Field Life

Author : Isabella Field Judson
Publisher : HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cyrus W. Field ; His Life and Work written by Isabella Field Judson and published by HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS. This book was released on 2015-01-14 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cyrus W. Field ; His Life and Work IT was on Wednesday, April 29, 1835, and only a few weeks after “She Stoops to Conquer” had been performed in the village academy at Stockbridge, that Cyrus Field, having persuaded his parents that he was old enough to go out into the world and seek his fortune, left his home. For three years before he had kept the family accounts, and had most carefully entered every item of expense in a small paper book, and he was well aware that it was only with strict economy that the eight dollars given to him by his father at parting could be spared from the family purse. Stockbridge in April lies bare and brown in the valley of the Housatonic, and the tops of the mountains that are near are at that season often still white with snow, and his heart was in harmony with the scene as he looked back for the last sight of his beloved mother’s face. His first letter is dated He does not speak of his loneliness, although we know that it was great, for his mother’s last words to another son, who was going to New York a few weeks later, were, “Bring Cyrus home if he is still so homesick.” It was on one of his first Sundays in New York that, after he had been to church, and gone to his brother David’s for dinner, his unhappiness was apparent to the family and also to Dr. Mark Hopkins, their guest, whose sympathy was never forgotten, nor his words, “I would not give much for a boy if he were not homesick on leaving home.” He has said that many of the evenings during the long summer that followed his coming to New York were passed on the banks of the Hudson watching the boats as they sailed northward, and as he lay by the riverside he pictured himself as on board of one of the vessels, and the welcome that he would receive on reaching Stockbridge. Towards the end of his life Mr. Field began the preparation of his autobiography. From so much of this as serves the purpose of this narrative, extracts will be made from time to time without express credit. In 1835 it took twenty-four hours to go from Stockbridge to New York, and first there was a drive of fifty miles to Hudson on the river, and then a long sail by boat. Almost immediately on reaching the city he entered as an errand-boy the store of A. T. Stewart, which had already a more commanding reputation than any mercantile establishment possesses or perhaps can attain at present. His home was in a boarding-house in Murray Street near Greenwich, where he had board and lodging for two dollars a week, a fact which is in itself eloquent of the difference between life now in New York and life sixty years ago. Stewart’s was then at 257 Broadway, between Murray and Warren streets. There the young clerk received for his services the first year $50, and the second the sum was doubled. Even so, and with what would now be the incredible frugality of his living, it is plain that he could not have supported himself by his earnings. Of his life at that time he said in after-years, “My oldest brother lent me money, which, just as soon as I was able, and before I was twenty-one, I returned to him with interest.” The letter that follows tells how his first money was spent: