1 of 14: George Peabody (1795-1869): A-Z Handbook of the Massachusetts-Born Merchant in the South, London-Based Banker, and Philanthropist's Life, Influence, and Related People, Places, Events, and Institutions. ©2007, By Franklin Parker & Betty J. Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net
This work updates and expands Franklin Parker, George Peabody, A Biography (Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt Univ. Press, ©1971, revised with illustrations ©1995), and authors’ related George Peabody publications listed in the Authors' Preface below. Note: To read on your computer Franklin Parker’s out-of-print George Peabody, A Biography, 1995, as a free Google E-book copy and paste on your browser: http://books.google.com/books?id=OPIbk-ZPnF4C&pg=PP1&lpg=PR4&dq=Franklin+Parker,+George+Peabody,+a+Biography&output=html&sig=6R8ZoKwN1B36wtCSePijnLaYJS8
Background: Why these 1 to 14 blogs on George Peabody? The authors attended George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville (renamed Peabody College of Vanderbilt Univ. July 1, 1979). Franklin Parker’s doctoral dissertation, “George Peabody, Founder of Modern Philanthropy,” 1956, has been an ongoing research and writing interest for over 50 years. The authors’ intent is to perpetuate public memory of him.
George Peabody, now largely forgotten by scholars and the public, was significant as: 1-a Massachusetts-born merchant in the U.S. South, beginning as junior partner in Riggs, Peabody & Co. (1814-29); then head of Peabody, Riggs & Co. (1829-43), importing dry goods and other commodities worldwide for sale to U.S. wholesalers. He transformed himself from merchant into: 2-a London-based merchant-banker, George Peabody & Co. (1838-64), which helped finance the B&O RR, the 2nd Mexican War Loan, the Atlantic Cable, and by choosing Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90) as partner Oct. 1, 1854, was a root of the JP Morgan international banking firm.
Merchant-turned-banker George Peabody finally became: 3-the best known U.S. philanthropist of the 1850s-60s, founding the Peabody Homes of London for the working poor; founder in the U.S. of 7 Peabody Libraries and Lecture Halls; the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Baltimore; three Peabody Museums at Harvard (Anthropology), Yale (Paleontology), and the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (maritime history); and founder of the Peabody Education Fund for the South (1867-1914), a model for all later larger U.S. funds and foundations.
Two tributes to George Peabody:
Historian John Steele Gordon called George Peabody the "Most Underrated Philanthropist.... Peabody is unjustly forgotten today, but his unprecedented generosity was greatly appreciated in his time." Ref.: American Heritage. Vol. 50, No. 3 (May-June 1999), pp. 68-69.
"The Peabody Fund, established in 1867 by George Peabody to assist southern education, is often credited with being the first foundation…." Ref.: Reader's Companion to American History, ed. by Eric Foner and John A. Garraty (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991). Internet: http://HistoryChannel.com/
End of Background. HTML symbols are intended for blogging (ignore). This 1 of 14 blogs covers: 1-"Preface," 2-authors’ published writings on GP, 3-overview of GP's Life and Career, and 4- alphabetical entries from Abbott (Alfred Amos) to Brush (M.P.) 2.
Preface
Abbreviations used are easily recognizable and include U.S. state names (Tenn. for Tennessee, Md. for Maryland, etc.); city (NYC for New York City); titles (Pres. for President, Sen. for Senator, Rep. for Representative, Secty. for Secretary, Gov. for Governor, PM for Prime Minister, Adm. for Admiral, etc.); months of the year (Jan. for January); terms (Intro. for Introduction); and organizations (Univ. for University, Co. for Company, Dept. for Department, B&O RR for Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; n.d. for no date; n.p. for no page; etc.). The following five abbreviations are used throughout this work:
1-GP for George Peabody (1795-1869
2-GPCFT for George Peabody College for Teachers (1914-79).
3-PCofVU for Peabody College of Vanderbilt Univ. (since July 1, 1979).
4-PEF for the Peabody Education Fund (Feb. 7, 1867-1914).
5-PIB for the Peabody Institute of Baltimore (since Oct. 24, 1857).
6-Peabody Papers, PEM for George Peabody Papers, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.
7-USS for United States Ship, as in USS Plymouth: CSS for Confederate States Ship, as in CSS Alabama; and (for Britain) HMS for Her Majesty's Ship, as in HMS Monarch.
8-VU for Vanderbilt University.
References (Ref.)
References are briefly identified at the end of most articles as Ref.:, followed by author's last name and page or pages (or first significant words of title and page or pages if no author), with annotated reference easily found alphabetically in the back of this work.
See:
Names of persons after See: are listed by Last, First, and Middle names or initials.
Internet website URL and e-mail addresses of GP-related institutions, persons, and topics are listed in appropriate places (Ref.:, See:, other places) with date seen by the authors since URL's often appear, disappear, and change.
Summary repetitions about people, events, and circumstances are used in the many entries that follow when their use further illuminates GP's life and influence.
Birth and death years of persons, when known, are listed (after their names) when first mentioned in an entry.
English pound £ during GP's years in England (1837-69) was roughly equivalent to U.S. $5.00.
Authors' Preface: On the Trail of George Peabody (1795-1869)
(This Preface interweaves the origin of the authors' research "On the Trail of GP," with findings on his career and influence; lists the authors' GP publications; and continues alphabeticlly with entries 1-14 that touch on every uncovered aspect of GP's life, career, and influence).
1-Sept. 1946-52: We met as students at Berea College near Lexington, Ky. (Sept. 1946), Betty entering from Decatur, Ala.; Franklin from Asheville, N.C. Berea brought us together, led to our marriage (1950), and its Alumni Office got us our first teaching jobs at Ferrum Jr. College near Roanoke, Va., 1950-52.
2-To improve our teaching skills we attended George Peabody College for Teachers (GPCFT), sited next to Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, Tenn., the summers of 1951 and 1952. Attendance at Berea College, a work-study tuition-free college, enabled Franklin to extend his GI Bill entitlement (he served in the U.S. Army Air Forces, 1942-46) to help cover graduate study costs at the Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, 1949-50, and GPCFT, 1952-56, plus travel to and housing near U.S. and British libraries to read GP-related papers.
3-1952-56: A part-time job and small GPCFT scholarship for Franklin, together with Betty's job teaching English in a Nashville business college, enabled us to be graduate students at GPCFT during 1952-56. Franklin took courses from and attached himself as doctoral candidate to Canadian-born Prof Clifton Landon Hall (1898-1987), graduate of Bishop Univ. (Quebec), McGill Univ. (Montreal), a Univ. of N.C., Chapel Hill, Ph.D. in the history of education, and widely respected on the Peabody and Vanderbilt campuses.
4-1953: Searching for a dissertation topic and finding an unexplored area in the history of higher education in Tenn., Franklin went for approval to GPCFT Dean (and later president) Felix Compton Robb (1914-97). Perhaps out of respect for Prof. Hall's reputation, Dean Robb told Franklin of his own earlier experience at Harvard University. In a history course he had at Harvard under historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. (1888-1965), Schlesinger, knowing that Robb was a Peabody College administrator, urged Robb to write on GP as a founder of modern educational philanthropy. Schlesinger knew of this achievement and lamented that it had not yet been fully explored and documented.
5-Determined on a career in higher education administration, Robb chose a dissertation in that area. Perhaps regretting a good topic not pursued, Robb spoke with enthusiasm of GP’s little known role as the founder of U.S. educational philanthropy and urged Franklin to consider it as a dissertation topic.
Basic Facts
6-GP in brief: Increasingly intrigued by what we found in libraries and encouraged by small scholarships, we read GP’s original letters and papers intensively in widely scattered U.S. and British depositories during 1953-55. He was born Feb. 18, 1795, into a poor branch of the Peabodys of Mass., third of eight children in Danvers, Mass., 19 miles northeast of Boston. He lived long enough to see his birthplace (renamed South Danvers in 1855 when Danvers was divided into North Danvers and South Danvers) renamed Peabody, Mass., in his honor on April 13, 1868.
7-He attended a district school 4 years, ages 8-12 (1803-07), all his parents could afford; was apprenticed in a general store 4 years, ages 12-15 (1807-10); and worked for a year in his oldest brother's dry goods store in Newburyport, Mass. (1810-11). His father died May 13, 1811, leaving the family in debt, the Danvers home mortgaged, with GP's mother and the five younger children forced to live with nearby relatives. Eighteen days later, May 31, 1811, the Great Fire of Newburyport ruined all business prospects, leading to an exodus of family breadwinners.
8-Paternal uncle John Peabody (1768-1827), whose Newburyport store and stock were burned, urged his 17-year old nephew GP to join him in opening a dry goods store in Georgetown, D.C. Because his uncle could not obtain credit, GP asked a Newburyport merchant to stand surety for him for a consignment of goods on credit from a Boston merchant. With $2,000 in goods secured, uncle and nephew sailed from Newburyport (May 5, 1812) and opened the Georgetown, D.C., store (May 15, 1812).
9-His uncle soon entered other enterprises. On his own GP tended the store and was also a pack peddler selling goods to nearby homes and stores. With nearby Washington, D.C., under threat of British attack, he volunteered in the War of 1812. There he met and impressed 35-year-old fellow soldier and experienced Md. merchant Elisha Riggs, Sr. (1779-1853). Riggs took the 19-year-old GP as junior partner in Riggs, Peabody & Co. (1814-29), which imported European fabric, clothing, and other goods for sale to U.S. wholesalers. The firm moved to Baltimore in 1815 and had warehouses in Philadelphia and New York City (NYC) by 1822. See: Riggs, Elisha, Sr.
Young Merchant in the South
10-Taking early responsibility as family breadwinner, GP sent his mother and siblings flour, sugar, clothes, other necessities, and money. By 1816, age 21, he had paid the family debts and restored his mother and siblings to their home. Newburyport lawyer Ebon Mosely wrote GP on Dec. 16, 1816: "I cannot but be pleased with the filial affection which seems to evince you to preserve the estate for a Parent." Ref.: Ebon Mosely, Newburyport, Mass., to GP, Baltimore, Dec. 16, 1816, Peabody Papers, PEM, Salem, Mass.
11-GP paid for the education at Bradford Academy, Bradford, Mass., of five younger relatives: brother Jeremiah, from 1819; sister Judith Dodge during 1821-27, sister Mary Gaines during 1822-27, cousin Adolphus W. Peabody (paternal uncle John's son) during 1827, and a nephew named for him (oldest brother David's son George), also during 1827. He bought a house in West Bradford for his relatives who were enrolled in the academy and where his mother also lived for several years.
12-He later paid for the education of other relatives: nephew Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-99), at Yale Univ., later the first U.S. paleontologist at Yale; nephew George Peabody Russell (1835-1909), Harvard-trained lawyer; niece Julia Adelaide Peabody (b. April 25, 1835), Philadelphia finishing school; and others.
13-GP traveled in the U.S. and abroad for Riggs, Peabody & Co. He made five European buying trips during 1827-37. When Elisha Riggs, Sr., withdrew to become a NYC banker, the firm became Peabody, Riggs & Co. (1829-48), with GP as senior partner and Riggs's nephew, Samuel Riggs (d. 1853), as junior partner.
GP as Md.'s Fiscal Agent Abroad
14-In 1836, as part of large scale internal improvements in many states (building roads, canals, and railroads), the Md. legislature voted to finance the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the B&O RR with interest-bearing state bonds to be sold abroad. Md. appointed three agents to sell its $8 million bond issue abroad. When one agent withdrew, GP sought and secured his place. He left for London Feb. 1837, just before the Panic of 1837.
15-A depression following the financial Panic of 1837 led the two other agents to return to the U.S. without success. GP remained in London the rest of his life (1837-69), 32 years, except for three U.S. visits (Sept. 15, 1856 to Aug. 19, 1857; May 1, 1866 to May 1, 1867; and June 8 to Sept. 29, 1869).
16-Depressed conditions after 1837 led nine states, including Md., to stop interest payments on their bonds sold abroad. GP had to sell the bonds in this depressed market and amid the angers of British and other European investors at the stoppage of interest payments. He publicly assured investors that repudiation was temporary, that payments would be retroactive. By letters, printed in newspapers, he urged officials in Md. and other defaulting states to retroactively resume interest payments.
17-GP was finally relieved to sell his part of the Md. bonds cheaply for exclusive resale by London's Baring Brothers banking firm. In 1847-48 Md. officials acknowledged publicly that GP had upheld Md.'s credit abroad during a difficult financial panic and that, rather than burden the state treasury, had declined his own $60,000 commission. Md. Gov. Philip Francis Thomas (1810-90) transmitted Md. legislature's resolutions of praise to him and wrote, "To you, sir...the thanks of the State were eminently due." See: Md.'s $8 Million Bond Sale Abroad and GP.
From Merchant to London-based Banker
18-Gradually curtailing business activities for Peabody, Riggs & Co., he withdrew his capital in 1843 and severed his connection in 1845 (the firm's business ended in 1848). Coincidentally, he founded George Peabody & Co., London (Dec. 1, 1838-Oct. 1, 1864) and increasingly sold U.S. state bonds to finance roads, canals, and railroads. He succeeded in transition from merchant to investment banker.
19-With others he helped finance the second Mexican War loan; bought, sold, and shipped European iron and later steel rails for U.S. western railroads; and was a director and part- financier of the Atlantic Cable Co. He had learned to marshal capital to finance and expand U.S. business and industrial growth. In the 1850s he became the most eminent U.S. banker in London dealing in U.S. trade and securities.
20-George Peabody & Co. prospered. Asked in an interview on Aug. 22, 1869, how and when he made his money, GP said, "I made pretty much of it in 20 years from 1844 to 1864. Everything I touched within that time seemed to turn to gold. I bought largely of United States securities when their value was low and they advanced greatly." Ref.: (Aug. 22, 1869, interview): Moorman-b, pp. 15-17.
Morgan Partnership
21-Often ill and urged by business friends to take a partner, GP on Oct. 1, 1854, at age 59 took as partner Boston merchant Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90). J.S. Morgan's son John Pierpont Morgan (later Sr., 1837-1913), at age 19, began his banking career as NYC agent for George Peabody & Co. Increasing illness hastened GP's retirement on Oct. 1, 1864. Unmarried, without a son, and knowing he would no longer control the firm, he asked that his name be withdrawn. See: Morgan, Junius Spencer.
22-GP's was thus the root of the international banking house of J.P. Morgan, a fact amply recorded but not now generally known. His firm continued in London as J.S. Morgan & Co. (Oct. 1, 1864-Dec. 31, 1909), Morgan Grenfell & Co. (Jan. 1, 1910-Nov. 1918), Morgan Grenfell & Co., Ltd. (Nov. 1918-90), and Deutsche Morgan Grenfell (since June 29, 1990), a German-owned international banking firm. Relieved of business burdens GP spent the last five years of his life (1864-69) looking after his philanthropic institutions, first begun in 1852.
Philanthropist
23-More intriguing than how GP made his money was why and how he gave it away. In 1820 he was worth between $40,000 and $50,000. His 1827 will left $4,000 for charity. His 1832 will left $27,000 (out of a $135,000 estate) for educational philanthropy. He early told intimates and said publicly in 1850 that he would found an educational or other useful institution in every town and city where he had lived and worked. He earned about $20 million during his lifetime and at his death (Nov. 4, 1869) he gave about half to philanthropy, half to his relatives. (Note: $20 million in 1869 is equivalent to $258.3 million In 2001 purchasing power: See: Philanthropy, GP's, worth of, in Ref.: g. Internet. URL: http://www.eh.net/ehresources/howmuch/dollarq.php).
24-His philanthropic gifts (26 gifts or resulting institutes are numbered below), totaled about $10 million. His seven U.S. Peabody institute libraries, with lecture halls and lecture funds were, like the Lyceums (from 1826) and later Chautauquas (from 1872), part of the adult education centers of the time.
25-His seven Peabody Institute libraries are in: 1-Peabody, 2-Danvers, 3-Newburyport, and 4-Georgetown (all in Mass.). The four-part 5-Peabody Institute of Baltimore (PIB) contained a reference library, initially so extensive that the Library of Congress early borrowed from it, plus an art gallery, a lecture hall a lecture fund, and a conservatory of music.
26-The PIB, to which he gave a total of $1.4 million, presaged such later cultural centers as the Lincoln Center, NYC; and the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. (the PIB reference library and the PIB conservatory of music became part of the Johns Hopkins Univ., from 1982). Other Peabody libraries are in 6-Thetford, Vt. and in 7-Georgetown, D.C. (now the Peabody Room of the Washington, D.C., public library.
27-Influenced by his nephew O.C. Marsh's scientific interests and attainments, GP founded three Peabody museums of science: 8-the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard Univ. (anthropology); 9-the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale Univ. (paleontology), $150,000 each; and 10-what is now the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass. (maritime history plus Essex County historical documents), $140,000.
28-GP earlier gave the 11-Md. Institute for the Promotion of Mechanic Arts $1,000 for a chemistry laboratory and school, Oct. 31, 1851; 12-Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., $25,000 for a professorship of mathematics, Oct. 30, 1866; 13-Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, $25,000 for a professorship of mathematics and civil engineering, Nov. 6, 1866; and 14-and to former Gen. Robert E. Lee's (1807-70) Washington College (renamed Washington and Lee Univ., 1871), Lexington, Va., $60,000 for a professorship of mathematics, Sept. 1869.
29-He gave $20,000 publication funds each to the 15-Md. Historical Society, Baltimore, Nov. 5, 1866; and the 16-Mass. Historical Society, Boston, Jan. 1, 1867. He gave 17-the U.S. Sanitary Commission to aid Civil War orphans, widows, and disabled veterans $10,000, 1864; and the 18-Vatican charitable San Spirito Hospital, Rome, Italy, $19,300, April 5, 1867.
30-He had a 19-Memorial Congregational Church built in his mother's memory in her hometown, Georgetown, Mass., $70,000, 1866. For patriotic causes he donated to the 20-Lexington Monument, now Peabody, Mass., $300, 1835; the 21-Bunker Hill Memorial, Boston, Mass., $500, June 3, 1845; and the 22-Washington Monument, Washington, D.C., $1,000, July 4, 1854.
Peabody Homes of London
31-His largest gift, $2.5 million total, was for model low rent apartments for London's working poor. Begun on March 12, 1862, what is now 23-the Peabody Trust Group, London, GP's most successful philanthropy, on March 31, 2006 owned or managed over 20,000 affordable homes housing over 50,000 low income Londoners (about 59% white, 32% black, and 9% others in 2002). These include, besides Peabody Trust Group-built estates, other London public housing units whose authorities deliberately chose to come under the Peabody Trust Group because of its efficient management, facilities, playgrounds for the young, recreation for the elderly, computer centers, job training, and job placement for its working adults. Ref.: Peabody Trust Group, London-c, annual report, 2002 (and later reports). Ref.: g. Internet. "Peabody Buildings," URL: http://www.vauxhallsociety.org.uk/Peabody.html
32-The Peabody Homes of London, GP's most successful philanthropy, was first suggested by social reformer Lord Shaftesbury (1801-85). GP first (1859) considered and discarded the idea of building a network of drinking fountains in London. He then considered a large gift to enlarge the Ragged Schools Union, a charitable trust managing schools for poor children in England, administered by Lord Shaftesbury (before the establishment of tax supported schools). GP asked his friend, Ohio's Episcopal Bishop Charles Pettit McIlvaine (1799-1873), who knew Shaftesbury, to consult with him. McIlvaine reported Shaftesbury's advice that housing was the London poor's greatest need. This advice determined GP's gift of low cost model apartments. The Peabody Homes of London inspired imitators elsewhere in England and in the U.S. and brought GP many honors in England.
PEF
33-GP's most in19,fluential U.S. gift was the $2 million 23-PEF (1867-1914) to promote public education in the eleven former Confederate states plus W.Va., added because of its poverty. He actually gave the PEF $3,484,000, but $1.1 million in Miss. state bonds and $384,000 in Fla. bonds were never redeemed by those states.
34-For 47 years the PEF helped promote public schools in the devastated post Civil War South, focusing first on aiding existing public elementary and secondary schools in larger towns to serve as models, then aiding teacher training institutes and normal colleges, and finally aiding rural public school growth.
35-The PEF was without precedent, the first multimillion dollar educational foundation in the U.S., cited by historians as the model forerunner of all subsequent significant U.S. educational funds and foundations. See: PEF.
36-High offices held by the over 50 PEF trustees during 1867-1914 included: thirteen state legislators, two U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justices, six U.S. ambassadors, eight U.S. Senators, seven in the U.S. House of Representatives, two Civil War generals, one U.S. naval admiral, one U.S. Army Surgeon-Gen., three Confederate generals, three who served in the Confederate Congress, two bishops, and six U.S. cabinet officers. For names, See: Governors, U.S. States, and GP. PCofVU. PEF. Presidents, U.S., and GP.
37-Other high offices held by PEF trustees: three were U.S. presidents (U.S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Grover Cleveland; or eight U.S. presidents if Peabody Normal College and its predecessor institutions are included), six were U.S. state governors, and three were financiers: J.P. Morgan; Anthony Joseph Drexel (1826-93), inspired by GP's example to found Drexel Univ., Phila., and Paul Tulane (1801-87), inspired to found Tulane Univ., New Orleans, La. Ref.: Ibid.
Peabody Normal College
38-PEF first administrator Barnas Sears (1802-80) wanted a model teachers college for the South in Nashville. When the Tenn. legislature declined to pass funding legislation for several state normal school proposals, Sears through the PEF helped establish the PEF-supported 24-Peabody Normal College (1875-1911) on the Univ. of Nashville campus in place of its moribund Literary Dept. In its 36 years of existence, Peabody Normal College achieved regional and national leadership in the professional preparation of teachers.
39-GP's PEF founding letter (Feb. 7, 1867) permitted ending the fund when its work in promoting public schools in the South was done. In 1914 the trustees distributed the fund's total assets ($2,324,000) as follows: $474,000 went to the education departments of 14 southern universities ($40,000 each to the universities of Va., N.C., Ga., Ala., Fla., Miss., Ark., Ky., and La. [State]; $6,000 each to Johns Hopkins Univ. and to the universities of S.C., Mo., and Tex.; $90,000 to Winthrop Normal College, S.C. (now Winthrop College), founded by PEF trustees Pres. Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94); and $350,000 to the John F. Slater Fund for Negro Education (a sum given later to the Southern Education Fund, Atlanta, where it still serves African-American education). See: PCofVU. PEF. Southern Education Fund, Atlanta.
GPCFT
40-Most of the PEF principal, $1.5 million plus required matching funds, went to endow 25-GPCFT (1914-79), with a new campus built next to Vanderbilt Univ. for academic strength. For 65 years GPCFT maintained its independence, cooperating with neighboring Vanderbilt Univ. in courses, programs, and library facilities. GPCFT was in fact a unique mini-university, focused on teacher education in a variety of fields, with departments of library science, physical education, science education, and music education. It retained and enhanced its predecessor's reputation as a leading institution in the South, with national recognition and an international student body.
41-GPCFT's best graduates became state university presidents, deans, leading professors, researchers, and textbook writers. Its success thereby strengthened competing lower cost state university colleges of education and ironically contributed to its own demise. National recession in the 1970s combined with higher energy and other costs adversely affected higher education and particularly private colleges of education.
PCofVU
42-Wise Peabodians knew that the time was past for the survival of a private single purpose teachers college like GPCFT, despite its proud history, high regional reputation, and national and international influence. Merger took place on July 1, 1979, when GPCFT became 26-PCofVU, Vanderbilt Univ.'s. ninth school.
43-PCofVU soon increased the status of its predecessor institutions as a leading private southern university's college of education. It quickly led the nation in preparing teachers to apply computers to student learning. Since the 1990s it has consistently ranked among the top U.S. graduate schools of education, highly esteemed in preparing special education teachers, guidance counselors, and educational researchers. Ref.: "Best Graduate Schools," pp. 109, 111.
44-PCofVU's history thus goes back to Davidson Academy (1785-1806), chartered by N.C. eleven years before Tenn. statehood; rechartered as Cumberland College (1806-26); rechartered as the Univ. of Nashville (1826-75); whose moribund literary dept. was rechartered as Peabody Normal College (1875-1911; rechartered as GPCFT (1914-79); renamed PCofVU (since July 1, 1979). PCofVU's lineage of over 210 years makes it the 15th U.S. collegiate institution after the founding of Harvard College in 1636.
45-Faced with greater class and race divisions and with greater financial difficulties than counterpart colleges in other sections of the U.S., it rose phoenix-like again and again to produce educational leaders for the South, the nation, and the world. As part of Vanderbilt Univ., PCofVU carried into the 21st century GP's motto accompanying his check for his first hometown Peabody Institute Library (1852): "Education, a debt due from present to future generations."
Philanthropic Influence
46-GP's philanthropic example, mainly through the PIB and the PEF, directly and personally influenced Enoch Pratt (1808-96) to found the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore's public library; influenced Johns Hopkins (1795-1873) to found the Johns Hopkins Univ., hospital, and medical school in Baltimore; influenced Anthony Joseph Drexel to found Drexel Univ., Philadelphia; influenced Paul Tulane to found Tulane Univ., New Orleans; and influenced others who gave to institutions, funds, and foundations.
47-At his death, Nov. 4, 1869, age 74, GP was the best known philanthropist in the U.S. and Britain, a founder of U.S. educational philanthropy. But time, larger fortunes, wealthier funds and foundations have dimmed his memory, except at his institutes and among interested scholars.
Manuscript Sources
48-We did research on GP concentratedly in 1953-56, sporadically since, and again concentratedly in retirement since 1994, always impressed with his achievements and wondering why he is so neglected. We read GP- papers of the following individuals at the Library of Congress (LC), Washington, D.C.: a-William Wilson Corcoran (1798-1888), business associate with whom GP helped finance the Second Mexican War loan (Corcoran is also known for donating the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington, D.C.). b-Hamilton Fish (1809-93), PEF trustee, N.Y. governor, and U.S. Secty. of State involved in GP's unusual 96-day transatlantic funeral.
49-We read the LC papers of c-John Work Garrett (1820-84), B&O RR president, who brought GP and Johns Hopkins together in his home near Baltimore, leading to the founding of Johns Hopkins Univ., Hospital, and Medical School. d-We read the LC papers of U.S. Pres. Andrew Johnson (1808-75) who went to GP's rooms at the Willard's Hotel, Washington, D.C., Feb. 9, 1867, to thank him for the PEF as a national gift. To forestall impeachment by radical Republicans bent on punishing the defeated South, Pres. Johnson's political advisor recommended a complete cabinet reshuffle with GP as Treasury Secty. But loyalty to his old cabinet kept Pres. Johnson from this course.
50-We read the LC papers of e-Benjamin Moran (1820-86), U.S. Legation in London Secty. (later called the U.S. Embassy), who during 1857-69 was often critical of GP in his private journal. f-We read the LC papers of the Riggs family, including Elisha Riggs, Sr., GP's first senior partner; Samuel Riggs (Elisha Riggs, Sr.'s, nephew), GP's second partner; and George Washington Riggs (1813-81, Elisha Riggs, Sr.'s son) who started the Riggs National Bank of Washington, D.C.
51-At the National Archives, Washington, D.C., we read a-"Veterans Records of the War of 1812" documenting GP's 14 days as a soldier, b-"Admirals and Commodores' Letters," c-"Dispatches from United States Ministers, Great Britain," and d-"Log of USS Plymouth," each documenting GP's unusual 96-day transatlantic funeral (from his Nov. 4, 1869, death in London, to his final burial in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass., Feb. 8, 1870, with much attendant press coverage.
52-In NYC's Pierpont Morgan Library we read the papers of J.S. Morgan, his son J.P. Morgan, Sr., and grandson J.P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943). These helped explain how GP, the founding root of the House of Morgan, along with a handful of other merchant-bankers, early learned to marshal foreign capital to help finance U.S. industrial growth.
53-In Mass. we read the bulk of GP's personal papers and business records (then not indexed or calendared) in what is now the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem. We also read his papers in depositories in Peabody, Salem, Danvers, and Boston, Mass.; at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology; and in Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History (which has his nephew Othniel Charles Marsh’s papers).
54-In Baltimore, where GP spent 22 of his most formative commercial years, 1815-37, we read his papers at the PIB, and the papers and journals of PIB trustee John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870) who, at GP's request for a cultural center for Baltimore, originally conceived of the idea of the PIB. In Baltimore we also read appropriate material in the Johns Hopkins Univ. Library and the Enoch Pratt Free Library, whose founders, as mentioned, GP directly influenced. See: John Pendleton Kennedy and institutions mentioned.
55-Two travel difficulties were solved in Baltimore. We needed inexpensive passage to London. Ben Welsh, under whom Betty worked in the Berea College Labor Office (he was a part time travel agent), got us a low cost berth on a transatlantic ship. To safely store our old car, the Ruckdeshells, in whose Baltimore house we roomed (secured through the Johns Hopkins Univ. student housing), phoned a friend with an empty garage who helped us raise our car on blocks for four months' storage.
In England
56-London: Sept.-Dec. 1954: We registered as student researchers at the Univ. of London and rented an inexpensive "bed-sitter through student housing. Our daily pattern was an early breakfast of bread, peanut butter, fruit, and milk (with the outside window ledge our "fridge"), which preceded morning research in libraries. Lunch at a nearby bustling pub was followed by afternoon library research until closing time. An occasional restaurant supper treat preceded nighttime arranging of notes. We managed some Sunday and holiday visits to cultural sights and events. We survived the cold London winter nights of 1954 by huddling close to a space heater, feeding it shilling coins to keep it going,
57-At London's British Museum Manuscript Division we read PM William E. Gladstone's (1809-98) cabinet minutes, Nov. 10, 1869, showing the decision, first suggested by Queen Victoria, to use Britain's newest and largest warship, HMS Monarch, to return GP's remains from England for burial in the U.S.
Alabama Claims
58-HMS Monarch was deliberately chosen as funeral ship partly because of the public attention it would draw and partly to honor his philanthropy in the U.S. and especially in London. His gift that most warmed English hearts and brought him many British honors was his 1862 $2.5 million gift for low-cost apartments for London's working poor. There was also a political motive for the choice of HMS Monarch, as there was for unusual British (and later U.S.) pomp and ceremony surrounding his unprecedented 96-day transatlantic funeral. See: Peabody Homes of London. Death and Funeral, GP's.
59-GP died at the height of unresolved U.S.-British angers over serious incidents during the U.S. Civil War. One lingering anger was over the Sept. 1861 Trent Affair. Four Confederate agents seeking arms and aid in England and France slipped through a Union blockade of Charleston, S.C., sailed to Havana, Cuba, and then boarded the British mail ship Trent for England when a Union warship stopped, boarded, removed, and jailed the Confederates.
60-Britain furiously protested this illegal seizure and sent troops to Canada should war erupt between the U.S. and Britain. Calmer heads prevailed; Pres. Lincoln had the Confederates released. Also, Confederate agents secretly bought British-built ships, armed them as Confederate raiders, like the CSS Alabama, which wrecked or sank Union ships and cost U.S. lives and vast treasure. The U.S. offered proof that Britain knowingly turned a blind eye to the sale of these raiders and angrily sought indemnity.
61-Choice of HMS Monarch was thus a political decision to soften near-war British-U.S. angers over these and other Civil War incidents. Politically astute PM Gladstone at the Nov. 9, 1869, Lord Mayor's Day banquet, five days after GP's death, said publicly: "With the country of Mr. Peabody we [will] not quarrel." Three years later (1872), a Geneva international court required Britain to pay the U.S. $15.5 million indemnity to settle the Alabama Claims controversy.
62-At London's Guildhall Record Office we read a-"Journals of the Court of Common Council" recording the Freedom of the City of London honor given to GP, July 10, 1862. We also read b-"Minutes of the Committee for Erecting a Statue to Mr. George Peabody, 1866-1870," documenting contributors to GP's seated statue in Threadneedle St., near London's Royal Exchange, created by U.S.-born Rome-based sculptor William Wetmore Story (1815-95), unveiled before crowds by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII, 1841-1910), July 23, 1869.
63-A replica of GP's seated statue in London was erected in front of the PIB, April 7, 1890, by Baltimorean Robert Garrett (1847-96). GP's seated statue in London, 1869, was the first of four statues of Americans in London, the others being of Abraham Lincoln, 1920; George Washington, 1921; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1948.
64-At London's Public Record Office we read a-"Alien Entry Lists" recording every time GP entered a British port, b-"Foreign Affairs Papers," and c-"Admiralty Papers," the last two documenting Britain's part in GP's unusual 96-day transatlantic funeral.
65-In London's Westminster Abbey we read a-"Recollections by Dean [Arthur P.] Stanley of Funerals in Westminster Abbey 1865-1881." Visiting in Naples, Italy, when he read of GP's death in London on Nov. 4, 1869, Dean Stanley (1815-81) recalled GP's March 12, 1862, gift for housing London's working poor and telegraphed associates to offer Westminster Abbey for a funeral service for this generous American.
66-We read the Westminster Abbey's b-"Funeral Fee Book 1811-1899," which listed GP's Abbey funeral costs. c-We stood at the permanent GP marker on the stone floor of Westminster Abbey near Britain's unknown soldier where GP's remains rested for 30 days (Nov. 12-Dec. 11, 1869). That marker was refurbished for the 200th GP birthday ceremony at Westminster Abbey on Feb. 18, 1995.
67-To honor his housing gift to London's working poor, GP was made an honorary member of two ancient guilds, the Clothmakers' Co., July 2, 1862, and the Fishmongers' Co., April 19, 1866, whose records we read in the respective guild libraries.
68-At the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle, we read letters from Queen Victoria and her advisors to, from, and about GP. The Queen offered him a knighthood. He declined, since this honor required him to become a British subject. Unwilling to give up his U.S. citizenship he accepted instead her letters of thanks and an enameled miniature portrait she commissioned to be made especially for him. That portrait, along with his other honors, are on display at the Peabody Institute Library, Peabody, Mass.
69-We read the three brass signs on the front door of Morgan, Grenfell & Co., Ltd., 23 Great Winchester St., London, which read from bottom to top: George Peabody & Co., 1838-64; J.S. Morgan & Co., 1864-1909); and Morgan Grenfell & Co. (1909-90). The firm's current descendant, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell (since June 29, 1990), has records of George Peabody & Co. and some business papers of GP, J.S. Morgan, and J.P. Morgan, Sr. We secured a copy of GP's death certificate from London's General Register Office, Somerset House.
70-Turning pages of heavy dusty bound newspaper volumes at the British Library at Colindale, we found many contemporary articles about GP, especially of his elaborate U.S.-British friendship dinners in or near London from 1850 onward, most often on July 4th, U.S. Independence Day.
71-We wrote letters to British newspaper editors asking readers for any privately held GP letters or memorabilia. Two families had "George Peabody" embossed glass plates made by a souvenir glassware manufacturer in Sunderland, England, in the aftermath of his widely publicized death and 96-day transatlantic funeral. We donated GP glassware given us to U.S. Peabody institutions.
72-When first proposed for membership in exclusive British clubs, GP was denied membership (blackballed). This occurred during repudiation of interest on U.S. state bonds sold to British investors, many held by widowed families. Americans were then especially disdained. When it became known that GP had publicly protested repudiation, and particularly after his gift for housing London's working poor, he was unanimously elected to London's best clubs.
73-We read of GP's admission to the most prestigious of these clubs, The Athenaeum, whose librarian Eileen Stiff (d. 1985) befriended us. We met her housemate, writer Margaret Leland Goldsmith (1895-1970), whose invaluable editorial help is mentioned later. We also visited a Peabody apartment complex where some 34,500 low income Londoners still live.
Back in the U.S.: Founders Day Address, Feb. 18, 1955
74-We returned to the U.S., loaded our old car in Baltimore with voluminous notes and microfilm, and headed for Nashville. There, David E. Short (1891-1957), president of the Nashville business school where Betty had taught English in exchange for a near-free apartment, generously let us live there again (paying whatever rent we could afford). His generosity plus part time jobs enabled us, on evenings, weekends, and holidays, to organize our voluminous GP materials. This task was suddenly hastened when GPCFT Pres. Henry H. Hill (1894-1987) asked Franklin to give the GPCFT's Founders Day Address on Feb. 18, 1955, the first such address by a student.
75-Pressed now to succinctly tell the GP story, Franklin's speech to a Peabody College audience highlighted GP's career, U.S.-British friendship dinners, philanthropic influence, death in London, and unprecedented 96-day transatlantic funeral. This speech opportunity would not have happened if Dean Felix Robb had not first suggested the GP research; or if GPCFT Prof. Clifton Hall as major professor had not been widely respected on the Peabody and Vanderbilt campuses (such backing was needed by a little known untried doctoral researcher); or if Franklin not kept his five doctoral committee members abreast of findings by regular research progress reports. Doors of opportunity swung on such hinges.
76-Franklin highlighted GP’s last illness, death, and funeral: A sick 74-year-old GP joined business friend W.W. Corcoran at White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., a popular mineral springs health spa (July 23-Aug. 30, 1869). Present there by chance were southern and northern political, educational and former Civil War leaders, including Robert E. Lee (1807-70), then president of Washington College, Lexington Va., renamed Washington and Lee Univ. in 1871.
77-Though confined to his cabin, GP yet heard some of the gayety of younger visitors who flocked to a Peabody Ball spontaneously held in his honor. On his few well days he and Lee walked, talked, and dined together, often applauded by visitors. GP and Lee were photographed together and with others, including visiting Civil War generals from South and North. Informal talks that last summer of GP’s life were on southern public education needs. These set a precedent for later more formal Conferences on Education in the South, 1898-1902, which in turn led to vast foundation aid which helped raise southern public schools and higher education toward national levels.
78-Distressed by the Civil War, GP in Nov. 1861 had helped two of Pres. Abraham Lincoln's emissaries contact leaders in London to keep Britain neutral: Ohio's Episcopal Bishop Charles Pettit McIlvaine (mentioned earlier as GP's emissary to Lord Shaftesbury) and N.Y. state journalist and political leader Thurlow Weed (1797-1882), both GP's long-time friends.
79-After GP's death, when he was attacked as a Confederate sympathizer, Thurlow Weed publicly vindicated GP's Union loyalty (which McIlvaine also affirmed). Some northern extremists, determined to punish the South, faulted GP for founding the PIB in Md. (1857) and the PEF (1867), both seen as aiding the South. Weed reported that the $2 million that went into the PEF GP originally intended (in 1859) to give to the NYC poor. But NYC public schools had prospered and the Civil War had intervened. Moved by Civil War devastation, GP determined to aid public education in the South.
80-Congress and Pres. U.S. Pres. Andrew Johnson recognized GP's PEF as a national gift. as did, Forty seven years later, GPCFT Pres. Bruce R. Payne's (1874-1937) Feb. 18, 1916 Founders Day speech thus imaginatively interpreted GP's PEF founding letter, Feb. 7, 1867, to ten of his 16 trustees gathered at Willard's Hotel, Washington, D.C.: "There stand several governors of states both North and South; senators of the United States; Ulysses S. Grant and Admiral Farragut. [Chief trustee Robert C.] Winthrop is called to take the chair. Mr. Peabody rises to read his deed of gift. They kneel in a circle of prayer, the Puritan of New England, the pioneer of the West, the financier of the metropolis, and the defeated veteran of the Confederacy. [On] bended knee they dedicate this great gift. They consecrate themselves to its wise expenditure. In that act, not quite two years after Appomattox, is the first guarantee of a reunited country." See: PEF.
81-GP gave Lee's college Va. bonds ultimately worth $60,000 for a mathematics professorship, left for Salem, Mass., made his funeral plans, recorded his last will in NYC, and arrived in London gravely ill. Through aides, Queen Victoria invited GP to recuperate at Windsor Castle. But it was too late. He died Nov. 4, 1869, at the 80 Eaton Square (London) home of business associate Sir Curtis Lampson (1806-85). See: Death and Funeral, GP's.
82-Knowing that GP's will required burial in Mass., Lampson telegraphed GP's nephew George Peabody Russell, who left for England to accompany GP's body home. Letters poured in to London newspapers asking for public honors for GP. The Queen's advisor, Sir Arthur Helps, informed her: "There are many persons who wish to pay public respect to the memory of that good man." See persons mentioned.
83-When PM Gladstone, at Queen Victoria’s suggestion, offered HMS Monarch as funeral ship to transport GP's remains to the U.S., Pres. U.S. Grant and U.S. Navy officials, not to be outdone, ordered the USS Plymouth from Marseilles, France, to act as escort vessel. Boston and NYC officials, believing that their cities would be the receiving port, were chagrined when Portland, Maine, was chosen because of its deeper harbor. The U.S. Navy placed Adm. David G. Farragut in charge of a flotilla of U.S. receiving vessels in Portland harbor. GP's funeral took on unprecedented proportions.
84-U.S. London Legation Secretary Benjamin Moran's private journal entries reflected the consternation at mounting funeral plans. He wrote on Nov. 6, 1869: "Peabody haunts the Legation from all parts of the world like a ghost." Again on Dec. 6, 1869: "Old Peabody has given us much trouble," and, "Will that old man ever be buried?" See: Moran, Benjamin.
85-Although critical of GP in his private journal through the years, at the last, Benjamin Moran, witnessing GP's Nov. 12, 1869, Westminster Abbey funeral service, was wondrously touched. He wrote with rare eloquence: "I reflected on the marvelous career of the man, his early life, his penurious habits, his vast fortune, his magnificent charity; and the honor then being paid to his memory by the Queen of England in the place of sepulchre of twenty English kings. An anthem was sung and the service end[ed]--George Peabody having received burial in Westminster Abbey, an honor coveted by nobles and not always granted kings." Ibid.
86-The Dec. 12, 1869, transfer of the coffin from London's Westminster Abbey to Portsmouth, England, harbor took place in pouring rain and a blowing storm. British Marines formed an honor guard. Scarlet-robed Portsmouth council members under black umbrellas mingled oddly with lines, spars, and beams of assembled ships. Guns were fired. Bugles sounded.
87-U.S. Minister to Britain John Lothrop Motley (1814-77) said to the Monarch’s Capt. John E. Commerell (1829-1901): "Into your hands I deliver Mr. Peabody's remains." The Monarch at Spithead Harbor, Portsmouth, awaited the end of the gale then blowing for the long voyage home.
88-British honors evoked some dissent in the U.S. One Union extremist said that returning "Peabody's remains on a British ship of war [is an] insult. Peabody was a secessionist." The charge, often made, was as often denied. In 1866 GP told a Baltimore audience: "My sympathies were with the Union. Three-fourths of my property was invested in United States Government and State securities. I saw no hope except in Union victory. But I could not turn my back on Southern friends." A few radical anti-southern Congressional extremists, erroneously believing GP to have favored the Confederacy, argued against a U.S. Navy reception for his remains at Portland. They were outvoted. Both houses of Congress finally approved unanimously.
89-HMS Monarch and the USS Plymouth were met in Portland harbor, Jan. 25, 1870, by Adm. Farragut and a flotilla of U.S. ships. At Queen Victoria's request and as a final measure of British respect, GP's remains lay in state on the Monarch for two days. Thousands of visitors who flocked to Portland went by small boats to view his coffin aboard the Monarch. On Jan. 29, 1870, a cold New England winter's day, Monarch seamen carried the coffin ashore. Drums sounded a muted roll. The band played the somber Death March.
90-Hushed crowds filed by his coffin lying in state in Portland's City Hall where, on Feb. 1, 1870, The Messiah was sung, Mozart's Requiem was played. In the bitter cold, thousands watched black plumed horses pull the hearse through Portland streets to the railway station. Many others watched en route and as the funeral train reached GP's hometown.
91-His coffin was taken to the Peabody Institute, Peabody, Mass., where it lay in state for viewing in the Peabody library. On display there were Queen Victoria's enameled miniature portrait made especially for him, the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal and resolutions of praise for the PEF, scrolls of the Freedom of the City of London, scrolls of honorary memberships in the Fishmongers' and Clothworkers' Companies, and other honors.
92-The coffin was taken to the Congregational Church for the last funeral service and the eulogy. Special trains from Boston brought solemn crowds to his hometown. The Congregational Church was filled to capacity. All eyes were on Queen Victoria's son Prince Arthur (Duke of Connaught, 1850-1942) and his entourage, captains of the Monarch and the Plymouth, Massachusetts and Maine governors, Harvard Univ. Pres. Charles W. Eliot, mayors of six nearby cities, and trustees of GP's institutes.
93-Eulogist Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94), GP’s philanthropic advisor, said of him in part: "What a career this has been whose final scene lies before us! The trusts he established, the institutes he founded, the buildings he raised stand before all eyes. He planned these for many years. When I expressed amazement at his purpose, he said to me, 'Why Mr. Winthrop, this is no new idea for me. From the earliest of my manhood, I have contemplated some such disposition of my property; and I have prayed my heavenly Father day by day, that I might be enabled, before I died, to show my gratitude for the blessings which He has bestowed upon me by doing some great good for my fellow-men.'"
94-GP's underlined words above are carved on the Westminster Abbey floor marker where his remains had rested for 30 days (Nov. 12-Dec. 11, 1869). He was buried in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass., Feb. 8, 1870, near where he played as a boy and where he built the family tomb. The 96-day funeral was over. Two nations had given his funeral a rare touch of grandeur.
GP the Founder of Modern Philanthropy
95-Franklin Parker's dissertation, "George Peabody, Founder of Modern Philanthropy," documented these PEF firsts: 1-The PEF was the first US foundation to require the stimulating effect of matching local grants for schools it aided or founded; 2-the first to require state legislation to perpetuate state financial support of its aided schools; 3-the first multimillion dollar foundation recognized as national rather than local; and 4-the first to provide operational flexibility as conditions changed.
96-Other PEF firsts included: 5-the first U.S. foundation to elect trustees from professional and financial circles; 6-the first deliberately to use public relations to foster public acceptance and good will; 7-the first whose executives were former university officials (Barnas Sears of Brown Univ; JLM Curry of Howard College, Ala.); 8-the first to allow its trustees to disband after its job was done and distribute its assets as they saw fit (when dissolved in 1914, PEF assets endowed George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, next to Vanderbilt Univ.; funded education departments of 14 southern universities and colleges; and gave its residue to the Slater Fund for Negro colleges).
97-Historians have written the following on the PEF's influence: 1-Charles William Dabney: [The Aug. 1869 GP-Lee meeting] inspired the Four Conferences on Education in the South from which emerged the Southern Education Board and [John D. Rockefeller's] General Education Board. 2-Abraham Flexner: There was the closest cooperation among, and interlocking officers and trustees of, the PEF, the Southern Education Board, the General Education Board, the Samuel F. Slater Fund, the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation, and the Rosenwald Fund.
98-Historians on the PEF's influence (cont'd): 3-Paul H. Buck: [the PEF was]: a fruitful experiment in harmony and understanding between the sections. 4-Thomas D. Clark: [the PEF] worked as an education leaven. 5-Harvey Wish: no kindness touched the hearts of the Southerners quite so much as Peabody's educational bequest. 6-Jesse Brundage Sears: [the PEF was] the first successful precedent-setting educational foundation. 7-Daniel Coit Gilman: all subsequent foundations adopted the principles Peabody formulated.
99-Franklin's GPCFT's Founders Day Address, Feb. 18, 1955, documented that in their 47-years existence PEF executives and trustees pioneered the heartbeat of American educational philanthropy—using private wealth judiciously and experimentally as a lever to tackle key educational and socio-economic problems, the results if good serving as models for other agencies and governments to emulate. GP's hope and money made this influence possible. In appreciation and to attest to his influence, southern communities have given his name to a score of streets, avenues, elementary and secondary schools, university education buildings, hotels, and at least one park. GP built better than he knew. See: Peabody, George (1795-1869), Named Institutions, Firms, Buildings, Ships, Other Facilities; Music and/or Poems Named for GP.
100-With Franklin's speech given and handsomely printed, with the GP dissertation accepted, graduation followed in Aug. 1956. Through the years we went to teaching posts at the Univ. of Texas, Austin (1957-64); Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman (1964-68); W.Va. Univ. (1968-86), and (after retirement), Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff (1986-89), and Western Carolina Univ., Cullowhee (1989-94).
101-Over the years we did other research, wrote other books, and wrote and published GP articles (listed fully below). We submitted to several publishers "George Peabody, Founder of Modern Philanthropy," (Nashville: George Peabody College for Teachers, 1956), 3 vols, 1,209 pp. These were returned as needing pruning and focus.
George Peabody, a Biography
102-In May 1970, GPCFT Public Relations Director John E. Windrow (1899-1984) brought together prominent New England Peabodys for a Nashville dinner conference at which Franklin spoke. The new Vanderbilt Univ. Press director, in attendance, asked to see a revised GP manuscript. This welcome request threw us into a frenzy of revision. Unexpected but welcome help came from London Athenaeum Club librarian Eileen Stiff's friend, Margaret Leland Goldsmith, a professional writer. She and Eileen had befriended us through the years. Margaret's editorial suggestions helped turn the dissertation into a readable 233 page book.
103-Thus, 14 years after completing the GP dissertation, Franklin Parker's George Peabody, a Biography (Nashville: Vanderbilt Univ. Press, 1971), was published. Twenty-four years later, for GP's 200th birthday, Feb. 18, 1795-1995, a revised and updated version was republished with 12 illustrations added. Earlier, also for GP's 200th birthday, our 22 previously published GP articles were reprinted in a special bicentennial issue, "The Legacy of George Peabody," Peabody Journal of Education, Fall 1994, 210 pp.
GP's Motives
104-We long pondered GP's philanthropic motives, strengths, weaknesses, and especially why he is he so little known today. His chief motive may have been his 1852 motto: "Education, a debt due from present to future generations." His motive may also have been to compensate for his own lack of formal education.
105-In 1831 he replied to a nephew who asked his financial help to attend Yale College (GP's underlining): "Deprived, as I was, of the opportunity of obtaining anything more than the most common education, I am well qualified to estimate its value by the disadvantages I labour under in the society [in] which my business and situation in life frequently throws me, and willingly would I now give twenty times the expense attending a good education could I now possess it, but it is now too late for me to learn and I can only do to those who come under my care, as I could have wished circumstances had permitted others to have done by me."
106-His motive may been simply to succeed. He said in an 1856 speech: "Heaven has been pleased to reward my efforts with success, and has permitted me to establish a house in the great metropolis of England. I have endeavored to make it an American house, to give it an American atmosphere, to furnish it with American journals; to make it a center for American news, and an agreeable place for my friends visiting London."
107-His motive may have been to gain honors, so abundant in his last years. After death he was elected to the New York Univ. Hall of Fame in 1900, where a bust of him was unveiled in 1926. His likeness was put on a large bronze door intended for the U.S. Capitol Building. Bicentennial programs were held on the 200th anniversary of his birth (1795-1995) at Harvard, Yale, in Nashville; in Danvers and in Peabody, Mass.; at the PIB; and at Westminster Abbey, England, where the marker at his temporary grave was refurbished.
108-Disappointment in love may have driven him. Late in life a business friend congratulated him on being the greatest philanthropist of his time. GP reportedly replied, "After my disappointment long ago, I determined to devote myself to my fellow-beings, and am carrying out that decision to my best ability."
109-This "disappointment" may have been an early failed romance with Elizabeth Knox of Baltimore to whom he is said to have proposed twice. There is also a documented broken engagement to Esther Elizabeth Hoppin (1819-1905) of Providence, R.I. She visited London for young Queen Victoria's coronation (June 28, 1838). As a school girl she had earlier been infatuated with Alexander Lardner in Philadelphia. GP met her in London, fell in love, and proposed marriage. Returning to the U.S. she again met Lardner, realized her engagement to GP was a mistake, broke their engagement, married Lardner, had two children, and outlived GP by 35 years. Her portrait painted in Philadelphia by artist Thomas Sully shows her in all her beauty.
GP's Strengths
110-We long pondered GP's strengths. On this point his first partner Elisha Riggs, Sr. wrote in his last letter to GP (April 17, 1852): "You always had the faculty of an extraordinary memory and strong mind which enabled you to carry out your plans better than almost any other man I ever knew.... [To] these happy faculties I attribute much of your prosperity. [Unusual] perseverance enabled you to rise to an extraordinary position..." See: Riggs, Elisha, Sr.
111-Economic historian Muriel E. Hidy's wrote thus of GP's strengths: "He [GP] had a vigorous personality, and, in spite of a humble origin, apparently found little difficulty in moving in prominent circles. An ability to attract firm friends among his business contemporaries gave him many useful connections....He benefited by the confidence which as a young man he had awakened in Elisha Riggs [Sr.]. Later his amiability brought him close association with "[leading U.S. business men: William Shepard Wetmore, John Cryder, and Curtis Miranda Lampson, and William Wilson Corcoran….]." See: persons named.
112-John Bright, British statesman, wrote in his diary (June 4, 1867): "Mr. Peabody is a remarkable man. He is 74 years old, large and has been powerful of frame. He has made an enormous fortune, which he is giving for good objects--chiefly for education in America and for useful purposes in London. He has had almost no schooling and has not read books, but has had much experience, and is deeply versed in questions of commerce and banking. He is a man of strong will, and can decide questions for himself." See: John Bright.
Old Age Irritations
113-We also pondered his faults. Gout, rheumatism, and other ailments in old age sometimes made him irritable, crotchety, and abrupt. On July 14, 1869, four months before his death, he complained irritably to the trustees of his first Peabody Institute, Peabody, Mass.: "You spend too much. You spend too much." Soon brightening he said smilingly, "Well, well, I must give you $50,000 more to get you out of trouble. And I must say that none of my foundations have given me so much satisfaction as this one at my native place."
114-In his last decade he was incredible busy looking after his philanthropies and seeing friends and relatives. He was also set in his ways. The daughter of a business friend wrote of his autocracy in old age during his 1866-67 U.S. visit.: 'The precision of business habits and a long old bachelor hood, combined with constitutional shyness, caused Mr. Peabody, at times, to appear to disadvantage…. He had himself accomplished so much that he felt [his] wishes…should become instantaneous facts--his small due from those around him….. [T]he ruthless serenity with which [he] countermanded luncheon and advanced the dinner hour to meet business exigencies…dismay[ed]…the hearts of the most devoted hostesses. I do not suppose Mr. Peabody ever thought of giving trouble, and certainly no one ever thought of remonstrating."
Fleeting Fame
115-Mostly we pondered why GP, so lauded in his last years, has been largely forgotten. This may be due to the fleeting nature of fame. Each generation chooses its heroes who rise, flourish, are replaced, and often forgotten. This view is suggested by historian John Steele Gordon whose article, "Most Underrated Philanthropist," American Heritage, Vol. 50, No. 3 (May-June 1999), pp. 68-69 reads in part: "Peabody is unjustly forgotten today, but his unprecedented generosity was greatly appreciated in his time."
Grand Adventure
116-As researchers, looking back, we marvel at the good fortune, helpful people, and unusual turning points that enabled us to find and pursue a neglected American hero. We were 1930s depression children, the first in our families enabled to attend college in the booming aftermath of World War II that ended and altered so many lives.
117-Newly married, without children, seeking challenges--when the GP research opportunity fell our way, we saw he was worth pursuing. We were uncertain innocents, willing to take risks. We made mistakes and were often rescued by friends and fate. In retrospect being "On the Trail of GP" intermittently over the last 50 years has been a grand adventure.
Authors' Publications on GP
Dissertation
Franklin Parker, Ed. D. Dissertation, "George Peabody, Founder of Modern Philanthropy," (Nashville: George Peabody College for Teachers, 1956), 3 vols., 1219 pp. Sold as Doctoral Dissertation No. 19,758, microfilm or hard copy, University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 (Phone 1-800-521-0600 or 313-761-4700, FAX 313-973-1540). See: Dissertation Abstracts, XVII, No. 8 (Aug. 1957), pp. 1701-1702.
Books
1-Franklin Parker, George Peabody, A Biography. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1971, 233 pp. Although out of print 1-there is a microform reprint in CORE [Collected Original Resources in Education], IX, 3 [Nov. 1985], Fiche 7 D10 (CORE is a British miroform journal) and 2-microfilm & print versions were also sold by Books on Demand, University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 [ask for LC79-15,7741, O-8357-3261-4,2039482]). The 1971 version was recorded on 2 audio cassettes, read by narrator Bruce Bortz at the Maryland State Library, held by the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Book Number Md-PH (MDC334), less Chap. 25 "GP’s Legacy"; "An Essay on Sources"; "Sources of Extant Portraits, Photographs, and Illustrations;" and without the Index.
2-Franklin Parker, George Peabody, A Biography. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, Feb. 1995, 278 pp., revised & updated (out of print since Jan. 2002 but still avilable amazon.com and other major booksellers).
Encyclopedias
1-(With Betty J. Parker), "Peabody Education Fund in Tennessee (1867-1914)." Tennessee Encyclopedia of History & Culture (Nashville: Tennessee Historical Society, 1998), pp. 725-726.
2-Franklin Parker, "George Peabody (1795-1869), Merchant, Banker, Creator of the Peabody Education Fund, and a Founder of Modern Philanthropy," Encyclopedia of Notable American Philanthropists, ed. by Robert T. Grimm, Jr. (Greenwood Press & Oryx Press for Indiana Univ. Center for Philanthropy in the U.S., 2003), pp. 242-246.
3-Franklin Parker, "George Peabody (1795-1869)," Encyclopedia of Philanthropy in the United States. Edited by Dwight Burlingame (Greenwood Press and Oryx Press, for Indiana Univ. Center on Philanthropy, 2003), pp. ?-?.
Journal Issue
Franklin Parker, "Legacy of George Peabody: Special Bicentenary Issue" [reprint of 21 articles], Peabody Journal of Education, LXX, No. l (Fall 1994), 210 pp., published as ISBN: 0805898956, by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, sold by Peabody Journal of Education, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, 113 Payne Hall, Post Office Box 41, Nashville, Tenn. 37203, Phone: (615) 322-8963. $15 for individuals, $8 each for 40+ copies. Also sold at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/ Price: £14, paperback , 216 pages (1996).
Pamphlet
Franklin Parker, George Peabody (1795-1869), Founder of Modern Philanthropy. Nashville, Tenn.: George Peabody College for Teachers of Vanderbilt University, 1956.
Chapter in Book
Franklin Parker, "George Peabody (1795-1869), Founder of Modern Educational Philanthropy: His Contributions to Higher Education," pp. 71-99 in Academic Profiles in Higher Education. Edited by James J. Van Patten. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992.
Articles in Journals, Since 1955
1-"Founder Paid Debt to Education," Peabody Post, VIII, No. 8 (Feb. 10, 1955), p. 1.
2-"The Girl George Peabody Almost Married," Peabody Reflector, XXVII, No. 8 (Oct. 1955), pp. 215, 224-225.
3-"George Peabody and the Spirit of America," Peabody Reflector, XXIX, No. 2 (Feb. 1956), pp. 26-27.
4-"On the Trail of George Peabody," Berea Alumnus, XXVI, No. 8 (May 1956), p. 4.
5-(With Walter Merrill), "William Lloyd Garrison and George Peabody," Essex Institute Historical Collections, XCV, No. 1 (Jan. 1959), pp. 1-20.
6-"George Peabody and Maryland," Peabody of Journal of Education, XXXVII, No. 3 (Nov. 1959), pp. 150-157.
7-"An Approach to Peabody's Gifts and Legacies," Essex Institute Historical Collections, XCVI, No. 4 (Oct. 1960), pp. 291-296.
8-"Robert E. Lee, George Peabody, and Sectional Reunion," Peabody Journal of Education, XXXVII, No. 4 (Jan. 1960), pp. 195-202.
9-"George Peabody and the Search for Sir John Franklin, 1852-1854," American Neptune, XX, No. 2 (April 1960), pp. 104-111.
10-"Influences on the Founder of the Johns Hopkins University and the Johns Hopkins Hospital," Bulletin of the History of MedicineXXXIV, No. 2 (March-April 1960), pp. 148-153.
11-"George Peabody's Influence on Southern Educational Philanthropy," Tennessee Historical Quarterly, XX, No. 2 (March 1961), pp. 65-74.
12-"Maryland's Yankee Friend--George Peabody, Esq.," Maryland Teacher, XX, No. 5 (Jan. 1963), pp. 6-7, 24. Reprinted in Peabody Notes (Spring 1963), pp. 4-7, 10.
13-"The Funeral of George Peabody," Essex Institute Historical Collection, XCIX, No. 2 (April 1963), pp. 67-87. Reprinted: Peabody Journal of Education, XLIV, No. 1 (July 1966), pp. 21-36.
14-"The Girl George Peabody Almost Married," Peabody Notes, XVII, No. 3 (Spring 1964), pp. 10-14.
15-"George Peabody, 1795-1869, Founder of Modern Philanthropy," Peabody Reflector, XXXVIII, No. I (Jan.-Feb. 1965), pp. 9-16.
16-"George Peabody and the Peabody Museum of Salem," Curator, X, No. 2 (June 1967), pp. 137-153.
17-"To Live Fulfilled: George Peabody, 1795-1869, Founder of George Peabody College for Teachers," Peabody Reflector, XLIII, No. 2 (Spring 1970), pp. 50-53.
18-"On the Trail of George Peabody," mn, XLIV, No. 4 (Fall 1971), pp. 100-103.
19-"George Peabody, 1795-1869: His Influence on Educational Philanthropy," Peabody Journal of Education, XLIX, No. 2 (Jan. 1972), pp. 138-145.
20-"Pantheon of Philanthropy: George Peabody," National Society of Fund Raisers Journal, I, No. 1 (Dec. 1976), pp. 16-20.
21-"In Praise of George Peabody, 1795-1869," CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XV, No. 2 (June 1991), Fiche 5 AO2.
22-"George Peabody (1795-1869), Founder of Modern Educational Philanthropy: His Contributions to Higher Education," CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XVI, No. 1 (March 1992), Fiche 11 D06.
23-"Education Philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869), Founder of George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, and the Peabody Library and Conservatory of Music, Baltimore (Brief History)." CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XVIII, No. 1 (March 1994), Fiche ?. Abstract in Resources in Education.
24-(With Betty J. Parker), "George Peabody's (1795-1869) Educational Legacy," CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XVIII, No. 1 (March 1994), Fiche 1 C05. Abstract in Resources in Education, XXIX, No. 9 (Sept. 1994), p. 147 (ERIC ED 369 720). (Note: Resources in Education abstracts documents published in ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) since 1966 by the U.S. Department of Education, sold in microform in hard copy).
25-(With Betty J. Parker), "Educational Philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869), George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, and the Peabody Library and Conservatory of Music, Baltimore (Brief History)," CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XVIII, No. 1 (March 1994), Fiche 3 A10. Abstract in Resources in Education, XXX, No. 5 (May 1995), pp. 133-134 (ERIC ED 378 070). Same in Journal of Educational Philosophy & History, XLIV (1994), pp. 69-93.
26-"Educational Philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869): Photos and Related Illustrations in Printed Sources and Depositories," CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XVIII, No. 2 (June 1994), Fiche 1 D1Z; abstract in Resources in Education, XXX, No. 6 (June 1995), p. 149 (ERIC ED 397 179).
27-"The Legacy of George Peabody: Special Bicentenary Issue" [reprints 22 article on George Peabody], Peabody Journal of Education, LXX, No. 1 (Fall 1994), 210 pp.
28-"Educational Philanthropist George Peabody and Peabody College of Vanderbilt University: Dialogue with Bibliography," CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XVIII, No. 3 (Dec. 1994), Fiche 2 E06.
29-(With Betty J. Parker). "A Forgotten Hero's Birthday [George Peabody]: Lion and the Lamb," Crossville Chronicle, (Tenn.) Feb. 22, 1995, p. 4A.
30-(With Betty J. Parker). "America's Forgotten Educational Philanthropist: A Bicentennial View," CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XIX, No. 1 (March 1995), Fiche 7 A11. Abstract in Resources in Education, XXXI, No. 12 (Dec. 1996), p. 161 (ERIC ED 398 126).
31-(With Betty J. Parker). "Educational Philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869) and the Peabody Institute Library, Danvers, Massachusetts: Dialogue and Chronology," CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XIX, No. 1 (March 1995), Fiche 7 B01.
32-(With Betty J. Parker). "George Peabody (1795-1869); Merchant, Banker, Philanthropist," CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XX, No. 1 (March 1996), Fiche 9 B01. Abstract in Resources in Education, XXXI, No. 3 (March 1996), p. 169 (ERIC ED 388 571).
33-(With Betty J. Parker). "On the Trail of Educational Philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869): A Dialogue." CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XX, No. 3 (Oct. 1996), Fiche 13 B07.
34-(With Betty J. Parker). "Educational Philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869) and First U.S. Paleontology Prof. Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899) at Yale University." CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XXII, No. 1 (March 1998), Fiche 7 A04.
35-(With Betty J. Parker). "Educational Philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869) and U.S.-British Relations, 1850s-60s." CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), XXII, No. 1 (March 1999), Fiche 1 A05. Also abstract in Resources in Education, XXXV, No. 6 (May 2000), p. ? (ERIC ED 436 444).
36-(With Betty J. Parker). "Educational Philanthropist George Peabody's (1795-1869) Death and Funeral." CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education) and Abstract in Resources in Education (ERIC ED). Accepted and to appear soon.
37-(With Betty J. Parker). "George Peabody A-Z," CORE (Collected Original Resources in Education), Vol. 23, No. 3 (Oct. 1999), Fiche 11 C10.
38-(With Betty J. Parker). "U.S. Medical Education Reformers Abraham Flexner (1866-1959) and Simon Flexner (1863-1946) ." Abstract in Resources in Education, XXXVI, No. 1 (Jan. 2001), p. 160 (ERIC ED 443 765).
39-(With Betty J. Parker). "General Robert E. Lee (1807-70) and Philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869) at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, July 23-Aug. 30, 1869." Abstract in Resources in Education, XXXVI, No. 2 (Feb. 2001), p. 184 (ERIC ED 449 17).
40-(With Betty J. Parker). "Forgotten George Peabody (1795-1869); Massachusetts-born Merchant, London-based Banker, Philanthropist. His Life, Influence, and Related People, Places, Events: A Handbook," 1243 pp. Abstract in Resources in Education, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3 (March 2001), p. 122 (ERIC ED 445 998).
Overview of GP's Life and Career
(While this A to Z handbook arrangement focuses on specific persons, events, and influences--some readers might like to first read the following selected entries which collectively offer an overview of GP's life and career):
1-Proctor, Sylvester (1769-1852) describes GP's youth and apprenticeship in Proctor's general store in Danvers (later South Danvers, later Peabody), Mass.
2-Riggs, Elisha, Sr. (1779-1853), Md. merchant, and GP's first senior partner, describes GP's early career as a dry goods importer and wholesaler merchant in the U.S. South, with 5 buying trips to Europe.
3-Bradford Academy, Mass., where GP paid for the education of his siblings, nephews, nieces, and cousins, including his same-named nephew (George Peabody, 1815-32), to whom GP's expressed profound regret at his own lack of schooling is a key to his later philanthropy.
4-Daniels, Judith Dodge (née Peabody) Russell (1799-1879), GP's sister who knew him intimately and disbursed his family funds for him.
5-Corcoran, William Wilson (1798-1888), business associate and close personal friend through whom is told GP's rise as a London-based American banker.
6-Hidy, Muriel Emmie (1906-), who chronicled his business career as a 19th century merchant in international trade.
7-Morgan, Junius Spencer (1813-90), Conn.-born merchant who GP took as partner, through whom GP's banking career can be read.
8-Morgan, John Pierpont, Sr. (1837-1913), J.S. Morgan's son, who at age 19 began as NYC agent for George Peabody & Co., London, and became a banking colossus (GP laid the foundation of the House of Morgan).
9-Dinners, GP's, London (1850s), showing his social emergence and his U.S.-British friendship efforts.
10-PIB (1857), an early multicultural center which presaged such later institutes as Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center and NYC's Lincoln Center, and whose early conflicts amid Civil War dislocations so worried GP.
11-Peabody Homes of London (1862), his largest and most financially successful gift to affordably house London's poor.
12-PEF (1867), the philanthropic gift he said was closest to his heart, through which he hoped through public education to help elevate the defeated South and make the nation whole.
13-Kenin, Richard (1947-), who wrote perceptively of GP's London years, hopes, dreams, and accomplishments.
14-Moran, Benjamin (1820-86), overworked, underpaid, and envious U.S. Legation in London secty. who, in his secret journal castigated GP (and others) until, attending GP's Dec. 11, 1869, Westminster Abbey funeral service, he wrote an eloquent tribute to GP.
15-Civil War and GP describes his misunderstood role in that conflict.
16-Quotations by and about GP contains insights into his life, career, faults, and virtues.
17-Death and Funeral, GP's, has a full account of his unprecedented 96-day transatlantic funeral and why it was used to ease near-war U.S.-British angers over the Trent Affair and the Alabama Claims.
Entries (in alphabetical order)
(Entries are in alphabetical order with Mac and Mc treated as if both are spelled Mac. Peabody-named persons are listed before Peabody-named institutions).
A
GP Celebration, S. Danvers, Mass., Oct. 9, 1856)
Abbott, Alfred Amos (1820-84). 1-Gave Welcoming Address. Alfred Amos Abbott was the Mass. dignitary who gave the welcoming address at the Oct. 9, 1856, reception and dinner for GP in South Danvers (renamed Peabody in 1868), Mass. This GP U.S. visit (during Sept. 15, 1856, to Aug. 19, 1857) was his first return to the U.S. in nearly 20 years since leaving for London in early Feb. 1837 on his fifth European commercial trip. He went on this fifth trip abroad as head of Peabody, Riggs & Co. and also as one of three Md. agents commissioned to sell the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Co. portion of Md.'s $8 million bond sale abroad to raise funds for internal improvements.
Abbott, A.A. 2-South Danvers First. After having been warmly greeted on arrival in NYC, GP declined a public reception there and elsewhere on the advice of his sister Judith Dodge (née Peabody) Russell (1799-1879). She had written him while still in London that South Danvers people had voted $3,000 for a public welcome for him and "will be extremely disappointed if they do not do much more than anybody else and do it first. They are tenacious of their right to you." Ref.: Judith Dodge (née Peabody) Russell, to GP, Sept. 10 and 22, 1856, Peabody Papers, PEM, Salem, Mass.
Abbott, A.A. 3-Career. Alfred A. Abbott was born in Andover, Mass., studied at Phillips Academy, Andover, entered Yale College (1837), graduated from Union College (1841), received the LL.B. degree from the Dane Law School, Harvard Univ. (1843), was admitted to the Essex County bar (1844), practiced law in South Danvers, served in the Mass. legislature's lower house (1850-52), served in the Mass. Senate (1853), was district attorney for Essex County (1853-68), and was first appointed and twice elected Clerk of the Courts (1870-84). Ref.: Abbott, pp. 795-796.
Abbott, A.A. 4-GP's Longtime Friend. A.A. Abbott was also GP's intimate friend, a trustee of the Peabody Institute Library of South Danvers (founded 1852, to which GP gave a total of $217,600), chairman of its lyceum and library committee (1854-58), and president of its board of trustees (1859-84). Ref.: Ibid.
Abbott, A.A. 5-Remarks. In his Oct. 9, 1856, welcoming address, Alfred A. Abbott said of GP, in part: "... When local pride needed aid to erect the Lexington Monument he remembered us. When this town established two high schools he remembered them with prize medals. When Danvers celebrated its centennial he sent us a noble sentiment--education is a debt due from present to future generations. He paid his share and doubled the endowment of the institution before us...." Ref.: (Abbott's speech): Proceedings...Oct. 9, 1856, pp. 39-44.
Abbott, A.A. 6-Other Speeches. Other speeches followed by Robert Shillaber Daniels (b.1791), Edward Everett (1794-1865), Mass. Gov. Henry J. Gardner (1818-92), and John Chandler Bancroft Davis (1822-1907). Ref.: New York Times, Oct. 10, 1856, p. 1, c.3; and Oct. 11. 1856, p. 2, c. 1-5. Tapley, pp. 166-167. "Public Reception," pp. 642, 653. See: persons mentioned. Visits to the U.S. by GP.
Abbott, A.A. 7-GP's Reply. Visibly affected, GP replied, in part: "Thank you from my heart. This welcome...almost unmans me.... My old friends are largely gone. You are a new generation." Turning to the school children, GP said: "There is not a youth within the sound of my voice whose advantages are not greater than were mine. I have achieved nothing that is not possible to the most humble among you." Ref.: Ibid., pp. 44-46.
Abbott, A.A. 8-GP's Reply Cont'd. "To be truly great it is not necessary to gain wealth or importance. Every boy may become a great man in whatever sphere Providence places him. Truth and integrity unsullied by unworthy acts, constitute greatness." GP concluded: "This is my advice to you, from one who always regretted his lack of early education, now freely offered to you. We meet for the first and perhaps last time. While I live I will be interested in your welfare. God bless you all!" Ref.: Ibid.
Abbott, A.A. 9-Salem School Girl's Letter. Not knowing that her letter would be saved and someday printed, 17-year-old Salem school girl Alice L. Putnam recorded: "A celebration was held in Danvers on Thursday, October 9th, in honor of the return of George Peabody, a native of the place who has been residing for many years in London where he has amassed an enormous fortune. He had done a great deal for Danvers during his absence, and they wished to greet his return with some public demonstration...." Ref.: Putnam, pp. 63-64.
Abbott, A.A. 10-Salem School Girl's Letter Cont'd.: "Almost all Salem went up to the good old town, either to see the decorations, the procession, or Mr. Peabody himself...." She continued: "Mr. Peabody is a fine looking man, quite tall and stout; he looked warm and dusty from his long ride, but had a fine open countenance.... Mr. Peabody appeared very much affected and his hand trembled very much." Ref.: Ibid.
Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, GP Critic
Abolitionist. 1-GP Critic. Abolitionist W.L. Garrison (1805-79), was born in Newburyport, Mass., not far from Danvers, where GP was born 10 years earlier. Garrison published the Liberator (1831-65), an anti-slavery journal. He was considered extreme in his views, intemperate as a polemicist writer, and hostile to the wealthy unless they supported his abolitionist cause. See: Garrison, William Lloyd. Civil War and GP.
Abolitionist. 2-Attacked GP. Garrison publicly attacked GP's 1857 $1.4 million PIB gift as "made to a Maryland institution, at a time when that state was rotten with treason." Garrison also attacked GP's $2 million 1867 PEF to advance public education in 11 former Confederate states with W.Va., added because of its poverty. Ref.: Ibid.
Abolitionist. 3-Garrison Mistaken. Confusing GP the philanthropist (1795-1869) from Danvers, Mass., with the same-named George Peabody (1804-92) from Salem, Mass. (who was president of the Eastern Railroad), Garrison erroneously charged GP (in London since 1837) with favoring the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law in Mass. Ref.: Ibid.
Abolitionist. 4-Pres. Lincoln's Death. Garrison also faulted GP for not publicly expressing sorrow at Pres. Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Garrison wrote, "Surely, Mr. Peabody owed it to his native land, and to himself as an opulent and influential American, in some way to bear an emphatic testimony at such a critical period in our national struggle; but no such testimony is on record...." Ref.: Ibid.
Abolitionist. 5-GP in W.Va. Of GP's Aug. 1869 visit to the White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., mineral health spa (GP was then 74, sick, and three months from death), Garrison wrote angrily, "Mr. Peabody is now laboring under increasing bodily infirmities.... [Instead of going to a Northern mineral spring], true to his Southern sympathies, he hastens to the White Sulphur Springs in Virginia,... the favorite resort of the elite of rebeldom, who...collectively welcomed his presence by adopting a series of congratulatory resolutions.... [Peabody replied with his] 'own cordial esteem and regard for the high honor, integrity, and heroism of the Southern people!'" Ref.: Ibid.
U.S. Minister to Britain During the Civil War
Adams, Charles Francis (1807-86). 1-U.S. Minister to Britain. Charles Francis Adams was the Boston-born grandson of second U.S. Pres. John Adams (1735-1826) and the son of sixth U.S. Pres. John Quincy Adams (1767-1848). He was a Harvard College graduate, a law student under Daniel Webster (1782-1852), and U.S. Minister to Britain (1861-68) during GP's residence in London. C.F. Adams and GP had friendly contact during strained U.S.-British relations over the Civil War. Ref.: Boatner, p. 3.
Adams, C.F. 2-U.S.-British Angers. British aristocrats favored the South for socio-cultural and economic reasons (Lancashire mills needed southern cotton, purchases of which were cut off by U.S. naval blockade of Confederate ports). As U.S. Minister to Britain during 1861-68, C.F. Adams played a key role in helping prevent British recognition of the Confederacy. He also helped ease British-U.S. tensions over the Trent Affair, Nov. 8, 1861, when a Union warship illegally seized Confederate emissaries James Murray Mason (1798-1871), John Slidell (1793-1871), and their male secretaries from the British mail ship Trent. See: Alabama Claims. Trent Affair.
Adams, C.F. 3-U.S.-British Angers Cont'd. C.F. Adams also helped ease British-U.S. tension when the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama sank 64 Union ships with the loss of Union lives and treasure. He represented the U.S. in the Alabama Claims controversy of 1871-72, settled by international arbitration in Geneva, in which Britain paid the U.S. $15.5 million reparations for damage caused to northern ships and ports. Ref.: Ibid.
Adams, C.F. 4-Sharing Union Victory News. Early in the Civil War, through commercial contacts, GP in London had news a few hours before it was generally known of Union victories in Tenn. when Gen. U.S. Grant took Fort Henry on Feb. 6, 1862, and Fort Donelson on Feb. 15, 1862. GP shared this good news with U.S. Minister C.F. Adams and discussed the implications with a small group of U.S. and British Union sympathizers at the U.S. Legation. While U.S. Minister to Britain, C.F. Adams was a trustee of the $2.5 million Peabody Donation Fund for low rent housing for London working poor families. Ref.: Ibid.
Adams, C.F. 5-Alabama Claims. Charles Francis Adams represented the U.S. in settling the Alabama Claims controversy, 1871-72, by international tribunal in Geneva, Switzerland (earlier, about 1868 GP had been suggested as an arbiter but was not chosen). British jurist Alexander James Edmund Cockburn (1802-80) represented England. Three others from neutral countries formed the tribunal. GP's unprecedented 96-day transatlantic funeral (he died in London, Nov. 4, 1869, during U.S.-British friction over the Alabama Claims) came about in part as officials in both countries sought to ease British-U.S. near-war angers over the Alabama Claims. Ref.: Ibid.
Adams, C.F. 6-CSS Alabama. CSS Alabama was a notorious British-built Confederate raider which sank 64 Union cargo ships (1862-64). Without a navy and with its southern ports blockaded by the North, Confederate agents evaded the blockade, went to England, secretly bought British-built ships, armed them as Confederate raiders, renamed them Alabama, Florida, Shenandoah, and others. These British-built Confederate raiders sank northern ships, wrecked northern ports, and cost Union lives and treasure. U.S. demand for reparations caused by these British-built raiders was not resolved until the 1871-72 international tribunal in Geneva determined that Britain pay the U.S. $15.5 million indemnity.
Adams, C.F. 7-Alabama Claims Cont'd. This Alabama Claims controversy was unresolved when GP died in London on Nov. 4, 1869. The U.S. was angry. Britain was resentful. Officially Britain was neutral in the U.S. Civil War. But the British upper class sympathized with the U.S. southern aristocracy. The Union blockade of southern ports cut off raw cotton needed by British cotton mills. Over half of the 534,000 British cotton mill workers lost their jobs. Fewer than one fourth worked full time. Historian Shelby Foote found that two million British workers lost their jobs in cotton mills and related industries. Ref.: Ibid.
Adams, C.F. 8-Trent Affair Angers. British-U.S. irritation also persisted over the Trent Affair. On the stormy night of Oct. 11, 1861, four Confederate emissaries evaded the Union blockade at Charleston, S.C., went by ship to Havana, Cuba, and there boarded the British mail ship Trent en route to England and France to seek aid and arms for the Confederacy. On Nov. 8, 1861, the British Trent was illegally stopped in the Bahaman Channel, West Indies, by the USS San Jacinto. Confederates James Murray Mason (from Va.), John Slidell (from La.), and their male secretaries, were forcibly removed, taken to Boston harbor, and jailed. Ref.: Ibid.
Adams, C.F. 9-Trent Affair Angers Cont'd. Anticipating war with the U.S., Britain sent 8,000 troops to Canada. But U.S. jingoism subsided. On Dec. 26, 1861, Pres. Lincoln told his cabinet, "One war at a time," got them to state that the seizure was unauthorized, and ordered release of the Confederate prisoners on Jan. 1, 1862. Ref.: Ibid.
Adams, C.F. 10-GP's Death and Funeral. GP's Nov. 4, 1869, death in London and the fact that his will stipulated burial in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass., played a part in calculated funeral honors for GP by PM William Ewart Gladstone (1809-98), Pres. U.S. Grant (1822-85), and other officials wanting to ease U.S.-British tensions over the Trent and the Alabama. Funeral honors also reflected Britain's appreciation for the $2.5 million Peabody homes for London's working poor. GP's two decades of efforts to improve U.S.-British relations were also valued. Ref.: Ibid.
Adams, C.F. 11-GP's Death and Funeral Cont'd. First Britain and then the U.S. outdid each other in these unprecedented transatlantic funeral honors: 1-a funeral service and temporary burial in Westminster Abbey (Nov. 12-Dec. 11, 1869, 30 days); 2-British cabinet decision (Nov. 10, 1869) to return his remains on HMS Monarch, Britain's newest and largest warship, for burial in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass.; and 3-U.S. government decision to send USS Plymouth from Marseilles, France, to accompany HMS /i>Monarch to the U.S. Ref.: Ibid.
Adams, C.F. 12-GP's Death and Funeral Cont'd. 4-There were impressive ceremonies in transferring GP's remains from Westminster Abbey to Portsmouth dock to the Monarch, specially outfitted as a funeral vessel (Dec. 11, 1869); 5-hectic 35-day transatlantic voyage (Dec. 21, 1869-Jan. 25, 1870); 6-the U.S. Navy's decision (Jan. 14, 1870) to place Adm. David G. Farragut in command of a U.S. naval flotilla to meet the Monarch in Portland harbor, Maine (Jan. 25-29, 1870); and 7-lying in state in Portland City Hall (Jan. 29-Feb. 1, 1870). Ref.: Ibid.
Adams, C.F. 13-GP's Death and Funeral Cont'd.: 8-There was a special funeral train to Peabody, Mass. (Feb. 1, 1870), and lying in state at Peabody Institute Library (Feb. 1-8, 1870); 9-Robert Charles Winthrop's funeral eulogy at the Congregational Church, Peabody, Mass., attended by several governors, mayors, Queen Victoria's son Prince Arthur, and other notables; 10-burial ceremony at Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass. (Feb. 8, 1870). Ref.: Ibid.
Adams, F.C. 1-Critical N.Y. Herald. F.C. Adams was a newspaper friend of GP who called on New York Herald editor James Gordon Bennett (1795-1872) and took him to task for his newspaper's scurrilous articles covering GP's 1856-57 U.S. visit. Bennett stopped his criticism of GP for a time. See: Corcoran, William Wilson. Visits to U.S. by GP.
Adams, F.C. 2-Joseph Peabody on Bennett. GP's cousin, Joseph Peabody, in NYC, irate over the Herald's slurs, sent GP this explanation: "I exceedingly regret that your pleasure in this country should be marred by the wretched leaders in the 'Herald.' You certainly have given no occasion for their remarks which disgust everybody with their wanton unreasonableness. I fear that any attempt to influence Bennett would make the matter ten times worse." Ref.: Ibid.
Adams, F.C. 3-Joseph Peabody on Bennett Cont'd.: "He knows better than anybody that you never invited him to the [U.S. Pres. Millard] Fillmore dinner, he also knows that he was not in England at the time, so he published this falsehood expressly to provoke a reply....It seems to be well known in this community that he makes it a system to attack some prominent person, it matters little who that person may be!...as regards the 'Herald,' it is even better to be abused than be praised by such a rascal as Bennett." The Herald continued to ridicule GP long after his return to London (end of Aug. 1857). Ref.: Ibid.
Adams, Henry Brooks (1838-1918). 1-Father was U.S. Minister to Britain. Henry Brooks Adams was private secretary to his father, Charles Francis Adams (1807-86, above), when the latter was U.S. Minister to Britain during 1861-68. In his book, The Education of Henry Adams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918), Henry Brooks Adams wrote of his contacts in London in the 1860s with important Britons and visiting and resident Americans, such as GP, Joshua Bates (1788-1864), Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90), and others. Henry Brooks Adams taught history at Harvard Univ. (1870-77) and wrote important histories and biographies. Ref.: Adams-a.
Adams, Henry Brooks. 2-On Benjamin Moran. H.B. Adams' book, Henry Adams and His Friends, A Collection of His Unpublished Letters, comp. by Harold Dean Cater (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1947), p. xxxiv, has a description of U.S. Legation in London Secty. Benjamin Moran (1820-86), often critical of GP in his private journal. Ref.: Adams-a. See: Moran, Benjamin.
Adams, H.B. 3-On Benjamin Moran Cont'd. Adams wrote: "On the staff of the American Legation in London was Benjamin Moran, an assistant secretary. He was a man of long experience at the Legation and one who became a sort of dependable workhorse to fill in for any duty that might come up from the changing personnel. He had an exaggerated notion of his importance; he was sensitive to flattery, and easily offended. He kept an extensive diary and while it must be read from the point of view of his character, it throws an interesting light on the Legation scene." Ref.: Adams-b, p. xxxiv. See: Moran, Benjamin.
Adams, Herbert Baxter (1850-1901). 1-Johns Hopkins Univ. Historian. Johns Hopkins Univ. historian Herbert Baxter Adams and his students used the special reference collection of the PIB Library, whose holdings were, for some years and in some fields, greater and richer than the Johns Hopkins libraries and even the Library of Congress. H.B. Adams was born in Shutesbury, near Amherst, Mass., was a graduate of Amherst College (1872) and Heidelberg Univ., Germany (Ph.D., 1876), and was one of the original faculty of the Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, founded in 1876. See: PIB. Hopkins, Johns.
Adams, H.B. 2-GP Influenced Johns Hopkins. GP had influenced fellow Baltimore merchant Johns Hopkins (1795-1873) to found that university, hospital, and medical school. In 1880 Adams began his famous seminars in history which produced many of the next generation of historians. He founded the "Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science" publications series, helped found the American Historical Association (1884), and was its secretary to 1900. See: Johns Hopkins Univ.
Arctic Search
Advance (ship). 1-Lost British Arctic Explorer Sir John Franklin. The 144-ton Advance and the 91-ton Rescue were two vessels donated by NYC merchant Henry Grinnell (1799-1874) to the First U.S. Grinnell Expedition, 1850-52, and the Second U.S. Grinnell Expedition, 1852-54, in the search for lost British Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin (1786-1847). These expeditions, two of some 40 British and U.S. expeditions to seek the lost explorer, did not find Sir John Franklin but were the first instances of U.S. Arctic exploration. See: Franklin, Sir John. Persons named.
Advance (ship). 2-GP Aided Arctic Search. GP gave $10,000 for scientific equipment for the Second U.S. Grinnell Expedition. His motivation was to promote better British-U.S. relations. He was moved by Lady Jane Franklin's (1792-1875) public appeal to U.S. Pres. Zachary Taylor (1784-1850, 12th U.S. president during 1849-50), and to the U.S. Congress to help find her missing husband. GP, U.S. resident merchant-banker in London since 1837, had in 1851 made a $15,000 loan to help the U.S. exhibitors display the best U.S. products and arts at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London (the first world's fair). He was also becoming known for his British-U.S. friendship dinners in London, usually held on American Independence Day (July 4th). Ref.: Ibid.
Advance (ship). 3-GP Aided Arctic Search Cont'd. The U.S. Navy authorized ten U.S. naval volunteers for the Second U.S. Grinnell Expedition, put the Advance and the Rescue under command of U.S. Navy Capt. Elisha Kent Kane, M.D. (1820-57). Kane, who had been U.S. naval surgeon on the First U.S. Grinnell Expedition, made the Second U.S. Grinnell Expedition's purpose a scientific one. Ref.: Ibid.
Advance (ship). 4-Elisha Kent Kane. The Advance became frozen in the Arctic. Kane and his men were forced to abandon it on May 24, 1855. They trekked 1,300 miles in 84 days, during which a third of the crew perished. Kane and the remaining crew were saved by a passing Danish vessel. Two later explorers found proof that Sir John Franklin died on June 11, 1847. Kane spent his last years writing books on the Second U.S. Grinnell Expedition. Kane confirmed that he had named Peabody Bay off Greenland in recognition of GP's $10,000 gift for scientific equipment. Ref.: Ibid.
Advance (ship). 5-HMS Resolute. Of incidental interest is an occurrence that connected the U.S. White House with the U.S. Grinnell expeditions in the search for Sir John Franklin. HMS Resolute was a British ship abandoned in the Arctic ice in the decade-long search for Sir John Franklin. Capt. Samuel Buddington of the U.S. whaler George Henry found and extricated the Resolute. The U.S. government purchased the damaged Resolute, repaired it, and returned it to Britain as a gift. Ref.: Ibid.
Advance (ship). 6-White House Desk When the Resolute was broken up, Queen Victoria had a massive desk made from its timbers and gave it to the U.S. President. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (1929-94, later Mrs. Onassis) found the desk in a White House storeroom in 1961 and had it refurbished for Pres. John F. Kennedy's (1917-63) use. Famous photos show President Kennedy's young son John F. Kennedy, Jr. (1960-99), playing under that desk. Pres. Bill Clinton returned the desk to the Oval Office in 1993. Ref.: Ibid.
GP’s First Dry Goods Advertisement
Advertisement of goods for sale (Sept.-Dec. 1812). 1-First advertisement. GP, then age 17, left economically depressed Newburyport, Mass., with paternal uncle (1768-1827), May 4, 1812, for Georgetown, D.C. They opened a dry goods store in Georgetown on May 15, 1812, whose management soon devolved on GP. Some three months later, beginning Sept. 28, 1812, the following advertisements appeared in a Georgetown, D.C., newspaper:
JUST RECEIVED
AND FOR SALE BY
GEORGE PEABODY
Bridge-Street
4 pieces extra superfine Black and Blue Broadcloths
20 do. [dozen] fine assorted colors do.
10 do. coarse do. do.
A few pieces Flannels and Baizes
30 do. British Shirting Cottons
50 do. White Cotton Cambricks
15 do. Coloured do. do.
25 dozen Cambrick Pocket Handkerchiefs
20 do. Gentlemen's Leather Gloves
20 do. Cotton and Worsted Hose
30 pieces Flag and Bandanna Handk'fs
100 do. Imitation Madras do.
200 pieces India Cottons
20 lbs. Black and Blue Silk Twist
10 do. assorted Colours do.
30 do. do. Sewing Silk
50 groce Black Bindings and Gallons
Plane, Shear and Leno Muslins
An assortment of Gold Lace and Prussian Binding
A handsome assortment of Woolen and Cotton Vestings
1 case Nuns Thread
50 do. Cotton Sewings
A handsome assortment of Coat & Vest Buttons
Canvas Floor Carpets
100 Ladies Indispensables
1000 Yards Domestic Linen
500 do. Whitened Cotton Linen
1000 pair Ladies Morocco Shoes, assorted colours
100 do. do. White Satin do.
2 cases Men's Fine Hats
3 do. do. coarse do.
Also
Gunpowder, Hyson and
Hyson Skin Teas.
Ref.: Federal Republican, and Commercial Gazette (Georgetown, D.C.), IV, Nos. 872 ff., Sept. 28, 30, Oct. 2, 7, 9, 1812.
Advertisement of goods for sale (Nov.-Dec. 1812). 2-A second series of advertisements appeared 18 times in the same newspaper:
George Peabody
Bridge Street
Has Received an Additional Supply of
SEASONABLE GOODS
viz.
Broadcloths, superfine, middlings and low priced
Thin, common and milled Kersymers
Pellico Cloths and Coatings
Kersey and Planes
A handsome assortment of Vestings
Velvets and Cords
Cotton & Worsted Hosiery
Ladies Silk do.
Ladies Elegant Silk Mantles
Black, White and Colored Cambrics
An assortment of 3-4 an yard wide Calicoes
Gurrah and Baftah Cottons
Ladies Comforts and indispensables
LADIES
Ladies habit & long Kid Gloves
Gentlemen's Beaver Gloves
Cotton and silk shawls and Handkerchiefs
Dressed and Undressed British Shirting Cottons
Spider-Net, Plain and Spotted Muslins
Linens and Dimities
Braces, Pins & Needles
Galloons, Hat-Bindings and Ribbons
Silk-twist & Sewing Silk, assorted colours
A variety of Morocco Shoes, cheap
Silver Epaulets and Gold Lace
Prussian Binding
Military, Navy and Common Gilt Buttons
Domestic Linen
Diaper
1 Trunk White Satin Shoes
Also, Imperial HYSON, & YOUNG HYSON TEAS
2 Cases FRENCH PERFUMERY Lately Imported
Georgetown, Nov. 9.
Ref.: Federal Republican, and Commercial Gazette (Georgetown, D.C.), VII, Nov. 9, 11, 13, 18, 20, 23, 25, 27, 30, 1812; Dec. 2, 4, 7, 11, 16, 18, 21, 23, 28, 1812.
Agassiz, Louis (Jean Louis Rudolphe Agassiz, 1807-73), was a Harvard College zoologist and a leading 19th century U.S. scientist. He was asked by Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94), GP's philanthropic advisor, to help plan the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale Univ. and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard Univ., both founded in 1866, and the Peabody Academy of Science at Salem, Mass., 1867-1915 (renamed the Peabody Museum of Salem, 1915-91, and renamed the Peabody Essex Museum, since 1992). See: Peabody Essex Museum. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard Univ. Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale Univ. Science, GP's Gifts to Science and Science Education Winthrop, Robert Charles.
PEF Trustee Wm. Aiken
Aiken, William (1806-87). 1-PEF Trustee. William Aiken was one of the original 16 PEF trustees. He was born in Charleston, S.C., was a graduate of S.C. College at Columbia (1825), served in the S.C. state legislature (1838-42), was S.C. state senator (1842-44), S.C. governor (1844-46), and served in the U.S. House from S.C. (1851-57). He opposed S.C.'s secession. After the Civil War his Jan. 25, 1867, letter to GP, sent via William Wilson Corcoran (1798-1888) of Washington, D.C., told of the post-war destruction of the South and confirmed GP's intent to found the $2 million PEF for the 11 former Confederate states plus W.Va., added because of its poverty. See: PEF.
Aiken, William. 2-Pres. Johnson Called on GP. William Aiken was present when PEF trustee Pres. Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94) read aloud GP's Feb. 7, 1867, letter founding the PEF in an upper room at Willard's Hotel, Washington, D.C., Feb. 8, 1867, to ten of the 16 original trustees at their first meeting. Widespread favorable reports of the PEF followed. On Feb. 9, 1867, Pres. Andrew Johnson (1808-75), his secty., Col. William George Moore (1829-93), and three others, called on GP at his Willard's Hotel rooms. With GP at the time were PEF trustees Robert Charles Winthrop, Episcopal Bishop of Ohio Charles Pettit McIlvaine (1799-1873), and William Aiken; along with GP's business friend Samuel Wetmore (1813?-85), his wife, and their son; GP's nephew George Peabody Russell (1835-1909), George Washington Riggs (1813-81), and three others. Ref.: Curry-b, pp. 19, 51, 97, 98-10l. Easterby, I, pp. 128-129. See Corcoran, William Wilson. Persons named.
Aiken, William. 3-Pres. Johnson Called on GP Cont'd. Pres. Johnson took GP by the hand (GP was 72 and ill) and said he had thought to find GP alone, that he called simply as a private citizen to thank GP for his PEF gift to aid public education in the South, that he thought the gift would help unite the country, that he was glad to have a man like GP representing the U.S. in England, and invited GP to visit him in the White House. With emotion, GP thanked Pres. Johnson, said that this meeting was one of the greatest honors of his life, that he knew the president's political course would be in the country's best interest, that England from the Queen downward felt only goodwill toward the U.S., that he thought in a few years the U.S. would rise above its divisions to become happier and more powerful. Ref.: Ibid.
Aiken, William. 4-Pres. Johnson Called on GP Cont'd. Pres. Johnson faced impeachment by hostile radical Republicans in Congress angered at his conciliatory policy toward the former Confederate states. To avoid impeachment, Pres. Johnson's political advisor, Francis Preston Blair, Sr. (1791-1876), advised a complete change of cabinet, with Mass. Gov. John Albion Andrew (1818-67) as Secty. of State, GP as Treasury Secty., Ohio Gov. Jacob Dolson Cox (1828-1900) as Interior Secty., Penn. Sen. Edgar Cowan (1815-85) as Atty.-Gen., Adm. D.G. Farragut (1801-70) as Navy Secty., and Gen. U.S. Grant (1822-85) as Secty. of War. But loyalty to his cabinet kept Johnson from this course. Ref.: Ibid. See: persons named.
Aiken, William. 5-GP at the White House. On April 25, 1867, before his May 1, 1867, return to London, GP called on Pres. Johnson in the Blue Room of the White House and they spoke of the work of the PEF. With GP at the White House were B&O RR Pres. John Work Garrett (1820-84) and Samuel Wetmore's (1813?-85) 16-year-old son. GP told Pres. Johnson of young Wetmore's interest in being admitted to West Point and Pres. Johnson said he would do what he could for the young man. Ref.: Ibid.
Ainslie, Robert, Rev. (fl. 1853-69), was minister, Christ Church, Brighton, England, whose Sunday sermon, Nov. 22, 1868, compared GP to British reformer John Howard (1726-90), and praised Baltimorean Reverdy Johnson (1796-1876) for promoting peace. GP and Reverdy were both present at Rev. Ainslie's sermon. Johnson Reverdy Johnson, who spoke at a Brighton dinner the previous day, was then U.S. Minister to Britain with special responsibility to negotiate the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty to ease U.S.-British angers over the Alabama Claims (U.S. indemnity demands for British-built ships, including the Alabama, sold to Confederate emissaries, which sunk federal ships and cost Union lives and treasure). Ref.: [Ainslie, Robert]. See: Johnson, Reverdy.
Aix-la-Chapelle or Aachen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders, known for its mineral spring baths. GP occasionally went there for his health and relaxation, especially after taking Boston merchant Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90) as partner in 1854 in George Peabody & Co., London. See Morgan ,Junius Spencer.
Effect on GP Funeral
Alabama Claims (1862-1872). 1-British Built-Confederate Raider. The Confederate steamship (CSS) Alabama was the most notorious of the several British-built raider ships bought by the Confederate Navy which sunk or crippled Union ships and cost Union lives and treasure during the Civil War. Britain declared its neutrality in the U.S. Civil War (May 13, 1861) but recognized the Confederate states as a belligerent. This recognition encouraged Confederate Navy Secty. Stephen Russell Mallory (1813-73) to send Confederate Commander James Dunwody Bulloch (1823-1901) to England in May 1861 to purchase ships for the Confederacy. Bulloch purchased from Britain's Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead, England, the newly built "Hull No. 290," soon named the SS Enrica, which was subsequently outfitted for war and renamed the CSS Alabama at the end of July 1862. For other British-built Confederate raiders, see CSS Florida (CSS, ship) CSS Shenandoah (CSS, ship) See: persons named.
Alabama Claims. 2-U.S. Minister C.F. Adams Protested. U.S. Minister to Britain Charles Francis Adams (1807-86) first informed the British Foreign Office, June 23, 1862, showing affidavits from involved seamen that by building the Alabama as a Confederate warship, Britain was breaking its neutrality. But British Customs law officials ruled the evidence insufficient.
Alabama Claims. 3-Alabama Sunk 64 Union Ships. CSS Alabama was commanded by Confederate Capt. Raphael Harwood Semmes (1809-77), whose first ship, the Sumter, had earlier severely damaged northern commerce before it was trapped in Gibraltar in Jan. 1862. In CSS Alabama’s rampaging two-year cruise (June 1862 to June 1864) covering 67,000 nautical miles, she hijacked or sank 64 Union ships. Her crew members were largely pirate-adventurers from many nations, including Britain. Needing repairs, the Alabama entered the French harbor of Cherbourg on June 11, 1864.
Alabama Claims. 4-CSS Alabama Sunk by USS Kearsarge. The USS Kearsarge, under Union Capt. John Ancrum Winslow (1811-73), rushed to intercept the Alabama in Cherbourg. The Alabama came out to do battle. Observed by thousands, they fired on each other on June 19, 1864, one of the last romanticized gunnery duels in the era of wooden ships. The Alabama was sunk that day. Capt. Semmes and some of his officers and crew were rescued by a British yacht, Deerhound, and taken to an English port. The Alabama's remains were not found until Oct. 1984, when some artifacts were raised from Cherbourg harbor. Ref.: (under g. Internet): Alabama, CSS (Confederate ship). See: persons, ships, and harbor named.
Alabama Claims. 5-Alabama Claims Commission. A special international Alabama Claims Commission which met in Geneva, Switzerland, Dec. 187l-Sept. 1872, awarded the U.S. $15.5 million paid by Britain for damage to Union shipping by British-built Confederate ships. The Alabama and several other British-built Confederate raiders destroyed a total of 257 Union ships, compelled Union ship owners to transfer ownership of over 700 vessels to foreign registries, and hindered U.S. merchant marine activity for half a century. (Note: Before his Nov. 4, 1869, death GP was mentioned to serve on the Alabama Claims Commission but was dropped because of age and illness).
Alabama Claims. 6-GP's Funeral Involved. GP died in London Nov. 4, 1869, at the height of U.S. grievances against Britain over the loss of life and treasure caused by the CSS Alabama and other British-built ships. When it became known that GP's will stipulated burial in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass., a funeral service was offered and held at Westminster Abbey Nov. 12, 1869. His remained rested in the Abbey Nov. 12 to Dec. 11, 1869 (30 days). See: Death and Funeral, GP's (especially 189-Final Thought). Westminster Abbey, London.
Alabama Claims. 7-GP's Funeral Involved Cont'd. On learning of GP's death and intended burial in the U.S., Queen Victoria is said to have suggested to her advisors the return of his remains on a royal vessel. This may have led PM William Ewart Gladstone (1809-98) to praise GP in his Lord Mayor's Day banquet speech (Nov. 9) and say: "With Mr. Peabody's nation we will not quarrel." PM Gladstone's cabinet met on Nov. 10 and offered HMS Monarch, Britain's newest and largest warship, as a funeral vessel, to carry GP's remains from England for burial in the U.S. This decision was made partly in admiration for GP's philanthropy, partly for his two decades of effort in promoting friendly British-U.S. relations, and partly calculated to ease U.S.-British tensions over the Alabama Claims and other U.S. Civil War irritations. See: Gladstone, William Ewart.
Alabama Claims. 8-GP's Funeral Involved Cont'd. The Monarch, with GP's remains aboard, escorted by USS Plymouth, a U.S. warship from Marseilles, France, crossed the Atlantic, to be met in U.S. waters on Pres. U.S. Grant's orders by a flotilla of U.S. ships commanded by Adm. David G. Farragut (1801-70). GP's unusual 96-day British-U.S. transatlantic funeral ended with final burial on Feb. 8, 1870, in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass. Ref.: Bowman. Callahan, II, pp. 257-258. Davis, W.C., p. 116. Ellicott. Foote, p. 157. Guerout, pp. 67-83. Hearn, C.G. Hoehling. Marvel. Porter, pp. 621-658. Stern, P.V.D., pp. 82, 297. Trevelyan, pp. 288-289. See: Death & Funeral. 189-Final Thought (below).Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass. Plymouth (USS, ship). Winslow, John Ancrum.
Alabama, CSS (British built Confederate raider ship). See: Alabama Claims (above). Adams, Charles Francis.
Albany, N.Y. Evening Journal. Thurlow Weed (1797-1882), founder and editor of the Albany, N.Y., Evening Journal during 1830-65, was an influential political leader in the Whig Party and after 1855 its successor Republican Party. GP first met Thurlow Weed in 1852. They met again in Nov. 1861 when Weed was U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln's emissary to keep Britain neutral in the U.S. Civil War. GP helped Weed meet British leaders. Weed, one of GP's early philanthropic advisors, suggested Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94) of Mass. as best qualified to advise GP on his U.S. philanthropies after 1860. Weed is also the source for describing the origin of the PEF as it developed in GP's mind. He defended GP's pro-Union sentiment and actions in the Civil War. See: persons named.
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (1841-1910), was the eldest son of Queen Victoria (1819-1901), who became King Edward VII of Britain during 1901-10. As Prince of Wales he unveiled GP's seated statue by U.S. sculptor William Wetmore Story (1819-95), on Threadneedle St., near London's Royal Exchange, July 23, 1869. In his speech he eulogized GP, praised W.W. Story, and referred to U.S. Minister to Britain John Lothrop Motley (1814-77) in terms of U.S.-British friendship. Story and Motley, both present, also spoke. GP's statue in London was the first of four statues of Americans in that city: GP, 1869; Abraham Lincoln, 1920; George Washington, 1921; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1948. A copy of GP's seated statue in London was placed in front of the PIB, April 7, 1890, by Robert Garrett (1847-96). See: Statues of GP. Powers, Hiram.
Albert Hall, South Kensington, London. See: Royal Albert Hall, South Kensington, London. Peabody Homes of London.
Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Prince Albert, 1819-61), was Queen Victoria's husband, who lent his royal prestige to the idea of the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, the first world's fair. GP lent $15,000 to the U.S. exhibitors when they had no funds from the U.S. Congress to adorn their space in the Crystal Palace exhibit hall. Congress repaid this loan three years later. Prince Albert also tempered British government response to the Nov. 8, 1861, forcible removal from the British mail packet Trent of four Confederate emissaries bound to secure arms and aid abroad by Capt. Charles Wilkes (1798-1877) of the Union warship San Jacinto in the Bahamas. See: Great Exhibition of 1851, London (first world's fair). San Jacinto (USS ship).
"a home to us all"
Albert, William S. 1-Lodged with GP, London, 1838. William S. Albert was a Baltimorean who in 1870, just after GP's death, recalled GP's generosity to Americans visiting London. He wrote: "In 1838 when on a visit to London, I lodged in the same house with him for several weeks. Under the same roof were assembled mutual friends from the city of his adoption [Baltimore], upon whom he took pleasure in bestowing those marks of attention so grateful in a foreign land, making the house a home to us all." Ref.: (Albert, W.S.): Md. Historical Society-b, p. 29.
Albert, W.S. 2-GP As Md. Bond Agent Abroad. The circumstance of William S. Albert's London visit is not known. GP left NYC on his fifth trip to London in early Feb. 1837, arriving at Portsmouth Feb. 19. He remained as the London resident of Peabody, Riggs, & Co. (1829-45), importer of wholesale dry goods and other commodities, and also as one of three agents commissioned by the Md. legislature to sell the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal part of Md.'s $8 million bond issue abroad to finance internal improvements. See: Md.'s $8 Million Bond Sale Abroad and GP.
Albert, W.S. 3-Panic and Repudiation. The financial Panic of 1837 was then on and GP had to sell the bonds during depressed economic conditions that lasted through most of the 1840s. The situation was aggravated when Md. and eight other states could not pay interest on their bonds sold abroad. In this fiscal difficulty, GP traveled much in late 1837 and early 1838 in England, France, and Holland, sometimes with the other two Md. commissioners--John Buchanan (1772-1844) and Thomas Emory. Unsuccessful in selling the Md. bonds, the other two commissioners gave up and returned to the U.S. GP remained in London for the rest of his life except for three U.S. visits: Sept. 15, 1856 to Aug. 19, 1857; May 1, 1866 to May 1, 1867; and June 8 to Sept. 29, 1869. See: persons named.
Albert, W.S. 4-George Peabody & Co., from 1838. In 1838, when Baltimorean William S. Albert later wrote: "I lodged in the same house with him for several weeks," GP lived in bachelor's quarters on Bread St. with Irish-born fellow U.S. merchant Richard Bell. On Dec. 1, 1838, GP leased an office at 31 Moorgate St., in London's inner city not far from St. Paul's Cathedral where business houses occupy odd nooks and crannies. Here, with desks, chairs, a mahogany counter, a safe, and employing a clerk (Charles Cubitt Gooch, 1811-89, later a partner), GP began, informally and until his retirement, George Peabody & Co. (1838-64), renamed J.S. Morgan & Co. from 1864. GP took as partner Oct. 1, 1854, Boston merchant Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90), whose 19-year-old son John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) began as the NYC agent for George Peabody & Co. (Note: Bread St. in the City of London is listed in a London street directory [1869] and in A-Z of Georgian London (London Topographical Society Publication number 126, 1982). See: persons named.
Albion (NYC newspaper), (May 19, 1866) p. 25, c. 3, reported that GP had to pay a huge U.S. tax soon after his arrival in NYC, for his May 1, 1866 to May 1, 1867, U.S. visit.
Alger, William Rounseville (1822-1905), Rev. In his sermon at the close of the Boston Peace Jubilee, Sunday, June 20, 1869, Rev. William Rounseville Alger mentioned that GP had done more to keep the peace between Britain and America than a hundred demagogues to destroy it. Ref.: "Alger, William Rounseville," p. 15.
Allen, Frederick Lewis (1890-1954), author of The Great Pierpont Morgan (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1949), pp. 192-212, which has many references to GP. On Oct. 1, 1854, GP took as partner Boston merchant Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90), whose young son John Pierpont Morgan (Sr., 1837-1913) began as NYC agent for George Peabody & Co. See: persons named.
Allen, Jack (1914-2004), was GPCFT Emeritus Professor of History, author of "The Peabody Saga: A Short History of the College," Peabody Reflector, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Summer 1980), pp. 4-13, and other articles, tracing the history of Peabody Normal College through the 1979 merger of GPCFT with Vanderbilt Univ. Jack Allen was one of three GPCFT faculty authors of a 1974 report, Design for the Future, with 107 recommendations on administration and curriculum matters intended to strengthen the institution's future. See: PCofVU, Brief History.
Almack's Assembly Rooms, King St., St. James's, London, was a suite of fashionable meeting rooms designed by Robert Mylne (1765) and named after its first proprietor, William Almack (an anagram of a Mr. Macall or McCaul). At his death (1781), Almack's was left to his niece, Mrs. Willis. As "Willis's Rooms" the restaurant with its meeting rooms was popular in GP's 32 years in London (1837-69) and lasted to 1890. In 1904 a new London social club adopted the name of Almack's. GP's July 4, 1851, dinner and dance, held in connection with the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, was at Willis's Rooms with the Duke of Wellington as guest of honor. Ref.: "Almack's," Vol. I, p. 711. "Almack's Assembly Rooms," p. 20. See: Dinners, GP's, London. Great Exhibition of 1851, London (first world's fair). Willis's Rooms.
Almy, John Jay (1815-95). John Jay Almy, U.S. Navy Commodore, was chief of staff to U.S. Navy Adm. David Glasgow Farragut (1801-70) when Farragut was placed in charge of the U.S. Navy flotilla of ships assembled to receive GP's remains aboard HMS Monarch, accompanied by USS Plymouth, at Portland harbor, Me., Jan. 25-Feb. 1, 1870. Author Allen Howard Welch's article on GP's funeral attributed the near-faultless Portland, Me., GP funeral reception to Commodore John Jay Almy as follows: "Observers on the local level felt that such an affair had never passed off so completely without a mar. They attributed this to the fact that the U.S. Navy had entrusted its supervision to Commodore John J. Almy, chief of Farragut's staff, who carried out the Portland ceremonies with the precision characterizing the regular naval service." Ref.: (J.J. Almy's career): Shephard, Vol. 1, pp. 226-227. See: Death & funeral, GP's. Persons named.
Alps. GP first crossed the Alps in Europe on his second commercial buying trip abroad during 1831-Aug. 10?, 1832 (15 months). With an American friend (name not known) and by frequent changes of coach horses, GP covered 10,000 miles in England, France, Italy, and Switzerland. He wrote to his sister Judith Dodge Peabody (1799-1879, who married Jeremiah Russell and after his death married Robert Shillaber Daniels), Aug. 25, 1831: "My time has been passed in England, Ireland, & Scotland but in February last [1831] in company with an American gentleman [identity not known] I left England on a tour of business & amusement & visited Paris where we passed a few days--from thence through the South of France to Savoy crossing Mount ?? (the Alps) to Turin in Italy..." See: Dodge, Judith (née Peabody) Daniels (GP's sister).
"Apotheosis of America"
Amateis, Louis (1855-1913). 1-Artist. Artist Louis Amateis was born in Turin, Italy. He came to the U.S. in 1855, became a naturalized citizen, and was art and architecture professor and head of the fine arts department, Columbian Univ. (now George Washington Univ.), Washington, D.C. He was first known for his busts of famous Americans and memorials in Texas. Ref.: Nash, I, pp. 239-240. Amateis. Parker, F.-d., pp. 26-27, reprinted Parker, F.-zd, pp. 38-40.
Amateis, Louis. 2-"Apotheosis of America." During 1904-08 he was commissioned for his best known design of a transom atop two bronze doors intended for the west entrance of the U.S. Capitol Building, Washington, D.C. His transom design is a tableau called the "The Apotheosis of America." A figure representing America is drawn in a chariot by lions (force) and led by a child (intellect). The figure of America stretches its arms toward the arts and sciences, symbolized by the profiles of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Peabody, Johns Hopkins, and Horace Mann. Ref.: Ibid.
Amateis, Louis. 3-Bronze Doors. Amateis finished his model in 1908. The bronze doors were cast during 1909-10 by two NYC firms, Johns Williams, Inc., and the Roman Bronze Co. Because structural changes would be needed to install the doors and transom in the U.S. Capitol Building, they are on view at the north entrance of the National Museum Building, Washington, D.C. Ref.: Ibid. See: Honors, GP's.
Am. Assn. in London
American Association in London (1858-early 1860s). 1-GP's July 4 Dinners. GP's July 4th U.S.-British friendship dinners since 1851 were taken from him under somewhat strained conditions in 1858 and 1860. An American Association in London was organized March 1, 1858, as a social and charitable club. Its members proposed to sponsor a July 4, 1858, dinner. The new group's organizers were more assertive Americans in London, more critical of the British, and less acceptable to British political and social leaders than were older commercial Americans in London, such as Joshua Bates (1788-1864), Weymouth, Mass.-born head of Baring Brothers (Bates became a British subject), and GP, head of George Peabody & Co. since Dec. 1838. See: Bates, Joshua. Moran, Benjamin.
Am. Assn. in London. 2-New Group Members. The new group's organizers included 1-U.S.-born physician Dr. Jesse Weldon Fell (active 1850s) who experimented with a cancer cure at Middlesex Hospital, London, and wrote A Treatise on Cancer and its Treatment (London, 1857); 2-Benjamin Moran (1820-86), U.S. Legation in London clerk, 1853-57, asst. secty., 1857, and Secty. of Legation, 1857-75 (Dr. Fell had treated Mrs. Moran before her death); and 3-Gen. Robert Blair Campbell (d.1862), the last elected president of the American Association in London during its few years of existence. Ref.: Ibid. See: persons named.
Am. Assn. in London. 3-Secty. Benjamin Moran. U.S. Legation in London Secty. Benjamin Moran, often critical of GP in his private journal, wrote on March 20, 1858: "...about the Club. Old Peabody goes, with Bates, and others of their stamp, against it, as I expected. They are a mean souled set, who dislike all of decided character who will not follow them, and consequently oppose this, as they know it will put them in the background. Both Bates and Peabody are selfish and heartless men. They have led people heretofore & hate this scheme because it will destroy their rule." Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Assn. in London. 4-Attempt to Appease GP. Announcing their intent to sponsor the July 4, 1858, London dinner and wanting to reconcile with old line Americans in London, an American Association in London committee of three wrote to GP on June 30, 1858: "The members of the American Association in London realized you might not understand the purpose of the Association. They passed a resolution that this letter be written to explain the purpose of the club, to invite your participation, and to urge you to take the chair at the coming Fourth of July celebration." Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Assn. in London. 5-Attempt to Appease GP Cont'd.: "The purpose of the Association is to give relief to Americans in distress. Its by-laws were composed by some of your warmest friends.... To you above all others, the Association wished to show its appreciation by offering you the office of President. The members intended to consult your wishes regarding the dinner. We feel that you naturally, but erroneously, misapprehended our intentions." Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Assn. in London. 6-Attempt to Appease GP Cont'd.: "The Association, even at this late date, invites you to take the chair at the dinner and promises you their support. Such a course on your part would show new proof of your attachment to your country and friends. "If you can accept the invitation your wishes for the dinner will be consulted and any number of tickets you desire for your friends shall be forwarded to you." Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Assn. in London. 7-GP Declined. GP wrote to decline: "I received your communication and your resolution inviting me to take the chair on the approaching celebration of American Independence. I'm gratified to learn that no hostility to me personally or the course of my previous Fourth of July dinners prompted the measure you adopted. "Taking into consideration the circumstances of your arrangements and the late period of your explanation, I respectfully decline." Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Assn. in London. 8-"We shall kill him with kindness." Moran recorded that "Gen'l Campbell [Robert Blair Campbell, d.1862] would preside" and that "Peabody...is sore about the dinner and refuses to come, pretending to think that the Association was gotten up to prevent him giving dinners. He is a weak feeble minded & mean spirited man. We shall kill him with kindness however, & toast him in spite of himself. If not there to respond it will look bad in print." Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Assn. in London. 9-Moran on July 4, 1858, Dinner Without GP. The July 4, 1858, dinner without GP went well and was favorably reported in U.S. and London newspapers. Moran recorded seeing "Gen'l Campbell and learned from him that Peabody's chagrin grew out of the fact that he considers that nobody but him has a right to give the Fourth of July Dinner in London. He asked the General if official influence had been employed to get the Queen's picture, and when assured that it had not been exercised, was much chagrined. He told the General that it was his intention to have given a Fourth of July dinner at a cost of £500 [$2,500), and that he had considered since 1851 that to him, and him alone, belonged the right to giving such entertainments in London." Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Assn. in London. 10-Moran on July 4, 1858, Dinner Without GP Cont'd.: "The Association had taken this out of his hands, and altho' he did not say it in so many words, he conveyed to the General's mind the fact that it was solely on that ground that he did not accept the invitation to preside at our dinner. At best, Mr. Peabody is a selfish, vindictive, and narrow minded man." GP gave U.S.-British friendship dinners on July 9 and 28, 1858, both well reported. The American Association in London also sponsored the July 4, 1860 dinner. There was dissension among its members and, with the coming of the Civil War and other concerns, the Association disappeared. Ref.: Ibid.
American Legation, London. The U.S. Embassy, London, was in GP's time in that city called the American Legation, London. See: U.S. Embassy, London.
American Neptune, a journal published by the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., is the oldest U.S. journal of maritime history. See: Dudley, Robert. GP Bicentennial Celebration (Feb. 12, 1795-1995). Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass. Peabody, George, Illustrations. Science: GP's Gifts to Science and Science Education. Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.
Arctic Exploration & GP
American Philosophical Society. 1-Arctic Search for Lost Sir John Franklin. The Smithsonian Institution, Geographical Society of New York, and the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia all gave some aid to the Second U.S. Grinnell Expedition, 1853-54, in search of missing British Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin (1786-1847). NYC merchant Henry Grinnell (1799-1874) gave two ships, the 144-ton Advance and the 91-ton Rescue. See: Kane, Elisha Kent. Other persons mentioned.
Am. Philosophical Soc. 2-GP Aided Search Led by U.S. Navy. U.S. Navy Secty. John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870) authorized 10 U.S. Navy volunteers and placed Grinnell's two ships under the command of U.S. Navy Capt. Elisha Kent Kane, M.D. (1820-57), who had been the U.S. Navy medical officer during the First U.S. Grinnell Expedition, 1850-52. U.S. Navy backing also made the expedition one of scientific exploration. GP gave $10,000 for scientific equipment. He was motivated by a desire to promote British-U.S. friendship and by Lady Jane Franklin's (1792-1875) appeal to U.S. Pres. Zachary Taylor (1784-1850, 12th U.S. president during 1849-50) and the U.S. Congress to find her husband. Ref.: Ibid.
U.S. Residents in London
American Residents in London. 1-Charles Francis Adams. During GP's 32 years (1837-69) as a U.S. merchant-banker living in London, he had contact with most of the following American residents in London (listed alphabetically with a brief description): 1-Charles Francis Adams (1807-86) was U.S. Minister to Britain during 1861-68 when frictional U.S.-British events over the Civil War occurred (1861 Trent Affair and others). Adams carefully observed and reported on Confederate agents in Britain who bought British-built ships and armed them as Confederate raiders (CSS Alabama and others). GP shared Civil War and other news with Adams. See: persons named in this entry.
Am. Residents in London. 2-Henry [Brooks] Adams. Henry Adams (1838-1918) was his father's (Charles Francis Adams) private secretary while his father was U.S. Minister to Britain during 1861-68. In his book, The Education of Henry Adams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918), he wrote of important Britons and well known visiting and resident Americans he knew, including GP. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 3-George Bancroft. George Bancroft (1800-91), later a famed U.S. historian, was U.S. Minister to Britain during 1846-49. His contact with GP is not known except through his nephew, who was U.S. Legation in London Secty. during those same years (See: John Chandler Bancroft Davis below). Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 4-Joshua Bates. Joshua Bates (1788-1864) was a Weymouth, Mass.-born merchant-banker who was in turn agent, partner, and director of the Baring Brothers, Britain's long established banking firm prominent in U.S. finance from colonial times. Bates and GP had important business contacts. GP also attended at least one dinner in Bates's home near London on Nov. 24, 1849, when the guest of honor was visiting U.S. novelist Herman Melville, mentioned in John Chandler Bancroft Davis below. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 5-James Buchanan. Born in Mercersberg, Penn., James Buchanan (1791-1868) was U.S. Minister to Britain during 1853-56 and 15th U.S. president during 1857-61. Buchanan's super patriotic U.S. Legation in London Secty. Daniel Edgar Sickles (described below) created an incident. He refused to stand and then walked out in red-gorged anger from GP's July 4, 1854, British-U.S. friendship dinner to protest GP's toast to the Queen before one to the U.S. president. Sickles accused GP in letters to the press of toadying to the British. While most witnesses defended GP, Buchanan remained silent. GP had no contact with then Pres. James Buchanan when GP was in Washington, D.C., Feb. 14-23, 1857, during his 1856-57 U.S. visit. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 6-Robert Blair Campbell. Robert Blair Campbell (d.1862) from S.C. was U.S. Consul in London during 1854-61. GP had some contact with him in connection with the newly formed and short lived American Association in London (about 1858-62), a fraternal club to aid needy U.S. visitors in London. This association of newer Americans somewhat hostile to old line Americans like GP took over under strained relations July 4 dinners in 1858 and 1860, which GP had hitherto sponsored. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 7-George Mifflin Dallas. George Mifflin Dallas (1792-1864), born in Penn., was U.S. Minister to Britain during 1856-61. He attended and spoke at GP's U.S.-British friendships dinners June 13 and July 4, 1856. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 8-John Chandler Bancroft Davis. Born in Worcester, Mass., John Chandler Bancroft Davis (1822-1907) was U.S. Legation Secty., London, under his uncle George Bancroft, U.S. Minister to Britain during 1846-49. J.C.B. Davis sometimes dined with his Harvard College classmate Henry Stevens (1819-86), born in Barnet, Vt., a London resident rare book dealer, and GP. J.C.B. Davis and GP dined on Nov. 24, 1849, at the London home of Joshua Bates (1788-1864), head of London's Baring Brothers, with visiting U.S. novelist Herman Melville (1819-91) as guest of honor. J.C.B. Davis was a speaker at the Oct. 9, 1856, South Danvers, Mass., GP Celebration (GP's first visit to the U.S. after nearly 20 years' residence in London). Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 9-Edward Everett. Edward Everett (1794-1865), born in Dorchester, Mass., was U.S. Minister to Britain during 1841-45; a Harvard graduate, professor, and its president (1846-49); Mass. governor (1836-39); and held other high offices. He was the most notable orator of his time (his two-hour Nov. 9, 1863, Gettysburg Cemetery dedication address was followed by Pres. Abraham Lincoln's two-minute 272-word speech). Edward Everett was the key speaker at the Oct. 9, 1856, GP reception in South Danvers, Mass., marking GP's first U.S. visit after nearly 20 years' absence abroad. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 10-Jesse Weldon Fell. Dr. Jesse Weldon Fell, M.D. (active, 1850s), was a U.S.-born physician resident in London who experimented with a cancer cure at London's Middlesex Hospital, wrote A Treatise on Cancer, and its Treatment (London, 1857), was a friend of U.S. Legation in London Secty. Benjamin Moran (see name below), had treated Moran's wife before her death, and was a member and officer of the short-lived American Association of London (1858-62), a club for social and charitable purposes. GP most likely knew of him, although their precise contact is not known. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 11-Joseph Reed Ingersoll. Joseph Reed Ingersoll (1786-1868), born in Penn., was U.S. Minister to Britain during 1852-53. GP gave U.S.-British friendship dinners in London to introduce Minister Ingersoll and his niece Miss Charlotte Manigault Wilcocks (1821-75) to London society, to resident Americans, and to visiting Americans on Oct. 12, 1852, and May 18, 1853. There was at least one press report of GP's attending the opera and other social functions with Miss Wilcocks, with hints of a possible romance leading to marriage. GP wrote to a friend: "I have now arrived at an age that throws aside all thoughts of marriage [although] I think her [Miss Wilcocks] a very fine woman." Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 12-Reverdy Johnson. Reverdy Johnson (1796-1876) was a Baltimore lawyer, U.S. Sen., U.S. Atty. General, and longtime GP friend. During Reverdy Johnson's 1845 London visit, GP urged him to plan with other Baltimore friends what became the PIB gift in from 1857. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 13-Curtis Miranda Lampson. Curtis Miranda Lampson (1806-85) was a Vt.-born merchant who achieved wealth in the fur trade, became a London resident after 1830, was a longtime GP friend and business associate. Lampson became a naturalized British subject and was created a baronet (Sir Curtis) for his work as Atlantic Cable Co. director (GP was also a director). When a gravely ill GP returned to London from his third U.S. visit (Oct. 8, 1869) he rested at Lampson's 80 Eaton Sq. London home where he died (Nov. 4, 1869). Lampson, involved in arranging GP's funeral, was one of two executors of GP's British estate. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 14-Abbott Lawrence. Abbott Lawrence (1792-1855) was born in Groton, Mass., was U.S. Minister to Britain during 1849-52, at the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London (the first world's fair). When U.S. exhibitors lacked congressional funds to display U.S. industrial and art products, GP's timely $15,000 loan saved Minister Lawrence and the U.S. from embarrassment. Minister Lawrence was also happily surprised when GP, despite British anti-American prejudice, held two successful U.S.-British friendship dinners in London on July 4 and Oct. 27, 1851. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 15-Gansvoort Melville. Gansvoort Melville (1815-46) was U.S. Legation in London Secty. before his death. GP knew Gansvoort Melville and shared his remembrance of Gansvoort with younger brother, U.S. novelist Herman Melville (1819-91), when they dined together at the London home of Joshua Bates on Nov. 24, 1849. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 16-Benjamin Moran. Benjamin Moran (1820-86), born in Penn., was an apprentice printer who went to England as a freelance writer and worked at the U.S. Legation in London as clerk (1853-57), asst. secty. (1857), and secty. (1857-75). U.S. Minister to Britain C.F. Adams' son and private secretary Henry Adams described Moran as a "dependable workhorse" with "an exaggerated notion of his importance" who kept a journal which "must be read from the point of view of his character." Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 17-Benjamin Moran Cont'd. Often bitter and self-important Moran wrote critically of GP in his secret journal for over a dozen years. Yet, after attending GP's Nov. 12, 1869, Westminster Abbey funeral service, he wrote with some eloquence: "...I could now forget that I had ever warred with the dust before me.... And then I reflected on the marvelous career of the man, his early life, his penurious habits, his vast fortune, his magnificent charity; and the honor that was then being paid to his memory by the Queen of England in the place of sepulcher of twenty English kings." Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 18-Junius Spencer Morgan. Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90), born in what is now Holyoke, Mass., grew up in Hartford, Conn., and was a partner in J.M. Beebe, Morgan & Co., a Boston dry goods firm with which GP did much business. On the recommendation of James Madison Beebe (1809-75) and others GP invited and J.S. Morgan accepted partnership in George Peabody & Co., London (Oct. 1, 1854, to Oct. 1, 1864). J.S. Morgan's then 19-year-old son John Pierpont Morgan, Sr. (1837-1913), began his famed banking career as NYC agent for George Peabody & Co. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 19-John Lothrop Motley. John Lothrop Motley (1814-77), born in Dorchester, Mass., was U.S. Minister to Britain during 1869-70. As U.S. Minister he spoke at the July 23, 1869, unveiling of GP's seated statue by U.S. sculptor William Wetmore Story (1819-95) on Threadneedle St., near London's Royal Exchange. He visited gravely ill GP several times before his death at business friend Sir Curtis Miranda Lampson's 80 Eaton Sq., London, home. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 20-John Lothrop Motley Cont'd. Minister Motley officially described GP's death in a dispatch to U.S. Secty. of State Hamilton Fish (1809-93); attended GP's funeral service, Westminster Abbey (Nov. 12, 1869); and was liaison between the U.S. State Dept., the U.S. Navy, the U.S. President, the British PM, and the British Admiralty regarding the return of GP's remains to the U.S. aboard the British warship HMS Monarch, accompanied by the USS Plymouth which was ordered from Marseilles, France, as American escort vessel. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 21-Daniel Edgar Sickles. Daniel Edgar Sickles (1825-1914), mentioned in connection with James Buchanan above, was Buchanan's jingoistic super patriotic U.S. Legation in London Secty. in 1854. In protest to GP's toast to the Queen before one to the U.S. president, Sickles refused to stand and then walked out in red-gorged anger from GP's July 4, 1854, British-U.S. friendship dinner. Sickles accused GP in letters to the press of toadying to the British. Most witnesses defended GP. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 22-Horatio Gates Somerby. Horatio Gates Somerby (1805-72), born in Newburyport, Mass., was a London resident genealogist, GP's longtime friend, and sometime GP agent. He did a genealogical study of the Peabody family for GP, occasionally helped arrange GP's U.S.-British friendship dinners, and at GP's request and expense he abstracted Md.'s colonial history records from British sources. GP gave this record as a gift to the Md. Historical Society. On Oct. 27, 1869, on behalf of GP, then on his deathbed, H.G. Somerby called on U.S. Legation in London Secty. Benjamin Moran to say that GP wished to see him. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 23-Henry Stevens. Henry Stevens, mentioned in connection with John Chandler Bancroft Davis above, also attended some GP-sponsored U.S.-British friendship dinners, including the Oct. 27, 1851, farewell dinner to the departing U.S. exhibitors at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London (the first world's fair). GP commissioned Stevens to compile, publish, and distribute the speeches and proceedings of that dinner in book form. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 24-Andrew Stevenson. Andrew Stevenson (1784-1857), born in Va., was Minister to Britain during 1836-41. His only known GP connection was that he was offered the Freedom of the City of London on Feb. 22, 1838, but declined the honor as being inconsistent with his official duties. GP was the second U.S. citizen offered the Freedom of the City of London and its first recipient on July 10, 1862. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 25-Russell Sturgis. Russell Sturgis (1805-87) was a U.S. born London resident merchant-banker with whom GP had many contacts. Ref.: Ibid.
Am. Residents in London. 26-Horatio G. Ward. Horatio G. Ward (d. May 1868) was a U.S.-born merchant in London and a longtime business associate of GP. Ref.: Ibid.
GP's Father & the Am. Revolution
American Revolution. 1-GP's Father Thomas Peabody (1762-1811), born in Andover, Mass., was age 14 when the Declaration of Independence was signed (1776). At age 17 he enlisted and served as a private in Col. Gerrish's regiment (1779) and two years later (1781) served in Col. Rufus Putnam's (1738-1824) regiment. Thomas Peabody was stationed at West Point, N.Y., at the time of American Gen. Benedict Arnold's (1741-1801) treason, and was there when British spy Major John André (1751-80) was executed. He was one of 54 Peabodys who fought in the American Revolution. GP, who served 14 days as a soldier in the War of 1812, gave $500 as a patriotic gift in 1845 (from London where he had moved in Feb. 1837) to help complete the Bunker Hill Memorial Monument near Boston. See: Peabody, Thomas (GP's father).
American Revolution. 2-Most GP Dinners Marked Patriotic Occasions. On June 17, 1852, the 77th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill (Boston, July 17, 1775), GP gave a dinner in London attended by British and U.S. guests. For GP's $500 gift in 1845 for the Bunker Hill Memorial Monument, see Bunker Hill Memorial Monument (Boston). For GP's June 1, 1852, London dinner marking the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, see Dinners, GP's, London.
Am. Revolution. 3-"My father fought in the American Revolution." On Oct. 25, 1866, on the dedication and opening of the PIB and after having been accused of being pro-Confederate and anti-Union in the Civil War, GP said publicly with passion: "I have been accused of anti-Union sentiment. Let me say this: my father fought in the American Revolution and I have loved my country since childhood. Born and educated in the North, I have lived twenty years in the South. In a long residence abroad I dealt with Americans from every section. I loved our country as a whole with no preference for East, West, North, or South. I wish publicly to avow that during the war my sympathies were with the Union--that my uniform course tended to assist but never to injure the credit of the Union." For GP's father's service in the American Revolution, see Peabody. Sixth generation. Thomas Peabody.
Am. Revolution. 4-"My father fought in the American Revolution" Cont'd.: "At the close of the war three-fourths of my property was invested in United States Government and State securities, and remain so at this time." For GP's Oct. 25, 1866, speech, see Civil War and GP. For GP's forebears who fought in the French and Indian War and 54 Peabodys who fought in the American Revolution. See: Peabody, Thomas (father).
American visits, GP's. During GP's 32 years abroad (1837-69) as a U.S. resident in London as head of George Peabody & Co., he made three U.S. visits during 1-Sept. 15, 1856 to Aug. 19, 1857; 2-May 1, 1866 to May 1, 1867; and 3-June 8, 1869 to Sept. 29, 1869. See: Visits to the U.S. by GP.
"Heaven has...permitted me…"
Americans visiting England, and GP. 1-See: to Europe passing through London (1840s-60s) received special help from GP. He offered credit and other banking needs which earned him little profit. But he benefited enormously in goodwill, particularly when faster steamships in the 1850s brought many more U.S. visitors to London. His helpfulness and kindness surprised many who brought him letters of credit from U.S. banks or letters of introduction from influential friends. Besides extending credit when needed, he often obtained for them opera and theater tickets, gave visitors his own opera box, charmed wives and daughters with corsages, dined with and entertained them, and did other favors.
Americans visiting England & GP. 2-GP's London Firm. The resulting goodwill helped his business. It also accounted in part for his warm receptions in U.S. cities during his three U.S. visits: 1-Sept. 15, 1856 to Aug. 19, 1857; 2-May 1, 1866 to May 1, 1867; and 3-June 8, 1869 to Sept. 29, 1869. GP's pride in his firm, George Peabody & Co., London, and its service to visiting Americans was expressed to an audience at the GP celebration in his hometown, Oct. 9, 1856, after nearly 20 years' absence abroad.
Americans visiting England & GP. 3-GP's London Firm Cont'd. GP said: "Heaven has...permitted me to establish...a house in the great metropolis of England.... I have endeavored...to make it an American house, ...to give it an American atmosphere--to furnish it with American journals, to make it a center for American news, and an agreeable place for my American friends visiting London." Ref.: Proceedings...1856, pp. 47-50. New York Herald, Oct. 10, 1856, p. 1, c. 4-6; p. 8; quoted in Hidy, M.E.-c, p. 319. See: Morgan, Sr., John Pierpont. Morgan, Junius Spencer.
America's Cup Race, England, 1851. During the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London (the first world's fair), GP won favorable press notices with his $15,000 loan to the U.S. exhibitors who lacked Congressional funds to display U.S. industry and art products. He also emerged socially that year through two much publicized U.S.-British friendship dinners in London. Americans were elated that year when the U.S. yacht America won the international yacht race in British waters, defeating the English yacht Baltic. The first prize, a silver tankard, was afterward known as America's Cup. Ref.: Rodgers, C.T. Ffrench, p. 242. See: Dinners, GP's (July 4 and Oct. 27, 1851).Great Exhibition of 1851, London (first world's fair).
Anderton, James (1785-1868), a solicitor (lawyer) was a member of the City of London Court of Common Council when on May 22, 1862 Council member Charles Reed (1819-81) moved a resolution to grant GP the Freedom of the City of London. Charles Reed described at length GP's career, his March 12, 1862, gift establishing the Peabody Donation Fund for model apartments for London's working poor (total gift $2.5 million), and other philanthropies. Alderman Benjamin Phillips seconded the motion with a short speech. Member Anderton proposed, alternately, that a bust of GP be placed in the Council Chamber. His suggestion was overruled. By a unanimous show of hands the motion was carried to grant GP the Freedom of the City of London (July 10, 1862). Charles Reed was later an MP (1868-74), president of the London school board (1873-81), an executor of GP's estate in England after GP's death (Nov. 4, 1869), and was knighted in 1876. See London, Freedom of the City, to GP. See persons named.
GP Papers
Andover, Mass. 1-Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. GP paid for the education of his nephew Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-99) at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., at Yale College, and in German universities. Nephew O.C. Marsh, first professor of paleontology in the U.S. at Yale Univ. and the world's second such professor in the world, influenced his uncle GP's founding of three science museums: the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard Univ. (Oct. 8, 1866), the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale Univ. (Oct. 22, 1866), $150,000 each, and the Peabody Essex Museum (Peabody Academy of Science, 1867-1915, renamed Peabody Museum of Salem, 1915-92, renamed Peabody Essex Museum since 1992), $140,000. See: Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. Science: GP's Gifts to Science and Science Education.
Andover, Mass. 2-GP's Papers at Phillips Academy. GP donated $25,000 to Phillips Academy on Oct. 30, 1866, for a professorship of mathematics and natural science. In the early 1870s, the bulk of GP's business and personal papers were taken from his London firm (J.S. Morgan Co.; previously George Peabody and Co., 1838-64) by nephew Robert Singleton Peabody (1837-1904) and stored at Phillips Academy. In the early 1930s the GP papers were sorted by date and subject into 140 boxes and 250 account and ledger books, newspaper albums, and memorabilia and deposited in 1935 at the Essex Institute, now the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., where they are organized and indexed. See: Paradise, Scott Hurtt. Persons named.
Andrew, John Albion (1818-67). 1-Pres. Johnson's Suggested Cabinet Reshuffle. John Albion Andrew was governor of Mass. (1860-66). When GP established the PEF, Feb. 7, 1867, Pres. Andrew Johnson (1808-75) faced impeachment by hostile radical Republicans in Congress angered by his conciliatory policy toward the former Confederate states. To avoid impeachment, Pres. Johnson's political advisor, Francis Preston Blair, Sr. (1791-1876), advised a complete change of cabinet, with Mass. Gov. John Albion Andrew as Secty. of State, GP as Treasury Secty., Ohio Gov. Jacob Dolson Cox (1828-1900) as Interior Secty., U.S. Sen. from Penn. Edgar Cowan (1815-85, senator during 1861-67) as Atty. Gen., Adm. D.G. Farragut (1801-70) as Navy Secty., Gen. U.S. Grant (1822-85) as Secty. of War, and Horace Greeley (1811-72) as Postmaster Gen. But loyalty to his cabinet kept Johnson from this course. See: PEF. Persons named.
Andrew, J.A.. 2-Career. John Albion Andrew was born in Windham, Me., a graduate of Bowdoin College (1837), a lawyer in Boston who defended fugitive slaves (1840-61), member of the Mass. legislature (1858), and Mass. governor (1860-66).
Anglo-American relations. For GP's efforts to promote U.S.-British relations, with sources, see Death and funeral, GP's. Dinners, GP's, London. Sir John Franklin. Great Exhibition of 1851, London (first world's fair). Kane, Elisha Kent. Peabody Homes of London. Weed, Thurlow.
Anthropology. See: Othniel Charles Marsh. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard Univ.
Antonelli, Giacomo (1806-76), was a Roman Catholic Cardinal. For GP's Feb. 19-28, 1868, visit to Rome, Italy, with Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94), their audience with Pope Pius IX, and GP's $19,300 gift to Rome's San Spirito Hospital via Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, and sources, see San Spirito Hospital, Rome, Italy. Statues of GP.
"Apotheosis of America" is the title given a transom panel tableau on two bronze doors created by Louis Amateis (1855-1913), Italian-born artist and head of the fine arts department, Columbian Univ. (now George Washington Univ.), for the U.S. Capitol Building, featuring GP and five others symbolizing U.S. intellectual development. See: Amateis, Louis.
Appearance, GP's. See: Peabody, George, Illustrations. Wills, GP's (1827).
Appleton, Francis Henry (1847-1939), was the main speaker at the George Peabody Centennial Celebration held Monday, Feb. 18, 1895, at the Town Hall, Peabody, Mass. He was an agriculturist and member of the Mass. House of Representatives (1891). Ref.: "Appleton, Francis Henry," p. 29. See:GP Centennial Celebration (Feb. 18, 1795-1895).
Archaeology, the study of material remains (fossils, relics, artifacts, and monuments), which was advanced through the influence of GP's nephew Othniel Charles Marsh (1813-99). In 1866 GP donated $150,000 each to found the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard Univ. and the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale Univ. At Yale Univ. nephew O.C. Marsh was the first U.S. professor of paleontology and the second such professor in the world. Archaeology, ethnology, and natural history were further aided by GP's donation, Feb. 26, 1867, of $140,000 to found the Peabody Academy of Science, Salem, Mass. (1867-1915), renamed Peabody Museum of Science (1915-91), when it was combined with the adjacent Essex Institute and renamed the Peabody Essex Museum in 1992. See: Anthropology. Institutions named. Marsh, Othniel Charles. Science: GP's Gifts to Science and Science Education (Harvard and Yale).
GP's Lost Va. Bonds
Arctic (ship). 1-Collins Line. The Arctic was one of five steamships of the Collins Line carrying passengers, freight, and mail between NYC and Liverpool. The Collins Line, financed in part by GP's former senior partner, Elisha Riggs, Sr. (1779-1853), was started in 1849 by Edward Knight Collins (1802-78), born of Cape Cod, Mass., seafaring stock. The Collins Line competed successfully with the British mail-subsidized Cunard Lines, founded by Canadian Samuel Cunard (1787-1865), knighted in 1859. When Collins secured a U.S. Congressional mail subsidy, U.S. maritime supremacy seemed assured. Ref.: Gordon, "The Atlantic Stakes," pp. 18, 20. Ketchum, ed., pp. 244-255.
Arctic (ship). 2-Sunk off Newfoundland. But on Sept. 27, 1854, the Collins Line steamship Arctic, moving at full speed in the fog, collided with the small French vessel Vesta 20 miles off Cape Race, Newfoundland. The Vesta limped to shore but the Arctic went down with the deaths of 322 of the 408 aboard, including Collins' wife and child. Ref.: Ibid.
Arctic (ship). 3-GP's Va. Bonds Lost on Arctic. Also lost on the Arctic were Va. bonds then worth $35,000 belonging to GP. After waiting for years for Virginia to redeem the lost bonds, GP presented their value with accrued interest in Aug. 1869 as a gift for a mathematics professorship to Gen. Robert E. Lee (1807-70), then Washington College president (renamed Washington and Lee Univ., 1871), Lexington, Va. In 1883, the state of Va. honored the value of these bonds with accrued interest in the amount of $60,000. Refs. below.
Arctic (ship). 4-GP's Va. Bonds Lost on Arctic. Ref.: (GP's Aug. 1869 gift to R.E. Lee's Washington College): Richmond (Va.) Daily Whig, Aug. 17, 1869, p. 2, c. 5 New York Herald, Aug 17, 1869, p. 7, c. 5. Albion (New York), Aug. 21, 1869, p. 495, c. 1. Ref.: (Washington College committee prosecuted GP's claim): New York Herald, Aug. 27, 1869, p. 5, c. 4. Va., Journal...House, 1870, p. 112. Va., Journal...Senate, 1870, pp. 453-454. Freeman-b, IV, p. 438. Ref.: (Va. pays GP's lost bonds gift): Baltimore American, May 14, 1883, and Jan. 24, 1943.
Arctic (ship). 5-GP's Lost Va. Bonds as Gift to R.E. Lee's College. R.E. Lee's biographer C.B. Flood thus wryly described GP's gift of these lost Va. bonds: "It was generosity with a touch of Yankee shrewdness: you Southerners go fight it out among yourselves. If General Lee can't get [this lost bond money] out of the Virginia legislature, nobody can." Ref.: Flood, pp. 215-216. See: Riggs, Sr., Elisha. Science: GP's Gifts to Science and Science Education. Washington and Lee Univ.
Arctic exploration. See: Franklin, Sir John. Grinnell, Henry. Kane, Elisha Kent.
Army, British. See: Crampton, John Fiennes Twistleton. Crimean War.
Arnault, Aed. See: Arnoult, Aed (immediately below).
Arnoult, Aed (fl. 1860s), was a French-born artist, birth and death years unknown (an alternate spelling of his name is Aed Arnault), who may have worked in London and is mentioned in one account as Queen Victoria's portrait painter. He painted over a life-size photograph of GP to make it resemble an oil painting. The photograph of GP was taken by Philadelphia-born London-based photographer John Jabez Edwin Mayall (1810-1901). The original copy, first exhibited at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, 1867, is in the PIB art collection. Copies that have appeared in print were signed by GP in 1868, with his handwritten quotation from his Feb. 7, 1867, PEF founding letter. Ref.: (John Mayall): Browne, Turner, and Partnow, p. 401. (Aed Arnoult): Schaaf, Larry J., pp. 279-288. See: Engraver-artists. Peabody, George, Illustrations. Peabody, George, Portraits.
Arthur, Prince, William Patrick Albert (1850-1942), was the Duke of Connaught, Queen Victoria's son. He was on a state visit to Canada and the U.S. when he and his retinue attended GP's funeral at the South Congregational Church, Peabody, Mass., where Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94) gave the eulogy followed by burial in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass., Feb. 8, 1870. See: Death and funeral, GP's. Corcoran, William Wilson. Persons named. Preface.
Artists-engravers. See: Engraver-artists. Peabody, George, Illustrations.
Astor, William Backhouse (1792-1875), was a NYC financier who attended the March 22, 1867, banquet GP gave after the PEF trustees' second meeting at NYC's Fifth Avenue Hotel, March 19-21, 1867. Other guests besides the trustees and their wives included NYC store owner and philanthropist Alexander Turney Stewart (1803-76) whose planned community, Garden City, Long Island, N.Y., was based on the Peabody Homes of London; historian George Bancroft (1800-91), who had been U.S. Minister to Britain (1846-49); and others. Ref.: Forney, pp. 19-31, 62-69. Harlow, pp. 3-5. See: Farragut, David Glasgow. Forney, John Wien. Grant, Ulysses Simpson. Persons named.
Athenaeum Club, 107 Pall Mall, London, SW1, the most intellectual of all London Clubs, admitted GP to membership on Feb. 3, 1863. Under its Rule Two, the Athenaeum (founded 1824) annually admitted nine members who were eminent in science, literature, the arts, or public service. GP was admitted after establishing on March 12, 1862, the Peabody Donation Fund which built and managed low-rent apartments for London's working families (total gift, $2.5 million). Other honors followed from this gift, including GP's being given the Freedom of the City of London (July 10, 1862, being the first U.S. citizen to receive this honor); made a member of the Clothworkers' Company (July 10, 1862), and other honors. Ref.: "Athenaeum Club," p. 29, Ward, pp. 195-198. See: City of London Club. Clubs, London, GP's. Reform Club, London. Parthenon Club, London.
Atlantic (a transatlantic Collins Line steamship). On GP's Sept. 15, 1856, to Aug. 19, 1857, U.S. visit, his first return to the U.S. after nearly 20 years' absence in London (since Feb 1837), he sailed on the Atlantic from England, arriving in NYC Sept. 15, 1856, where he was greeted by delegations from NYC, Boston, and South and North Danvers, Mass. He left NYC on the Persia, Aug. 19, 1857, to return to England. See: Collins Line. Morgan, Junius Spencer. Visits to the U.S. by GP.
Atlantic Cable. See: Atlantic Telegraph and Cable Co. (below). Field, Cyrus West. Morgan, Junius Spencer.
Atlantic Telegraph and Cable Co. On Oct. 10, 1856, Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90) in London wrote to GP, senior partner in George Peabody & Co., London, then on a visit to the U.S. (Sept. 15, 1856, to Aug. 19, 1857), that Cyrus West Field (1819-92) was organizing the Atlantic Telegraph and Cable Co. to lay a cable across the Atlantic (U.S.-England connection) and wanted GP as a director. The next month (Nov. 14, 1856) J.S. Morgan again wrote GP that his name as director was being publicly used. There were cable snaps and other delays until 1866 when the Atlantic Cable was successfully laid. See: persons named.
GP's March-April 1857 U.S. Itinerary
Augusta, Ga. 1-GP's March-April 1857 Itinerary. GP visited Augusta, Ga., during his Sept. 15, 1856 to Aug. 19, 1857, U.S. visit, his first return to the U.S. after nearly 20 years' absence in London (since Feb. 1837). Besides visiting relatives and friends, his purpose was to found the PIB, Feb. 12, 1857, and to observe as an investment banker recent growth in the U.S. South and West. Refs. below.
Augusta, Ga. 2-Itinerary Cont'd. GP's March-April 1857 itinerary included a visit to Charleston, S.C. (March 7); he then went by water on the steamer Le Grande to Augusta, Ga.; and Mobile, Ala. (March 15), where he stayed at the Battle House for a few days to recover from illness; then on to New Orleans, La., where he stayed at the St. Charles Hotel, declined a public dinner but attended a private dinner, and was made a Chamber of Commerce member (March 19-23). Refs. below.
Augusta, Ga. 3-Itinerary Cont'd. He went to Cairo, Ill., where he owned city bonds; then to St. Louis, Mo. (April 3); Terre Haute, Ind., and Indianapolis, Ind., where he stayed with Ind. Gov. Ashbel P. Willard (1820-60) (April 7); then to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he again declined a public dinner, met citizens at the Merchants' Exchange, and received and acknowledged resolutions of praise (April 10); then to Pittsburgh, Penn. (April 14-16); and on to Oswego, N.Y. (April 25). Refs. below.
Augusta, Ga. 4-Itinerary Cont'd. Ref.: Richmond Dispatch (Va.), March 13, 1857, p. 1, c. 4. Mobile Daily Tribune (Ala), March 15, 1857. Daily Picayune (New Orleans), March 20, 1857, p. 3, c. 1; March 24, 1857, p. 1, c. 7; and March 25, 1857, p. 3, c. 1. Daily Delta (New Orleans), March 20, 1857, p. 2, c. 4; March 21, 1857, p. 2, c. 1. Sun (Baltimore), March 31, 1857, p. 1, c. 3. Daily Missouri Republican (St. Louis), April 4, 1857, p. 2, c. 3. St. Louis Daily Evening News, April 3, 1857, p. 2, c. 2. Illinois State Journal (Springfield, Ill.), April 6, 1857, p. 3. c. 1. Indianapolis Daily Journal, April 8, 1857, p. 3, c. 3. Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 11, 1857, p. 2, c. 1. Pittsburgh Evening Chronicle, April 14, 1857, p. 1, c. 1-3. Oswego Daily Times (Oswego, N.Y.), April 25, 1857, p. 3, c. 1.
B
Shakespeare Theorist
Bacon, Delia Salter (1811-59). 1-Shakespeare Theorist. Delia Salter Bacon was a U.S. writer who believed that William Shakespeare's (1554-1616) plays were written by a group consisting of mainly English philosopher-statesman Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English courtier Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618), and English poet Edmund Spenser (1552-99). Early orphaned by the death of her clergy father, a missionary to the Indians, she studied in the Hartford, Conn., school managed during 1822-32 by the Beecher sisters (Catharine Esther Beecher, 1800-78; Mary Foote Beecher, 1805-1900; and Harriet Beecher, 1811-96). Delia Bacon started a school herself which failed, was an unsuccessful playwright in NYC, and at age 40 wrote a manuscript stating her theory about Shakespeare.
Bacon, Delia S. 2-Friendly Aid but No Endorsements. Delia S. Bacon had friendly aid but no endorsements from Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64), and NYC banker Charles Butler (1802-97). With a letter of introduction from Butler, she went to London and called on GP in May 1853. Ref.: Charles Butler, NYC, to GP, May 14, 1853, Peabody Papers, PEM. Ref.: Muzzey, II, Part l, pp. 359-360. Ref.: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord, Mass., to person unknown, March 26, 1853, Peabody Papers, PEM. See: persons named.
Bacon, Delia S. 3-Eccentric Researcher. GP's contacts with Delia S. Bacon are not known, probably limited to converting bank drafts from Butler and others. She haunted Shakespeare's grave in Sept. 1856 but never succeeded in getting it opened to prove her theory. Nathaniel Hawthorne helped to get her book published, Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded, 1857, which critics derided and which failed to sell. She was in mental institutions in England in Nov. 1857, N.Y. State in 1859, and in Hartford, Conn., where she died in 1859. She is buried in Grove St. Cemetery, New Haven, Conn., where, by coincidence, GP's nephew Othniel Charles March (1831-99) was later buried. In an 1888 book, another U.S. eccentric believer in the Bacon-Shakespeare theory, Minneapolis Congressman Ignatius Donnelly, revived Delia Bacon's notoriety. Ref.: (R.W. Emerson): Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord, Mass., to person unknown, March 26, 1853, Peabody Papers, PEM. Ref.: (Delia Salter Bacon to GP): seven letters from Delia Salter Bacon to GP, 1853-54, GP Papers, PEM. Ref.: (On Delia Salter Bacon): Bacon, p. 65. Brandes, p. 89. Ref.: (Burial place): http://www.askmytutor.co.uk/d/de/delia_bacon.html
Bacon, Francis (1561-1626), English philosopher and statesman. See: Bacon, Delia Salter. Butler, Charles.
GP Critic
Baldwin, Leland DeWitt (1897-1981). 1-Historian. Leland DeWitt Baldwin was a historian whose The Stream of American History, 1952, repeated earlier-made unsubstantiated charges that GP was pro-Confederate in sympathy and anti-Union in bond sales during the Civil War. These charges were first made without substantiating evidence by John Bigelow (1817-1911), U.S. Consul Gen. in Paris (1861-64) when he wrote confidentially to Secty. of State William Henry Seward (1801-72), accusing GP of exaggerating Federal reversals in the Civil War to cause financial panic and so reap a personal fortune. Bigelow's unsubstantiated charges were repeated by newspaper owner-editor Samuel Bowles (1826-78), by poet Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), by authors Gustavus Myers (1872-1942) and Matthew Josephson (1899-1978). (Note: For doubt cast about Bigelow's criticism about GP's loyalty, See: Bigelow, John below and "Bigelow, John…" in References end of book).
Baldwin, L.D. 2-Volatile Time. The onset of the Civil War was politically and financially tempestuous. European investors, initially uncertain which side would win, sold their U.S. securities. Resumption did not occur until Union victory was assured in 1864. See: Civil War and GP.
GP Honored in Baltimore, 1857
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. 1-GP as Md. Bond Agent Abroad. Md. and other states in the 1820s-30s, wanting internal improvements for trade and wealth, needed foreign investment capital. The Md. legislature authorized an $8 Million bond sale abroad to finance the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the B&O RR. When one of the three commissioners for that sale dropped out, GP took his place. He left for London Feb. 1837 on his fifth commercial trip. The financial Panic of 1837 forced suspension of bond interest payments by Md. and eight other states. See: Md.'s $8 Million Bond Sale Abroad and GP.
B&O RR. 2-Success Despite Panic and Repudiation. GP publicly urged Md. leaders to resume interest payments and also assured British and European investors that repudiation was temporary, that interest payment would resume and be retroactive. GP at last sold his portion of Md. bonds to London's Baring Brothers. Aware of Md.'s financial difficulties and not wishing to burden it further, he never claimed the $60,000 commission due him. Md. recovered financially and resumed its bond interest payments retroactively, as GP predicted. Ref.: Ibid.
B&O RR. 3-GP Praised. Md. Gov. Thomas G. Pratt's (1804-69) 1847 annual report to the legislature praised GP: "...two [commissioners] received the compensation to which they were entitled: but Mr. George Peabody...has never claimed or received one dollar of compensation.... Whilst the State was struggling with her pecuniary difficulties, he felt unwilling...to add to her burdens; and I am now officially informed that he relinquishes his claim to compensation, feeling himself sufficiently remunerated for his services by the restored credit of his State." Ref.: Ibid.
B&O RR. 4-GP Praised Cont'd. On March 7, 1848, both houses of the Md. Assembly passed unanimously a resolution of praise for GP. Gov. Pratt's successor, Gov. Philip Francis Thomas (1799-1876), sent this resolution to GP, adding in his cover letter: "To you, sir, ...the thanks of the State were eminently due." Md.'s resolution of praise and the governor's thanks, widely printed in the press, brought this warm comment from the London correspondent of NYC's Courier & Enquirer: "...the energetic influence of the Anti-Repudiators would never have been heard in England had not Mr. George Peabody...made it a part of his duty to give to the holders of the Bonds every information in his power, and to point out...the certainty of Maryland resuming [payment].... He...had the moral courage to tell his countrymen the contempt [because of repudiation] with which all Americans were viewed.... [He is] a merchant of high standing...but also an uncompromising denouncer of chicanery in every shape." Ref.: Ibid.
Md. Historical Society, Jan. 30, 1857)
B&O RR. 5-Md. Historical Society Dinner for GP: Jan. 30, 1857. GP's Sept. 15, 1856 to Sept. 19, 1857, U.S. visit after nearly 20 years' absence in London brought more praise for his Md. service, particularly from Baltimore Mayor Thomas Swann (c1806-83), long acquainted with GP. Mayor Swann was a Va.-born lawyer who moved to Baltimore about 1834 and had been a director and then president of the B&O RR (1848). Swann officiated at a Jan. 30, 1857, Md. Historical Society dinner for GP. GP spoke pleasurably to the dinner guests of his 22 years in Baltimore, during 1815-37, aged 20-42. Ref.: Ibid.
B&O RR. 6-Baltimore's Mayor Swan on GP. Mayor Swann, responding, said: "I, too, am one of thousands of American citizens who partook of Mr. Peabody's hospitality in London. When repudiation of our bonds was the unfortunate order of the day, he believed and caused others to believe in the ultimate redemption of Maryland's obligation. He is a Marylander at heart and an American all over. I give you a sentiment: To George Peabody--the best representative we ever had in a foreign court." Ref.: Ibid.
Md. Institute, Feb. 2, 1857
B&O RR. 7-Md. Institute Dinner for GP: Feb. 2, 1857. Three nights later, Feb. 2, 1857, the Md. Institute for the Promotion of Mechanic Arts held a reception and dinner for GP. Md. Institute Pres. Joshua Vansant (1803-84) referred to the Institute's new Chemistry Dept. (to which GP gave $1,000 in 1851) and to the Great Exhibition of 1851. He told how U.S. exhibitors were embarrassed without funds to display U.S. industry and art at the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition Hall, London. See: Md. Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, Baltimore.
B&O RR. 8-Md. Institute's Pres. Vansant on GP. Md. Institute Pres. Vansant reported that GP's timely loan of $15,000 allowed over six million visitors to the fair (May 1-Oct. 19, 1851) to see to best advantage at the U.S. pavilion Albert Hobbs' (1812-91) unpickable lock, Samuel Colt's (1814-62) revolvers, Hiram Powers' (1805-73) statue, the Greek Slave, Cyrus Hall McCormick's (1809-84) reapers, Richard Hoe's (1812-86) printing press, and William Cranch Bond's (1789-1859) spring governor. Ref.: Ibid.
B&O RR. 9-Md. Institute's Pres. Vansant on GP Cont'd. Turning to GP Pres. Vansant said: "By this act national disgrace was averted. Congress should have promptly repaid this loan but did not. I know you did not present a claim on the government for the sum expended. The U.S. Senate at the first Session of the thirty-third Congress voted to reimburse Edward Riddle to whom your loan was made but the House of Representatives struck it out because of some constitutional obstruction. I was a member of that congress, but voted for reimbursement, otherwise I could not now honorably address you. How glad I was when the next Congress (thirty-fourth) finally approved reimbursement to Mr. Riddle, thus enabling him to repay you." Ref.: Ibid.
B&O RR. 10-Md. Institute's Pres. Vansant on GP Cont'd.: "Sir, the mechanics and artisans of the United States owe you thanks for enabling their productive skill to be proudly shown to the world. In their name and in the name of the Maryland Institute I bid you cordial welcome." Ref.: Ibid.
B&O RR. 11-GP's Reply to Md. Institute's Pres. Vansant. GP replied to Pres. Vansant: "I am myself a working man--my success in life is due to work, and my sympathies are with labor.... When I first went to England, thirty years ago, a Mechanics Institute was generally regarded with indifference....now in that old aristocratic country...members of the most distinguished families annually lecture at these institutes." GP's remarks brought cheers, remarked a Baltimore Sun writer. Here was a banker who appreciated labor, identified with it, clothed it with dignity. He had struck a chord that pleased. Ref.: Ibid.
B&O RR. 12-Mayor Swann on GP. Baltimore Mayor Thomas Swann was moved to say from the platform: "It is a compliment to you, Mr. Peabody, to witness the spontaneous expression of 5,000 of the mechanics and workingmen of Baltimore. In addition to Baltimore workingmen, both branches of our city council present join me in saying that the city owes you special welcome. In the commanding position you have occupied abroad you have done much for our State and City. By supporting the character of Maryland you maintained its fame." Ref.: Ibid.
B&O RR. 13-GP's Reply to Mayor Swann. GP answered Mayor Swann: "You confer on me so much honor.... While it is true I said Maryland's bonds were good, her means ample, and her citizens honorable, Marylanders themselves justified all I said and to their conduct all credit is due." Ref.: Ibid.
B&O RR. 14-J.B. Seidenstricker on GP. After the Md. Institute dinner Baltimorean John Barnhart Seidenstricker (b. 1809) described GP's part in selling Md.'s bonds abroad: "I was then a member of the state legislature and knew well the difficulties connected with levying a tax to uphold our bond sale abroad. George Peabody in Europe and [Baltimore lawyer] John J. Speed [1797-1852] in Maryland upheld public confidence in Maryland's credit." He concluded with: "The name of Peabody in Europe, and the writings of Speed in Maryland had accomplished the great work of freeing our State from repudiation." Ref.: Ibid.
B&O RR. 15-Mayor Swann Again on GP. Mayor Swann, himself a former B&O RR director and president, then told of GP's connection with the railroad's expansion west to Wheeling, [W.] Va. Mayor Swann said: "I tell you that the first man who gave an impetus to the mammoth undertaking was George Peabody. We held the bonds of the State, but they could not be negotiated, and the first man I wrote to was our guest of this evening; he came promptly to our assistance, and I tell you, gentlemen, that without his aid, we could not have laid our tracks ten miles beyond Cumberland or pushed forward through the Alleghenies to the threshold of the great West." Ref.: Ibid. See: Md.'s $8 Million Bond Sale Abroad and GP.
J.W. Garrett, GP, & Johns Hopkins, 1866-67
B&O RR. 16-John Work Garrett, GP, and Johns Hopkins. B&O RR Pres. John Work Garrett (1820-84) was intimate with both GP and Johns Hopkins (1795-1873), wealthy Baltimore merchant . Garrett knew that Johns Hopkins, unmarried and a Quaker, was concerned about what kind of philanthropic gift he should leave in his will, that he earnestly sought advice. Knowing this, Garrett deliberately brought GP and Johns Hopkins together at dinner in his Baltimore home during GP's 1866-67 U.S. visit. Sources state that within 24 hours of that meeting Hopkins drew up his will, leaving some $8 million to found the Johns Hopkins Univ., hospital, and medical school in Baltimore. See: Garrett, John Work. Hopkins, Johns.
B&O RR. 17-Other J.W. Garrett-GP Connections. J.W. Garrett accompanied GP on GP's April 25, 1867, visit to Pres. Andrew Johnson in the Blue Room of the White House. Two years later J.W. Garrett provided a special railroad car for GP's July 23-Aug. 30, 1869, visit to the Greenbrier Hotel, White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., where he met and talked on educational needs in the South with Gen. Robert E. Lee (1807-70) and other political and education leaders of North and South. See: Johnson, Andrew. White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
B&O RR. 18-GP and Robert Garrett. It was John Work Garrett's son, Robert Garrett (1847-96), who had a replica erected in front of the PIB, April 7, 1890, of U.S. sculptor William Wetmore Story's (1819-95) seated statue of GP, unveiled on Threadneedle St. near London's Royal Exchange by the Prince of Wales, July 23, 1869. See: GP Statues. Garrett, Robert.
Baltimore Athenaeum was started in 1832. Its library was one of the few relatively restricted libraries in Baltimore before the availability of the reference library of GP's PIB, founded Feb. 12, 1857, opened Oct. 25, 1866. See: PIB.
Baltimore General Dispensary, to which in his 1827 will GP left $2,000. See: Wills, GP's.
Baltimore Library Company. See: Charles James Madison Eaton. PIB.
Baltimore, Md. Baltimore, Md. persons and organizations GP had contact with include the following (which See:): Albert, William S. B&O RR. Buchanan, John. Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Co. Emory, Thomas. Hopkins, Johns. Johnson, Reverdy. Jones, Jr., Samuel Kennedy, John Pendleton. Md. Historical Society. Md. Institute for the Promotion of Mechanical Arts. Md.'s $8 Million Bond Sale Abroad and GP. Mayhew, William Edwards. PIB. Pratt, Enoch. Pratt, Thomas G. Riggs, Sr., Elisha. Riggs, Samuel. Speed, John Joseph. Swann, Thomas. Tiffany, Osmond Capron. Vansant, Joshua.
Minister to Britain George Bancroft
Bancroft, George (1800-91). 1-See: George Bancroft was U.S. Minister to Britain during 1846-49 and later a distinguished U.S. historian and author of the History of the United States, 10 volumes, published during 1834-74. GP had friendly relations with George Bancroft's nephew, John Chandler Bancroft Davis (1822-1907), U.S. legation in London Secty. during 1849-54. See: Davis, John Chandler Bancroft.
Bancroft, George. 2-J.C.B. Davis Connection. GP sometimes dined in London with J.C.B. Davis and Davis' Harvard College classmate, Vt.-born Henry Stevens (1819-86), rare book dealer in London, who later acted as GP's agent in book shipments to Peabody Institute libraries. Davis and Stevens lived for some years in the same Morley's Hotel, London. For details and sources of the Nov. 24, 1849, dinner at Joshua Bates's (1788-1854) home near London, attended by Davis, Stevens, and GP, with dinner guest of honor U.S. author Herman Melville (1819-91), see Joshua Bates. Morley's Hotel, London. Persons named. For a description of Morley's Hotel, London, see Richard Kenin. For George Bancroft as guest at GP's banquet for the PEF trustees, March 22, 1867, NYC's Fifth Ave. Hotel, see Farragut, David Glasgow.
Panic of 1857
Bank of England. 1-Panic of 1857. In the Panic of 1857 GP had given large credit to Lawrence, Stone & Co. of Boston which could not repay him. Meanwhile Baring Brothers, London, were pressing GP for ƒ150,000 ($750,000) he owed them. Gathering his assets, GP applied for a $4 million loan from the Bank of England but took only ƒ300,000 ($1.5 million) of the $4 million requested. See: Morgan, Junius Spencer.
Bank of England. 2-GP Explained his Bank Loan. When an erroneous press account of his bank loan appeared, GP wrote to the editor of the New York Times as follows: "About November 20th [1857], my house considered it prudent to borrow funds to protect our own credit and save many of our American correspondents unable to meet engagements. The bills my house was liable for at the time of the loan were ƒ2,300,000 [$11,500,000] not ƒ6,000,000 [$30,000,000]. I applied for a loan of ƒ800,000 ($4 million) from the Bank of England on good securities but have only taken ƒ300,000 to this date. Of the ƒ2,300,000 [$11,500,000] bills liable, my house paid more than ƒ1,500,000 [$7,500,000] at the time of the loan. The strength of our correspondents is such that our losses will be but trifling." Ref.: Ibid.
Bank of the U.S. Alexander Lardner (1808-48) worked for the Bank of the U.S. in Philadelphia. On Oct. 2, 1840 he married Esther Elizabeth Hoppin (1819-1905), who had a broken marriage engagement with GP during 1838-39. See: Hoppin, Esther Elizabeth. Lardner, Alexander. Romance and GP.
Baring Brothers, London. 1-Influential Banking Firm. Britain's influential banking firm, founded in 1770 by Francis Baring (1740-1810, created a baronet, 1793), dominated trade, investments, and securities from colonial to early U.S. national times. Francis Baring was succeeded by his second son, Alexander Baring-Ashburton (1774-1848), who had an American wife and represented Britain in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842, Daniel Webster represented the U.S.) which settled the U.S.-Canadian Northeast Boundary Dispute. See: Hidy, Ralph Willard.
Baring Brothers, London. 2-GP Growing Rival. George Peabody & Co. (1838-64) began as a small but ultimately successful rival. GP had business contacts and friendly relations with Joshua Bates (1788-1864), born in Weymouth, Mass., who was in turn a Baring Brothers agent, partner, and director. It was to the Baring Brothers banking firm that GP sold his Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Co. portion of Md.'s $8 Million Bonds. Ref.: Wallace and Gillespie, eds., I, p. 17, footnote 11. See: Bates, Joshua. Md.'s $8 Million Bond Sale and GP.
Baring, Thomas (1799-1873). GP was also friendly with Thomas Baring of the Baring Brothers banking firm. Muriel Emmie Hidy in George Peabody, Merchant and Financier, 1829-1854, listed Thomas Baring and J.P. Horsley Palmer (d. 1858) as among the British notables (of some 800 guests) who attended GP's July 4, 1851, dinner at Willis's Rooms, London, with the Duke of Wellington as guest of honor, in connection with the Great Exhibition of 1851, London (the first world's fair). See: Hidy, Muriel Emmie. Dinners, GP's, London. Great Exhibition of 1851, London (first world's fair).
Sickles Affair
Barnard, Henry (1811-1900). 1-Prominent U.S. Educator. Henry Barnard attended GP's July 4, 1854, dinner in London honoring incoming U.S. Minister to Britain James Buchanan (1791-1868). Barnard replied to a toast and gave a speech on public education in New England. The dinner was marred when jingoistic U.S. Legation Secty. Daniel Edgar Sickles (1825-1914) objected to GP's toast to Queen Victoria before one to the U.S. President. Sickles sat while others stood, and then in red-gorged anger walked out in protest. See: Dinners, GP's, London.
Barnard, Henry. 2-Career. Henry Barnard was born in Hartford, Conn., was a Yale graduate (1830), a lawyer, and a member of the Conn. legislature who helped found the Conn. public school system. He was Conn. School Board secty. (1838-42), edited its Conn. Common School Journal, and did the same thing in R.I. during 1843-49. He was chancellor, Univ. of Wisconsin (1858-60); president, St. John's College, Annapolis, Md. (1866-67); the first U.S. Commissioner of Education (1867-70); and editor of the American Journal of Education (31 vols., 1855-81). Ref.: Brubacher, p. 12.
Barnard, Henry. 3-In London Summer 1854. Henry Barnard was in London the summer of 1854 as a delegate to the International Exposition of Educational Methods. Boston merchant Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90) earlier wrote GP on May 12, 1854, introducing Barnard: "I have great pleasure in introducing Hon. Henry Barnard of Hartford, Connecticut." "Mr. Barnard is deeply interested in the subject of education and has for many years held the office of Superintendent of the Common Schools of Conn." "I beg to commend him to your most kind attention...." Ref.: J.S. Morgan, Boston, to GP, London, May 12, 1854, Pierpont Morgan Library, NYC.
Barnard, Henry. 4-Barnard Defended GP. Jingoist U.S. Legation Secty. Sickles fanned press notoriety about his walkout from GP's July 4, 1854, dinner by attacking GP's patriotism in a letter to the Boston Post, July 21, 1854, p. 2, c. 1. He charged GP with "toadying" to the English. GP recorded the facts of the incident in a letter to the Boston Post. Henry Barnard added his name to those of 25 other Americans present at the dinner who wrote the Boston Post editor: "The undersigned have read Mr. Peabody's letter to the Boston Post of Aug. 16, 1854, and without hesitation affirm as true the events described by Mr. Peabody." There the matter ended. Ref.: London Morning Advertiser, July 7, 1854, p. 6, c. 3-4. See: Sickles, Daniel Edgar.
Barnes, Joseph K. (1817-83), was a PEF trustee, succeeding Ohio Episcopal Bishop Charles Pettit McIlvaine (1799-1873). J.K. Barnes was educated at Harvard, received a Univ. of Penn. medical degree, became assistant surgeon in the U.S. Army Medical Dept. (1840), served during the Mexican War, was Surgeon-Gen. of the U.S. Army (1864-82), and attended Presidents Lincoln and Garfield on their deathbeds. He founded the Army Medical Museum and the library of the surgeon-general's office. His PEF trustee vacancy was filled by James Davis Porter (1828-1912). See: PEF. Porter, James Davis.
Barnstead, N.H. In late winter 1810, GP, then age 15, first visited his maternal grandparents, Judith Spofford Dodge (1749-1828) and Jeremiah Dodge (1744-1824), and their son, his uncle Eliphalet Dodge, in Post Mills Village, Thetford, Vt. Young GP then stopped to visit his maternal aunt Temperance Dodge Jewett (1772-c.1872), whose husband, Jeremiah Jewett (1757-1836), was a physician in Barnstead, N.H. In memory of his visit to Thetford, Vt., GP gave, $5,000 for a public library, Aug. 1866, which opened Oct. 9, 1867, as the Peabody Library, Thetford, Vt. Ref.: Internet site (seen) March 18, 2000): http://www.valley.net~conriver/V13-7.htm Baldwin, J. A. pp. 12-15. See: Concord, N.H. Persons named. Thetford, Vt.
Joshua Bates
Bates, Joshua (1788-1864). 1-Leading U.S.-Born Banker in London: 1840s. Joshua Bates was born in Weymouth, Mass. In 1803 at age 15 he entered the business firm of William Gray & Son of Boston. From 1809 at age 21 he was a partner of a Mr. Beckford but the War of 1812 intervened. He returned to William Gray & Son, became that firm's agent in London, where he formed a friendship with Peter Labouchére, who was connected by marriage to an official of Britain's leading financial firm, Baring Brothers. In 1826 when Samuel Williams, U.S. banker and merchant in London, went bankrupt, Joshua Bates was able to take his place, after borrowing ƒ20,000 from Peter Labouchére. Bates became in turn agent for, partner in (at age 38), and finally director of the Baring Brothers banking firm. Ref.: "Bates, Joshua," Vol. 1, p. 194.
Bates, Joshua . 2-GP was Bates's Friendly Rival. This firm was organized by the sons of Sir Francis Baring (1740-1810), a director of the East India Co., who was created a baronet in 1793 and became the most powerful merchant in Europe. Bates, who became a naturalized British subject, was the most prominent U.S.-born financier in London, 1830s-40s. His daughter, Betts Bates, frequently at Court, was a favorite of Queen Victoria. GP had business and friendly relations with Joshua Bates. Ref.: Ibid.
Bates, Joshua . 3-GP in London, From Feb. 1837. GP, in England from Feb. 1837 on his fifth buying trip abroad, was Md.'s agent to sell the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal part of Md.'s $8 million bond issue. He was also head of Peabody, Riggs & Co. (1829-48). In the depression following the Panic of 1837, when Md.'s bonds were at a low price, GP sold his part of the Md. bonds to Joshua Bates of Baring Brothers for that firm's exclusive resale rights. GP remained in London the rest of his life (1837-69), except for three U.S. visits in 1-Sept. 15, 1856 to Aug. 19, 1857, 2-May 1, 1866 to May 1, 1867, and 3-June 8 to Sept. 29, 1869. GP founded George Peabody & Co., London (Dec. 1838-Oct. 1, 1864), continued by his Mass.-born partner Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90, father of John Pierpont Morgan, Sr. 1837-1913) as J.S. Morgan & Co. (1864-1909), continued as Morgan Grenfell & Co. (1910-18), Morgan Grenfell & Co., Ltd. (1918-90), and Deutsche Morgan Grenfell (since June 29, 1990). See: Morgan, Junius Spencer.
Bates, Joshua. 4-GP Met Herman Melville at Bates's Home. In Nov. 1849 U.S. novelist Herman Melville (1819-91) was in London, on his only trip abroad, to market his manuscript, White Jacket. On Nov. 24, Melville was a dinner guest at Joshua Bates's home, East Sheen, near London. Also present were GP and Vt.-born rare book dealer and bibliographer Henry Stevens (1819-86). In his journal Melville mentioned meeting GP: "On my right was Mr. Peabody, an American for many years resident in London, a merchant, & a very fine old fellow of fifty or thereabouts." Ref.: Melville, p. 47. Leyda, p. 338. Parker, W.W., pp. 83, 126.
Bates, Joshua. 5-Herman Melville's Journal Cont'd.: "I had intended to remain over night...but Peabody invited me to accompany him to town in his carriage. I went with him, along with [John Chandler Bancroft] Davis [1822-1907], the Secty. of Legation.... Mr. Peabody was well acquainted with Gansevoort when he was here. He saw him not long before his end. He told me that Gansevoort rather shunned society when here. He spoke of him with such feeling." Gansevoort Melville (1815-46), Herman's older brother, had been U.S. legation secretary in London and had helped get his brother Herman Melville's book, Typee, published in England. GP and Henry Stevens, who both knew Gansevoort before he died in May 1846, were able to share with Herman Melville their remembrances of his late brother. Ref.: Ibid.
Bates, Joshua. 6-Bates Founded the Boston Public Library, 1852. Learning that Boston was raising funds for a public library, Joshua Bates gave $50,000 in 1852 to found the Boston Public Library. He soon after also gave the Boston Public Library 30,000 volumes, whose worth probably doubled his original gift. At his death the large hall of the Boston Public Library was named Bates Hall in his honor. Ref.: "Bates, Joshua," Vol. 1, p. 194.
Bates, Joshua. 7-GP's First Peabody Institute Library, 1852 That same year, in June 1852, GP gave $20,000, his first gift, to found his first Peabody Institute Library in South Danvers (renamed Peabody in 1868), to which he ultimately gave a total of $217,000. With his 1852 gift, GP enclosed a motto: "Education: a debt due from present to future generations." See: Danvers, Mass., Centennial Celebration, June 16, 1852.
Bates, Joshua. 8-Bates-GP Compared. Joshua Bates's 1852 gift to the Boston Public Library is said to have initiated the public library system in the U.S., although GP's library institute gift to the small town of South Danvers, 19 miles from Boston, was also made in 1852. There is no evidence that Bates's example influenced GP, who had earlier told intimates that he intended to give gifts of enlightenment to each town and city where he had lived. In the 1850s GP stood in Bates's place as the most prominent U.S. merchant-banker in London. Before his death in 1869 GP was the best known philanthropist of his time, having founded seven U.S. library institutes (the PIB, $1.4 million total, included the Peabody Conservatory of Music), the 1862 model Peabody Homes for London's working poor ($2.5 million total), and the 1867 PEF for public schools in the South ($2 million total). See: Peabody, George, Philanthropy.
Bath, England. GP occasionally went to rest in Bath, England, as in late March and early April 1862, where he received warm press accounts following his March 12, 1862, founding of the Peabody Donation Fund to build model housing for London's working poor ($2.5 million total gift). See: Peabody Homes of London.
Beals, William (d. 1916), also known as Colonel William Beals, was the Boston decorator who furbished Car No. 77, Eastern RR, carrying GP's remains from Portland, Me., to Peabody, Mass., Feb. 1, 1870. Ref.: (Obituary): New York Times, June 27, 916, p. 11, c. 4. See: Death and Funeral, GP's.
W.Va., Summer 1869
Beauregard, Pierre Gustave Toutant (1818-93). 1-Met GP, W.Va., Summer 1869. P.G.T. Beauregard was a former Confederate general from La. who by chance met, talked to, and was photographed with GP (Aug. 12, 1869), then visiting the mineral springs health spa at White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., Gathered there by chance were key southern and northern political, military, and educational leaders. GP, ill and three months from death, was there to rest and recuperate. He and Robert E. Lee talked, dined, walked arm in arm, were publicly applauded, and photographed with other prominent guests. Informal talks of later educational consequence took place on southern public education needs. See: Visits to the U.S. by GP. White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
Beauregard, P.G.T. 2-Career. P.G.T. Beauregard was born in St. Bernard, La., was a West Point graduate (1838), served in the Mexican War, and was supt. of West Point (Jan. 23-28, 1861), when he resigned to serve as a Confederate general. After the Civil War he was a railroad president and wrote on military subjects. Ref.: Boatner, p. 55. For details, names of prominent participants, and sources, including historic W.Va. photos taken between Aug. 15-19, 1869, see Corcoran, William Wilson. Confederate generals. Peabody, George, Illustrations. Persons named.
Beebe, James Madison (1800-75). 1- J.M. Beebe, Morgan & Co., Boston. In 1852-53, GP, often ill, was urged by business friends to take a partner in his George Peabody & Co., London, firm. Highly recommended was Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90), then a partner in J.M. Beebe, Morgan & Co. of Boston. GP valued James Madison Beebe's good opinion of J.S. Morgan as a most likely partner. J.S. Morgan became GP's partner during Oct. 1, 1854, to Oct. 1, 1864. His son John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), at about age 19, began his banking career as NYC agent for George Peabody & Co., London. George Peabody & Co. was thus the root of the J.P. Morgan banking empire. See: Morgan, Junius Spencer. Morgan, Sr., John Pierpont.
Beebe, J.M. 2-Other Famous J.M. Beebe Partners. J.M. Beebe, born in Pittsfield, Mass., worked in a Boston retail dry goods store at age 16 and became the largest U.S. dry goods importer. Others besides J.S. Morgan who began with Beebe and achieved distinction included Cornelius Newton Bliss (1833-1911), who served as U.S. Secty. of the Interior in Pres. McKinley's Cabinet; and Levi Parsons Morton (1824-1920), NYC banker, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Minister to France, U.S. Vice President, and N.Y. State governor. Ref.: (J.M. Beebe): Boston Globe, Feb. 16, 1905.
Memorial Church, Georgetown, Mass.
Beecher, The Rev. Charles (1815-1900). 1-Georgetown, Mass. Rev. Charles Beecher was pastor of the Congregational Church, Georgetown, Mass. (1857-70), from which 85 dissenters, including GP's sister Judith Dodge (née Peabody) Russell Daniels (1799-1879), formed a separate congregation over doctrinal differences on Jan. 17, 1864. GP's mother was born in Georgetown when it was called Rowley, Mass. At his sister's suggestion, GP built a Memorial Church for the dissenters in his mother's memory which was dedicated on Jan. 8, 1868. The $70,000 Memorial Church, Georgetown, Mass., is among GP's least known gifts. See: Memorial Church, Georgetown, Mass. (1867-68). Whittier, John Greenleaf.
Beecher, Charles. 2-Career. The Rev. Charles Beecher was born in Litchfield, Conn., educated at Boston Latin School, Lawrence Academy (Groton, Conn.), and at Bowdoin College (1834). He studied theology under his father, Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) at Lane Theological Seminary, Ohio; was the brother of clergyman Henry Ward Beecher (1813-87) and of author Harriet Elizabeth (née Beecher) Stowe (1811-96). The Rev. Charles Beecher was pastor of several other churches before serving the one in Georgetown, Mass. He lived in Florida (1870-77) and was state superintendent of public instruction there for two years. Ref.: Ibid.
Begging letters
Begging letters to GP. 1-1866-67. GP was deluged with begging letters toward the end of his May 1, 1866, to May 1, 1867, U.S. visit. This was his second U.S visit since his Feb. 1837 permanent move to London. The begging letters were prompted by newspaper accounts of his 17 philanthropic gifts made during 1866-67, totaling $2,310,450. He received hundreds of letters each day which his sister Judith Dodge (née Peabody) Daniels opened. She sent him only those of a business or personal nature. He sent a March 7, 1867, circular letter to newspaper editors stating that in strict confidence and sworn secrecy he had delegated the opening of his mail to others and had about 4,000 begging letters burned in his presence that day. Ref.: (Begging letters): New York Tribune, March 11, 1867, p. 2, c. 3. London Times, March 30, 1867, p. 5, c. 5.
Begging letters to GP. 2-GP's Gifts, 1866-67. GP's 1866-67 philanthropic gifts totaled $2,305,450: 1-$100,000 added, Peabody Institute Library, South Danvers, Sept. 22, 1866 (renamed Peabody, Mass., April 13, 1868, founded June 16, 1852, total $217,000). 2-$40,000 added, Peabody Institute Library, North Danvers (now Danvers), Mass., Sept. 22, 1866, founded Dec. 22, 1856 (total $l00,000). 3-$150,000, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard Univ., Oct. 8, 1866. 4-$150,000, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale Univ., Oct. 22, 1866. 5-$500,000 added, PIB, Oct. 19, 1866, founded Feb. 12, 1857 (total $1.4 million). 6-$25,000, Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., for math professorship, Oct. 30, 1866. 7-$20,000, Md. Historical Society publication fund, Nov. 5, 1866. 8-$25,000, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, for math and civil engineering professorships, Nov. 6, 1866.
Begging letters to GP. 3-GP's Gifts, 1866-67 (Cont'd.). 9-$5,000, Peabody Library, Thetford, Vt. 1866 (where his grandparents had lived and where he had visited at age 15 in 1810). 10-$20,000, Mass. Historical Society publication fund, Jan. 1, 1867. 11-$1 million to PEF, Feb. 7, 1867. 12-$140,000, Peabody Museum, now the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., Feb. 26, 1867. 13-$15,000, Peabody Library Association of Georgetown, D.C., April 7, 1867 (now the GP Room of the Georgetown, D.C., branch of the Public Library of Washington, D.C.). 14-$70,000, Memorial Church, Georgetown, Mass. (in his mother's memory in her hometown), 1866. 15-$30,000, Peabody Institute Library, Georgetown, Mass., 1866 (his mother's birthplace, when it was named Rowley). 16-$15,000, Peabody Library Book Fund, Newburyport, Mass., Feb. 20, 1867 (where he had worked as clerk in his oldest brother David Peabody's [1790-1841] dry goods store in 1811). 17-$450, autumn 1866, church repair, Barnstead, N.H., in the name of a resident relative. See: Eaton, Charles James Madison. Peabody's, George, Philanthropy.
Begging letters to GP. 4-June 8-Sept. 29, 1869. A greatly weakened GP made his third and last U.S. visit, June 8 to Sept. 29, 1869, to see his relatives and look after and add to his philanthropic gifts. His intimates sensed that this might well be his last visit (he died Nov. 4, 1869, five weeks after his return to London). His NYC arrival was reported in a long article in the New York Times, which evaluated the Peabody Homes of London and closed with remarks about begging letters. "Wherever he goes," the article read, "he is worried by begging letters from individuals expecting him to get them out of some scrape. When these letters go unanswered, abuse is heaped on Mr. Peabody. He was much persecuted in this way in England. Now that he is in America he should be left to the quiet and repose he so greatly needs." Ref.: New York Times, June 9, 1869, p. 5, c. 1-2.
Bell, John (1797-1869), was a graduate of Cumberland College, Nashville (1814), which was the successor to Davidson College (1785-1806), Nashville, and the predecessor of the Univ. of Nashville (1827-75), Peabody Normal College (1875-1911), GPCFT (1911-79), and PCofVU (since 1979). John Bell was born near Nashville, practiced law to 1827, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1827-41 and Speaker in 1834), U.S. Secty. of War in Pres. William Henry Harrison's (1773-1841) cabinet (1841), and U.S. Sen. (1847-59). He ran unsuccessfully as U.S. presidential candidate of the Constitutional Union Party in 1860, when Abraham Lincoln won election.
Bell, Montgomery (1769-1855), was a Tenn. ironmaster who left $20,000 in his will for a boys' school. This legacy, wisely invested, resulted in Montgomery Bell Academy, founded in 1867 as the Univ. of Nashville's preparatory school. It still exists in Nashville. Ref.: Corlew-a, pp. 58-59. Wills, p. 638.
Bell, Richard, was an Irish-born U.S. merchant friend of GP. In 1838 they lived in bachelor's quarters on Bread St., London. See: Bread St. Albert, William S.
Bell, Robert (1821-73). On GP's 1866-67 U.S. visit, he was in Montreal, Canada, July 7-8, 1866, where he attended Christ Church Cathedral; Church of the Messiah, Unitarian; and at a public levee (open house) spoke longest with Canadian MP from Russell, Ontario, Robert Bell about public affairs, Anglo-American relations, and Queen Victoria's gift to him of her portrait, being specially prepared, which he received in Washington, D.C., in March 1867. Robert Bell, believed to have been born in Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland, the son of Robert Bell and Catherine Wallace, married Margaret Waugh Buckham, had two daughters, and died in Hull, Quebec. Ref.: [Bell, Robert], Vol. X, pp. 45-46. See: Visits to Canada by GP.
U.S. Sanitary Commission
Bellows, Henry Whitney (1814-82). 1-U.S. Sanitary Commission. Henry Whitney Bellows was a Unitarian minister who helped organize and was president during 1861-65 of the U.S. Sanitary Commission. Modeled in part on the British Sanitary Commission in the Crimean War (Oct. 1853-Feb. 1855), the U.S. Sanitary Commission aided sick and wounded Civil War soldiers, sailors, and their dependents. It became a federal agency, June 12, 1861. Ref.: (U.S. Sanitary Commission): Boatner, p. 720.
Bellows, H.W. 2-GP Gave $10,000 to U.S. Sanitary Commission. In the winter of 1863-64, U.S. residents in London met at Westminster Palace Hotel to collect funds for the U.S. Sanitary Commission. Among those donating funds or helping collect funds were GP; Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90), GP's partner in George Peabody & Co., 1854-64; Curtis Miranda Lampson (1806-85), GP's Vt.-born business friend who became a naturalized British subject; and other U.S. residents in London. In May 1864, GP sent $8,000 to the U.S. Sanitary Commission, having previously sent $500 each to the U.S. Sanitary Commission fairs in Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. GP's total donation was $10,000. Ref.: GP, London, to John Pendleton Kennedy, May 7, 1864, Kennedy Papers, PIB. NYC Albion, May 7, 1864, p. 224, c. 2. Anglo-American Times (London), Dec. 23, 1865, p. 8, c. 1-2.
Bellows, H.W. 3-Career. Henry Whitney Bellows was born in Boston, graduated from Harvard College (1831) and Cambridge Divinity School (1837), and was pastor of NYC's First Congregational Society, Unitarian (later All Soul's Church), during 1838-82. He helped industrialist-philanthropist Peter Cooper (1791-1883) found Cooper Union in NYC (1859). At the outbreak of the Civil War Rev. H.W. Bellows and others met at the Cooper Union to discuss Civil War military relief needs, the embryo of the U.S. Sanitary Commission. As its president during 1861-65, Rev. Bellows supervised expenditures of over $5 million in U.S. Sanitary Commission war relief and over $15 million in relief supplies. See: Civil War. U.S. Sanitary Commission. Cooper, Peter.
Belmont, August (1816-1890), was a former representative of the Rothschild banking firm of Frankfurt, Germany, and a NYC banker. He was one of over 100 prominent New Yorkers who invited GP to a public dinner by letter of Sept. 16, 1856, the day after GP's arrival in NYC during his Sept. 15, 1856, to Aug. 19, 1857, U.S. visit. This was GP's first return to the U.S. in nearly 20 years since leaving for London in Feb. 1837. He declined the NYC and other public dinners, explaining that he had promised to attend first the public dinner to be held for him in his hometown of South Danvers, Mass., Oct. 9, 1856. See: South Danvers, Mass., GP Celebration, Oct.. 9, 1856. Visits to the U.S. by GP.
Benbow, Camilla Persson (1956-), became PCofVU's third dean, from Aug. l998, succeeding second dean James William Pellegrino (1947-) during Jan. 1992-July. 1998; first dean Willis D. Hawley (1938-) during Oct. 15, 1980-89; and acting Dean Hardy C. Wilcoxon (1921-96) during July 1, 1979-80. Third PCofVU Dean Camilla Persson Benbow was born in Lund, Sweden, became a U.S. naturalized citizen in 1985, was educated at Johns Hopkins Univ. (B.A., Psychology, 1977; M.A., Psychology, 1978; M.S., Education, 1980; Ed.D., Gifted, l981). At Johns Hopkins Univ. she was Assoc. Research Scientist, Psychology (1981-86) and Asst. Prof., Psychology (1983-86). At Iowa State Univ. she was Psychology Prof. (1990-95), Distinguished Prof. (1995-98), Psychology Dept. Chair (1992-98), and Interim Dean, College of Education (1996-98). She has published two books and written over 100 professional articles in the field of Talented and Gifted Youths. Under Dean Benbow, April 30, 2000, PCofVU's Social-Religious Building was renamed the Faye and Joe Wyatt Center for Education, after the retiring VU chancellor and his wife, under whom the historic building's renovation took place, 1993-96 Ref.: "Iowa State's Benbow," p. 2. Vita, Dean Camilla Persson Benbow's PCofVU office. "VU honors Wyatt in concrete way," Tennessean (Nashville), April 30, 2000, p. 1B. "Faye and Joe Wyatt Center," Tennessean (Nashville), May 2, 2000, p. 8A. See: PCofVU, history of, for its six predecessor colleges and their nineteen chief administrators. Conkin, Peabody College, index.
Broken Engagement
Bend, William B. 1-GP's Engagement. William B. Bend, GP's longtime merchant friend, heard in late 1838 that GP in London was engaged to be married. He wrote teasingly from NYC, Oct. 4, 1838, to GP: "I am very busy or I would write a gossipy letter to you. There is a report in circulation here that you are going to be married. Is the story true, and if it is, who is to be the happy fair? Mr. Stell [merchant friend] I understand professes to know all about the affair. I hope it is really to take place. You will be too old if you put it off much longer." See: Hoppin, Esther Elizabeth.
Bend, Wm. B. 2-GP Engaged to be Married. GP was engaged to Esther Elizabeth Hoppin (1819-1905) in late 1838. She was said to be the most beautiful girl in Providence, R.I., from a prominent family; and a pupil of John Kingsbury (1801-74), who conducted the first R.I. high school for young women. She visited Philadelphia about 1835 where at 16 she met and was infatuated with Alexander Lardner (1808-48). They parted; he to establish himself, she to finish school and to visit London for young Queen Victoria's coronation (June 28, 1838). GP, 42, met, fell in love with, and became engaged to Esther Hoppin, 19. A 24-year difference would ordinarily loom large. But he was in his prime, a successful merchant turned banker, with fine future prospects. Men with money often married younger wives. Friends considered them a good match and encouraged the romance. Ref.: Ibid.
Bend, Wm. B. 3-Engagement Broken. Back in the U.S., Esther again met Alexander Lardner. Their past romance rekindled. She broke her engagement to GP and returned his gifts through an intermediary. William B. Bend, following his Oct. 4, 1838, teasing letter, congratulated GP again on Feb. 10, 1839. Eight days later he received GP's delayed Jan. 26, 1839, letter telling of the broken engagement. Chagrined and touched, Bend apologized for his teasing letters, stating that he had not known of the disappointment, and wrote sympathetically to GP (Feb. 18, 1839):
Bend, Wm. B. 4-Bend Sympathized: "My dear Peabody, I have this morning received your favour of the 26th ulto. and with my wife, grieve sincerely and deeply over its melancholy intelligence. Having myself experienced a misfortune, somewhat similar to that which has fallen you, and remember most distinctly now, though twenty years have since elapsed, the agony which I endured, I feel the more called on and the more adequate to sympathize with you, than I otherwise should do. Then in the true spirit of friendship do I offer to you my heartfelt condolence. I share in the anguish of your feelings, at the blighting of hopes so fondly cherished, at the crushing of expectations, so warmly, so sanguinely indulged in.... The pangs of despised love, though poignant must be resisted. The balmy effects of time, and the natural elasticity and recuperative energy of the human character, will afford you great relief, and I hope to see you here in the Summer quite yourself again." Ref.: Ibid.
Bend, Wm. B. 5-Hoppin Married Lardner. Esther Elizabeth Hoppin married Alexander Lardner, Oct. 2, 1840. They moved to Philadelphia where he was a cashier in the Bank of the U.S. They had two children. When Lardner died in 1848, age 40, GP's NYC business friend John Cryder, who knew of the broken engagement, learned of Lardner's death, and wrote to GP (Jan. 27, 1848): "Poor Lardner died in Phila. a few days since leaving his young & interesting widow with two children & about $20,000. He was an excellent man & his death is much lamented." Esther Elizabeth (Hoppin) Lardner died in 1905, outliving GP by 35 years and her husband by 57 years. Ref.: Ibid.
Bend, Wm. B. 6-1849. In early 1849 Bend, wanting to establish an insurance company, asked GP to join him by investing some capital. GP apparently declined by letter of Jan. 12, 1849. Bend was piqued and wrote GP on Feb. 6, 1849: "Your favor of the 12th ulto. is so disappointing...I am afraid you are too busy to serve me effectually.... You do not appear to have made any applications in my behalf, nor even to have thought of my suggestion in regard to Life, Annuity, Legacy, purchasing Companies. If the days of poetry are not past with you, these lines may meet your acceptance...." Bend continued, "You late lake [lack] rest, and eat the bread of watchfulness, work till nine o'clock at night! Do not leave your business five days in five years!... To what purpose, for whose good? If like me you had, instead of wanting a family, wanted an independent fortune, I could understand the case. But I suppose you will imitate the noble example of Mr. Smithson, and benefit posterity by the endowment of some charitable benevolent or literary institution, from your industry, skill and character...." Ref.: William B. Bend, NYC, to GP, Feb. 6, 1849, Peabody Papers, PEM, Salem, Mass.
Bennett, James Gordon (l795-l872), was born in Keith, Scotland; came to the U.S. in 1819; was Washington, D.C., correspondent of the NYC Enquirer, assistant editor of the NYC Courier and Enquirer (1829-32); and founder, editor, and reporter of the New York Herald (1835), landmark U.S. newspaper in publishing sensational news. Bennett's New York Herald coverage of GP during his Sept. 15, 1856, to Aug. 19, 1857, U.S. visit was often critical and sarcastic. See: Corcoran, William Wilson. Morgan, Junius Spencer. Visits to the U.S. by GP.
Benyon, William, Sir, was the Peabody Trust chairman who participated in the "Bicentenary Service of Thanksgiving for the Life and Work of George Peabody, 1795-1869," in London's Westminster Abbey, Nov. 16, 1995. See: GP Bicentennial Celebrations (Feb. 18, 1795-1995).
Berlin, Univ. of. Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-99) attended the German universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Breslau in 1863-65, preparing at his uncle GP's expense for a career as the first U.S. paleontology professor at Yale Univ. and the second such professor in the world. See: Marsh, Othniel Charles.
Berlioz, Hector (1803-69), was a famed French music composer whose only pupil, Copenhagen-born Asger Hamerik (1843-1923), became the long-tenured director of the PIB Academy (later Conservatory) of Music, from July 11, 1871, to 1898, for 27 years. See: Hamerik, Asger. PIB.
Bermuda. The route of the British warship HMS Monarch, accompanied by the American USS Plymouth, returning GP's remains to the U.S., was from Portsmouth harbor, England, on Dec. 11, 1869, to nearby Spithead Harbor to await the end of a storm. The ships left Spithead on Dec. 21, 1869, went to Funchall Bay off Madeira, Spain, to take on coal, sailed west on Jan. 2, 1870, to Bermuda where the ships took on provisions and dispatches, then headed north to reach Portland, Maine, on Jan. 25, 1870. See: Death and funeral, GP's.
Bicentennial Celebrations of GP's (1795-1869) birth (Feb. 18, 1795-Feb. 18, 1995). For details of programs at 1-Yale Univ., 2-London's Westminster Abbey, 3-Peabody Institute Library in Danvers, Mass., and elsewhere, with sources, See: GP Bicentennial Celebrations.
Loyalty Attacked
Bigelow, John (1817-1911). 1-Attacked GP's Union Loyalty. Wallace and Gillespie, eds., Journal of Benjamin Moran, II, p. 933, note 16, stated: "A confidential letter from John Bigelow, Consul-General in Paris, to Secretary Seward [Secty. of State William Henry Seward (1801-72)] of July 17, 1862, stated that Peabody and Company were exaggerating Federal reverses to augment a panic over the safety of European investments in United States securities in order to accelerate their liquidation, in which transactions the bank was making a fortune." (Note: Wallace and Gillespie have this note on John Bigelow because he was frequently mentioned in U.S. Legation in London Secty. Benjamin Moran's [1820-86] journal). Ref.: Wallace and Gillespie, eds., II, p. 933, note 16.
Bigelow, John. 2-Attacked GP's Union Loyalty Cont'd. "Bigelow said he had, in person, heard George Peabody doing this…. Motley [John Lothrop Motley (1814-77), then U.S. Minister to Austria during 1861-67] wrote Bigelow that the Barings were all secessionists except Joshua Bates…. Henry [Brooks] Adams [1838-1918], however, in the Education [of Henry Adams] speaks of the loyalty of Peabody and the Barings." Ref.: Ibid.
Bigelow, John. 3-Was Bigelow Reliable? A biographical sketch of John Bigelow stated: "his charge, later elaborated in Lest We Forget (1905) and the Retrospections, that Gladstone subscribed to the Confederate cotton loan appears to have been unfounded (E.D. Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War, 1925, II, 163)." (Note: John Bigelow wrote Lest We Forget in 1905 and Retrospections of an Active Life, 5 vols., 1903-13. Civil War passions were inflamed, July 17, 1862, when Bigelow charged GP as a Confederate sympathizer. Fearing British and French aid to the Confederate states, some minor diplomats, as Consul in Paris Bigelow was then, in error or to curry favor, sometimes magnified rumors in dispatches to Washington, D.C.). Ref.: "Bigelow, John…," pp. 258-259.
Bigelow, John. 4-Career. Born in Malden, N.Y., Bigelow graduated from Union College (1835), was a lawyer, afterwards a journalist, an inspector of Sing Sing prison (1845-46), an editor of the NYC Evening Post (1849-61), U.S. Consul Gen. in Paris (1861-64), U.S. Minister to France (1864-67), Secty. of N.Y. State (1875-77), a leading NYC Public Library trustee, an author and editor of the Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin, 1888. Bigelow offered no evidence or proof of his charge against GP. The onset of the Civil War was politically and financially tempestuous. European investors, initially uncertain which side would win, sold their U.S. securities. Resumption did not occur until Union victory was assured in 1864. See: Civil War and GP.
Bigelow, John. 5-Unsubstantiated Charges Repeated. Bigelow's unsubstantiated charge was repeated (without evidence or proof) by newspaper owner-editor Samuel Bowles (1826-78) in his Springfield [Mass.] Daily Republican, Oct. 27, 1866. Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), poet and Abraham Lincoln biographer, quoted Samuel Bowles's criticism of GP and GP's partner Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90) as follows: "Of the international bankers Peabody & Morgan, sturdy Samuel Bowles said in the Springfield [Mass.] that their agencies in New York and London had induced during the war a flight of capital from America." Sandburg quoted Bowles: '"They [GP and Morgan] gave us no faith and no help in our struggle for national existence.... No individuals contributed so much to flooding the money markets with evidence of our debts to Europe, and breaking down their prices and weakening financial confidence in our nationality, and none made more money by the operation.'" Bigelow's 1861 charge and Bowles's 1866 charge were repeated in Gustavus Myers' History of Great American Fortunes, 1910, 1936; Matthew Josephson's The Robber Barons, 1934, and in Leland DeWitt Baldwin's The Stream of American History, 1952. Refs. below.
Bigelow, John. 6-Ref.: (Civil War halt of sale of U.S. securities abroad, 1861-64): Corey, pp. 74-76; and Schuchert and LeVene, p. 75. Ref.: (Bowles's charges against GP): Springfield [Mass.] Daily Republican, Oct. 27, 1866, p. 4, c. 2; repeated in Springfield [Mass.] Semi-Weekly Republican. Oct. 27, 1866, p. 4, c. 2; and in Springfield [Mass.] Weekly Republican, Nov. 3, 1866, p. 2, c.5; quoted in New York Times, Oct. 31, 1866, p. 4, c. 7; repeated in Sandburg-a, Abraham Lincoln, 1939, III, pp. 124-125; in Josephson, p. 60; in Myers, Vol. 1, p. 59; and Vol. 3, pp. 149-152; and in Baldwin, II, p. 121. For other GP critics with sources, see Civil War and GP. Felt, Charles Wilson. Garrison, William Lloyd. McIlvaine, Charles Pettit. Moran, Benjamin. Weed, Thurlow. Other persons named above.
Biographies of GP. See: Peabody, George, Biographies of. In References at end of book, see Chapple, William Dismore. Hanaford, Phebe Ann. Parker, Franklin. Wilson, Philip Whitwell.
Bishop, Bernice Pauahi Paki, Mrs. (1831-1883). See: Bishop, Charles Reed (1822-1915), immediately below.
GP’s influence on Charles Reed Bishop, Philanthropist in Hawaii
Bishop, Charles Reed (1822-1915). 1-Hawaiian Marriage. Charles Reed Bishop, born in Glenn Falls, N.Y., was an orphan living with his grandparents. He worked in a country store, was a farm hand, and sailed from Newburyport, Mass., around Cape Horn toward Oregon but rested en route in Honolulu, Hawaii, for months. He returned there, remaining from 1846 as clerk in the U.S. Consulate and as Collector General of Customs (1849). He met, fell in love with, and married Hawaiian Princess Bernice Pauahi Paki (1831-1883), great-granddaughter of warrior chief Kamehameha I (c1758-1819), who united the Hawaiian Islands, 1810. She had been a student in the Cooke mission school (which Bishop often visited), founded in 1837 by Mass.-born Protestant missionary teacher Amos Starr Cooke (1810-71) and his wife Juliette Montague Cooke (1812-86), soon named the Chief’s Children’s School and later the Royal School. Ref.: g. Internet under "Bishop Estate's first trustees played key role in overthrow," URL: http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/2000/Mar/12/opinion6.html
Bishop, C.R.. 2-Bishops as Philanthropists. From her inherited landed wealth, Mrs. Bishop created in her will the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, a perpetual trust (current assets $6 billion) that funded the Kamehameha Schools (since 1887), which has since graduated 19,000 young Hawaiians. From his banking, real estate, and other incomes her husband Charles Reed Bishop founded the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu, as a memorial to his wife. It remains Hawaii's most important museum. He also founded other charitable endeavors. Ref.: Ibid.
Bishop, C.R.. 3-Why C.R. Bishop Gave. Bishop's biographer Harold W. Kent explained the C.R. Bishop's philanthropic motive as follows: "William R. Castle [a friend] was walking home from a meeting with Bishop one night , and the subject of philanthropy came up. He [Castle] relates that 'Bishop stated, he never liked to give, and that it was only with reluctance that he made donations. However, he had recently read something of the life of George Peabody and had come to the conclusion that it was wiser and better to dispose of wealth while alive than to leave it by will.'" Ref.: Kent, p. 297-298.
Bishop, C.R.. 4-GP's Quotations which Influenced Bishop-1. Biographer Kent listed these two GP quotations which influenced Bishop: "When aches and pains came upon me, I realized I was not immortal. I became anxious to use my millions for the greatest good of humanity. I found that there were men in life just as anxious to help the poor and destitute as I was to make money. I called in friends in whom I had confidence and asked them to be trustees for my first gift. They accepted. For the first time I felt a higher pleasure and greater happiness than making money--that of giving it away for good purposes." (Note: GP's words to Johns Hopkins, 1867, as reported by Garrett, John Work [1820-84]. Also See: Hopkins, Johns). Ref.: Ibid.
Bishop C.R.. 5-GP's Quotations which Influenced Bishop-2. "I have prayed my Heavenly Father day by day that I might be enabled before I died, to show my gratitude by doing some great good to my fellowmen." [Inscribed on a tablet in the floor of Westminster Abbey]. (Note: from Robert Charles Winthrop's Feb. 8, 1870, Eulogy at GP's final funeral. See Winthrop, Robert Charles. Westminster Abbey. Death and funeral, GP's [entry 174]). Ref.: Ibid.
Bishop C.R.. 6-Similar Experiences. Biographer Kent added the following on why Bishop was influenced by GP: "It was not only the quotations that moved Bishop; the life of George Peabody which was very familiar to him, was a remarkable parallel to his own. Both were born poor. School was over for both of them at the end of eighth grade. Both worked as clerk-bookkeepers in the general store of a relative. Both organized companies for trade." Biographer Kent concluded with: "Bishop's philanthropy, the greatest that the islands have ever seen, was induced from the biographical sketch of a distinguished American mercantilist…" Ref.: Ibid.
Bishop of London preached the sermon at Westminster Abbey, London, Sunday, Nov. 14, 1869, following the Westminster Abbey funeral service for GP on Nov. 12, 1869. See: Death and Funeral, GP's.
Description of GP's Death
Bismarck, Otto von (1815-98). 1-German Chancellor. Otto von Bismarck was the German chancellor to whom U.S. Minister to Britain John Lothrop Motley (1814-77) wrote describing GP's death. Motley wrote Bismarck on Nov. 7, 1869: "Our great philanthropist George Peabody is just dead. I knew him well and saw him several times during his last illness. It made him happy, he said, as he lay on his bed, to think that he had done some good to his fellow-creatures." (Note: Motley earlier officially informed U.S. Secty of State Hamilton Fish of GP's death: Ref.: John Lothrop Motley to U.S. Secty of State Hamilton Fish, Nov. 6, 1869, Dispatch No. 142, "Dispatches from United States Minister, Great Britain," National Archives, Washington, D.C.)
Bismarck, Otto von. 2-Motley to Bismarck Cont'd.: "I suppose no man in human history ever gave away so much money. "At least two millions of pounds sterling, and in cash, he bestowed on great and well-regulated charities, founding institutions in England and America which will do good so long as either nation exists. He has never married, has no children, but he has made a large number of nephews and nieces rich. He leaves behind him (after giving away so much), I dare say, about half a million sterling." Ref.: (Motley to Bismarck): Nov. 7, 1869, quoted in Motley, III, p. 233. For other details and sources, see Death and Funeral, GP's.
GP at White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., July 23-Aug. 30, 1869
Blacque Bey, Edouard (1824-95). 1-With GP, W.Va., Summer 1869. Edouard Blacque Bey was the Turkish Minister to the U.S. who met, spoke to, and was photographed with GP (Aug. 12), then visiting the mineral springs health spa at White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., July 23-Aug. 30, 1869. Gathered there by chance were key southern and northern political, military, and educational leaders. These included 1-Gen. Robert E. Lee (1807-70, then president, Washington College, Lexington, Va., renamed Washington and Lee Univ., 1871); 2-GP's Washington, D.C., business friend William Wilson Corcoran (1798-1888); 3-Turkish Minister to the U.S. Edouard Blacque Bey; 4-Tenn. Supt. of Public Instruction and later U.S. Commissioner of Education John Eaton (1829-1906); 5-PEF first administrator Barnas Sears (1802-80); 6-Howard College, Ala., Pres. Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry (1825-1903, and later second PEF administrator); 7-seven other former Civil War generals; and others. See: Corcoran, William Wilson. Confederate Generals. Peabody, George, Illustrations. Persons named. Visits to the U.S. by GP.
Blacque Bey, Edouard. 2-GP and Lee Arm in Arm. GP, ill and three months from death, was there to rest and recuperate. But he and Robert E. Lee talked, dined, walked arm in arm, and were publicly applauded. Spurning lucrative offers after Appomattox, Lee became president of a struggling Va. college. GP's June 29, 1869, gift doubling to $2 million his PEF to aid public education in the 11 former Confederate states plus W.Va. was hailed in the press. Historic photos were taken (Aug. 12) and informal talks of later educational consequence took place on southern public education needs. Ref.: Ibid.
Blacque Bey, Edouard. 3-Journalist and Diplomat. Born of French parents in Istanbul, Blacque Bey was the grandson of a lawyer and the son of a journalist. At age eight or nine he was sent to study at Saint-Barbe College, Paris. He returned to Istanbul in 1842 at age 18, was appointed a government translator, was editor of the semi-official newspaper in French, Courrier de Constantinople, 1846. Fluent in Turkish, French, Italian, and English, his diplomatic posts included Attaché and then First Secretary in Turkey's Paris Embassy, 1853; Turkish Consul in Naples, Italy, 1860; Chargé d' Affairs at the newly opened Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., 1866; and Turkish Minister to the U.S., 1866-73. He was Director, Press Dept., Istanbul, 1876; Member of the State Council, 1878; Director, Sixth Municipal Dept., Istanbul, 1878-90; Ambassador to Bucharest, 1890; and again Director, Sixth Municipal Dept., Istanbul, 1891-95. He was honored with diplomatic medals from several countries. Ref.: Koçu, Vol. 5, n. pp. 2834-2835.
Blackfriars, London, was one of several dining facilities where GP held his July 4th and other U.S.-British friendship dinners. It may have been the Black Friar, 174 Queen St., EC4, on the site of the Blackfriar Monastery of the Dominican Order (founded 1221). See: Dinners, GP's, London. Star and Garter Hotel, Richmond. Willis's Rooms.
Blackwall, London, or Blackwall's, was another dining facility where GP held U.S.-British friendship dinners on June 17 and July 4, 1852, and perhaps other times. See: Dinners, GP's, London.
Pres. Johnson's Proposed Cabinet Change
Blair, Francis Preston, Sr. (1791-1876). 1-Proposed Pres. Johnson Cabinet Change. Francis Preston Blair, Sr., was U.S. Pres. Andrew Johnson's (1808-75) political advisor when both had contact with GP in early 1867. Pres. Johnson faced impeachment by hostile radical Republicans in Congress angered by his conciliatory policy toward the former Confederate states. To avoid impeachment, Pres. Johnson's political advisor, Francis Preston Blair, Sr., advised a complete change of cabinet, with GP as Treasury Secty. But loyalty to his cabinet kept Johnson from this course. For the eight names proposed in the Cabinet reshuffle, See: Andrew, John Albion. Congressional Gold Medal and Resolutions of Praise to GP.
Blair, F. P., Sr. 2-Pres. Johnson Called on GP. A GP-Pres. Johnson meeting followed announcement of GP's Feb. 7, 1867, letter founding the PEF ($2 million total, 1867-69). PEF trustee Pres. Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94) read that letter aloud in an upper room at Willard's Hotel, Washington, D.C., Feb. 8, 1867, to 10 of the 16 original trustees at their first meeting. Wide, favorable press reports followed. The next day, Feb. 9, 1867, Pres. Johnson, his secretary, Col. William George Moore (1829-93), and three others, called on GP at his Willard's Hotel rooms. Ref.: Ibid.
Blair, F.P. 3-With GP at Willard's Hotel. With GP at the time were PEF trustees Robert Charles Winthrop, Episcopal Bishop of Ohio Charles Pettit McIlvaine (1799-1873), and former S.C. Gov. William Aiken (1806-87); along with GP's business friend Samuel Wetmore (1812-85), his wife, and their son; GP's nephew George Peabody Russell (1835-1909), George Washington Riggs (1813-81), and three others. Ref.: Ibid. See: persons named.
Blair, F.P. 4-GP-Pres. Johnson Exchanges. Pres. Johnson took GP by the hand (GP was 72 and ill) and said he had thought he would find GP alone, that he called simply as a private citizen to thank GP for his PEF gift to aid public education in the South, that he thought the gift would help unite the country, that he was glad to have a man like GP representing the U.S. in England, and invited GP to visit him in the White House. With emotion, GP thanked Pres. Johnson, said that this meeting was one of the greatest honors of his life, that he knew the president's political course would be in the country's best interest, that England from the Queen downward felt only goodwill toward the U.S., that he thought in a few years the country would rise above its divisions to become happier and more powerful. Ref.: Ibid.
Blair, F.P. 5-GP at the White House. GP called on Pres. Johnson in the Blue Room, White House, April 25, 1867, before his May 1, 1867, return to London. They spoke of the work of the PEF. With GP at the White House were B&O RR Pres. John Work Garrett (1820-84) and Samuel Wetmore's 16-year-old son. GP told Pres. Johnson of young Wetmore's interest in being admitted to West Point and Pres. Johnson said he would do what he could for the young man. Francis Preston Blair, Sr., was born in Abingdon, Va.; was a journalist and politician who established the Congressional Globe (later the Congressional Record), which published the daily proceedings in the U.S. Congress; and political supporter of Presidents Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Andrew Johnson. Blair's Washington, D.C., home is owned by the Federal government, called the Blair House, near the White House. Ref.: Ibid.
Eulogy from France
Blanc, Louis (1811-82). 1-GP Eulogy. French Socialist politician and journalist who, prompted by an invitation from the GP funeral arrangements committee, Peabody, Mass., sent the following eulogy on GP's death: "The death of...George Peabody...is a public calamity, in which the whole civilized world ought to share. I feel...bound...to mourn, for the illustrious American whose life was of such value to the most needy of his fellow-men. "It is but natural...that his mortal remains should be committed to...Westminster Abbey, to be sent...in a ship of war to his native land.... There should be for men of [his] stamp...homage better calculated to show how little, compared to them, are most kings, princes, noblemen, renowned diplomats, world-famed conquerors." Ref.: London Times, Dec. 13, 1869, p. 6, c. 2. Hanaford, pp. 241-242.
Blanc, Louis. 2-GP Eulogy Cont'd.: "The number of mourners...[at the Abbey], their silent sorrow, the tears shed by so many...of London, the readiness of the shopkeepers [in] closing their shops and lowering their blinds,--these were the homages...due one whose title in history will be...--the friend of the poor." Louis Blanc. French writer and novelist Victor-Marie Hugo, also invited to send a statement, sent a eulogy. Ref.: Ibid. See: Death and funeral, GP's. Hugo, Victor-Marie.
Bloodgood, J.H., was a NYC banker at 22 William St. who attempted to collect funds for a GP statue in NYC's Central Park on Tuesday, Nov. 23, 1869 (after GP's Nov. 4, 1869, death in London). An association for this purpose was formed, funds were raised, a subscription list was published. But this effort failed; the main reason later given was that the mounting international GP funeral honors offended believers in republican simplicity. No GP statue materialized in NYC. See: Death and Funeral, GP's.
Peabody Genealogy
Boadie. 1-Interest in Peabody Family Origin. Engaged to be married in late 1838 to Esther Elizabeth Hoppin (1819-1905), GP wanted to know his family history. He asked younger cousin Adolphus W. Peabody to learn about their forebears through family patriarch Joseph Peabody (1757-1844) of Salem, Mass., who had once owned 83 clipper ships engaged in Far Eastern trade. Not dreaming that Esther Hoppin would break off the engagement about Jan. 1839, Adolphus dutifully sent GP what was known about the family origins. See: Hoppin, Esther Elizabeth.
Boadie. 2-Heraldry Office, London. Family history notes from the Heraldry Office, London, indicated that their family name originated in 61 A.D. from Queen Boadicia, whose husband reigned in Icena, Britain, and was vassal to Roman Emperor Nero. Queen Boadicia's husband died and left half his wealth to Nero. Nero seized all of it. When Queen Boadicia objected, Nero had her whipped. Queen Boadicia and a kinsman named Boadie led an unsuccessful revolt against Rome. She took her life with poison. Boadie fled to Wales. Ref.: Ibid.
Boadie. 3-Boadicia Origin of Peabody. Boadie in the Cambrian tongue meant "man" or "great man," while Pea meant 'hill" or 'mountain." By this account Peabodie meant "mountain man" or "great man of the mountain." The coat of arms for the Peabodys, Adolphus related, was given by King Arthur shortly after the battle on the River Douglas. Relating all this to GP by letter on Jan. 14, 1838 [note: possibly 1839], Adolphus W. Peabody added: "So with all these numbers and folios, if you are curious thereabout the next time you go over, you can see if it be a recorded derivation of our patronymic or not.... You have the garb, crest, and scroll etc. (enclosed). [Joseph] says, I have heard my mother say a great many things in this way. She mostly had her information from our paternal grandmother. Sophronia [Adolphus' sister] can tell you as much as you can well listen of a long day." Ref.: Ibid.
Boadie. 4-Boadicia Origin of Peabody Disputed. C.M. Endicott's A Genealogy of the Peabody Family, 1867, repeated the Queen Boadicia origin of the Peabody family name. Charles Henry Pope's Peabody Genealogy, 1909, disagreed. Pope held that when English surnames were crystallized in the 14th century, "Paybody" referred to trustworthy men who paid servants, creditors, and employees of barons, manufacturers, or public officials. They were selected by character and ability as paymasters or paying-tellers. Pope stated that the Latin motto of the Peabody coat of arms, Murus aereus conscientia sana, meant "A sound conscience is a wall of bronze," or since the Romans thought of bronze as a hard metal, "A sound conscience is a solid wall of defense." Ref.: Ibid.
Bologna, Italy. GP's second European buying trip of some 15 months was made April 1830-Aug. 15, 1831, with an unknown American friend. They went by carriage and with frequent change of horses covered some 10,000 miles in England, France, Italy (including Bologna), and Switzerland. For details and source, see Daniel, Judith Dodge (née Peabody) Russell (GP's sister).
Bonaparte, Jerome Napoleon (1805-1870), was a member of the famed Bonaparte family. He was born in England, came to the U.S., graduated from Harvard College, studied law but did not practice law while he lived on inherited wealth in Baltimore, where he died. GP is said to have sold a carriage for this Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte. Ref.: "Bonaparte, Jerome Napoleon," p. 311.
Bonaparte, Napoleon I (1769-1821). A celebration in Washington, D.C., on June 5, 1813, marked the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in his Russian campaign. Somervell S. Mackall, Early Days of Washington, 1899, p. 270, published 30 years after GP's death, stated that "the principal dinner-room was decorated by the taste of George Peabody of this town." GP was then age 18 and had for one year managed a dry goods store in Georgetown, D.C., and was an itinerant pack peddler in the area. He and his paternal uncle John Peabody (1768-1827) had left Newburyport, Mass., May 4, 1812, had opened the store in Georgetown, D.C., on May 15, 1812. GP was in charge of the store, as his uncle developed other business interests. He may have sold goods used in the decorations, assisted in the decoration, and possibly been in charge of decorating this affair. Ref.: Mackall, p. 270.
Bonaparte, Napoleon III (1808-73). GP and PEF trustee Pres. Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94) were received in Paris at the court of King Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon Bonaparte) and Empress Eugénie (1826-1920) on or about March 16, 1868. See: Corcoran, William Wilson. Other persons named. Pope Pius. San Spirito Hospital, Rome, Italy.
Boston Courier. In early March 1861 an anonymous letter writer in Boston and NYC newspapers stated that in his opinion Civil War would be good for business. When some news editors inferred that the unknown letter writer might be GP, he wrote to the Boston Courier editor, March 8, 1861: "I do not know who wrote this letter. My remarks would be the opposite. The threat of war has already lost the European market for United States securities. Concession and compromise alone would reinstate our credit abroad. I hope conciliation will prove successful. If not and war comes it will destroy the credit of North and South alike in Europe. Worse, our prestige and pride will disappear. Second rate powers may insult our flag with impunity and first rate powers wipe away the Monroe Doctrine. May Providence prevent this." See: Civil War and GP.
Boston Harbor Warren Prison. Confederate emissaries James Murray Mason of Va. (1798-1871), John Slidell (1793-1871) of La., and their male secretaries, on their way to raise funds and arms in England and France, were forcibly removed from the British mail ship Trent on Nov. 8, 1861, and taken to Warren Prison, Boston Harbor. Pres. Abraham Lincoln's cabinet met Dec. 26, 1861, disavowed the action, and the four Confederates were released on Jan. 1, 1862. U.S.-British friction over the Trent Affair delayed announcement until March 12, 1862, of GP's gift of model apartments for London's working poor ($2.5 million total gift). See: Peabody Homes of London. TrentAffair.
Boston Musical Festival, June 1869. GP, then age 74, was weak and ill on his last U.S. visit, June 8 to Sept. 29, 1869. He first stayed with his sister's family in Salem, Mass. (Mrs. Judith Dodge née Peabody Russell Daniel, 1799-1879). Learning that Boston was holding a Peace Jubilee and Music Festival, GP in mid June quietly attended the music festival and listened to the choral music. He was recognized. At intermission Boston Mayor Nathaniel Bradstreet Shurtleff (1810-74) announced GP's presence which brought "a perfect storm of applause." See: Shurtleff, Nathaniel Bradstreet.
Boston Post, July-Aug. 1854. GP's July 4, 1854, dinner in London honoring incoming U.S. Minister to Britain James Buchanan (1791-1868) was marred when Buchanan's jingoistic U.S. London Legation Secty. Daniel Edgar Sickles (1825-1914) objected to GP's toast to Queen Victoria before one to the U.S. President. Sickles sat red-gorged in anger while others stood, and then walked out in protest. Sickles fanned the controversy by attacking GP's patriotism in a letter to the Boston Post, July 21, 1854, p. 2, c. 1. He charged GP with "toadying" to the English. GP recorded the facts in a letter to the Boston Post, verified by 25 Americans present at the dinner who wrote the Boston Post editor: "The undersigned have read Mr. Peabody's letter to the Boston Post of Aug. 16, 1854, and without hesitation affirm as true the events described by Mr. Peabody." See: Barnard, Henry. Sickles, Daniel Edgar.
Boston Public Library was founded in 1852 by donations from Joshua Bates (1788-1864), born in Weymouth, Mass., and London resident director of the Baring Brothers banking firm with whom GP had dealings. That same year, GP's May 26, 1852, letter from London, read at the June 16, 1852, Danvers, Mass., Centennial Celebration, founded the first Peabody Institute Library, Danvers (renamed South Danvers and then Peabody, Mass. on April 13, 1868). See: Bates, Joshua.
Bowie, Oden (1826-94), was Md. governor (during Jan. 13, 1869 to Jan. 10, 1872) who on Feb. 19, 1870, after the delivery of GP's remains to Portland, Me. (Jan. 25-Feb. 1, 1870), entertained HMS Monarch's Capt. John E. Commerell (1829-1901) and U.S. Navy Secty. George Maxwell Robeson (1829-97). Ref.: Sobel and Raimo, eds., II, p. 670. See: Death and Funeral, GP's.
Bowlby, Rt. Rev. Ronald Oliver (1926-), a leader in British low-income housing improvement, gave the main address at the "Bicentenary Service of Thanksgiving for the Life and Work of George Peabody, 1795-1869," in London's Westminster Abbey, Nov. 16, 1995. A graduate of Eton College and Trinity College, Oxford Univ., the Rt. Rev. R.O. Bowlby was curate and vicar of several churches before becoming Asst. Bishop, Diocese of Lichfield (since 1991). Ref.: New York Times, July 16, 1995, section XIII-CN, p. 17, c. 1. (Career): Seen Dec. 9, 1999: Internet http://www.knowuk.co.uk See: GP Bicentennial Celebrations (Feb. 18, 1795-1995).
Loyalty Attacked Again
Bowles, Samuel (1826-78). 1-GP Charged as Confederate Sympathizer. Samuel Bowles was the owner and editor of the Springfield Republican (Mass.), started by his father, Samuel Bowles (1797-1851), which the son made into one of the best known newspapers in the U.S. By urging the union of all antislavery groups into one party, Bowles helped establish the Republican Party. He supported Pres. Lincoln and opposed Radical Republicans bent on punishing the South after Pres. Lincoln's assassination. Bowles's attacks on Civil War financial corruption approached muckraking intensity. His unsubstantiated charge against GP and his partner Junius S. Morgan (1813-90) on Oct. 27, 1866 as pro-Confederate Civil War profiteers echoed an earlier unsubstantiated charge made in 1862 by U.S. Consul General in Paris John Bigelow (1817-1911). See: Bigelow, John (above). Civil War and GP.
Bowles, Samuel. 2-"S.P.Q.," Oct. 25, 1866. Samuel Bowles's editorial attack agreed with an anti-GP charge made by an anonymous "S.P.Q." the night GP spoke at the PIB dedication and opening on Oct. 25, 1866. In the NYC Evening Post that same date "S.P.Q." wrote: "Mr. Peabody goes about from place to place inhaling the incense so many are willing to offer him. While Americans at home gave and did their utmost for their country in wartime, what was Mr. Peabody doing? He was making money, piling up profits, adding to his fortune. And what did he do with his gain? Did he use money made in war against those seeking to destroy this country? Did he raise and clothe a single recruit? Did he give anything to the Sanitary Commission? Did he lend the government any part of his millions? While making up his mind he did something he thought worthier--gave several hundred thousands to the poor of London and got a letter of thanks from the Queen. Many a poor fellow from simple patriotism gave all he had, his life. That man gave more than George Peabody and all his money...." Ref.: NYC Albion, Oct. 27, 1866, p. 511, c. 1. NYC Evening Post, Oct. 25, 1866, p. 2, c. 2. New York Times, Oct. 27, 1866, p. 5, c. 1-2.
Bowles, Samuel. 3-Bowles Agreed with "S.P.Q." Bowles's editorial, Springfield [Mass.] Daily Republican, stated (Oct. 27, 1866): "For all who knew anything on the subject knew very well that he [GP] and his partners in London gave us no faith and no help in our struggle for our national existence. They participated in the full to the common English distrust of our cause, and our success, and talked and acted for the South rather than for the Nation. Ref.: (Bowles's charges against GP): Springfield [Mass.] Daily Republican, Oct. 27, 1866, p. 4, c. 2; repeated in Springfield [Mass.] Semi-Weekly Republican, same date, same p. and c.; repeated in Springfield [Mass.] Weekly Republican, Nov. 3, 1866, p. 2, c. 5.; and quoted in New York Times, Oct. 31, 1866, p. 4, c. 7.
Bowles, Samuel. 4-Bowles Agreed with "S.P.Q." Cont'd.: "American-born and American-bred, the financial representatives of America in England, they [GP and partner Junius S. Morgan] were thus guilty of a grievous error in judgment, and a grievous weakness of the heart. They swelled the popular feeling of doubt abroad, and speculated upon it. Through no house were so many American securities--railroad, State and national--sent home for sale as by them. No individuals contributed so much to flooding our money markets with the evidences of our debt in Europe, and breaking down their prices and weakening financial confidence in our nationality as George Peabody and Co.; and none made more money by the operation." Ref.: Ibid.
Bowles, Samuel. 5-Bowles's Criticism Repeated. Bowles's anti-GP editorial was damaging. It appeared in a prestigious newspaper from GP's home state (Mass.). It was also repeated uncritically and without substantiating evidence by 1-poet and Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) in his Abraham Lincoln; in 2-writer Gustavus Myers's History of Great American Fortunes, 1910, 1936; in 3-writer Matthew Josephson's The Robber Barons, 1934; and 4-in historian Leland DeWitt Baldwin's The Stream of American History, 1952. See: Civil War and GP. Felt, Charles Wilson. Garrison, William Lloyd. McIlvaine, Charles Pettit. Moran, Benjamin. Persons named. Weed, Thurlow.
Boyhood, GP's. For GP's apprenticeship, 1807-11, ages 12-16, with sources, see Sylvester Proctor. For GP's winter 1810 (age 15) visit to relatives in N.H. and Vt., with sources, see Concord, N.H.
Bradford, Edward Anthony (1814-72), one of the 16 original PEF trustees, was born in Conn. Of the Mayflower Bradfords, graduated from Yale with distinction, studied law at Harvard (Charles Sumner, 1811-74, was one of his classmates), went to La. in 1836 to practice law, joined a New Orleans law firm (1854), and was a stockholder of the La. National Bank. U.S. Pres. Millard Fillmore nominated him as U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice but believing him pro-north, U.S. senate southerners organized a vote against his confirmation. For health reasons he went to Paris, France, where he died. At a Dec. 21, 1872, New Orleans Bar Association meeting, held in his memory, Judge J.N. Lea, who had been a partner in Bradford's law firm, said: "Perhaps no person who has ever practiced at this bar had higher conceptions of his professional obligations and duties than Mr Bradford." E.A. Bradford was succeeded as PEF trustee by Richard Taylor (1826-79), son of Zachary Taylor (1784-1850), 12th U.S. President during 1848-50. Richard Taylor was born near Louisville, Ky., was a Yale graduate (1845), a La. planter, and a Confederate brigadier general (from Oct. 1861). Ref.: Curry-b, pp. 19, 73. (Bradford's career): Landry.
Educating Relatives
Bradford Academy, Bradford, Mass. 1-Intro. During 1819-20s GP paid for the education at Bradford Academy (now Bradford College), Bradford, Mass., of six of his younger family members. He later paid for the education of two nephews: Othniel Charles Marsh (1832-99) at Phillips Academy, Mass., Yale, Conn., and German universities, who became a famous scientist; and George Peabody Russell (1835-1909) at Phillips Academy and Harvard Univ., who became a lawyer; and at least one niece, Julia Adelaide Peabody (b. April 25, 1835).
Bradford Academy. 2-Brief History. Bradford College, Bradford, Mass., south of Haverhill, north of what is now Peabody, originated at an early March 1803 gathering of neighbors. Fundraising began March 7, 1803, led to coeducational Bradford Academy, a secondary school, 1803-32; a junior college for women, 1932-71; and a bachelor's degree granting college from 1971 (coeducational) until its closing in 2000. Ref.: Bradford Academy, Mass., pp. iii-xv, 27, 65, 72. Internet URL: http://www.bhe.mass.edu/p_p/includes/academic/closed/bradford.html
Bradford Academy. 3-GP's Own Small Schooling. A bare subsistence family income limited GP's own schooling to four years, 1802-06, ages 7-11, in a Danvers, Mass., district school; followed by four years, 1806-10, ages 11-15, apprenticeship in Sylvester Proctor's general store in Danvers. His father was in debt and their home (205 Washington St., Danvers) heavily mortgaged when he died on May 13, 1811. The mother and six children at home had to live with relatives. GP, aged 16, worked in his older brother David Peabody's (1790-1841) dry goods shop in Newburyport. The Great Fire of Newburyport, May 31, 1811, ruined business prospects. The fire and a New England depression induced GP to migrate with paternal Uncle John Peabody (1768-1827), to open a store in Georgetown, D.C. Uncle John could not get credit but young GP got a Newburyport merchant's recommendation on the basis of which a Boston merchant advanced them a consignment of goods on credit worth $2,000. The Georgetown, D.C. store opened May 15, 1812. See: Newburyport, Mass.
Bradford Academy. 4-Riggs, Peabody & Co. Responsibility for the store on Bridge St., Georgetown, D.C., from May 15, 1812, soon fell on 17-year-old GP, his uncle having gone into another enterprise. GP went out from the store as a pack peddler, selling goods in the Va. and Md. area. For some 12 days in the War of 1812 he drilled in a military unit in defense of Washington, D.C. Older fellow soldier and experienced merchant Elisha Riggs, Sr. (1779-1853), then age 35, made 19-year-old GP first office helper, then traveling junior partner in Riggs, Peabody & Co. (1814-29), Georgetown, importers of dry goods and other products from abroad, sold mainly to wholesalers. The firm prospered, moved to Baltimore in 1815, and soon had NYC and Philadelphia warehouses. For details of GP leaving Newburyport, Mass., for Georgetown, D.C., and connection with Elisha Riggs, Sr., with sources, see Riggs, Sr., Elisha.
Bradford Academy. 5-GP Regained Family Home. In Nov. 1816, his older brother David, working for GP in Alexandria, Va., released the Danvers home to GP who by Jan. 1817 paid off its mortgage. Newburyport lawyer Ebon Mosely wrote GP Dec. 16, 1816, "I cannot but be pleased with the filial affection which seems to evince you to preserve the estate for a Parent." Ref.: Ebon Mosely, Newburyport, Mass., to GP, Baltimore, Dec. 16, 1816, Peabody Papers, PEM, Salem, Mass.
Bradford Academy. 6-GP Worth $50,000, 1820. His mother and the family were back in their Danvers home. From wherever he traveled collecting debts owed Riggs, Peabody & Co., GP sent to the family funds, flour, sugar, clothes, other necessities, and local newspapers from towns where he was working. In July 1820, on a short visit home, he drove his mother by horse and buggy to visit her sister Temperance née Dodge Jewett (b.1772) and her physician husband (Dr. Jeremiah Jewett, 1757-1836) in Barnstead, Vt., where he had visited as a 15-year-old in the winter of 1810. Asked how he was doing in 1820, GP replied that he was then worth between $40,000-$50,000. Ref.: Independent Democrat (Concord, N.H.), Feb. 10, 1870, p. 2, c. 8.
Bradford Academy. 7-GP's Relatives at Bradford Academy. To help his younger relatives attend school, GP bought a house for the family in West Bradford, Mass. His mother also lived there for a time in the 1820s. Bradford Academy catalogs list these six GP relatives who attended the academy: 1-Jeremiah Peabody (1805-77), sixth born of eight siblings and third of four brothers, who attended Bradford Academy in 1819; 2-Judith Dodge Peabody (1799-1879), fourth born and younger sister, who attended 1821-27; 3-Mary Gaines Peabody (1807-34), seventh born and third of four sisters, who attended in 1822-23; 4-Sophronia Phelps Peabody (b.1809), eighth born and fourth sister, who attended in 1827; 5-Adolphus William Peabody (b. 1814), GP's young cousin, GP's paternal uncle John Peabody's son, who attended 1827-29; and 6-George Peabody (1815-32), GP's nephew, GP's oldest brother David Peabody's son, who attended in 1827. Ref.: Bradford Academy, Mass., pp. iii-xv, 27, 65, 72.
Bradford Academy. 8-Educated Nephew O.C. Marsh. GP's younger sister Judith Dodge Peabody, who attended Bradford Academy during 1821-27, also taught for a time in Chester, N.H. She later handled family concerns and distributed GP's funds to the family during his U.S. travels, five trips abroad, and 32 years' residence as a London banker. GP's youngest sister Mary Gaines Peabody, who attended Bradford Academy during 1822-23, married Caleb Marsh (b.1800) on April 12, 1827. Caleb Marsh was a former Danvers neighbor who taught school near Bradford. GP paid for the education of their son, Othniel Charles Marsh (1832-99), through Phillips Academy, Yale College, Yale's graduate Sheffield Scientific School, through the German universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Breslau, and paid for Marsh's science library and fossil collection, enabling Marsh to become the first U.S. paleontology professor at Yale Univ. and the second such professor in the world. See: Marsh, Othniel Charles.
Bradford Academy. 9-Nephew O.C. Marsh's Science Career. Influenced by this nephew's science career, GP endowed three Peabody museums of science: at Harvard and Yale universities, Oct. 8 and 22, 1866, and what is now the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., Feb. 26, 1867. British scientist Charles Darwin later acknowledged O.C. Marsh's fossil finds as the best proof of the theory of evolution. Marsh's fossil finds are the basis of most of what is now known about dinosaurs and about the North American origin of the horse. Ref.: Ibid.
Bradford Academy. 10-Peabodys at Bradford. Sister Judith was teaching in Chester, N.H., when GP wrote from Baltimore to sister Mary Gaines at Bradford, May 31, 1822: "This letter will be handed to you by Mr. Greenleaf to whom I have enclosed a check on Boston for $50 for...paying your board, etc., at Bradford and have requested him to let you or Judith have money for other purposes when required.... I thought it likely you would be in need of some clothes.... I do not, by any means, wish you to dress extravagantly but at all times to appear as decent as those with whom you associate." Benjamin Greenleaf (1786-1864), born in West Haverhill and a Dartmouth College graduate (1813), was the most successful of the early Bradford Academy preceptors (Dec. 1814 to March 1836). He wrote popular arithmetic and algebra textbooks. Ref.: (GP to sister Mary Gaines): GP, Baltimore, to Mary Gaines Peabody, Bradford, May 31, 1822, Peabody Papers, Yale Univ. Ref.: Bradford Academy, Mass., pp. iii-xv, 27, 65, 72.
Bradford Academy. 11-Other Peabodys at Bradford Cont'd. Judith left her teaching post in Chester, N.H., for another teaching post near Bradford. In a burst of gratitude she wrote GP in Baltimore, May 8, 1823: "Were my brother like other brothers, were it a common favor, which I have received from him, and could I do justice to the feelings of my own heart, I would now formally express my gratitude, but I forebear;...and, even then the happiness, that I have enjoyed while acquiring it, would lay me under obligation, which I could never cancel...." Ref.: (Sister Judith Dodge Peabody to GP): Judith Dodge Peabody, Bradford, Mass., to GP, Baltimore, May 8, 1823, Peabody Papers, PEM, Salem, Mass.
Bradford Academy. 12-Cousin Adolphus W. Peabody at Bradford. GP's paternal uncle John Peabody died before 1826 and his wife died that year. Left without support were older daughter Sophronia Peabody and young son Adolphus W. Peabody, whom GP offered to educate. Sophronia wrote her cousin GP (March 9, 1827?): "I have decided I shall accept of your proposal for the education of Adolphus; his education is my first wish. If his life be spared, he may compensate you at some future time." Ref.: (Cousin Sophronia Peabody): Cousin Sophronia Peabody, Washington, D.C., to GP, NYC, March 9, [believed] 1827, Peabody Papers, PEM, Salem, Mass.
Bradford Academy. 13-Cousin Adolphus W. Peabody at Bradford Cont'd. Adolphus W. Peabody enrolled at Bradford Academy during 1827-29. He lived with his cousin Judith Dodge Peabody in a house in West Bradford which GP had bought for family members attending Bradford Academy. Sister Judith Dodge Peabody, who taught nearby, cared for GP's youngest sister Mary Gaines Peabody, attending Bradford Academy before her marriage to Caleb Marsh, cared for young cousin Adolphus W. Peabody, for GP's sister Sophronia Phelps Peabody (b.1809), who attended Bradford Academy in 1827, and for GP's mother who came from Danvers to live at West Bradford. They were together at Bradford through most of the 1820s. Sister Judith wrote GP that they liked their home in West Bradford, although their mother missed Danvers.
Bradford Academy. 14-Nephew Named for GP. GP also sent to Bradford Academy older brother David Peabody's son, named George Peabody (1815-32) for his uncle. This nephew enrolled in 1827 and lived with his aunt Judith in West Bradford. This nephew wrote Aug. 28, 1827, to his father working for Riggs, Peabody & Co. in NYC about going hunting with his uncle: "Uncle George went gunning with me when he was here and did not miss once." Ref.: Nephew George Peabody, Bradford, Mass., to his father David Peabody, NYC, Aug. 28, 1827, Peabody Papers, PEM, Salem, Mass.
Bradford Academy. 15-GP on Nephew's Progress. GP, fond of his namesake nephew, wrote of young George's progress to his (GP's) mother, Feb. 6, 1830, then living with Mary Gaines and Caleb Marsh in Lockport, N.Y. GP wrote his mother: "George was well a few day ago & I have a letter from Mr. Dwight [Sereno Edwards Dwight, 1786-1850] which speaks of him in the most flattering manner & I shall probably let him take college in about two years.--Mr. Dwight says George is in a class of 18 or 19 in the languages and is decidedly the best scholar in it and discovers most promising & most assiduous application, & if he should go to college he would be one of the best scholars in his class.--He further states that George's whole deportment is perfectly commendable & such as I should wholly approve of.--The expense including clothes, board, tuition, etc. will be nearly 500$ a year but if he continues to make as good use of his time as he now promises it will be money well laid out...." Ref.: (On nephew George Peabody): GP to his mother Mrs. Judith Peabody, c/o Caleb Marsh, Lockport, N.Y., Feb. 6, 1830, Peabody Papers, Yale Univ. Ms. See: Dwight, Sereno Edwards.
Bradford Academy. 16-On Nephew George Attending College. GP's second European buying trip took 15 months during 1831-32. He covered 10,000 miles by carriage with frequent change of horses, buying and shipping goods to his U.S. warehouses from Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Italy, and Switzerland. Knowing that his nephew had set his heart on attending college, GP wrote his nephew from London May 18, 1831. This letter, reflective and poignant, throws light on GP's later philanthropies. He may have written it while recalling the cultural aspects of his European trip and his own small schooling.
Bradford Academy. 17-"Deprived as I Was." GP wrote his nephew (his underlining): "Deprived, as I was, of the opportunity of obtaining anything more than the most common education, I am well qualified to estimate its value by the disadvantages I labour under in the society [in] which my business and situation in life frequently throws me, and willingly would I now give twenty times the expense attending a good education could I now possess it, but it is now too late for me to learn and I can only do to those who come under my care, as I could have wished circumstances had permitted others to have done by me." Ref.: GP, London, to nephew George Peabody, brother David Peabody's son, May 18, 1831, Peabody Papers, PEM, Salem, Mass.; also quoted in Schuchert and LeVene, p. 21.
MP Wm. Brown & GP
Brown, William (1784-1864). 1-Merchant, MP, GP's Friend. William Brown was a Liverpool, England, merchant and later an MP from Liverpool. He was the son of Alexander Brown (1764-1834) of Alexander Brown & Sons of Baltimore, and a business friend of GP. While in NYC in 1839 William Brown learned that GP in London was engaged to be married. He added his congratulations in a Jan. 2, 1839, business letter to GP, not knowing then that Esther Elizabeth Hoppin (1819-1905) from Providence, R.I., had broken the engagement. William Brown was a philanthropic benefactor to the city of Liverpool, England. He was also honored with a knighthood. Ref.: (Sketch of William Brown): Boase-a, Vol. 3, p. 37. See: Hoppin, Esther Elizabeth. (For the father, Alexander Brown and his banker-merchant sons William, Liverpool; James [1791-1877], NYC; and John, Philadelphia, see Md.'s $8 Million Bond Sale Abroad and GP.
Brown, Wm. 2-Spoke at GP's July 4, 1856, Dinner. William Brown, who spoke at GP's July 4, 1856, U.S.-British friendship dinner, said: "The day we celebrate will ever be remembered in the history of the world. For we English derive as much satisfaction from it as you do. None of us are answerable for the sins of statesmanship or the errors of our forefathers. George Washington, remembered with respect by England and the world, would rejoice to see the enterprising spirit of the country he brought into existence, a country which seeks to bridge the Atlantic and Pacific via canal and now explores the Arctic seas (cheers)." See: Dallas, George Mifflin. Dinners, GP's, London.
Brown, Wm. 3-Spoke at GP's July 4, 1856, Dinner Cont'd.: "I deny that England is jealous of the United States. We rejoice in your prosperity and know that when you prosper we share in it. It is not true that the fortunes of one country arise from the misfortune of another. While we have differences they can be amicably adjusted (cheers). I toast the American Minister, Mr. George M. Dallas (cheers)." Ref.: Ibid. (For more on Alexander Brown and his sons) see Md.'s $8 Million Bond Sale Abroad (1837-47) and GP.
Brown, William and James, Liverpool. See: Brown, William (above) and Md.'s $8 Million Bond Sale Abroad (1837-47) and GP.
Brown Univ., Providence, R.I. See: Barnas Sears.
Westminster Abbey Funeral Service
Browne, Charles Farrar (1834-67). 1-Precedent for GP's Westminster Abbey Funeral Service. Charles Farrar Browne was a U.S. humorist who wrote under the name of Artemus Ward. GP died Nov. 4, 1869, in the 80 Eaton Sq., London, home of longtime business friend Sir Curtis Miranda Lampson (1806-85). The Dean of Westminster Abbey, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815-81), then visiting Naples, Italy, read a news account of GP's death. Recalling GP's March 12, 1862, gift of model housing for London's working poor (total gift $2.5 million), Stanley telegraphed his colleagues to offer Westminster Abbey for a funeral service. See: Death and Funeral, GP's.
Browne, C.F. 2-U.S. Legation in London Secty. Benjamin Moran. Sir Curtis Miranda Lampson called on U.S. Legation in London Secty. Benjamin Moran (1820-86), who recorded in his journal (Nov. 6, 1869): "Sir Curtis Lampson...asked me if it were possible to have a funeral service performed here over Mr. Peabody's remains in view of the fact that they are to be conveyed to the United States and I said yes, instancing...particulars in the case of Horatio Ward and Mr. Brown[e], better known as Artemus Ward.... "These cases seemed to satisfy him and no doubt some funeral service will be performed here, probably in Westminster Abbey." See: Moran, Benjamin.
Browne, C.F. 3-GP's Funeral Service. A funeral service for GP was held at Westminster Abbey on Nov. 12, 1869. His remains rested in the Abbey for 30 days (Nov. 12 to Dec. 11, 1869) when the coffin was sent to Portsmouth harbor, England, and put aboard HMS Monarch for a transatlantic crossing to Portland, Maine, and final burial in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass. Horatio G. Ward (c.1810-died May 1868) was a U.S.-born merchant, a London resident, and GP's longtime business friend. Charles Farrar Browne was born in Waterford, Maine, was a printer, a humorous lecturer and writer for newspapers, for Vanity Fair, and an author of successful humorous Artemus Ward books. He died in London.
Bruce, Sir Frederick William Adolphus (1814-67), was British ambassador to the U.S. who, in Washington, D.C., March 1867, presented to GP, then on a 1866-67 U.S. visit, the miniature portrait Queen Victoria had specially made for GP. The miniature portrait was made in 1867 by British artist F.A.C. Tilt (fl. 1866-68), baked on enamel, put in a frame of solid gold, and given to GP in appreciation for his $2.5 million Peabody Donation Fund (from 1862) for model housing for London's working poor. This miniature portrait is in the Peabody Institute Library, Peabody, Mass. For photos of Queen Victoria's miniature portrait, see Peabody, George, Illustrations. Victoria, Queen.
Brunswick Hotel, Blackwall, overlooking the Thames, opposite the Greenwich Hospital, is some six miles from St. Paul's Cathedral, London. GP gave some of his U.S.-British friendship dinners there in the 1850s, including his June 17, 1852, dinner, celebrating the 77th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Mass. (June 17, 1775), with over 100 guests, three-fourths of them Americans. See: Dinners, GP's, London.
GP's Grand Nephew
Brush, Murray Peabody (1872-Nov. 14, 1954). 1-GP's Grand Nephew. Murray Peabody Brush was an educator and grand nephew of GP. In June 1925 Director Robert Underwood Johnson (1853-1937) of the N.Y. Univ. Hall of Fame during 1919-37 urged George Russell Peabody (1883-May 1, 1946), another grand nephew of GP, to help raise funds for a bust of GP, who was elected in 1900 to the N.Y. Univ. Hall of Fame as one of 29 of the most famous Americans. In 1901 a bronze tablet was unveiled in GP's allotted space containing this selection from his Feb. 7, 1867, letter founding the $2 million (total) PEF: "Looking forward beyond my stay on earth I see our country becoming richer and more powerful. But to make her prosperity more than superficial, her moral and intellectual development should keep pace with her material growth." See: Hall of Fame of N.Y.U.
Brush, M.P. 2-GP Bust, 1926. The help of GP's grand nephew, Murray Peabody Brush, was then enlisted to raise funds for the GP bust. Trustees of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard Univ., helped raise $300. Enough funds were raised and a bust of GP by sculptor Hans Schuler (1874-1951) was unveiled May 12, 1926, at the University Heights N.Y. Univ. Hall of Fame colonnade. Murray Peabody Brush was born April 17, 1872, in Zanesville, Ohio; was educated at Princeton Univ. (B.A., 1894), Johns Hopkins Univ. (Ph.D., 1898), and at the Sorbonne and College de France (1895-96); was an instructor in French at Ohio State Univ. (1898-99); was professor and dean at Johns Hopkins Univ. (1899-1919); director of Tome School, Port Deposit, Md. (1919-32); and headmaster of Calif. Prep. School, Ojai, Calif. (1932-49). He died Nov. 14, 1954, from car crash injuries. Ref.: Brush, p. 95. See: MacCracken, Henry Mitchell.
End of 1 of 14. Continued on 2 of 14. Send corrections, questions to: bfparker@frontiernet.net
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