Читать книгу Famous Givers and Their Gifts - Bolton Sarah Knowles - Страница 3

Near the city of Bordeaux, France, on May 20, 1750, the eldest son of Pierre Girard and his wife, Anne Marie Lafargue, was born. The family were well-to-do; and Pierre was knighted by Louis XV. for bravery on board the squadron at Brest, in 1744, when France and England were at war. The king gave Pierre Girard his own sword, which Pierre at his death ordered to be placed in his coffin, and it was buried with him. Although the Girard family were devoted to the sea, Pierre wished to have his boys become professional men; and this might have been the case with the eldest son, Stephen, had not an accident changed his life.

When the boy was eight years old, his right eye was destroyed. Some wet oyster-shells were thrown upon a bonfire, and the heat breaking the shells, a ragged piece flew into the eye. To make the calamity worse, his playmates ridiculed his appearance with one eye closed; and he became sensitive, and disinclined to play with any one save his brother Jean.

He was a grave and dignified lad, inclined to be domineering, and of a quick temper. His mother tried to teach him self-control, and had she lived, would doubtless have softened his nature; but a second mother coming into the home, who had several children of her own, the effect upon Stephen was disastrous. She seems not to have understood his nature; and when he rebelled, the father sided with the new love, and bade his son submit, or find a home as best he could.

"I will leave your house," replied the passionate boy, hurt in feelings as well as angered. "Give me a venture on any ship that sails from Bordeaux, and I will go at once, where you shall never see me again."

A business acquaintance, Captain Jean Courteau, was about to sail to San Domingo in the West Indies. Pierre Girard gave his son sixteen thousand livres, about three thousand dollars; and the lad of fourteen, small for his age, went out into the world as a cabin-boy, to try his fortune.

If his mother had been alive he would have been homesick, but as matters were at present the Girard house could not be a home to him. His first voyage lasted ten months; the three thousand dollars had gained him some money, and the trip had made him in love with the sea. He returned for a brief time to his brothers and sisters, and then made five other voyages, having attained the rank of lieutenant of the vessel.

When he was twenty-three, he was given authority to act as "captain of a merchant vessel," and sailed away from Bordeaux forever. After stopping at St. Marc's in the island of San Domingo, young Girard sailed for New York, which he reached in July, 1774. With shrewd business ability he disposed of the articles brought in his ship, and in so doing attracted the interest of a prosperous merchant, Mr. Thomas Randall, who was engaged in trade with New Orleans and the West Indies.

Mr. Randall asked the energetic young Frenchman to take the position of first officer in his ship L'Aimable Louise. This resulted so satisfactorily that Girard was taken into partnership, and became master of the vessel in her trade with New Orleans and the West Indies.

After nearly two years, in May, 1776, Girard was returning from the West Indies, and in a fog and storm at sea found himself in Delaware Bay, and learned that a British fleet was outside. The pilot, who had come in answer to the small cannon fired from Girard's ship, advised against his going to New York, as he would surely be captured, the Revolutionary War having begun. As he had no American money with him, a Philadelphia gentleman who came with the pilot loaned him five dollars. This five-dollar loan proved a blessing to the Quaker City, when in after years she received millions from the merchant who came by accident into her borders.

Captain Girard sold his interest in L'Aimable Louise, and opened a small store on Water Street, putting into it his cargo from the West Indies. He hoped to go to sea again as soon as the war should be over, and conferred with Mr. Lum, a plain shipbuilder near him on Water Street, about building a ship for him. Mr. Lum had an unusually beautiful daughter, Mary, a girl of sixteen, with black hair and eyes, and very fair complexion. Though eleven years older than Mary, Stephen Girard fell in love with her, and was married to her, June 6, 1777, before his family could object, as they soon did strenuously, when they learned that she was poor and below him in social rank.

About three years after the marriage, Jean visited his brother Stephen in America, and seems to have appreciated the beautiful and modest girl to whom the family were so opposed. Henry Atlee Ingram, LL.B., in his life of Girard, quotes several letters from Jean after he had returned to France, or when at Cape François, San Domingo: "Be so kind as to assure my dear sister-in-law of my true affection… Say a thousand kind things to her for me, and assure her of my unalterable friendship… Thousands and thousands of friendly wishes to your dear wife. Say to her that if anything from here would give her pleasure, to ask me for it. I will do everything in the world to prove to her my attachment… I send by Derussy the jar which your lovely wife filled for me with gherkins, full of an excellent guava jelly for you people, besides two orange-trees. He has promised me to take care of them. I hope he will, and embrace, as well as you, my ever dear Mary."

Three or four months after his marriage, Lord Howe having threatened the city, Mr. Girard took his young wife to Mount Holly, N.J., to a little farm of five or six acres which he had purchased the previous year for five hundred dollars. Here they lived in a one-story-and-a-half frame house for over a year, when they returned to Philadelphia and he resumed his business. He had decided already to become a citizen of the Republic, and took the oath of allegiance, Oct. 27, 1778.

Mr. Lum at once began to build the sloop which Mr. Girard was planning when he first met Mary, and she was named the Water-Witch. Until she was shipwrecked, five or six years later, Mr. Girard believed she could never cause him loss. Already he was worth over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, made by his own energy, prudence, and ability; but he lived with great simplicity, and was accumulating wealth rapidly. In 1784 he built his second vessel, named, in compliment to Jean, the Two Brothers.

The next year, 1785, when he was thirty-five years old, the great sorrow of his life came upon him. The beautiful wife, only a little beyond her teens, became melancholy, and then hopelessly insane. Mr. Ingram believes the eight years of Mary Girard's married life were happy years, though the contrary has been stated. Without doubt Mr. Girard was very fond of her, though his unbending will and temper, and the ignoring of her relatives, were not calculated to make any woman continuously happy. Evidently Jean, who had lived in the family, thought no blame attached to his brother; for he wrote from Cape François: "It is impossible to express to you what I felt at such news. I do truly pity the frightful state I imagine you to be in, above all, knowing the regard and love you bear your wife… Conquer your grief, and show yourself by that worthy of being a man; for, dear friend, when one has nothing with which to reproach one's self, no blow, whatsoever it may be, should crush him."

After a period of rest, Mrs. Girard seemed to recover. Stephen and Jean formed a partnership, and the former sailed to the Mediterranean on business for the firm. After three years the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent, Stephen preferring to transact business alone. As soon as these matters were settled, he and his wife were to take a journey to France, which country she had long been anxious to visit. Probably the family would then see for themselves that the unassuming girl made an amiable, sensible wife for their eldest son.

In the midst of preparations, the despondency again returned; and by the advice of physicians, Mrs. Girard was taken to the Pennsylvania Hospital, at Eighth and Spruce Streets, Aug. 31, 1790, where she remained till her death in 1815, insane for over twenty-five years. She retained much of the beauty of her girlhood, lived on the first floor of the hospital in large rooms, had the freedom of the grounds, and was "always sitting in the sunlight." Her mind became almost a blank; and when the housekeeper came bringing the little daughters of Jean, Mrs. Girard scarcely recognized her.

To add still more to Mr. Girard's sorrow, after his wife had been at the hospital several months, on March 3, 1791, a daughter was born to her, who was named for the mother, Mary Girard. The infant was taken into the country to be cared for, and lived but a few months. It was buried in the graveyard of the parish church.

Bereft of his only child, his home desolate, Mr. Girard plunged more than ever into the whirl of business. He built six large ships, naming some of them after his favorite authors, – Voltaire, Helvetius, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Good Friends, and North America, – to trade with China and India, and other Eastern countries. He would send grain and cotton to Bordeaux, where, after unloading, his ships would reload with fruit and wine for St. Petersburg. There they would dispose of their cargo, and take on hemp and iron for Amsterdam. From there they would go to Calcutta and Canton, and return, laden with tea and silks, to Philadelphia.

Little was known about the quiet, taciturn Frenchman; but every one supposed he was becoming very rich, which was the truth. He was not always successful. He says in one of his letters, "We are all the subjects of what you call 'reverses of fortune.' The great secret is to make good use of fortune, and when reverses come, receive them with sang froid, and by redoubled activity and economy endeavor to repair them." His ship Montesquieu, from Canton, China, arrived within the capes of Delaware, March 26, 1813, not having heard of the war between America and England, and was captured with her valuable cargo, the fruits of the two years' voyage. The ship was valued at $20,000, and the cargo over $164,000. He immediately tried to ransom her, and did so with $180,000 in coin. When her cargo was sold, the sales amounted to nearly $500,000, so that Girard's quickness and good sense, in spite of the ransom, brought him large gains. The teas were sold for over two dollars a pound, on account of their scarcity from the war.

Mr. Girard rose early and worked late. He spent little on clothes or for daily needs. He evidently did not care simply to make money; for he wrote his friend Duplessis at New Orleans: "I do not value fortune. The love of labor is my highest ambition… I observe with pleasure that you have a numerous family, that you are happy in the possession of an honest fortune. This is all that a wise man has a right to wish for. As to myself, I live like a galley-slave, constantly occupied, and often passing the night without sleeping. I am wrapped up in a labyrinth of affairs, and worn out with care."

To another he wrote: "When I rise in the morning my only effort is to labor so hard during the day that when the night comes I may be enabled to sleep soundly." He had the same strong will as in his boyhood, but he usually controlled his temper. He kept his business to himself, and would not permit his clerks to gossip about his affairs. They had to be men of correct habits while in his employ. Having some suspicion of one of the officers of his ship Voltaire, he wrote to Captain Bowen: "I desire you not to permit a drunken or immoral man to remain on board of your ship. Whenever such a man makes disturbance, or is disagreeable to the rest of the crew, discharge him whenever you have the opportunity. And if any of my apprentices should not conduct themselves properly, I authorize you to correct them as I would myself. My intention being that they shall learn their business, so after they are free they may be useful to themselves and their country."

Mr. Girard gave minute instructions to all his employees, with the direction that they were to "break owners, not orders." Miss Louise Stockton, in "A Sylvan City, or Quaint Corners in Philadelphia," tells the following incident, illustrative of Mr. Girard's inflexible rule: "He once sent a young supercargo with two ships on a two years' voyage. He was to go first to London, then to Amsterdam, and so from port to port, selling and buying, until at last he was to go to Mocha, buy coffee, and turn back. At London, however, the young fellow was charged by the Barings not to go to Mocha, or he would fall into the hands of pirates; at Amsterdam they told him the same thing. Everywhere the caution was repeated; but he sailed on until he came to the last port before Mocha. Here he was consigned to a merchant who had been an apprentice to Girard in Philadelphia; and he, too, told him he must not dare venture near the Red Sea.

"The supercargo was now in a dilemma. On one side was his master's order; on the other, two vessels, a valuable cargo, and a large sum of money. The merchant knew Girard's peculiarities as well as the supercargo did; but he thought the rule to "break owners, not orders" might this time be governed by discretion. 'You'll not only lose all you have made,' he said, 'but you'll never go home to justify yourself.'

"The young man reflected. After all, the object of his voyages was to get coffee; and there was no danger in going to Java, so he turned his prow, and away he sailed to the Chinese seas. He bought coffee at four dollars a sack, and sold it in Amsterdam at a most enormous advance, and then went back to Philadelphia in good order, with large profits, sure of approval. Soon after he entered the counting-room Girard came in. He looked at the young fellow from under his bushy brows, and his one eye gleamed with resentment. He did not greet him, nor welcome him, nor congratulate him, but, shaking his angry hand, cried, 'What for you not go to Mocha, sir?' And for the moment the supercargo wished he had. But this was all Girard ever said on the subject. He rarely scolded his employees. He might express his opinion by cutting down a salary, and when a man did not suit him he dismissed him."

When one of Girard's bookkeepers, Stephen Simpson, apparently with little or no provocation, assaulted a fellow bookkeeper, injuring him so severely about the head that the man was unable to leave his home for more than a week, Girard simply laid a letter on Simpson's desk the next morning, reducing his salary from fifteen hundred dollars to one thousand per annum. The clerk was very angry, but did not give up his situation. When an errand-boy was caught in the act of stealing small sums of money from the counting-house, Mr. Girard put a more intricate lock on the money-drawer, and made no comment. The boy was sorry for his conduct, and gave no further occasion for complaint.

Girard believed in labor as a necessity for every human being. He used to say, "No man shall be a gentleman on my money." If he had a son he should labor. He said, "If I should leave him twenty thousand dollars, he would be lazy or turn gambler." Mr. Ingram tells an amusing incident of an Irishman who applied to Mr. Girard for work. "Engaging the man for a whole day, he directed the removal from one side of his yard to the other of a pile of bricks, which had been stored there awaiting some building operations; and this task, which consumed several hours, being completed, he was accosted by the Irishman to know what should be done next. 'Why, have you finished that already?' said Girard; 'I thought it would take all day to do that. Well, just move them all back again where you took them from; that will use up the rest of the day;' and upon the astonished Irishman's flat refusal to perform such fruitless labor, he was promptly paid and discharged, Girard saying at the same time, in a rather aggrieved manner, 'I certainly understood you to say that you wanted any kind of work.'"

Absorbed as Mr. Girard was in his business, cold and unapproachable as he seemed to the people of Philadelphia, he had noble qualities, which showed themselves in the hour of need. In the latter part of July, 1793, yellow fever in its most fatal form broke out in Water Street, within a square of Mr. Girard's residence. The city was soon in a panic. Most of the public offices were closed, the churches were shut up, and people fled from the city whenever it was possible to do so. Corpses were taken to the grave on the shafts of a chaise driven by a negro, unattended, and without ceremony.

"Many never walked in the footpath, but went in the middle of the streets, to avoid being infected in passing houses wherein people had died. Acquaintances and friends avoided each other in the streets, and only signified their regard by a cold nod. The old custom of shaking hands fell into such disuse that many shrank back with affright at even the offer of a hand. The death-calls echoed through the silent, grass-grown streets; and at night the watcher would hear at his neighbor's door the cry, 'Bring out your dead!' and the dead were brought. Unwept over, unprayed for, they were wrapped in the sheet in which they died, and were hurried into a box, and thrown into a great pit, the rich and the poor together."

"Authentic cases are recorded," says Henry W. Arey in his "Girard College and its Founder," "where parent and child and husband and wife died deserted and alone, for want of a little care from the hands of absent kindred."

In the midst of this dreadful plague an anonymous call for volunteer aid appeared in the Federal Gazette, the only paper which continued to be published. All but three of the "Visitors of the Poor" had died, or had fled from the city. The hospital at Bush Hill needed some one to bring order out of chaos, and cleanliness out of filth. Two men volunteered to do this work, which meant probable death. To the amazement of all, one of these was the rich and reticent foreigner, Stephen Girard. The other man was Peter Helm. The former took the interior of the hospital under his charge. For two months Mr. Girard spent from six to eight hours daily in the hospital, and the rest of the time helped to remove the sick and the dead from the infected districts round about. He wrote to a friend in Baltimore: "The deplorable situations to which fright and sickness have reduced the inhabitants of our city demand succor from those who do not fear death, or who at least do not see any risk in the epidemic which now prevails here. This will occupy me for some time; and if I have the misfortune to succumb, I will have at least the satisfaction to have performed a duty which we all owe to each other."

Mr. Ingram quotes from the United States Gazette of Jan. 13, 1832, the account of Girard at this time, witnessed by a merchant who was hurrying by with a camphor-saturated handkerchief pressed to his mouth: "A carriage, rapidly driven by a black servant, broke the silence of the deserted and grass-grown street. It stopped before a frame house in Farmer's Row, the very hotbed of the pestilence; and the driver, first having bound a handkerchief over his mouth, opened the door of the carriage, and quickly remounted to the box. A short, thick-set man stepped from the coach, and entered the house.

"In a minute or two the observer, who stood at a safe distance watching the proceedings, heard a shuffling noise in the entry, and soon saw the visitor emerge, supporting, with extreme difficulty, a tall, gaunt, yellow-visaged victim of the pestilence. His arm was around the waist of the sick man, whose yellow face rested against his own, his long, damp, tangled hair mingling with his benefactor's, his feet dragging helpless upon the pavement. Thus, partly dragging, partly lifted, he was drawn to the carriage door, the driver averting his face from the spectacle, far from offering to assist. After a long and severe exertion, the well man succeeded in getting the fever-stricken patient into the vehicle, and then entering it himself, the door was closed, and the carriage drove away to the hospital, the merchant having recognized in the man who thus risked his life for another, the foreigner, Stephen Girard."

Twice after this, in 1797 and 1798, when the yellow fever again appeared in Philadelphia, Mr. Girard gave his time and money to the sick and the poor.

In January, 1799, he wrote to a friend in France: "During all this frightful time I have constantly remained in the city, and without neglecting my public duties, I have played a part which will make you smile. Would you believe it, my friend, that I have visited as many as fifteen sick people in one day, and what will surprise you still more, I have lost only one patient, an Irishman, who would drink a little."

Busy, as a mariner, merchant, and helper of the sick and the poor, Mr. Girard found time to aid the Republic, to which he had become ardently attached. Besides serving for several terms in the City Council, and as Warden of the Port for twenty-two years, during the war of 1812 he rendered valuable financial aid. In 1810 Mr. Girard, having about one million dollars in the hands of Baring Bros. & Co., London, ordered the whole of it to be used in buying stock and shares of the Bank of the United States. When the charter of the bank expired in 1811, Mr. Girard purchased the whole outfit, and opened "The Bank of Stephen Girard," with a capital of one million two hundred thousand dollars. About this time, 1811, an attempt was made by two men to kidnap Mr. Girard by enticing him into a house to buy goods, then seize him, and carry him to a small ship in the Delaware, where he would be confined till he had paid the money which they demanded. The plot was discovered. After the men were arrested, and in prison for several months, one was declared insane, and the other was acquitted on the ground of comparative ignorance of the plot.

Everybody believed in Mr. Girard's honesty, and in the safety of his bank. He made temporary loans to the Government, never refusing his aid. When near the close of the war the Government endeavored to float a loan of five million dollars, the bonds to bear interest at seven per cent per annum, and a bonus offered to capitalists, there was so much indifference or fear of future payment, or opposition to the war with Great Britain, that only $20,000 were subscribed for. Mr. Girard determined to stake his whole fortune to save the credit of his adopted country. He put his name opposite the whole of the loan still unsubscribed for.

The effect was magical. People at once had faith in the Government, professed themselves true patriots, and persisted in taking shares from Mr. Girard, which he gave them on the original terms. "The sinews of war were thus furnished," says Mr. Arey, "public confidence was restored, and a series of brilliant victories resulted in a peace, to which he thus referred in a letter written in 1815 to his friend Morton of Bordeaux: 'The peace which has taken place between this country and England will consolidate forever our independence, and insure our tranquillity.'"

Soon after the close of the war, on Sept. 13, 1815, word was sent to Mr. Girard that his wife, still insane, was dying. Years before, when he found that she was incurable, he had sought a divorce, which those who admire him most must wish that he had never attempted; and the bill failed. He was now sixty-five, and growing old. His life had been too long in the shadow ever to be very full of light.

He asked to be sent for when all was over. Toward sunset, when Mary Girard was in her plain coffin, word was sent to him. He came with his household, and followed her to her resting-place, in the lawn at the north front of the hospital. "I shall never forget the last and closing scene," writes Professor William Wagner. "We all stood about the coffin, when Mr. Girard, filled with emotion, stepped forward, kissed his wife's corpse, and his tears moistened her cheek."

She was buried in silence, after the manner of the Friends, who manage the hospital. After the coffin was lowered, Mr. Girard looked in, and saying to Mr. Samuel Coates, "It is very well," returned to his home.

Mary Girard's grave, and that of another who died in 1807, giving the hospital five thousand dollars on condition that he be buried there, are now covered by the Clinic Building, erected in 1868. The bodies were not disturbed, as there is no cellar under the structure. As a reward for the care of his wife, soon after the burial Mr. Girard gave the hospital about three thousand dollars, and small sums of money to the attendants and nurses. It was his intention to be buried beside his wife, but this plan was changed later.

The next year, 1816, President Madison having chartered the second Bank of the United States, there were so few subscribers that it was evident that the scheme would fail. At the last moment Mr. Girard placed his name against the stock not subscribed for, – three million one hundred thousand dollars. Again confidence was restored to a hesitating and timid public. Some years later, in 1829, when the State of Pennsylvania was in pressing need for money to carry on its daily functions, the governor asked Mr. Girard to loan the State one hundred thousand dollars, which was cheerfully done.

As it was known that Mr. Girard had amassed great wealth, and had no children, he was constantly besought to give, from all parts of the country. Letters came from France, begging that his native land be remembered through some grand institution of benevolence.

Ambitious though Mr. Girard was, and conscious of the power of money, he had without doubt been saving and accumulating for other reasons than love of gain. His will, made Feb. 16, 1830, by his legal adviser, Mr. William J. Duane, after months of conference, showed that Mr. Girard had been thinking for years about the disposition of his millions. When persons seemed inquisitive during his life, he would say, "My deeds must be my life. When I am dead, my actions must speak for me."

To the last Mr. Girard was devoted to business. "When death comes for me," he said, "he will find me busy, unless I am asleep in bed. If I thought I was going to die to-morrow, I should plant a tree, nevertheless, to-day."

His only recreation from business was going daily to his farm of nearly six hundred acres, in Passyunk Township, where he set out choice plants and fruit-trees, and raised the best produce for the Philadelphia market. His yellow-bodied gig and stout horse were familiar objects to the townspeople, though he always preferred walking to riding.

His home in later years, a four-story brick house, was somewhat handsomely furnished, with ebony chairs and seats of crimson plush from France, a present from his brother Étienne; a tall writing-cabinet, containing an organ given him by Joseph Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon, and the ex-king of Spain and Naples, who usually dined with Mr. Girard on Sunday; a Turkey carpet, and marble statuary purchased in Leghorn by his brother Jean. The home was made cheerful by his young relatives. He had in his family the three daughters of Jean, and two sons of Étienne, whom he educated.

He loved animals, always keeping a large watch-dog at his home and on each of his ships, saying that his property was thus much more efficiently protected than through the services of those to whom he paid wages. He was very fond of children, horses, dogs, and canary-birds. In his private office several canaries swung in brass cages; and these he taught to sing with a bird organ, which he imported from France for that purpose.

When Mr. Girard was seventy-six years of age a violent attack of erysipelas in the head and legs led him to confine himself thereafter to a vegetable diet as long as he lived. The sight of his one eye finally grew so dim that he was scarcely able to find his way about the streets, and he was often seen to grope about the vestibule of his bank to find the door. On Feb. 12, 1820, as he was crossing the road at Second and Market Streets, he was struck and badly injured by a wagon, the wheel of which passed over his head and cut his face. He managed to regain his feet and reach his home. While the doctors were dressing the wound and cleansing it of the sand, he said, "Go on, Doctor, I am an old sailor; I can bear a good deal."

After some months he was able to return to his bank; but in December, 1831, nearly two years after the accident, an attack of influenza, then prevailing, followed by pneumonia, caused his death. He lay in a stupor for some days, but finally rallied, and walked across the room. The effort was too great, and putting his hand against his forehead, he exclaimed, "How violent is this disorder! How very extraordinary it is!" and soon died, without speaking again, at five o'clock in the afternoon of Dec. 26, 1831, nearly eighty-two years old.

He was given a public funeral by the city which he had so many times befriended. A great concourse of people gathered to watch the procession or to join it, all houses being closed along the route, the city officials walking beside the coffin carried in an open hearse. So large a funeral had never been known in Philadelphia, said the press. The body was taken to the Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, and placed in the vault of Baron Henry Dominick Lallemand, General of Artillery under Napoleon I., who had married the youngest daughter of Girard's brother Jean. Mr. Girard was born in the Romish Church, and never severed his connection, although he attended a church but rarely. He liked the Friends, and modelled his life after their virtues; but he said it was better for a man to die in the faith in which he was born. He gave generously to all religious denominations and to the poor.

When Mr. Girard's will was read, it was apparent for what purpose he had saved his money. He gave away about $7,500,000, a remarkable record for a youth who left home at fourteen, and rose from a cabin-boy to be one of the wealthiest men of his time.

The first gift in the will, and the largest to any existing corporation, was $30,000 to the Pennsylvania hospital where Mary Girard died and was buried, the income to be used in providing nurses. To the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, Mr. Girard left $20,000; to the Philadelphia Orphan Asylum, $10,000; public schools, $10,000; to purchase fuel forever, in March and August, for distribution in January among poor white housekeepers of good character, the income from $10,000; to the Society for poor masters of ships and their families, $10,000; to the poor among the Masonic fraternity of Pennsylvania, $20,000; to build a schoolhouse at Passyunk, where he had his farm, $6,000; to his brother Étienne, and to each of the six children of this brother, $5,000; to each of his nieces from $10,000 to $60,000; to each captain of his vessels $1,500, and to each of his housekeepers an annuity or yearly sum of $500, besides various amounts to servants; to the city of Philadelphia, to improve her Delaware River front, to pull down and remove wooden buildings within the city limits, and to widen and pave Water Street, the income of $500,000; to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, for internal improvements by canal navigation, $300,000; to the cities of New Orleans and Philadelphia, "to promote the health and general prosperity of the inhabitants," 280,000 acres of land in the State of Louisiana.

The city of Philadelphia has been fortunate in her gifts. The Elias Boudinot Fund, for supplying the poor of the city with fuel, furnished over three hundred tons of coal last year; "and this amount will increase annually, by reason of the larger income derived from the 12,000 acres of land situated in Centre County, the property of this trust." The investments and cash balance on Dec. 31, 1893, amounted to $40,600.

Benjamin Franklin, at his death, April 17, 1790, gave to each of the two cities, Philadelphia and Boston, in trust, £1,000 ($5,000), to be loaned to young married mechanics under twenty-five years of age, to help them start in business, in sums not to exceed £60, nor to be less than £15, at five per cent interest, the money to be paid back by them in ten annual payments of ten per cent each. Two respectable citizens were to become surety for the payment of the money. This Franklin did because two men helped him when young to begin business in Philadelphia by a loan, and thus, he said, laid the foundation of his fortune. A bequest somewhat similar was founded in London more than twenty years previously, in 1766, – the Wilson's Loan Fund, "to lend sums of £100 to £300 to young tradesmen of the city of London, etc., at two per cent per annum."

Dr. Franklin estimated that his $5,000 at interest for one hundred years would increase to over $600,000 (£131,000); and then the managers of the fund were to lay out $500,000 (£100,000) says the will, "in public works, which may be judged of most general utility to the inhabitants, such as fortifications, bridges, aqueducts, public buildings, baths, pavements, or whatever may make living in the town more convenient to its people, and render it more agreeable to strangers resorting hither for health or a temporary residence." In Philadelphia Dr. Franklin hoped the £100,000 would be used in bringing by pipes the water of the Wissahickon Creek to take the place of well water, and in making the Schuylkill completely navigable. If these things had been done by the end of the hundred years, the money could be used for other public works.

The remaining £31,000 was to be put at interest for another hundred years, when it would amount to £4,600,000 or $23,000,000. Of this amount £1,610,000 was to be given to Philadelphia, and the same to Boston, and the balance, £3,000,000 or $15,000,000, paid to each State. The figures are of especial interest, as showing how fast money will accumulate if kept at interest.

The descendants of Franklin have tried to break the will, but have not succeeded. The Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia report for the year ending Dec. 31, 1893, that the fund of $5,000 for the first hundred years, though not equalling the sum which Franklin hoped, has yet reached the large amount of $102,968.48. The Boston fund, says Mr. Samuel F. McCleary, the treasurer, amounted, at the end of a hundred years, to $431,395.70. Of this sum, $328,940 was paid to the city of Boston, and $102,455.70 was put at interest for another hundred years. This has already increased to $110,806.83. What an amount of good some other man or woman might do with $5,000!

It remains to be seen to what use the two cities will put their gifts. Perhaps they will provide work for the unemployed in making good roads or in some other useful labor, or instead of loaning money to mechanics, as Franklin intended, perhaps they will erect tenement houses for mechanics or other working people, as is done by some cities in England and Scotland, following the example so nobly set by George Peabody, when he gave his $3,000,000, which has now doubled, to build houses for the London poor. He said, "If judiciously managed for two hundred years, its accumulation will amount to a sum sufficient to buy the city of London."

If Stephen Girard's $300,000 to the State of Pennsylvania had been given for the making of good roads, thousands of the unemployed might have been provided with labor, tens of thousands of poor horses saved from useless over-work in hauling loads over muddy roads where the wheels sink to the hubs, and the farmers saved thousands of dollars in carrying their produce to cities.

Stephen Girard had a larger gift in mind than those to his adopted city and State. He said in his will, "I have been for a long time impressed with the importance of educating the poor, and of placing them, by the early cultivation of their minds, and the development of their moral principles, above the many temptations to which, through poverty and ignorance, they are exposed; and I am particularly desirous to provide for such a number of poor male white orphan children, as can be trained in one institution, a better education, as well as a more comfortable maintenance, than they usually receive from the application of the public funds."

With this object in view, a college for orphan boys, Mr. Girard gave to "the Mayor, Aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia, all the residue and remainder of my real and personal estate" in trust; first, to erect and maintain a college for poor white male orphans; second, to establish "a competent police;" and third, "to improve the general appearance of the city itself, and, in effect, to diminish the burden of taxation, now most oppressive, especially on those who are the least able to bear it," "after providing for the college as my primary object."

He left $2,000,000, allowing "as much of that sum as may be necessary in erecting the college," which was "to be constructed with the most durable materials, and in the most permanent manner, avoiding needless ornament." He gave the most minute directions in his will for its size, material, "marble or granite," and the training and education of the inmates.

This residue "and remainder of my real and personal estate" had grown in 1891 to more than $15,000,000, with an income yearly of about $1,500,000. Truly Stephen Girard had saved and labored for a magnificent and enduring monument! The Girard estate is one of the largest owners of real estate in the city of Philadelphia. Outside of the city some of the Girard land is valuable in coal production. In the year 1893, 1,542,652 tons of anthracite coal were mined from the Girard land. More than $4,500,000 received from its coal has been invested, that the college may be doubly sure of its support when the coal-mines are exhausted.

Girard College, of white marble, in the form of a Greek temple, was begun in May, 1833, two years after Mr. Girard's death, and was fourteen years and six months in building. A broad platform, reached by eleven marble steps, supports the main building. Thirty-four Corinthian columns form a colonnade about the structure, each column six feet in diameter and fifty-five feet high, and each weighing one hundred and three tons, and costing about $13,000 apiece. They are beautiful and substantial, and yet $13,000 would support several orphans for a year or more.

The floors and roof are of marble; and the three-story building weighs over 76,000 tons, the average weight on each superficial foot of foundation being, according to Mr. Arey, about six tons. Four auxiliary white marble buildings were required by the will of Mr. Girard for dormitories, schoolrooms, etc. The whole forty-five acres in which stand the college buildings are surrounded, according to the given instructions, by a wall ten feet high and sixteen inches thick, covered with a heavy marble capping.

The five buildings were completed Nov. 13, 1847, at a cost of nearly $2,000,000 ($1,933,821.78); and on Jan. 1, 1848, Girard College was opened with one hundred orphans. In the autumn one hundred more were admitted, and on April 1, 1849, one hundred more. Those born in the city of Philadelphia have the first preference, after them those born in the State, those born in New York City where Mr. Girard first landed in America, and then those born in New Orleans where he first traded. They must enter between the ages of six and ten, be fatherless, although the mother may be living, and must remain in the college till they are between fourteen and eighteen, when they are bound out by the mayor till they are twenty-one, to learn some suitable trade in the arts, manufacture, or agriculture, their tastes being consulted as far as possible. Each orphan has three suits of clothing, one for every day, one better, and one usually reserved for Sundays.

The first president of Girard College was Alexander Dallas Bache, a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, and head of the Coast Survey of the United States. He visited similar institutions in Europe, and purchased the necessary books and apparatus for the school.

While the college was building, the heirs, with the not unusual disregard of the testator's desires, endeavored to break the will. Mr. Girard had given the following specific direction in his will: "I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty whatever in the said college, nor shall any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purposes of the said college: – In making this restriction I do not mean to cast any reflection upon any sect or person whatsoever; but as there is such a multitude of sects, and such a diversity of opinion amongst them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans, who are to derive advantage from this bequest, free from the excitement which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so apt to produce. My desire is that all the instructors and teachers in the college shall take pains to instil into the minds of the scholars the purest principles of morality, so that on their entrance into active life they may from inclination and habit evince benevolence toward their fellow-creatures, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, adopting at the same time such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable them to prefer." The heirs of Mr. Girard claimed that by reason of the above the college was "illegal and immoral, derogatory and hostile to the Christian religion;" but it was the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court that there was in the will "nothing inconsistent with the Christian religion, or opposed to any known policy of the State."

On Sept. 30, 1851, the body of Stephen Girard was removed from the Roman Catholic Church, but not without a lawsuit by the heirs on account of its removal, to the college, and placed in a sarcophagus in the vestibule. The ceremony was entirely Masonic, the three hundred orphans witnessing it from the steps of the college. Over fifteen hundred Masons were in the procession, and each deposited his palm-branch upon the coffin. In front of the sarcophagus is a statue of Mr. Girard, by Gevelot of Paris, costing thirty thousand dollars.

Girard College now has ten white marble auxiliary buildings for its nearly or quite two thousand orphans. There are more applicants than there is room to accommodate. Its handsome Gothic chapel is also of white marble, erected in 1867. Here each day the pupils gather for worship morning and evening, the exercises, non-sectarian in character, consisting of a hymn, reading from the Bible, and prayer. On Sundays the pupils assemble in their section rooms at nine in the morning and two in the afternoon for religious reading and instruction; and at 10.30 and 3 they attend worship in the chapel, addresses being given by the president, A. H. Fetterolf, Ph.D. LL.D., or some invited layman.

In 1883 the Technical Building was erected in the western part of the grounds. Here instruction is given in metal and woodwork, mechanical drawing, shoemaking, blacksmithing, carpentry, foundry, plumbing, steam-fitting, and electrical mechanics. Here the pupils learn about the dynamo, motor, lighting by electricity, telegraphy, and the like. About six hundred boys in this department spend five hours a week in this practical work.

At the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, in the exhibit made by Girard College, one could see the admirable work of the students in a single-span bridge, a four horse-power yacht steam-engine, a vertical engine, etc. The whole exhibit was given at the close of the Exposition to Armour Institute, to which the founder, Mr. Philip D. Armour, has given $1,500,000.

To the west of the main college building is the monument erected by the Board of Directors to the memory of Girard College boys killed in the Civil War. A life-size figure of a soldier stands beneath a canopy supported by four columns of Ohio sandstone. The granite base is overgrown with ivy. On one side are the names of the fallen; on the other, these words, from Mr. Girard's will, "And especially do I desire that, by every proper means, a pure attachment to our Republican institutions, and to the sacred rights of conscience, as guaranteed by our happy constitutions, shall be formed and fostered in the minds of the scholars."

On May 20, each year, the anniversary of Mr. Girard's birth, the graduates of Girard College gather from all parts of the country to do honor to the generous giver. Games are played, the cadets parade, and a dinner is provided for scholars and guests. The pupils seem happy and contented. Their playgrounds are large; and they have a bathing-pool for swimming in summer, and skating in winter. They receive a good education in mathematics, astronomy, geology, history, chemistry, physics, French, Spanish, with some Latin and Greek, with a course in business, shorthand, etc. Through all the years they have "character lessons," which every school should have throughout our country, – familiar conversations on honesty, the dignity of labor, perseverance, courage, self-control, bad language, value and use of time, truthfulness, temperance, good temper, the good citizen and his duties, kindness to animals, patriotism, the study of the lives and deeds of noble men and women, the Golden Rule of play, – "No fun unless it is fun on both sides," and similar topics. Oral and written exercises form a part of this work. There is also a department of military science, a two years' course being given, with one recitation a week. A United States army officer is one of the college faculty, and commandant of the battalion.

The annual cost of clothing and educating each of the two thousand orphans, including current repairs on the buildings, is a little more than three hundred dollars. On leaving college, each boy receives a trunk with clothing and books, amounting to about seventy-five dollars.

Probably Mr. Girard, with all his far-sightedness, could not have foreseen the great good to the nation, as well as to the individual, in thus fitting, year after year, thousands of poor orphans for useful positions in life. Mr. Arey well says: "When in the fulness of time many homes have been made happy, many orphans have been fed, clothed, and educated, and many men rendered useful to their country and themselves, each happy home, or rescued child, or useful citizen, will be a living monument to perpetuate the name and embalm the memory of the dead 'Mariner and Merchant.'"