The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-01-04 00:00:00

HENRY WELLS, OF AURORA.

Henry Wells, the American pioneer expressman
("Wells, Fargo, and C 0.," and first president of the
American Express Company), who has just died at
Glasgow on his way to pees the winter in Sicily, was
one of the most enterprising and successful business
men in the United States. Early in life he became
an express messenger for Harnden at Albany. The
first glimpse of Henry Wells is obtained in an inter-
view he had with Harnden in 1840, urging him to
extend his western express from Albany to Buffalo.
"Put a people there," said Harnden, "and my
express shall soon follow.'' But Henry Wells
was not inclined to wait, and he succeeded in
establishing his proposed express. The firm was
Livingstone, Wells, and Pomeroy, and in 1843 one
large trunk sufficed to transmit all the packages. The
journey from Albany to Buffalo occupied four nights
and three days, and for 18 months Wells himself
served as messenger, and never missed a trip during
his first year. In 1845 Livingston, Wells, and Co.
started their letter express between New York and
Buffalo, and forced the Congress of the United States
to reduce the postage on letters to a nominal figure.
The cost of Btnding a letter to Buffalo in those days
by post was 25c. At the suggestion of Wells, his firm
(ffeied to carry a single letter for 6c., or to sell 20
stamps for a dollar. The enterprise created a sensa-
tion, being in defiance cf the assumed prerogative of
the Government. Public meetings were called in
New York and throughout the West, and resolutions
passed not to send or receive letters by mail to or
from any point where expresses ran until the rates of
postage were reduced. The late James W. Hale had
already started a letter express between New York
and Boston. Hale and Wells joined forces. The
Government used every possible means to break up
the business. Messengers were arrested at most
inconvenient times and places, but ci'izens stood
ready at every point with bail bonds filled out
and...executed, and they were thus enabled to pro•
coed with their letter bags without substantial loss
of time. Officers of the United States were every-
where, and suits were instituted against the company
in various vests of .the country. But the Govern-
ment was defeated in every case. In the meantime
Mr. Wells proposed to Major Hobbie, Assistant-
Postmaster-General, to take the whole mail ser-
vice of the United States and throw the 16 000 post-
masters out of business. This was rejected, but it
had the effect of rendering the public more determined
than ever not to submit to the exorbitant rates of the
department, and at the next Session Congress was
compelled to pass a law reducing the tariff to 6c. Hale i
used to sit n his Wall-street office years ago and tell
how he and Wells had fought the Government of the
United States and came off victorious, adding, "They
would have kept up the rate to 253. till this time if
Wells and myself had not seen a business opeeieg in
it." Upon the passing of this law) Livingston Wells,
and Co. abandoned the letter-carrying business and
commenced the European express, with offices in
London and Parisi
About ten years ago Wells retired from business in
broken health. He had founded and endowed a female
college at Aurora, and throughout his long life he was
a useful citizen, known as such all over the United
States. On the 9th of November he sailed from
America, never to return alive; but his body will be
brought back for interment. He was a man of Roman
contour, with large Cmsarean nose, and he stood over
6ft. high, broad-shouldered, with large heart and lung
space, and erect as a statue of Apollo. "Let me give
you a little anecdote," said one of the officers of the
American Express Company last Wednesday, "which
will tell you what sort of a man Henry Wells Was. On
one occasion I heard him give instructions to a new
messenger. The messenger, if I rightly remember,
was engaged for the Cleveland route. It was in old
times, when thero were dangers and ads;entures and
delays, when stages used to get snowed in for days,
and express messengers hail ti get ox teams and men
at d shovel their way through. Young man,' said
Mr. Wells, measuring the new messenger with his eye,
my instructions will be very short; you are bound
for Cleveland, and you are expected to get there.
That is all.' Mr. Wells had a perceptible stammer
when he was a little excited and peremptory, and made
a word of three syllables out of get '—pronounced
with such decided emphasis as to impress the new
, messenger with the one ceptral fact that everything
I would be forgiven except failure."—New York Timm

The BISHOP• of LONDON on the DEATH
of the PRINCESS ALICE.

In London. on Sunday morning, at the church of St. John
the Evangelist, Charlotte-street, Fitzroy-squase, the Right
by, the Lord B:shop of London preached a sermon from the
let cha.,t.r (.f the Epistle of St Peter, 24th and 25th verses—
" For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the
flower of grass. The gra.s withereth. and the flower thereof
falleth away. But the word of the L'ird endureth for ever.
And this is the word which by the goepel is preached unto
you.,,

. His lordship,"at the commencement of his discourse,
alluded to the voices of the passing year of which he
took a comprehensive retrospect, bringing his healers
back to the various scenes, emotions, pleasures, and
associations of the year about to close. He reminded
them that the occasion was a solemn one—one that
ought to impress itself on the minds of all Christian
men. It had its many solemn warnings ; and, before
advancing another step into the dark futurity of the
New Year, people might well pause and take a retro-
spect of all that appertained to them, both as regarded
the outer circumstances and the inner life of man.
The path which men during the year had travelled
was full of joys and sorrows. The records of men's
lives dining the period showed many broken resolu-
tions, many purposes unfulfilled, many a sad and
cheerless tale of mortality, suffering, and affliction.
Many might boast that they had got during the year
blessings abundant they might also affirm that
they had received their sorrows, and what else
beside? Long-cherished plans had been de-
feated; old ties had been broken, and new ones
formed. Sins which men, if they 80 wished, would
have avoided, and blessings weich, if they willed,
would have been theirs ; transgressions consciously
committed, and duties neglected these constituted
a great portion of the vista presented through
a retrospect of the past year. The sins had gone,
but their stain remained with men. Added to all
these considerations might be the lesson of life's
uncertainties—one proof of which this nation had but
recently sadly experienced, for the whole nation was
still in mourning with deep and heartfelt sorrow for
the 10-s of one who was not alone illustrious by birth,
but by the highest virtues that could adorn or charm
the wife or mother. There was about the Princess
Alice, whom the nation grieved for, a discriminating
benevolence, a heavenly goodness, a sweet, beautiful,
though unobtrusive sympathy with every good work
which had made her death a domestic sorrow and be-
reavement in every home throughout this great
kingdom.
His lordship, having fully and lucidly explained his
text, impressed upon his hearers the feelings and
emotions which should actuate them at the approach
of the new year. He exhorted them not to live for
this life or its pleasures, for "all withereth as the
grass," but for and in the truth of the Word of God,
which is indestructible. This shall be the great
reality on which men should set their minds—the
reality on which men should ground their faith, the
hopes they cherished, the ends they sought, the purposes
they wished to attain—aye, even the very purposes of
their being. The time, too, his lordship remarked, was
a fitting one for his hearers to bear these things in
mind, for they had just re-opened their house of
prayer, 'after re-decoration and renovation, to re-
dedicate it, so to say, to His service. It was little,
indeed, that they had renovated a temple of prayer to
God unless through their prayers they grew in the
grace and friendship of God. It was little that the
temple was restored unless they built up a spiritual
temple bespangled with beauty and holiness, and they
offered up sacrifices worthy of and acceptable to Him.
Such, said the right rev, preacher, should be some of
their vows towards the New Year as a Means of
obtaining grace and enabling them to pursue their
avocations through life.