Famous Americans of Recent Times Part 21

There are some reasons for thinking that the men and the organizations that have had in charge the moral interests of the people of the United States for the last fifty years have not been quite equal to their trust. What are we to think of such results of New England culture as Douglas, Ca.s.s, Webster, and many other men of great ability, but strangely wanting in moral power? What are we to think of the great numbers of Southern Yankees who were, and are, the bitterest foes of all that New England represents? What are we to think of the Rings that seem now-a-days to form themselves, as it were, spontaneously in every great corporation? What of the club-houses that spring up at every corner, for the accommodation of husbands and fathers who find more attractions in wine, supper, and equivocal stories than in the society of their wives and children? What are we to think of the fact, that among the people who can afford to advertise at the rate of a dollar and a half a line are those who provide women with the means of killing their unborn children,--a double crime, murder and suicide? What are we to think of the moral impotence of almost all women to resist the tyranny of fas.h.i.+on, and the _necessity_ that appears to rest upon them to copy every disfiguration invented by the harlots of Paris? What are we to think of the want both of masculine and moral force in men, which makes them helpless against the extravagance of their households, to support which they do fifty years' work in twenty, and then die? What are we to think of the fact, that all the creatures living in the United States enjoy good health, except the human beings, who are nearly all ill?

When we consider such things as these, we cannot help calling in question a kind of public teaching which leaves the people in ignorance of so much that they most need to know. Henry Ward Beecher is the only clergyman we ever heard who habitually promulgates the truth, that to be ill is generally a sin, and always a shame. We never heard him utter the demoralizing falsehood, that this present life is short and of small account, and that nothing is worthy of much consideration except the life to come. He dwells much on the enormous length of this life, and the prodigious revenue of happiness it may yield to those who comply with the conditions of happiness. It is his habit, also, to preach the duty which devolves upon every person, to labor for the increase of his knowledge and the general improvement of his mind. We have heard him say on the platform of his church, that it was disgraceful to any mechanic or clerk to let such a picture as the Heart of the Andes be exhibited for twenty-five cents, and not go and see it. Probably there is not one honest clergyman in the country who does not fairly earn his livelihood by the good he does, or by the evil he prevents. But not enough good is done, and riot enough evil prevented. The sudden wealth that has come upon the world since the improvement of the steam-engine adds a new difficulty to the life of millions. So far, the world does not appear to have made the best use of its too rapidly increased surplus. "We cannot sell a twelve-dollar book in this country," said a bookseller to us the other day. But how easy to sell two-hundred-dollar garments! There seems great need of something that shall have power to spiritualize mankind, and make head against the reinforced influence of material things. It may be that the true method of dealing with the souls of modern men has been, in part, discovered by Mr. Beecher, and that it would be well for persons aspiring to the same vocation to _begin_ their preparation by making a pilgrimage to Brooklyn Heights.

COMMODORE VANDERBILT.[1]

The Staten Island ferry, on a fine afternoon in summer, is one of the pleasantest scenes which New York affords. The Island, seven miles distant from the city, forms one of the sides of the Narrows, through which the commerce of the city and the emigrant s.h.i.+ps enter the magnificent bay that so worthily announces the grandeur of the New World. The ferry-boat, starting from the extremity of Manhattan Island, first gives its pa.s.sengers a view of the East River, all alive with every description of craft; then, gliding round past Governor's Island, dotted with camps and crowned with barracks, with the national flag floating above all, it affords a view of the lofty bluffs which rise on one side of the Hudson and the long line of the mast-fringed city on the other; then, rounding Governor's Island, the steamer pushes its way towards the Narrows, disclosing to view Fort Lafayette, so celebrated of late, the giant defensive works opposite to it, the umbrageous and lofty sides of Staten Island, covered with villas, and, beyond all, the Ocean, lighted up by Coney Island's belt of snowy sand, glistening in the sun.

Change the scene to fifty-five years ago: New York was then a town of eighty thousand people, and Staten Island was inhabited only by farmers, gardeners, and fishermen, who lived by supplying the city with provisions. No elegant seats, no picturesque villas adorned the hillsides, and pleasure-seekers found a nearer resort in Hoboken. The ferry then, if ferry it could be called, consisted of a few sail-boats, which left the island in the morning loaded with vegetables and fish, and returned, if wind and tide permitted, at night. If a pleasure party occasionally visited Staten Island, they considered themselves in the light of bold adventurers, who had gone far beyond the ordinary limits of an excursion. There was only one thing in common between the ferry at that day and this: the boats started from the same spot. Where the ferry-house now stands at Whitehall was then the beach to which the boatmen brought their freight, and where they remained waiting for a return cargo. That was, also, the general boat-stand of the city. Whoever wanted a boat, for business or pleasure, repaired to Whitehall, and it was a matter of indifference to the boatmen from Staten Island, whether they returned home with a load, or shared in the general business of the port.

It is to one of those Whitehall boatmen of 1810, that we have to direct the reader's attention. He was distinguished from his comrades on the stand in several ways. Though master of a Staten Island boat that would carry twenty pa.s.sengers, he was but sixteen years of age, and he was one of the handsomest, the most agile and athletic, young fellows that either Island could show. Young as he was, there was that in his face and bearing which gave a.s.surance that he was abundantly competent to his work. He was always at his post betimes, and on the alert for a job. He always performed what he undertook. This summer of 1810 was his first season, but he had already an ample share of the best of the business of the harbor.

Cornelius Vanderbilt was the name of this notable youth,--the same Cornelius Vanderbilt who has since built a hundred steamboats, who has since made a present to his country of a steams.h.i.+p of five thousand tons' burden, who has since bought lines of railroad, and who reported his income to the tax commissioners, last year at something near three quarters of a million. The first money the steamboat-king ever earned was by carrying pa.s.sengers between Staten Island and New York at eighteen cents each.

His father, who was also named Cornelius, was the founder of the Staten Island ferry. He was a thriving farmer on the Island as early as 1794, tilling his own land near the Quarantine Ground, and conveying his produce to New York in his own boat. Frequently he would carry the produce of some of his neighbors, and, in course of time, he ran his boat regularly, leaving in the morning and returning at night, during the whole of the summer, and thus he established a ferry which has since become one of the most profitable in the world, carrying sometimes more than twelve thousand pa.s.sengers in a day. He was an industrious, enterprising, liberal man, and early acquired a property which for that time was affluence. His wife was a singularly wise and energetic woman. She was the main stay of the family, since her husband was somewhat too liberal for his means, and not always prudent in his projects. Once, when her husband had fatally involved himself, and their farm was in danger of being sold for a debt of three thousand dollars, she produced, at the last extremity, her private store, and counted out the whole sum in gold pieces. She lived to the great age of eighty-seven, and left an estate of fifty thousand dollars, the fruit of her own industry and prudence. Her son, like many other distinguished men, loves to acknowledge that whatever he has, and whatever he is that is good, he owes to the precepts, the example, and the judicious government of his mother.

Cornelius, the eldest of their family of nine children, was born at the old farm-house on Staten Island, May 27, 1794. A healthy, vigorous boy, fond of out-door sports, excelling his companions in all boyish feats, on land and water, he had an unconquerable aversion to the confinement of the school-room. At that day, the school-room was, indeed, a dull and uninviting place, the lessons a tedious routine of learning by rote, and the teacher a tyrant, enforcing them by the terrors of the stick. The boy went to school a little, now and then, but learned little more than to read, write, and cipher, and these imperfectly. The only books he remembers using at school were the spelling-book and Testament. His real education was gained in working on his father's farm, helping to sail his father's boat, driving his father's horses, swimming, riding, rowing, sporting with his young friends. He was a bold rider from infancy, and pa.s.sionately fond of a fine horse. He tells his friends sometimes, that he rode a race-horse at full speed when he was but six years old. That he regrets not having acquired more school knowledge, that he values what is commonly called education, is shown by the care he has taken to have his own children well instructed.

There never was a clearer proof than in his case that the child is father of the man. He showed in boyhood the very quality which has most distinguished him as a man,--the power of accomplis.h.i.+ng things in spite of difficulty and opposition. He was a born conqueror.

When he was twelve years old, his father took a contract for getting the cargo out of a vessel stranded near Sandy Hook, and transporting it to New York in lighters. It was necessary to carry the cargo in wagons across a sandy spit. Cornelius, with a little fleet of lighters, three wagons, their horses and drivers, started from home solely charged with the management of this difficult affair. After loading the lighters and starting them for the city, he had to conduct his wagons home by land,--a long distance over Jersey sands. Leaving the beach with only six dollars, he reached South Amboy penniless, with six horses and three men, all hungry, still far from home, and separated from Staten Island by an arm of the sea half a mile wide, that could be crossed only by paying the ferryman six dollars. This was a puzzling predicament for a boy of twelve, and he pondered long how he could get out of it. At length he went boldly to the only innkeeper of the place, and addressed him thus:--

"I have here three teams that I want to get over to Staten Island. If you will put us across, I'll leave with you one of my horses in p.a.w.n, and if I don't send you back the six dollars within forty-eight hours you may keep the horse."

The innkeeper looked into the bright, honest eyes of the boy for a moment and said:--

"I'll do it."

And he did it. The horse in p.a.w.n was left with the ferryman on the Island, and he was redeemed in time.

Before he was sixteen he had made up his mind to earn his livelihood by navigation of some kind, and often, when tired of farm work, he had cast wistful glances at the outward-bound s.h.i.+ps that pa.s.sed his home.

Occasionally, too, he had alarmed his mother by threatening to run away and go to sea. His preference, however, was to become a boatman of New York harbor. On the first of May, 1810,--an important day in his history,--he made known his wishes to his mother, and asked her to advance him a hundred dollars for the purchase of a boat. She replied:--

"My son, on the twenty-seventh of this month you will be sixteen years old. If, by your birthday, you will plough, harrow, and plant with corn that lot," pointing to a field, "I will advance you the money."

The field was one of eight acres, very rough, tough, and stony. He informed his young companions of his mother's conditional promise, and several of them readily agreed to help him. For the next two weeks the field presented the spectacle of a continuous "bee" of boys, picking up stones, ploughing, harrowing, and planting. To say that the work was done in time, and done thoroughly, is only another way of stating that it was undertaken and conducted by Cornelius Vanderbilt. On his birthday he claimed the fulfilment of his mother's promise.

Reluctantly she gave him the money, considering his project only less wild than that of running away to sea. He hurried off to a neighboring village, bought his boat, hoisted sail, and started for home one of the happiest youths in the world. His first adventure seemed to justify his mother's fears, for he struck a sunken wreck on his way, and just managed to run his boat ash.o.r.e before she filled and sunk.

Undismayed at this mishap, he began his new career. His success, as we have intimated, was speedy and great. He made a thousand dollars during each of the next three summers. Often he worked all night, but he was never absent from his post by day, and he soon had the cream of the boating business of the port.

At that day parents claimed the services and the earnings of their children till they were twenty-one. In other words, families made common cause against the common enemy, Want. The arrangement between this young boatman and his parents was that he should give them all his day earnings and half his night earnings. He fulfilled his engagement faithfully until his parents released him from it, and with his own half of his earnings by night he bought all his clothes. He had forty compet.i.tors in the business, who, being all grown men, could dispose of their gains as they chose; but of all the forty, he alone has emerged to prosperity and distinction. Why was this? There were several reasons. He soon came to be the best boatman in the port. He attended to his business more regularly and strictly than any other.

He had no vices. His comrades spent at night much of what they earned by day, and when the winter suspended their business, instead of living on the last summer's savings, they were obliged to lay up debts for the next summer's gains to discharge. In those three years of willing servitude to his parents, Cornelius Vanderbilt added to the family's common stock of wealth, and gained for himself three things,--a perfect knowledge of his business, habits of industry and self-control, and the best boat in the harbor.

The war of 1812 suspended the commerce of the port, but gave a great impulse to boating. There were men-of-war in the harbor and garrisons in the forts, which gave to the boatmen of Whitehall and Staten Island plenty of business, of which Cornelius Vanderbilt had his usual share.

In September, 1813, during a tremendous gale, a British fleet attempted to run past Fort Richmond. After the repulse, the commander of the fort, expecting a renewal of the attempt, was anxious to get the news to the city, so as to secure a reinforcement early the next day. Every one agreed that, if the thing could be done, there was but one man who could do it; and, accordingly, young Vanderbilt was sent for.

"Can you take a party up to the city in this gale?"

"Yes," was the reply; "but I shall have to carry them part of the way under water."

When he made fast to Coffee-House slip, an hour or two after, every man in the boat was drenched to the skin. But there they were, and the fort was reinforced the next morning.

About this time, the young man had another important conversation with his mother, which, perhaps, was more embarra.s.sing than the one recorded above. He was in love. Sophia Johnson was the maiden's name,--a neighbor's lovely and industrious daughter, whose affections he had wooed and won. He asked his mother's consent to the match, and that henceforth he might have the disposal of his own earnings. She approved his choice, and released him from his obligations. During the rest of that season he labored with new energy, saved five hundred dollars, and, in December, 1813, when he laid up his boat for the winter, became the happy husband of the best of wives.

In the following spring, a great alarm pervaded all the sea-board cities of America. Rumors were abroad of that great expedition which, at the close of the year, attacked New Orleans; but, in the spring and summer, no one knew upon which port the blow would fall. The militia of New York were called out for three months, under a penalty of ninety-six dollars to whomsoever should fail to appear at the rendezvous. The boatmen, in the midst of a flouris.h.i.+ng business, and especially our young husband, were reluctant to lose the profits of a season's labor, which were equivalent, in their peculiar case, to the income of a whole year. An advertis.e.m.e.nt appeared one day in the papers which gave them a faint prospect of escaping this disaster. It was issued from the office of the commissary-general, Matthew L.

Davis, inviting bids from the boatmen for the contract of conveying provisions to the posts in the vicinity of New York during the three months, the contractor to be exempt from military duty. The boatmen caught at this, as a drowning man catches at a straw, and put in bids at rates preposterously low,--all except Cornelius Vanderbilt.

"Why don't you send in a bid?" asked his father.

"Of what use would it be?" replied the son. "They are offering to do the work at half-price. It can't be done at such rates."

"Well," added the father, "it can do no harm to try for it."

So, to please his father, but without the slightest expectation of getting the contract, he sent in an application, offering to transport the provisions at a price which would enable him to do it with the requisite certainty and prompt.i.tude. His offer was simply fair to both parties.

On the day named for the awarding of the contract, all the boatmen but him a.s.sembled in the commissary's office. He remained at the boat-stand, not considering that he had any interest in the matter.

One after another, his comrades returned with long faces, sufficiently indicative of their disappointment; until, at length, all of them had come in, but no one bringing the prize. Puzzled at this, he strolled himself to the office, and asked the commissary if the contract had been given.

"O yes," said Davis; "that business is settled. Cornelius Vanderbilt is the man."

He was thunderstruck.

"What!" said the commissary, observing his astonishment, is it you?"

"My name is Cornelius Vanderbilt."

"Well," said Davis, "don't you know why we have given the contract to you?"

"No."

"Why, it is because we want this business _done_, and we know you'll do it."

Matthew L. Davis, as the confidant of Aaron Burr, did a good many foolish things in his life, but on this occasion he did a wise one.

The contractor asked him but one favor, which was, that the daily load of stores might be ready for him every evening at six o'clock. There were six posts to be supplied: Harlem, Hurl Gate, Ward's Island, and three others in the harbor or at the Narrows, each of which required one load a week. Young Vanderbilt did all this work at night; and although, during the whole period of three months, he never once failed to perform his contract, he was never once absent from his stand in the day-time. He slept when he could, and when he could not sleep he did without it. Only on Sunday and Sunday night could he be said to rest. There was a rare harvest for boatmen that summer.

Transporting sick and furloughed soldiers, naval and military officers, the friends of the militia men, and pleasure-seekers visiting the forts, kept those of the boatmen who had "escaped the draft," profitably busy. It was not the time for an enterprising man to be absent from his post.

From the gains of that summer he built a superb little schooner, the Dread; and, the year following, the joyful year of peace, he and his brother-in-law. Captain De Forrest, launched the Charlotte, a vessel large enough for coasting service, and the pride of the harbor for model and speed. In this vessel, when the summer's work was over, he voyaged sometimes along the Southern coast, bringing home considerable freights from the Carolinas. Knowing the coast thoroughly, and being one of the boldest and most expert of seamen, he and his vessel were always ready when there was something to be done of difficulty and peril. During the three years succeeding the peace of 1815, he saved three thousand dollars a year; so that, in 1818, he possessed two or three of the nicest little craft in the harbor, and a cash capital of nine thousand dollars.

The next step of Captain Vanderbilt astonished both his rivals and his friends. He deliberately abandoned his flouris.h.i.+ng business, to accept the post of captain of a small steamboat, at a salary of a thousand dollars a year. By slow degrees, against the opposition of the boatmen, and the terrors of the public, steamboats had made their way; until, in 1817, ten years after Fulton's experimental trip, the long head of Captain Vanderbilt clearly comprehended that the supremacy of sails was gone forever, and he resolved to ally himself to the new power before being overcome gone forever, and he resolved to ally himself to the new power before being overcome by it. Besides, he protests, that in no enterprise of his life has his chief object been the gain of money. Being in the business of carrying pa.s.sengers, he desired to carry them in the best manner, and by the best means.

Business has ever been to him a kind of game, and his ruling motive was and is, to play it so as to win. _To carry his point_, that has been the motive of his business career; but then his point has generally been one which, being carried, brought money with it.

At that day, pa.s.sengers to Philadelphia were conveyed by steamboat from New York to New Brunswick, where they remained all night, and the next morning took the stage for Trenton, whence they were carried to Philadelphia by steamboat. The proprietor of part of this line was the once celebrated Thomas Gibbons, a man of enterprise and capital. It was in his service that Captain Vanderbilt spent the next twelve years of his life, commanding the steamer plying between New York and New Brunswick. The hotel at New Brunswick, where the pa.s.sengers pa.s.sed the night, which had never paid expenses, was let to him rent free, and under the efficient management of Mrs. Vanderbilt, it became profitable, and afforded the pa.s.sengers such excellent entertainment as to enhance the popularity of the line.

In engaging with Mr. Gibbons, Captain Vanderbilt soon found that he had put his head into a hornet's nest. The State of New York had granted to Fulton and Livingston the exclusive right of running steamboats in New York waters. Thomas Gibbons, believing the grant unconst.i.tutional, as it was afterwards declared by the Supreme Court, ran his boats in defiance of it, and thus involved himself in a long and fierce contest with the authorities of New York. The brunt of this battle fell upon his new captain. There was one period when for sixty successive days an attempt was made to arrest him; but the captain baffled every attempt. Leaving his crew in New Jersey (for they also were liable to arrest), he would approach the New York wharf with a lady at the helm, while he managed the engine; and as soon as the boat was made fast he concealed himself in the depths of the vessel. At the moment of starting, the officer (changed every day to avoid recognition) used to present himself and tap the wary captain on the shoulder.

"Let go the line," was his usual reply to the summons.

The officer, fearing to be carried off to New Jersey, where a retaliatory act threatened him with the State's prison, would jump ash.o.r.e as for life; or, if carried off, would beg to be put ash.o.r.e. In this way, and in many others, the captain contrived to evade the law.