PETER COOPER.
 

A century ago our country was just emerging out of the
gloom of the long struggle for independence ; prosperity was
returning : the Consiirution had been ratified ; President Wash¬
ington was in the first year of his administration, with the seat
of the national government at New VorV^ then a rural city of
30000 inhabitants ; the site of the Cooper Union and all these
miles of streets and houses above Chambers street v/ere orch¬
ards ^^ndcornficldb with farmhouses and country residences ;
around the Battery and Bowling green, and on Pearl and Wall
streets, were the homes of the wealthy.

President Washington lived on Broadwn}' near Rector
street, Governor Clinton and Mayor V-rick on Pearl, and Alex¬
ander Hamilton on Wan street.

There were no railroads yet, nor the tclcgiaph; twenty
years passed before steam ferry-boats crossed the river, thirty-
ti'.,e ^ cars before the city was lighted with gas; there was a
theatre in John street, and several newspapers were pub¬
lished; Columbia College was the only institution of higher
learning, and the Public School System was far in the future.

Sucli was the city of New York, when, on the 12th day of
February, 1791, Peter Cooper was born.

His father was John Cooper, who had done good service dur¬
ing the Revolution, retiring at its close with the rank of Lieu¬
tenant, and resuming his peaceful occupation of hatter in Little
Dock street, now Water street, Coenties Slip, close by the fur
stor.e of John Jacob Astor from whom he bought beaver skins
to make into hn.ts.

lliz another was Margaret, the daughter of Alderman John
Campbell, who had served as Quartermaster in the Coptinvi^iiicil
army. She was born on the spot where St. Paul'o church now^
stands, where her father carripd ot. i-:- business of potter and
tilemaker.

Peter was the fifth of nine children, two daughters and seven
sons, and was named by his father after the Apostle, in the
belief that "the boy would come to something." As soon as
he was old enough he was taken into the shop, as his brothers
had been before him, to learn his father's trade. He used to
tell long years afterwards, that his ''head just reached to the
top of the table," when he was set at plucking rabbit skins, and
by the time he was fifteen years of age, he had learned the
hatter's business thoroughly; often when he came into our
classes and told us of his early life, he would say that he
" learned to make every part of a hat."

Of schooling he received very little, not only because his
father was poor, and the boy's labor was a help to the family,
but because from the delicacy of his constitution he could not