Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-03-06

Mr.. Gordon Mckay Has Wuled His vaIu-
able Estate.

HAhs ooruoh 1uChdy WHICH NaIu-
able Estate.
The fever of speculation which has pervaded
the wide circle of which Harvard Uni, ersity is
the center ever since the quasi announcement
was made at a dinner in Washington last week
as to the identity of the retired New England
manufacturer who had made over to the col
lege in trust an estate valued at from two to
four million dollars has been somewhat allayed
by the positive statement that Gordon Mckay is
the man.
Gordon Mckay made his money by his inven-
tions He is not Harvard man, or. indeed, a
college man of any sort. but a self-educated
mechanic, like the Skaters. Smiths and other
New Englanders who have enriched the cause
Of education bountifully in the last few
years. He Is now travelling on the Nile and.
modest man that he is. he is probably thanking
his stars at this very moment that many miles
separate him and the grateful constituency Of
Harvard.
Mr.. Mckay is we'll past what is known as
middle age" He was born in Pittsfeld Mass.
but the first that local history records of him is
that away back in the forties. when railroading
was new, he was employed as a machnist BY
what was then the Boston and Lowell railroad.
Some of the locomotives which now plv between
those cities on the southern division of the Bos-
ton and Maine road were designed by him His
that early period productive of astonishing re-
suits. 1t is said. even. that he once made an
estimate OF the weight of locomotive as it
would stand complete. coaled and watered and
with man on board and that when the ma
chine finished and weighed under these
conditions his estimate was only few POUNDS
out of the way.
HIS START AS AN INVENTOR.
Mr.. Mckay owed his actual start as an inven-
<prt 90 NJ 7 loIo -
was in search of some one who could put into
execution his ideas as to certain machines for
making shoes. The result has long since revo-
lutionized the shoe industry, and for many
years Mr.. Mckay has been a very wealthy man.
He made the first machine for sewing shoes,
and hand sewing became thing of the past in
manufacturing. 1t made possible the assem-
bling together of n hundred workmen in a fac
tory, subdivided the work among them. and, in
n word, made the shoe industry what it is to-
day. Nearly if not quite all Mr.. McKays in
ventions have been in the line of this manufac-
ture and the Mckay machines are indispensable
adjuncts to its prosecution.
1t is not known how much Mr.. Mckay is
worth. His income from royalties has been.
many years now. enormous. and as the heaviest
owner IN the various companies which have
been formed he has gathered in the largest
share of their Income.
Those highest in the councils of the univer-
will. 1t was all done voluntarily and without
advice. and only by accident was the secret re-
vealed while the generous testator is yet in the
land of the living. Mr.. Mckay has been abroad all
the winter travelling in the orient with Mr.. and
Mrs. Charles Wood of Boston, and as he is free
to go and come as he likes the time of his re-
turn to America is not known.
HIS PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.
Possibly Mr.. Mckay is in no hurry to come
home. He has had his full share of disappoint-
ment and unhappiness. Two marriages which he
has contracted have been failures, and there now
lives in Washington the lady who was last his
wife-a Miss Treat of Cambridge-who was
barely out of her teens when, having passed
sixty, he made her Mrs. Mckay.
Nevertheless all Mr.. McKay's friends speak
very warmly OF his personal character, his
modesty and his kindness. Though deadly
foe to extravaganza he is not bit niggardly.
and his home. whether in Florence or in Paris
or in Cambridge. is always filed with the lux
uries which educated wealth Graves for its
aesthetic enjoyment. A residence is now build
for him in Aiken, s. &.
Though his brown hair and full beard are
whitening with age he is tall, straigh. and we'll
preserved and would be Immediately conspicu-
Gus in any company.