BROOKS, JAMES. 



BRUNSWICK, EX-DUKE OF. 81 



the opening of Clinton Hall, June 8, 1854. 

 But the sterling qualities of the man outshone 

 his literary fame and his public services. He 

 was eminently a lovable man manly, consid- 

 erate, generous, and benevolent, he won the 

 affection of all who were brought into inter- 

 course with him. 



BROOKS, JAMES, an able New York jour- 

 nalist and politician, born in Portland, Me., 

 November 10, 1810 ; died in Washington, D. C., 

 April 30, 1873. His father, a sea-captain, was 

 lost at sea while James was yet a child, and 

 the family, a widow and three children, were 

 left destitute. James was sent to a public 

 school in Portland, and at eleven years became 

 a clerk in a store at Lowiston, Me., then a fron- 

 tier town. There he used to read the news to 

 the village loungers and fill his thirsty mind 

 from the town library. His employer, ob*i-rv- 

 ing the eagerness of the boy for learning, kind- 

 ly offered to release him from his apprentice- 

 ship and to aid him in obtaining an education. 

 This offer was gratefully accepted, and he at 

 once entered the academy at Monmonth, 

 taught school at ten dollars a month and 

 board, and finally after severe struggles gradu- 

 ated at Waterville College in 1831. To accom- 

 plish this his life was one of the most rigid 

 economy and self-denial. Returning to Port- 

 land, he began to study law with John Neal, 

 the lawyer-author, teaching meanwhile a 

 Latin school in that city. He contributed to 

 the Portland AdcertUer, and subsequently had 

 a regular engagement at five hundred dollars a 

 year. At twenty-two he went to Washington 

 as the correspondent of the Advertiser, and 

 was a pioneer in that line. After that, he trav- 

 eled through the South, visiting and writing 

 letters from the Creek, Cherokee, and Choc- 

 taw country in Georgia and Alabama, at the 

 time when these tribes were compelled to 

 move West. His correspondence at this 

 period was a new revelation in journalism, and 

 gave a greatly-increased circulation to the Ad- 

 tertiter. In 1835 he was a member of the Maine 

 Legislature, and introduced the first proposi- 

 tion for a railroad from Portland to Montreal 

 and Quebec. After the adjournment he sailed 

 tor Europe, and traveled on foot over Great 

 Britain and the Continent, writing letters to 

 Portland descriptive of hU travels. In 1836 

 he came to New York and established the Ex- 

 preit. It was at first very discouraging, but 

 he had the elements of character necessary to 

 to meet precisely the situation, and con- 

 quered a success. In two years he consoli- 

 dated it with another paper, and it became a 

 favorite journal with many merchants and 

 politicians. Mr. Brooks made political speeches 

 in Indiana for Harrison in 1840. In 1841 ho 

 married Mrs. Mary Randolph, a widow, of 

 Richmond, Va., whom he required to manu- 

 rnit three or four slaves before he would con- 

 sent that the wedding should take place. 

 In 1847 he was elected to the State Legislature, 

 and two years later to Congress, where he re- 

 VOL. xm. 6 A 



mained two terms, 1849-'53. He took ground 

 in 1850 in favor of the compromise measures, 

 and in 1854 became identified with the Amer- 

 ican party, and after 1861 with the Democrat- 

 ic. He was elected to Congress again in 1805, 

 and served till 1873 by repeated reelections. 

 He made two later trips to Europe, and ac- 

 quired four languages. In 1867 he was a 

 member of the State Constitutional Conven- 

 vention, and in 1869 was one of the Govern- 

 ment directors of the Union Pacific Railway, 

 and while a director was implicated in some 

 dealings, on account of his son-in-law, in the 

 Crt-dit-Mobilier stock, for which he was cen- 

 sured by the Forty-second Congress at its ses- 

 sion of 1872-'73. Believing that this censure 

 was undeserved, it was thought by his friends 

 that the mortification which lie felt aggravated 

 the severe disease under which he labored, and 

 hastened his death. In 1871-'2 Mr. Brooks, in 

 pursuit of health, made a voyage around the 

 world, and gave the results of his observations 

 first in letters to the Express, and afterward in 

 a volume published in 1872, with the title "A 

 Seven Months' Run, Up and Down and Around 

 the World." Mr. Brooks was an able writer. 

 For perspicuous narrative, terse comment, apt 

 reflection, ready information, courteous tone, 

 and dignified manner, he was as remarkable as 

 for unflagging labor, untiring enterprise, and 

 an intuitional knowledge of the salient points 

 of affairs. There were few more capable Con- 

 uen. Long membership had made the 

 forms of deliberative bodies as household 

 words to him. He attained success as an edi- 

 tor, an author, and a politician, and could have 

 attained greatness in any one of the three pro- 

 fessions to which he might have chosen to de- 

 vote the whole, not a part, of his very clever, 

 thoroughly-trained powers. Personally, he was 

 most popular, because a considerate, pure, and 

 worthy gentleman one whose fine social qual- 

 ities and whose amiability in all the relations 

 of life had won for him the regard and esteem 

 of all who had the honor of his acquaintance. 

 BRUNSWICK, CIIABLES FBEDERICK AUGUS- 

 TUS WILLIAM, EX-DUKE of, born in the duchy 

 of Brunswick, October 30, 1804 ; died at 

 Geneva, Switzerland, August 19. 1873. He 

 was the eldest son of the Duke Frederick 

 William who was slain in the battle of Qualr'e 

 Bras, in 1815. After the battle of Jena, liis 

 mother fled with him and his younger brother, 

 then an infant, to Sweden, where she died in 

 1808. After her death he was confided to the 

 care of strangers, and, wandering from country 

 to country till after the fall of the French 

 Empire in 1815, his education and his moral 

 training were both very much neglected. He 

 received the title of duke after the death of 

 his father, and was placed under the care of 

 George IV., King of England, but his habits, 

 even as a boy, were so vicious that his guar- 

 dian, though himself of depraved morals, dread- 

 ded to have his majority come, from the con- 

 viction that he would be a curse to his subjects. 



