Jan Aertsen Van der Bilt, who settled in Brooklyn, N.Y., about 1650,
began his career in assisting his father to convey his produce to market
in a sail-boat. The boy did not care for education, but was active in
pursuit of business. At sixteen he purchased for one hundred dollars a
boat, in which he ferried passengers and goods between New York City and
Staten Island, where his father lived. He saved carefully until he had
paid for it. At eighteen he was the owner of two boats, and captain of a
third.
At nineteen he married a cousin, Sophia Johnson, who by her saving and
her energy helped him to accumulate his fortune. At twenty-three he was
worth $9,000, and was the captain of a steamboat at a salary of $1,000 a
year. The boat made trips between New York City and New Brunswick, N.J.,
where his wife managed a small hotel.
[Illustration: CORNELIUS VANDERBILT.]
In 1829, when he was thirty-five, he began to build steamboats, and
operated them on the Hudson River, on Long Island Sound, and on the
route to Boston. When he was forty his property was estimated at
$500,000. When the gold-seekers rushed to California, in 1848-1849, Mr.
Vanderbilt established a line by way of Lake Nicaragua, and made large
profits. He also established a line between New York and Havre.
During the Civil War Mr. Vanderbilt gave the Vanderbilt, his finest
steamship, costing $800,000, to the government, and sent her to the
James River to assist when the Merrimac attacked the national vessels at
Hampton Roads. Congress voted him a gold medal for his timely gift.
In 1863 he began to invest in railroads, purchasing a large part of the
stock of the New York and Harlem Railroad. His property was at this time
estimated at $40,000,000. He soon gained controlling interest in other
roads. His chief maxim was, "Do your business well, and don't tell
anybody what you are going to do until you have done it."
In February, 1873, Bishop McTyeire of Nashville, Tenn., was visiting
with the family of Mr. Vanderbilt in New York City. The first wife was
dead, and Mr. Vanderbilt had married a second time. Both men had married
cousins in the city of Mobile, who were very intimate in their girlhood,
and this brought the bishop and Mr. Vanderbilt into friendly relations.
One evening when they were conversing about the effects of the Civil War
upon the Southern States, Commodore Vanderbilt, as he was usually
called, expressed a desire to do something for the South, and asked the
bishop what he would suggest.
The Methodist Church at the South had organized Central University at
Nashville, but found it impossible to raise the funds needed to carry on
the work. The bishop stated the great need for such an institution, and
Mr. Vanderbilt at once gave $500,000. In his letter to the Board of
Trust, Mr. Vanderbilt said, "If it shall through its influence
contribute even in the smallest degree to strengthening the ties which
should exist between all geographical sections of our common country, I
shall feel that it has accomplished one of the objects that has led me
to take an interest in it."
Later, in his last illness, he gave enough to make his gift a million.
The name of the institution was changed to Vanderbilt University. Mr.
Vanderbilt died in New York, Jan. 4, 1877, leaving the larger part of
his millions to his son, William Henry Vanderbilt. He gave $50,000 to
the Rev. Charles F. Deems to purchase the Church of the Strangers.
Founder's Day at Vanderbilt University is celebrated yearly on the late
Commodore's birthday, May 27, the day being ushered in by the playing of
music and the ringing of the University bell.
Bishop McTyeire, who, Mr. Vanderbilt insisted, should accept the
presidency of the University, used to say, "My wife was a silent but
golden link in the chain of Providence that led to Vanderbilt
University."
When an attractive site of seventy-five acres of land was chosen for the
buildings, an agent who was recommending an out-of-the-way place
protested, and said, "Bishop, the boys will be looking out of the
windows there."
"We want them to look out," said the practical bishop, "and to know what
is going on outside."
The secretary of the faculty tells a characteristic incident of this
noble man. "He once cordially thanked me for conducting through the
University building a company of plain country people, among whom was a
woman with a baby in her arms. 'Who knows what may come of that visit?'
said he. 'It may bring that baby here as a student. He may yet be one of
our illustrious men. Who knows? Who knows? Such people are not to be
neglected. Great men come of them.'"
Vanderbilt University now has over seven hundred students, and is
sending out many capable scholars into fields of usefulness.
Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, the son of Cornelius, gave over $450,000 to
the University. His first gift of $100,000 was for the gymnasium,
Science Hall, and Wesley Hall, the Home of the Biblical Department.
Another $100,000 was for the engineering department. At his death, Dec.
8, 1885, he left the University by will $200,000.
Mr. Vanderbilt's estate was estimated at $200,000,000, double the amount
left by his father. It is said that he left $10,000,000 to each of his
eight children, the larger part of his fortune going to two of his sons,
Cornelius and William K. Vanderbilt.
He gave for the removing of the obelisk from Egypt to Central Park,
$103,000; to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York City,
$500,000. His daughter Emily, wife of William D. Sloan, gave a Maternity
Home in connection with the college, costing $250,000. Mr. Vanderbilt's
four sons, Cornelius, William, Frederick, and George, have erected a
building for clinical instruction as a memorial of their father.
Mr. Vanderbilt gave $100,000 each to the Home and Foreign Missions of
the Primitive Episcopal Church, to the New York Missions of that church,
to St. Luke's Hospital, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the United
Brethren Church at New Dorp, Staten Island, and to the Young Men's
Christian Association. He gave $50,000 each to the Theological Seminary
of the Episcopal Church, the New York Bible Society, the Home for
Incurables, Seamen's Society, New York Home for Intemperate Men, and the
American Museum of Natural History.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, the grandson of Commodore Vanderbilt, has given
$10,000 for the library, and $20,000 for the Hall of Mechanical
Engineering of Vanderbilt University. He has also given a building to
Yale College in memory of his son, a large building at the corner of
Madison Avenue and Forty-fifth Street to his railroad employees for
reading, gymnasium hall, bathrooms, etc., $100,000 for the Protestant
Cathedral, and much to other good works.
Another son of William H., George W. Vanderbilt, who is making at his
home in Asheville, N.C., a collection as complete as possible of all
trees and plants, established the Thirteenth Street Branch of The Free
Circulating Library in New York City, in July, 1888, and has supported a
normal training-school.
A daughter of William H., Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard, has given to the
Young Women's Christian Association in New York the Margaret Louisa
Home, 14 and 16 East Sixteenth Street, a handsome and well-appointed
structure where working-women can find a temporary home and comfort. The
limit of time for each guest is four weeks. The house contains
fifty-eight single and twenty-one double rooms. It has proved a great
blessing to those who are strangers in a great city, and need
inexpensive and respectable surroundings.
It is stated in the press that Mrs. Frederick Vanderbilt uses a generous
portion of her income in preparing worthy young women for some useful
position in life,--as nurses, or in sewing or art, each individual
having $500 expended for such training.
BARON MAURICE DE HIRSCH.
"The death of Baron Hirsch," says the New York _Tribune_, April 22,
1896, "is a loss to the whole human race. To one of the most ancient and
illustrious branches of that race it will seem a catastrophe. No man of
this century has done so much for the Jews as he.... In his twelfth
century castle of Eichorn in Moravia he conceived vast schemes of
beneficence. On his more than princely estate of St. Johann in Hungary
he elaborated the details. In his London and Paris mansions he put them
into execution. He rose early and worked late, and kept busy a staff of
secretaries and agents in all parts of the world. He not only relieved
the immediate distress of the people, he founded schools to train them
to useful work. He transported them by thousands from lands of bondage
to lands of freedom, and planted them there in happy colonies. In
countless other directions he gave his wealth freely for the benefit of
mankind without regard to race or creed."
Baron Hirsch died at Presburg, Hungary, April 20, 1896, of apoplexy. He
was the son of a Bavarian merchant, and was born in 1833. At eighteen he
became a clerk in the banking-firm of Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt, and
married the daughter of the former. He was the successful promoter of
the great railway system from Budapest to Varna on the Black Sea. He
made vast sums out of Turkish railway bonds, and is said to have been as
rich as the Rothschilds.
He gave away in his lifetime an enormous amount, stated in the press to
have been $15,000,000 yearly, for the five years before his death.
The New York _Tribune_ says he gave much more than $20,000,000 for the
help of the Jews. He gave to institutions in Egypt, Turkey, and Asia
Minor, which bear his name. He offered the Russian Government
$10,000,000 for public education if it would make no discrimination as
to race or religion; but it declined the offer, and banished the Jews.
To the Hirsch fund in this country for the help of the Jews the baron
sent more than $2,500,000. The managers of the fund spent no money in
bringing the Jews to this country, but when here, opened schools for the
children to prepare them to enter the public schools, evening schools
for adults, training-schools to teach them carpentry, plumbing, and the
like; provided public baths for them; bought farm-lands for them in New
Jersey and Connecticut, and assisted them to buy small farms; provided
factories for young men and women, as at Woodbine, N.J., where 5,100
acres have been purchased for the Hirsch Colony, and a brickyard and
kindling-wood factory established. The baron is said to have received
400 begging letters daily, some of them from crowned heads, to whom he
loaned large amounts. The favorite home of the baron was in Paris, where
he lost his only and idolized son Lucien, in 1888, at the age of twenty.
Much of the fortune that was to be the son's the father devoted to
charity, especially to the alleviation of the condition of the European
Jews, in whom the son was deeply interested. Many millions were left to
Lucienne, the extremely pretty natural daughter of his son Lucien.
ISAAC RICH
AND BOSTON UNIVERSITY.
Isaac Rich left to Boston University, chartered in 1869, more than a
million and a half dollars. He was born in Wellfleet, Mass., in 1801, of
humble parentage. At the age of fourteen he was assisting his father in
a fish-stall in Boston, and afterwards kept an oyster-stall in Faneuil
Hall. He became a very successful fish-merchant, and gave his wealth for
noble purposes.
Unfortunately, immediately after his death, Jan. 13, 1872, the great
fire of 1872 consumed the best investments of the estate, and the panic
of 1873 and other great losses followed; so that for rebuilding the
stores and banks in which the estate had been largely invested money had
to be borrowed, and at the close of ten years the estate actually
transferred to the University was a little less than $700,000.
This sum would have been much larger had not the statutes of New York
State made it illegal to convey to a corporation outside the State, like
Boston University, the real estate owned by Mr. Rich in Brooklyn, which
reverted to the legal heirs. It is claimed that Mr. Rich was "the first
Bostonian who ever donated so large a sum to the cause of collegiate
education."
The Hon. Jacob Sleeper, one of the three original incorporators of the
University, gave to it over a quarter of a million dollars. The College
of Liberal Arts is named in his honor.
Boston University owes much of its wide reputation to its president, the
Rev. Dr. William F. Warren, a successful author as well as able
executive. From the first he has favored co-education and equal
opportunities for men and women. Dr. Warren said in 1890, "In my opinion
the co-education of the sexes in high and grammar schools, as also in
colleges and universities, is absolutely essential to the best results
in the education of youth.
"I believe it to be best for boys, best for girls, best for teachers,
best for tax-payers, best for the community, best for morals and manners
and religion."
More than sixty years ago, in 1833, at its beginning, Oberlin College
gave the first example of co-education in this country. In 1880 a little
more than half the colleges in the United States, 51.3 per cent, had
adopted the policy; in 1890 the proportion had increased to 65.5 per
cent. Probably a majority of persons will agree with Dr. James
MacAlister of Philadelphia, that "co-education is becoming universal
throughout this country."
Concerning Boston University, the report prepared for the admirable
education series edited by Professor Herbert B. Adams of Johns Hopkins
University, says, "This University was the first to afford the young
women of Massachusetts the advantages of the higher education. Its
College of Liberal Arts antedated Wellesley and Smith and the Harvard
Annex. Its doors, furthermore, were not reluctantly opened in
consequence of the pressure of an outside public opinion too great to
be resisted. On the contrary, it was in advance of public sentiment on
this line, and directed it. Its school of theology was the earliest
anywhere to present to women all the privileges provided for men. In
fact, this University was the first in history to present to women
students unrestricted opportunities to fit themselves for each of the
learned professions. It was the first ever organized from foundation to
capstone without discrimination on the ground of sex. Its publications
bearing upon the joint education of the sexes have been sought in all
countries where the question of opening the older universities to women
has been under discussion."
Boston University, 1896, has at present 1,270 students,--women 377, men
893,--and requires high grade of scholarship. It is stated that "the
first four years' course of graded medical instruction ever offered in
this country was instituted by this school in the spring of 1878."
DANIEL B. FAYERWEATHER
AND OTHERS
Mr. Fayerweather was born in Stepney, Conn., in 1821; he was apprenticed
to a farmer, learned the shoemaker's trade in Bridgeport, and worked at
the trade until he became ill. Then he bought a tin-peddler's outfit,
and went to Virginia. When he could not sell for cash he took hides in
payment.
Afterwards he returned to his trade at Bridgeport, where he remained
till 1854, when he was thirty-three years old. He then removed to New
York City, and entered the employ of Hoyt Brothers, dealers in leather.
Years later, on the withdrawal of Mr. Hoyt, the firm name became
Fayerweather & Ladew. Mr. Fayerweather was a retiring, economical man,
honest and respected. At his death in 1890, he gave to the Presbyterian
Hospital, St. Luke's Hospital, and Manhattan Eye and Ear Infirmary,
$25,000 each; to the Woman's Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital, $10,000
each; to Yale College, Columbia College, Cornell University, $200,000
each; to Bowdoin College, Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth, Wesleyan,
Hamilton, Maryville, Yale Scientific School, University of Virginia,
Rochester, Lincoln, and Hampton Universities, $100,000 each; to Union
Theological Seminary, Lafayette, Marietta, Adelbert, Wabash, and Park
Colleges, $50,000 each. The residue of the estate, over $3,000,000, was
divided among various colleges and hospitals.
GEORGE I. SENEY,
Who died April 7, 1893, in New York City, gave away, between 1879 and
1884, to Seney Hospital in Brooklyn, $500,000, and a like amount each to
the Wesleyan University, and to the Methodist Orphan Asylum, Brooklyn.
To Emory College and Wesleyan Female College, Macon, Ga., he gave
$250,000; to the Long Island Historical Society, $100,000; to the
Brooklyn Library, $60,000; to Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N.J.,
a large amount; to the Industrial School for Homeless Children,
Brooklyn, $25,000, and a like amount to the Eye and Ear Infirmary of
that city. He also gave twenty valuable paintings to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York.
The givers to colleges have been too numerous to mention. The College of
New Jersey, at Princeton, has received not less than one and a half
million or two million dollars from the John C. Greene estate.
Johns Hopkins left seven millions to found a university and hospital in
Baltimore.
The Hon. Washington C. De Pauw left at his death forty per cent of his
estate, estimated at from two to five million dollars, to De Pauw
University, Greencastle, Ind. Though some of the real estate decreased
in value, the university has received already $300,000, and will
probably receive not less than $600,000, or possibly much more, in the
future.
Mr. Jonas G. Clark gave to found Clark University, Worcester, Mass.,
about a million dollars to be devoted to post-graduates, or a school
for specialists. Mr. Clark spent about eight years in Europe studying
the highest institutions of learning. Matthew Vassar gave a million
dollars to Vassar College for women at Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Ezra B.
Cornell gave a million to Cornell University at Ithaca, N.Y. Mr. Henry
W. Sage has also been a most munificent giver to the same institution.
Dr. Joseph W. Taylor of Burlington, N.J., a physician and merchant, and
member of the Society of Friends, founded Bryn Mawr College for Women,
at Bryn Mawr, Penn. His gift consisted of property and academic
buildings worth half a million, and one million dollars in invested
funds as endowment.
Mr. Paul Tulane gave over a million to Tulane University, New Orleans.
George Peabody gave away nine millions in charities,--three millions to
educational institutions, three millions to education at the South to
both whites and negroes, and three millions to build tenement houses for
the poor of London, England.
HORACE KELLEY,
Of Cleveland, Ohio, left a half-million dollars for the foundation of an
art gallery and school. His family were among the pioneer settlers, and
their purchases of land in what became the heart of the city made their
children wealthy. He was born in Cleveland, July 8, 1819, and died in
the same city, Dec. 5, 1890.
He married Miss Fanny Miles, of Elyria, Ohio, and spent much of his life
in foreign travel and in California, where they had a home at Pasadena.
His fortune was the result of saving as well as the increase in
real-estate values.
Mr. John Huntington made a somewhat larger gift for the same purpose.
Mr. H. B. Hurlbut gave his elegant home, his collection of pictures,
etc., valued at half a million, and Mr. J. H. Wade and others have
contributed land, which make nearly two million dollars for the
Cleveland Art Gallery and School. Mr. W. J. Gordon, of Cleveland, Ohio,
gave land for Gordon's Park, bordering on Lake Erie, valued at a million
dollars. It was beautifully laid out by him with drives, lakes, and
flower-beds, and was his home for many years.
MR. HART A. MASSEY,
Formerly a resident of Cleveland, but in later years a manufacturer at
Toronto, Canada, at his death, in the spring of 1896, left a million
dollars in charities. To Victoria College, Toronto, $200,000, all but
$50,000 as an endowment fund. This $50,000 is to be used for building a
home for the women students. To each of two other colleges, $100,000,
and to each of two more, $50,000, one of the latter being the new
American University at Washington, D.C. To the Salvation Army, Toronto,
$5,000. To the Fred Victor Mission, to provide missionary nurses to go
from house to house in Toronto, and care for the sick and the needy,
$10,000. Many thousands were given to churches and various homes, and
$10,000 to ministers worn out in service. To Mr. D. L. Moody's schools
at Northfield, Mass., $10,000. Many have given to this noble institution
established by the great evangelist, and it needs and deserves large
endowments. The Frederick Marquand Memorial Hall, brick with gray stone
trimmings, was built as a dormitory for one hundred girls, in 1884, at
a cost of $67,000. Recitation Hall, of colored granite, was built in
1885, at a cost of $40,000, and, as well as some other buildings, was
paid for out of the proceeds of the Moody and Sankey hymn-books. Weston
Hall, costing $25,000, is the gift of Mr. David Weston of Boston.
Talcott Library, a beautiful structure costing $20,000, with a capacity
for forty thousand volumes, is the gift of Mr. James Talcott of New
York, who, among many other benefactions, has erected Talcott Hall at
Oberlin College, a large and handsome boarding-hall for the young women.
CATHARINE LORILLARD WOLFE.
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, one sees an
interesting picture of this noted giver, painted by Alexander Cabanel,
commander of the Legion of Honor, and professor in the École des Beaux
Arts of Paris.
Miss Wolfe, who was born in New York, March 8, 1828, and died in New
York, April 4, 1887, at the age of fifty-nine, was descended from an old
Lutheran family, her great-grandfather, John David Wolfe, coming to this
country from Saxony in 1729. Two of his four children, David and
Christopher, served with credit in the War of the Revolution. After the
war, David and a younger brother were partners in the hardware business,
and their sons succeeded them.
John David Wolfe, the son of David, born July 24, 1792, retired from
business in the prime of his life, and devoted himself to benevolent
work. He was a vestryman of Trinity Parish, and later senior warden of
Grace Church, New York. He gave to schools and churches all over the
country, to St. Johnland on Long Island, to the Sheltering Arms in New
York, the High School at Denver, Col., the Diocesan School at Topeka,
Kan., etc. He was a helper in the New York Historical Society, and one
of the founders of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
He was its first president when he died, May 17, 1872, in his eightieth
year, leaving only one child, Catharine, to inherit his large property.
A portion of Miss Wolfe's seven millions came from her mother, Dorothea
Lorillard, and the rest from her father. She was an educated woman, who
had read much and travelled extensively, and, like her father, used her
money in doing good while she lived. Her private benefactions were
constant, and she went much among the poor and suffering.
She built in East Broadway a Newsboy's Lodging House for not less than
$50,000; the Italian Mission Church in Mulberry Street, $50,000, with
tenement house in the same street, $20,000; the house for the clergy of
the diocese of New York, 29 Lafayette Place, $170,000; St. Luke's
Hospital, $30,000; Home for Incurables at Fordham, $30,000; Union
College, Schenectady, N.Y., $100,000; Schools in the Western States,
$50,000; Home and Foreign Missions, $100,000; American Church in Rome,
$40,000; American School of Classical Studies at Athens, $20,000;
Virginia Seminary, $25,000; Grace House, containing reading and lecture
rooms for the poor, and Grace Church, $200,000 or more. She paid the
expense of the exploring expedition to Babylonia under the leadership of
the distinguished Oriental scholar, Dr. William Hayes Ward, editor of
the _Independent_. A friend tells of her sending him to New York, from
her boat on the Nile, a check for $25,000 to be distributed in
charities. She educated young girls; she helped those who are unable to
make their way in the world.
Having given all her life, she gave away over a million at her death in
money and objects of art. To the Metropolitan Museum of Art she gave the
Catharine Lorillard Wolfe collection, with pictures by Rosa Bonheur,
Meissonnier, Gérôme, Verboeckhoven, Hans Makart, Sir Frederick Leighton,
Couture, Bouguéreau, and many others. She added an endowment of $200,000
for the preservation and increase of the collection.