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Peabody @ MindSay

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2 of 14: George Peabody (1795-1869): A-Z Handbook...., by Franklin and Betty J.

2 of 14: George Peabody (1795-1869): A-Z Handbook...., by Franklin and Betty J. Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net

Following Background "Preface" below 2 of 14 blogs covers alphabetically: Buchanan, James. 1 to Curry, J.L.M. 10.


Background: "Preface" 1 of 14 tells the why-when-where-how-findings-and-motives of the authors’ research on Franklin Parker’s doctoral dissertation, “George Peabody, Founder of Modern Philanthropy,” completed 1956 at George Peabody College for Teachers, adjoining Vanderbilt University, which on July 1, 1979, became Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, Nashville.

George Peabody, so well known in the 1850s-60s but since sadly neglected, was a significant 19th century figure as: 1-a Massachusetts-born merchant in the U.S. South: Riggs & Peabody, later Peabody & Riggs (1814-38), who imported dry goods and other commodities (worldwide) for sale to U.S. wholesalers. George Peabody then became: 2-a London-based merchant-banker, George Peabody & Co. (1838-64), who financed in part the B&O RR, the 2nd Mexican War Loan, the Atlantic Cable, and with J.S. Morgan as partner, was the root of the JP Morgan international banking firm. Finally, this merchant-turned-banker became: 3-the best known philanthropist of his time (1850s-60s), who founded the Peabody Homes of London for the working poor; in the U.S. 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), basis for all later larger U.S. funds and foundations. End of Background.


Buchanan, James (1791-1868). 1-Was U.S. Minister to Britain. James Buchanan was the 15th U.S. president during 1857-61. He was born near Mercersberg, Penn., was a lawyer, served in the Penn. legislature for two terms (from 1814), was U.S. Congressman (1821-31), Minister to Russia (1832-33), U.S. Sen. (1834-45), U.S. Secty. of State (1845-49), and U.S. Minister to Britain (1853-56), when his legation secretary Daniel Edgar Sickles (1825-1914) created an incident. See: Presidents, U.S., and GP. Sickles, Daniel Edgar.

Buchanan, James. 2-Sickles Affair. At a GP-sponsored July 4, 1854, U.S.-British friendship dinner super patriot Sickles remained seated and then walked out while others stood when GP toasted Queen Victoria before toasting the U.S. President. Buchanan, who thought Sickles was slack in his work as secretary, was embarrassed because, like GP, he wanted to improve British-U.S. relations. The incident was aggravated when Sickles charged GP in the press as toadying to the Queen. When GP visited Washington, D.C., Jan. 1857, there was a coolness between then-Pres. Buchanan and GP. Ref.: Ibid.

Buchanan, John (1772-1844). 1-Md. Bond Agents Abroad. John Buchanan was one of three commissioners appointed by the Md. Assembly to sell abroad its bonds to raise $8 million for internal improvements. When commissioner Samuel Jones, Jr. (1800-74), resigned to become a state senator, he backed GP to replace him. Despite some opposition, GP was appointed commissioner. Amid the financial Panic of 1837 GP and the other two commissioners, John Buchanan and Thomas Emory, tried unsuccessfully to sell the bonds in London, Paris, and Amsterdam. The other two agents returned to the U.S. by Oct. 8, 1837. On this, GP's fifth business trip to Europe, he remained in London for the rest of his life (1837-69), 32 years, except for three U.S. visits: 1-Sept. 15, 1856 to Aug. 19, 1857, 2-May 1, 1866 to May 1, 1867, and 3-June 8 to Sept. 29, 1869. See: Md.'s $8 Million Bond Sale Abroad and GP.

Buchanan, John. 2-GP's Delayed Reward. The economic depression hindered GP's sale of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Co. portion of Md.'s $8 million bonds. Md. and eight other states felt they had to stop their bond interest payments. GP publicly urged Md. officials to resume interest payments and assured British investors that resumed payments would be retroactive. GP finally sold the bonds cheaply for exclusive resale by the Baring Brothers, Britain's largest and oldest banking firm. Not wanting to burden economically depressed Md., GP declined the $60,000 commission due him. Ref.: Ibid.

Buchanan, John. 3-Md. Legislature's Resolution of Praise. By the time Md. had recovered economically and resumed its bond interest payments (1847), GP had withdrawn his capital from Peabody, Riggs & Co. (1829-48) and was in transition from merchant to London-based broker-banker in U.S. securities. The Md. governor's 1847 annual report to the legislative Assembly singled out GP as one, "who never claimed or received one dollar of the $60,000 commission due him...whilst the State was struggling with her pecuniary difficulties." On March 7, 1848, both houses of Md.'s Assembly passed a unanimous resolution of praise to GP. Md. Gov. Philip Francis Thomas (1810-90) sent these resolutions to GP in London, adding: "To you, Sir,...the thanks of the State were eminently due." It took ten years for GP's efforts in selling Md. bonds to be publicly appreciated. Ref.: Ibid.

Buck, Paul Herman (1899-1978), was a U.S. historian who wrote of the PEF: "As in his [GP's] gifts to England he had hoped to link two nations in friendly bonds, now after the Civil War it seemed to him most imperative to use his bounty in the restoration of good will between North and South.... The Peabody Education Fund...was an experiment in harmony and understanding between the sections.... Not only was the gift of Peabody one of the earliest manifestations of a spirit of reconciliation, but it was also a most effective means of stimulating that spirit in others." Ref.: Buck, pp. 164, 166. See: PEF.

Buddington, Samuel, Capt. 1-GP gave $10,000 for science equipment for the Second U.S. Grinnell Expedition of 1853-55, led by U.S. Navy Capt. Dr. Elisha Kent Kane (1820-57, a naval surgeon), searching for lost British Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin (1786-1847). 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. See: Franklin, Sir John.

Buddington, Samuel. 2-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) found the desk in a 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. Clinton returned the desk to the Oval Office in 1993. Ref.: Ibid. See: persons named.

Buffalo, NY. For GP's visit to U.S. Pres. Millard Fillmore (1800-74) at Fillmore's home in Buffalo, NY, Nov. 4, 1856, and connections with Fillmore, with sources, see Fillmore, Millard. Presidents, U.S., and GP.

CSS Alabama

Bulloch, James Dunwody (1823-1901). 1-Purchased Confederate Ships from England. Confederate Navy Secty. Stephen Russell Mallory (1813-73) sent Commander James Dunwody Bulloch (Bullock, in some sources) to England in May 1861 to purchase ships for the nonexistent Confederate Navy. Bulloch purchased from 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. See: Adams, Charles Francis. Alabama Claims.

Bulloch, J.D. 2-U.S. Minister C.F. Adams Protested. On June 23, 1862, U.S. Minister to Britain Charles Francis Adams (1807-86) warned the British Foreign Office that by building the Alabama as a Confederate warship, Britain was breaking its neutrality. Minister Adams attached affidavits from involved seamen as proof of his charge. But British Customs law officials ruled the evidence insufficient. Ref.: Ibid.

Bulloch, J.D. 3-Alabama Sunk Union Ships. CSS Alabama was put under the command of Capt. Raphael Harwood Semmes (1809-77), whose first ship, the Sumter, had already severely damaged Union commerce before it was bottled up in Gibraltar in Jan. 1862. In its rampaging two-year cruise (June 1862 to June 1864) covering 67,000 nautical miles, CSS Alabama hijacked or sank 64 Union ships. Her crew were largely pirate-adventurers from many nations, including Britain. Ref.: Ibid.

Bulloch, J.D. 4-C.S.S. Alabama Sunk by USS Kearsarge. Needing repairs, the Alabama entered Cherbourg, France, June 11, 1864, where it was intercepted by the USS Kearsarge, under Capt. John Ancrum Winslow (1811-73), June 14, 1864. The Alabama came out to do battle and was sunk, June 19, 1864, in one of the last romanticized gunnery duels in the era of wooden ships, seen by thousands of observers offshore. Capt. Semmes and some of his officers and crew were rescued by the British yacht Deerhound and taken to an English port. Remains of the Alabama were found Oct. 1984 and artifacts were raised from Cherbourg harbor. Ref.: Ibid.

Bulloch, J.D. 5-International Alabama Claims Commission. An international Alabama Claims Commission that met in Geneva, Switzerland, Dec. 187l to Sept. 1872, awarded the U.S. $15.5 million to be paid by Britain for British-built raiders (Alabama and others), which destroyed 257 Union ships. Confederate raider successes compelled Union ship owners to transfer ownership of over 700 vessels to foreign registries. U.S. merchant marine activity was set back for half a century. Ref.: Ibid.

Bulloch, J.D. 6-GP's Death. Two years before GP's death, his name was mentioned as a possible arbitrator on the Alabama Claims Commission but was dropped because of age and illness. GP died in London Nov. 4, 1869, at the height of U.S.-British angers over U.S. loss of lives 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., British officials, for political reasons, to ease U.S.-British near-war hysteria, decided to return GP's remains to the U.S. on a royal vessel. Ref.: Ibid.

Bulloch, J.D. 7-Remains Returned on HMS Monarch. In a Lord Mayor's Day banquet speech, British PM William Ewart Gladstone (1809-98) said (Nov. 9, 1869): "With Mr. Peabody's nation we will not quarrel." The next day (Nov. 10, 1869) his cabinet offered HMS Monarch, Britain's newest and largest warship, as funeral vessel. A GP funeral service was held at Westminster Abbey and his remains lay in state in the Abbey for 30 days (Nov. 12 to Dec. 11, 1869). Ref.: Ibid.

Bulloch, J.D. 8-Unprecedented Transatlantic Funeral. HMS Monarch, with GP's remains aboard, escorted by USS Plymouth, a U.S. warship from Marseilles, France, crossed the Atlantic, to be met in Portland harbor, Me., 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. Besides the political motive to ease U.S.-British angers over the Alabama Claims, there was genuine appreciation for GP's philanthropy, largely in the U.S. but also by Britain for his $2.5 million Peabody model apartments for London's working poor (from March 12, 1862). Ref.: Ibid.

Bulloch, J.D. 9-Bulloch's Sister Married Theodore Roosevelt. An interesting sidelight is that Confederate Navy Commander James Dunwody Bulloch's sister, Martha Bulloch (d. Feb. 12, 1884), married NYC's Theodore Roosevelt (1831-77). Their same-named son, Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), the 26th U.S. Pres. during 1901-09, was a trustee during 1901-14 of Peabody Normal College (1875-1911), Nashville, Tenn., which became GPCFT (1914-79) and continues as PCofVU (since July 1, 1979). Ref.: (Bulloch-Roosevelt connection): Hendrick, p. 370. Thayer, p. 4. See: persons named.

Bullock, James Dunwody (1823-1901). See: Bulloch, James Dunwody.

Bülow, Hans Guido Freiherr von (1830-94), was a German conductor and pianist, studied with Richard Wagner (1813-83) and Franz Liszt (1811-86), was court musician to Ludwig, King of Bavaria (1786-1868), and teacher of Asger Hamerik (1843-1923), PIB's Academy (Conservatory after 1874) of Music's first director. Director Hamerik enhanced the prestige of the PIB Academy of Music by attracting eminent world musicians, including Hans von Bülow, who performed during Dec.-Jan. 1875-1876. Other famous performers Director Hamerik brought to perform and lecture at the PIB were Russian-born composer Anton Rubinstein (1829-94); British popular composer Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) of Gilbert and Sullivan fame in late Dec. 1879; and Russian composer Peter Illytch Tschaikowsky (1840-93) in spring, 1891. Hans Guido Freiherr von Bülow wrote in a London paper that "Baltimore was the only place in America where I had proper support." See: PIB.

Bulwer-Lytton, Sir Henry (1801-72). Sir Henry Bulwer-Lytton (William Henry Lytton Earle Bulwer) was an English author, MP (1830-36, 1868-71), and Minister to the U.S. (1849-52) when he attended GP's Oct. 27, 1851, London dinner honoring the departing U.S. exhibitors at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London (first world's fair). He was praised at the dinner by the main speaker, U.S. Minister to Britain Abbott Lawrence (1792-1855). See: William Wilson Corcoran. Dinners, GP's, London. Great Exhibition of 1851, London (first world's fair). Lawrence, Abbott.

Bunker Hill, anniversary of battle of. GP gave a dinner in London attended by British and U.S. guests on June 17, 1852, the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill (Boston, July 17, 1775). See: Dinners, GP's, London.

Bunker Hill Memorial Monument (Boston). 1-GP's Donation. GP gave $500 as a patriotic gift in 1845 to help build the Bunker Hill Memorial Monument. Early in the American Revolution, with British ships in command of Boston Harbor, British troops determined to defeat the rebels by taking two high points, Bunker Hill (110 feet high) and Breed's Hill (75 feet high) in Boston's Charlestown district. Under night cover, the Americans seized the heights first, holding off the British until the Americans ran out of gunpowder. Despite having lost the battle (July 17, 1775), the Americans were heartened that their 1,600 ill-trained volunteers had held off 2,400 trained British troops and had caused the enemy 1,054 casualties to their own 100 dead, 267 wounded, and 30 taken prisoners. The Bunker Hill Memorial Monument cornerstone was laid by the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) July 17, 1825. GP, permanently in London since Feb. 1837, helped pay for the monument's completion. See: GP, Philanthropy. Peabody, Thomas (GP's father).

Bunker Hill Memorial Monument (Boston). 2-Post-Civil War attacks on GP's Loyalty. It is interesting to note, in view of post-Civil War attacks on GP's loyalty to the Union, that his father Thomas Peabody, some of whose forebears had fought in the French and Indian Wars, was one of 54 Peabodys who fought in the American Revolution, and that GP briefly served in the War of 1812. Ref.: Ibid. See: Civil War and GP.

Burdett-Coutts, Baroness Angela Georgina (1814-1906). 1-Lady Philanthropist. Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts was a prominent 19th century British philanthropist. England's famous journal of satire, Punch, on July 27, 1867, had a cartoon and long poem praising GP and Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts as the most prominent 19th century philanthropists. British-born Baroness Burdett-Coutts (she was created a peeress in 1871) inherited much land from her banker-grandfather, Thomas Coutts (1735-1822?). She built and endowed churches and schools; endowed three colonial bishoprics in Capetown, South Africa; Adelaide, Australia; and British Columbia, Canada. She aided Australian aborigines and Turkish peasants, built several water fountains in London, and built low-rent model homes for some 300 families at Columbia Square, London. Ref.: Punch (London), July 27, 1867, p. 33.

Burdett-Coutts, Baroness Angela Georgina. 2-Attended GP's July 4, 1851, Dinner. Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts attended GP's July 4, 1851, dinner and ball at Willis's Rooms, London, during the Great Exhibition in London of 1851 (first world's fair), with the Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley Wellington, 1769-1852) as guest of honor. For her attendance and details of the July 4, 1851, dinner, see Corcoran, William Wilson. Dinners in London, GP's. Great Exhibition in London of 1851 (first world's fair). Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Prince Albert).

Burk, Kathleen, author of Morgan Grenfell 1838-1988: The Biography of a Merchant Bank (London: Oxford University Press, 1989). See: Deutsche Morgan Grenfell (since June 29, 1990).

Burton, Asa (1752-1836), was a well known minister at the church five miles from Post Mills village, near Thetford, Vt., which GP attended in the winter of 1810. GP, then age 15, was visiting his maternal grandmother Judith Spofford Dodge (1749-1828) and grandfather Jeremiah Dodge (1744-1824). Ref.: Baldwin, J. A. pp. 12-15. See: Concord, N.H. Internet site (seen) March 18, 2000): http://www.valley.net~conriver/V13-7.htm Persons named. Thetford, Vt.

Bushby, Asa (1834-89), a photographer. Peabody Institute Librarian, Peabody, Mass., Fitch Poole's (1803-73) diary listed under date of Feb. 6, 1870, after GP's funeral service: "Bushby & Hart [photographers] taking views in library room." See: Death and Funeral, GP's.

Business career, GP's. See: Peabody, George. George Peabody & Co. Morgan, Junius Spencer. Peabody, Riggs & Co. Elisha Riggs, Sr. Riggs, Peabody & Co.

Butler, Benjamin Franklin (1818-93), was a U.S. Representative from Mass. (Republican) who spoke at the Dec. 21, 1869, debate on U.S. House Resolution No. 96, which asked Pres. U.S. Grant (1822-85) to order a U.S. Navy reception to receive GP's remains at the U.S. receiving port. The resolution, with some objection, was passed in the House that day, passed in the Senate on Dec. 23, 1869, and was signed into law by Pres. Grant on Jan. 10, 1870. B.F. Butler was born in Deerfield, N.H., graduated from what is now Colby College, Me. (1838), was a criminal lawyer and politician in Lowell and then Boston, Mass., served in the Mass. Legislature (1852 and 1858) and the Mass. Senate (1859-60), was a harsh and controversial Civil War Union general, a radical Republican in the U.S. House (1866-75) who led in the unsuccessful impeachment of Pres. Andrew Johnson; Mass. Gov. (1882), and nearly always in controversy. See: Death and funeral, GP's.

Butler, Charles (1802-97), is believed to be the NYC banker who gave Delia Salter Bacon (1811-59) a letter of introduction to GP in London. Charles Butler was born in Kinderhook Landing (now Stuyvesant), Columbia County, N.Y., was a lawyer (1824), helped establish Hobart College, Geneva, N.Y., was associated with a railroad link to Chicago, helped found and was active in the affairs of Union Theological Seminary, NYC (1836), and was a frequent visitor abroad. Delia S. Bacon, U.S. writer, was an early believer in the theory that William Shakespeare's plays were written by a group consisting of mainly Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618), and Edmund Spenser (1551-99). Ref.: Muzzey, Vol. 2, Part l, pp. 359-360. See Bacon, Delia Salter.

Buttre, John Chester (1821-93), engraver-artist who made an engraving of a GP photo, half-length facing right, taken by photographer Mathew B. Brady (1823-96), perhaps in Brady's NYC studio when the PEF trustees met in NYC on or about March 23, 1867. Copy of the engraving is in the Library of Congress BIOG FILE (b&w film copy neg.). Ref.: Library of Congress BIOG FILE. See: Brady, Mathew. Peabody, George, Illustrations.

C

Cairo, Ill. During GP's Sept. 15, 1856-Aug. 19, 1857, U.S. visit, his first return to the U.S. after nearly 20 years' absence in London (since Feb. 1837), he visited Cairo, Ill. (March 24-April 2, 1857), where he owned city bonds. See: Augusta, Ga.

Caldwell, Sally. On Jan. 20, 1814, in Newburyport, Mass., GP's oldest brother David Peabody (1790-1841) married Sally Caldwell, who died soon after 1815, leaving a son named George Peabody (1815-32) after his uncle. See: Chandler, Julia Adelaide (née Peabody). Peabody, David.

Cambridge, Mass. See: Harvard Univ. honorary degree to GP. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Am. Association in London

Campbell, Robert Blair (d.1862). 1-Americans in London. Robert Blair Campbell was U.S. Consul, London, England (1854-61). He presided over a July 4, 1858, dinner for Americans in London organized by a then newly formed American Association in London, a fraternal club to aid needy U.S. visitors. The club was led by newer American residents in London like Robert Blair Campbell, U.S. Legation Secty. Benjamin Moran (1820-86), and others. They feigned respect for but were privately jealous and critical of older American residents in London like GP. Moran, Blair, and a few others sponsored for a few years July 4th Independence Day dinners in London, which GP had initiated from 1850. See: Fell, Jesse Weldon. Persons named.

Campbell, R.B. 2-Career. Robert Blair Campbell was born in S.C., graduated from S.C. College (1809, later the Univ. of S.C.), was a farmer, a commander in the S.C. militia (from 1814), a general of S.C. troops (1833; in his journal Benjamin Moran referred to R.B. Campbell as "Gen. Campbell), a member of the S.C. Senate (1821-23, 1830), and a U.S. House of Rep. member from S.C. (1823-25, 1834-35, 1835-37). He moved to Ala. where he was in the Ala. House of Rep. (1840), was U.S. Consul in Havana, Cuba (1842-50); then moved to Texas where he was appointed a commissioner in determining the U.S.-Mexico border (1853); was U.S. Consul, London, England (1854-61); died in 1862 and was buried in London, July 12, 1862. Ref.: Campbell, p. 94. Wallace and Gillespie, I, p. 9, footnote 12 (many entries in index).

Canada. GP visited Toronto and Montreal, Canada, on Oct. 15 to Nov. 1, 1856 (he suffered gout attacks on this visit). He visited Montreal on July 7-22, 1866, when he traveled on the Saguenay River and fished for salmon on the Marguerite River. See: Visits to the U.S. by GP. Montreal, Canada. Quebec, Canada. Toronto, Canada.

Cannes, France. GP went to Cannes, France, March 16, 1868, where he visited George Eustis (1828-72), who was Washington, D.C., business friend William Wilson Corcoran's (1798-1888) son-in-law. W.W. Corcoran's only daughter Louise Morris (née Corcoran) Eustis died Dec. 4, 1867, leaving three children. From Cannes on March 16 or 17, 1868, GP and his philanthropic advisor Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94) went to Paris, France, where they were received by Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, 1808-73) and Empress Eugénie (1826-1920). For details of GP's visits to Rome, Italy, and Paris, France, during Feb.-Mar. 1868, with sources, see: persons named. San Spirito Hospital, Rome, Italy.

Carlyle, Thomas (1795-1881), was a Scottish-born author who, with a few others, gave friendly aid but no encouragement to eccentric U.S. writer Delia Salter Bacon's (1811-59) theory that William Shakespeare's (1554-1616) plays were written by Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and others. For Bacon's inconsequential connection with GP, see: Bacon, Delia Salter. Butler, Charles.

HMS Monarch as Funeral Ship

Carnegie, Andrew (1835-1919). 1-Industrialist-Philanthropist. Andrew Carnegie was the Scottish-born immigrant to Pittsburgh, Penn., who rose from cotton mill bobbin boy, to telegrapher, to Penn. Railroad superintendent, to iron manufacturer, to steel magnate of what became the U.S. Steel Corporation. His various funds and foundations totaled over $350 million, including his well known Carnegie library buildings. His 1889 essay, "The Gospel of Wealth," urged the rich to use their wealth for public good.

Carnegie, Andrew. 2-1869 Connection with GP. In his Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, 1933, he recalled reading of the launching of Britain's largest warship HMS Monarch, publicized in some jingoistic British newspapers as able to level a U.S. port city. Soon after, reading that GP had died in London (Nov. 4, 1869) and that GP's will required burial in Mass., he telegraphed British cabinet member John Bright (1811-99): "First and best service for Monarch, bringing home the body of Peabody." "Strange to say," he wrote, "this was done, and thus the Monarch became the messenger of peace, not of destruction." Ref.: Carnegie, p. 270. See: Bright, John. Death and Funeral, GP's.

Carnegie, Andrew. 3-1913 Connection with GPCFT. PCofVU historian Sherman Dorn described how former U.S. Pres. William Howard Taft (1857-1930, 27th U.S. Pres. during 1909-13) wrote to Andrew Carnegie for funds for GPCFT. Historian Dorn wrote: "In a letter of 15 May 1913, former president William Taft wrote to industrialist philanthropist [Andrew] Carnegie that he should support Peabody College to help supply competent teachers for Southern schools: 'I doubt if you could do anything that would so help the white people of the south in an educational way as to contribute this last $200,000' of the campaign." Carnegie did not respond but others contributed`. Ref.: Dorn, p. 17. See: persons named. PCofVU.

Oxford Honorary Degree

Carroll, Lewis (1832-98). 1-GP's Oxford Honorary Degree, 1867. Lewis Carroll was the pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1864. He was born in Daresbury near Warrington, England; graduated from Christ Church College, Oxford (1854); took Anglican Church orders (1861); and taught mathematics at Oxford (1861-81). He was on duty as an Oxford don on Founders' and Benefactors' Day, June 26, 1867, when Oxford Univ. granted GP an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Ref.: Dodgson, I, p. 261.

Carroll, Lewis. 2-Journal Entry. In his journal entry that day (June 26) Dodgson recorded: "I was introduced to the hero of the day, Mr. Peabody." Background: Dr. Henry Longueville Mansel (1820-71) of Oxford's Christ Church College wrote asking GP if he would accept an Oxford honorary degree. GP accepted by letter on June 5, 1867. The ceremony was held during Oxford's Encaenia, combining commencement with the celebration of spring, occasioned by readings, poetry, music, lectures, and a full-dress university parade, reflecting centuries of British tradition. Ref.: Ibid.

Carroll, Lewis. 3-Sheldonian Theatre. The honorary degree ceremony was held in the Sheldonian Theatre. Undergraduates, exerting their traditional right of banter, called aloud the names of dignitaries whom they either cheered or hissed. They cheered Lord Derby, groaned at MP John Bright (1811-99), both cheered and hissed PM William E. Gladstone (1809-98), and acclaimed PM Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81). Ref.: Ibid.

Carroll, Lewis. 4-"The lion of the day." GP was one of six individuals granted an honorary degree that day. When GP's name was called and he stood up, undergraduates applauded him, waved their caps, and beat the arms of their chairs with the flat of their hands. Jackson's Oxford Journal, June 29, 1867, recorded: "The lion of the day was beyond a doubt, Mr. Peabody." The Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford's famous assembly hall, was designed in 1669 by Christopher Wren, who was then astronomy professor at Oxford Univ. It was Wren's first major architectural commission and was named after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Gilbert Sheldon, who commissioned the theater while he was Oxford Univ.'s chancellor. Ref.: Ibid. Jackson's Oxford Journal, June 29, 1867, p. 5, c. 4-6. See: persons named. Oxford Univ., England. Honors, GP's.

Baltimore Lady to Whom GP Twice Proposed Marriage

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox) (1799-1880). 1-Alleged Romance. PIB Librarian Frank N. Jones's (b. 1906) pamphlet, George Peabody and the Peabody Institute, 1965, reported that in 1958 Mrs. Charles Rieman (formerly Elizabeth Taylor Goodwin who married Charles Rieman in 1899) gave the PIB Library an undated manuscript by Baltimore lawyer and philanthropist James Wilson Leakin (1857-1922) entitled "Family Tree of the Knoxes and Their Connections." In that manuscript an Oct. 17 1902, letter from James Wilson Leakin to Henrietta Cowman on their Knox ancestry told of a romance between GP and Elizabeth (née Knox) Carson, daughter of Samuel and Grace (née Gilmore) Knox of Baltimore. The relevant part of that letter is given below. Ref.: Jones, p. 7. See: Md. Historical Society Reference Librarian Francis P. O'Neill's Aug. 30, 2001, letter to the authors in which he shared the content of J.W. Leakin's Oct. 17 1902, letter (Librarian O'Neill's letter in the authors' possession).

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 2-GP's First Proposal (c. 1815-17). Of GP's first meeting with Elizabeth Carson, his marriage proposal, and her father's disapproval J.W. Leakin wrote: "…Of the younger daughter [of Rev. Samuel Knox] there is a very romantic story told by the daughter of a lady who was very intimate with her: 'When she [Elizabeth Carson] was quite a young girl, a clerk in a banking-house addressed her on a walk across the Long Bridge; that clerk's name was George Peabody. On the return he spoke to her father and he [her father] declined to give his [GP's] suit any encouragement because he had no means to support her and she afterwards married Mr. Carson, who was a man in a comfortable business, but who failed, leaving her with four or five children.'" Ref.: Ibid.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 3-GP's Second Proposal (probably Jan. 26 to Feb. 14, 1857). J.W. Leakin's letter then described GP's second unsuccessful proposal: "When Mr. Peabody heard that she was a widow, after the lapse of years and the attendant incumbrances which it had brought to her, he came back and again addressed her while she was obliged to work for a living, keeping a boarding house. At that time Mr. Peabody was one of the leading bankers of the world, having a house in New York, London and Washington. Mrs. Carson had the old world idea, of those who are strictly brought up, that there was a great deal of deceitfulness in riches, and the story goes that she spent all night in prayer to know whether or not she ought to accept Mr. Peabody and on the next morning she told him that she felt she could not accept him." Ref.: Ibid.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 4-Last Meeting (probably Oct. 24-25, 1866). J.W. Leakin's letter described their third and last meeting: "I remember hearing when I was a very small boy, living with my grandmother who was then a very old lady, that this great-aunt, Mrs. Carson, came to Baltimore and went with my grandmother to a reception which was given Mr. Peabody on the occasion of the opening of the Peabody Institute, which was donated by him to this city, and when Mrs. Carson came onto the stage where he was receiving the people, he left everyone else and advanced to where she was, then an old woman of seventy, and took her in his arms in that public place and said 'Well, Eliza, is this you?'. Afterwards, he dined with Mr. John W. Garrett, and someone said to him, 'Mr. Peabody, I hear that you met your old sweetheart today.' And he said 'Yes', but that it was a subject on which he did not care to talk; that he had had a great many successes in his life, but that that was his greatest disappointment." Ref.: Ibid.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 5-Review: GP's Circumstances, 1815-17. GP's father's death, May 13, 1811, followed by the Newburyport, Mass., fire, May 31, 1811, led GP at 16 (he clerked in his older brother's store, ruined by the Newburyport fire) to migrate with paternal uncle John Peabody (1768-before 1826) to Georgetown, D.C., where they opened a dry good store on May 15, 1812. As a War of 1812 volunteer, GP at 19 met older (age 35) fellow soldier and experienced Georgetown, D.C., merchant Elisha Riggs, Sr. (1779-1853). Riggs in 1814 took GP as junior partner in Riggs & Peabody, which imported dry goods from abroad for sale to U.S. wholesalers. The firm moved to Baltimore in 1815. See: Great Fire of Newburyport, Mass.(May 31, 1811). Georgetown, D.C. Newburyport, Mass. Riggs, Sr., Elisha.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 6- Review: GP's Circumstances, 1815-17 (Cont'd). Early in GP's 22 years in Baltimore (1815-37), after which he moved permanently to London, he supported his mother and younger siblings, paid his deceased father's debts, paid the mortgage on the family home (Danvers, Mass.) to restore it to his mother and siblings, and paid for his younger siblings' schooling at Bradford Academy, Bradford, Mass. See: Bradford Academy, Bradford, Mass. Riggs, Peabody & Co.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 7- Review: GP's Circumstances, 1815-17 (Cont'd). GP most likely first met Elizabeth Knox during 1815-17. When he asked her father, Samuel Knox, for his daughter's hand in marriage, Samuel Knox thought GP unsuitable economically. In 1817, Elizabeth Knox at age 18 (GP was then age 22) married George Carson, a Baltimore bank teller. George Carson is believed to have died about 1841, after the birth of the couple's fourth child. Elizabeth Carson, in reduced circumstances, managed a boarding house, probably with distant relatives as boarders, at 206 West Lombard St., Baltimore Ref.: Jones. Md. Historical Society's Ref.: Libn. Francis P. O'Neill to authors, Aug. 30, 2001. See: Persons named.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 8-GP's Circumstances, 1857. GP in London from 1837 as head of George Peabody & Co., was a rising broker-banker dealing with American securities In 1838, when he was age 42, he met, fell in love with, and was engaged to Esther Elizabeth Hoppin (1819-1905). Strikingly beautiful and unusually mature at age 19, she was in London for Queen Victoria's coronation (June 28, 1838). In 1839, having returned to the U.S., she rekindled an earlier love with Alexander Lardner (1808-48) and broke her engagement to GP. She married Alexander Lardner on Oct. 2, 1840. Her portrait by artist Thomas Sully (1783-1872) in NYC's Frick Art Reference Library shows her in all her beauty. See: Hoppin, Esther Elizabeth. Sully, Thomas. Lardner, Alexander.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 9- Review: GP's Circumstances, 1857 (Cont'd). GP was intensely busy during his first U.S. visit (Sept. 15, 1856, to Aug. 19,1857) after nearly 20 years abroad. He added funds to his Peabody Institute Libraries in North and South Danvers, Mass., and was mainly concerned to establish the PIB. He was in Baltimore Jan. 26 to Feb. 14, 1857, during which receptions were held for him by the Md. Historical Society (Jan. 30) and the Md. Institute for the Promotion of Mechanic Arts (Feb. 2).ccccccccc He met with key PIB trustees to plan his Feb. 12, 1857, PIB founding letter. Sometime during Jan. 26 to Feb. 14, 1857, GP, then age 62, made his alleged second marriage proposal to Elizabeth Carson, then 58, when she was a widow in poor circumstances managing a boarding house in Baltimore. The Jones account is that she declined, saying that people would believe she had married GP solely for his money. Ref.: Ibid.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 10-GP's Sister on his Baltimore Receptions. GP's sister, Mrs. Judith Dodge (née Peabody) Russell Daniels (1799-1879), through whom he dispensed family funds, wrote him from Mass. (on Feb. 19, 1857) that the Md. Institute reception (Feb. 2) must have touched him deeply. Among the young ladies he had saluted so "heartily" in Baltimore that night, she teased, "may have been the daughter of...the beautiful [girl] whom as you remarked one day you would have married, if you had been 'silly enough!'" It was a teasing remark with more than a touch of pity. Ref.: Mrs. Judith (née Peabody) Russell, Georgetown, Mass., to GP, Feb. 19, 1857, Peabody Papers, PEM, Salem, Mass.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 11-GP's Sister on His Baltimore Receptions (Cont'd). Judith added, referring indirectly to his 1852 philanthropic motto: "Education: a debt due from present to future generations" (her underlining): "What...results of good, not only to your contemporaries but to 'future generations,' were pending on that one act of self-denial, practiced by you in the days of youthful romance. Even at this late day, I have given a tear of sympathy for what may be presumed to have been your feelings, when you made the 'wise' decision, and resolved to submit to what you certainly have a right to think a hard lot: and, did I believe that through life you had been less happy, I should most sincerely regret your 'wisdom' spite of generations, present and future--myself and posterity included...." "But my dear brother is not desolate although alone. One affection, at least, deeper, stronger, steadier than that of a wife, clinging to him with a firmer tenacity as age creeps on, and which no circumstances can change, follows him through all his wanderings. And for the children...all the children are his children." See: Daniels, Judith (née Peabody) Russell. Danvers, Mass., Centennial, June 16, 1852.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 12-Comment on Sister Judith's Letter. Judith's letter does not identify Elizabeth (née Knox) Carson or Esther Elizabeth Hoppin or another as "...the beautiful [girl] whom as you remarked one day you would have married, if you had been 'silly enough!" Two other ladies were publicly romantically linked to GP in London during 1852-53: Charlotte Manigault Wilcocks (18921-75), niece of U.S. Minister to Britain Joseph Reed Ingersoll (1786-1868), and Elise Tiffany, daughter of Baltimore friend Osmond Capron Tiffany (1794-1851). GP, then age 58, wrote to an intimate 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." See: Romance and GP. Persons named.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 13-GP's Circumstances, 1866. On GP's second busy U.S. visit during May 1, 1866-May 1, 1867, his main concern was to speak at the dedication of the PIB and to found the Peabody Education Fund. In Baltimore he spoke and greeted visitors at the Oct. 25, 1866, PIB dedication, the likely date he allegedly last saw Elizabeth Carson. In Leakin's words: "…he left everyone else…took her in his arms in that public place and said 'Well, Eliza, is this you?'" Leakin's letter stated that Elizabeth Carson, accompanied by his grandmother "came to Baltimore…" Md. Historical Society Ref.: Libn. O'Neill, who found Elizabeth Carson's death notice in York, Pa. (which was connected by rail with Baltimore), conjectured that she lived there with her daughter and son-in-law D.O. Prince from about the mid 1850s to her death. Ref.: O'Neill See: Visits to the U.S. by GP.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 11-Conclusion. It is doubtful that GP contemplated marriage after 1850. Publicity which accompanied his fame as a philanthropist in the 1860s mounted enormously at his last illness, Nov. 4, 1869, death in London, and unusual transatlantic funeral honors. Some obituary accounts attributed his philanthropic motive as compensation for a lost love. Such stories persisted long after his death. See: Death and Funeral, GP's. Romance and GP.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 12-Conclusion (Cont'd.). Second PEF administrator J.L.M. Curry's (1825-1903) 1898 book, A Brief Sketch of George Peabody, printed an undated letter from the daughter of a business friend of GP. She wrote that when her father congratulated GP on his amazing philanthropy (probably on GP's arrival in NYC, May 1, 1866), GP reportedly replied: "Humphreys, after my disappointment long ago, I determined to devote myself to my fellow-beings, and am carrying out that dedication to my best ability." See: Curry, Jabez Lamar Monroe.

Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox). 13-Conclusion (Cont'd.). There is documentation in GP's papers about Esther Elizabeth Hoppin, Miss Willcocks, and Elise Tiffany but no direct mention of Elizabeth (née Knox) Carson. That alleged romance, which rests on the evidence of J.W. Leakin's letter, is possible and even likely. A PIB Art Gallery catalog listing of an 1840 portrait of Elizabeth (née Knox) Carson contains the legend: "Lady to whom G. Peabody twice offered his hand." Ref.: Jones, p. 7. See: persons named. Romance and GP. For location of her portrait, see Ref.: g. Internet, under Peabody Art Collection, Md. State Archives.

Carson, George (d.? 1841). See: Carson, Elizabeth (née Knox), (above).

Broken Engagement

Cass, Lewis (1782-1866). 1-GP's Engagement "thoroughly discussed." Lewis Cass was U.S. Minister to France during 1836-42. Amid the vast publicity on GP's Nov. 4, 1869, death in London and his unprecedented 96-day transatlantic funeral, the story of GP's broken engagement to Esther Elizabeth Hoppin (1819-1905) appeared in some newspapers. The Providence Journal (R.I., Dec. 22, 1869) printed the following from an anonymous letter writer about the broken engagement: "I well remember, when in London, twenty-eight years ago, hearing all this talked over in a chosen circle of American friends; and also, at a brilliant dinner-party given by General Cass in Versailles, it was thoroughly discussed in all its length and breadth." See: Hoppin, Esther Elizabeth.

Cass, Lewis. 2-Career. Lewis Cass was born in Exeter, N.H.; was a lawyer in Zanesville, Ohio; was U.S. marshal for Ohio (1807-12); fought in the War of 1812; was Mich. Territory governor (1813-31); U.S. Secty. of War (1831-36); U.S. Minister to France (1836-42); U.S. Sen. from Mich. (1845-48); and U.S. Secty. of State (1857-60). Ref.: Ibid.

Castle Connell, Limerick, lreland. In June 1867 and in July 1868 GP rented the Castle Connell, Limerick, Ireland, on the Shannon River, where he liked to fish. MP John Bright (1811-89) was his guest on both occasions. GP's little known unusual gift (amount and date of gift not known) of a stone-based metal railing in front of the Catholic Church, Limerick, Ireland, has carved on it: "THIS RAILING IS THE GIFT OF GEORGE PEABODY ESQ." See: Bright, John. Ireland.

GP Bicentennial Celebrations (Feb. 18, 1795-1995)

Catto, Rt. Hon. Lord (Sir Stephen Gordon, 1923-), is the former head of the Morgan Grenfell Group banking firm, lineal descendant of George Peabody & Co. (1838-64), 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. Lord Catto was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge Univ.; he succeeded his father as 2nd Baron Catto (1936); served with the RAF in WW II; and headed Morgan Grenfell & Co. Ltd. (from 1948) and its successor Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Group (1980-87). 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).

Cazenove, Philip (1798-1880), who paid for British artist Henry William Pickersgill's (1782-1875) portrait of GP in the Corporation of London's Guildhall, is listed in Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, 18th edn. (1965j), Vol. 1, p. 128, as "of Clapham, Founder of the Girls School at Green Lane and of Bolingbrooke Hospital." Ref.: London Times, April 10, 1866, p. 5, c. 3; and April 11, 1866, p. 5, c. 5. [Cazenove, Philip]. See: Pickersgill, Henry William.

Centennial Celebration, GP's, 1895. For speeches, messages received, and Queen Victoria's cablegram, with sources, see: George Peabody Centennial Celebration (Feb. 18, 1795-1895). Victoria, Queen.

Governor of Maine

Chamberlain, Joshua Lawrence (1828-1914), governor of Maine, participated in the Jan. 25-Feb. 1, 1870, reception of GP's remains aboard HMS Monarch, accompanied by the USS Plymouth, in Portland harbor, Maine. Gov. Chamberlain was born in Brewer, Maine; graduated from Bowdoin College (1852) and attended Bangor Theological Seminary; taught at Bowdoin College (1855-62); was a Lt. Col. in the 20th Maine Infantry; won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his defense of Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg (1863); was promoted to brig. gen. in the field by commanding Gen. U.S. Grant (1822-85) in June 1864; was Maine governor (1867-71); president of Bowdoin College (1871-83); and active in railroads and industry. Ref.: Boatner, p. 135. See: Death and funeral, GP's.

Chamier, Frederick (1796-1870). In his journal U.S. novelist Herman Melville (1819-91) recorded those present, including GP, when in Nov. 1849 he dined at the London home of Weymouth, Mass.-born head of the Baring Brothers banking firm Joshua Bates (1788-1864): "There was a Baron opposite me and a most lovely young girl, a daughter of Captain Chamier, the sea novelist...." See: Melville, Herman.

Chandler, Charles W. (d. Feb. 9, 1882). 1-Married GP's Niece Julia Adelaide Peabody. Charles W. Chandler was principal of the high school in Zanesville, Muskingum County, Ohio (April 1855-June 1865) and interim school superintendent (Jan. 7, 1862-63). He married GP's niece Julia Adelaide (née Peabody, b. April 25, 1835) Chandler (see immediately below) on Oct. 16, `1861, recorded in the Court of Common Pleas Probate Division, 401 Main St., Zanesville, Oh. 43701-3567. She was the daughter of GP's oldest brother David Peabody (1790-1841). Ref.: (High school principal): Everhart, pp. 221-222. (Marriage): Tunis.

Chandler, C.W. 2-Named Executor of GP's U.S. Estate. In his last will of Sept. 9, 1869, GP named two executors of his U.S. estates: nephew-in-law Charles W. Chandler and nephew Robert Singleton Peabody (1837-1904), son of GP's sister Judith Dodge (née Peabody) Daniels (1799-1879). GP left each U.S. executor $5,000 (ƒ1,000). Ref.: Death and Funeral, GP's, 4. See: Chandler, Julia Adelaide (née Peabody) below. Wills, GP's.

Favorite Niece

Chandler, Julia Adelaide (née Peabody) (b. April 25, 1835). 1-GP's Niece. During his first U.S. visit (Sept. 15, 1856 to Aug 19, 1857) after nearly 20 years' absence as a merchant-banker in London, GP became acquainted with his niece, Julia Adelaide Peabody, then age 21. This daughter of oldest brother David Peabody (1790-1841) became GP's favorite niece. She lived in Zanesville, Ohio, with her mother, David Peabody's second wife, Mrs. Phebe (née Reynolds) Peabody, went to finishing school in Philadelphia at uncle GP's expense, and married Zanesville, Ohio, lawyer Charles W. Chandler (d. 1882), who was an executor of GP's U.S. estate at GP's death.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 2-Background. In April 1811 David Peabody, oldest in the family of 8, employed GP, then age 16, as clerk in a dry goods shop David and partner Samuel Swett managed on State St., Newburyport, Mass. GP's father's death, May 13, 1811, in debt in Danvers, Mass., plus a devastating fire in Newburyport, May 31, 1811, led GP and paternal uncle John Peabody (1768-before 1826), whose store was burned, to sail from Newburyport, May 4, 1812, to Georgetown, D.C., where they opened a dry goods store, May 15, 1812. See: Riggs, Sr., Elisha.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 3-Brothers Worked for Riggs, Peabody & Co. GP managed the store, his uncle having gone into other enterprises. GP also served briefly in the War of 1812. He met older fellow soldier and experienced merchant Elisha Riggs, Sr. (1779-1853), who took GP, then age 19, as junior partner in Riggs, Peabody & Co. (1814-29), importers of dry goods from abroad for sale to U.S. wholesalers. The firm prospered. When Elisha Riggs, Sr., left the firm in 1829 to become a NYC banker, his place was taken by his nephew, Samuel Riggs (d.1853), in the renamed Peabody, Riggs & Co. (1829-48). See: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 4-Brothers Worked for Riggs, Peabody & Co. Cont'd. GP's three brothers occasionally worked for the firm: David Peabody, younger brothers Thomas Peabody (1801-35), and Jeremiah Dodge Peabody (1805-77, who early left the firm to become a farmer in Zanesville, Ohio). Correspondence from family and the firms detailed below indicated that Thomas and to a lesser extent David were improvident, gambled, drank, and were often in debt. Correspondence also indicated that oldest brother David may have been remiss in dealings with GP, but that GP aided financially David's son by his first wife (mentioned below) and daughter Julia Adelaide by his second wife. See: persons named.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 5-GP Paid for Relatives' Schooling. On Jan. 20, 1814, in Newburyport, Mass., David Peabody married Sally Caldwell. She died soon after 1815, leaving a son named after his uncle, George Peabody (1815-32). In Nov. 1816 David transferred to GP, now the main family supporter, title to their late father's mortgaged Danvers, Mass., home. Newburyport lawyer Ebon Mosely wrote to 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." By Jan. 1817 GP had paid off his late father's debts and restored his mother and younger siblings to their Danvers home (they had been forced to live separately with Spofford relatives in Salem, Mass.). Ref.: Ebon Mosley, Newburyport, Mass., to GP, Baltimore, Dec. 16, 1816, Peabody Papers, PEM.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 6-GP Paid for Relatives' Schooling Cont'd. GP paid for six of his relatives' schooling at Bradford Academy, Mass., during most of the 1820s, and bought a house for the family in West Bradford. Those who attended Bradford Academy were: 1-youngest born brother Jeremiah Peabody in 1819; 2-fourth born child Judith Dodge Peabody (1799-1879) during 1821-27; 3-seventh born and third of four sisters Mary Gaines Peabody (1807-34) in 1822-23; 4-eighth born and fourth sister Sophronia Phelps Peabody (b.1809) in 1827; 5-young cousin Adolphus William Peabody (b. 1814, paternal uncle John Peabody's son) during 1827-29; and 6-nephew George Peabody (1815-32, oldest brother David's son who sadly died of scarlet fever at age 17) in 1827. Ref.: (David Peabody married Sally Caldwell): Vital Records...Newburyport, Mass. ...to...1849, Vol. II, p. 360. See: Bradford Academy. Persons named.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 7-Nephew Asked for Aid for College. David's son named after GP wrote to ask if his uncle would help him financially to attend Yale College. GP, back in London after a 15-month commercial buying trip in Europe, replied positively on May 18, 1831. Perhaps the cultural scenes he briefly glimpsed on his commercial travels induced the following poignant letter that helps explain GP's later philanthropy.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 8-"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." Sadly this nephew died Sept. 24, 1832, in Boston of scarlet fever, his potential unfulfilled. Ref.: GP, London, to nephew George Peabody, May 18, 1831, Peabody Papers, PEM, Salem, Mass.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 9-Elisha Riggs, Sr. on GP's Difficult Brothers. In Jan. and Feb. 1827 Elisha Riggs, Sr., then GP's senior partner, wrote in confidence to GP, then working out of Baltimore for the firm, of serious difficulties with younger brother Thomas Peabody and some irritations from oldest brother David Peabody. "My whole time," Elisha Riggs, Sr., wrote to GP, "was employed late & early in attending to various business, While I was also much trouble[d] in Mind, as to what course to take with Thomas P[eabody] who I had nearly lost confidence in, and had to be attentive to every thing in the way of business myself, as but little appeared to be done as it should be without my personal attention." See: Riggs, Sr., Elisha.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 10-Elisha Riggs, Sr. on GP's Difficult Brothers Cont'd.: "I have caused Thomas to remove from his old boarding place to Mr. Devens where I board. [H]e has been here about three days. [H]e promises to be regular in his habits for the future and is generally in the house of nights in good time--As I often have writing for him to do in my room. I have paid all his debts of borrowed money, taylors, shoe bills, etc., with the exception of about 150$ which he borrowed he says of Brokers & Lotter [lottery, i.e. gambling] men, of which David Peabody was also bound. This I told him I would not pay at present. I keep a strick eye over him as well as my business will allow me to do--And have assured him, that if he ever acted again as he has done, that I would certainly get another Clerk--I have taken great pains and talked with him very carefully as to the consequences of his conduct--he appears penitent and I hope will keep his promise hereafter." Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 11-Elisha Riggs, Sr. on GP's Difficult Brothers Cont'd.: "I have acted the part of a good friend toward him in every respect, which he appears to feel and acknowledge. A short time will enable him to see and determine--I understand from Thomas that David is now employed in a lottery office. He is occasionally in the Store...." Riggs ended with: "This letter is written in haste for yourself only, as I have never mentioned to any person except yourself anything about T.P. [Thomas Peabody]. You will therefore destroy this letter...." Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 12-GP's Mother Ill. Often in financial trouble, David in NYC wrote brother Thomas in Baltimore that he needed money. Thomas replied, Nov. 18, 1828, that he was without a job and could do nothing. Four days later GP sent Thomas $15 which Thomas sent to David. Thomas sought better prospects in South America. He wrote older brother David from Lima, Peru, April 30, 1830, that he was working there as bookkeeper for Alsop, Wetmore & Co.'s agent, that their brother GP was about to sail for England on his second European commercial buying trip (1831-32, 15 months), and that their mother, in poor health, was living with recently married daughter Mary Gaines (née Peabody) Marsh in Lockport, N.Y. On April 30, 1830, Mary wrote David in NYC that their mother was still in poor health, that she had the ague followed by a high intermittent fever. Caleb Marsh (b.1800) also wrote David that mother Peabody was seriously ill and that he did not think she would recover. Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 13-GP's Mother Died, June 22, 1830. On June 25, 1830, Mary wrote David that their mother had died on June 22, 1830, a month short of her sixtieth year. David forwarded Mary's letter about their mother's death to GP by the next ship bound for England. He added to GP, in a postscript to Mary's letter: "The above I just recd in time to forward by the Canada [ship]--which sails in an hour. I should have gone to Lockport a month since if it had been in my power to have paid the expense of the journey. Yrs. truly, D. Peabody." Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 14-Thomas Peabody Ill and Unemployed. Thomas Peabody was ill in Lima, Peru; gave up his job there; worked his way back to the U.S. as a ship's clerk, and lost that job when a new crew was hired. GP was out of the country on a European buying trip when Thomas landed in Baltimore without work. He wrote David in NYC: "George being out of the country my necessity for employment is very great & for the present I would be willing to take up with almost any situation." Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 15-Thomas Peabody's Death, 1835. Peabody family letters hint at rather than detail Thomas Peabody's misdemeanors. He had evidently wronged brother David and begged to be forgiven. Thomas Peabody died April 16, 1835, the day before his thirty-fourth birthday. He had been operating a school and had gone to pay some debts in Buffalo, N.Y. Not having enough money to meet his obligations and overcome with remorse and shame, he died in circumstances not specified in family letters. Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 16-Thomas Peabody's Death, 1835 Cont'd. GP, then in Europe, had the sad news in an April 20, 1835, letter, from his brother-in-law, Dr. Eldridge Gerry Little, a physician, married to GP's youngest sister Sophronia Phelps (née Peabody) Little (b.1809). Dr. Little wrote to GP: "It becomes my painful duty to inform you of the death of Thomas. He died in Buffalo on the 16th inst. a victim of his own vices." Four months later sister Judith Dodge (née Peabody) Russell in her Aug. 23, 1835, letter to GP, referred to Thomas as their "poor misguided brother." She also relayed news that oldest brother David had married again. He met his second wife when he boarded at her home in Brookline, near Boston, Mass. David and his new family moved to Zanesville, Ohio, where youngest brother Jeremiah had settled on a farm. Maybe, Judith added about David, having a wife again might teach him economy. Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 17-GP and Niece Julia, 1856-57. During his 1856-57 U.S. visit GP was busy visiting friends, being honored, fêted, seeing after his institute library in what is now Peabody, Mass., founding a branch library in what is now Danvers, Mass., founding the PIB (Feb. 12, 1857), traveling to see vast changes in the U.S. since his 20-year absence abroad. He was in Zanesville, Ohio, Nov. 1856 with brother Jeremiah's family and became acquainted with niece Julia Adelaide, age 21. He overcame her mother's initial doubts about sending Julia to a finishing school in Philadelphia at his expense. Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 18-With Julia in Philadelphia, 1857. GP was in Philadelphia Jan. 10-18, 1857, partly to sit for a portrait in artist James Read Lambdin's (1807-89) Philadelphia studio, partly to be with niece Julia Adelaide, then attending finishing school in Philadelphia. With GP in Philadelphia was Baltimorean and PIB trustee Charles James Madison Eaton (1808-93). Eaton, an art collector, was keen to visit the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Artist James Read Lambdin, its director, took the group to visit the art gallery. GP preferred to sit and wait while the others toured the gallery. See: Eaton, Charles James Madison.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 19-"Julia will be a solace to your declining years." On May 20, 1857, sister Judith wrote GP from her home in Georgetown, Mass. She was glad he had taken Julia under his wing, sent her to school in Philadelphia, and had someone to lavish his affections on. She recalled how often Julia's father David, their deceased brother, had been jobless and in debt, how GP had time and again aided David and all the family. "I trust," she wrote, "that Julia will be a solace to your declining years, and by her affection, wipe away the remembrance of the wrongs you have received from her father." Ref.: Mrs. Judith (née Peabody) Russell, Georgetown, Mass., to GP, May 20, 1857, Peabody Papers, PEM, Salem, Mass.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 20-Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, April 1857, published an extensive, laudatory account of GP's life, rise in business, saving Md.'s credit abroad, and philanthropic gifts. The article, reprinted in pamphlet form, was widely circulated. Niece Julia Adelaide had a copy, wrote to tell GP that all her friends said he was quite handsome and that she was making a miniature painting of the GP frontispiece picture. She asked in her letter, "Will 'somebody' please send me a lock of his hair." Ref.: Julia Adelaide Peabody, Zanesville, Ohio, to GP, April 30, 1857, Peabody Papers, PEM, Salem, Mass.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 21-GP & Niece Julia Visit Yale College. In July 1857 GP took Julia with him to New Haven, Conn., to visit Yale College, where nephew Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-99), son of GP's deceased younger sister Mary Gaines (née Peabody) Marsh, was studying science. While there he had a visit from science Prof. Benjamin Silliman, Sr. (1779-1864). Neither man could foresee that nine years later GP would endow Peabody museums at Harvard and Yale Universities. Ref.: "George Peabody-a."

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 22-Panic of 1857. Having Boston merchant Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90) as partner in George Peabody & Co., London, from Oct. 1, 1854, freed GP for his 1856-57 U.S. visit. J.S. Morgan wrote GP frequently about business affairs. On Jan. 30, 1857, Morgan alerted GP to a brewing financial panic: "The drawing upon us for the last two or three mails have been very heavy and the look of our financial business is anything but encouraging for it." Morgan warned GP again on Feb. 27 and Apr. 9: "These are times when we must keep a sharp lookout. We are in a good position and must keep so." See: Morgan, Junius Spencer.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 23-Panic of 1857 Cont'd. On April 11 GP's cousin Joseph Peabody wrote from NYC of a Paris firm (Greene & Co.) "obliged to suspend...." Alarmed, J.S. Morgan wrote GP, April 17, that money was stringent, and the specie of the Bank of England were down to nine million, "the lowest point in ten years." GP hurriedly left NYC for London on Aug. 19, 1857. He found that hundreds of U.S. and British firms had collapsed, that Lawrence, Stone and Co. of Boston, which owed him a large sum, could not repay him, that Baring Brothers of London were pressing George Peabody & Co. for £150,000 ($750,000) owed them. George Peabody & Co. was in trouble. Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 24-GP to Julia about the Panic. On Nov. 13, 1857, GP wrote of his distress to niece Julia Adelaide Peabody: "This letter I promised to write you has been postponed because of my constant engagements and the unparalleled gloom of the Panic. What will happen, Heaven only knows. Lack of confidence and distrust is universal here and in the United States. I hope my house will weather the storm. I think it will do so even though so many in debt to me cannot pay. If I fail I will bear it like a man. In my conscience I know I never deceived or injured any other human being." Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 25-GP to Julia about the Panic Cont'd : "It is less than three months since I left you in the United States, prosperous and happy. Now all is gloom and affliction. Nearly all the American houses in Europe have suspended operations and nothing but great strength can save them. It is the loss of credit of my house I fear. In any circumstances, only a small part of my private fortune will be lost. I will have enough for all my required purposes." GP held this letter for some weeks, determined not to worry his niece and to secure a Bank of England loan. Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 26-Bank of England Loan. Gathering his assets, GP anxiously applied for a $4 million loan from the Bank of England. While the Bank of England considered the loan request, some financiers, seeing an opportunity to force GP out of business, approached GP's partner J.S. Morgan and said that they would guarantee the loan if George Peabody & Co. ceased business in London. Second PEF administrator Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry (1825-1903) later wrote that GP raged like a wounded lion "and told Mr. Morgan to reply that he dared them to cause his failure." The Bank of England made the loan, enabling GP to satisfy his creditors, and by March 30, 1858, GP was able to repay the Bank of England. On April 16, 1858, GP wrote Washington, D.C., business friend William Wilson Corcoran (1798-1888), "My business is again quite snug. ....Our credit...stands as high as ever before." Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 27-GP Explained to Julia . GP held the letter to Julia for three weeks and then added: "My very dear Niece,--The three pages enclosed, as you will see from the date were written three weeks ago when I felt...that the credit of my house was in danger.... I thought to myself, Why should I make my good niece unhappy, however so my miserable self? and consequently declined to send the letter, and I am glad that I did not. "A few days after I felt it to be my duty to apply to the banks for a loan of money sufficient to carry my house through the crisis, proposing security for the full amount required, which was four million dollars. It was a severe test to my pride, but after a week spent with the Committees and Directors of the Banks I finally succeeded, and I doubt not that my house is now free from all danger.... Don't you hold your head less high or your heart worth less than you did before, for your Uncle George had done nothing but what among sensible persons will raise him higher than before." Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 28-J.S. Morgan Visited Julia, 1858. J.S. Morgan was in the U.S. in late 1858 and went to see GP's niece Julia in Oct. He wrote to GP on Nov. 2, 1858, that he had seen Julia and "found her all that I had expected from your description.... I am not surprised at your feelings toward her as she seemed a person uncommonly attractive both in mind and person." GP also wrote his niece Julia in late 1858 that, following attacks of gout in his feet and right hand, he had been to and returned from Vichy, France, where he had taken the mineral water cure under the care of a physician. His illness led him to confide to Julia that when his partnership with J.S. Morgan expired in 1864, or before, he hoped to return to the U.S. and lead a quiet life. Of the Panic of 1857 he wrote: "I am happy also to tell you that although my firm lost some money the business of the year more than made it good, and individually I am now worth much more than I supposed myself when I left the United States and I sincerely feel that what we supposed misfortunes and calamities last year were, so far as regards myself, really 'blessings in disguise.'" Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 29-Julia in Philadelphia School. Julia, in school in Philadelphia, wrote her mother of parties she had attended at Christmas 1857, of lovely clothes her uncle had approved her buying, that she was going to NYC and then to visit GP's business friends the Wetmores in R.I., and that she promised her uncle to write regularly to aunt Judith, who was always in touch with GP. Ref.: Ibid.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 30-Julia Married Charles W. Chandler. Julia Adelaide Peabody married Charles W. Chandler (d. Feb. 9, 1882) in Zanesville, Ohio, on Oct. 16, 1861. He was the principal of the high school in Zanesville during April 1855-June 1865, was acting school superintendent, 1862), and was named by GP before his death as one of the U.S. executives of his U.S. estate (the other U.S. executor was GP's nephew Robert Singleton Peabody [1837-1904]). Ref.: (Julia's marriage) Tunis. (Chandler as high school principal): Everhart, pp. 221-222.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 31-GP's 1866-67 Visit. On May 18, 1866, soon after GP's arrival for his second U.S. visit (May 1, 1866-May 1, 1867), Mrs. George Peabody Russell, wife of GP's nephew (sister Judith Dodge née Peabody Russell's son) wrote Julia Adelaide news of their uncle: "He is a very handsome old gentleman looking as they all say much better than when he left here. He seems perfectly happy and never tires of planning for the good of those who are dear to him, as you will know before long." Ref.: Mrs. George Peabody Russell to Mrs. Julia Adelaide (née Peabody) Chandler, May 18, 1866, Peabody Papers, PEM.

Chandler, J.A. (née Peabody). 32-Last Visits. On Nov. 2-10, 1866, GP was in Zanesville for a family visit and saw Julia and her family (she then had two children). There were later family gatherings during GP's third and last U.S. visit, June 8-Sept. 29, 1869. His weakened condition was evident. Saddest of all was the family gathering at his final funeral service in Peabody, Mass., Feb. 8, 1870. Court of Common Pleas Probate Division, 401 Main St., Zanesville, Oh. 43701-3567, has the marriage record of Julia Adelaide Peabody to Charles W. Chandler in 1862 and of Charles W. Chandler's death on Feb. 9, 1882. See: Chandler, Charles W. (above). Death and Funeral, GP's. Wills, GP's.

Chapman, John Lee (1812-80), was the mayor of Baltimore who, with city council members, greeted GP and guests on arrival, Oct. 24, 1866, to attend PIB dedication and opening ceremonies, Oct. 25-26, 1866. GP's guests included Charles Macalester (1798-1873) of Philadelphia, Capt. Charles H.E. Judkins of the Scotia, GP's nephew George Peabody Russell (1835-1909) and wife, nephew Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-99), and George Peabody Wetmore (1846-1921) of Newport, R.I. (later R.I. governor, 1885-87, and U.S. senator. 1895-1913); and some PIB trustees. They were taken by carriage to Barnum's City Hotel as guests of the city (GP had lived at Barnum's from its opening [about 1836] until his departure for London in Feb. 1837). Ref.: Coyle, pp. 106-115. See: U.S. Visits, 1866-67. Persons named.

Chapple, William Dismore. Author of George Peabody (Salem, Mass.: Peabody Museum, 1948). See: Peabody, George, Biographies.

Charity Commissioners, London. On March 27, 1862, following GP's letter of March 12, 1862, founding the Peabody Donation Fund (to build and manage model apartments for London's working poor, $2.5 million total gift), trustee James Emerson Tennent (1791-1869) wrote to GP: "I have returned after spending a very long time with the Commissioners of Charities who enter with the most lively interest into the arrangements for our trust. They tell me that in the whole range of charities of England there is nothing to compare with the disinterestedness and magnitude of your gift." See: Peabody Homes of London.

Charles St., and Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore. Site chosen for the PIB. For other sites proposed and discussed, see: PIB.

Charleston, S.C. During GP's Sept. 15, 1856-Aug. 19, 1857, U.S. visit, his first return to the U.S. after nearly 20 years' absence in London (since Feb. 1837), he visited Charleston, S.C., March 7, 1857. For details and sources of GP's March-April 1857 travel itinerary, see: Augusta, Ga.

Chase, Salmon Portland (1808-73), was N.H.-born, a Dartmouth College graduate (1826), U.S. Senator (1849-55), Ohio governor (1855-59), Pres. Abraham Lincoln's Treasury Secty. (1861-64), and U.S. Chief Justice (from 1864). GP sent S.P. Chase a copy of his Oct. 27, 1851, dinner book (U.S.-British friendship dinner, London, to departing U.S. exhibitors, Great Exhibition of 1851, London, first world's fair). Chase sent GP a report by Socialist David Dale Owen (1807-60) and a letter introducing the editor of the Washington, D.C., weekly journal National Era. Ref.: Salmon P. Chase to GP, March 17, and April 27, 1853, Peabody Papers, PEM. See: Great Exhibition of 1851, London (first world's fair).

Cherbourg, France, is the French seaport on the English Channel where the Confederate CSS Alabama was intercepted (June 14, 1864) and sunk (June 19, 1864) by the Union warship, USS Kearsarge, under Capt. John Ancrum Winslow (1811-73). For details and sources on how the Alabama affected GP's funeral, see: Alabama Claims.

Chicago Bank One. See: Peabody, George (1795-1869), Critics-18-32.

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Co. For GP's part in selling abroad the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Co. part of Md.'s $8 million bond sale abroad, from 1837, see: Md.'s $8 Million Bond Sale Abroad and GP.

Chicago Historical Society, Chicago, Ill., has New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley's (1811-72) Aug. 24, 1854, letter asking GP to aid his wife if needed on her trip to Sweden. See: Greeley, Horace.

Childers, Hugh Culling Eardley (1827-96). On Dec. 8, 1869, First Lord of the Admiralty Hugh Culling Eardley Childers boarded HMS Monarch, Portsmouth, England, to inspect preparations in progress to receive GP's remains. Born and died in London, Childers was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He emigrated to Australia (1850), rose rapidly in the civil service, became a member of the Australian cabinet (1856), and was founder and first vice chancellor, Univ. of Melbourne. He returned to London (1857) as Queen Victoria's agent general; was elected Liberal MP for Pontefract (1860); was financial secretary, Treasury Dept. (1865-66); was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in PM W.E. Gladstone's cabinet (1868-71); was chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster (1872-73); was Gladstone's Secretary for War (1880-82), Chancellor of the Exchequer (1882), and Home Secretary (retired 1892). Ref.: "Hugh Culling Eardley Childers," Vol. 5, pp. 502-503. See: Death and Funeral, GP's.

PEF Trustee

Childs, George William (1829-94), was elected a PEF trustee to succeed trustee Anthony Joseph Drexel (1826-93) but died before he could take his seat on the board. Childs's place was taken by George Peabody Wetmore (1846-1921) of Rhode Island. George W. Childs was born in Baltimore, was publisher of the Philadelphia Public Ledger during 1864-94, and as a philanthropist educated over 800 children, gave a Shakespearean memorial fountain to Stratford-on-Avon, a memorial window in Westminster Abbey, and helped establish a home for printers in Colorado Springs. Ref.: Curry-b, p. 105.

Choate, Joseph Hodges (1832-1917), nephew of Rufus Choate (below) was a PEF trustee elected to succeed trustee Hamilton Fish (1809-93). Joseph H. Choate was born in Salem, Mass., was a Harvard Law School graduate (1854), a NYC lawyer who helped expose the Tweed Ring in 1871 and 1894, was U.S. Ambassador to Britain (1899-1905), and the U.S. delegate to the Second Hague Conference (1907). Ref.: Curry-b, p. 107.

Choate, Rufus (1799-1859), uncle of Joseph Hodges Choate (above), was a prominent Mass. lawyer and statesman. He was unable to attend but sent a letter instead extolling the importance on June 16, 1852, of the 100th anniversary of the separation of Danvers from Salem, Mass. This was the occasion when GP, also invited to attend but unable to leave London, had his letter dated London, May 26, 1852, read aloud by boyhood playmate John Waters Proctor (1791-1874). This letter contained GP's first gift founding his first Peabody Institute Library to which he ultimately gave $217,000. His letter also contained his motto: Education--a debt due from present to future generations. Rufus Choate was born in Ipswich, Mass., graduated from Dartmouth College (1819), began his law practice in Danvers, served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1830-35), had a large Boston law practice, succeeded Daniel Webster (1782-1852) in the U.S. Senate (1841-45), and was a leading orator of the time. See: Danvers, Mass., Centennial Celebration, June. 16, 1852.

Christ Church College, Oxford Univ. Dr. Henry Longueville Mansel (1820-71) of Oxford Univ.'s Christ Church College wrote asking GP if he would accept an honorary degree. GP agreed on June 5, 1867, to accept. For details on the awarding of the honorary Doctor of Laws degree to GP on June 26, 1867, with sources, see: Oxford Univ., England.

Cincinnati, Ohio. During GP's Sept. 15, 1856-Aug. 19, 1857, U.S. visit, his first return to the U.S. after nearly 20 years' absence in London (since Feb. 1837), he visited Cincinnati, Ohio, where he declined a public dinner, met citizens at the Merchants' Exchange, and received and acknowledged resolutions of praise (April 10, 1857). For details and sources of GP's March-April 1857 itinerary, see: Augusta, Ga.

Exclusive Clubs

City of London Club. 1-Basis for Anti-Americanism. In 1844 GP was denied membership (blackballed) at London's Reform Club, although proposed for membership by two members of Parliament. The economic reason for the then anti-U.S. feeling in Britain was that the Panic of 1837 and the severe depression that followed led nine states, including Md., to stop interest payments on their bonds sold abroad. GP had gone to Europe in Feb. 1837, on his fifth business trip abroad, as Md.'s agent to sell the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Co. part of Md.'s $8 million bond issue. He remained in London the rest of his life (1837-69) moving from dry goods merchant to securities broker to international banker. See: Md.'s $8 Million Bond Sale Abroad and GP.

City of London Club. 2-Basis for Anti-Americanism Cont'd. British and European investors, many retired, their widows and children, were economically hurt and angry at the repudiating states. In this anti-U.S. context, GP was blackballed when proposed for membership in the Reform Club in 1844. Years later when his leadership role in championing resumption of interest payment on U.S. bonds became known, he was accepted without opposition into membership at the Parthenon Club (1848), the City of London Club (1850), and others. Ref.: Ibid. City of London Club, p. 51.

City of London Club. 3-GP's Leadership Role. GP urged Md. state officials to resume interest payments quickly and retroactively. He also publicly assured British and other European investors that repudiation was temporary, that interest payments would resume, and that they would be retroactive. By 1847 news that Md. and other defaulting states had recovered, had resumed interest payments retroactively, and that GP was partly responsible echoed in financial circles on both sides of the Atlantic. The London correspondent of the New York Courier & Enquirer wrote: "...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 [truth].... [He is] a merchant of high standing...but also an uncompromising denouncer of chicanery in every shape." Ref.: Ibid.

City of London Club. 4-Taken into Clubs. It was in this glow of publicity that GP was taken into the Parthenon Club (1848) four years after being blackballed at the Reform Club (1844). He proudly wrote to a friend, "This Club [Parthenon] ranks much higher than the Reform." Election to the City of London Club (1850) was followed by membership in the prestigious Athenaeum Club (Feb. 3, 1863). Under its Rule Two, the Athenaeum annually admitted nine members who were eminent in science, literature, the arts, or public service. GP's admission came after he established the Peabody Donation Fund (March 12, 1862) which built and managed model apartments for low income London working people (total gift, $2.5 million). Ref.: (Parthenon Club): GP to John Glenn, April 20, 1848, quoted in Hidy, M.E.-c, p. 301. Ref.: (Athenaeum Club): Ward, pp. 195-198.

City of London Club. 5-Other Honors. Other honors that followed from GP's housing gift included the Freedom of the City of London (July 10, 1862; the first U.S. citizen to accept this honor); membership in two ancient guilds, the Clothworkers' Company (July 2, 1862) and the Fishmongers' Company (April 18,1866); and other honors. See: clubs named.

City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. GP gave $165 to this hospital during 1850-55 (perhaps more but not recorded). Ref.: Parker dissertation, p. 1085.

Civil War (1861-65). See: Civil War and GP (below).

GPAttacked as Confederate Sympathizer

Civil War and GP. 1-Confederate Sympathizer? GP was attacked for alleged Civil War pro-Confederate anti-Union bond sale profiteering. He was also defended as an active Union supporter. This controversy raged from 1861 until well after his Nov. 4, 1869, death. Many European investors, initially uncertain which side would win the Civil War, sold their U.S. securities. European investors did not start buying again until Union victory was assured in 1864.

GP Critic John Bigelow

Civil War and GP. 2-Earliest Charge by John Bigelow. U.S. Consul Gen. in Paris John Bigelow (1817-1911) wrote confidentially to Secty. of State William Henry Seward (1801-72), July 17, 1862, accusing GP of exaggerating Federal reversals in the Civil War in order to cause financial panic and so reap a personal fortune. But John Bigelow did not submit proof. Wallace and Gillespie, editors of U.S. Legation in London Secty. Benjamin Moran's (1820-86) journal, who mention John Bigelow's charge against GP, add: "Henry [Brooks] Adams [1838-1918], however in the Education [of Henry Adams] speaks of the loyalty of Peabody and Barings [Baring Brothers banking firm, London]." Ref.: (Bigelow's charge against GP): Wallace and Gillespie, eds., p. 933, note 16.

Civil War and GP. 3-Career. Born in Malden, N.Y., Bigelow graduated from Union College (1835), was a lawyer, then a journalist, an inspector at Sing Sing, N.Y., 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's unsubstantiated charge was repeated through the years. (Note: For doubt cast about Bigelow's criticism of GP's loyalty, see: Bigelow, John. "Bigelow, John…" in Ref.:, end of book).

Defense of GP

Civil War and GP. 4-New York Times Defense. Other sources just as adamantly declared GP a Unionist. A writer for the New York Times, May 23, 1861, for example, reported: "Dispatches by the Persia state that the agents of the Rebel Government have explored Europe in vain for money, to be had in exchange for their bonds. Mr. Dudley Mann [Ambrose Dudley Mann, 1801-89, Confederate emissary] had sought an interview with Mr. George Peabody in the hope of negotiating a loan, and had been politely, but firmly repulsed. In no case, had they found their securities marketable at the largest discount they could offer as a temptation." Ref.: New York Times, May 23, 1861, p. 1, c. 1; quoted in Moore, ed., I, p. 76.

Civil War and GP. 5-New York Times Defense Cont'd. Reports of GP's alleged southern sympathies surfaced occasionally in the vast publicity at his death and protracted 96-day transatlantic funeral. A writer in the New York Times again sprang to GP's defense, quoting GP's explanation made to a group of NYC friends during his May 1, 1866-May 1, 1867 U.S. visit. One of this group said to GP: "I read in a newspaper today an article about you. It said that you sympathized with the South during the war, that you made money by speculating in Confederate bonds. What is the truth of this?" New York Times, Jan 27, 1870, p. 1, c. 5-7.

Civil War and GP. 6-New York Times Defense Cont'd. GP sprang to his feet and said with some emotion: "I have read paragraphs like that too and am utterly at a loss to know how such an impression got about. Nothing I ever said or did during the war justifies this charge. Let me deny the insinuation in the strongest terms. From the beginning throughout I condemned the cause of the South in taking up arms against the government. In adhering to the cause of the North I injured my reputation with some of my friends who advocated the cause of the South." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 7-New York Times Defense Cont'd.: "As for speculating in Confederate bonds, the only money that I made out of the South during the War was made in this way: Agents of the Confederate government called on me and importuned me to use my influence in negotiating a loan for the Confederacy in England. I immediately and peremptorily refused to have anything to do with it, and told them that in my opinion any American ought to be ashamed to have anything to do with an attempt to break up and destroy such Government as they enjoyed. Finding that I would have nothing to do with their bonds, they sought aid elsewhere." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 8-New York Times Defense Cont'd.: "The sympathies of many English capitalists were with them, and they finally succeeded in enlisting four or five men of large means in their scheme, and a meeting was held, at which time they were to close the negotiations for a loan of $75,000,000 to the Confederacy, receiving its bonds therefor at fifty cents on the dollar. Just before the final papers were to be signed one of the capitalists remarked to the company that, before he affixed his signature, he thought he would go down and consult his friend Peabody, and see what he thought of it. Another of the party said he would do the same thing, and they both came to me, told me what had been done, and asked my advice. Said I, 'Gentlemen, why will you pay 50 cents on the dollar for these bonds, when, by waiting a year, you can get them for 25 or 30 cents on the dollar?'" Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 9-New York Times Defense Cont'd.: "'You do not believe, do you, Mr. Peabody,' replied one of the gentlemen, 'That these bonds can be bought a year hence for that price?' 'I certainly do,' I replied; 'and to prove that I am sincere, I will stipulate to sell you a million dollars worth in one year from today at 25 cents on the dollar.' "They both then agreed that they would have nothing more to do with the loan, but to show that they had no faith in what I said about the future value of the [Confederate] bonds, they were both anxious to accept my offer, and required me to reduce my stipulation to writing. I did so. The year came round, and Confederate bonds were worth less than even I anticipated. But, gentlemen, I held them to their bargain and received $60,000 from them in fulfillment of it, which was all the money I ever made by speculating on the bonds of the Confederacy." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 10-GP's Defense in the 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. He wrote that if the North compromised with the South it would ruin the national credit. Because some newspapers 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." Ref.: Boston Courier, March 8, 1861; also quoted in New York Herald, March 27, 1861, p. 1, c. 4. For pro-Confederate charge by anonymous writer "S.P.Q." and defense by Thurlow Weed and others, see: "S.P.Q." Weed, Thurlow (both below).

GP Critic Benjamin Moran

Civil War and GP. 11-Benjamin Moran. U.S. Legation Secty. Benjamin Moran criticized GP as pro-Confederate in his private journal. This Philadelphia-born printer went to London as a freelance writer, published a travel book (1854), married an English woman in ill health, and worked at the U.S. Legation in London during 1853-75. Moran was aptly described by historian Henry [Brooks] Adams (1838-1918), private secretary to his father, U.S. Minister to Britain Charles Francis Adams (1807-86): "On the staff of the American Legation in London was Benjamin Moran, ...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.: Wallace and Gillespie, I, p. 123.

Civil War and GP. 12-Moran's First GP Entry. Moran's first entry on GP's return to London after a Sept. 15, 1856 to Aug. 19, 1857, U.S. visit: "Monday, 31 Aug ('57)...George Peabody, the puffing American note shaver has returned to London from a tour of self-glorification in the United States. This is the fellow who gives private dinners on the Fourth of July at public taverns to which he invites everyone in a good suit of clothes who will applaud him and then publishes the proceedings, toasts, and all, in the public journals. It is worth noting that he pays his clerks less and works them harder than any other person in London in the same business, and never gave a man a dinner that wanted it. His parties are advertisements, and his course far from benevolent. He never gave away a cent that he didn't know what its return would be. He has no social position in London and cannot get into good Society. He generally bags the new American Minister for his own purposes and shows him up around the town, if he can, as his puppet to a set of fourth-rate English aristocrats and American tuft-hunters who eat his dinners and laugh at him for his pains." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 13-Moran on Saltpeter Purchase. Moran believed GP had interfered in the purchase for the Union of saltpeter, a gunpowder ingredient. He recorded: "Lammont [Lammot] DuPont [1831-84] came here lately to purchase saltpeter, and had a heavy credit on Barings for the purpose. For prudent reasons he transferred his account to another house, & old Peabody hearing this, & finding it did not come to him, induced Samson [Marmaduke Blake Sampson, d.1876, London Times editor] the Traducer of the U.S., who writes the money articles of The Times to get up a cry against the export of the articles & stop it. This has succeeded, as Gov't has issued an order in Council on the subject. The saltpeter was a private speculation, but to make powder for our Govt. and this avaricious old rogue Peabody has prevented it leaving the country through spite." Ref.: (Saltpeter): Ibid., II, p. 918.

Civil War and GP. 14-Moran on Trent Affair. Of the Nov. 8, 1861 Trent Affair (U.S. illegal removal of four Confederates from a British ship), Moran wrote: "George Peabody came in soon after me [with news].... He had met Dudley Mann [Ambrose Dudley Mann, 1801-89, Confederate emissary to get arms and aid from England] in the street.... Peabody either had been to see Mrs. Slidell [wife of one of the seized Confederates], or was going to see her, and was certain there would be no war [with Britain over the Trent]. His whole manner is that of a hypocrite, and he is carrying water on both shoulders, being determined to stand well on both sides, in any event." Ref.: (Trent): Ibid., pp. 932-933. See: Moran, Benjamin. Trent Affair.

Civil War and GP. 15-Moran on J.R. Potter and GP. Moran recorded on Dec. 2, 1863: "We have had a visit this morning from John R. Potter [b. 1815], Esq. of Manchester [merchant and former mayor, 1848-50], a warm friend of ours during this great struggle.... He stated he had been in Scotland during the summer and there he met the inflated Mr. George Peabody. Supposing him to be loyal, as a matter of course, he spoke to him freely in favor of the Government; but was astonished to find him luke-warm and faithless to his country. In fact, his sentiments were of that class that are always indulged in by hypocrites in trying times. His tone was denunciatory of the Government and its policy, and had a greater effect in favor of the rebels than a speech of Slidell or Mason would have had." Ref.: (John Potter): Wallace and Gillespie, eds., II, p. 1241.

Civil War and GP. 16-Moran on GP's Housing Gift.: "His [GP's] late hollow gift to the poor of London has made him an authority with English people, and as they know him to be a New England man, his opinions in favor of secession are regarded as just and adopted by many as conclusive. He did much damage to us in Scotland this summer. But he has been a disguised rebel all the way through.... Mr. Potter says he as an Englishman, was placed in the strange position when in Scotland, of being obliged to defend a loyal president of the U.S. and this great war of freedom, against the attacks and misrepresentations of an American from Massachusetts, who while pretending to be a lover of his country, and a patriot, was by his language a confessed traitor and defender of falsehood, treason, slavery, and piracy.…" Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 17-Benjamin Moran Cont'd. Moran recorded on Feb. 1864: "Wm. Evans has been up to know whether the U.S. Five-twenty bonds are or are not payable in coin. A great fight has been created by Peabody & Morgan putting into circulation a story in the city that they are not. This is part of the conduct of these hypocrites. Peabody is a rebel and does all in his power to destroy the credit of his country, while Morgan practices treason covertly while openly professing loyalty.... So strong is the hold on American belief, that this man Peabody is loyal that no refutation will shake it, and he therefore goes on and does us ten times more injury than a flat rebel; because his intercourse with loyal men is a strong endorsement in the minds of Englishmen of the truth of his opinions on our affairs." Moran's entry for April 1865 recorded: "The famous Geo. Peabody came in and sat an hour talking to me. He is a rebel and don't conceal it." Ref.: Ibid., p. 1411.

Change of Name: South Danvers to Peabody, Mass.

Civil War and GP. 18-Name Change, South Danvers to Peabody, March 13, 1868. Pro-Confederate charge and denial arose in a March 1868 petition sent to the South Danvers, Mass., town council to change the town's name from South Danvers to Peabody, Mass. South Danvers citizens voted their approval which then went to the Mass. legislature in Boston, where the proposal met opposition. The charge was made again in the Mass. legislature--that GP had been pro-Confederate, anti-Union, and a rebel sympathizer in the Civil War. A petition signed by 100 citizens opposed to the change of name was presented at a late March 1868 hearing at the State House, Boston. At the hearing a Mr. H.W. Poole explained that GP was unpopular with some in South Danvers because of his alleged southern sympathies during the rebellion. See: Peabody, Mass.

Civil War and GP. 19-Name Change, South Danvers to Peabody Cont'd. GP was stoutly defended at the hearing, especially by Gen. William Sutton, who said that relatively few in South Danvers objected to the proposed name change. Two years before, the business community particularly wanted a name change. "South Danvers" implied a section of Danvers, when South Danvers was in fact a separate town. Even the U.S. post office had difficulty separating Danvers and South Danvers mail. In fact, "Peabody" was chosen over other suggested names: "Bowditch," after the locally born famed navigator and mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838); "Antwerp," because the French spelling of that city in Belgium, "D'Anvers," was believed to be the original source for "Danvers"; "Brooksby," the name of the village when first settled in 1626 as part of Salem; "Osborne," after many of that family in South Danvers; and "Sutton" after a prominent citizen, Gen. William Sutton. Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 20-Second Vote, April 30, 1868. To overcome the impasse in the change of name, the hearings committee proposed a compromise: the State of Mass. would recognize the name change to "Peabody" if there was a second favorable vote by South Danvers citizens. In April 1868, before the town's second vote, friends of GP issued a handbill which explained: "At a...town meeting, duly called and legally conducted, we voted to change the town's name to Peabody.... Opponents who failed to defeat it at the ballot box protested.... Rather than have the name change take effect under imputation of 'trickery, wire pulling, and underhand work,' we agreed to a second town vote." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 21-Second Vote, April 30, 1868, Cont'd. The pro-GP handbill then explained his financial record in the Civil War: "The charges against Mr. Peabody are unfounded. He never held a dollar of rebel debt nor dealt in rebel bonds. On the contrary over three million dollars of his own money was in United States bonds on which he drew no interest until the war was over. He used his influence to help sell our bonds when we were hard pressed for money and when other bankers in England invested in the Confederate Loan. The success of the rebellion would have shattered his fortune." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 22-2nd Vote, April 30, 1868 Cont'd. Opposition declined. On the second vote, April 30, 1868, of the 625 votes cast, there were 379 yeas, 246 nays, with change of name advocates winning by 133 votes. Thus, the town first called Brooksby (1626), later known as Salem Village, then Danvers (1752-1852), then South Danvers (1852-68), became Peabody, Mass. (from April 13, 1868, by official Mass. records). Ref.: Ibid.

Critic W.L. Garrison

Civil War and GP. 23-W.L. Garrison. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison's (1805-79) article, "Mr. Peabody and the South," NYC's Independent, Aug. 19, 1869, attacked GP's patriotism: "During the protracted moral and political struggle for the abolition of slavery in this country...Mr. Peabody was with the South in feeling and sentiment... His leanings were toward the South; not indeed to the extent of disunion, but rather for reunion on terms that would be satisfactory to herself." Garrison criticized GP on these six points (Garrison's quotes): 1-GP's PIB gift (total $1.4 million, 1857-69) was "made to a Maryland institution, at a time when that state was rotten with treason." 2-GP's $2 million PEF for aiding public education in the 11 former Confederate states plus W.Va. Garrison criticized the PEF for giving more to white than to black schools, for going along with racially segregated schools, and for not insisting on aiding mixed white and black schools. Ref.: Independent (NYC), Aug. 19, 1869, p. 1, c. 5-7; and Nov. 11, 1869, p. 4, c. 1. Parker, F.-f, pp. 1-20; reprinted Parker, F.-zd, pp. 49-68.

Civil War and GP. 24-W.L. Garrison Cont'd. Garrison's criticism of GP on six points continued with: 3-GP's not showing public sorrow at Pres. Lincoln's assassination: "When the news of the tragical death of President Lincoln reached England...surely Mr. Peabody owed...in some way to bear an emphatic testimony at such a critical period...but no such testimony is on record." 4-GP, then ill and two months from death, went not to a northern health resort but to a southern mineral spa, White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., "the favorite resort of the elite of rebeldom." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 25-W.L. Garrison Cont'd. 5-GP's accepting at the Old White Hotel, White Sulphur Springs, resolutions of praise for his PEF. 6-GP's thanks for these resolutions of praise (Garrison quoted GP as saying: "I shall be glad, if my strength would permit, to speak of my own cordial esteem and regard for the high honor, integrity and heroism of the Southern people!!") [Garrison's underlining]. Garrison commented as follows on GP's response to the resolutions of praise given him in W.Va.: "The record of 'the Southern people' is one of lust and blood, of treachery and cruelty, of robbery and oppression, of rebellion and war; and to panegyrize their 'high honor, integrity, and heroism' is an insult to the civilized world." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 26-W.L. Garrison Cont'd. Garrison's last critical article, "Honored Beyond His Deserts," Independent, Feb. 10, 1870, followed the vast publicity accompanying GP's Nov. 4, 1869, death in London, 96-day transatlantic funeral, and Feb. 8, 1870, burial in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass. Garrison wrote: "The 'pomp and circumstance' attending the burial...of the late George Peabody have been...extraordinary.... Mr. Peabody was simply a quiet, plodding, shrewd, and eminently successful man of business, with the strongest conservative tendencies, and ever careful to avoid whatever might interfere with his worldly interests, or subject him...to popular disesteem.... His sympathies ...were...with a pro-slavery South [more] than with an anti-slavery North; and he carried his feelings in that direction almost to the verge of the Rebellion*." Ref.: Ibid. Independent (NYC), Feb. 10, 1870, p. 1, c. 2-3.

GP Critic Charles Wilson Felt

Civil War and GP. 27-Charles Wilson Felt. The asterisk after "Rebellion*" footnoted for corroboration a GP critic, Charles Wilson Felt (1834-?). The footnote* quoting Felt at the bottom of the page read: "Corroborative of this charge, take the testimony of Charles W. Felt, Esq., as given in a letter to the Evening Post, dated Manchester (Eng.), Jan. 8th last [1870]:" (Note: Born Nov. 18, 1834, in Salem, Mass., the son of Ephaim Felt and Eliza [née Ropes], C.W. Felt was an inventor (believed to have been a promoter of railroads in cities and towns [i.e., trolley cars]). Ref.: Ibid. See: Felt, Charles Wilson. Garrison, William Lloyd.

Civil War and GP. 28-Charles Wilson Felt Cont'd. [Felt wrote]: 'I was in London in October and November, 1861, having a letter of introduction from Edward Everett to Mr. Peabody. I was astonished and mortified to hear Mr. Peabody, in the course of a short conversation, indulge in such expressions as these: [Felt quoted GP as saying to him]: 'I do not see how it can be settled, unless Mr. [Confederate Pres. Jefferson] Davis gives up what Mr. Lincoln says he is fighting for--the forts the South has taken--and then separate.' 'You can't carry on the war without coming over here for money; and you won't get a shilling.' 'Harriet Beecher Stowe [1811-96, in London, 1852] was over here, but I would not go to see her, though I was invited: and now she writes that this is our war! Such things don't go down over here.'...[Felt continued]: I made one other call upon him; but I could only regard him as recreant to his country in the time of her greatest need." [Garrison's italics]. Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 29-Charles Wilson Felt Cont'd. Felt's Jan. 8, 1870, letter from Manchester, England, printed in the NYC Evening Post, Jan. 21, 1870, was written to refute Thurlow Weed's (1797-1882) vindication of GP as a staunch Unionist during the Civil War. Weed's vindication, printed in the New York Times, Dec. 23, 1869, was confirmed publicly by Ohio Episcopal Bishop Charles Pettit McIlvaine (1799-1873) and others. Felt wrote: "I have seen Mr. Weed's vindication of George Peabody's course in the Civil War. He acknowledges finding Peabody undecided as late as December, 1861. No loyal American could be doubtful after Fort Sumter, Bull Run, and Front Royal. I don't doubt that Peabody ran to Minister Adams with news of Federal success at Fort Donelson for he then saw which would be the winning side. He became a friend of the North when he saw it would win." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 30-Garrison and Felt. The title of Garrison's editorial clearly implied and agreed with what Felt more directly stated: that GP was honored beyond his true merit, that it would have been better if he had remained in the U.S. instead of going to England to die, that GP's return to England was a bid for notoriety. Ref.: (Charles Wilson Felt refuted Weed's vindication): C.W. Felt, Manchester, England, to NYC Evening Post editor, Jan. 8, 1870, published in the NYC Evening Post, Jan. 31, 1870. Felt's letter also in Parker, F.-f, pp. 1-20; reprinted in Parker, F.-zd, pp. 50-68. Ref.: (Weed's vindication): New York Times, Dec. 23, 1869, p. 2, c. 3-4; reprinted in Weed-a.

Thurlow Weed's Vindication of GP as Union Supporter

Civil War and GP. 31-Weed's Vindication. Thurlow Weed's vindication of GP carried weight because of Weed's political importance. He was the politically influential owner and editor of the Albany, N.Y. Evening Journal, leading news organ of the old Whig Party and its successor Republican Party. He was a political king maker, having masterminded the election of William Henry Harrison (1773-1841) as ninth U.S. president in 1841, helped get the presidential nomination for Henry Clay (1777-1852) in 1844, and backed Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) as 12th U.S. president during 1849-50. Weed managed William Henry Seward's (1801-72) political career as N.Y. state legislator, governor, and senator; worked for Seward's nomination for the presidency in 1860 but backed Abraham Lincoln after Lincoln won the nomination. Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 32-Weed's Vindication Cont'd. Weed was intimate with GP from 1851, was GP's early philanthropic advisor, and spoke at length to GP about the Civil War in Dec. 1861 when he and Ohio Episcopal Bishop Charles Pettit McIlvaine (1799-1873) were two of Pres. Lincoln's unofficial emissaries to keep Britain and France neutral in the Civil War. Weed stated that in London in Dec. 1861 he found Britain in a rage over the Trent Affair, the illegal U.S. removal of Confederate emissaries Mason, Slidell, and their male secretaries from the British Trent bound for Liverpool. Britain moved to a war footing and sent 8,000 troops to Canada in case of a U.S.-British war. After leaving U.S. Minister to Britain Charles Francis Adams, Weed called on GP and recorded their talk about the Civil War. Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 33-Weed's Vindication Cont'd. The Weed-GP conversation (condensed from Weed's "Vindication"): GP: I am surprised and I regret that the United States has become unnecessarily involved in Civil War. Weed: Yes, it is a great calamity but it was forced upon the North. GP: Could not the Federal Government have avoided it? Weed: I would like to explain why the rebellion was both premeditated and inevitable. GP: I would like to hear your views. It will require strong evidence to satisfy me that wise and good men could not have prevented this unnatural war." Weed described to GP the historical incidents leading to South Carolina's secession. Weed said (his underlining): "The avowed purpose of prominent statesmen of the Southern states has been to preserve slavery in the Union or to establish a slave confederacy outside of it. South Carolina has held this attitude for forty years. The Missouri Compromise of 1850 attempted to adjust the extension of slavery in the new territories and the South immediately brought into the union three slave states. You will remember the resistance of the slave states to the admission of California with a constitution prohibiting slavery." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 34-Weed's Vindication Cont'd.: "This was followed by a visit of distinguished Whigs in Congress from Georgia and North Carolina--Stevens [full name not known], [Robert A.] Toombs [1810-85, Ga.], and [Thomas Lanier] Clingman [1812-97, N.C.]--to President [Zachary] Taylor threatening the dissolution of the Union if the rights of the slave states were violated. Mr. Peabody, I passed these gentlemen as they left the White House. I found General Taylor greatly excited by that interview. He told me, Vice-President [Hannibal] Hamlin [1809-91], and a senator from Maine what had occurred ten minutes after the Southern congressmen left him. Nothing, in my opinion, but the fact that General Taylor was himself a Southern gentleman, prevented Civil War then and there." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 35-Weed's Vindication Cont'd.: "You also recall the Kansas conflict which upset the balance between slave and free states. In 1860 a census of Congress showed conclusively that the Congress favored freedom over slavery. I maintain, Mr. Peabody, that this fact precipitated the rebellion. The evidence for my opinion is that the Democratic party was thwarted in electing a Democratic President by the persistent actions of the slave delegates to the Democratic National Convention of 1860. The Southern Democrats refused to nominate a Union Democrat. By their support of [John Calvin] Breckinridge [1821-75] they intended to gain the election of Lincoln. This was a pretext for rebellion sufficient to draw the Southern people into line with their leaders." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 36-Weed's Vindication Cont'd.: "Let me say also that a disloyal Secretary of the Navy [?Isaac Toucey, 1796-1869, of Conn.?] sent nearly all our warships to foreign countries in order to leave the North unprepared for the war forced on the government. Let me add, Mr. Peabody, that in 1859-60 a secessionist Secretary of War [John Buchanan Floyd, 1807-63, from Va. and later a Confederate general] transferred large quantities of arms and ammunition from Northern to Southern arsenals. With all this, I admit and still believe, that but for radical men in Washington the rebellion might have been limited. North Carolina and Tennessee, loyal in the beginning, might have been held in the Union." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 37-Weed's Vindication Cont'd. GP listened; he then spoke with deliberation: "I think now that the Northern side is more in the right than I had thought it was. For several months my talks have been with Americans who presented the question differently. The business years of my life, as you know, were spent in Georgetown, District of Columbia, and in Baltimore. My private sympathies while in England have been against the institution of slavery. But during these many years of excitement on that subject I regarded the extremists of both sides as equally mischievous. This view made me think that extreme men were alike enemies of the Union." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 38-Weed's Vindication Cont'd. In his "Vindication" Weed explained that London had news, March 5, 1862, of Union victory in Tennessee. Gen. U.S. Grant had taken Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. GP had the news a few hours earlier from his NYC agents and rushed to share it with U.S. Minister to Britain Charles Francis Adams and others. Recalling the event, Weed wrote: "I know of no more unerring test of men's real sentiment and sympathy in a season of war, than their manner of receiving good news.... Tried by this test, Mr. Peabody's sympathies were loyal, for he voluntarily came out of his way to bring news of an important Union victory; though he never ceased as often as he had occasion to speak on the subject, to deplore the war." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 39-Weed's Vindication Cont'd. During Nov. 1861, when the above GP-Weed conversation occurred, GP helped Weed meet such British government leaders as 1-Lord Clarence Edward Paget (1811-95), 2-Foreign Secty. John Russell (1792-1878), 3-MP William W. Torrens McCullagh (1813-94) and 4-MP Sir James Emerson Tennent (1791-1869) representing Belfast, Ireland. Weed's vindication cited above was confirmed by Ohio Episcopal Bishop McIlvaine. Ref.: Charles Pettit McIlvaine to Thurlow Weed, Dec. 24, 1869, quoted in New Haven Daily Palladium (Conn.), Jan. 6, 1870, p. 2, c. 2-3. See: McCullagh, William Torrens.

GP Critic George Francis Train

Civil War and GP. 40-George Francis Train. George Francis Train (1829-1904) was a Boston-born financier of city railway lines who had disappointing experiences introducing street railways in English cities. Pro-Irish, anti-British, and anti-Confederate during the Civil War, he publicly attacked GP after GP's March 12, 1862, founding of model apartments for London's working poor (total gift $2.5 million). GP learned of this attack from British friend and Peabody homes trustee James Emerson Tennent's June 20, 1862, letter. Four months later, GP heard more of Train from his friend and sometime agent Horatio Gates Somerby (1805-72), a Newburyport, Mass-born and London resident genealogist. Somerby, visiting in Boston, wrote GP (Oct. 7, 1862) that the day before at Faneuil Hall, he had listened to anti-Confederate speeches by U.S. Sen. Charles Sumner (1811-74) from Mass. and George Francis Train. Somerby reported that Train, an activist demonstrator, had fought with Boston police and been led handcuffed along State St. and jailed. See: Train, George Francis.

Civil War and GP. 41-George Francis Train Cont'd. After GP's Nov. 4, 1869, death and during the publicity attending GP's transatlantic funeral, George Francis Train gave another speech in Boston, generally regarded as ranting and incoherent. He again railed against GP as follows: "I regard the fact of George Peabody's remains being brought over on a British ship of war [HMS Monarch, accompanied by the USS corvette Plymouth] the greatest insult ever offered to America. George Peabody was a secessionist. The Alabama Claims is still unsettled and American citizens are dying in British prisons." Train was seen as an eccentric, even by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who described G.F. Train as "a notorious charlatan who was exciting the mirth of the country by posing as a self-constituted candidate for President." Ref.: Ibid.

GP's Defense as Union Supporter

Civil War and GP. 42-GP's Defense, PIB, 1866. GP carefully explained his Civil War views at the dedication and opening of the PIB, Oct. 25, 1866. In the nine years and eight months since its Feb. 12, 1857, founding, Civil War differences had aggravated disputes over PIB jurisdiction between the PIB trustees and the Md. Historical Society trustees (PIB planner John Pendleton Kennedy originally wanted the Society to be housed in the PIB and to help guide PIB programs). Civil War differences had also aggravated disputes over the building site at Mount Vernon Place and building costs. Split loyalties over the war, southern resentment over radical Republican military rule, and his own misunderstood position on the Civil War were much on GP's mind when he spoke at the dedication. Ref.: PIB, Founder's Letters and Papers, 1868, pp. 90-97. New York Times, Oct. 27, 1866, p. 5, c. 1-2.

Civil War and GP. 43-GP's Defense, PIB, 1866, Cont'd. He said (Oct. 25, 1866): "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. 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." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 44-GP's Defense, PIB, 1866, Cont'd.: "When war came I saw no hope for America except in Union victory but I could not, in the passion of war, turn my back on Southern friends. I believed extremists of both sides guilty of fomenting the conflict. Now I am convinced more than ever of the necessity for mutual forbearance and conciliation, of Christian charity and forgiveness, of united effort to bind up the wounds of our nation." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 45-GP's Defense, PIB, 1866, Cont'd.: He humbly concluded: "To you, therefore, I make probably the last appeal I shall ever make. May not this Institute be a common ground where all may meet, burying former differences and animosities, forgetting past separations and estrangements. May not Baltimore, the birthplace of religious toleration in America, become the star of political tolerance and charity. Will not Maryland, in place of a battleground of opposing parties, become the field where good men may meet to make the future of our country prosperous and glorious, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from our northern to our southern boundary." Ref.: Ibid.

Civil War and GP. 46-GP's Defense, PIB, 1866, Cont'd.: Blaming himself for jurisdictional disputes between PIB and Md. Historical Society trustees, GP humbly asked the Md. Historical Society as a favor to him to withdraw from PIB management. They acquiesced, harmony returned, and he soon gave a gift of $20,000 for the Md. Historical Society publication fund. Ref.: Ibid.

GP Critic "S.P.Q."

Civil War and GP. 47-"S.P.Q.," 1866. The day GP spoke at the PIB dedication and opening (Oct. 25, 1866), an anti-GP letter appeared in several newspapers. The anti-GP writer, who called himself "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?" 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.

Civil War and GP. 48-"S.P.Q.," 1866 Cont'd.: "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. He can yet redeem himself by aiding the disabled veterans who deserve his beneficence as much as the poor of London." Ref.: Ibid.

Defender GP Defender "R.D.P."

Civil War and GP. 49-"R.D.P." Defender. A GP defender against "S.P.Q.'s" attack, who signed his letter "R.D.P.," wrote in the NYC Evening Post, Oct. 26, 1866: "I read with surprise the attack of 'S.P.Q.' on George Peabody. Now, in regard to the Sanitary Commission I remember reading in your newspaper of Mr. Peabody's gifts to that organization [GP gave a total of $10,000 to the U.S. Sanitary Commission to aid the war-wounded]. How could Mr. Peabody send his son to the war when unmarried he had none, or a nephew when no man has that power over his relatives? The intimation that Mr. Peabody made money by speculating on bonds may also be applied to the most patriotic of our bankers. He is not a politician but all who know him know that his patriotism is large and that he loves the whole country. He gives his wealth to public institutions as a permanent source of benefit to all. I am not a personal friend of Mr. Peabody's but come forward in the name of thousands who recognize the noble disposition of his wealth and say he may well enjoy the applause of those who love such deeds." Ref.: NYC Evening Post, Oct. 26, 1866, p. 2, c. 4.

New York Times’s GP Defender

Civil War and GP. 50-New York Times Defender. A more detailed defense came from an unknown letter writer in the New York Times, Oct. 27, 1866: "When Lafayette revisited this country in 1825 amid honors and acclaim one voice was raised against him. Now Mr. Peabody returns to bestow his gifts amid heartfelt thanks and one hoarse voice attacks his patriotism. What charges are made? First, that Mr. Peabody seeks the limelight of universal praise. What is the truth of this? Since his return Mr. Peabody has passe