Harper’s Weekly – July 3, 1858

Harper's Weekly archives ^ | July 3, 1858

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Free Republic University, Department of History presents U.S. History, 1855-1860: Seminar and Discussion Forum
Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, Lincoln-Douglas, Harper’s Ferry, the election of 1860, secession – all the events leading up to the Civil War, as seen through news reports of the time and later historical accounts

First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed. To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.

Link to previous thread

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Contents – 2
The War-Message – 2
The Signers of the Declaration of Independence – 2-4
Editorials – 4-5
The Lounger – 6-7
Independence Hall, Philadelphia – 8-9
A Visit to Mount Vernon – 10-12
The Declaration of Independence – 13-15
Town and Country – 15
My Elopement – 15-18
Stephen Girard, The Money-Maker – 18-19
Broadway – 19
The Greatest Gold Nugget Ever Found – 19-20
The Boston Regatta – 19-21
Miscellany – 22-23
Western Sketches – 24-25

[Bob434]

Stephen Girard Net Worth is $105

“He personally saved the U.S. government from financial collapse during the War of 1812, and became one of the wealthiest people in America, estimated to have been the fourth richest American of all time, based on the ratio of his fortune to contemporary GDP.”

http://www.getnetworth.com/tag/stephen-girard-stolen-money/

[BenLurkin]

People who bought that to read certainly got their money’s worth.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

A nickel well spent.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from February 13 (reply #3) .

1

2

William J. Cooper, Jr., Jefferson Davis, American

[Tax-chick]

Jefferson Davis didn’t know that mosquitoes carry malaria and yellow fever.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Jefferson Davis didn’t know that mosquitoes carry malaria and yellow fever.

His first wife (Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of President Zachary Taylor) died of malaria within a couple months of their wedding, and he almost died in the same epidemic. I guess the mosquito connection wasn't figured out until later.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

[Continued from July 1 (reply #4) .]

July 8,THURSDAY. Tomorrow to fresh fields and pastures new – Great Barrington, to wit. We are all ready to decamp; trunks are packed and the house wears an unsettled look like Great Salt Lake City pending the latest Mormon hegira. Whatever good thing we find at Great Barrington will be so much clear gain, for my anticipations are at zero. I shall do well enough, but I’m very dubious about Ellie’s prospects.

The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas

[Tax-chick]

I wonder what bad outcomes he anticipates for Ellie. Is she likely to be ostracized by the high society of Great Barrington?

[PeterPrinciple]

The Largest Gold Nugget Ever Found

---

http://ballaratgenealogy.org.au/ballarat-history/the-welcome-nugget

Be sure to read the article, some interesting flavor. From the article:

“The Sydney papers records a good joke. One of the proprietors laughingly said to a party of ladies viewing it while on exhibitions, ‘Any lady in the room who will lift the nuggets shall have it.’ There words were no sooner uttered than one of the ladies took it up, and carried it to the door, walking away with it with all possible speed. She was arrested at the door by the astonished and affrighted owner. Should the lady prosecute or sue for the gem thus so easily and cheaply purchased, a nice point of law would be involved. The matter would probably have turned upon the point of whether the plaintiff was a lady.............................”

[PeterPrinciple]

You can tell more about a person from their checkbook than anything else.

Regarding Stephen Girard:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Girard

n 1793, there was an outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia. Although many other well-to-do citizens chose to leave the city, Girard stayed to care for the sick and dying. He supervised the conversion of a mansion outside the city limits into a hospital and recruited volunteers to nurse victims, and personally cared for patients. For his efforts, Girard was feted as a hero after the outbreak subsided.[6] Again during the yellow fever epidemic of 1797-1798 he took the lead in relieving the poor and caring for the sick.[4]

Girard was the sole proprietor of his bank, and thus avoided the Pennsylvania state law which prohibited an unincorporated association of persons from establishing a bank, and required a charter from the legislature for a banking corporation.[9]

Girard’s Bank was a principal source of government credit during the War of 1812. Towards the end of the war, when the financial credit of the U.S. government was at its lowest, Girard placed nearly all of his resources at the disposal of the government and underwrote up to 95 percent of the war loan issue,

At the time of his death, Girard was the wealthiest man in America[12] and he bequeathed nearly his entire fortune to charitable[13] and municipal institutions of Philadelphia and New Orleans, including an endowment for establishing a boarding school for “poor, male, white orphans” in Philadelphia, primarily those who were the children of coal miners, which opened as the Girard College in 1848. Girard’s will[14] was contested by his family in France but was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark case, Vidal et al. vs Girard’s Executors, 43 U.S. 127 (1844).[15]

Most of his estate was left to what became Girard College, still going: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girard_College

[PeterPrinciple]

The Atlantic Telegraph

Steam ship within 24 hours of landing. This is the 2nd try. First communication Aug 16, 1858

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable

[Bob434]

Wow- thanks- Remarkable man-

[PeterPrinciple]

Floods in the West.

---

I could not find anything specific to 1958 and floods but it was prob a big issue with expansion of railroads, and river shipping, and expansion to the west.

Did find this reference to a 1951 flood. 74.5 inches in Iowa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_of_1851

[PeterPrinciple]

Here is more on Girard. Maybe a combination of mgt and luck. I believe the parents of the girl he married had just died a few months before the marriage and was his initial source of capital.

When I work with farmers, at the end of the year I always asked them if it was luck or management. It was always management in good years, bad luck in bad years. The reality it is usually the interaction of both...………….

---

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/03/03/stephen-girard-american-rags-riches-story/

He sailed to New York in 1774, became acquainted with that city’s merchants and seamen, and began to import coffee and sugar from the West Indies to the Colonies while selling Colonial goods abroad. When the British blockade of 1776 prevented him from a return to New York, he sailed instead to Philadelphia, where he took up residency just as the Revolution began. That same year, he met and married an 18-year-old beauty, Mary Lum, and moved with her to Mount Holly, New Jersey, where they opened a store and provisioned the Colonial army.

[PAR35]

Thanks. I learned a new word. Hegira.

Multiple levels at work with that word.

[colorado tanker]

After a series of cases in the 1950's and 60's the trust's restriction to "white children" beneficiaries was invalidated.

The Girard cases are part of a body of not altogether consistent case law on when the courts can order a deviation from the trust settlor's intent on various grounds. It is generally referred to as the cy pres or deviation doctrine. One of the reasons law schools charge exorbitant tuition is to teach students fancy words like that.

[PeterPrinciple]

establishing a boarding school for “poor, male, white orphans”

---

so how did the poor and orphan thing get changed?

[PeterPrinciple]

Stephen Girard bought this 9-volume biography of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in the 1820s. The title page shows Liberty with a broken crown, scepter, and chains at her feet.

https://www.girardcollege.edu/about-us/publications-and-social-media

---

Does anyone know anything about this 9 volume biography?