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 48
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In the following spring (1814), Mr. Thomas Purser, a prac- tical business man, of considerable wealth, offered to become a partner, and to furnish a handsome amount of capital; and his offer was gladly accepted. The new firm of M. Vassar & Co.
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erected new buildings, and Mr. Vassar now gave his entire atten- tion to the manufacture of ale. The partnership, after two years' successful operation, closed by the withdrawal of Mr. Purser, on account of failing health ; and his place was filled by Nathan and Mulford Conklin, extensive merchants of Poughkeepsie, whose interest Mr. Vassar purchased in 1829. Subsequently, the extent of the business led him to take into partnership his nephews, Matthew Vassar, Jr., and John Guy, sons of his de- ceased brother, John Guy. New buildings were erected ; from time to time other younger men were introduced into the firm ; and, finally, in 1866, Mr. Vassar-after over fifty years of active business-sold out his interest in the establishment to his nephew, O. H. Booth, and retired into private life.
Hitherto, we have spoken merely of Matthew Vassar-the successful brewer. We have now to speak of Matthew Vassar, the philanthropist,-the large-souled, wise and thoughtful man, intent on making the best and most beneficent use of the vast wealth which he had amassed by industry and enterprise. Full a quarter of a century ago, Matthew Vassar,-childless, yet full of the true parental feeling-conceived the idea of establishing some institution, either a hospital, a school for the education of females, or an asylum for orphans, which should be a blessing to his fellow-men, and a perpetual memorial of his family-name. In 1845, together with his wife, he made an ex- tended tour in Europe, and among the many places of interest which they visited, none seemed more to attract the attention of this practical .man than the Free Grammar school, and the hos- pital at Southampton, England, and the great Guy's hospital, at London, founded by one whose family was connected with that of Vassar. His mind, full of benevolent desire, at first inclined toward the founding of an asylum for the sick ; but after his return from Europe, the idea of a seminary for female education
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was suggested to him by a niece, who had an excellent private school in Poughkeepsie. Meanwhile, Mr. Vassar, together with the citizens of that place, had become interested in the project of a rural cemetery ; and, pending their movements, Mr. Vassar availed himself of an opportunity which offered, and purchased, for the sum of $8000, a farm of about fifty acres, near Pough- keepsie-which he offered the association at a merely nominal price. Its topographical features and remarkable beauties eminently fitted it for their purpose ; and pending their decision Mr. Vassar proceeded, with the aid of A. J. Downing, the eminent landscape gardener, and others, to prepare "Springside," as it was called, for its future uses. The cemetery association, however, finally decided to locate elsewhere, and Mr. Vassar determined to retain and beautify the farm for his own use- bestowing upon it all the labor and cultivated taste which his judgment and his ample means could command. Meanwhile, his niece had died, and his mind had reverted somewhat toward his earlier predilection for the erection of a hospital. In 1855, Prof. Milo P. Jewett opened a seminary at Poughkeepsie- became acquainted with Mr. Vassar, and was the means of again enlisting his sympathy in favor of the establishment of a great institution for the education of girls. Long and deliber- ate examination of the subject, aided by the advice of most of the leading educators of the country, preceded the initial mea- sures of his grand design. Mr. Vassar's enthusiasm was happily tempered with the prudence and foresight inculcated by his vast experience as a business man. Finally, with a maturity of plan, and a perfection of detail, altogether unusual in such great undertakings, the idea emerged, full-armed, Minerva-like, from his brain into complete and symmetrical action. In the spring of 1860, Mr. Vassar being then nearly seventy years old, Prof. Jewett was selected as chief co-worker, plans were
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elaborated, and on the 1Sth of January, 1861, a charter was obtained from the Legislature, fully incorporating the Vassar Female College, or, as it was subsequently amended, "THE VASSAR COLLEGE." In February following, a board of twenty eight trustees (half of whom were residents of Poughkeepsie) was duly organized, to whom, on the same day, Mr. Vassar transferred bonds, stocks, deeds, etc., valued at over $400,000, for the purposes of the college. The venerable founder's own design and wishes, in regard to the proposed institution, may be best understood by the following extracts from his remarks on this interesting occasion.
" It having pleased God that I should have no descendants to inherit my property, it has long been my desire, after suitably providing for those of my kindred who have claims upon me, to make such a disposition of my means as should best honor God, and benefit my fellow-men. At different periods I have regarded various plans with favor, but these have all been dis- missed, one after another, until the subject of erecting and endowing a college for the education of young women was presented for my consideration. The novelty, grandeur, and benignity of the idea arrested my attention. The more carefully I examined it, the more strongly it commended itself to my judgment, and interested my feelings. It seemed to me that woman, having received from her Creator the same intellectual constitution as man, has the same right as man to intellectual culture and development.
"I considered that the MOTHERS of a country mould the character of its citizens, determine its institutions, and shape its destiny. Next to the influence of the mother is that of the FEMALE TEACHER, who is employed to train young children at a period when impressions are most vivid and lasting. It also seemed to me that if woman was properly educated, some new avenues to useful and honorable employment, in entire harmony with the gentleness and modesty of her sex, might be opened to her
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"It further appeared that there is not in our country, there is not in the world, so far as is known, a single fully endowed institution for the education of woman.
" It was also in evidence that, for the last thirty years, the standard of education for the sex has been constantly rising in the United States; and the great, felt, pressing want has been ample resources to secure, to the female seminaries, the elevated character, the stability and permanency of our best colleges.
"Influenced by these and similar considerations, after devoting my best powers to the study of the subject, for a number of years past; after duly weighing the objections against it, and the arguments that preponderate in its favor; and the project having received the warmest commendation of many promi- nent literary men and practical educators, as well as the universal approval of the public press, I have come to the con- clusion, that the establishment and endowment of a college for the education of young women is a work which will satisfy my highest aspirations, and will be, under God, a rich blessing to this city and State, to our country and the world. It is my hope to be the instrument, in the hands of providence, of founding and perpetuating an institution which shall accom- plish for young women, what our colleges are accomplishing for young men. In pursuance of this design I have obtained from the Legislature an act of incorporation, conferring upon the proposed seminary the corporate title of "Vassar Female College," and naming you, gentlemen, as the first trustees. Under the provisions of this charter, you are invested with all the powers, privileges and immunities, which appertain to any college or university in the State.
"To be somewhat more specific in the statement of my views, as to the character and aims of the college. I wish that the course of study should embrace at least the following particu- lars: the English language and its literature; other modern languages; the mathematics, to such an extent as may be deemed advisable ; all the branches of natural science, with full apparatus, cabinets, collections and conservatories for visible illustration ; Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene, with practical
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reference to the laws of the health of the sex; Intellectual Philosophy; the elements of Political Economy; some know- ledge of the Federal and State constitutions and laws; Moral Science, particularly as bearing on the filial, conjugal and parental relations; Æsthetics, as treating of the beautiful in nature and art, and to be illustrated by an extensive gallery of art; Domestic Economy, practically taught so far as is possible, in order to prepare the graduate herself to become a skilful housekeeper; last, and most important of all, the daily regular reading and study of the Holy Scriptures as the only and all-sufficient rule of Christian faith and practice. All sectarian influences should be carefully excluded; but the training of our students should never be entrusted to the skeptical, the irreligious or immoral. *
"In forming the first board of trustees, I have selected representatives from the principal Christian denominations among us, and in filling the vacancies which may occur in this body, as, also, in appointing the professors, teachers, and other officers of the college, I trust a like Catholic spirit will always govern the trustees.
"It is not my purpose to make Vassar Female College a charity school, whose advantages shall be free to all without "charge, for benefits so cheaply obtained are cheaply held ; but it is believed the funds of the institution will enable it to offer to all, the highest educational facilities at a moderate expense, as compared with the cost of instruction in existing seminaries. I earnestly hope the funds will prove sufficient to warrant the gratuitous admission of a considerable number of indigent students annually, at least by regarding the amount remitted, in such cases, as a loan, to be subsequently repaid from the avails of teaching, or otherwise. Preference should be given to beneficiaries of decided promise, such as are likely to distin- guish themselves in some particular department or pursuit, and especially to those who propose to engage in the teaching of the young as a profession."
Measures were immediately taken to erect college buildings,
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the ground being formally broken by the venerable founder. On the 4th of June, 1861, Mr. Tefft, the architect, was sent to Europe to perfect the plans of the building, and dying at Florence, in Italy, was succeeded by James Renwick, Jr., the well-known architect of the Smithsonian institute, whose plans were accepted ; and despite the agitated condition of the country consequent on the struggle then taking place between the Gov- ernment and the secessionists, the great work of beneficence went steadily forward. So successful was its progress, that in the month succeeding the cessation of hostilities, the board, at its annual meeting (June, 1865), found the college edifices so nearly completed and equipped, the system of instruction so well planned, and the appointments to the professorships so satisfactorily made, that they were enabled to open the insti- tution for the reception of students early in the ensuing autumn. In 1864, Prof. Jewett resigned the presidency of the institution, and was succeeded by John H. Raymond, LL.D. In June, 1865, Mr. Vassar resigned his connection with the college as one of its trustees and chairman of its executive committee, and, on the 29th of April, 1866, his birthday was honored by the students with a public reception, and the day set apart henceforth, in the college calendar, as "Founder's Day."
The college buildings, which cost over a half a million of dollars, are complete in all their appointments, and as was fitting in such an institution, have more of the comforts and luxuries of a pleasant home, than can be found in any college in the United States. They are heated throughout by steam, and lighted by gas manufactured on the premises. They are neatly, and even elegantly furnished; and the ample library, the noble art gallery and museums, astronomical observatory, chemical laboratory, and other aids and appliances for scientific
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and artistic culture, as well as the very large corps of able professors and teachers, indicate that the wishes of the venerable founder of the college will be fully satisfied. Mr. Vassar has made subsequent donations to the college, raising the entire amount of his gifts to more than half a million of dollars.
DANIEL DREW.
T would seem probable to an abstract reasoner that men whose early advantages for education were very limited, but who by their enterprise and native capacity for business have amassed large fortunes, would not bestow any considerable portion of their hard earned wealth on educa- tional institutions, however charitable might be their disposition toward other objects. Experience proves this deduction incor- rect. The largest benefactors to education, in the present age certainly, have been men who not only never received instruc- tion within college walls, but had but a scanty share even of the ordinary advantages of the district school. Peabody, Vassar, Cornell, Jay Cooke, are all examples of this, and the subject of our present sketch is not less remarkable in this respect than the others.
Daniel Drew was born at Carmel, Putnam county, New York, July 29th 1797. His early years were passed on his father's farm, and his education in youth was only such as a country district school in that rocky farming county afforded. When fifteen years old his father died, leaving him to carve a fortune for himself. He directed his attention chiefly to the personal driving of cattle to market, and selling them, until 1829, when he made New York city his permanent residence, and there continued the cattle trade by establishing a depot,
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DANIEL DREW.
and purchasing largely through agents and partners. In 1834, Mr. Drew was induced to take a pecuniary interest in a steam- boat enterprise. From that time his history is identified with the ineeption and growth of the steamboat passenger trade on the Hudson river. By shrewd management, low rates of fare, and good accommodations, the line which Drew promoted grew in favor with the travelling community, notwithstanding the powerful opposition brought to bear on it by other steamboat men, among whom was Commodore Vanderbilt. Competition 'ran so high, that at one time the steamboat Waterwitch, in which Drew had invested his first venture, carried passengers to Albany for a shilling each.
In 1840, Mr. Isaac Newton formed a joint stock company, in which Drew became the largest stockholder. This was the origin of the famous "People's Line," which commenced busi- ness by running new, large, and elegantly fitted-up steamboats, and from time to time added new and improved vessels to their running stock. When the Hudson river railroad was opened in 1852, it was confidently expected by many that the steamboat interest was doomed. Drew thought otherwise, and refused to accept the advice of his friends, who admonished him to sell his boats and withdraw from a business about to fail. The event justified his course. The railroad served but to increase travel, and rendered the steamboats more popular than ever. The large steamers now attached to the "People's Line," which command the admiration of every visitor and traveler on account of their superb decorations, and the extent and com- fortable character of their accommodations, attest the prosperity attendant upon the management, a leading spirit of which Mr. Drew has been from the beginning. The Dean Richmond, St. John, and Drew are unsurpassed for model, machinery, speed, and finish, by any river steamboats in the wide world.
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Mr. Drew has not only boldly adventured in " steamboating," but has won reputation and wealth in the much more uncertain sphere of stock-brokerage. In 1840 he formed a co-partnership with Mr. Nelson Taylor and Mr. Kelly, his son-in-law, in that business, which was carried on with marked success for more than ten years. Both these partners, although much younger than Mr. Drew, are sleeping in the tomb, while he is still employing some of his large capital in the same line through confidential hands. He has been for some years past an active director and very large stockholder in the Erie and several other of our trunk railroads, and his transactions in the stocks and bonds of these roads have been very large.
The noble deed which has brought him into special promi- nence, and rendered his name, like those of Cornell and Pea- body, a synonym for active benevolence, is the founding of the Drew Theological Seminary, at Madison, Morris county, New Jersey. To this end Mr. Drew, at the recent centennial of Methodism, offered half a million dollars. The property pur- chased for the seminary is pleasantly situated in one of the most thriving towns, and in the midst of some of the finest scenery in northern New Jersey. Its distance from New York city is only twenty-eight miles.
Besides this large benefaction, Mr. Drew has contributed extensively to various religious and educational institutions, among which the Wesleyan University and the Concord Biblical Institute are prominent. To these institutions he has given in all about $150,000.
In Putnam county he owns upward of a thousand acres of land, on which large numbers of cattle are raised for the market. The pursuits of his early manhood have for him still strong attractions, but here again his management is marked by a generous spirit. On this estate he has been chiefly instru-
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mental in the building of a church and school-house. In the latter, the advantages of a good education are afforded gratui- tously to the children of the place. He has also established and partially endowed an excellent female seminary at Carmel, the county seat of this county.
In form and physiognomy Mr. Drew is not especially impres- sive. His height is about six feet, his person slender, and his general expression and manner unassuming and mild, but firm. He stands before us as an example of the persevering, energetic, shrewd, and successful business man, and not only so, but also as an example of the practical workings of an earnest and sincere philanthropy.
ALEXANDER TURNEY STEWART.'
BOUT 1825, an alert, sanguine, and active young man commenced the dry goods business in Broadway, nearly opposite his present store. He began with a capital of about three thousand dollars. In the three years 1865-'6-'7, this gentleman sold two hundred and three million dollars worth of goods. It is hardly necessary to say that the young man was Alexander Turney Stewart, whose income for 1864 was the largest of any merchant in the world.
Carefully reared by a Quaker grandfather in Belfast, Ireland, Mr. Stewart received an excellent classical education-which has not been allowed to rust. The intimate acquaintance with classic authors which Mr. Stewart had in his youth, has been cultivated as a pleasure and a relief from the cares of business, until many a professor of Latin and Greek, might envy that gentleman his knowledge of the niceties of those languages.
On reaching New York, Mr. Stewart looked around for a career. He taught the classics, not with a view of making it a profession, but to oblige a friend. At length he formed a partnership with a gentleman, who was to furnish a portion of the means and all the experience for a mercantile career. For some reason or other, this party abandoned the enterprise. Mr.
* For the greater part of this sketch we are indebted to a very well written biography of the great merchant in Haney's Journal.
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ALEXANDER TURNEY STEWART.
Stewart, not daunted, inexperienced as he was, faced the situa- tion, and started alone, in 1827, at 262 Broadway. Almost in the first week of his mercantile career, he had the good or ill fortune to be discharged by one of his salesmen. The occasion was as follows :-
One day an old lady came in and accosting the young man alluded to, asked to see some calicoes.
She seemed satisfied with the style, but asked, with prudent caution-
" Will this wash ?"
"Oh ! yes, ma'am."
"Then I'll take a little piece and try it, and if the colors are fast, I'll get some of it."
"What's the use of taking all that trouble," said the clerk. " I have tried it, and I know it holds its color."
The old lady felt assured and took a dress. Ladies did wear calicoes, then. Mr. Stewart was an interested auditor during this discourse. When the lady departed, he stepped up and said :
"But, Mr. - , why did you tell that old lady such an untruth about that calico ?"
" Oh ! that's all in the way of business," said the salesman.
"But," said Mr. Stewart, "that doesn't seem a good way of business. That lady will try the calico; it will fade-she will come and accuse us of misrepresentation and demand her money back, and she will be right."
"Oh! then I'll say, 'you are quite mistaken, ma'am; you never got the goods here; you must have got them at the store above.' ""
" Well then, if that's the case," said the master of the business, "don't let it occur again. I don't want goods represented for what they are not. If the colors are not fast, it is easy to ex-
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plain to them that certain colors are not fast, and cannot be made so for the price at which they are sold, and they will buy as soon, knowing the truth, as any other way."
"Look here, Mr. Stewart," said the salesman, "if those are going to be your principles in trade, I'm going to look for another situation. You won't last very long !"
And he was as good as his word. It appears, however, that Mr. Stewart's ideas of business were tolerably successful, for to- day he wields a capital of forty millions. Apart from this rigor- ous devotion to principle in his business, Mr. Stewart owes much of his success to great delicacy of touch and taste, and judgment in colors and textures, almost feminine in sensibility ; add to these qualities a masculine grasp of events and an instantaneous perception of those shadows which are cast by events, and you have all the elements of the great merchant. Mr. Stewart early began to survey the political field, and when he would see a storm ahead, there would be a silent purchase of all of certain goods in the market, which would be sure to rise in a certain contingency. At other times he was the first to foresee a fall- ing market and to put his goods before the public with such swiftness and address that he cleared his shelves with the least loss -- while his slower friends were carried under the current of thirty-seven, forty-seven, fifty-seven, or sixty-seven, as the case might be. (Our merchants are superstitious about the ' sevens," and many think to-day that any year, with a seven in it, brings misfortune to the trade.) There was a time during the war when Mr. Stewart held more cotton goods than all the other dry goods firms put together. There was also a time when he was the first to sell at the reduced price. Mr. Stewart has a memory for his business as remarkable as that of others for languages and figures. He can tell to-day the ruling prices of staple goods for every year of the last forty.
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Another peculiarity. The house of A. T. Stewart & Co. has always bought for cash-and one more and striking peculi- arity, full of its lesson to American merchants-he has never speculated one penny's worth outside of his business, nor, strictly speaking, in it. When he has bought largely, it was to supply his customers with a greatly needed article-and when he reduced prices, it was not to injure others, but a ready submission to the inevitable in trade. His advantage consisted in knowing early what was inevitable. In connection with this, let us remark here, that reading this, one might suppose Mr. Stewart to be little more than a dealer in dry goods. There could be no greater mistake. He is a liberally educated gentle- man, as we said before. Like all leaders, business is easy to him and does not absorb his whole soul. There are few men in our country better qualified to derive enjoyment from Horace and Tacitus, than Mr. Stewart. He is the hope and refuge of artists-for he is an admirer and enjoyer of good works of art, and if he does not buy all that appears meritorious, it is only because the marble mansion in Fifth Avenue, and the brown stone opposite, will hold no more.
There is in some circles an impression, studiously cultivated by a few, that Mr. Stewart squeezes out small dealers mercilessly -lest they grow too great for him. It is entirely unfounded. He conducts his business on business principles, and no business can last long, or become great, that is conducted otherwise. That Mr. Stewart regrets the inevitable injury to small dealers, which his large operations cause, we have ample evidence. He said recently to a gentleman, who was making some inquiries :
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