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, Cass, 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 fashion, 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 ships 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 passengers 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 passengers, 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 assurance 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 steamship 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 passengers 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 passengers 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 passionately 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 accomplishing 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 pawn, 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 pawn 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 ships that passed 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 ashore 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 competitors 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 embarrassing 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 flourishing 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 advertisement 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 promptitude. His offer was simply fair to both
parties.
On the day named for the awarding of the contract, all the boatmen but
him assembled 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 flourishing 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 passengers, 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, passengers 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 passengers passed 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 passengers 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
unconstitutional, 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.