16 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



man, faultless as a gentleman, and in domestic relations judicious 

 and tender, few men have left behind them memories more hon- 

 ored and beloved. 



Mr. Meigs was born in New Haven in 1*182, and died in May- 

 last, in the 79th year of his age. He graduated at Yale College 

 in 1799, was educated for the bar, and practiced as a lawyer for 

 many years. Early in his career he won the confidence of many 

 prominent citizens, and numbered among his friends and clients 

 John Jacob Astor, Robert Lenox, Isaac Bronson, Messrs. Prime, 

 Parish, and Gallatin, and other wealthy men of the day Some 

 of these gentlemen were instrumental in connecting him with the 

 United States Bank, three-quarters of whose capital of $10,000,- 

 000 passed through his hands. During this time he had occupied 

 several important public positions. In 1807 he was appointed 

 one of our city magistrates, and continued in that office for seve- 

 ral years. Though exempt from military duty he volunteered in 

 the war of 1812, and was appointed adjutant under Col. Marinua 

 Willett, of revolutionary fame ; his regiment served for city de- 

 fense during the entire war. 



In 1816, when the construction of our canals was resolved upon, 

 Mr. Meigs published, in the New York JVational Jldvocate, articles 

 recommending railroads, with locomotive steam engines, as being 

 capable of an average speed of sixteen miles an hour. The idea 

 was ridiculed as absurd by his contemporaries, in whose Avildest 

 dreams of the possible so daring a scheme could find no place. 

 In those days of slow coaches and post horses the great spider of 

 enterprise had not woven the first thread of the iron net work 

 which was to encompass the land, and on which both Mr. Meigs 

 and his sage opposers were to be whirled along at the rate of 

 forty miles an hour. 



Mr. Meigs was characterized throughout his long life by a pure 

 public spirit. His own personal interests were but as stubble, 

 to be trodden down whenever they arose to check him in the path 

 of what he believed to be his duty. His career while serving in 

 the XVIth Congress amply testifies to this. Elected by the city 

 of New York, and without pledge of any kind to man or party, 

 he resolved, in spite of the remonstrances of friends and clients, 

 to leave a lucrative and growing business and meet the Missouri 

 question, which was then the uppermost theme of the day. How 

 he met it the public have long ago been told. " I found," said 

 he, in a manuscript now in the possession of his family, " that 



