Famous Givers And Their Gifts - free ebook by Sarah Knowles Bolton

Mrs. Bolton's Famous Books.

" Mrs. Bolton never fails to interest and instruct her readers. " —Chicago Inter-Ocean. For sale by all booksellers. Send for catalogue. THOMAS Y. CROWELL &amp; CO. NEW YORK &amp; BOSTON. STEPHEN GIRARD (Used by courtesy of Henry A. Ingram.)...

57 minute read

Read Chapter

Famous Givers and TheirGifts

BY SARAH KNOWLES BOLTON AUTHOR OF "POOR BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS," "GIRLS WHO BECAME FAMOUS," "FAMOUS AMERICAN AUTHORS," "FAMOUS AMERICAN STATESMEN," "FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE," "FAMOUS EUROPEAN ARTISTS," "FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD," "STORIES FROM LIFE," "FROM HEART AND NATURE" (POEMS), "FAMOUS ENGLISH AUTHORS," "FAMOUS ENGLISH STATESMEN," "FAMOUS VOYAGERS," "FAMOUS LEADERS AMONG WOMEN," "FAMOUS LEADERS AMONG MEN," "THE INEVITABLE, AND OTHER POEMS," ETC. " For none of us liveth to himself. " NEW YORK

37 minute read

Read Chapter

PREFACE.

While it is interesting to see how men have built up fortunes, as a rule, through industry, saving, and great energy, it is even more interesting to see how those fortunes have been or may be used for the benefit of mankind. In a volume of this size, of course, it is impossible to speak of but few out of many who have given generously of their wealth, both in this country and abroad. The book has been written with the hope that others may be incited to give through reading it, and may see the re

36 minute read

Read Chapter

JOHN LOWELL, Jr., AND HIS FREE LECTURES.

There is often something pathetic about a great gift. The only son of Leland Stanford dies, and the millions which he would have inherited are used to found a noble institution on the Pacific Coast. The only son of Henry F. Durant, the noted Boston lawyer, dies, and the sorrowing father and mother use their fortune to build beautiful Wellesley College. The only son of Amasa Stone is drowned while at Yale College, and his father builds Adelbert College of Western Reserve University, to honor his

36 minute read

Read Chapter

STEPHEN GIRARD AND HIS COLLEGE FOR ORPHANS.

Near the city of Bordeaux, France, on May 20, 1750, the eldest son of Pierre Girard and his wife, Anne Marie Lafargue, was born. The family were well-to-do; and Pierre was knighted by Louis XV. for bravery on board the squadron at Brest, in 1744, when France and England were at war. The king gave Pierre Girard his own sword, which Pierre at his death ordered to be placed in his coffin, and it was buried with him. Although the Girard family were devoted to the sea, Pierre wished to have his boys

38 minute read

Read Chapter

ANDREW CARNEGIE AND HIS LIBRARIES.

"This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial

40 minute read

Read Chapter

THOMAS HOLLOWAY: HIS SANATORIUM AND COLLEGE.

Thomas Holloway, one of England's most munificent givers, was born in Devonport, England, Sept. 22, 1800. His father, who had been a warrant officer in a militia regiment, had become a baker in Devonport. Finding that he could support his several children better by managing an inn, he removed to Penzance, and took charge of Turk's Head Inn on Chapel Street. His son Thomas went to school at Camborne and Penzance until he was sixteen. He was a saving lad, for the family were obliged to be economic

22 minute read

Read Chapter

CHARLES PRATT AND HIS INSTITUTE.

"It is a good thing to be famous, provided that the fame has been honestly won. It is a good thing to be rich when the image and superscription of God is recognized on every coin. But the sweetest thing in the world is to be loved . The tears that were shed over the coffin of Charles Pratt welled up out of loving hearts.... I count his death to have been the sorest bereavement Brooklyn has ever suffered; for he was yet in his vigorous prime, with large plans and possibilities yet to be accomplis

25 minute read

Read Chapter

THOMAS GUY AND HIS HOSPITAL.

One day the rich Matthew Vassar stood before the great London hospital founded by Thomas Guy, and read these words on the pedestal of the bronze statue:— THOMAS GUY, SOLE FOUNDER OF THIS HOSPITAL IN HIS LIFETIME A.D. MDCCXXI. The last three words made a deep impression. Matthew Vassar had no children. He wished to leave his fortune where it would be of permanent value; and lest something might happen to thwart his plan, he had to do it in his lifetime . Sir Isaac Newton said, "They who give noth

32 minute read

Read Chapter

SOPHIA SMITH AND HER COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.

Miss Sophia Smith, the founder of Smith College, came from a family of savers as well as givers. Self-indulgent persons rarely give. She was the niece of Oliver Smith, whose unique charities have been a blessing to many towns. Mr. Smith, who died at Hatfield, Mass., Dec. 22, 1845, left to the towns of Northampton, Hadley, Hatfield, Amherst, and Williamsburg, in the county of Hampshire, and Deerfield, Greenfield, and Whately, in the county of Franklin, about a million dollars to a Board of Truste

24 minute read

Read Chapter

JAMES LICK AND HIS TELESCOPE.

James Lick, one of the great givers of the West, was born in Fredericksburg, Penn., Aug. 25, 1796. Little is known of his early life, except that his ancestors were Germans, and that he was born in poverty. His grandfather served in the Revolutionary War. James learned to make organs and pianos in Hanover, Penn., and in 1819 worked for Joseph Hiskey, a prominent piano manufacturer of Baltimore. One day Conrad Meyer, a poor lad, came into the store and asked for work. Young Lick gave him food and

36 minute read

Read Chapter

LELAND STANFORD AND HIS UNIVERSITY.

"The biographer of Leland Stanford will have to tell the fascinating story of a career almost matchless in the splendor of its incidents. It was partly due to the circumstances of his time, but chiefly due to the largeness and boldness of his nature, that this plain, simple man succeeded in cutting so broad a swath. He lived at the top of his possibilities." Thus wrote Dr. Albert Shaw in the Review of Reviews , August, 1893. Leland Stanford, farmer-boy, lawyer, railroad builder, governor, United

42 minute read

Read Chapter

CAPTAIN THOMAS CORAM AND HIS FOUNDLING ASYLUM.

One of the best of England's charities is the Foundling Asylum in London, founded in 1739 by Captain Thomas Coram. He was not a man of family or means, but he had a warm heart and great perseverance. For seventeen years he labored against indifference and prejudice, till finally his home for little waifs and outcasts became a visible fact, and for more than a century has been doing its noble work. Captain Coram was born at Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire, in 1668, a seaport town which carried on some

16 minute read

Read Chapter

HENRY SHAW AND HIS BOTANICAL GARDEN.

It is rare that a poor boy comes to America from a foreign land, with almost no money in his pocket, and leaves to his adopted town and State a million four hundred thousand dollars to beautify a city, to elevate its taste, and to help educate its people. Henry Shaw of St. Louis, Mo., was born in Sheffield, England, July 24, 1800. He was the oldest of four children, having had a brother who died in infancy and two sisters. His father, Joseph Shaw, was a manufacturer of grates, fire-irons, etc.,

12 minute read

Read Chapter

JAMES SMITHSON AND THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.

Another Englishman besides Henry Shaw to whom America is much indebted is James Smithson, the giver of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. Born in 1765 in France, he was the natural son of Hugh, third Duke of Northumberland, and Mrs. Elizabeth Macie, heiress of the Hungerfords of Audley, and niece of Charles, Duke of Somerset. At Pembroke College, Oxford, he was devoted to science, especially chemistry, and spent his vacations in collecting minerals. He was graduated May 26, 1786, and the

6 minute read

Read Chapter

ENOCH PRATT.

Enoch Pratt was born in North Middleborough, Mass., Sept. 10, 1808. He graduated at Bridgewater Academy when he was fifteen; and a position was found for him in a leading house in Boston, where he remained until he was twenty-one years of age. He had written to a friend in Boston two weeks before his school closed, "I do not want to stay at home long after it is out." The eager, ambitious boy, with good habits, constant application to business, the strictest honesty, and good common-sense, soon

4 minute read

Read Chapter

JAMES LENOX.

The founder of Lenox Library on Seventy-second Street, overlooking Central Park, was born in New York City, Aug. 19, 1800, and died there Feb. 17, 1880. His father, Robert, was a wealthy Scotch merchant of New York, who left to his only son and seven daughters several million dollars. Robert purchased from the corporation of New York a farm of thirty acres of land in Fourth and Fifth Avenues, near Seventy-second Street. For twelve acres on one side he gave $500, and for the rest on the other sid

3 minute read

Read Chapter

MARY MACRAE STUART.

At her death in New York City, Dec. 30, 1891, gave the Robert L. Stuart fine-art collections valued at $500,000, her shells, minerals, and library, to the Lenox Library, on condition that they should never be exhibited on Sunday. To nine charitable institutions in New York she gave $5,000 each; to Cooper Union, $10,000; to the Cancer Hospital, $25,000; and about $5,000,000 to home and foreign missions of the Presbyterian Church, hospitals, disabled ministers, freedmen, Church Extension Society,

1 minute read

Read Chapter

WALTER L. NEWBERRY.

Chicago has been recently enriched by two great gifts, the Newberry and Crerar Libraries. Walter Loomis Newberry was born at East Windsor, Conn., Sept. 18, 1804. He was educated at Clinton, N.Y., and fitted for the United States Military Academy, but could not pass the physical examination. After a time spent with his brother in commercial life in Buffalo, N.Y., he removed to Detroit in 1828, and engaged in the dry-goods business. He went to Chicago in 1834, when that city had but three thousand

4 minute read

Read Chapter

JOHN CRERAR.

Was born in New York City, the son of John Crerar, his parents both natives of Scotland. He was educated in a common school, and at the age of eighteen became a clerk in a mercantile house. In 1862 he went to Chicago, and associated himself with J. McGregor Adams in the iron business. He was also interested in railroads, and was the president of a company. He was an upright member of the Second Presbyterian Church, and his first known gift was $10,000 to that church. Unmarried, he lived quietly

2 minute read

Read Chapter

JOHN JACOB ASTOR.

From the little village of Waldorf, near Heidelberg, Germany, came the head of the Astor family to America when he was twenty years old. Born July 17, 1763, the fourth son of a butcher, he helped his father until he was sixteen, and then determined to join an elder brother in London, who worked in the piano and flute factory of their uncle. Having no money, he set out on foot for the Rhine; and resting under a tree, he made this resolution, which he always kept, "to be honest, industrious, and n

4 minute read

Read Chapter

MORTIMER FABRICIUS REYNOLDS.

"On the 2d of December, 1814, there was born, in the narrow clearing that skirted the ford of the Genesee River, the first child of white parents to see the light upon that 'Hundred-Acre Tract' which was the primitive site of the present city of Rochester. Mortimer Fabricius Reynolds was the name given, for family reasons, to the first-born of this backwoods settlement." Thus states the "Semi-Centennial History of the City of Rochester, N.Y.," published in 1888. This boy, grown to manhood and en

1 minute read

Read Chapter

FREDERICK H. RINDGE AND HIS GIFTS.

Mr. Rindge, born in Cambridge, Mass., in 1857, but at present residing in California, has given his native city a public library, a city hall, a manual training-school, and a valuable site for a high school. The handsome library, Romanesque in style, of gray stone with brown stone trimmings, was opened to the public in 1889. One room of especial interest on the first floor contains war relics, manuscripts, autographs and pictures of distinguished persons, and literary and historical matter conne

2 minute read

Read Chapter

ANTHONY J. DREXEL AND HIS INSTITUTE.

The Drexel family, like a majority of the successful and useful families in this country, began poor. Anthony J. Drexel's father, Francis Martin Drexel, was born at Dornbirn, in the Austrian Tyrol, April 7, 1792. When he was eleven years old, his father, a merchant, sent him to a school near Milan. Later, when there was a war with France, he was obliged to go to Switzerland to avoid conscription. He earned a scanty living at whatever he could find to do, but his chief work and pleasure was in po

6 minute read

Read Chapter

PHILIP D. ARMOUR AND HIS INSTITUTE.

Philip D. Armour was born in Stockbridge, Madison County, N.Y., and spent his early life on a farm. In 1852, when he was twenty years of age, he went to California, and finally settled in Chicago, where he has become very wealthy by dealing in packed meat, which is sent to almost every corner of the earth. "He pays six or seven millions of dollars yearly in wages," writes Arthur Warren in an interesting article in McClure's Magazine , February, 1894, "owns four thousand railway cars, which are u

7 minute read

Read Chapter

LEONARD CASE AND THE SCHOOL OF APPLIED SCIENCE.

Technological schools are springing up so rapidly all over our country that it would be impossible to name them all. The Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken, N.J., was organized in 1871, with a gift of $650,000; the Towne Scientific School, Philadelphia, 1872, $1,000,000; the Miller School, Batesville, Va., 1878, $1,000,000; the Rose Polytechnic, Terre Haute, Ind., 1883, over $500,000; the Case School of Applied Science of Cleveland, Ohio, 1881, over $2,000,000. Leonard Case, the giver of

4 minute read

Read Chapter

ASA PACKER AND LEHIGH UNIVERSITY.

In the midst of twenty acres stands Lehigh University, at South Bethlehem, Penn., founded by Asa Packer,—a great school of technology, with courses in civil, mechanical, mining, and electrical engineering, chemistry, and architecture. The school of general literature of the University has a classical course, a Latin-scientific course, and a course in science and letters. To this institution Judge Packer gave three and one-quarter millions during his life; and by will, eventually, the University

5 minute read

Read Chapter

CORNELIUS VANDERBILT AND VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY.

Cornelius Vanderbilt, born May 27, 1794, descended from a Dutch farmer, 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 p

6 minute read

Read Chapter

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 execut

2 minute read

Read Chapter

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,

3 minute read

Read Chapter

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,

1 minute read

Read Chapter

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

54 minute read

Read Chapter

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

1 minute read

Read Chapter

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

3 minute read

Read Chapter

MISS MARY ELIZABETH GARRETT

Of Baltimore gave to the Medical School of Johns Hopkins University over $400,000, that women might have equal medical opportunities with men. President Daniel C. Gilman, in an article on Johns Hopkins University, says, "Much attention had been directed to the importance of medical education for women; and efforts had been made by committees of ladies in Baltimore and other cities to secure for this purpose an adequate endowment, to be connected with the foundations of Johns Hopkins. As a result

1 minute read

Read Chapter

MRS. ANNA OTTENDORFER.

"Whenever our people gratefully point out their benefactors, whenever the Germans in America speak of those who are objects of their veneration and their pride, the name of Anna Ottendorfer will assuredly be among the first. For all time to come her memory and her work will be blessed." Thus spoke the Hon. Carl Schurz at the bier of Mrs. Ottendorfer in the spring of 1884. Anna Behr was born in Würzburg, Bavaria, in a simple home, Feb. 13, 1815. In 1837, when twenty-two years old, she came to Ame

2 minute read

Read Chapter

DANIEL P. STONE AND VALERIA G. STONE.

When Mr. Stone, who was a dry-goods merchant of Boston, died in Malden, Mass., in 1878, it was agreed between him and his wife, Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, that the property earned and saved by them should be given to charity. While Mrs. Stone lived she gave generously; and at her death, Jan. 15, 1884, over eighty years old, she gave away more than $2,000,000. To Andover Theological Seminary, to the American Missionary Association for schools among the colored people, $150,000 each, and much to aid s

47 minute read

Read Chapter

SAMUEL WILLISTON,

The giver of over one million and a half dollars was born at Easthampton, Mass., July 17, 1795. He was the son of the Rev. Payson Williston, first pastor of the First Church in Easthampton in 1789, and the grandson of the Rev. Noah Williston of West Haven, Conn., on his father's side, and of the Rev. Nathan Birdseye of Stratford, Conn., on his mother's. As the salary of the father probably never exceeded $350 yearly, the family were brought up in the strictest economy. At ten years of age the bo

10 minute read

Read Chapter

DANIEL HAND

Was born in Madison, Conn., July 16, 1801. He was descended from good Puritan ancestors, who came to this country in 1635 from Maidstone, Kent, England. His grandfather on his father's side served in the War of the Revolution, and his ancestors on his mother's side both in the old French War and the Revolutionary War. Daniel, one of seven boys, lived on a farm till he was about sixteen years of age, when he went to Augusta, Ga., in 1818, with an uncle, Daniel Meigs, a merchant of that place and

6 minute read

Read Chapter

GEORGE T. ANGELL.

George T. Angell, the president and founder of "The American Humane Education Society," and president and one of the founders of "The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals," deserves, with the late lamented Henry Bergh of New York, the thanks of the nation for their noble work in teaching kindness to dumb creatures, and preventing cruelty. No charity can lie nearer to my own heart than the societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Mr. Angell, now seventy-three

4 minute read

Read Chapter

WILLIAM W. CORCORAN AND HIS ART GALLERY.

William Wilson Corcoran was born Dec. 27, 1798, at Georgetown, D.C. He was the son of Thomas Corcoran, who settled in Georgetown when a youth, and became one of its leading citizens. He was mayor, postmaster, and one of the founders of the Columbian College, of which institution he was an active trustee while he lived. He was also one of the principal founders of two Episcopal churches in Georgetown, St. John's and Christ's Church, and was always a vestryman in one or the other. His son William,

6 minute read

Read Chapter

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER AND CHICAGO UNIVERSITY.

From our windows we look out upon a forest of beautiful beech-trees, great oaks, and maples. There are well-kept drives, cool ravines with tasteful walks, a pretty lake and boat-house, and great stretches of lawn, in the four hundred or more acres, such as one sees in England. The gravelled roadways are appropriately named. "Blithedale" leads into a charming valley, through which a brook winds in and out, under a dozen bridges. The "Maze" leads through clusters of beeches and other undergrowth,

32 minute read

Read Chapter