USA > New York > Portrait gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the state of New-York : catalogue and biographical sketches > Part 8
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in the Assembly of the State in 1819, 1820 and 1821. These were times when the aspects of parties were changing, and political feelings were deeply roused by the intrigues and schemes of designing men. The breaking up of the Federal party, to which Mr. KING belonged, was one of the results of these contests, and he arrayed himself, with many others, against DE WITT CLINTON. Not- withstanding this political opposition, he was a firm friend to the latter in the making of the Erie Canal, of which enterprise he remained a warm advocate during his long life. In 1824 Mr. KING was sent to the Senate of the State, and was thus advancing on the road of political pre- ferment, when he was appointed in 1825 by Mr. ADAMS as Secretary of Legation to his father as Minister to the Court of St. JAMES. He remained in that capacity in London, until his father's return home an invalid, and afterwards as Chargé des Affaires until the arrival of the new Minister. This residence was in many respects a source of pleasure, for he was kindly received, and renewed many of the ac- quaintances of his former school days.
Returning to Long Island, he purchased from his brothers the old homestead, to which he removed, passing there the remainder of his life, beloved and respected. Political life was again opened to him, and although he was defeated as a candidate for Congress, under the changed aspects of the times, he was, in 1832, sent to the Assembly, where he interested himself in the general business of the State, but more particularly in procuring a charter for the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad, of which he became President, and which was the beginning of the lines of road which have opened up the Island in all directions.
In 1839 Mr. KING was sent to the National Convention to nominate a candidate for the Presidency. Mr. CLAY was his choice, but finding his nomination impossible he was induced to give his vote, with that of the State, for General HARRISON. In this and subsequent conventions, when the question of the extension of slavery became a leading question, Mr. KING was always faithful and earnest in his opposition to this measure.
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Having been elected to the 31st Congress in 1848, he was an active agent in endeavoring to prevent the passage of the compromise measures, which looked to the extension of slavery to the new Territories acquired from Mexico, but which resulted in bringing in California as a free State, for which he earnestly contended, and which was the first check the advocates of slavery received; but the efforts to prevent the passage of the fugitive slave law failed, though that very act was what alone was wanting to rouse every manly instinct of the Northern States to examine into the political as well as moral character of slavery, and to restrict it within its then limits. Mr. KING was a delegate to the conventions at which Generals ScorT and FREMONT were nominated for the Presidency. At the latter convention, in 1856, he earnestly advocated the choice of FREMONT, as representing the voice of the people against slavery, which was then beginning to make itself clearly heard. He had been" the year before the presiding officer of the Convention in the State of New-York, where the old Whigs and independent Democrats were fused into a new Republican party, the war cry being opposition to the extension of slavery ; and in the next year, though Mr. BUCHANAN was chosen President, the State of New- York, by a large majority, gave its vote for Fremont, elected Mr. KING as Governor, and at the same time declared, as he afterwards, in his inaugural address, said he understood it to be "their deliberate and irrevocable decree, that so far as the State of New-York is concerned, there shall be henceforth no extension of slavery in the Territories of the United States ;" "a resolution I most unreservedly adopt, and am prepared to abide by it, at all times, under all circumstances, and in every emergency."
The public schools, the Erie Canal and other great public measures for the benefit of the State and City, received his faithful attention, and when called upon in the case of the quarantine riots and to carry out the law creating the Metropolitan Police, he manifested such determined firm- ness and took such decisive steps that the public peace was preserved and the laws sustained, notwithstanding the
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serious efforts which were made to render them inopera- tive.
After the term of his office as Governor, to which he declined a re-nomination, Mr. KING attended the convention which nominated Mr. LINCOLN for the Presidency, and then retired into private life, from which he was again recalled in 1861, to become a member of the Peace Con- vention, to which he had been appointed by Governor MORGAN. Hoping little from its meetings, he felt it his duty to do what he could to arrest the serious troubles which were threatening the life of the country. Though these efforts were unsuccessful, Mr. KING had the happi- ness to live long enough to see the country, after a bloody war, restored once more to peace, with the stain on its escutcheon removed, and advancing rapidly on a career of prosperity. As always in his life, the welfare of his country was the theme upon which his thoughts were warmly turned, and on the 4th of July, 1867, he addressed the students at Union Hall Academy, Jamaica, L. I., which had prospered for fifty years, largely under his fostering care, and com- mended to them the care of the flag of their country, which had just been presented to them, telling them that the older men were passing away, and that to them was soon to be committed the care of that flag, and of all it repre- sented ; a care which must be exercised with a deep sense of responsibility to GOD. While thus speaking he fell back into the arms of his friends, and was carried to his home, where, after lingering a few days, he died peacefully, surrounded by his sorrowing family, on the 7th July, 1867, at the age of seventy-nine.
Mr. KING's liberal and enlightened views as to the pro- motion of the varied interests of the State and City of his birth, characterized his whole public life, and his ad- vocacy of every measure to advance the commercial growth and prosperity of the City, obtained for him recognition from the Chamber of Commerce, which made him an honorary member of their body. The State Agricultural Society and the United States Agricultural Society were both indebted to him as one of their founders and deeply
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interested friends during his life, the former electing him as one of their Presidents, and the latter one of their Vice-Presidents, while the Agricultural College at Ovid, now a part of Cornell University, received much of his time and care. Long Island, especially Queens County, was constantly in his thoughts, the evidence being in his unremitted efforts to improve the roads and means of trans- portation, and to organize and support the Queens County Agricultural Society, of which he was many times the President.
He was an earnest and faithful member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in which he had been brought up, and towards which his heart always turned warmly. In the Convention of the Diocese of New-York, and in the Gen- eral Theological Seminary, his counsels were judicious and prudent, and he was ever ready to speak and act so as to strengthen the cause of religion and of the Church of his convictions. At his own home, Jamaica, he took an earnest part in advancing the prosperity of the educational and religious institutions, and more especially that of Grace Church, of which he was Vestryman and Warden for many years, and which received his loving care and liberal gifts, and in whose quiet yard his remains lie. Mr. KING was a member of the New-York and Long Island Historical Societies, and was a founder of the St. Nicholas Society.
Mr. KING was tall and well proportioned in person, quick and graceful in his movements, courteous and affable in manner, and a good speaker, with a clear, powerful and pleasant voice. Correct and temperate in his habits from his youth up, he suffered none of the evil effects of irregu- larity in life, but enjoyed health and vigor and all his fac- ulties unimpaired to the close of a long and useful career.
EDWIN D. MORGAN.
THE career of EDWIN DENISON MORGAN, as merchant and statesman, and particularly as war Governor of the State of New-York, will always be read with interest.
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EDWIN D. MORGAN was born in Washington, Berkshire County, Mass., February 8th, 1811. His father, JASPER MORGAN, was a New-England farmer, and the son, there- fore, passed his boyhood days in the fields, and managed to obtain some little learning at the village school during the winter months. With a common school education, a capital of 37 cents, and a determination to win success, he started out at the age of 17 to seek his fortune. He went to Hartford, Conn., and there bound himself for three years as assistant to his uncle, a grocer of that City. Such was his aptitude for trading that before the end of his term of apprenticeship he was sent to New-York to purchase tea, sugar and corn. The last named was then an article of import instead of export, and young MORGAN proved so shrewd and successful a buyer that, at the age of 20, his uncle took him into partnership. In 1832 he was elected a mem- ber of the City Council of Hartford. In 1833 he married Miss WATERMAN, of that City, and in December, 1836, he came to New-York. He afterwards formed a partnership with a Mr. EARLE, and with their savings, and $10,000 ad- vanced to them by a Hartford capitalist, the firm of MORGAN & EARLE, in 1837, began business as wholesale grocers. At the end of the year the firm was dissolved, and EDWIN D. MORGAN began business on his own account. His fine faculty of anticipating the changes in the market was proverbial, and all his ventures seemed successful. While other dealers ofttimes operated at a loss, Mr. MORGAN reaped profits. He soon became known as one of the largest dealers in raw sugar, and handled tea and coffee with successful results. Opportunities which others missed, he saw and took advantage of, and he was rapidly accumulating a large fortune. In 1847 he formed the house of E. D. MORGAN & Co., taking as partners his cousin, GEORGE D. MORGAN, and his two former clerks, JOHN T. TERRY and SOLON HUMPHREYS. These three partners chiefly conducted the business, Mr. MORGAN having determined upon a political career. In 1849 Mr. MORGAN was elected President of the Board of Assistant Aldermen, a body which was then composed of eminently
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respectable merchants and men of standing. During the cholera ravages in the City he was unremitting in his ex- ertions for the sick and dying, visiting the hospitals and giving of his own means to alleviate the distress and suf- fering which then existed. In 1850 he was elected to the State Senate from the Sixth District of New-York, and served two terms in that body, being Chairman of the Finance Committee, and President pro tem. for both terms. He declined a third term, and in 1855 was appointed Com- missioner of Emigration, a position at that time held by some of the best citizens of New-York. This office he held till 1858. In the meantime, as the Whig party, of which Mr. MORGAN was a member, had become merged in the Republican party, he joined the latter, and, in fact, was one of its founders. He was Vice-President of the National Convention in May, 1856, at which the party was organized, and was made Chairman of the National Com- mittee, and presided a few months later at the Philadelphia Convention, at which FREMONT was nominated for Presi- dent, and the FREMONT campaign was conducted under his management. In 1858 he was nominated by the Re- publicans for Governor of the State. He was elected to this high office, and his sensible administration is now a matter of history. In 1860 he was re-elected, and his record during his second term is inseparably connected with the history of the War of the Rebellion. When the war broke out he labored assiduously for the success of the Union cause, and will always be remembered as one of the war Governors of the loyal States. Men and money were wanted, and Governor MORGAN spent the whole of his time endeavoring to secure both. By May, 1861, he had succeeded, under a special Act of the Legislature, in enrolling 30,000 men, and by July 12th, they had been organized into 33 regiments, officered and sent to the war. The energy of the Governor was unbounded. When Presi- dent LINCOLN, after the attack on MCCLELLAN, called for 300,000 more troops, Governor MORGAN determined that New-York should supply her fair quota. Accordingly, a State bounty was offered, in addition to the national bounty,
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and the Governor undertook to raise the sum of $4,000,000 for this object. It was discovered that the State had about this amount to its credit in various banks, and Governor MORGAN took this money to pay the bounties. He called for 25,000 men, and offered $50 bounty for each man. Speedily this number was obtained, and sent to the front: the Legislature in the following year legalized the expenditure therefor. "I am for continuing this war to the end," wrote the Governor, "with all the force we have in the field, with all we can raise by voluntary enlistment, and after that, if need be, by a conscription embracing all classes and de- scription of persons of proper age." It is on record, that during his second term, Governor MORGAN enrolled and equipped 200,000 soldiers. President LINCOLN made him Major-General of volunteers, and, in order to facilitate his labors, placed him in command of the Military Department of New-York. He expended $3,500,000 in bounties to soldiers, and made contracts amounting to several millions of dollars for supplies.
In 1862 Mr. MORGAN declined a re-nomination for Gover- nor, but was in that year elected by the Legislature Senator of the United States to succeed PRESTON KING, and he filled this office from March 4th, 1863, to March 4th, 1869. In February, 1865, he was nominated for Secretary of the Treasury by President LINCOLN, but at Mr. MORGAN's re- quest, the nomination was withdrawn. At the conclusion of his term as Senator he again returned to his business in this City. In 1881 President ARTHUR nominated him for Secretary of the Treasury, but, although the nomination was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, Mr. MORGAN, for the second time, declined that honor.
Mr. MORGAN was elected a member of the Chamber of Commerce May 1st, 1849, and retained his connection there- with, up to the day of his death, which occurred February 14th, 1883. He served on several important Committees of the Chamber, and his ripe experience and high character were much appreciated by those with whom he acted on public questions. He was a member of several institutions, and director of financial and business corporations, and
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gave liberally whenever he saw opportunities for practical charity. As a patron of art, he was well known both here and on the continent of Europe.
CADWALLADER COLDEN.
CADWALLADER COLDEN, Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of New-York, 1761-75, was born at Dunse, Scot- land, February 17th, 1688, and died at Flushing, L. I., September 28th, 1776, aged 88 years. The Chamber of Commerce obtained its charter from King GEORGE III., March 13th, 1770, through the good offices and at the re- quest of CADWALLADER COLDEN, on the petition of JOHN CRUGER, the first President of the Chamber. Mr. COLDEN early in life applied himself to the study of mathematics and medicine, and soon became distinguished by his profici- ency in both. He came to this country about the year 1708, and practiced as a physician in Philadelphia for several years with marked success. He visited England, but re- turned in 1716 with his wife, whom he had, in the mean- time, married in Scotland. Brigadier-General HUNTER, then Governor of New- York, conceived a favorable opinion of Mr. COLDEN, and requested him to leave Philadelphia and make his future home in New-York. He accordingly settled here in 1718, and the next year was made Surveyor- General of Lands, being the first to fill that office in the Colony. He was also appointed Master in Chancery. In 1720, on the arrival of Governor BURNET, he was honored with a seat in the King's Council of the Province, and in 1760 succeeded to the administration of the Government. In 1761 he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of New-York, and held this commission almost up to the date of his death, being repeatedly at the head of the Government during the decease or absence of several Governors. The name of CADWALLADER COLDEN is quite familiar to the student of history, and the school boy of to-day is made acquainted with the fact that Mr. COLDEN, as Lieu- tenant-Governor of King GEORGE III., was as conspicuous
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for his firmness in upholding his Majesty's authority, as the revolutionists were in resisting it. When the British Parliament determined to levy a tax on the colonies, the spirit of resentment and indignation ran high, and several thousand people assembled at the Battery, near the fortification then called Fort George, determined to compel Lieutenant-Governor COLDEN to deliver up the paper which was to be distributed in this City under the British Stamp Act, on November 1st, 1765. They sur- rounded the fort, and threatened to assassinate Mr. COL- DEN and his adherents, but he was loyal to his trust, and took the necessary precautions to defend it. Although the engineers within the fort assured him that the place was untenable, and his family implored him to regard his safety, he preserved a calm and firm demeanor, and finally succeeded in placing the Governmental papers on board a British man-of-war then in port. His carriages were destroyed before his eyes, and the angry populace also burned him in effigy. After the return of Governor TRYON, Mr. COLDEN gave up all public duties and retired to his country seat. The published writings of the Lieutenant- Governor include a number of scientific dissertations. Some of them, through the variety of hands into which they have fallen, have become mutilated and others are lost. CADWALLADER COLDEN possessed an eminently cul- tivated mind, and although the latter portion of his official life was of a trying and harassing nature, he had few personal enemies, and his efforts to promote the com- mercial interests of New-York, as well as his personal action in behalf of the organization of this Chamber, make the name of CADWALLADER COLDEN one to be hon- ored by the merchants of this and succeeding generations.
FRANCIS EGERTON.
THIS English nobleman, bearing the title of the Duke of Bridgewater, was born in England in 1736. He has been aptly called by historians the father of British inland
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navigation ; and we know that his success stimulated DE WITT CLINTON to attempt his great enterprise of the Erie Canal. The account of his navigable canal, which, with the exception of the Sankey Canal, was the first great undertaking of the kind executed in Great Britain in modern times, is familiar to many of our merchants. An engineer named JAMES BRINDLEY was associated with the Duke in his various enterprises. The latter owned a large estate at Worsley, near Manchester, which abounded in coal, and he conceived the idea that an artificial water route between the places named would be immensely beneficial to the development of that section. Accordingly, an Act was passed for the scheme in 1754 and 1758, but it was afterwards discovered that navigation would be of more service if carried over the River Irwell to Manchester, and further legislation was therefore secured agreeably to the new plan, and likewise to extend a side branch to Longford Bridge, in Stratford. Although navi- gable subterraneous tunnels and elevated aqueducts are now familiar with us, yet the Duke of Bridgewater and his coadjutors appear to have been the first to introduce them, and make it possible to carry canals over rivers and large and deep valleys. The Duke's projects were, in those primitive days of transportation, deemed by many chi- merical. Results, however, justified his endeavors, for in 1761. he had the satisfaction of seeing the first boat sail over his canal. Other gentlemen soon afterwards became interested in the canal from the Trent to the Mersey, and navigation by artificial waterways in Great Britain was soon an accomplished fact, and the Duke, who had made many sacrifices, financially and otherwise, in order to promote his schemes, lived to see several projects of this nature carried to successful completion.
The Duke died in 1822, at the age of eighty-six years, leaving his vast estates to his nephew, FRANCIS HENRY EGERTON, son of the Bishop of Durham, who succeeded in 1823 to the title ; and is widely known in the religious world for his bequest of £8,000 for the Bridgewater Treatises. He was the last Earl of Bridgewater, and died in 1829.
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RICHARD COBDEN.
RICHARD COBDEN was born at the farm house of Dun- ford, near Midhurst, in the Weald of Sussex, on the 3d of June, 1804. His early education was procured in the Grammar School of Midhurst, which then sustained a high reputation. While yet a lad, his father died, and an uncle, who was a warehouseman in London, took him into his establishment. Soon after, he changed to another house, where he was at first a clerk, and afterward a commercial traveler. He was very popular in this last calling, but was then, as always, a diligent student of political economy and political science. ADAM SMITHI'S "Wealth of Nations " was his favorite text-book. The firm by which he was em- ployed retired from business, and disposed of their interest and good-will to three of their employees, among whom was COBDEN, who became the head of the firm. His business was the manufacture and printing of calicoes. "COBDEN'S prints " became the rage, and, at last, were worn by the Queen herself. On commencing business, Mr. COBDEN had taken up his residence in Manchester, where one of his warehouses was situated. Here he soon began to write for the press, generally on political and politico-economical subjects, over the signature of "Libra," and soon drifted into public speaking. After a little practice, he became an effec- tive, though not a remarkably eloquent speaker. In 1832, he was elected Alderman. For the next six years he was heartily engaged in two great reforms, the extension of borough privileges and national education, and the over- throw of the corn laws, as the first step toward free trade. He was the founder of the Anti-Corn Law League, organized in 1839, and one of the most liberal contributors to it, as well as its leading orator and defender. In 1841, he was returned to Parliament for Stockport, and distinguished himself as a Parliamentary orator, by the extent of his information and the cogency of his reasoning. The five or six years which followed were years of intense labor and excitement. Mr. COBDEN had determined to give Parliament and the
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people no rest, till all the corn laws were repealed ; and to this work he bent all his energies, and all the resources of a most vigorous intellect, and an indomitable will. Op- posed to him were the whole body of the Tories, the associated Whigs, the great landed nobility and gentry, the Premier and the Cabinet, and the great majority of the House of Lords. The case seemed hopeless ; only the men of the Manchester school, the dissenting ministers, and the workingmen and a few of their employers, were on his side. In the conflict he employed every possible expedient. Petitions, with scores of thousands of names, were sent in; mass meetings were summoned ; the min- isters were deluged with letters ; commissions were ap- pointed, bazars held, and COBDEN and his colleagues exhausted all their repertoire of argument, railing and invective upon their opponents. It was long before they were able to make much impression; but after the second year converts began to come in from the nobility and gentry, the land owners and the agriculturists, and, at last, the venerable Duke of WELLINGTON and a majority of the House of Lords. In May, 1846, the corn laws were re- pealed, and the duty on imported grain was to cease abso- lutely in February, 1849. It was a great triumph for Mr. COBDEN. Sir ROBERT PEEL, then Premier, gracefully ac- knowledged that the name which ought to be chiefly associated with the success of these measures was the name of RICHARD COBDEN.
Mr. COBDEN had carried on this vigorous conflict at great personal sacrifice and pecuniary loss. After the repeal, his friends of the late Anti Corn Law League subscribed and presented to him the munificent sum of £80,000, ($400,000,) to secure his independence, and enable him to devote his energies, henceforth, to the cause of his country. A part of this sum was invested in Illinois Central Railway securities, which, though for a time unremunerative, eventually be- came productive.
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