Famous Givers and Their Gifts

The Newberry Library building, 300 feet by 60, of granite, is on the north side of Chicago, facing the little park known as Washington Square. It is Spanish-Romanesque in style, and has room for 1,000,000 books. There will be space for 4,000,000 volumes when the other portions of the library are added. A most necessary part of the work of the trustees was the choosing of a librarian with ability and experience to form a useful reference library, which it was decided that the Newberry Library should be, the Public Library, with its annual income of over $70,000, seeming to meet the needs of the people at large. Dr. William Frederick Poole, for fourteen years the efficient librarian of the Chicago Public Library, was chosen librarian of the Newberry Library.

Dictionaries, bibliographies, cyclopædias, and the like, were at once purchased. The first gift made to the library was the Caxton Memorial Bible, presented Sept. 29, 1877, by the Oxford University Press, through the late Henry Stevens, Esq., of London. The edition was limited to one hundred copies, and the copy presented to the Newberry Library is the ninety-eighth. Mr. George P. A. Healey, the distinguished artist, also gave about fifty of his valuable paintings to the library. Several thousand volumes on early American and local history, collected by Mr. Charles H. Guild of Somerville, Mass., were purchased by Dr. Poole for the library. A collection of 415 volumes of bound American newspapers, covering the period of the Civil War, 1861-1865, were procured. An extremely useful medical library has been given by Dr. Nicholas Senn, Professor of Surgery in Rush Medical College. A valuable collection on fish, fish culture, and angling, made during forty years by the publisher, Robert Clarke of Cincinnati, has been bought for the library. A very interesting collection of early books and manuscripts was purchased from Mr. Henry Probasco of Cincinnati. The collection of Bibles is very rich; also of Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Horace, and Petrarch. There were in 1895 over 125,600 volumes in the library, and over 30,000 pamphlets.

To the great regret of scholars everywhere, Dr. Poole died March 1, 1894. Born in Salem, Mass., Dec. 24, 1821, descended from an old English family, young Poole attended the common school in Danvers till he was twelve, helped his father on the farm, and learned the tanner's trade. He loved his books, and his good mother determined that he should have an opportunity to go back to his studies.

In 1842 he entered Yale College, at the close of the Freshman year, spent three years in teaching, and was graduated in 1849. While in college, he was appointed assistant librarian of his college society, the "Brothers in Unity," which had 10,000 volumes. He soon saw the necessity of an index for the bound sets of periodicals in the library, if they were to be of practical use, and began to make such an index. The little volume of one hundred and fifty-four pages appeared in 1848, and the edition was soon exhausted. A volume of five hundred and thirty-one pages appeared in 1853; and "Poole's Index" at once secured fame for its author, both at home and abroad.

Dr. Poole was the librarian of the Boston Athenæum for thirteen years, and accepted a position in Chicago, October, 1873, to form the public library. In 1882 Dr. Poole issued the third edition of his famous "Index to Periodical Literature," having 1,469 pages. In this work he had the co-operation of the American Library Association, the Library Association of Great Britain and Ireland, and the able assistance of Wm. I. Fletcher, M.A., librarian of Amherst College. Since Dr. Poole's death, Mr. Fletcher and Mr. R. R. Bowker have carried forward the Index, aided by many other librarians.

Dr. Poole was president of the American Historical Society, 1887, of the American Library Association 1886-1888, and had written much on historical and literary topics. The Boston Herald says, "Dr. Poole was a bibliographer of world-wide reputation, and one whose extended knowledge of books was simply wonderful." His "Index to Periodical Literature," invaluable to both writers and readers, will perpetuate his name. Dr. Poole was succeeded by the well-known author, Mr. John Vance Cheney, who had been eight years at the head of the San Francisco public library.

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 at the Grand Pacific Hotel until his death, Oct. 19, 1889. In his will he said, "I ask that I may be buried by the side of my honored mother, in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, N.Y., in the family lot, and that some of my many friends see that this request is complied with. I desire a plain headstone, similar to that which marks my mother's grave, to be raised over my head." The income of $1,000 was left to care for the family lot. He left various legacies to relatives. To first cousins he gave $20,000 each; to second cousins, $10,000; and to third cousins, $5,000 each. To one second cousin, on account of kindness to his mother, an additional $10,000; to the widow of a cousin, $10,000 for kindness to his only brother, Peter, then dead. To several other friends sums from $50,000 to $5,000 each.

To his partner he gave $50,000, and the same to his junior partner. To his own church, $100,000, and a like amount to the missions of the church. To the church in New York to which his family formerly belonged, and where he was baptized, $25,000. To the Chicago Orphan Asylum, the Chicago Nursery, the American Sunday-school Union, the Chicago Relief Society, the Illinois Training-School for Nurses, the Chicago Manual Training-School, the Old People's Home, the Home for the Friendless, the Young Men's Christian Association, each $50,000.

To the Chicago Historical Society, the St. Luke's Free Hospital, and the Chicago Bible Society, each $25,000. To St. Andrew's Society of New York and of Chicago, each $10,000. To the Chicago Literary Club, $10,000. For a statue of Abraham Lincoln, $100,000.

All the rest of the property, about three millions, was to be used for a free public library, to be called "The John Crerar Library," located on the South Side, inasmuch as the Newberry was to be on the North Side.

Mr. Crerar said in his will, "I desire the books and periodicals selected with a view to create and sustain a healthy moral and Christian sentiment in the community. I do not mean by this that there shall not be anything but hymn-books and sermons; but I mean that dirty French novels, and all sceptical trash, and works of questionable moral tone, shall never be found in this library. I want its atmosphere that of Christian refinement, and its aim and object the building up of character."

Mr. Crerar was fond of reading the best books. His liberality and love of literature helped to bring Thackeray to this country to lecture.

Some of the cousins of Mr. Crerar tried to break the will on the grounds put forth for breaking Mr. Tilden's will, whereby New York City failed to receive five or six millions for a public library. Fortunately the courts accepted the plain intention of the giver, and the property is now devoted to the public good through a great library largely devoted to science.

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 never gamble." Finding employment on a raft of timber, he earned enough money to procure a steerage passage from Holland to London, where he remained till 1783, helping his brother, and learning the English language. Having saved about seventy-five dollars at the end of three or four years, John Jacob invested about twenty-five in seven flutes, purchased a steerage ticket across the water for a like amount, and put about twenty-five in his pocket.

On the journey over he met a furrier, who told him that money could be made in buying furs from the Indians and men on the frontier, and selling them to large dealers. As soon as he reached New York, he entered the employ of a Quaker furrier, and learned all he could about the business, meantime selling his flutes, and using the money to buy furs from the Indians and hunters. He opened a little shop in New York for the sale of furs and musical instruments, walked nearly all over New York State in collecting his furs, and finally went back to London to sell his goods.

He married, probably in 1786, Sarah Todd, who brought as her marriage portion $300, and what was better still, economy, energy, and a willingness to share her husband's constant labors. As fast as a little money was saved he invested it in land, having great faith in the future of New York City. He lived most simply in the same house where he carried on his business, and after fifteen years found himself the owner of $250,000.

In 1809 he organized the American Fur Company, and established trade in furs with France, England, Germany, and Russia, and engaged in trade with China. He used to say in his old age, "The first hundred thousand dollars – that was hard to get; but afterward it was easy to make more."

He died March 29, 1848, leaving a fortune estimated at $20,000,000, much of it the result of increased values of land, on which he had built houses for rent. By will Mr. Astor conveyed the large sum, at that time, of $400,000 to found a public library; his friends, Washington Irving, Dr. Joseph G. Cogswell, and Fitz-Greene Halleck, the poet, who was his secretary for seventeen years, having advised the gift of a library when he expressed a desire to do something helpful for the city of New York. He also left $50,000 for the benefit of the poor in his native town of Waldorf.

John Jacob Astor's eldest son, and third of his seven children, William B. Astor, left and gave during his lifetime $550,000 to Astor Library. His estate of $45,000,000 was divided between his two sons, John Jacob and William. The son of John Jacob, William Waldorf Astor, a graduate of Columbia College, ex-minister to Italy, is a scholarly man, and the author of several books. The son of William Astor, John Jacob Astor, a graduate of Harvard, lives on Fifth Avenue, New York. He has also written one or more books.

In 1879 John Jacob, the grandson of the first Astor in this country, a graduate of Columbia College, a student of the University of Göttingen, and a graduate of the Harvard Law School, erected a third structure for the library similar to those built by his father and grandfather, and gave in all $850,000 to Astor Library. The entire building now has a frontage of two hundred feet, with a depth of one hundred feet. It is of brown-stone and brick, and is Byzantine in style of architecture. In 1893 its total number of volumes was 245,349.

Astor Library possesses some very rare and valuable books. "Here is one of the very few extant copies of Wyckliffe's translation of the New Testament in manuscript," writes Frederick K. Saunders, the librarian, in the New England Magazine for April, 1890, "so closely resembling black-letter type as almost to deceive even a practised eye. It is enriched with illuminated capitals, and its supposed date is 1390. It is said to have been once the property of Duke Humphrey. There is an Ethiopic manuscript on vellum, the service book of an Abyssinian convent at Jerusalem. There are two richly illuminated Persian manuscripts on vellum which once belonged to the library of the Mogul Emperors of Delhi; also two exquisitely illuminated missals or books of Hours, the gift of the late Mr. J. J. Astor. One of the glories of the collection is the splendid Salisbury Missal, written with wonderful skill, and profusely emblazoned with burnished gold. Here also may be found the second printed Bible, on vellum, folio, 1462, which cost $9,000."

Mrs. Astor gave a valuable collection of autographs of eminent persons; and the family also gave "a magnificent manuscript written with liquid gold, on purple vellum, entitled 'Evangelistarium,' of almost unrivalled beauty, but no less remarkable for its great age, the date being A.D. 870. This is probably the oldest book in America." Ptolemy's Geography is represented by fifteen editions, the earliest printed in 1478.

John Jacob Astor, the grandson of the first John Jacob, died in New York, Feb. 22, 1890. He presented to Trinity Church the reredos and altar, costing $80,000, as a memorial of his father, William B. Astor. Through his wife, who was a Miss Gibbs of South Carolina, he virtually built the New York Cancer Hospital, and gave largely to the Woman's Hospital. He gave $100,000 to St. Luke's Hospital, $50,000 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with his wife's superb collection of laces after her death in 1887. The paintings of John Jacob Astor costing $75,000 were presented to Astor Library by his son, William Waldorf Astor, after his father's death.

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 engaged in commerce, was the sole survivor of the six children of his father, Abelard Reynolds. He was proud of the family name; but "his childlessness, and the consciousness that with him the name was to be extinct, had come to weigh with a painful gravity." Abelard Reynolds had made a fortune from the increase in land values, and both he and his son William had interested themselves deeply in the intellectual and moral advance of the community in which they lived.

Mortimer F. Reynolds desired to leave a memorial of his father, of his brother, William Abelard Reynolds, and of himself. He wisely chose to found a library, that the name might be forever remembered. He died June 13, 1892, leaving nearly one million to found and endow the Reynolds Library of Rochester, N.Y., Alfred S. Collins, librarian.

It is stated in the press that President Seth Low of Columbia College has given over a million dollars for the new library in connection with that college.

In "Public Libraries of America," page 144, a most useful book by William I. Fletcher, librarian of Amherst College, may be found a suggestive list of the principal gifts to libraries in the United States. Among the larger bequests are Dr. James Rush, Philadelphia, $1,500,000; Henry Hall, St. Paul, Minn., $500,000; Charles E. Forbes, Northampton, Mass., $220,000; Mr. and Mrs. Converse, Malden, Mass., $125,000; Hiram Kelley, Chicago, to public library, $200,000; Silas Bronson, Waterbury, Conn., $200,000; Dr. Kirby Spencer, Minneapolis, Minn., $200,000; Mrs. Maria C. Robbins of Brooklyn, N.Y., to her former home, Arlington, Mass., for public library building and furnishing, $150,000.

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 connected with the history of Cambridge. The European note-book of Margaret Fuller is seen here, the lock, key, and hinges of the old Holmes mansion, removed to make way for the Law School, etc.

The library has six local stations where books may be ordered by filling out a slip; and these orders are gathered up three times a day, and books are sent to these stations the same day.

The City Hall, a large building also of gray stone with brown stone trimmings, is similar to the old town halls of Brussels, Bruges, and others of mediæval times. Its high tower can be seen at a great distance.

The other important gift to Cambridge from Mr. Rindge is a manual training-school for boys. Ground was broken for this school in the middle of July, 1888, and pupils were received in September. The boys work in wood, iron, blacksmithing, drawing, etc. The system is similar to that adopted by Professor Woodward at St. Louis. The boys, to protect their clothes, wear outer suits of dark brown and black duck, and round paper caps.

The fire-drill is especially interesting to strangers. Hose-carriages and ladders are kept in the building, and the boys can put streams of water to the top in a very brief time. Mr. Rindge supports the school. The instruction is free, and is a part of the public-school work. The pupils may take in the English High School a course of pure head-work, or part head-work and part hand-work. If they elect the latter, they drop one study, and in its place take three hours a day in manual training. The course covers three years.

Mr. Rindge inherited his wealth largely from his father. He made these gifts when he was twenty-nine years of age. Being an earnest Christian, he made it a condition of his gifts that verses of Scripture and maxims of conduct should be inscribed upon the walls of the various buildings. These are found on the library building; and the inscription on the City Hall reads as follows: "God has given commandments unto men. From these commandments men have framed laws by which to be governed. It is honorable and praiseworthy to faithfully serve the people by helping to administer these laws. If the laws are not enforced, the people are not well governed."

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 portrait painting. When he was twenty-five, in 1817, he determined to try his fortune in the New World, and reached the United States after a voyage of seventy-two days.

He settled in Philadelphia as an artist, with probably little expectation of any future wealth. After nine years of work he went to Peru, Chili, and Mexico, and seems to have had good success in painting the portraits of noted people, General Simon Bolivar among them.

Returning to Philadelphia, he surprised his acquaintances by starting a bank in 1837. There were fears of failure from what seemed an inadequate capital and lack of knowledge of business; but Mr. Drexel was economical, strictly honest, energetic, and devoted to his work.

He opened a little office in Third Street, and placed his son Anthony, born Sept. 13, 1826, in the small bank. "While waiting on customers," says Harper's Weekly, "the boy was in the habit of eating his cold dinner from a basket under the counter." He was but a lad of thirteen, yet he soon showed a special fitness for the place by his quickness and good sense.