The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1880-06-18
GARFIELD.
A Brief sketch of the Life of the
Coming Pfesident.--Up tlse Ladder.

lfrom the chicago inter-Ocean.l
The man whom the Republican party
has nominated as its candidate for presi-
dent stands to-day the ablest man in the
house of representatives, and one of the
ablest of American statesmen.
James Abraham Garfield was born in
the village of Orange, Cuyahoga county,
few miles from Cleveland, on the 10Th
of November, 1881, the youngest of four
children, who were orphaned by the
death of their father within two years
after the birth Of this last of them.
Both his parents were of New England
extraction. The father, Abraham Gar
field, though born in Otsego county, N.
Y, was of q family that had resided in
Massachusetts for several generations.
The mother, Eliza Ballou (neices of Rev.
Hosea Ballou, the noted Universalist
clergyman, was born in Cheshire county,
New Hampshire.
The death of Abraham Garfield in
1888 left the widow and her four young
children without fortune in the back
woods.
But there was little farm and on
this they worked, the youngest by and by
coming to he able to bear a share of the
burden.
In the winter there was village
school with such small store of books
rs the neighborhOod afforded for private
reading. So the winters and summers
passed till the family had grown up, and
the youngest, when 16 years of age, had
learned little of the carpenters trade
But this did not prove very remunera-
tive. So in his seventeenth year young
Garfield secured employment on the
Ohio canal, and from driver on the tow
path, rose for time, TO be bOatman.
This irregular life disagreed with him,
and the fall of 1S4S found him back
under his mothers roof, slowly recover
ing from q three months siege of the
fever and ague.
Up to this time he would seem to
have cherished little ambition for any
thing beyond the prospects offered by
the laborious life he had entered. But
it happened that the winter school was
taught by promising young man named
Samuel Bates. He had attended high
school in an adjacent township, known as
"Geauga Seminary" and with the
proselyting spirit common to young men
i'll the backwoods, who were beginning
to taste the pleasures of education, he
was very anxious to take back several
new students with him.
Garfield listened and was tempted.
He had intended to become a sailor Oh
the lakes, but he was yet to i'll to carry
out this plan, SO he finally resolved to
attend the high school one term, and
postponed sailing till the next fall. That
resolution made scholar, n ma or-gener-
al, congressman, a senatOr-elect, and
a presidential candidate out of him, in
stead of sailor before the mast on a
Lake Erie schooner.
The boy never dreamed of what the
man would be.
Early in March, 1S49, young Garfield
reached Chester (the site of the Geauga
academy in company with his cousin
and another young man from his village.
They carried with them frying-pans and
dishes, rs well rs few school books.
They rented u room i'll an old, unpalnted
frame house near the academy and went
to work. Garfield bought the second
algebra he had ever seen, and began to
study it. English grammar, natural
philosophy and arithmetic were the list
of his studies. His mother had scraped
together little sum Of money to aid him
Mt the start, which she gave him with
her blessing when he left his humble
home. After that he never had dollar
in his pocket that he did not earn. AS
soon as he began to feel Mt home in his
classes he sought among the carpenters
of the village for employment mt his
trade.
He worked mornings, evenings, and
Saturdays, and thus earned enough to
pay his way. When the summer vaca-
ton came he had IL longer interval for
work; and so when the fall term opened
he had enough money laid up to pay his
tuition and give him start again.
By the end of the fall term Garfield
had made such progress that lad of Is
thought he was able to teach district
school. Then the future seemed easy to
him. The fruits of the winters teach
ing were enough, with his economical
management to pay the expenses of the
spring and fall terms at the academy.
Whatever he could make ut his morning
and evening work at his carpenters trade
would go to swell another fund, the need
of which he had begun to feel.
For the backwoods lad, village carpen-
ter, tow-path canal hand, would-be sail
OF had now resolved to enter college.
cit is a great point gained" he said
years afterward, "when, III ourhurrying
times, young man makes up his mind
to devote several years to the accomplish
ment of definite work" 1t was so now
in his own case. With adefnite purpose
before him he began to save all his earn
ings and to shape all his exertions to the
one end.
Through the summer vacation of 1850
he worked mt his trade, helping to build
houses within stones throw of the
academy. During the next session of the
academy he was able to abandon board
ing himself, having found boarding
house where he found the necessaries of
life for S1.06 per week.
The next winter he taught again, and
in the spring moved to Hiram to attend
the "institute over which he was
afterward to preside. So he continued
teaching term each winter, attending
school through winter and fall, and
keeping up with his classes by private
study during the time he WAS absent.
Before he had left Hiram Institute he
was the finest Latin and Greek scholar
that the school had ever scotland mt
this day he reads and writes the Ian
guages fiuently.
At last, by the summer of 1854, our
carpenter and tow-path boy had gone as
far as the high school and academies of
his native regime could carry him. He
was now nearly % years old. The strug-
Cling, Woodworking boy developed into
a self-reliant man. He was the neigh
borhood wonder for scholarship and a
general favolite for the hearty, genial
ways that had never deserted him. He
had been brought up in the "Church OF
the Disciples, 4" ms it loved to call itself,
of which Alexander Campbell was the
great light. At an early age he had fol-
lowed the example Of his parents in con-
Meeting himself with this church. His
life correspondent with his profession.
Everybody believed in and trusted him.
He had saved from his school-teaching
and carpenter work about half enough
money to carry him through the two
wears in which he thought he could fin
ish the ordinary college course.
He was growing old, and he deter
mined that he must go that fall. How
to procure the rest of the needed money
was mystery; but ut last his good char
acter, and the good Will this brought
him, solved the question.
He was in vigorous lusty health, and
life insurance policy was easily OBJ
tanned. This he assigned to gentleman
who thereupon loaned HIM what money
was needed, knowing that if he lived he