Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-10-21
A Story of Great Bankers and Great
Borrowings.
GATH WRITES OF MONEY.
The Origin and Growth Of a Pow.
erful Firm.
ABOUT OUR FOREIGN DEBT.


Co. at the corner of Wall and Broad streets,
right opposite where Washington was in
augurated. occupies ground purchased in
It's day. 1871. for the highest price per foot
ever paid up to that time in the city. Its
main door is at the sharp corner, and
going in you see a line of clerks and desks
at the left angle, and to the right angle
another straight line; and going to the
right, or down the Broad street face, you
come to little gate. disclosing still third
corridor OF employees. and just within the
gate Is a. small. square room, where Mr.
Pierpont Morgan sits. and. unseen. can
look over at the stock exchange and see all
the passers by.
Probably fifty or sixty persons are in
sight in this bank. most of them wearing
the faces of acute. prompt, yet conserva-
i've intelligence. the young often knowing
and of society style. the older looking to
be OF the old courtier class. such as keep
palace doors and parliament wickets. Two
or three partners Of Mr. Morgan occupy
an open semi-drawing room next to his
closed sanctum. and there persons are set
down. till the chief is ready to see them,
upon sofa or leather chairs, while the ac-
cessory work is done by these partners.
whose dress. wigs, &c. give them to a
novice the air of old actors In such English
comedies as Money
When you face Mr.. Pierpont Morgan,
however. You seem to have run upon one of
the great barons or absolute kings of the
Tudor or Faiols age. He Is pretty big. de-
cidedly fierce, Of nervous action, with a
large nose, a pair of dark eyes, a mixture
of the eagle and the vulture, to whom you
feel like the hare or partridge when the
great kite has descended and gives you a
terrifying view of his lineaments before he
ends your fainting fate withal, this alb
so.ute spirit seems to be a gentleman and
to love life and people. He is attractive the
moment he wants to be. and many people
wish he wanted to. His voice can be kindly
intoned. his eyes then look warm. he let's
his impressiveness slide into his forefinger,
which he raises. and you see a natural man.
Of whom urgent and crowding affairs have
made a financial gladiator. But for a mo-
ment or two he lays the lion down for the
lamb. rapidly obliges you and finishes. and
IN a moment Is back in his absolute king
dom again, by merit raised to that high
once.
The Grandson of a Poet.
Alack a day. If this is the grandson of
pieces loved to commit and whose lectures
on spiritualism 1 reported just a third Of
one century ago. Yet it is the son of Rev.
John Pierpont's daughter. Juliet, who mar
ried Junius Spencer Morgan in 1896, when
he was twenty-three and was changing
from bank clerk to become a dry goods
merchant Our Levi p. Morton, another
banker. was the dry goods partner of Ju-
MUS Morgan, who, at forty, became the
partner OF George Peabody and at Pea
body's retirement in 1854 turned the name
OF Peabody house into ~. S. Morgan &
ture you can see the father of his son;
the combative broad nose. the solid upper
np, the high, full, statesman forehead and
the prosecutors and judges eyes. The
father came from Holyoke. opposite Spring.
neid, Mass. His son was born at Hartford
the year after the merchants marriage
Pierpont Morgan was sent to Gottingcn
Germany. to study after he had come out
OF the Boston High School, and at twenty
entered the banking house of Duncan Sher-
man & Co.. and the year before our civil
war, at only twenty-three, was the Amcri-
can factor of Peabody & Morgan and the
year his father succeeded Peabody the SON
founded the house of Dabney, Morgan &
Co. He attracted the Discerning eye of
Commodore Vanderbilt. The Drexels want
ed to crowd ahead of Jay Cooke and they
solicited Pierpont Morgan to come IN two
years before Jay Cooke & Co. failed
MIR. Morgan's grandfather. Rev John
Pierpont. died in 1856, at eighty-one, hay-
ing been clerk in the Treasury DEPART
ment at Washington In his old age. / sat
down by him in Musical Fund Hail. Phila-
delphia, in the winter of 1860 a handsome
trim, high-headed old man. who was born
before the Federal Constitution, and he said !:
Il do not complain that our Spirit inter-
views are doubted Last evening, when /
was speaking on this platform / felt some
one draw near me, and turning. 1 saw Dr.
Charming there: Don't STOP said the doc
tor to me. I was interested in your argu-
ment, and came to hear you conclude It,
Pray, go on. Mr.. Pierpontr
As DR.. Claiming had died eighteen years
before. his just dropping in sounded spec
tral TO me. The good poet had been in Col
VIM Alston's family in South Carolina
as tutor ir JeffersOn's administration, but
-FOUR years there did not make him less an
abolitionIst. and after being a lawyer and a
merchan: he studied divinity" quarrcled
with his rich Boston congregation on tenn
perance, ran for governor and for Con-
gress, Travelled in the Holy Land and at
the age OF seventy-six went as chaplain into
the army, seeing the dead in the next
sphere and insisting that every body could
see them but for unbelief
This was the CHEEKY voice which sanr.
What have we. Lord. to bind US
TO this. the pilgrims shore,
Their hill Of graves behind us
Their watery way before:
The wintery surge. that dashes
Against the rocks they trod
Their memory and their ashes
Be Thou our guard, o Godr'
Says Ben: Perley Poore: John Piernont
the veteran parson poet, came to Washing.
ton as the chaplain TO Henry Wilson's regi-
ment, but he found himself unable to endure
the hardships OF camp life and Senator
summer obtained clerkship in the treasury
for him.
When he reached his eizhtieth birthday
In 1856 he was told in the evening that a
Few friends had called. and, on entering the
parlor to greet them. he was entirely sur
prised- One presented him with a gold
watch. another with a valuable cane and
another with large photograph album con-
tanning the portraits of old Boston friends
and parishioners. filed with autograph Iet
tiers OF congratuiatsOn in poetry and nrosa
from Sumner, Wilson, Mrs Sigournev Whit
tier. Wood. Dana, Holmes. Whinn1e and
other letters. signed by Moses WiIliaDs
Gardner Brewer and the solid men OF
Boston" VI
Thus the grandfather. whose daupbtsr,s
son. the railroad men tell me- cats awav
from New York on a railroad lark and turns
out to be a right good fellow
An Open-Handed Man.
"Pierpont Morgan" said a young railroad
man. was away with US two weeks oncs
and we found him to be right good fellow
He carried in his inside pocket a book or
block OF perfectly new United States notes
to give away to porters. walters and other
servants, and seldom gave less than twenty
dollars. making them all look upon him as