Sarah Bolton - Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous

At last he wearied of the care and constant expense of "Cedarcroft." He needed to be near the New York libraries. Mr. Greeley had died, his newspaper stock had declined, and he could not sell his home, as he had hoped. There was no alternative but to go back in 1871 into the daily work of journalism in the "Tribune" office. The rest which he had longed for was never to come. For four years he worked untiringly, delivering the Centennial Ode at our Exposition, and often speaking before learned societies.

In 1878, President Hayes bestowed upon him a well-deserved honor, by appointing him minister to Berlin. Germany rejoiced that a lover of her life and literature had been sent to her borders. The best of New York gathered to say good-by to the noted author. Arriving in Berlin, Emperor William gave him cordial welcome, and Bismark made him a friend. A pleasant residence was secured, and furniture purchased. At last he was to find time to complete a long-desired work, the Lives of Goethe and Schiller. "Prince Deukalion," his last noble poem, had just reached him. All was ready for the best and strongest work of his life, when, lo! the overworked brain and body gave way. He did not murmur. Only once, Dec. 19, he groaned, "I want – I want – oh, you know what I mean, that stuff of life! " It was too late. At fifty-three the great heart, the exquisite brain, the tired body, were still.

Germany as well as America wept over the bier of the once poor Quaker lad, who travelled over Europe with scarce a shilling in his pocket, now, by his own energy, brought to one of the highest positions in the gift of his country. Dec. 22, the great of Germany gathered about his coffin, Bertold Auerbach speaking beautiful words.

March 13, 1879, the dead poet lay in state in the City Hall at New York, in the midst of assembled thousands. The following day the body was borne to "Cedarcroft," and, surrounded by literary associates and tender friends, laid to rest. Public memorial meetings were held in various cities, where Holmes, Longfellow, Whittier, and others gave their loving tributes. A devoted student, a successful diplomat, a true friend, a noble poet, a gifted traveller, a man whose life will never cease to be an inspiration.

On the steamship "Germanic" I played chess with the great civil engineer, Captain Eads, stimulated by the thought that to beat him was to defeat the man who had twice conquered the Mississippi. But I didn't defeat him.

The building of a ship-canal across the Isthmus of Suez made famous the Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps: so the opening-up of the mouth of the Mississippi River has distinguished Captain Eads. To-day both these men are struggling for the rare honor of joining, at the Isthmus of Panama, the waters of the great Atlantic and Pacific; a magnificent scheme, which, if successful, will save annually thousands of miles of dangerous sea-voyage around Cape Horn, besides millions of money.

The "Great West" seems to delight in producing self-made men like Lincoln, Grant, Eads, and others.

James B. Eads was born in Indiana in 1820. He is slender in form, neat in dress, genial, courteous, and over sixty years of age. In 1833, his father started down the Ohio River with his family, proposing to settle in Wisconsin. The boat caught fire, and his scanty furniture and clothing were burned. Young Eads barely escaped ashore with his pantaloons, shirt, and cap. Taking passage on another boat, this boy of thirteen landed at St. Louis with his parents; his little bare feet first touching the rocky shore of the city on the very spot where he afterwards located and built the largest steel bridge in the world, over the Mississippi, – one of the most difficult feats of engineering ever performed in America.

At the age of nine, young Eads made a short trip on the Ohio, when the engineer of the steamboat explained to him so clearly the construction of the steam-engine, that, before he was a year older, he built a little working model of it, so perfect in its parts and movements, that his schoolmates would frequently go home with him after school to see it work. A locomotive engine driven by a concealed rat was one of his next juvenile feats in mechanical engineering. From eight to thirteen he attended school; after which, from necessity, he was placed as clerk in a dry-goods store.

How few young people of the many to whom poverty denies an education, either understand the value of the saying, "knowledge is power," or exercise will sufficient to overcome obstacles. Willpower and thirst for knowledge elevated General Garfield from driving canal horses to the Presidency of the United States.

Over the store in St. Louis, where he was engaged, his employer lived. He was an old bachelor, and, having observed the tastes of his clerk, gave him his first book in engineering. The old gentleman's library furnished evening companions for him during the five years he was thus employed. Finally, his health failing, at the age of nineteen he went on a Mississippi River steamer; from which time to the present day that great river has been to him an all-absorbing study.

Soon afterwards he formed a partnership with a friend, and built a small boat to raise cargoes of vessels sunken in the Mississippi. While this boat was building, he made his first venture in submarine engineering, on the lower rapids of the river, by the recovery of several hundred tons of lead. He hired a scow or flat-boat, and anchored it over the wreck. An experienced diver, clad in armor, who had been hired at considerable expense in Buffalo, was lowered into the water; but the rapids were so swift that the diver, though incased in the strong armor, feared to be sunk to the bottom. Young Eads determined to succeed, and, finding it impracticable to use the armor, went ashore, purchased a whiskey-barrel, knocked out the head, attached the air-pump hose to it, fastened several heavy weights to the open end of the barrel; then, swinging it on a derrick, he had a practical diving-bell – the best use I ever heard made of a whiskey-barrel.

Neither the diver, nor any of the crew, would go down in this contrivance: so the dauntless young engineer, having full confidence in what he had read in books, was lowered within the barrel down to the bottom; the lower end of the barrel being open. The water was sixteen feet deep, and very swift. Finding the wreck, he remained by it a full hour, hitching ropes to pig-lead till a ton or more was safely hoisted into his own boat. Then, making a signal by a small line attached to the barrel, he was lifted on deck, and in command again. The sunken cargo was soon successfully raised, and was sold, and netted a handsome profit, which, increased by other successes, enabled energetic Eads to build larger boats, with powerful pumps, and machinery on them for lifting entire vessels. He surprised all his friends in floating even immense sunken steamers – boats which had long been given up as lost.

When the Rebellion came, it was soon evident that a strong fleet must be put upon Western rivers to assist our armies. Word came from the government to Captain Eads to report in Washington. His thorough knowledge of the "Father of Waters" and its tributaries, and his practical suggestions, secured an order to build seven gunboats, and soon after an order for the eighth was given.

In forty-eight hours after receiving this authority, his agents and assistants were at work; and suitable ship-timber was felled in half a dozen Western States for their hulls. Contracts were awarded to large engine and iron works in St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati; and within one hundred days, eight powerful ironclad gunboats, carrying over one hundred large cannon, and costing a million dollars, were achieving victories no less important for the Mississippi valley than those which Ericsson's famous "Cheese-box Monitor" afterwards won on the James River.