E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Dave Macfarlane,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
GREAT FORTUNES,
AND
HOW THEY WERE MADE;
OR THE
Struggles and Triumphs of our Self-Made Men.
BY
JAMES D. McCABE, Jr.,
AUTHOR OF "PLANTING THE WILDERNESS," ETC., ETC.
Numerous Illustrations,
FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS BY G.F. & E.B. BENSELL.
"Man, it is not thy works, which are mortal, infinitely little, and the greatest no greater than the least, but only the spirit thou workest in, that can have worth or continuance."—Carlyle.
GEORGE MACLEAN,
PHILADELPHIA, NEW YORK AND BOSTON.
1871.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by
E. HANNAFORD & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D.C.
ELECTROTYPED AT THE FRANKLIN TYPE FOUNDRY, CINCINNATI.
"The physical industries of this world have two relations in them: one to the actor, and one to the public. Honest business is more really a contribution to the public than it is to the manager of the business himself. Although it seems to the man, and generally to the community, that the active business man is a self-seeker, and although his motive may be self-aggrandizement, yet, in point of fact, no man ever manages a legitimate business in this life, that he is not doing a thousand-fold more for other men than he is trying to do even for himself. For, in the economy of God's providence, every right and well organized business is a beneficence and not a selfishness. And not less is it so because the merchant, the mechanic, the publisher, the artist, think merely of their profit. They are in fact working more for others than they are for themselves."
PREFACE.
The chief glory of America is, that it is the country in which genius and industry find their speediest and surest reward. Fame and fortune are here open to all who are willing to work for them. Neither class distinctions nor social prejudices, neither differences of birth, religion, nor ideas, can prevent the man of true merit from winning the just reward of his labors in this favored land. We are emphatically a nation of self-made men, and it is to the labors of this worthy class that our marvelous national prosperity is due.
This being the case, it is but natural that there should be manifested by our people a very decided desire to know the history of those who have risen to the front rank of their respective callings. Men are naturally cheered an