Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous

Poverty is no barrier to falling in love, and, poor though he was, he now married Margaret Miller, his cousin, whom he had long tenderly loved. Their home was plain and small; but she had the sweetest of dispositions, was always happy, and made his life sunny even in its darkest hours of struggling.

Meantime he had made several intellectual friends in the college, one of whom talked much to him about a steam-carriage. Steam was not by any means unknown. Hero, a Greek physician who lived at Alexandria a century before the Christian era, tells how the ancients used it. Some crude engines were made in Watt's time, the best being that of Thomas Newcomen, called an atmospheric engine, and used in raising water from coal-mines. It could do comparatively little, however; and many of the mines were now useless because the water nearly drowned the miners.

Watt first experimented with common vials for steam-reservoirs, and canes hollowed out for steam-pipes. For months he went on working night and day, trying new plans, testing the powers of steam, borrowing a brass syringe a foot long for his cylinder, till finally the essential principles of the steam-engine were born in his mind. He wrote to a friend, "My whole thoughts are bent on this machine. I can think of nothing else." He hired an old cellar, and for two months worked on his model. His tools were poor; his foreman died; and the engine, when completed, leaked in all parts. His old business of mending instruments had fallen off; he was badly in debt, and had no money to push forward the invention. He believed he had found the right principle; but he could not let his family starve. Sick at heart, and worn in body, he wrote: "Of all things in life there is nothing more foolish than inventing." Poor Watt!

His great need was money, – money to buy food, money to buy tools, money to give him leisure for thought. Finally, a friend induced Dr. Roebuck, an iron-dealer, to become Watt's partner, pay his debts of five thousand dollars, take out a patent, and perfect the engine. Watt went to London for his patent, but so long was he delayed by indifferent officials, that he wrote home to his young wife, quite discouraged. With a brave heart in their pinching poverty, Margaret wrote back, "I beg that you will not make yourself uneasy, though things should not succeed to your wish. If the engine will not do, something else will; never despair."

On his return home, for six months he worked in setting up his engine. The cylinder, having been badly cast, was almost worthless; the piston, though wrapped in cork, oiled rags, and old hat, let the air in and the steam out; and the model proved a failure. "To-day," he said, "I enter the thirty-fifth year of my life, and I think I have hardly yet done thirty-five pence worth of good in the world: but I cannot help it." The path to success was not easy.

Dr. Roebuck was getting badly in debt, and could not aid him as he had promised; so Watt went sadly back to surveying, a business he had taken up to keep the wolf from the door. In feeble health, out in the worst weather, his clothes often wet through, life seemed almost unbearable. When absent on one of these surveying excursions, word was brought that Margaret, his beloved wife, was dead. He was completely unnerved. Who would care for his little children, or be to him what he had often called her, "the comfort of his life"? After this he would often pause on the threshold of his humble home to summon courage to enter, since she was no longer there to welcome him. She had shared his poverty, but was never to share his fame and wealth.

And now came a turning-point in his life, though the struggles were by no means over. At Birmingham, lived Matthew Boulton, a rich manufacturer, eight years older than Watt. He employed over a thousand men in his hardware establishment, and in making clocks, and reproducing rare vases. He was a friend of Benjamin Franklin, with whom he had corresponded about the steam-engine, and he had also heard of Watt and his invention through Dr. Roebuck. He was urged to assist. But Watt waited three years longer for aid. Nine years had passed since he made his invention; he was in debt, without business, and in poor health. What could he do? He seemed likely to finish life without any success.

Finally Boulton was induced to engage in the manufacture of engines, giving Watt one-third of the profits, if any were made. One engine was constructed by Boulton's men, and it worked admirably. Soon orders came in for others, as the mines were in bad condition, and the water must be pumped out. Fortunes, like misfortunes, rarely come singly. Just at this time the Russian Government offered Watt five thousand dollars yearly if he would go to that country. Such a sum was an astonishment. How he wished Margaret could have lived to see this proud day!

He could not well be spared from the company now; so he lived on at Birmingham, marrying a second time, Anne Macgregor of Scotland, to care for his children and his home. She was a very different woman from Margaret Miller; a neat housekeeper, but seemingly lacking in the lovable qualities which make sunshine even in the plainest home.

As soon as the Boulton and Watt engines were completed, and success seemed assured, obstacles arose from another quarter. Engines had been put into several Cornwall mines, which bore the singular names of "Ale and Cakes," "Wheat Fanny," "Wheat Abraham," "Cupboard," and "Cook's Kitchen." As soon as the miners found that these engines worked well, they determined to destroy the patent by the cry that Boulton and Watt had a monopoly of a thing which the world needed. Petitions were circulated, giving great uneasiness to both the partners. Several persons also stole the principle of the engine, either by bribing the engine-men, or by getting them drunk so that they would tell the secrets of their employers. The patent was constantly infringed upon. Every hour was a warfare. Watt said, "The rascality of mankind is almost past belief."

Meantime Boulton, with his many branches of business, and the low state of trade, had gotten deeply in debt, and was pressed on every side for the tens of thousands which he owed. Watt was nearly insane with this trouble. He wrote to Boulton: "I cannot rest in my bed until these money matters have assumed some determinate form. I am plagued with the blues. I am quite eaten up with the mulligrubs."

Soon after this, Watt invented the letter-copying press, which at first was greatly opposed, because it was thought that forged names and letters would result. After a time, however, there was great demand for it. Watt was urged by Boulton to invent a rotary engine; but this was finally done by their head workman, William Murdock, the inventor of lighting by gas. He also made the first model of a locomotive, which frightened the village preacher nearly out of his senses, as it came puffing down the street one evening. Though devoted to his employers, sometimes working all night for them, they counselled him to give up all thought about his locomotive, lest by developing it he might in time withdraw from their firm. Alas for the selfishness of human nature! He was never made a partner, and, though he thought out many inventions after his day's work was done, he remained faithful to their service till the end of his life. Mr. Buckle tells this good story of Murdock. Having found that fish-skins could be used instead of isinglass, he came to London to inform the brewers, and took board in a handsome house. Fancying himself in his laboratory, he went on with his experiments. Imagine the horror of the landlady when she entered his room, and found her elegant wall-paper covered with wet fish-skins, hung up to dry! The inventor took an immediate departure with his skins. When the rotary engine was finished, the partners sought to obtain a charter, when lo! The millers and mealmen all opposed it, because, said they, "If flour is ground by steam, the wind and water-mills will stop, and men will be thrown out of work." Boulton and Watt viewed with contempt this new obstacle of ignorance. "Carry out this argument," said the former, "and we must annihilate water-mills themselves, and go back again to the grinding of corn by hand labor." Presently a large mill was burned by incendiaries, with a loss of fifty thousand dollars.

Watt about this time invented his "Parallel Motion," and the Governor, for regulating the speed of the engine. Large orders began to come in, even from America and the West Indies; but not till they had expended two hundred thousand dollars were there any profits. Times were brightening for the hard-working inventor. He lost his despondency, and did not long for death, as he had previously.

After a time, he built a lovely home at Heathfield, in the midst of forty acres of trees, flowers, and tasteful walks. Here gathered some of the greatest minds of the world, – Dr. Priestley who discovered oxygen, Sir William Herschel, Dr. Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood, and scores of others, who talked of science and literature. Mrs. Watt so detested dirt, and so hated the sight of her husband's leather apron and soiled hands, that he built for himself a "garret," where he could work unmolested by his wife, or her broom and dustpan. She never allowed even her two pug-dogs to cross the hall without wiping their feet on the mat. She would seize and carry away her husband's snuff-box, wherever she found it, because she considered snuff as dirt. At night, when she retired from the dining-room, if Mr. Watt did not follow at the time fixed by her, she sent a servant to remove the lights. If friends were present, he would say meekly, "We must go," and walk slowly out of the room. Such conduct must have been about as trying as the failure of his engines. For days together he would stay in his garret, not even coming down to his meals, cooking his food in his frying-pan and Dutch oven, which he kept by him. One cannot help wondering, whether, sometimes, as he worked up there alone, he did not think of Margaret, whose face would have brightened even that dingy room.

A crushing sorrow now came to him. His only daughter, Jessie, died, and then his pet son, Gregory, the dearest friend of Humphry Davy, a young man of brilliant scholarship and oratorical powers. Boulton died before his partner, loved and lamented by all, having followed the precept he once gave to Watt: "Keep your mind and your heart pleasant, if possible; for the way to go through life sweetly is not to regard rubs."

Watt died peacefully Aug. 19, 1819, in his eighty-third year, and was buried in beautiful Handsworth Church. Here stands Chantrey's masterpiece, a sitting statue of the great inventor. Another is in Westminster Abbey. When Lord Brougham was asked to write the inscription for this monument, he said, "I reckon it one of the chief honors of my life." Sir James Mackintosh placed him "at the head of all inventors in all ages and nations"; and Wordsworth regarded him, "Considering both the magnitude and the universality of his genius, as perhaps the most extraordinary man that this country has ever produced."

After all the struggle came wealth and fame. The mine opens up its treasures only to those who are persevering enough to dig into it; and life itself yields little, only to such as have the courage and the will to overcome obstacles.

Heathfield has passed into other hands; but the quiet garret is just as James Watt left it at death. Here is a large sculpture machine, and many busts partly copied. Here is his handkerchief tied to the beam on which he rested his head. The beam itself is crumbling to dust. Little pots of chemicals on the shelves are hardened by age. A bunch of withered grapes is on a dish, and the ashes are in the grate as when he sat before it. Close by is the hair trunk of his beloved Gregory, full of his schoolbooks, his letters, and his childish toys. This the noble old man kept beside him to the last.

SIR JOSIAH MASON

One sunny morning in June, I went out five miles from the great manufacturing city of Birmingham, England, to the pretty town called Erdington, to see the Mason Orphanage. I found an immense brick structure, with high Gothic towers, in the midst of thirteen acres of velvety lawn. Over the portals of the building were the words, "DO DEEDS OF LOVE." Three hundred happy children were scattered over the premises, the girls in brown dresses with long white aprons: some were in the great play-room, some doing the housework, and some serving at dinner. Sly Cupid creeps into an orphan-asylum even; and the matron had to watch carefully lest the biggest pieces of bread and butter be given by the girls to the boys they liked best.

In the large grounds, full of flowers and trees, among the children he so tenderly loved and called by name, the founder, Sir Josiah Mason, and his wife, are buried, in a beautiful mausoleum, a Gothic chapel, with stone carving and stained-glass windows.

And who was this founder?

In a poor, plain home in Kidderminster, Feb. 23 1795, Sir Josiah Mason was born. His father was a weaver, and his mother the daughter of a laborer. At eight years of age, with of course little education, the boy began the struggle of earning a living. His mother fitted up two baskets for him, and these he filled with baker's cakes, and sold them about the streets. Little Joe became so great a favorite, that the buyers often gave him an extra penny. Finally a donkey was obtained; and a bag containing cakes in one end, and fruit and vegetables in the other, was strapped across his back. In this way, for seven years, Joe peddled from door to door. Did anybody ever think then that he would be rich and famous?

The poor mother helped him with her scanty means, and both parents allowed him to keep all he could make. His father's advice used to be, "Joe, thee'st got a few pence; never let anybody know how much thee'st got in thee pockets." And well the boy carried out his father's injunction in afterlife.

When he was fifteen, his brother had become a confirmed invalid, and needed a constant attendant. The father was away at the shop, and the mother busy with her cares: so Joe, who thought of others always before himself, determined to be nurse, and earn some money also. He set about becoming a shoemaker, having learned the trade from watching an old man who lived near their house; but he could make only a bare pittance. Then he taught himself writing, and earned a trifle for composing letters and Valentines for his poor neighbors. This money he spent in books, for he was eager for an education. He read no novels nor poetry, but books of history, science, and theology.

Finally the mother started a small grocery and bakery, and Joe assisted. Many of their customers were tramps and beggars, who could buy only an ounce or half-ounce of tea; but even a farthing was welcome to the Masons. Later, Josiah took up carpet-weaving and blacksmithing; but he could never earn more than five dollars a week, and he became restless and eager for a broader field. He had courage, was active and industrious, and had good habits.

He was now twenty-one. He decided to go to Birmingham on Christmas Day, to visit an uncle whom he had never seen. He went, and this was the turning-point of his life. His uncle gave him work in making gilt toys; and, what was perhaps better still for the poor young man, he fell in love with his cousin Annie Griffiths, and married her the following year. This marriage proved a great blessing, and for fifty-two years, childless, they two were all in all to each other. For six years the young husband worked early and late, with the promise of succeeding to the small business; but at the end of these years the promise was broken, and Mason found himself at thirty, out of work, and owning less than one hundred dollars.

Walking down the street one day in no very happy frame of mind, a stranger stepped up to him, and said, "Mr. Mason?"

"Yes," was the answer.

"You are now, I understand, without employment. I know some one who wants just such a man as you, and I will introduce him to you. Will you meet me to-morrow morning at Mr. Harrison's, the split-ring maker?"

"I will."

The next day the stranger said to Mr. Harrison, "I have brought you the very man you want."

The business man eyed Mason closely, saying, "I've had a good many young men come here; but they are afraid of dirtying their fingers."

Mason opened his somewhat calloused hands, and, looking at them, said, "Are you ashamed of dirtying yourselves to get your own living?"

Mason was at once employed, and a year later Mr. Harrison offered him the business at twenty-five hundred dollars. Several men, observing the young man's good qualities, had offered to loan him money when he should go into trade for himself. He bethought him of these friends, and called upon them; but they all began to make excuse. The world's proffers of help or friendship we can usually discount by half. Seeing that not a dollar could be borrowed, Mr. Harrison generously offered to wait for the principal till it could be earned out of the profits. This was a noble act, and Mr. Mason never ceased to be grateful for it.

He soon invented a machine for bevelling hoop-rings, and made five thousand dollars the first year from its use. Thenceforward his life reads like a fairy-tale. One day, seeing some steel pens on a card, in a shop-window, he went in and purchased one for twelve cents. That evening he made three, and enclosed one in a letter to Perry of London, the maker, paying eighteen cents' postage, which now would be only two cents.

His pen was such an improvement that Mr. Perry at once wrote for all he could make. In a few years, Mason became the greatest pen-maker in the world, employing a thousand persons, and turning out over five million pens per week. Sixty tons of pens, containing one and a half million pens to the ton, were often in his shops. What a change from peddling cakes from door to door in Kidderminster!

Later he became the moneyed partner in the great electro-plating trade of the Elkingtons, whose beautiful work at the Centennial Exposition we all remember.

Mr. Mason never forgot his laborers. When he established copper-smelting works in Wales, he built neat cottages for the workmen, and schools for the three hundred and fifty children. The Welsh refused to allow their children to attend school where they would be taught English. Mr. Mason overcame this by distributing hats, bonnets, and other clothing to the pupils, and, once in school, they needed no urging to remain. The manufacturer was as hard a worker as any of his men. For years he was the first person to come to his factory, and the last to leave it. He was quick to decide a matter, and act upon it, and the most rigid economist of time. He allowed nobody to waste his precious hours with idle talk, nor did he waste theirs. He believed, with Shakespeare, that "Talkers are no good doers." His hours were regular. He took much exercise on foot, and lived with great simplicity. He was always cheerful, and had great self-control. Finally he began to ask himself how he could best use his money before he died. He remembered his poor struggling mother in his boyish days. His first gift should be a home for aged women – a noble thought! – his next should be for orphans, as he was a great lover of children. For eight years he watched the beautiful buildings of his Orphanage go up, and then saw the happy children gathered within, bringing many of them from Kidderminster, who were as destitute as himself when a boy. He seemed to know and love each child, for whose benefit he had included even his own lovely home, a million dollars in all. The annual income for the Orphanage is about fifty thousand dollars. What pleasure he must have had as he saw them swinging in the great playgrounds, where he had even thought to make triple columns so that they could the better play hide-and-seek! At eight, he was trudging the streets to earn bread; they should have an easier lot through his generosity.

For this and other noble deeds Queen Victoria made him a knight. What would his poor mother have said to such an honor for her boy, had she been alive!

What would the noble man, now over eighty, do next with his money? He recalled how hard it had been for him to obtain knowledge. The colleges were patronized largely by the rich. He would build a great School of Science, free to all who depended upon themselves for support. They might study mathematics, languages, chemistry, civil engineering, without distinction of sex or race. For five years he watched the elegant brick and stone structure in Birmingham rise from its foundations. And then, Oct. 1, 1880, in the midst of assembled thousands, and in the presence of such men as Fawcett, Bright, and Max Muller, Mason Science College was formally opened. Professor Huxley, R. W. Dale, and others made eloquent addresses. In the evening, a thousand of the best of England gathered at the college, made beautiful by flowers and crimson drapery. On a dais sat the noble giver, in his eighty-sixth year. The silence was impressive as the grand old man arose, handing the key of his college, his million-dollar gift, to the trustees. Surely truth is stranger than fiction! To what honor and renown had come the humble peddler!

On the following 25th of June, Sir Josiah Mason was borne to his grave, in the Erdington mausoleum. Three hundred and fifty orphan-children followed his coffin, which was carried by eight servants or workingmen, as he had requested. After the children had sung a hymn, they covered the coffin-lid with flowers, which he so dearly loved. He sleeps in the midst of his gifts, one of England's noble benefactors.

BERNARD PALISSY

In the Louvre in Paris, preserved among almost priceless gems, are several pieces of exquisite pottery called Palissy ware. Thousands examine them every year, yet but few know the struggles of the man who made such beautiful works of art.

Born in the south of France in 1509, in a poor, plain home, Bernard Palissy grew to boyhood, sunny-hearted and hopeful, learning the trade of painting on glass from his father. He had an ardent love for nature, and sketched rocks, birds, and flowers with his boyish hands. When he was eighteen, he grew eager to see the world, and, with a tearful good-by from his mother, started out to seek his fortune. For ten years he travelled from town to town, now painting on glass for some rich lord, and now sketching for a peasant family in return for food. Meantime he made notes about vegetation, and the forming of crystals in the mountains of Auvergne, showing that he was an uncommon boy.

Finally, like other young people, he fell in love, and was married at twenty-eight. He could not travel about the country now, so he settled in the little town of Saintes. Then a baby came into their humble home. How could he earn more money, since the poor people about him had no need for painted glass? Every time he tried to plan some new way to grow richer, his daily needs weighed like a millstone around his neck.

About this time he was shown an elegant enamelled cup from Italy. "What if I could be the first and only maker of such ware in France?" thought he. But he had no knowledge of clay, and no money to visit Italy, where alone the secret could be obtained.

The Italians began making such pottery about the year 1300. Two centuries earlier, the Pagan King of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea, was said to keep confined in his dungeons twenty thousand Christians. The Archbishop of Pisa incited his subjects to make war upon such an infidel king, and after a year's struggle, the Pisans took the island, killed the ruler, and brought home his heir, and great booty. Among the spoils were exquisite Moorish plates, which were so greatly admired that they were hung on the walls of Italian churches. At length the people learned to imitate this Majolica ware, which brought very high prices.

The more Palissy thought about this beautiful pottery, the more determined he became to attempt its making. But he was like a man groping in the dark. He had no knowledge of what composed the enamel on the ware; but he purchased some drugs, and ground them to powder. Then he bought earthen pots, broke them in pieces, spread the powder upon the fragments, and put them in a furnace to bake. He could ill afford to build a furnace, or even to buy the earthenware; but he comforted his young wife with the thought that as soon as he had discovered what would produce white enamel they would become rich.