The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1881-03-10
ANDERSON, S. c., THURSDAY MORNING. MARCH 10, 1881
A Noble Life.
New YORK, February l9.

A Noble Life.
NEW YORK. February 10.
For model life, let me commend yor
to that of Peter Cooper. -
Ninety years of age, enthroned in the
bosom of his family and the love of hi
people, he waits in peace and content fol
the end. He has lived to see all the
dreams of his youth realized. His inyen'
tions have been made useful, his philan.
thropv has proved mercy and profit
his schemes have all prospered, his chill.
dren have grown up in honor and pros
perity around him, and their children
Chamber on his knee, and with stingless
conscience and q heart that still glows
beneath the SHOWS of age, be will round
a noble life with christians death.
Mr.. Cooper is probably the. Oldest New
Yorker who was observant in his youth
aud is intelligent enough to tell in bis
old age what he saw when he was young,
BE remembers when New York had only
$4,000 inhabitants, and when the ground
where the Astor house and Herald build
ing now stand were corn. fields. He rode
one mile down the river from Bellevue
hospital, and he saw but one house in the
mile which is now solid front of build.
ines. He bas seen New York grow
from half the size of Atlanta to be the
metropolis of America, with about as
many inhabitants as the entire State OF
Georgia.
Peter Cooper began life as an appren-
tice to a coachmaker and received only
s25 a year. He was an Industrious young
fellow, and gave his whole mind to bis
business. He invented while in his ap-
premiership machine for mortising
hubs in carriage wheels, out OF which his
employer made q fortune. His hs:
money was made by the invention of a
machine for shearing cloth. He made
these machines and sold them. This was
prior to the year 1872. Before he was q
years ef age he had mastered three tradea
that of brewer, csachmaker and ma.
chinist. At the end of three years oi
apprenticeship he worked q year at sl.5O
2 day.
H. is connected with the development
of some of the greatest inventions of the
age. He built the first locomotive ever
made in this country. The tubes for the
boiler were made of old gunbarrels. and
the engine made thirteen miles in one
hour and thirteen minutes. This saved
the Baltimore and Ohio road from
bankruptcy and encouraged its projectors
To 90 ahead. When the first Atlantic
cable was being laid the company's cred
it was gone, and Mr.. Cooper ordered the
contractors to draw on him personally,
and thus carried the enterprise through
The first monitor that repelled the Mer'
rimac in Hampton Roads and saved the
federal navy, was built at Dir. Cooper's
foundry. Among other things he inven'
ted a torpedo boat that would run sir
miles by steel springs, and explode Oh
touching an enemy's vessel.
His.ife has been one ofmuni6cence and
philanthropy. The FIRST money he ever
earned he used in lifting the turden of
debt from his fathers shoulders. Since
then he haa given freely and wisely. His
greatest charity was in founding the
Cooper institute. He says of this insti'
tute:
"An old friend of mine was telling me
of the benefit that the poor boys of Paris
received from the Ecole Polytechnique.
A young man living on a crust day
could get the best scientific education al
the Ecole free. I had felt the need OF
such school, open free to every young
working man in America"
Mr.. Cooper has spent already $780,.
600 on the institute, and st its anniversa'
~ last week gave it 5000, ,000more. He
saws furthermore that it is we'll pro
vided for whenever he dies. 1t is the
most useful phiauthropic establishment
probably in America. Athis goth birth
day last week, the wish WAS expressed that
he would be there to greet his friends ten
years from now.
"No said the old man gently: Gall
my old friends have gone and l don't
want to stay smother ten years. / am
ready to go and await the summons of the
Lnrd:H' ~ - -
"Wbatatthe endofyourlife of9o years,
is your adyice to young unen3"
ITO live sober aud righteously," said
the old man.
Mr.. Cooper is great believer in the
dignity of labor and says with pride:
II made all my fortune out of machin.
cry and labor. I never made dollar by
speculation. No young workingman
who has health and energy and induslri.
GUS habits, need fear that he canuot make
fortune in his trade, If be will only have
confidence in it and in himself and in
God."-H W. @. in Atlanta Constitution.