XXIII.

HUGH MCCULLOCH.

MR. MCCULLOCH was born in Kennebunk, Maine, on the 7th of December, 1808. His father was one of the large ship-owners of New England who were ruined, or nearly ruined, by the War of 1812, and one of the first lessons which his son had to learn was, that for whatever headway he made in the world, he must depend upon himself. His father was, however, able to pay the expenses of his preparatory education and of a little more than one year's study at Bowdoin College. Leaving college in his Sophomore year, he taught school for a couple of years, and, having earned in this way and saved a few hundred dollars, he commenced the study of law in his native town. He completed his course of legal study in Boston, and in April, 1833, anticipating Mr. Greeley's advice, he "went west." In June following he reached Fort Wayne, Indiana, which was described by him as then being a mere dot of civilization in the heart of a magnificent wilderness; and here was his home until 1863. In the autumn of 1835, he organized and became the cashier and manager of the Fort Wayne branch of the State Bank of Indiana. The next year he was elected a director of the bank, and he continued to be the cashier and manager of the branch and a director of the bank until the expiration of its charter in 1857. In 1855 a new bank was chartered, and of this bank Mr. McCulloch was elected president. Both banks were among the best and solidest monetary institutions of this or any other country.

In April, 1863, Mr. McCulloch was appointed Comptroller of the Currency, by President Lincoln, at the request of Secretary Chase. It was an office which he could not accept without considerable pecuniary sacrifice, but engaged as the government was in a terrible struggle for its existence, he did not feel at liberty to withhold from it such services as he might be able to render in a field with which he was familiar.

In March, 1865, he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury. While Comptroller, his relations with Secretary Chase and his successor, Mr. Fessenden, were intimate. He understood the financial condition of the country, and was familiar with the routine of the department. He was therefore fairly equipped for the place, but the appointment was as unexpected by him as it was undesired. He held the office until March 4, 1869. From 1870 to 1880 he was engaged in banking and other business transactions either in London or New York. In the spring of 1880, he retired to a farm in Maryland to find employment in restoring

to fertility land which had been greatly impoverished by bad husbandry. In October, 1884, he again entered public life by resuming for a brief period, at the request of President Arthur, the office of Secretary of the Treasury.

XXIV.

CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW.

CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW was born at Peekskill, New York, in 1834. He comes of a Huguenot family, and on the maternal side is descended from a brother of the Roger Sherman of Revolutionary fame. Graduated from Yale College in 1856, he was admitted to the bar in 1859. Having been returned to the State Legislature from the Third Westchester District in 1862, he was Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and acting Speaker during part of that year. Mr. Depew displayed such administrative capacity, and spoke with such eloquence during his short term as Assemblyman, that in 1863 he was placed in nomination for Secretary of State, and was elected by the large majority of thirty thousand. He declined re-election, and was given the mission to Japan by` Secretary Seward, a position, however, he resigned after holding it four weeks, in order to resume a lucrative business at the bar. It was soon after this he fell in the way of William H. Vanderbilt, who, always on the watch for great business ability, gave him the post of attorney for the New York & Harlem Railroad. From this starting-point on the "Vanderbilt System" his promotion was rapid. He was counselgeneral of the United Central and Harlem road in 1875; in May, 1882, upon the reorganization of the New York Central's management, second vice-president, and on the death of James H. Rutter in June, 1885, was elected president of one of the greatest corporations in the world. He has not been so uniformly successful in the political arena. In 1872 he rendered material aid to the Liberal Republican ticket at the head of which was Horace Greeley for President of the United States. Mr. Depew was defeated in his candidature for lieutenant-governor, but two years later, as he puts it himself, the legislature "forgave" him by electing him Regent of the State University. In the unprecedented contest for senator in 1881 Mr. Depew for eighty-two days received three-fourths of the Republican vote, but retired from the struggle on condition that Warner Miller be elected. In the same spirit he made way for Senator Evarts last summer when morally certain of election. Mr. Depew is a

man of versatile talents. Had he devoted himself to politics exclusively there is no office in the United States he might not legitimately aspire to. He is one of the foremost orators in the country, and as an afterdinner speaker is unrivaled. He charms a cultivated audience by his subtle humor, and a general audience by his flowing wit; is, in fact, so flexible that he can readily and easily adapt himself to circumstances. And that he can give quantity as well as quality they know best who took part in the campaign of 1863, when he spoke twice a day for six weeks in various parts of the State. He has in him the esprit of his French ancestry and the force of the Revolutionary Shermans.

XXV.

DAVID ROSS Locke,

HUMORIST AND JOURNALIST.

THE subject of this sketch-" Petroleum V. Nasby"—is a satirist and humorist, known to fame wherever the English language is spoken and in many places where it is not; for who has not heard of "Nasby," and who has not come in contact with that creation of his genius, the Cross-road Democrat, looking to Washington and political victory for a country post-office? Mr. Locke was born in Broome County, N. Y., in December, 1823. He received a common-school education, like most of his contemporary humorists; for it seems that an early classical drill is not favorable to rich development in that department of literature of which Mr. Locke is so renowned a master. It appears, also, that the type-case is a more potent factor in the training of talent in our day than the best university. Mr. Locke learned the printing business in the office of the Cortlandt Democrat, but while still a young man obtained employment as local reporter in various Western cities. He was successively editor and publisher of the Plymouth Advertiser, Mansfield Herald, Bucyrus Journal, and Findlay Jeffersonian, all of the State of Ohio. It was in the Jeffersonian that he began the "Nasby Letters" in 1860. They at once engaged public attention, and soon brought the writer a national reputation. President Lincoln is reported to have said that, next to a dispatch announcing a Union victory, he read a Nasby letter with most pleasure. After many adventures in the journalistic field, Mr.

Locke obtained the ownership of the Toledo Blade, which he still retains. He is a striking exception among literary men in that he combines great business capacity with literary talent and vivid imagination. While on a European tour, in 1881, he met his old friend, James Redpath, who interested him in Irish politics, a subject on which Mr. Locke delivered several lectures. He opened the columns of the Blade, also, to the advocacy of the Irish cause. Mr. Locke has been thoroughly successful as an editor, author, lecturer, and man of business. He published Nasby in 1865, Swingin' Round the Cirkle in 1866, and Ekkoes from Kentucky and others of his letters have since appeared. Although he discovered a gold mine in his head at a comparatively early age, he still works on, but chiefly at his paper, the Toledo Blade.

XXVI.

LEONARD SWETT.

LEONARD SWETT was born near the village of Turner, Oxford County, in the State of Maine, on the eleventh day of August, A.D. 1825, on what was known as Swett's Hill. This hill has since been owned by the family; it slopes in all directions, and constitutes one of the most beautiful spots in New England. Here his father and mother lived during their lives, and here they died. His father was seventy years old and his mother was in her eighty-ninth year, at the date of their respective deaths.

Mr. Swett, the subject of this sketch, was the second son and fourth child of his parents, and they conceived the idea, at an early date, of giving him a better education than the town afforded. Consequently, he was sent to select schools in the vicinity and completed his education at North Yarmouth Academy and Waterville College, now Colby University. He read law for two years with Messrs. Howard & Shepley. at Portland, Maine, and then started in the world to seek his fortune. At first, for nearly a year, he traveled in the South, when, with the spirit of adventure, he volunteered as a soldier in the Mexican War, and was under General Scott on the line of Vera Cruz and the City of Mexico. The war closed in May, 1848; then Mr. Swett returned and settled at Bloomington, in the State of Illinois. He commenced the practice of his profession in the fall of 1849, and has given to that profession the labor of a life, being now in his sixty-first year.

At first, he was in indifferent health, on account of a disease, contracted in Mexico, which rendered it impracticable for him to sit in an office and do office work, and, therefore, he commenced to travel the circuit. The bar of that circuit-the eighth-at that time, embraced many men of marked ability, some of whom afterwards acquired a national reputation. David Davis, since distinguished as a Judge of the Supreme Court and a Senator of the United States, was the judge from 1849 until 1862. Abraham Lincoln, for two years a Member of Congress, and afterward known to the world as the martyred President and the emancipator of a race, was one of its lawyers. Edward D. Baker, a Member of Congress from the Sangamon district, also, afterward from the Galena district, in the State of Illinois-also a distinguished citizen of California, and a Senator of the United States from Oregon and who died leading his men at the battle of Ball's Bluff— was another of its lawyers. There were also Edward Hannagan and Daniel W. Voorhees, since Senators from Indiana, who attended the eastern part of the circuit, and Stephen T. Logan, John T. Stuart, U. F. Linder, Ward H. Lamon and Oliver L. Davis. The circuit commenced the first of September and ended about the first of January. The Spring circuit commenced about February and ended in June. In a life with these men and upon this circuit, Mr. Swett spent from 1849 to 1862.

The lawyers would arrive at a county seat of from five hundred to two thousand inhabitants, and the clients and public would arrive from the country adjoining at about the same time. The lawyers would then be employed in such suits as would be pending in court, and the trials would immediately begin. After from three days to a week, spent in this manner, the court would adjourn and the cavalcade start for the adjoining county seat, where the same processes would be repeated. Twice a year fourteen counties were traversed in this way. In this manner, and under the hammering of these men, Mr. Swett received his earlier legal education.

David Davis, in a speech at Springfield, recently made, said, in substance, that this time constituted the bright spot of his life. In this expression he would be joined by every man named, most of whom now live "beyond the river."

In 1865, Mr. Swett moved to Chicago, where he has since acquired a prominent and leading position as a lawyer in Chicago and the Northwest. During his life in the country, in Illinois, pending the agitation of the slavery question, and before the war, he took an active part in politics, having canvassed nearly the whole State in the years 1852, 1854, 1856, 1858 and 1860. He, however, never held but one office, which was that of Member of the Legislature in 1858-9, and this was at the special request of Lincoln himself, and to save him the vote of