occupation was probably determined by his strong love of independence, his disposition to form extensive and far-reaching plans, and his wish to exert the influence which the possession of great wealth invariably bestows. Under a quiet demeanor and very courteous manners, he concealed an iron will and great steadfastness of purpose. These qualities had ample scope in his occupation, and contributed to its large success. The business in Springfield had its head quarters in a large store on the corner opposite his father's house; but it was rapidly extended, and soon included several branches in the neighboring towns. Being united with banking and other matters, it gave full employment to the several members of the firm, and exerted much influence on the commercial prosperity of the town and the neighboring country. It was attended of course, with the usual vicissitudes of trade; but Mr. Dwight's excellent judgment and cool but persevering character saved him from any marked reverses. His mind was fertile in schemes and resources, though it was somewhat impatient of details, which he willingly intrusted to others. He belonged to the second class of persons characterized by Lord Bacon, when he says that "expert men can execute and judge of particulars one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots, and the marshaling of affairs come best from those that are learned."

Mr. Dwight's business led him frequently to Boston, and here he became acquainted with and married Miss Eliot, in April, 1809. She was the daughter of Samuel Eliot, then an eminent and successful merchant, whose munificence in founding during his lifetime that professorship in Harvard College which now bears his name, was allowed to become known only after his death. The marriage was an eminently fortunate one, contributing largely to the happiness of both parties to it for more than thirty-five years, Mrs. Dwight's decease taking place but a short time before that of her husband. Her sweetness of disposition and firmness of Christian principle diffused sunshine not only in her own household, but throughout the sphere in which she moved. Her goodness was spontaneous; it cost her no effort to be patient, loving, and charitable, but her excellent understarding and severe habit of self-control were needed to preserve these gentler virtues from passing by excess into their neighboring faults. She had much to bear; ill health, in a form attended by great suffering, cast a shadow over many of her years. But the gloom never touched her character or chilled her feelings; on the contrary, her sympathies were never more quick and active, or her charities more unceasing, than when pain seemed to require her attention to be centred on herself. She found her medicine in doing good; she

could derive an enjoyment from entering into the feelings of others, and especially from sympathizing with the happiness which she had helped to create, which brightened her darkest hours of personal suffering. As a wife and a mother, her virtues were best known and appreciated, of course, by those of her own household and her own blood; but there was an atmosphere of goodness about her, which not even a comparative stranger could approach without acknowledg ing its genial and sunny effects. Out of her own family, she preferred that her kindness should be felt, not known. Her charities were constant, but secret, like the rivulet whose sunken course is betrayed only by the brighter green along its banks. Yet to those who knew her intimately, it seemed that even her beneficence could be better spared than the influence of her visible example; and that her peculiar province was to render goodness attractive by the charm of her manner and the silent teachings of her character.

The first ten years of Mr. Dwight's married life were spent in Springfield, in the active pursuits of his business, diversified only by an occasional visit to Saratoga or Washington. He took considerable interest in politics, though in his characteristic way, preferring to accomplish certain results, rather than to allow his own action in the matter to become known. From the strength of his character and his resoluteness of purpose, he had very considerable influence over others when he chose to exert it. They were content to follow his advice, because it was so quietly given, and because he claimed no merit to himself when the end was attained through the means which he had pointed out. His convictions were strong, and his use of means varied and unwearying, when he had a point which he thought worth carrying. Before he left Springfield, it was understood that he might have been chosen to Congress from that district. But the office had few attractions for him; he was no public speaker, and he probably thought at that time that he could ill afford to leave his business. By not becoming a candidate himself, moreover, he could exert more influence over the action of those who were chosen.

Mr. Dwight removed his family to Boston about 1819, and soon afterward, formed a partnership there with Mr. James K. Mills, which continued till his death. The firm thus established soon became deeply interested in the manufacturing enterprises on a large scale which were then just obtaining a foothold in New England. There was something peculiarly attractive in such undertakings to a person of Mr. Dwight's temperament and opinions. It gratified both his pride and his benevolence, to be largely instrumental in building up villages and towns in districts which before were but sparsely popu

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lated, in compelling hitherto unused waterfalls to do the work of man, in opening a wide range of profitable occupation to thousands of families, and filling the ear with the noise of engines and the busy hum of industry, where once only green fields silently basked in the sun. His interest in these nascent enterprises was further increased by feelings of local attachment. Though a resident in the metropolis for the last thirty years of his life, he always continued to regard Springfield, and the country immediately around it, with the peculiar fondness which no person of quick sensibilities ever ceases to entertain for his birthplace and the home of his earlier years. The noble Connecticut, with its fair margins of fertile meadows, always retained, in his estimation, the preeminent importance which he had naturally attributed to it as a boy born and bred upon its banks; and up to the close of his life, he was accustomed to speak of it as "the river." The Chicopee, one of its fair tributaries, emptying into it a little above Springfield, and well adapted for manufacturing purposes, was selected by him for the beginning of the experiment; and the work thus commenced was carried forward, more or less through his agency, till every spindle was turning which the lower portion of that stream-all that came within his sphere of operation-could set in motion. The manufacturing villages thus created upon its banks were regarded by him with feelings of peculiar pride and interest. It was not merely that they were the tokens, as they had been to a considerable extent the means, of the increase of his wealth; though his fortune had grown with the growth of the manufactures of New England. But he could point to them and to the prosperity of their inhabitants as, in great part, his work. One fine summer morning, in the latter part of his life, I had the pleasure of accompanying him on a drive in his own vehicle through these villages, to visit the site of the projected new city of Holyoke. The magnificent scheme for building up this new city, by damming the broad Connecticut itself, and thus obtaining almost an illimitable water-power, was one, if not entirely of his own inception, to which he had largely contributed from his means, and his powers of contrivance and execution. If the undertaking was begun too soon or carried too far, still the mistake was such as to show the bent of his mind and the generosity of his feelings. He spoke of it to me as a noble project, and as one in which he was deeply interested, though, at that period of his life, he could expect to see it carried but a very little way toward completion. He had only put the affair in motion, he said, in order that his son, and others who were to come after him, might have the pleasure of watching its progress, managing its details, profiting by its results, and at last, when the new

city had become flourishing and populous, of being able to say that it was their work. He wished them to have the same feelings of pride and enjoyment, though on a much larger scale, which he had experienced in building up the manufacturing establishments along the Chicopee by the side of which we were riding. Of the magnitude of these enterprises, which he had fostered or first put in motion, we find incidental notice in a letter which his partner had occasion to write and publish in 1841, in order to aid the movement in favor of common schools. "The house with which I am connected in business," said Mr. Mills, "has had, for the last ten years, the principal direction of cotton mills, machine shops, and calico-printing works, in which are constantly employed about three thousand persons."

Another undertaking of a still more public character, in which Mr. Dwight took an early and active share, was the construction of the Western Railroad from Worcester to Albany. Those only who know how heavy were the clouds and difficulties under which this magnificent work was planned, prosecuted, and finished, can appreciate the persevering efforts and continued sacrifices of its early friends and directors. Mr. Dwight's sound judgment and far-reaching foresight saw the end from the beginning,-the ultimate triumph, in the midst. of the early perplexities and the accumulating causes of delay and disappointment. His public spirit was deeply interested in the enterprise, and he saw clearly its transcendant importance to the prosperity of his native State; and his local pride was an additional spur to exertion in the cause, as it was finally determined, probably in a great degree through his efforts, that the road should pass through Springfield. The scheme was of that large and generous character, also, which was peculiarly attractive to his temperament. It did not appear to him as a mere commercial speculation, likely to be profitable in itself. Had this view alone prevailed, the read would not have been constructed till a much later day. But he appreciated its indirect advantages, its effects upon the large towns along its route, and upon the commerce and industry generally of the whole State. These gains were sure; and hence he never faltered in the undertaking amidst all its early failures and discouragements. At the first meeting of the corporation in which any decisive movement was made, held January 4th, 1836, he was appointed one of a committee of three persons, to see that all the necessary preliminary steps required by the charter had been taken. This committee reported at an adjourned meeting held on the following day, when Mr. Dwight was chosen one of the Board of Directors which commenced active operations. He

tres of the on Learly

en done

was continued at this post, by successive re-elections by the stockholders, till February, 1839, by which time, all the main policy of the company had been determined, the road completed as far as Springfield, and considerable work upon the line west of that place. The policy which he ou ported, and which finally prevailed, was to intrust the execution the work to highly educated scientific engineers, so that it should be completed in the most thorough and durable manner, inster 1 n citing cheapness by the employment of another class of persons, forbar only with the practical details of such business. Du the thie years, 1839-41, Mr. Dwight was not upon the board; but in 1842, he was elected by the legislature a director on the part of the State, and in the following year, he was appointed president of the cornpany, in place of Mr. Bliss. This office, however, he held but on year, though he remained a director on the part of the ruary, 1849, when, by the terms of the law, he was! ble. But he was immediately re-elected by the stockholde a member of the board at the time of his decease. He bad thas an active share in the management of the road for about ten years, outbracing the earlier period, in which its completion and success were most doubtful, and the later one, when its affairs were most prosperous and the utility of the work was unquestioned.

A full account of Mr. Dwight's services to the cause of edaction could be given only in a complete history of that renoven he common school system in Massachusetts, and indeed throughout the northern States, which took place during the last fifte u years of his life. But such a history would be out of place here, where there is room only for general statements and a brief mention of a few parti, cular facts. Mr. Dwight's fortune had become large through his own exertions, and he had the disposition to make a munident of it; but he was not content to give for the mere sake of giving, or in order only to establish a reputation for generosity. His ambition was rather to set on foot some large enterprise, of comprehensive and lasting utility to his fellow men, to which he could der efficent but silent aid by his counsels, his personal efforts, and his parse. If he had any private feeling to be gratified in the matter. it was a consciousness of power and influence. He was an eminently a saga fous and practical philanthropist, far-reaching and even magnificent in bis purposes, but patient in execution, finding, perhaps, a nieguma da tending with ulthierlties, shrewd and clear-sighted in meus, and yet preferring to have the detail, and v the out door conduct of the motter, to others. No w