558 



PEABODY, GEORGE. 



good family of the old English stock, his an- 

 cestor Francis Paybody having come to New- 

 England in 1637, and having attained to a 

 prominent position and considerable wealth in 

 the colony during a long life there. Some of 

 his numerous descendants, and among them 

 the parents of George Peabody, had met with 

 misfortunes and were poor. In consequence 

 of their poverty they were unable to give any 

 considerable opportunities of education to their 

 children. After acquiring the scanty rudiments 

 of an education, little more than the ability to 

 read and write, George Peabody became, at the 

 age of eleven years, a clerk in the grocery-store 

 of Sylvester Proctor in Danvers. Three years 

 later, he went to Vermont and lived for a year 

 with his grandfather, Mr. Dodge, at Thetford. 

 In 1811, his elder brother, David, had opened 

 a dry -goods shop in Newburyport, Mass., and 

 sent for George, from Thetford, to become his 

 clerk. Not long after he entered upon his 

 duties there, a destructive fire occurred, and 

 his brother, with many others, was ruined. 

 He next went with an uncle John Peabody, 

 who had at one time been esteemed wealthy, 

 but who had failed in 1811 to Georgetown, 

 D. 0. Here his uncle started a store, con- 

 ducting business from prudential considerations 

 in his nephew's name, though he was still a 

 minor, and very soon intrusting it entirely to 

 his management. His genius for mercantile 

 pursuits soon developed itself, and attracted 

 the attention of some eminent business men. 

 Meantime fearing that, if he continued in busi- 

 ness in his own name, he would be held respon- 

 sible for debts of relatives which he had never 

 contracted, he withdrew, in 1814, to become the 

 partner of Mr. Elisha Biggs, in the wholesale 

 dry-goods trade, that gentleman supplying the 

 capital, the management of which he confided 

 to the young merchant. At Baltimore, next 

 year, the new house entered upon a large and 

 growing business, insomuch that, in 1822, it 

 could afford to establish branches in New York 

 and Philadelphia. The business still increasing, 

 Mr. Peabody soon had the opportunity of making 

 repeated voyages to Europe for the purchase 

 of goods, and several times on his transatlantic 

 journeys was intrusted with affairs of moment 

 by the State of Maryland. By the retirement 

 of Mr. Eiggs, in 1829, he became the head of 

 his house, and in 1837 settled in London, four 

 years afterward withdrawing from the firm of 

 Peabody, Eiggs & Co., and establishing him- 

 self as a banker. At this time he was already 

 a man of large wealth. He had also performed 

 noteworthy service for the public. During 

 the commercial and financial crisis of 1837, he 

 was appointed by the Maryland Legislature 

 one of three commissioners to negotiate a loan. 

 This duty was none of the lightest. In England 

 all American securities were looked upon with 

 suspicion because of the neglect of some of the 

 States to pay the interest on their debt held 

 abroad, and because of the numerous failures 

 which were weekly reported. Mr. Peabody's 



influence, however, was sufficient to obtain 

 the loan, and, in appreciation of his service on 

 this occasion, the State afterward officially 

 recorded her obligation "for his generous de- 

 votion to the interests and honor of Maryland." 

 During these trying days he struggled manfully 

 to sustain the credit of his native country, and 

 it is not awarding him too much praise to say 

 that the restoration of confidence in the ability 

 and purpose of the United States to pay their 

 debts was due more to his efforts than to those 

 of any other man. He had won a high repu- 

 tation in both Europe and America for com- 

 mercial ability, strict integrity, and a wise 

 foresight and discrimination in his business 

 transactions, and in a few years his house 

 became the leading one for American securities 

 in Europe, and the one on which letters of credit 

 were very generally drawn. His' courtesy and 

 attention to Americans who had letters of credit 

 on George Peabody & Co., were very gratifying 

 to the recipients and spread his fame widely. 

 His house in London became the headquarters 

 of American news and acquaintance. In 1851, 

 when the prospects of the American depart- 

 ment of the great World's Fair in London were 

 very dark, Congress refusing an appropriation, 

 Mr. Peabody came forward, and by his liber- 

 ality supplied the deficiency. Toward Dr. 

 Kane's Arctic expedition he gave $10,000. 

 An American writer in London, since his death, 

 gives the following account of his remarkable 

 courtesies to American travellers : 



During 1851. Mr. Peabody commenced inviting to 

 dinner every person who brought a letter of credit on 

 his house. The thing had been unknown heretofore. 

 He showed to the stranger particular attentions. A 

 day or two after his arrival there was a polite note of 

 invitation to dinner at the " Star and Garter," or to 

 a Sunday' s /ete at Hampton Court, or to a sail on the 

 Thames, or, at least, to an "At Home" at Club 

 Chambers, left at his door. Simply as a business 

 investment, his outlays paid. From 1851 to 1861, on 

 which latter year he retired ^frorn active ^ interest in 

 his firm, the drafts upon him in American letters 

 of credit increased twenty-fold. To defend them- 

 selves, the other leading houses were obliged to adopt 

 his plan, and to-day the American stranger, visiting 

 the great metropolis, owes it to Mr. Peabody's exam- 

 ple that he finds not his money only, but a social wel- 

 come, in the bills of exchange he presents. 



At the head of the dinner-table, as the host of the 

 numerous fetes given at Richmond Hill, Blackwall, 

 and Hampton Court, in his spacious suite of apart- 

 ments at Club Chambers, or among guests at his 

 extemporized pleasure-parties, Mr Peabody was one 

 of the most genial of men. His gentle bearing, quiet 

 humor, constant attention, and thorough good-breed- 

 ing added to his appreciation of whatever was good 

 in the social qualities of others, laughing among the 

 heartiest at a well-told story or brilliant, repartee, 

 and never flagging in his interest up to the latest 

 hour of night made him, as a friend and companion, 

 one of the most desirable of men. It was on the 4th 

 of July, 1851, that Mr. Peabody gave the international 

 entertainment at "Willis's Rooms, which brought him 

 his first English notoriety. He had become some- 

 what known among Americans before this^as a giver 

 of good dinners. Not being in English society, how- 

 ever (for up to 1861 even he had never been presented 

 at court, nor was a member of any one of the leading 

 clubs indeed, his nomination at the Reform had 

 been black-balled), there were grave difficulties in 



