Journalist, reformer and philanthropist. The life of Horace Greeley; with graphic notices of important historical events, political movements, and emi
Ingersoll, Lurton Dunham.
I ■ ■ Ik*. f™*< I 'When you leave, please leave this book Because it has been said "Ever'thing comes t' him who waits Except a loaned book." Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/journalistreformOOinge 8(0 2 The journalist, reformer and philanthropist. The Life OF HOE ACE GrEEELET; WITH GRAPHIC NOTICES OF IMPORTANT HISTORICAL EVENTS, POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, AND EMINENT JOURNAL- ISTS, POLITICIANS AND STATESMEN Of His Times. BY L. D. INGERSOLL, ESQ S ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS AND OTHER ENGRAVINGS. John PHILADELPHIA: E. Potter and Company, No. 617 SANSOM STREET. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by JOHN E. POTTER AND COMPANY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PklLADELPttlA"^ PREFACE. Soon after the death of Horace Greeley, I was advised to write a biography of him. I had occupied much time for many years in studies preparatory to the composition of a historical work upon American politics, and was already familiar with most of the events of Mr. Greeley's life. I felt some hesitancy in undertaking such a task, believing that others more capable would write more acceptably. But some of my friends urged the matter so earnestly that I finally yielded to the arguments which were advanced in behalf of a biography of the Great Editor. The result is herewith submitted to the public. I have not written so much for scholars and men of letters as for the people, of whom Horace Greeley was one. He was never at ease in polite society ; or, it might with more exactness, perhaps, be stated, polite society never was at ease with him. He was ever making himself vulnerable to criticisms of eti- quette. In delineating his life I shall, perhaps, be guilty of a like offense. I do not say this to deprecate criticism, but only to ask a candid examination of the object with which the volume has been written. My design has been to so construct the work that it would present a connected series of portraits of Mr. Greeley, in his multiform manifestations of character and genius, rather than a strictly chronological account of his life, whereby the unity of time would be preserved in the penalty of a succession of broken pictures. I have also endeavored to present him as he was ; not a single character in a monologue, PREFACE. but surrounded by friends and encompassed by opponents ; he and they fulfilling their destinies together and, in friendship or in antagonism, controlling events and making history. Mr. Greeley, though a man of the people, was a reformer, a politician, a statesman, a leader. He was noted as a philan- thropist, a lecturer, a public speaker, a journalist, an author. In one way or another, he impressed his influence upon most of his countrymen, and upon much of his country's wisest legis- lation. Of a man so remarkably one of themselves, the people will naturally desire to learn as much as they can, as soon as they can. If I have in this work presented them with the true outlines of a life of beautiful simplicity, of real grandeur, of vast influence in behalf of the elevation and happiness of all men ; and have also shown how he was helped by those with whom he labored, and how many of his desired reforms were retarded by those who opposed, — if I have succeeded in truly picturing forth the life of a good, a great and an honest man, though not a perfect character, my labors will not have been in vain, THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS CHAPTEE I. HORACE GREELEY'S BIRTH — ANCESTRY — BOYHOOD. Birth of Horace Greeley — Ancestry; Father, Grandfather, Great-grand- father— His Mother, Mary Woodburn — Her Energy, Stories, Good Nature — The Woodburn Family— Of the Scotch-Irish Race — The Puritans Fond of Fun — Birth-place — Learns to Read Books Upside Down — First School Days — A Prodigy at Spelling — Hard Work on the Farm — Old Fashioned New Hampshire Hospitality — The Greeley Family sold out of House and Home 17 CHAPTEE II. APPRENTICESHIP. Removal of the Ruined Family to Vermont — Poverty of the Manly American Sort — Vermont Schools — Horace Keeps a Sort of Night School — An Omnivorous Reader — "Clearing" Timber Lands — Flea Knoll — The Ague — A Respected Poor Family — Review of Farmer- Boy Life — Horace chooses the Printer's Trade — Apprenticeship at Poultney in the Northern Spectator Office — Dramatic Account of the Contract — Family Remove to Western Pennsylvania — A Sad Part- ing— Horace as a Printer — An Authority in Politics and General Knowledge — Anecdotes — An Excellent " Checker " Player — His Uncouth Toilet — Takes Down a " Swell " — Sends His Earnings Home — Journeys to Pennsylvania — First Essays in Writing — A Fugitive Slave-Chase — Fiftieth Anniversary of Independence — Learn- ing a Trade Better than a College Education. 31 CHAPTEE III. A JOURNEYMAN PRINTER. Departure from Poultney — Visits his Father — Works as a Journeyman at Jamestown and Lodi, New York — Chopping Wood Again — Em- ployed on the Erie (Pennsylvania) Gazette — Offered a Partnership; CONTENTS. Declines — Returns To His Father's — In Yain Tries to Procure Work in the West — Resolves to Go to New-York — Divides his Earnings with his Father — The Journey to New -York — Arrival There with a Cash Capital of Ten Dollars — Diligent Search for Work — Sets up a " Lean " New Testament — Chicken-pox Proof — Varied Experience as a Journeyman in the Great City — Steady Progress — Visits New England — Business on his own Account 51 CHAPTEE IV. SOCIAL MORALS — FAITH — POLITICS. Horace Greeley a Born Reformer — A New England Pioneer of Tem- perance— Opposition to the Use of Tobacco — His Religious Faith — His Own Statement as to How He Became a Universalist — A Very Young Politician — Discussion of the Slavery Question in 1819-20 — An Anti-Slavery Boy — The "Era of Good Feeling" — Era of Per- sonal-Preference Parties — Election of John Quincy Adams to the Presidency — The " Anti- Mason " Excitement — Jackson Elected President in 1828 — Defeat of Henry Clay in 1832 — Horace Greeley Goes into Business for Himself _..62 CHAPTEE V. BUSINESS VENTURES IN NEW -YORK. Partnership with Francis V. Story — A Bank Note Reporter and The Morning Post — Failure of the Penny Daily — Dr. Shepard — Mr Schols — Weathering the Storm — Partner Drowned in East River — Mr. Jonas Winchester, next Partner — The New-Yorker — The City Political Contest of 1834 — Prints and Partially Edits a Campaign Paper — A "Grahamite" Boarding- House — Marriage — Clay, Cal- houn, Crittenden — Severe Struggle with the Hard Times of 1837 — The New-Yorker Continued, though burdened by Debts — Finally It Goes Up in .Flame and Smoke 76 CHAPTEE VI. CHIEFLY OF THE "LOG -CABIN" CAMPAIGN. The Presidential Election of 1836— "Old Hickory " — Greeley's Opinion of Martin Van Buren — Thurlow Weed Calls ©n Mr. Greeley — The Latter Induced to Take Charge of a " Campaign" Paper at Albany — The Jeffersonian — A Model Political "Organ" — The Graves and Cilley Duel — Success of the Whigs in New York State — William H. Seward Elected Governor — The Remarkable Presidential Campaign of 1840 — The Harrisburgh Convention — Nomination of General Har- rison— "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too " — Log-Cabins and Hard Cider — CONTENTS. Mr. Greeley Edits The Log -Cabin Newspaper — Its Character — Pro- digious Success — The Nation Aroused — Notices of Some of the Most Noted Orators — Triumph — The Death of President Harrison — Mr. Greeley Determines to Establish a Daily Journal in New- York 85 CHAPTER VII. FOUNDER OF THE NEW -YORK TRIBUNE. Resume of Public Journalism up to the Time of the New-York Tribune — The Partisan Press — "Organs" — Noted Party Editors: Isaac Hill, Thomas Ritchie, Edwin Croswell, Duff Green, Andrew Jackson, Amos Kendall, Francis P. Blair, John C. Rives; "The Kitchen Cabinet " — The National Intelligencer — Gales and Seaton — Charles Hammond ; George D. Prentice — New- York Journalism Goes to the Front — The Six -Penny Journals — William C. Bryant, James Watson Webb, and Other Journalists of the Old Regime — The Cheap Press — The New- York Sun — The Herald and James Gordon Bennett — The Herald Originally a Journal Without Principle — A Newspaper Vacuum Thereby Caused — Horace Greeley Establishes The Tribune, Price One Cent — Its Early History — Mr. Thomas McElrath — Character of The Tribune — Devoted to the Welfare of the People — Welcomes All New Ideas — Success 102 CHAPTER VIII. THE TRIBUNE — HISTORY— EDITORS AND CORRESPONDENTS. Early Successes of The Tribune — Contest with The Sun — Henry J. Ray- mond, First Assistant Editor — Establishment of The Weekly Tribune- Its Remarkable Success — The Era of Newspaper Expresses — Foreign News and Correspondence — Distinguished Correspondents, at this Time and Afterwards, of The Tribune — Bayard Taylor; Margaret Fuller; Thomas Hughes; Emilio Castelar; M. D. Conway; G. W. Smalley ; Kane O'Donnell — Notable Associate Editors of The Tribune — Charles A. Dana; George Ripley; Solon Robinson; William H. Fry; George M. Snow; and Others — Hearty Accord of All with Mr. Gree- ley's General Views — A Journal Earnestly Devoted to the Welfare of the People — The Fenimore Cooper Libel Suits 119 CHAPTER IX. SOCIALISM AND OTHER "ISMS." Mr. Greeley's Socialism — His Mature Views as Set Forth by Himself — The Famous Discussion With Mr. Raymond — The Effect of Mr. Greeley's Supposed Opinions Upon New -York Journalism — Estab- lishment of The Times — " Grahamism " — Spiritualism — Jenny Lind CONTENTS. Attends "the Rappings" at Mr. Greeley's House — Summing up of His "Isms." 146 CHAPTER X. FINAL DEFEAT OF HENRY CLAY. The Presidential Campaign of 1844 — Henry Clay the Whig Candidate for President — Other Candidates — "The Clay Tribune " — Mr. Greeley's Labours with Tongue and Voice — George D. Prentice of the Louisville Journal — An Animated Campaign — Defeat — Mr. Greeley Greatly Dis- satisfied with the Result — His Opinion of Henry Clay._ 160 CHAPTER XI. CONTINUATION OF TRIBUNE HISTORY. The Tribune and Literature — Inaugurates A New Era of Criticism — Ed- gar A. Poe — A High-Priced Autograph — The Tribune Brings Out the Transcendentalists — Margaret Fuller ; Her Contributions to the Trib- une— Mr. Greeley's Tribute to Her Genius — Notices of American Female Journalists — Charles Dickens — Mr. Greeley's Early Recogni- tion of his Genius — His First Visit to America — Washington Irving's "Break Down" at the Dickens Dinner — Mr. Dickens's Second Visit — Mr. Greeley Presides at the New- York Dinner — A Notable Gathering — Mr. Greeley's Great Services to Literature — Contributions of Tribune Writers to Permanent Literature 168 CHAPTER XII. ERA OF THE MEXICAN WAR— GEN. TAYLOR, PRESIDENT. The Tribune from 1844 to 1848 — Its Era of Irrepressible Conflicts — Rapid Review of its Battles — Moves on to Anti-Slavery — Its Hostility to the War with Mexico — Enthusiastic Sympathy with Popular Movements in Europe — " Slieve-gammon " — Tribune Office Burned — Mr. Gree- ley Visits the West — The Presidential Campaign of 1848 — Mr. Gree- ley Dissatisfied with the Nomination of General Taylor — Declines to Support the Ticket — Speech at Vauxhall Garden — Nominated for Congress — Taylor and Clay 188 CHAPTER XIII. A MEMBER OF CONGRESS. Elected to Congress for "a Short Term " — His Opinion of the Chaplaincy — Land Reform — The Famous Congressional Mileage Expose — Ani- mated Debates — Tilt with "Long John" Wentworth on the Tariff CONTENTS. Question — A Lively Debate on Congressional Books— Speech on Re- cruiting in the Army — Speeches on the California and New Mexico Bills — The Last Night of the Session — "War Between the North and kouth Begun" — Some of His Distinguished Fellow-Members: — Messrs. Winthrop; Lincoln; Collamer; Giddings; Schenck; Horace Mann; Andrew Johnson; Ashmun; Wentworth; Cobb; R. W. Thompson; Jacob Thompson ; George W. Jones, of Tennessee ; Stephens ; Toombs ; Botts; John S. Pendleton; and others— Address To his Constituents — Congress Then and Now 205 CHAPTEE XIY. VISITS EUROPE. Crossing the Atlantic — The Great Exhibition at London — A Juror — Sight-seeing — Mr. Greeley's Opinion of London — His Opinion of the English and American Press — Visits Paris — Views of Parisian Morals and Social Life — Predicts the Stability of the Republic — Journey to Lyons — Palaces and Potatoes — Proceeds to Italy — Sardinia — Rome — St. Peter's and the Coliseum — The People — Journey to Venice — Switzerland — Germany — Belgium — Paris Again — Returns to London — Glances at Scotland and Ireland — Opinion of the English People — Home 231 CHAPTEE XY. OX THE PLATFORM— REVISITS EUROPE. Mr. Greeley On the Platform — His First Lecture: "Human Life" — His Style of Public Speaking — Publishes a Volume of Lectures and Es- says, Entitled "Hints Towards Reforms " — Declines to Address a Literary Society — Characteristic Letter — A Letter Misinterpreted — Does Not "Fail to Connect" — Agricultural Addresses — The Indiana Agricultural Fair of 1853 — Mr. Greeley's Address— The Night Ride on a Hand-car — Revisits Europe — Several Weeks of Leisure — Two Days in a French Prison — His Amusing Account of His Incarceration — Switzerland and the Glaciers — A Presentiment — Return to America. - 2G0 CHAPTEE XVI. CAMPAIGN OF 1852— THE WHIG PARTY EXIT. The Dawn of a New Political Era— The Political Canvass of 1852 — The Nominations — Mr. Greeley Mildly Supports General Scott, and "Spits Upon the Platform " — His Individual Platform — A Lively Campaign Terminating in Utter Rout 285 CONTEXTS. CHAPTEE XYII. MR. GREELEY AND THE NEW POLITICAL ERA. Review of Mr. Greeley's Past Political Life — Of the Parties of the Times — The Day of Small Things — The Compromise Measures of 1850 — Mr. Greeley's Opinion of Them — Renewed Agitation of the Slavery Question — The Political Influence of Mrs. Stowe's Novel. "Uncle Tom's Cabin " — Of the Public Press — Mr. Greeley Departs on the New Departure 290 CHAPTEE XVIII. 1854 TO 1860. Mr. Greeley in the Political Contests of the Time — The Renewal of Slavery Agitation — The Kansas-Nebraska Struggle — Messrs. Sumner, Chase, Wade, Seward, Fessenden — The Know-Nothing Party — Mr. Greeley opposes it — "The Banks Congress" — Mr. Greeley Assaulted — General Banks — Organization of the Republican Party — The Fre- mont-Buchanan Campaign — Defeat of the Republicans — The Kansas War — "Lecompton" — Senator Douglas Defends Popular Sovereignty — Senator David C. Broderick, of California — Edward D. Baker — The Lincoln-Douglas Debates — The Tribune on the Side of Douglas — Mr. Greelej- Travels Overland to California — Extracts from His Letters — Buffaloes, Prairie-Dogs, and Indians — Life at Denver in 1859 — Brig- ham Young and Mormonism — Honours in California — Receptions and Addresses — The Yosemite — The Pacific Railroad — Return — John Brown 296 CHAPTEE XIX. THE QUADRILATERAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860. The Division of Parties in 1860 — Rupture of the Democratic National Convention at Charleston, South Carolina — The Chicago Convention — Popular Enthusiasm — Mr. Greeley a Delegate from Oregon — Sup- ports Edward Bates for President— He Defeats Mr. Seward's Nomina- tion— "Greeley at the Tremont, Weed at the Richmond House" — Mr. Weed's Chagrin — Eminent Men of the Convention: Thomas Corwin; David Wilmot ; William M. Evarts ; Joshua R. Giddings ; Carl Schurz ; John A. Andrew; Cassius M. Clay; and others — The Imbroglio Among New-York Politicians — Mr. Raymond, from Auburn, Assails Mr. Greeley— The Famous Letter Dissolving the Firm of "Seward, Weed and Greeley" — Mr. Weed's Wisdom — Two Democratic Tickets Nom- inated—The "Bell-Everett" Ticket — The Candidates — The Cam- paign — Success 337 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XX. HOME LIFE. Horace Greeley at Home— An Unpretending Household — Margaret Ful- ler's Description of Mr. Greeley's Home — His Personal Habits — Toilet — Food — His Hospitality— Tenderness for His Children — The Death of "Pickie" — His Taste as to Home Adornments — Buys a Farm. 357 CHAPTER XXI. HORACE GREELEY, THE FARMER. His Love of Rural Life — But Not of Ox-Life — His Wife's Judgment Principally Consulted as to The Farm Site — Chappaqua — A Descrip- tion of the Place — The First Forest Home There — Mr. Greeley's Mode of Improving the Place — His Practical Farming — The Later Home — General Facts as to his Farmer-Life — His Work Entitled " What I Know of Farming" — The Subject of Innumerable Jests — Their Effect Upon Him 372 CHAPTER XXII. THE WAR OF THE REBELLION BEGUN. The Election of Abraham Lincoln Made a Pretext for War — Mr. Greeley's Opinion upon the Right of Secession — He Demands a Vote of the South ern People, Expressing a Willingness to Abide by the Result — A Reply to Mr. Thurlow Weed's Assertion that Mr. Greeley was a Secessionist — A Candidate for United State Senator — The Tribune During the Early Part of the War — "On To Richmond!" — Mr. Fitz Henry Warren's Washington Letters — The Washington Extemporaneous Club of Critics — The Defeat of Bull Run— Its Cause — Mr. Greeley "Stampeded" — Messrs. Dana and Warren Retire from The Tribune — Secretary Stanton — His Letter to Mr. Greeley — Organizes Victory for the Union Arms — The Policy of The Tribune 387 CHAPTER XXIII. THE WAR OF THE REBELLION CONTINUES. Correspondence with President Lincoln — The Mob of 1863 — Mr. Lincoln Re-elected President — General McClellan the Opposing Candidate — General Fremont and Montgomery Blair Withdraw — Mr. Greeley's Peace Negotiations — The Rebel Negotiations — The Military Cam- paigns of 1804 -65 under Grant and Sherman— Victory — The Death of President Lincoln— Hoiace Gieeley's Opinion of Him as aWar Presi- CONTEXTS. dent — President Andrew Johnson — Mr. Greeley Undertakes to Bring About a Reconciliation Between the President and Congress — The President Impeached — Failure 404 CHAPTEE XXIV. HORACE GREELEY AXD JEFFERSON DAVIS. Jefferson Davis, Escaping from Richmond, Is Captured — Confined at Fortress Monroe — Impracticability of Trial — Horace Greeley's Inter- view with Senator Wade, of Ohio, on the Subject of Bailing Mr. Davis — Mr. Greeley is Dissuaded from the Project — But at Length Finally Resolves to Go Upon the Bond — Visits Richmond for that Purpose — The Scene in the Court Room — Mr. Greeley's Richmond Speech — Effect of this Act of Magnanimity Upon the Public ..427 CHAPTEE XXY. MORE HISTORY OF THE TRIBUNE. More of The Tribune's •'Isms" — Proudhon — Endorses the Principle of the " Woman's Rights" Reform — Advocates Labour Reform — Asso- ciation Adopted in The Tribune Office — An Era of Energetic Idium — A Description of The Tribune Establishment — How the Paper is Edited — Mention of Tribune "Writers — The Composition Room — Press Room — Counting Room — The "Weekly" Day — Resume of Tribune History from Its Beginning _ 439 CHAPTEE XXYI. THE AUTHOR OF BOOKS. Mr. Greeley in Permanent Literature — His Labours on Political Manuals — Edits a Life of Henry Clay — M Hints Towards Reforms " — " Glances at Europe " — * Overland Journey to California " — " What I Know of Farming" —"The American Conflict" — A Work Upon Polit- ical Economy — "Recollections of a Busy Life " — Estimate of Mr. Greeley as an Author 487 CHAPTEE XXVII. 1863 TO 1872. The Presidential Campaign of 1868 — domination of General Grant by the Republicans and of Horatio Seymour by the Democrats — Mr. Greeley Supports General Grant — The Canvass — Success of the Republicans — President Grant's First Cabinet — He Secures the Wrath of Professional Politicians — Mr. Greeley at First Sustains the Admin- CONTENTS. istration — A Candidate for Congress Against S. S. Cox — The 11 Revenue Reform " Movement — The Formation of a New Party Undertaken — The Ideas of Its Representative Men — Mr. Greeley Not at First in the Movement 507 CHAPTER XXVIII. A TOUR OF THE SOUTH. Mr. Greeley Visits Texas — An Account of this Southern Tour — He Emphatically Assails "the Carpet-Baggers" as a Class — The Effect of the Tour Upon His Political Opinions.. 519 CHAPTER XXIX. A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Organization of the Liberal Republican Party — Preliminary Tactics — Debates in the Senate — Eminent Republicans Join in the Movement — The Cincinnati Convention — Candidates for Nomination — Mr. Gree- ley Successful — The National Democratic Convention at Baltimore — The Cincinnati Ticket Endorsed — The Republican National Con- vention and its Candidates — The Canvass — Death of Mrs. Greeley — Defeat — At Work Again on The Tribune _ 530 CHAPTER XXX. LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND FUNERAL. Mr. Greeley Suddenly Prostrated by Alarming Illness — The Public* Interest in the State of His Ailment — His Death from Disease of the Brain — Circumstances Attending His Last Hours — The Causes of His Death Manifold — Work, the Criterion of Age — His Funeral — Attended by the President and Members of the Cabinet, the Vice- President and Many Eminent Men — The Procession to the Grave — A City in Mourning ... 557 CHAPTER XXXI. TO SUM THE WHOLE — THE CLOSE OF ALL. Review of the Private Life and Public Services of Mr. Greeley — Estimate of His Genius — His Character — The Services He Rendered His Country and Mankind — A Friend of the Labouring Man, One of the People, a Great, a Good, and an Honest Man, though Not a Perfect Character 597 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Steel Portrait of Horace Greeley Frontispiece. Horace Greeley's Birthplace 22 Horace Greeley's First School 30 Horace Greeley's Arrival in New York. 50 Thurlow Weed 61 James Gordon Bennett 75 Henry J. Raymond 84 First Meeting of Horace Greeley with Thurlow Weed 88 Grand Political Barbecue of 1840 100 William Cullen Bryant 118 Sarah Margaret Fuller 167 Charles A. Dana 204 Wiiitelaw Reid 289 Harriet Beecher Stowe 295 General Edward D. Baker 336 William H. Seward 340 J. Russell Young 356 Dr. Charles H. Ray 371 Horace Greeley's Late Home at Chappaqua 372 The Clump of Evergreens 376 The House in the Woods 378 Horace Greeley in his Orchard 384 Murat Halstead. 386 Abraham Lincoln 388 Edwin M. Stanton 400 Samuel Bowles 403 The Tribune Building, Printing-House Square, New York 438 Horace Greeley's Editorial Room 452 Facsimile of Horace Greeley's Penmanship 480 James Gordon Bennett, Jun 486 M Anton Marble 506 Allen G. Thurman 529 John W. Forney 547 The Body of Horace Greeley Lying in State in the City Hall, New York 550 The Funeral Procession 554 Dust to Dust 556 THE LIFE OF HOBACE GREELEY. CII APTEE I. HORACE GREELEY'S BIRTH — ANCESTRY — BOYHOOD. Birth of Horace Greeley — Ancestry ; Father, Grandfather, Great-grand- father — His Mother, Mary Woodburn — Her Energy, Stories, Good Nature — The Woodburn Family— Of the Scotch- Irish Race — The Puritans Fond of Fun — Birth - place — Learns to Read Books Upside Down — First School Days — A Prodigy at Spelling — Hard Work on the Farm — Old Fashioned New Hampshire Hospitality — The Greeley Family sold out of House and Home. Hoeace Greeley, who became the founder of the New- York Tribune, the most eminent journalist of his times, and one of the most useful and distinguished of men, was born February 3d, 1811, in the town (called township in many parts of the United States) of Amherst, Hillsborough county, New Hamp- shire. He was the third of seven children, of whom the two elder died before his birth. The father of Horace was Zaccheus Greeley, the mother Mary Woodburn, and they had been married about four years when the little stranger who was destined, to become so cele- brated first opened his eyes to the light of day. Holy Writ informs us, in a text that has perplexed many minds, that God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of ' them that hate Him ; which is but a forcible way of saying to a nation of rude men, more 2 18 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. easily persuaded through fear than otherwise, that like pro- duces like. It is, after all, but the enunciation of a law of nature believed to be universal. Notwithstanding certain modern hypotheses stated with wonderful ingenuity and subtle- ty, there has yet been no demonstration, or approach to it, that corn ever produced anything but corn, fruits anything but fruits, apes anything but apes, man anything but man. The good and ill qualities of races, families, individuals, descend from father to son no less certainly, though not always so pal- pably, as wheat springs from wheat. Horace Greeley had the advantage of an ancestry of industrious, frugal, honest, respect- able, christian families, both on the side of his father and mother for several generations. Three brothers named Gree- ley (spelled nearly as many different ways as the name of Shakespeare) migrated to America from Nottingham, England, twenty years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Kock. One of them settled in Maine, where there are many descendants; another in Ehode Island; the third, in Massa- chusetts, near the southern line of New Hampshire, into which State his descendants soon migrated. " The Greeley s of our clan," says Mr. Greeley, " while mainly farmers, are in part blacksmiths. Some of them have in this century engaged in trade, and are presumed to have acquired considerable property; but these are not of the tribe of Zaccheus."1 " My grandfather Greeley," he continues, " was a most ex- cellent, though never a thrifty, citizen. Kind, mild, easy-going, honest, and unambitious, he married young, and reared a family of thirteen, of whom he who died youngest was thirty years old; while a majority lived to be seventy, and three are yet living (1868), at least two of them having seen more than eighty summers. * * A devoted, consistent, life-long Chris- 1 Recollections of a Busy Life, p. 34. Mr. Part on, in his Life of Horace Greeley, speaks of " Old Captain Ezekial " Greeley in anything but com- plimentary terms, and makes him out as having been the great journalist's great-grandfather. Mr. Greeley himself expressly says, a few lines above the words just quoted from him, that his father, grandfather, and great- grandfather each bore the name of Zaccheus. He doubtless knew who his great-grandfather was as well as any one else. HIS MOTHER. 19 tian, — originally of the Baptist, but ultimately of the Meth- odist persuasion, — exemplary in deportment and blameless in life, I do not believe that my grandfather Greeley ever made an enemy; and, while he never held an office, and his property was probably at no time worth $2,000, and generally ranged from $1,000 to zero, I think few men were ever more sincerely and generally esteemed than he by those who knew him." This excellent and amiable man died in his fulness of days, aged ninety-four. We shall presently see that his son Zaccheus — the father of Horace — inherited the amiable qualities of his immediate ancestor as well as the faculty of reaching the zero point in the acquisition of property; the occasion which demonstrated the latter quality being certainly one of the sad- dest in the young days of Horace Greeley's life. The father died in December, IS 6 7, aged eighty-six, of which long life forty-two years had been spent in or on the verge of New Eng- land, and the remainder in his long retained home in Western Pennsylvania, whereof he had been one of the great band of hardy, industrious pioneers who cut down our American forests, let in the sun, and open the way for the triumphs of civilization and progress. Horace Greeley's mother was a woman ot remarkable nature. She had great strength of body as well as of mind. Though lacking in education, she had a natural refinement and delicacy of sentiment whose beauty and loveliness could not be con- cealed by her toilet of home-spun, nor lost in the drudgery of a hard-working destiny. "My mother," says Mr. Greeley himself, in that admirable series of Keeolleetions which he contributed to the New- York Ledger in 1868, " having lost her mother when but five years old, was, for the next few years, the especial proteg6e and favourite of her aged grandmother, who had migrated from Ireland when but fourteen years old, and whose store of Scottish and Scotch-Irish traditions, songs, anecdotes, shreds of history, etc., can have rarely been equalled. These she imparted freely to her eager, receptive granddaugh- ter, who was a glad, easy learner, whose schooling was better than that of most farmers' daughters in her day, and who naturally became a most omniverous and retentive reader. 20 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. There were many, doubtless, whose literary acquisitions were more accurate and more profound than hers ; but few can have been better qualified to interest or to stimulate the unfolding mind in its earliest stages of development." She is described as tall, muscular, well-formed, with the strength of a man without his coarseness, active in her habits, delighting in hard work, with a perpetual flow of animal spirits, and the heartiest good will toward all living things. " She worked," writes an informant of Mr. Parton, " indoors and out of doors. She hoed in the garden; she laboured in the field; and while doing more than the work of an ordinary man and an ordinary woman combined, would laugh and sing all day long, and tell stories all the evening." In describing a visit to the father's Pennsylvania homestead in 1830, Mr. Greeley says: "The cabin which my father had bought with his land was nothing to brag of. My mother — born half a century after the log-cabin stage of London- derry— could never be reconciled to this, nor to either of the two rather better ones that the family tenanted before it emerged into a poor sort of framed house. In fact, she had plunged into the primitive forest too late in life, and never became reconciled to the pioneer's inevitable discomforts. The chimney of the best log-house, she insisted, would smoke; and its roof, in a driving, drenching rain, would leak, do what you might. I think the shadow of the great woods oppressed her from the hour she first entered them; and, though removed but two generations from pioneer ancestors, she was never reconciled to what the less roughly bred must always deem privations and hardships. I never caught the old smile on her face, the familiar gladness in her mood, the hearty joy ful- ness in her manner, from the day she entered those woods until that of her death, nearly thirty years later, in August, 1855. Though not yet sixty-eight she had for years been worn out by hard work, and broken down in mind and body. Those who knew her only in her later years, when toil and trouble had gained the victory over her, never truly knew her at all." Such were the father and mother of Horace Greeley. His great-grandfather on the mother's side was John Woodburn, THE rUfOTANS. 21 one of the original Scotch-Irish settlers of Londonderry, New Hampshire. He had allotted to him a tract of 120 acres of land in 1721, and upon this farm Horace Greeley's mother was born, and there she was married to Horace Greeley's father. The farm is still in possession of the Woodburn family, though no price was ever paid for it, nor has a deed of it ever been given, or at any rate had not at the time Mr. Greeley prepared his " Recollections of a Busy Life." Hie earliest settlers of this portion of New Hampshire were from Londonderry, Ireland, and are generally described as Scotch- Irish — a race of fervid religious feelings, hard work, and notable pugnacity. Some of the original colonists had actually participated in the famous siege of Deny, and others, too young to fight, had been eye-witnesses of that remarkable exhibition of undaunted courage and sublime fortitude — courage and fortitude which, perhaps, secured success to the English revolution and gave the final victory to the Protestant cause. Others still of the colonists and their families had heard the story of the siege many times told by actual par- ticipants. Hence we may infer that the martial spirit was strong among Horace Greeley's ancestors; exhibited in him, in the pluck and vigour with which he overcame difficulties and oombatted opponents. These Scotch-Irish colonists and their descendants were no less noted for patriotism than for reli- gious principle. Many of them wTere distinguished in the old French war — 1756-1763 — and the subject of this sketch records with evident pride that, " from first to last, London- derry furnished 347 soldiers to the Revolutionary armies, while her whole number of adult males cannot have much exceeded 500." Not only were these people, among whom were Horace Greeley's ancestors, good fighters in their country's cause, devotedly religious, industrious, and frugal, but they were not the gloomy, world-despising race which they have been too often represented to be. Upon this point we have the full and express testimony of Mr. Greeley himself. He says: The current notion that the Puritans were a sour, morose, ascetic people — objecting, as Macaulay says, to bear-baiting, not that it gave 22 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. pain to the bear, but that it gave pleasure to the spectator — is not justified by my recollections, nor by the traditions handed down through my mother. The pioneers of Londonderry were so thoroughly Puritan that, while their original framed and well-built meeting-house was finished and occupied in the third year of the settlement, when there were none other but log huts in the township, nearly a century elapsed before any other than a Presbyterian or Orthodox Congregational sermon was preached therein, and nobody that was anybody adhered to any rival church, down to a period within the memory of persons still living. u The Westminster Shorter Catechism " — a rather tough digest of Calvinistic theology, which aroused my infantile wonder as to what a dreadful bore its longer counter- part must be — was, within my experience, regularly administered to us youngsiers once a week, as a portion of our common-school regimen ; and we were required to affirm that "God having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life," &c, &c, as though it were next of kin to the proposition that two and two made four. If there was anywhere a community strictly, thoroughly Puritan, such was Londonderry down to at least 1800, as she mainly is to-day. And yet there was more humour, more play, more fun, more merriment, in that Puritan community, than can be found anywhere in this anxious, plodding age. All were measurably poor, yet seldom were any hungry; all wore coarse clothes, made in utter contempt of the fashions which, in the course 01 three or four years, had made their way from Paris to Boston ; yet lads and lasses were as comely in each other's eyes, though clad in coarse Uoaiespun, as if they had been arrayed in purple and fine linen, and redolent of lavender and patchouli; and they danced with each other through long winter nights with a vigour and zest rarely evinced at Almack's or in Fifth Avenue mansions. Their weddings were far more numerously attended and more expensive than are the average in our day; for not to be invited was an affront, as it implied discre/litor insignificance ; and all who were invited expected to eat and drink bounti- fully of the best thai could be had. A general discharge of musketry throughout the neighborhood ushered in a wedding-day; and the bride- groom's party, starting from his house, was met by the bride's at a point half-way to hers, when one of each party was chosen to "run for the bottle" to the bride's house; and whichever won the race returned with the prize to the wedding assembly; which, having drunk all around, proceeded, under a dropping fire of musketry, to their destination; where — the ceremony having been duly performed — drinking was resumed, and continued, with alternate feasting and dancing, often till broad daylight. If the just renown which Horace Greeley achieved by his intellectual triumphs and his beneficent labours in behalf of the cause of man's moral, political, and social advancement has given new lustre to the name of the people among whom LEARNING TO READ. 23 lie was born and reared, it should be remembered that thence he received and acquired the qualities which did very much to enable him to win the first position in the most influential calling, and to earn even in his lifetime the candid respect of all men whose respect is worth having. Horace Greeley was born in humble circumstances. His father, sometime after his marriage, had bought a farm of forty acres (afterwards increased to fifty), most of which was situated in the town of Amherst, but some of it in the adjoin- ing town of Bedford. It was on the old road from Amoskeag Falls (now the thriving city of Manchester) to the village of Amherst, and about five miles from the latter. To this farm the family had removed about three years before the birth of Horace. The house in which he was born was a modest, framed, unpainted structure of one story, and at the time quite new. "It was only modified in our time," he long afterwards says, " by filling up and making narrower the old- fashioned kitchen fireplace, which, having already devoured all the wood on the farm, yawned ravenously for more." The dwelling, which still remains, faces the road from the north on a narrow plateau, about two-thirds down a hill, which was mostly covered by an orchard of natural fruit. In front was a patch of garden and a small frog-pond. Mr. Greeley always thought that sweeter and more spicy apples grew in the neglected orchard of his birthplace than can be bought in market; and insisted that it was not a mere notion that most fruits attain their highest and best flavour at or near the cold- est latitude in which they can be grown at all. Horace was for some years a feeble, sickly child, even unable to watch through a closed window the falling of rain without incurring instant and violent illness. He became the companion and confident of liis mother about as soon as he could talk, and the willing, interested listener to her store of ballad, story, anecdote, and tradition. He says : " I learned to read at her knee, — of course longer ago than I can remem- ber; but I can faintly recollect her sitting spinning at her 1 little wheel,' with the book in her lap, whence I was taking my daily lesson; and thus I soon acquired the facility of 24 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. reading from a book sidewise or upside down as readily as in the usual fashion, — a knack which I did not at first suppose peculiar; but which, being at length observed, became a sub- ject of neighbourhood wonder and fabulous exaggeration." Having so early learned to read in so singular a manner, Horace was sent to public school two months before he was three years of age. In order that so little a boy might attend school, he made his home for stated times with his grandfather Woodburn, the school-house of his district being but fifty rods from his house. Hence the precocious boy lived at his grandfather's, and went thence to school, most of each winter and some months in summer from the time he was three till he was six years of age. His first schoolmaster was David Woodburn Dickey, dis- tantly related to himself : a classical scholar, and an able, worthy man, but a severe governor of youth, and having prac- tical faith in the efficacy of birch and ferule. It appears clear that thus early in his life Horace Greeley manifested a strong antipathy to harsh punishments. His next teacher was Cyrus Winn, who rarely or never struck a blow, but governed by moral force and by appeals to the nobler impulses of his pupils. He was highly successful, and left at the close of his second term to the great regret of pupils and parents. His departure caused the first keen sorrow of Horace Greeley's life. He never saw his beloved teacher again, who was drowned during the following winter. The admirable start given Horace by his mother enabled him to make rapid progress in school. He was diligent, and quick to learn. He was especially clever in spelling, and very soon rose to the head of the first class, and retained that posi- tion almost constantly during the whole of his school-days. " It was a custom of the school," says Mr. Greeley, "to choose sides for a ( spelling-match ' one afternoon of each week, — the head of the first class in spelling and the pupil standing next being the choosers. In my case, however, it was found neces- sary to change the rule, and confide the choice to those who stood second and third respectively; as I — a mere infant of four years — could spell, but not choose, — often preferring my f lilts FIRST SCHOOLHOtTSE. 25 playmates who could not spell at all. These spelling-notches usually took place in the evening, when I could not keep my eyes open and should have been in bed. It was often neces- sary to rap me sharply when i the word' came around to me; but I never failed to respond; and it came to be said that I spelled as well asleep as awake. I apprehend that this was more likely to be true of some others of the class, who, if ever so sound asleep, could scarcely have spelled worse than they did."3 The present generation of school-boys, especially in our cities and towns, have little idea of school-day hardships fifty years ago. In nearly every Northern State, and now in many of the Southern States, one may find in every considerable town and city a public schoolhouse, often many, little less than palatial in size, built oftentimes at great expense, and with every consideration for the health and comfort of the pupils, and with all the " modern improvements " as to ventillation, water, heating apparatus, etc., which are found in the most celebrated hotels, with the exception, perhaps, of elevators. Upon these vast structures many millions of money have been expended, very much of which, undoubtedly, might have been more wisely laid out in more modest buildings of greater number and more attractive architecture. Horace Greeley was often carried through the snow to school by an affectionate aunt or the larger boys. When reached, the building was small, square, cheerless in situation, and comfortless within. 