Famous Givers and Their Gifts

Meissonnier's "Friedland, 1807" was purchased at the Stewart sale by Mr. Henry Hilton for $66,000, and presented to the museum. Mr. Stephen Whitney Phoenix, who gave so generously to Columbia College, was also, like Mr. George I. Seney, a great giver to the museum.

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 of this movement, the trustees accepted a gift from the committee of ladies, a sum which, with its accrued interest, amounted to $119,000, toward the endowment of a medical school to which 'women should be admitted upon the same terms which may be prescribed for men.'

"This gift was made in October, 1891; but as it was inadequate for the purposes proposed, Miss Mary E. Garrett, in addition to her previous subscriptions, offered to the trustees the sum of $306,977, which, with other available resources, made up the amount of $500,000, which had been agreed upon as the minimum endowment of the Johns Hopkins Medical School. These contributions enabled the trustees to proceed to the organization of a school of medicine which was opened to candidates for the degree of doctor of medicine in October, 1893."

Several women have aided Johns Hopkins, as indeed they have most institutions of learning in America. Mrs. Caroline Donovan gave to the university $100,000 for the foundation of a chair of English literature. In 1887 Mrs. Adam T. Bruce of New York gave the sum of $10,000 to found the Bruce fellowship in memory of her son, the late Adam T. Bruce, who had been a fellow and an instructor at the university. Mrs. William E. Woodyear gave the sum of $10,000 to found five scholarships as a memorial of her deceased husband. Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull endowed the Percy Turnbull memorial lectureship of poetry with an income of $1,000 per annum.

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 America, remained a year with her brother in Niagara County, N.Y., and then married Jacob Uhl, a printer.

In 1844 Mr. Uhl started a job-office in Frankfort Street, New York, and bought a small weekly paper called the New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung. His young wife helped him constantly, and finally the weekly paper became a daily.

Her husband died in 1852, leaving her with six children and a daily paper on her hands. She was equal to the task. She declined to sell the paper, and managed it well for seven years. Then she married Mr. Oswald Ottendorfer, who was on the staff of the paper.

Both worked indefatigably, and made the paper more successful than ever. She was always at her desk. "Her callers," says Harper's Bazar, May 3, 1884, "had been many. Her visitors represented all classes of society, – the opulent and the poor, the high and the lowly. There was advice for the one, assistance for the other; an open heart and an open purse for the deserving; a large charity wisely used."

In 1875 Mrs. Ottendorfer built the Isabella Home for Aged Women in Astoria, Long Island, giving to it $150,000. It was erected in memory of her deceased daughter, Isabella.

In 1881 she contributed about $40,000 to a memorial fund in support of several educational institutions, and the next year built and furnished the Woman's Pavilion of the German Hospital of New York City, giving $75,000. For the German Dispensary in Second Avenue she gave $100,000, also a library.

At her death she provided liberally for many institutions, and left $25,000 to be divided among the employees of the Staats-Zeitung. In 1879 the property of the paper was turned into a stock-company; and, at the suggestion of Mrs. Ottendorfer, the employees were provided for by a ten-per-cent dividend on their annual salary. Later this was raised to fifteen per cent, which greatly pleased the men.

The New York Sun, in regard to her care for her employees, especially in her will, says, "She had always the reputation of a very clever, business-like, and charitable lady. Her will shows, however, that she was much more than that – she must have been a wonderful woman." A year before her death the Empress Augusta of Germany sent her a medal in recognition of her many charities.

Mrs. Ottendorfer died April 1, 1884, and was buried in Greenwood. Her estate was estimated at $3,000,000, made by her own skill and energy. Having made it, she enjoyed giving it to others.

Her husband, Mr. Oswald Ottendorfer, has given most generously to his native place Zwittau, – an orphan asylum and home for the poor, a hospital, and a fine library with a beautiful monumental fountain before it, crowned by a statue representing mother-love; a woman carrying a child in her arms and leading another. His statue was erected in the city in 1886, and the town was illuminated in his honor at the dedication of the library.

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 struggling students and churches, and to save mortgaged homes. To Wellesley College to build Stone Hall, $110,000; to Bowdoin College, Amherst, Dartmouth, Drury, Carleton, Chicago Seminary, Hamilton, Iowa, Oberlin, Hampton Institute, Woman's Board for Armenia College, Turkey, Olivet College, Ripon, Illinois, Marietta, Beloit, Robert College, Constantinople, Berea, Doane, Colorado, Washburne, Howard University, each from five to seventy-five thousand dollars. She gave also to hospitals, city mission work, rescue homes, and Christian associations. For evangelical work in France she gave $15,000.

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 boy Samuel worked on a farm, earning for the next six years about seven dollars a month, and saving all that was possible. In the winters he attended the district school, and studied Latin with his father, as he hoped to fit himself for the ministry.

He began his preparation at Phillips Academy, Andover, carrying thither his worldly possessions in a bag under his arm. "We were both of us about as poor in money as we could be," said his roommate years afterward, the Rev. Enoch Sanford, D.D., "but our capital in hope and fervor was boundless." Samuel's eyes soon failed him, and he was obliged to give up the project of ever becoming a minister. He entered the store of Arthur Tappan, in New York, as clerk; but ill health compelled him to return to the farm with its out-door life.

When he was twenty-seven he married Emily Graves of Williamsburg, Mass. She brought to the marriage partnership a noble heart, and every willingness to help. The story is told that she cut off a button from the coat of a visitor, with his consent, learned how it was covered, and soon furnished work for her neighbors as well as herself.

After some years Mr. Williston began in a small way to manufacture buttons, and the business grew under his capable management till a thousand families found employment. He formed a partnership with Joel and Josiah Hayden at Haydenville, for the manufacture of machine-made buttons in 1835, then first introduced into this country from England. Four years later the business was transferred to Easthampton.

Mr. Williston did not wait till he was very rich before he began to give. In 1837 he helped largely towards the erection of the First Church in Easthampton. In 1841 he established Williston Seminary, which became a most excellent fitting-school for college. During his lifetime he gave to this school about $270,000, and left it at his death an endowment of $600,000.

He was also deeply interested in Amherst College, establishing the Williston professorship of rhetoric and oratory, the Graves, now Williston, professorship of Greek, and some others. "He began giving to Amherst College," writes Professor Joseph H. Sawyer, "when the institution was in the depths of poverty and well-nigh given over as a failure. He saved the college to mankind, and by example and personal solicitation stimulated others to give." He built and equipped Williston Hall, and assisted in the erection of other buildings.

He aided Mary Lyon, in establishing Mount Holyoke Seminary, gave to Iowa College, the Protestant College in Beirut, Syria, and to churches, libraries, and various other institutions.

He was active in all business enterprises, as well as works of benevolence. He was president of the Williston Cotton Mills, the First National Bank, Gas Company, and Nashawannuck (suspender) Company, all at Easthampton. He was the first president of the Hampshire and Hampden Railway, president of the First National Bank of Northampton, also of the Greenville Manufacturing Company (cotton cloths), member of both branches of the Legislature until he declined a re-election, one of the trustees of Amherst College, of the Westborough, Mass., Reform School, on the board of an asylum for idiots in Boston, a corporate member of the American Board, a trustee of Mount Holyoke Seminary, etc.

Mr. Williston overcame the obstacles of poor eyesight, ill health, and poverty, and became a blessing to tens of thousands. His wife was equally a giver with him. The Rev. William Seymour Tyler, D.D., of Amherst College, said at the semi-centennial celebration of Williston Seminary, June 14-17, 1891, "I knew its founders. I say 'founders,' for Mrs. Williston had scarcely less to do than Mr. Williston in planning and founding the building and endowing the seminary, as in all the successful measures and achievements of his remarkable and useful life; and the few enterprises in which he did not succeed were those in which he did not follow her advice. I knew the founders from the time when, at the beginning of their prosperity, their home and their factory were both in a modest wing of Father Williston's parsonage, until they had created Williston Seminary, made Easthampton, following out their great and good work, and entered into their rest."

Five children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Williston, but all died in childhood. They adopted five children, two boys and three girls, reared them, and educated them for honored positions in life.

Mr. Williston died at Easthampton, July 17, 1874; and his wife, two years younger than he, died April 12, 1885. Both are buried in the cemetery at Easthampton, to which burying-ground Mr. Williston gave, at his death, $10,000. He lived simply, and saved that he might give it in charities.

JOHN F. SLATER AND DANIEL HAND,

AND THEIR GIFTS TO THE COLORED PEOPLE

One of the best charities our country has ever had bestowed upon it is the million-dollar gift of Mr. Slater, and the million and a half gift of Mr. Hand, for the education of the colored people in the Southern States. Other millions of dollars are yet needed to train these millions of the colored race to self-help and good citizenship.

Mr. John Fox Slater was born in Slatersville, R.I., March 4, 1815. He was the son of John Slater, who helped his brother Samuel to found the first cotton manufacturing industry in the United States.

Samuel Slater came from England; and setting up some machinery from memory, after arriving in this country, as nobody was permitted to carry plans out of England, he started the first cotton-mill in December, 1790. A few years later his brother John came from England, and together they started a mill at Slatersville, R.I.

They built mills also at Oxford, now Webster, Mass., and in time became men of wealth. Mr. Samuel Slater opened a Sunday-school for his workmen, one of the first institutions of that kind in this country.

His son John early developed rare business qualities, and at the age of seventeen was placed in charge of one of his father's mills at Jewett City, near Norwich, Conn. He had received a good academical education, had excellent judgment, would not speculate, and was noted for integrity and honor. He became not only the head of his own extensive business, but prominent in many outside enterprises.

His manners were refined, he was self-poised and somewhat reserved, and very unostentatious, thereby showing his true manhood. He read on many subjects, – finance, politics, and religion, and was a good conversationalist.

As he grew richer he felt the responsibility of his wealth. He gave generously to the country during the Civil War; he contributed largely to the establishment of the Norwich Free Academy and to the Congregational Church in Norwich with which he was connected, and to other worthy objects.

He determined to do good with his money while he lived. After the war, having given largely for the relief of the freedmen, he decided to give to a board of trustees $1,000,000, for the purpose of "uplifting the lately emancipated population of the Southern States and their posterity by conferring on them the blessings of Christian education."

When asked the precise meaning of the phrase "Christian education," he replied, "that in the sense which he intended, the common school teaching of Massachusetts and Connecticut was Christian education. That it is leavened with a predominant and salutary Christian influence."

He said in his letter to the trustees, "It has pleased God to grant me prosperity in my business, and to put it into my power to apply to charitable uses a sum of money so considerable as to require the counsel of wise men for the administration of it." In committing the money to their hands he "humbly hoped that the administration of it might be so guided by divine wisdom as to be, in its turn, an encouragement to philanthropic enterprise on the part of others, and an enduring means of good to our beloved country and to our fellow-men."

Mr. Slater's gift awakened widespread interest and appreciation. The Congress of the United States voted him thanks, and caused a gold medal to be struck in his honor.

Mr. Slater lived to see his work well begun, intrusted to such men as ex-President Hayes at the head of the trust, Phillips Brooks, Governor Colquitt of Georgia, his son William A. Slater, and others. He died May 7, 1884, at Norwich, at the age of sixty-nine.

The general agent of the trust for several years was the late Dr. A. G. Haygood of Georgia, who resigned when he was made a bishop in the Methodist Church. Since 1891 Dr. J. L. M. Curry of Washington, D.C., chairman of the Educational Committee, and author of "The Southern States of the American Union" and other works, has been the able agent of the Slater as well as Peabody Funds. Dr. Curry, member of both National and Confederate Congresses, and minister to Spain for three years, has been devoted to education all his life, and gives untiring industry and deep interest to his work.