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Read Ebook: Stories of Great Inventors Fulton Whitney Morse Cooper Edison by Macomber Hattie E
Font size: Background color: Text color: Add to tbrJar First Page Next PageEbook has 287 lines and 6523 words, and 6 pagesIn the evenings he kept his accounts, wrote his letters, and read with his wife and children. He worked this way long after he had an income of thirty thousand dollars a year. This was not because he wanted to have so much more money for himself. You remember he had a plan to carry out which would take much money. That was to build his free school for the poor. He had no time for parties or pleasures. But the people of New York knew he was both honest and intelligent. They asked him to be a member of the City Council, and President of their Board of Education. Peter Cooper never refused to do anything which might help others. So he did not refuse these offices. I must tell you now about Mr. Cooper's first child, and how fine a thing it was to have an inventor for a papa. Mr. Cooper made for this baby a self-rocking cradle, with a fan attached to keep off the flies, and with a musical instrument to soothe the dear baby into dreamland. Mr. Cooper's business prospered. Once the glue factory burned, with a loss of forty thousand dollars. But at nine o'clock the next morning there was lumber on the ground for a factory three times as large as the one burned. He then built a rolling mill and furnace in Baltimore. They were then trying to build the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. Only thirteen miles of the road had been finished. The directors were about to give up the work. There were many sharp turns in the track. The directors were discouraged because they thought no engine could be made to make those turns. Mr. Cooper knew that this road would help his rolling mill. Nothing could discourage him. He went to work and made the first locomotive made in America. He attached a box-car to it. Then he invited the directors to take a ride. He took the place of engineer himself. Away they flew over the thirteen miles in an hour. The directors took courage, and the road was soon finished. Years after, when Mr. Cooper had become a great man, he was invited to visit Baltimore. The old engine was brought out, much to the delight of the people, who cheered again and again at sight of it. Mr. Cooper soon built at Trenton, N.J., the largest rolling mill in the United States. He also built a large blast furnace, and steel and wire works in different parts of Pennsylvania. He bought the Andover iron mines. He built eight miles of railroad in this rough country. Over this road he carried forty thousand tons a year. The poor boy, who once earned but twenty-five dollars a year, had become a millionaire. No good luck accomplished this. But these are the things that did it: Hard work. Living within his means. Saving his time. Common sense, which helped him to look carefully before he invested his money. Promptness. Keeping his word. Mr. Cooper was honorable in all his business. Once he said to a friend who had an interest in the Trenton works: "I do not feel quite easy about the amount we are making. We are making too much money. It is not right." The price was made lower at once. Do you not think Peter Cooper was an unusual kind of a man to lower the price of an article just because the world needed it so much? He was now sixty-four years of age. He had worked day and night for forty years to build his Free College. He had bought the ground for it. And now for five whole years he watched his great, six-story, brown-stone building as it grew. The man who was once a penniless lad should teach many through these great stones some of the lessons he knew so well. Some of these are industry, economy and perseverance. Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page |
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