LELAND STANFORD
AND HIS UNIVERSITY
"The biographer of Leland Stanford will have to tell the fascinating story of a career almost matchless in the splendor of its incidents. It was partly due to the circumstances of his time, but chiefly due to the largeness and boldness of his nature, that this plain, simple man succeeded in cutting so broad a swath. He lived at the top of his possibilities." Thus wrote Dr. Albert Shaw in the Review of Reviews, August, 1893.
Leland Stanford, farmer-boy, lawyer, railroad builder, governor, United States Senator, and munificent giver, was born at Watervliet, N.Y., eight miles from Albany, March 9, 1824. He was the fourth son in a family of seven sons and one daughter, the latter dying in infancy.
His father, Josiah Stanford, was a native of Massachusetts, but moved with his parents to the State of New York when he was a boy. He became a successful farmer, calling his farm by the attractive name of Elm Grove. He had the energy and industry which it seems Leland inherited. He built roads and bridges in the neighborhood, and was an earnest advocate of DeWitt Clinton's scheme of the Erie Canal, connecting the great lakes with New York City by way of the Hudson River.
"Gouverneur Morris had first suggested the Erie Canal in 1777," says T. W. Higginson, "and Washington had indeed proposed a system of such waterways in 1774. But the first actual work of this kind in the United States was that dug around Turner's Falls in Massachusetts soon after 1792. In 1803 DeWitt Clinton again proposed the Erie Canal. It was begun in 1817, and opened July 4, 1825, being cut mainly through a wilderness. The effect produced on public opinion was absolutely startling. When men found that the time from Albany to Buffalo was reduced one-half, and that the freight on a ton of merchandise was cut down from $100 to $10, and ultimately to $3, similar enterprises sprang into being everywhere."
People were not excited over canals only; everybody was interested about the coming railroads. George Stephenson, in the midst of the greatest opposition, landowners even driving the surveyors off their grounds, had built a road from Liverpool to Manchester, England, which was opened Sept. 15, 1830. The previous month, August, the Mohawk and Hudson River Railroad from Albany to Schenectady, sixteen miles, was commenced, a charter having been granted sometime before this. Josiah Stanford was greatly interested in this enterprise, and took large contracts for grading. Men at the Stanford home talked of the great future of railroads in America, and even prophesied a road to Oregon. "Young as he was when the question of a railroad to Oregon was first agitated," says a writer, "Leland Stanford took a lively interest in the measure. Among its chief advocates at that early day was Mr. Whitney, one of the engineers in the construction of the Mohawk and Hudson River Railway. On one occasion, when Whitney passed the night at Elm Grove, Leland being then thirteen years of age, the conversation ran largely on this overland railway project; and the effect upon the mind of such a boy may be readily imagined. The remembrance of that night's discussion between Whitney and his father never left him, but bore the grandest fruits."
The cheerful, big-hearted boy worked on his father's farm with his brothers, rising at five o'clock, even on cold winter mornings, that he might get his work done before school hours. He himself tells how he earned his first dollar. "I was about six years old," he said. "Two of my brothers and I gathered a lot of horseradish from the garden, washed it clean, took it to Schenectady, and sold it. I got two of the six shillings received. I was very proud of my money. My next financial venture was two years later. Our hired man came from Albany, and told us chestnuts were high. The boys had a lot of them on hand which we had gathered in the fall. We hurried off to market with them, and sold them for twenty-five dollars. That was a good deal of money when grown men were getting only two shillings a day."
Perhaps the boy felt that he should not always like to work on the farm, for he had made up his mind to get an education if possible. When he was eighteen his father bought a piece of woodland, and told him if he would cut off the timber he might have the money received for it. He immediately hired several persons to help him, and together they cut and piled 2,600 cords of wood, which Leland sold to the Mohawk and Hudson River Railroad at a profit of $2,600.
After using some of this money to pay for his schooling at an academy at Clinton, N.Y., he went to Albany, and for three years studied law with the firm of Wheaton, Doolittle, & Hadley. He disliked Greek and Latin, but was fond of science, particularly geology and chemistry, and was a great reader, especially of the newspapers. He attended all the lectures attainable, and was fond of discussion upon all progressive topics. Later in life he studied sociological matters, and read John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer.
Young Stanford determined to try his fortune in the West. He went as far as Chicago, and found it low, marshy, and unattractive. This was in 1848, when he was twenty-four years old. The town had been organized but fifteen years, and did not have much to boast of. There were only twenty-eight voters in Chicago in 1833. In 1837 the entire population was 4,470. Chicago had grown rapidly by 1848; but mosquitoes were abundant, and towns farther up Lake Michigan gave better promise for the future. Mr. Stanford finally settled at Port Washington, Wis., above Milwaukee, which place it was thought would prove a rival of Chicago. Forty years later, in 1890, Port Washington had a population of 1,659, while Chicago had increased to 1,099,850.
Mr. Stanford did well the first year at Port Washington, earning $1,260. He remained another year, and then, at twenty-six, went back to Albany to marry Miss Jane Lathrop, daughter of Mr. Dyer Lathrop, a respected merchant. They returned to Port Washington, but Mr. Stanford did not find the work of a country lawyer congenial. He had chosen his profession, however, and would have gone on to a measure of success in it, probably, had not an accident opened up a new field.
He had been back from his wedding journey but a year or more, when a fire swept away all his possessions, including a quite valuable law library. The young couple were really bankrupt, but they determined not to return to Albany for a home.
Several of Mr. Stanford's brothers had gone to California in 1849, after the gold-fields were discovered, and had opened stores near the mining-camps. If Leland were to join them, it would give him at least more variety than the quiet life at Port Washington. The young wife went back to Albany to care for three years for her invalid father, who died in April, 1855. The husband sailed from New York, spending twelve days in crossing the isthmus, and in thirty-eight days reached San Francisco, July 12, 1852. For four years he had charge of a branch store at Michigan Bluffs, Placer County, among the miners.
He engaged also in mining, and was not afraid of the labor and privations of the camp. He said some years later, "The true history of the Argonauts of the nineteenth century has to be written. They had no Jason to lead them, no oracles to prophesy success nor enchantments to avert dangers; but, like self-reliant Americans, they pressed forward to the land of promise, and travelled thousands of miles, when the Greek heroes travelled hundreds. They went by ship and by wagon, on horseback and on foot; a mighty army, passing over mountains and deserts, enduring privations and sickness; they were the creators of a commonwealth, the builders of states."
Mr. Stanford had the energy of his father; he had learned how to work while on the farm, and he had a pleasant and kindly manner to all. Said a friend of his, after Mr. Stanford had become the governor of a great State, and the possessor of many millions, "The man who held the throttle of the locomotive, he who handled the train, worked the brake, laid the rail, or shovelled the sand, was his comrade, friend, and equal. His life was one of tender, thoughtful compassion for the man less fortunate in life than himself."
The young lawyer was making money, and a good reputation as well, in the mining-camps. Says an old associate, "Mr. Stanford in an unusual degree commanded the respect of the heterogeneous lot of men who composed the mining classes, and was frequently referred to by them as a sort of arbitrator in settling their disputes for them. While at Michigan Bluffs he was elected a justice of the peace, which office was the court before which all disputes and contentions of the miners and their claims were settled. It is a singular fact, with all the questions that came before him for settlement, not one of them was appealed to a higher court.
"Leland Stanford was at this time just as gentle in his manner and as cordial and respectful to all as in his later years. Yet he was possessed of a courage which, when tested, as occasion sometimes required, satisfied the rough element that he was not a man who could be imposed upon. His principle seemed to be to stand up for the right at all times. He never indulged in profanity or coarse words of any kind, and was as considerate in his conduct when holding intercourse with the rough element as though in the midst of the highest refinement."
Mr. Stanford had prospered so well that in 1855 he purchased the business of his brothers in Sacramento, and went East to bring his wife to the Pacific Coast. He studied his business carefully. He made himself conversant with the statistics of trade, the tariff laws, the best markets and means of transportation. He read and thought, while some others idled away their hours. He was deeply interested in the new Republican party, which was then in the minority in California. He believed in it, and worked earnestly for it. When the party was organized in the State in 1856, he was one of the founders of it. He became a candidate for State treasurer, and was defeated. Three years later he was nominated for governor; "but the party was too small to have any chance, and the contest lay between opposing Democratic factions." Mr. Stanford was to learn how to win success against fires and political defeats.
A year later he was a delegate at large to the Republican National Convention; and instead of supporting Mr. Seward, who was from his own State of New York, he worked earnestly for Abraham Lincoln, with whom he formed a lasting friendship. After Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, Mr. Stanford remained in Washington several weeks, at the request of the president and Secretary Seward, to confer with them about the surest means of keeping California loyal to the Union.
Mr. Blaine says of California and Oregon at this time: "Jefferson Davis had expected, with a confidence amounting to certainty, and based, it is believed, on personal pledges, that the Pacific Coast, if it did not actually join the South, would be disloyal to the Union, and would, from its remoteness and its superlative importance, require a large contingent of the national forces to hold it in subjection.
"It was expected by the South that California and Oregon would give at least as much trouble as Kentucky and Missouri, and would thus indirectly, but powerfully, aid the Southern cause."
In the spring of 1861 Mr. Stanford was again nominated by the Republicans for governor. Though he declined at first, after he had consented, with his usual vigor, earnestness, and perseverance, with faith in himself and his fellow-men as well, he and his friends made a thorough and spirited canvass; and Mr. Stanford received 56,036 votes, about six times as many as were given him two years before.
"The period," says the San Francisco Chronicle, "was one of unexampled difficulty of administration; and to add to the embarrassments occasioned by the Civil War, the city of Sacramento and a vast area of the valley were inundated. On the day appointed for the inauguration the streets of Sacramento were swept by a flood, and Mr. Stanford and his friends were compelled to go and return to the Capitol in boats. The messages of Governor Stanford, and indeed all his state papers, indicated wide information, great common-sense, and a comprehensive grasp of State and national affairs, remarkable in one who had never before held office under either the State or national government. During his administration he kept up constant and cordial intercourse with Washington, and had the satisfaction of leaving the chair of state at the close of his term of office feeling that no State in the Union was more thoroughly loyal."
There was much disloyalty in California at first, but Mr. Stanford was firm as well as conciliatory. The militia was organized, a State normal school was established, and the indebtedness of the State reduced one-half under his leadership as governor.
After the war was over, Governor Stanford cherished no animosities. When Mr. Lamar's name was sent to the Senate as associate justice of the Supreme Court, and many were opposed, Mr. Stanford said, "No man sympathized more sincerely than myself with the cause of the Union, or deprecated more the cause of the South. I would have given fortune and life to have defeated that cause. But the war has terminated, and what this country needs now is absolute and profound peace. Lamar was a representative Southern man, and adhered to the convictions of his boyhood and manhood. There never can be pacification in this country until these war memories are obliterated by the action of the Executive and of Congress."
Mr. Stanford declined a re-election to the governorship, because he wished to give his time to the building of a railroad across the continent. He had never forgotten the conversation in his father's home about a railroad to Oregon. When he went back to Albany for Mrs. Stanford, after being a storekeeper among the mines, and she was ill from the tiresome journey, he cheered her with the promise, "Never mind; a time will come when I will build a railroad for you to go home on."
Every one knew that a railroad was needed. Vessels had to go around Cape Horn, and troops and produce had to be transported over the mountains and across the plains at great expense and much hardship. Some persons believed the building of a road over the snow-capped Sierra Nevada Mountains was possible; but most laughed the project to scorn, and denounced it as "a wild scheme of visionary cranks."
"The huge snow-clad chain of the Sierra Nevadas," says Mr. Perkins, the senator from California who succeeded Mr. Stanford, "whose towering steeps nowhere permitted a thoroughfare at an elevation less than seven thousand feet above the sea, must be crossed; great deserts, waterless, and roamed by savage tribes, must be made accessible; vast sums of money must be raised, and national aid secured at a time in which the credit of the central government had fallen so low that its bonds of guaranty to the undertaking sold for barely one-third their face value."
In the presence of such obstacles no one seemed ready to undertake the work of building the railroad. One of the persistent advocates of the plan was Theodore J. Judah, the engineer of the Sacramento Valley and other local railroads. He had convinced Mr. Stanford that the thing was possible. The latter first talked with C. P. Huntington, a hardware merchant of Sacramento; then with Mark Hopkins, Mr. Huntington's partner, and later with Charles Crocker and others. A fund was raised to enable Mr. Judah and his associates to perfect their surveys; and the Central Pacific Railroad Company was formed, June 28, 1861, with Mr. Stanford as president.
In Mr. Stanford's inaugural address as governor he had dwelt upon the necessity of this railroad to unite the East and the West; and now that he had retired from the gubernatorial office, he determined to push the enterprise with all his power. Neither he nor his associates had any great wealth at their command, but they had faith and force of character. The aid of Congress was sought and obtained by a strictly party vote, Republicans being in the majority; and the bill was signed by President Lincoln, July 1, 1862.
The government agreed to give the company the alternate sections of 640 acres in a belt of land ten miles wide on each side of the railroad, and $16,000 per mile in bonds for the easily constructed portion of the road, and $32,000 and $48,000 per mile for the mountainous portions. The company was to build forty miles before it received government aid.
It was so difficult to raise money during the Civil War that Congress made a more liberal grant July 2, 1864, whereby the company received alternate sections of land within a belt twenty miles on each side of the road, or the large amount of 12,800 acres per mile, making for the company nearly 9,000,000 acres of land. The government was to retain, to apply on its debt, only half the money it owed the company for transportation instead of the whole. The most important provision of the new Act was the authority of the company to issue its own first-mortgage bonds to an amount not exceeding those of the United States, and making the latter take a second mortgage.
There is no question but the United States has given lavishly to railroads, as the cities have given their streets free to street railroads; but during the Civil War the need of communication between East and West seemed to make it wise to build the road at almost any sacrifice. Mr. Blaine says, "Many capitalists who afterwards indulged in denunciations of Congress for the extravagance of the grants, were urged at the time to take a share in the scheme, but declined because of the great risk involved."
Mr. Stanford broke ground for the railroad by turning the first shovelful of earth early in 1863. "At times failure seemed inevitable," says the New York Tribune, June 22, 1893. "Even the stout-hearted Crocker declared that there were times when he would have been glad to 'lose all and quit;' but the iron will of Stanford triumphed over everything. As president of the road he superintended its construction over the mountains, building 530 miles in 293 days. On the last day, Crocker laid the rails on more than ten miles of track. That the great railroad builders survived the ordeal is a marvel. Crocker, indeed, never recovered from the effects of the terrific strain. He died in 1888. Hopkins died twelve years before, in 1876."
With a silver hammer Governor Stanford drove a golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah, May 10, 1869, which completed the line of the Central Pacific, and joined it with the Union Pacific Railroad, and the telegraph flashed the news from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Union Pacific was built from Omaha, Neb., to Promontory Point, though Ogden, Utah, fifty-two miles east of Promontory Point, is now considered the dividing line.
After this road was completed, Mr. Stanford turned to other labors. He was made president or director of several railroads, – the Southern Pacific, the California & Oregon, and other connecting lines. He was also president of the Oriental and Occidental Steamship Company, which plied between San Francisco and Chinese ports, and was interested in street railroads, woollen mills, and the manufacture of sugar.
Foreseeing the great future of California, he purchased very large tracts of land, including Vina with nearly 60,000 acres, the Gridley Ranch with 22,000 acres, and his summer home, Palo Alto, thirty miles from San Francisco, with 8,400 acres. He built a stately home in San Francisco costing over $1,000,000, and in his journeys abroad collected for it costly paintings and other works of art.
But his chief delight was in his Palo Alto estate. Here he sought to plant every variety of tree, from the world over, that would grow in California. Many thousands were set out each year. He was a great lover of trees, and could tell the various kinds from the bark or leaf.
He loved animals, especially the horse, and had the largest horse farm for raising horses in the world. Some of his remarkable thoroughbreds and trotters were Electioneer, Arion, Palo Alto, Sunol, "the flying filly," Racine, Piedmont that cost $30,000, and many others. He spent $40,000, it is said, in experiments in instantaneous photography of the horse; and a book resulted, "The Horse in Motion," which showed that the ideas of painters about a horse at high speed were usually wrong. No one was ever allowed to kick or whip a horse or destroy a bird on the estate. Mr. George T. Angell of Boston tells of the remark made to General Francis A. Walker by Mr. Stanford. The horses of the latter were so gentle that they would put their noses on his shoulder, or come up to visitors to be petted. "How do you contrive to have your horses so gentle?" asked General Walker. "I never allow a man to speak unkindly to one of my horses; and if a man swears at one of them, I discharge him," was the reply. There were large greenhouses and vegetable gardens at Palo Alto, and acres of wheat, rye, oats, and barley. But the most interesting and beautiful and highly prized of all the charms at Palo Alto was an only child, a lad named Leland Stanford, Jr. He was never a rugged boy; but his sunny, generous nature and intellectual qualities gave great promise of future usefulness. Mrs. Sallie Joy White, in the January, 1892, Wide Awake, tells some interesting things about him. She says, "His chosen playmate was a little lame boy, the son of people in moderate circumstances, who lived near the Stanfords in San Francisco. The two were together almost constantly, and each was at home in the other's house. He was very considerate of his little playfellow, and constituted himself his protector."
When Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper was making efforts to raise money for the free kindergarten work in San Francisco suggested by Felix Adler in 1878, she called on Mrs. Stanford, and the boy Leland heard the story of the needs of poor children. Putting his hand in his mother's, he said, "Mamma, we must help those children."
"Well, Leland," said his mother, "what do you wish me to do?"
"Give Mrs. Cooper $500 now, and let her start a school, then come to us for more." And Leland's wish was gratified.
"Between this time, 1879, and 1892," says Miss M. V. Lewis in the Home Maker for January, 1892, "Mrs. Leland Stanford has given $160,000, including a permanent endowment fund of $100,000 for the San Francisco kindergartens." She supports seven or more, five in San Francisco, and two at Palo Alto.
A writer in the press says, "Her name is down for $8,000 a year for these schools, and I am told she spends much more. I attended a reception given her by the eight schools under her patronage; and it was a very affecting sight to watch these four hundred children, all under four years of age, marching into the hall and up to their benefactor, each tiny hand grasping a fragrant rose which was deposited in Mrs. Stanford's lap. These children are gathered from the slums of the city. It is far wiser to establish schools for the training of such as these, than to wait until sin and crime have done their work, and then make a great show of trying to reclaim them through reformatory institutions."
Leland, Jr., was very fond of animals. Mrs. White tells this story: "One day, when he was about ten years of age, he was standing looking out of the window, and his mother heard a tumult outside, and saw Leland suddenly dash out of the house, down the steps, into a crowd of boys in front of the house. Presently he reappeared covered with dust, holding a homely yellow dog in his arms. Quick as a flash he was up the steps and into the house with the door shut behind him, while a perfect howl of rage went up from the boys outside.
"Before his mother could reach him he had flown to the telephone, and summoned the family doctor. Thinking from the agonized tones of the boy that some of the family had been taken suddenly and violently ill, the doctor hastened to the house.
"He was a stately old gentleman, who believed fully in the dignity of his profession; and he was somewhat disconcerted and a good deal annoyed at being confronted with a very dusty, excited boy, holding a broken-legged dog that was evidently of the mongrel family. At first he was about to be angry; but the earnest, pleading look on the little face, and the perfect innocence of any intent of discourtesy, disarmed the dignified doctor, and he explained to Leland that he did not understand the case, not being accustomed to treating dogs, but that he would take him and the dog to one who was. So they went, doctor, boy, and dog, in the doctor's carriage to a veterinary surgeon, the leg was set, and they returned home. Leland took the most faithful care of the dog until it recovered, and it repaid him with a devotion that was touching."
Leland, knowing that he was to be the heir of many millions, was already thinking how some of the money should be used. He had begun to gather materials for a museum, to which the parents devoted two rooms in their San Francisco home. He was fitting himself for Yale College, was excellent in French and German, and greatly interested in art and archæology. Before entering upon the long course of study at college, he travelled with his parents abroad. In Athens, in London, on the Bosphorus, everywhere, with an open hand, his parents allowed him to gather treasures for his museum, and for a larger institution which he had in mind to establish sometime.
While staying for a while in Rome, symptoms of fever developed in young Leland, and he was taken at once to Florence. The best medical skill was of no avail; and he soon died, March 13, 1884, two months before his sixteenth birthday. His parents telegraphed this sad message home, "Our darling boy went to heaven this morning."
The story is told that while watching by the bedside of his son, worn with care and anxiety, Governor Stanford fell asleep, and dreamed that his son said to him, "Father, don't say you have nothing to live for; you have a great deal to live for. Live for humanity, father," and that this dream proved a comforter.
The almost prostrated parents brought home their beloved boy to bury him at Palo Alto. On Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 27, 1884, the doors of the tomb which had been prepared near the house were opened at noon, and Leland Stanford, Jr., was laid away for all time from the sight of those who loved him. The bearers were sixteen of the oldest employees on the Palo Alto farm. The sarcophagus in which Leland, Jr., sleeps is eight feet four inches long, four feet wide, and three feet six inches high, built of pressed bricks, with slabs of white Carrara marble one inch thick firmly fastened to the bricks with cement. In the front slab of this sarcophagus are cut these words: —
Born in Mortality
May 14, 1868,
LELAND STANFORD, JR
Passed to Immortality
March 13, 1884
Electric wires were placed in the walls of the tomb, in the doors of iron, and even in the foundations, so that no sacrilegious hand should disturb the repose of the sleeper without detection. Memorial services for young Leland were held in Grace Church, San Francisco, on the morning of Sunday, Nov. 30, 1884, the Rev. Dr. J. P. Newman of New York preaching an eloquent sermon. The floral decorations were exquisite; one bower fifteen feet high with four floral posts supporting floral arches, a cross six feet high of white camellias, lilies, and tuberoses, relieved by scarlet and crimson buds, and pillows and wreaths of great beauty.
"Nature had highly favored him for some noble purpose," said Dr. Newman. "Although so young, he was tall and graceful as some Apollo Belvidere, with classic features some master would have chosen to chisel in marble or cast in bronze; with eyes soft and gentle as an angel's, yet dreamy as the vision of a seer; with broad, white forehead, home of a radiant soul… He was more than a son to his parents, – he was their companion. He was as an angel in his mother's sick room, wherein he would sit for hours and talk of all he had seen, and would cheer her hope of returning health by the assurance that he had prayed on his knees for her recovery on each of the twenty-four steps of the Scala Santa in Rome, and that when he was but eleven years old…
"He had selected, catalogued, and described for his projected museum seventeen cases of antique glass vases, bronze work, and terra-cotta statuettes, dating back far into the centuries, and which illustrate the creative genius of those early ages of our race."
Such a youth wasted no time in foolish pleasures or useless companions. Like his father he loved history, and sought out, says Dr. Newman, the place where Pericles had spoken, and Socrates died; "reverently pausing on Mars Hill where St. Paul had preached 'Jesus and the Resurrection;' and lingering with strange delight in the temple of Eleusis wherein death kissed his cheek into a consuming fire."
At the close of Dr. Newman's memorial address the favorite hymn of young Leland was sung, "Tell Me the Old, Old Story." From this crushing blow of his son's death Mr. Stanford never recovered. For years young Leland's room in the San Francisco home was kept ready and in waiting, the lamp dimly lighted at night, and the bedclothes turned back by loving hands as if he were coming back again. The horses the boy used to ride were kept unused in pasture at Palo Alto, and cared for, for the sake of their fair young owner. The little yellow dog whose broken leg was set was left at Palo Alto when the boy went to Europe with his parents. When he was brought back a corpse, the dog knew all too well the story of the bereavement. After the body was placed in the tomb, the faithful creature took his place in front of the door. He could not be coaxed away even for his food, and one morning he was found there dead. He was buried near his devoted human friend.