The Norfolk post. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1865-1866, 1865-08-16
He Died Rich.

From the Baltimore Sunday American, ]

|
People said everywhere, when the
morning papers announced the death OF
John Russell Jones, President of the
- - Company, he died rich. -
They said it on change, where they
count wealth by the hundreds of thou
sands; they said it in elegant parlors,
and by luxuriant breakfast tables, all
over the squares and avenues Of the
city; they said it, too, in dank alleys
and squalid homes, where his untold
millionaire one hour of the life that was
to them a burden and misery. Every
where it was the same story, she died
rich.n
His family and friends thought so az
they gathered around the bedside of the
diving man and you, reader, would
have thought 50, too, could you have
looked around that chamber into which
death was entering with his footballs
and his CHASTITY presence.
oh, it was q pfintely room. Rare pic
lures flushed the walls that winter day
with the glory of Arcadian Summer
the fairest blossoms of Southern Mays
were piled thick upon the costly carpets;
and the daintily embroidered drapery
fell in soft, crinkled clouds from the
massive bedstead. And the owner of all
this magnificence lay there DYING; and
through all his life, more than threescore
wears and ten, beyond the allotted period
of man, he had toiled and toiled and
struggled for this-to die rich He had
bought lands and sold them he had
sent richly-freighted ships to foreign
ports he had owned shares in railroads
| and stocks in banks; he had speculated
| in gold he had entered into contracts
| with the government, and furnished the
brave men in the field " shoddy" cloth
ing, and the poorest of subsistence
| stores, etc., etc.
! All there was an angel who stood at
| the bedside of John Russell Jones in
| that dying hour, and the man who was
SO rapidly passing away TO the great
hereafter had nothing out of all his life
| to give him; no generous, noble, self
| sacrificing deeds, which would have
| been pearls, and gold, and all precious
! Jewels in the hands of the angel; SO he
drew forth his tablet and wrote down at
the last chapter of John Russell Jones'
life: "HE DIED POOR"
And John Russell Jones saw the words
az his soul followed the angel on that
Journey which sooner or LATERAL human
beings must take, and he knew then,
for the first time, that all his labor and
struggles had onl y brought him this YER
diet at the bar of the Kingdom OF Hea-
ven: HE died poor"
"He died poor.n A few. persons sor-
rowfullv said this of an old man who
| law i'm the back chamber of small di-
lapidated building, whose ,solitay win
dow looked out on the garden OF John
Russell Jones' residence. The fioor was
hare. and there were only few chairs, a
fable and a low bed in the room. BY its
eide there stood an old black woman,
whomthe dying man had occasionally
furnished with an armfull OF wood or
a loaf of bread. She moistened his lips
with water, and shaded his eyes from
the fiaring tallow candle. He had not a
dollar, nor even quarter of that
amount. His fortune had taken wings
and flown away; his wife and children
had gone before him; his friends, to whom
his heart was always open, ana who had
so often gathered around his festive
hoard while he was in affiuence, had de-
serted or lost sight of him--all but the
grateful old black woman whom he haG
saved from starvation.
Rut the angel with the book stood
there. too, and looking over the ole
mans life, he saw how many good anl
gentle and generous deeds frightened
every year bow he had been kind t.