it is rare. Reflecting with admiration on this case, Greeley, young as he was, " was moved," as he says, "to inquire if a spirit so nobly, so wisely transcending the mean and savage impulse which man too often disguises as justice, when it is in essence revenge, might not be reverentially termed divine ;" in fact, if it did not "image forth" the attitude of an all-wise, just, yet merciful God, toward an erring humanity. And though, in his career, the subject of our sketch has confined himself, by the very necessity of his nature, chiefly to the advancement of material interests, yet it is not to be doubted that this early change of religious belief gave to his subsequent life much of its direction and character.
By the spring of 1826, Horace had exhausted the schools and the capabilities of his teachers, and was impatient to be at the
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types. To his oft repeated importunities, his father strongly objected-partly, because he needed the lad's help at home on the farm ; partly, because he feared that one so young, so gentle, awkward, and with so little "push" about him, would be unable to battle his way among strangers. But, one day, Horace saw in the Northern Spectator, a weekly sheet (Adams in politics), published at East Poultney, Vermont, eleven miles from his home, a notice of a " boy wanted" in the office. Wringing from his father a reluctant consent to his applying for the place, he walked over to Poultney, came to an understanding with the proprietors, and returned home. A few days later, April 18th, 1826, his father took him down to the office and entered into a verbal agreement with the parties, for his son's services, to the effect that he was to remain at his apprenticeship with them till he was twenty years of age, be allowed for his board only for six months, and thereafter $40 per annum for clothing. Leav- ing Horace at work in the printing office, Mr. Greeley returned home; and, shortly after, removed his residence to Wayne, Erie county, Pennsylvania. The new apprentice's experience at Poultney is thus related by himself :
" The organization and management of our establishment were vicious; for an apprentice should have one master, and I had a succession of them, and often two or three at once. These changes enabled me to demand and receive a more liberal allow- ance for the later years of my apprenticeship; but the office was too laxly ruled for the most part, and, as to instruction, every one had perfect liberty to learn what he could. In fact, as but two or at most three persons were employed in the printing department, it would have puzzled an apprentice to avoid a practical knowledge of whatever was done there. I had not been there a year before my hands were blistered and my back lamed by working off the very considerable edition of the paper on an old-fashioned, two-pull Ramage (wooden) press-a task beyond my boyish strength-and I can scarcely recall a day
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wherein we were not hurried by our work. I would not imply that I worked too hard-yet I think few apprentices work more steadily and faithfully than I did throughout the four years and over of my stay in Poultney. While I lived at home, I had always been allowed a day's fishing, at least once a month, in spring and summer, and I once went hunting; but I never fished, nor hunted, nor attended a dance, nor any sort of party or fandango, in Poultney. I doubt that I even played a game of ball. Yet I was ever considerately and even kindly treated by those in authority over me, and I believe I generally merited and enjoyed their confidence and good-will. Very seldom was a word of reproach or dissatisfaction addressed to me by one of them. Though I worked diligently, I found much time for reading, and might have had more, had every leisure hour been carefully improved. * * * They say that apprenticeship is distasteful to and out of fashion with the boys of our day; if so, I regret it for their sakes. To the youth who asks, 'How shall I obtain an education ?' I would answer, 'Learn a trade of a good master.' I hold firmly that most boys may thus bet- ter acquire the knowledge they need than by spending four years in college."
He speedily became one of the leading members of the vil- lage Debating Society, or Lyceum, as it was styled; and, to use the words of an old comrade, "whenever he was appointed to speak or to read an essay, he never wanted to be excused ; he was always ready. He was exceedingly interested in the ques- tions which he discussed, and stuck to his opinion against all opposition-not discourteously, but still he stuck to it, replying with the most perfect assurance to men of high station and of low. He had one advantage over all his fellow members; it was his memory. He had read every thing, and remembered the minutest details of important events; dates, names, places, figures, statistics-nothing had escaped him. He was never treated as a boy in the society, but as a man and an equal; and
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his opinions were considered with as much deference as those of the judge or the sheriff-more, I think. To the graces of oratory he made no pretence, but he was a fluent anc interest- ing speaker, and had a way of giving an unexpected turn to the debate by reminding members of a fact, well known but over- looked; or by correcting a misquotation, or by appealing to what are called first principles. He was an opponent to be afraid of; yet his sincerity and his earnestness were so evident, that those whom he most signally floored liked him none the less for it. He never lost his temper. In short, he spoke in his sixteenth year just as he speaks now." It may be added that then, as now, he was utterly oblivious of the niceties-we had almost said the proprieties-of dress, and his ill-fitted, and really insufficient clothing, excited the pity of a few considerate ones, and the frequent derision of many unthinking ones. But the forty dollars a year which was allowed him by his employ- ers for clothing, was carefully husbanded and sent to his father, who was struggling with the difficulties of a new farm in the wilderness on the other side of the Alleghanies; and twice, during his Poultney residence, he visited those beloved parents, traversing the distance of six hundred miles, partly on foot, and partly by the tedious canal boat. Among the incidents of his sojourn in Poultney that which made the most impression on his mind, was a fugitive slave chase. The State of New York had abolished slavery years before, but certain born slaves were to remain such till twenty-eight years old. One of these young negroes decamped from his master, in a neighboring New York town, to our village; where he was at work, when said master came over to reclaim and recover him. "I never saw," says Mr. Greeley, " so large a muster of men and boys so suddenly on our village-green as his advent incited; and the result was a speedy disappearance of the chattel, and the return
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of his master, disconsolate and niggerless, to the place whence he came. Every thing on our side was impromptu and instinc- tive; and nobody suggested that envy or hate of "the South," or of New York, or of the master, had impelled the rescue. Our people hated injustice and oppression, and acted as if they couldn't help it."
In June, 1830, the Spectator and its office were discontinued, and Greeley, released from his engagement some months earlier than he had expected, started off, with little else than a ward- robe which could be stuffed into his pocket, a sore leg, a reten- tive memory and a knowledge of the art of printing-to see his father. After a while we find him working for eleven dollars per month, in the office of a "Jackson paper," at Sodus, New York, and still later for fifteen dollars per month in the office of the Gazette, a weekly paper published at Erie, Pennsylvania. At first he was refused work on account of his extremely ver- dant appearance; but, finally, was taken in on trial and ere long was in high favor with all who knew him. Seven months passed away, and again we find our hero trying his fortunes in a new place-this time, in New York itself. His arrival and adventures in the "Great Metropolis," in which he was, in the course of years, to become so well known, much talked about, and useful a citizen, is best described in his own words.
"It was, if I recollect aright, the 17th of August, 1831. I was twenty years old the preceding February; tall, slender, pale and plain, with ten dollars in my pocket, summer clothing worth perhaps as much more, nearly all on my back, and a decent knowledge of so much of the Art of Printing as a boy will usually learn in the office of a country newspaper. But I knew no human being within two hundred miles, and my un- mistakably rustic manner and address did not favor that imme- diate command of remunerating employment which was my most urgent need However, the world was all before me ; my
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personal estate, tied up in a pocket-handkerchief, did not at all encumber me; and I stepped lightly off the boat and away from the sound of the detested hiss of escaping steam, walking into and up Broad street in quest of a boarding-house. I found and entered one at or near the corner of Wall; but the price of board given ine was six dollars per week ; so I did not need the giver's candidly kind suggestion that I would probably prefer one where the charge was more moderate. Wandering thence, I cannot say how, to the North River side, I halted next at 168 West street, where the sign of "Boarding" on a humbler edifice fixed my attention. I entered, and was offered shelter and subsistence at $2.50 per week, which seemed more rational, and I closed the bargain.
Having breakfasted, I began to ransack the city for work, and, in my total ignorance, traversed many streets where none could possibly be found. In the course of that day and the next, however, I must have visited fully two thirds of the printing-offices on Manhattan island, without a gleam of success. It was mid-summer, when business in New York is habitually dull; and my youth and unquestionable air of country green- ness must have told against me. When I called at the Journal of Commerce, its editor, Mr. David Hale, bluntly told me I was a runaway-apprentice from some country office ; which was a very natural, though mistaken, presumption. I returned to my lodging on Saturday evening, thoroughly weary, disheartened, disgusted with New York, and resolved to shake its dust from my feet next morning, while I could still leave with money in my pocket, and before its alms-house could foreclose upon me.
But that was not to be. On Sunday afternoon and evening, several young Irishmen called at Mr. McGolrick's, in their holi- day saunterings about town; and, being told that I was a young printer in quest of work, interested themselves in my effort, with the spontaneous kindness of their race. One among them happened to know a place where printers were wanted, and gave me the requisite direction ; so that, on visiting the designa- ted spot next morning, I readily found employment ; and thus,
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when barely three days a resident, I had found anchorage in New York.
The printing establishment was John T. West's, over McElrath & Bangs' publishing-house, 68 Chatham street, and the work was at my call, simply because no printer who knew the city would accept it. It was the composition of a very small (32mo) New Testament, in double columns, of Agate type, each column barely twelve ems wide, with a centre col- umn of notes in Pearl, barely four ems wide : the text thickly studded with references by Greek and superior letters to the notes, which of course were preceded and discriminated by corresponding indices, with prefatory and supplementary re- marks on each Book, set in Pearl, and only paid for as Agate. The type was considerably smaller than any to which I had been accustomed; the narrow measure and thickly-sown Italics of the text, with the strange characters employed as indices, rendered it the slowest and by far the most difficult work I had ever undertaken ; while the making up, proving, and correcting, twice and even thrice over, preparatory to stereotyping, nearly doubled the time required for ordinary composition. I was never a swift type-settter; I aimed to be an assiduous and cor- rect one; but my proofs on this work at first looked as though they had caught the chicken-pox, and were in the worst stage of a profuse eruption. For the first two or three weeks, being sometimes kept waiting for letter, I scarcely made my board; while, by diligent type-sticking through twelve to fourteen hours per day, I was able, at my best, to earn but a dollar per day. As scarcely another compositor could be induced to work on it more than two days, I had this job in good part to myself, and I persevered to the end of it. I had removed, very soon after obtaining it, to Mrs. Mason's shoemaker boarding-house at the corner of Chatham and Duane streets, nearly opposite my work; so that I was enabled to keep doing nearly all the time I did not need for meals and sleep. When it was done, I was out of work for a fortnight, in spite of my best efforts to find more; so I attended, as an unknown spectator, the sittings of the Tariff Convention, which was held at the American Insti-
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tute, north end of the City Hall Park, and presided over by Hon. William Wilkins, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I next found work in Ann street, on a short-lived monthly, where my pay was not forthcoming ; and the next month saw me back at West's, where a new work-a commentary on the Book of Genesis, by Rev. George Bush-had come in; and I worked on it throughout. The chirography was blind; the author made many vexatious alterations in proof; the page was small and the type close; but, though the reverse of fat, in printers' jar- gon, it was not nearly so abominably lean as the Testament; and I regretted to reach the end of it. When I did, I was again out of work, and seriously meditated seeking employment at something else than printing; but the winter was a hard one, and business in New York stagnant to an extent not now con- ceivable."
From January, 1832, and through the dreary " cholera sum- mer," Greeley worked on the Spirit of the Times, a new sporting paper, and there gained the devoted friendship of its foreman, Mr. Francis V. Story, with whom he afterwards entered into partnership. The main dependence of their business was the printing of Sylvester's " Bank-Note Reporter ;" and the publi- cation of Dr. H. D. Shepard's " penny-paper," The Morning Post, and the pioneer of the cheap-for-cash dailies in New York City. Hiring rooms on the south-east corner of Nassau and Liberty streets, the young "typos" invested their scanty capital (less than $200); obtained $40 worth of material, on credit, from Mr. George Bruce, the eminent type founder, and commenced their business career. The Post, however, was "ahead of the Age"-and died, when scarcely a month old, leaving its printers "hard aground on a lee shore, with little prospect of getting off." Fortunately, however, they escaped total bankruptcy, by a successful sale of the wrecked paper to another party, in whose hands it was teetotally extinguished, " forever and aye." Working early and late, looking sharply on every side for jobs,
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and economizing to the last degree, the firm were beginning to make decided headway, when Mr. Story was drowned, in June, 1833. His place was taken by his brother-in law, Mr. Jonas Winchester-since widely known in the newspaper world; and again the concern was favored with steady and moderate pros- perity, until, in March, 1834, they issued the first number of The New Yorker, a large, fair, cheap weekly, devoted to current literature, etc., of which Mr. Greeley took the sole editorial supervision for the next seven years and a half. Two years after its birth the partnership was dissolved and Greeley took the New Yorker, which held its own pretty well until the commer- cial revulsion of 1837. In July, 1836, Mr. Greeley had mar- ried, deeming himself worth $5000 and the owner of a remune- rative business. To a man of so singularly independent and honest a character as his, the debts incurred were a source of the most terrible mental anxiety and suffering. In his autobi- ography, he speaks most feelingly of the horrors of bankruptcy and debt, closing with these intense but truthful remarks:
"For my own part-and I speak from sad experience-I would rather be a convict in State prison, a slave in a rice- swamp, than to pass through life under the harrow of debt. Let no young man misjudge himself unfortunate, or truly poor, so long as he has the full use of his limbs and faculties and is substantially free from debt. Hunger, cold, rags, hard work, contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are disagreeable ; but debt is infinitely worse than them all. And, if it had pleased God to spare either or all of my sons to be the support and solace of my declining years, the lesson which I should have most earnestly sought to impress upon them is-"Never run into debt! Avoid pecuniary obligation as you would pestilence or famine. If you have but fifty cents, and can get no more for a week, buy a peck of corn, parch it and live on it, rather than owe any man a dollar?" Of course, I know that some men must do business that involves risks, and must often give notes
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and other obligations, and I do not consider him really in debt who can lay his hands directly on the means of paying, at some little sacrifice, all he owes; I speak of real debt-that which in- volves risk or sacrifice on the one side, obligation and depend- ence on the other-and I say, from all such, let every youth humbly pray God to preserve him evermore !"
The New Yorker came to an end in March, 1841, with an out- standing book account of some $10,000 due to its editor and proprietor, of which, it is needless to say, he never afterwards saw the first cent. Among the " memorabilia" of its history is the fact that Hon. Henry J. Raymond, now the chief editor of the New York Times, and a "power" in the American press, commenced his editorial life as assistant editor of the New Yorker on a salary of $8 a week.
While running this paper, Mr. Greeley, in addition to supply- ing leading articles to the Daily Whig for several months, undertook, in March, 1838, the entire editorship of the Jeffer- sonian, a weekly campaign paper, published for a year, at Albany, by the Whig Central Committee of the State of New York. The sheet had a circulation of 15,000, its editor $1000 salary and it was a "rousing" good political paper, aiming "to convince not to inflame, to enlighten not to blind." The energy, industry, and courage (mental as well as physical), required to edit a weekly paper in New York City and another in Albany, can be imagined only by those who understand the nature of an editor's duties. Into the Harrison campaign of 1840, Greeley threw his whole energies, issuing, on the 2d of May, the first number of The Log Cabin, a weekly paper, appearing simultaneously in New York and Albany, for the six months' campaign. It was conducted with wonderful spirit and made an unprecedented hit, 48,000 of the first number being sold in a day and the issue increasing to between 80,000 and
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90,000 copies per week. Greeley's own interest in the questions at issue was most intense, and his labors were incessant and arduous. He wrote articles, he made speeches, he sat on com- mittees, he travelled, he gave advice, he suggested plans, while he had two newspapers on his hands and a load of debt upon his shoulders." Designed only as a campaign paper, the Log Cabin survived the emergency for which it had been created, and, as a family political paper, continued with moderate suc- cess until finally merged, together with the New Yorker, in the Tribune.
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