



Produced by Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet
Archive/American Libraries.)









The Riverside Biographical Series

NUMBER 4


PETER COOPER

BY

ROSSITER W. RAYMOND





=The Riverside Biographical Series=

          1. ANDREW JACKSON, by W. G. BROWN.
          2. JAMES B. EADS, by LOUIS HOW.
          3. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, by PAUL E. MORE.
          4. PETER COOPER, by R. W. RAYMOND.
          5. THOMAS JEFFERSON, by H. C. MERWIN.
          6. WILLIAM PENN, by GEORGE HODGES.
          7. GENERAL GRANT, by WALTER ALLEN.
          8. LEWIS AND CLARK, by WILLIAM R. LIGHTON.
          9. JOHN MARSHALL, by JAMES B. THAYER.
          10. ALEXANDER HAMILTON, by CHAS. A. CONANT.
          11. WASHINGTON IRVING, by H. W. BOYNTON.
          12. PAUL JONES, by HUTCHINS HAPGOOD.
          13. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, by W. G. BROWN.
          14. SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN, by H. D. SEDGWICK, Jr.

          Each about 140 pages, 16mo, with photogravure
          portrait, 65 cents, _net_; _School Edition_, each,
          50 cents, _net_.

          HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
          BOSTON AND NEW YORK





[Illustration: (signed) Peter Cooper]




PETER COOPER

BY

ROSSITER W. RAYMOND

[Illustration]

          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
          HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
          =The Riverside Press Cambridge=




          COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY ROSSITER W. RAYMOND.
          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




CONTENTS


  CHAP.                                   PAGE
  PREFACE                                  vii
     I. ANCESTRY                             1
    II. BOYHOOD AND YOUTH                   10
   III. BUSINESS VENTURES                   16
    IV. INVENTIONS                          29
     V. THE TOM THUMB                       38
    VI. MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS                   52
   VII. THE COOPER UNION FOR THE
          ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART    64
  VIII. NATIONAL POLITICS                   96
    IX. THE END                            104




PREFACE


DURING the last decade of Peter Cooper's life, the writer of this
biographical sketch enjoyed some degree of intimacy with him, as
professional adviser and traveling companion, and also, incidentally, as
consulting engineer of the firm of Cooper and Hewitt, and manager of a
department in the Cooper Union. This circumstance, together with the
preference kindly expressed by Mr. Cooper's family, doubtless influenced
the selection of the writer for the honorable task of preparing this
book,--a task which was welcome as a labor of love, though the execution
of it has been hindered and impaired by the demands of other duties. The
real difficulty has been to compress within the prescribed limits a
story covering so many years and so many topics, yet not possessing
those features of dramatic action or adventure which could be treated
briefly, with picturesque effect.

Mr. Cooper's family has kindly furnished abundant material for this
work, including, besides his own published utterances, the notes of the
stenographer to whom Mr. Cooper, in the last years of his life, dictated
his "reminiscences." The use which has been made of these will be
evident to the reader. Beyond an occasional revelation of the character
of the speaker, or a side-light thrown upon the manners and conditions
of our early national life, they have not furnished valuable data; and
the study of them suggests an observation which may be heeded with
advantage in similar cases hereafter, though it comes too late to be
useful in this instance, namely, that the recollections of old people
with retentive memories, like Peter Cooper, may be invaluable, if they
are intelligently aroused and guided; but if the speakers (as in his
case) are left to their own initiative, they are too likely to furnish
superfluous accounts of events already described more accurately in
authentic contemporaneous records.

It has not been practicable to preserve, in the treatment of the
subject, a strictly chronological order. As the titles of the several
chapters indicate, the different lines of Mr. Cooper's activity have
been considered, to some extent, separately, so that their periods
overlap each other.

This sketch of Mr. Cooper's career furnishes the elements of an
analysis, which I introduce here, as a guide in the interpretation of
what is to follow.

1. The time of his birth and the prophetic anticipations of his parents
profoundly influenced his ambition to do something great for his
fellow-citizens of the republic whose life began so nearly with his own