88 



OriK iTarmcr's iltontl)li) Visitor. 



every instrument re()iiiiet) to pronecMte the lieuv- 

 eiily science ready for use, und ilo not rirtemi to 

 interfere with the clninis the worhl lius upon our 

 community to adcOMiplish this greiit und ini[)or- 

 Innt object. Nor do 1 mean lo occupy the ground 

 of another branch of science that will, I suppose, 

 at a future time, present strong claims upon the 

 public bounty. I allude to natural history, now 

 in charge of that acConiplislied iiaiuralist. Dr. 

 Gray. I wish to see all tlrese U-anclies of science 

 prosecuted whh vigor, n»id moving forsvard in 

 perfect harmony at Cambridge. 



I therefore piopo.se to offer, throUL'li you, for 

 the acceptance of the President and Fellows of 

 Harvard College, the sum of filiy thou.sand dol- 

 lars, to be appropriated as I have indicated in the 

 foregoing remarks. The buildings, I have sup- 

 posed, without having made estimates,' could be 

 erected, including an extensive laboratory, for 

 about thirty thousand dollars. If so, there will 

 remain the sum of twenty thousand dollars^ and 

 1 suggest, that whatever sum may remain, after 

 the erection and furnishing of the buildings, 

 should fwin the basis x)f a fund, which, together 

 with one-half of the tuition feejs, till the amount 

 shall yield the sum of three thousaird dollars an- 

 nually, shall be equally divided between the pro- 

 fessor of engmeering and the professor of geolo- 

 gy, and be made a permanent foundation for these 

 professorships. The object i.«, to place iheilnee 

 professors in this school in the same pecuniary 

 situations. I beg to suggest, further, that the 

 whole incoine of this school be devoted to the 

 acquisition, illustration and dissemination of the 

 practical sciences, forever. 



The details, however, nird conditions of this 

 donation, may be hereafter aivranged between the 

 corporatioti and myself. 1 now leave the whole 

 subject in the hands of the gentletnen composing 

 the corporation, in the hope and fiiilh that the 

 plan may be adopted, and executed with as nmcli 

 expedition as may be consistent with economy: 

 and that it may prove lo be honorable to the uni- 

 versity, and useful to the coimtry. 



I pray you, dear sir, to believe 



I remain, most faithfully, 



Your friend, 

 (Signed) ABBOTT LAVVRENCK. 



To Honorable Samiiel A. Eliot, 



Treasurer of Harvard College. 



liberality for which the donor has been long 

 known and honored, but is in singular harmony 

 with that wisdom in managing affairs for whicii 

 he is dislingiii»hed, and willi that position in the 

 world he has attained by skill, judgment and in- 

 icgrily. It is deenjed hy the corporation a high 

 privilege, and a great reward for therr la'bors, to 

 lie the stewards of such baiinty ; and they pledge 

 their best efforts to carry liiiihlidly into execution 

 the eidightened suggestions with whicli the letter 

 nrcompanying the donation is filled. 



The wish expressed in it th;il the conteinplHted 

 school "may be honorable to the university, and 

 usefiil to the country," ii? connected in their "tnirtds 

 with the pleading conviction that such an exanr- 

 ple is honorable aiKl iisefid in a wiiler jiphtre ; 

 that it is honorable not merely to tire individual 

 who offers it, hut to the land in whifh he lives, 

 and that it will be useful, not lo-tire country only, 

 btit to mankind. (Signed,) 



JAMES WALKER, Sec'y. 



June 7, ]8<17. 



Mv Dear Sir: — It gives me high and immin- 

 gled pleasure to be the agent of the corporation 

 in acknowledging the receipt of yOur magnificent 

 donation to Harvard College, it is such acts as 

 this, combining the intelligence of a sound and 

 Well-stored mind with the generosity of a heart 

 sympathizing In all elevated pin-poses for the geii- 

 er.il good, which gives a reasonable foundation 

 for the hope that the future character of the Uni- 

 ted States may be marked by improvement and 

 progress. While your example shall be follow- 

 ed, and wealth shall be di8|)ensed to relieve press- 

 ing want, and to educate the generations to come, 

 society will be bound together by a perception 

 of re.riprocated benefits, and by a feeling of mn 

 tual attachment, which are stronger than any oth- 

 er lie. You may congratulate yourself on hav- 

 ing done much for the relief, encouragement and 

 support of others, and thus for your own fame as 

 an enlightened, Christian philanthropist, and 

 much for the common good and glory of your 

 country, as a wise and high-minded patriot. 



Accept the thanks of the corporation, express- 

 ed in the accompanying vote, and be assured of 

 the approbation which your bounty will not fail 

 to call forth from the public, and which, coirdiin- 

 ed, as it may be, with the approbation of your 

 own heart, will be to you a permanent source of 

 pure happiness. 



I am, with increased respect and slrotiger at- 

 tachment, your friend, 



SAM'L. A. ELro T. 

 Hon. Abbott Lawrence. 



At a meeting of the corporation offlarvard 

 College, held in Boston, June 7; 1847— 



Voted, That the corporation receive with sat- 

 isfaction mingled with admiration, the gil^ this 

 day presente.l to Harvard College by thoHonor- 

 able .Abbott Lawrence,— n donation rarely, if ever, 

 equalled in magnitude, lind unsurpu.ssed for the 

 mdity of the object to wliich it is devoted 



Coiretructron of Roads. 



Persons who travel in those parts of the coim- 

 try where little or nothing is done to improve the 

 ■common roads, will best appreciate the value of 

 the New England roads, especially in the towns 

 where the greatest efforts and expenditures have 

 been made in their construction and improve- 

 ment in the last halfcentury. We live in a rocky 

 country, in a land of magnificent hills and valleys ; 

 and it is worthy of remark that in oirr mos" une- 

 ven townships of hardest soil it has become com- 

 mon to find our best and easiest traveller! roads. 

 Greatly has all our niarkelable produce been in- 

 creased in value to the owner by the lessened 

 price of transport to the producer. In the first 

 settlement of Ibis country, as the most eligible 

 soil for cultivation, the farmers opened upon the 

 highest hills, as the land most liee from frost, 

 most sure and certain of a crop, and indeed more 

 fertile at the opening, than the lower grounds. — 

 .As near the centre as practicable the place of the 

 town congregational church, the village of trade 

 and business, was chosen upon ground overlook- 

 ing as much as possible the settlements in other 

 directions. The main roads leading into the coun- 

 try from the seaboard were even crooked out of 

 direction to go by these meeting houses on the 

 hills in passing from one town to another. It is 

 within our own memory that we had in the inte- 

 rior of'the country no such thing as roads work- 

 ed by throwing the earth to the centre. From 

 forty to fifty years ago first commenced the ma- 

 king of turnpikes, or roads taxable with tolls. 

 These roads, undertaken by the private enterprise 

 of pi'.hlic-spirited men, were in but few instances 

 good (iroperty to their owners — they were of 

 great advantage to the public both as shortening 

 distances of travel from various points and as in- 

 troducing an improved metliod of making roads. 

 But hy the most scientific road-makers of that 

 time the true principle of construction was not 

 well, understood. All our first turnpikes were 

 made with a view almost exclusively of shorten- 

 ing distances. 'I'he Londonderry turnpike in New 

 Hampshire connected with the Andover and 

 ■Medford turnpikes in Massachusetts sliortened 

 the distance fiom Concord, N. H., to Boston, from 

 about seventy-five down to sixty-two miles: lo 

 construct this great highway, whicli then was an 

 enterprise greater than the making and comjilct- 

 ing a railroad with all its appendages of depots 

 and engines would be at the present day, a most 

 amiable and excellent citizen of great public spir- 

 it and enterprise, John Phillips of Andover, Ms., 

 thereon expended and sacrificed what was con- 

 sidered at the time a princely fortune. The sliort- 

 eneil turnpike pursued its course straight as a 



new city of Lawrence at Andover bridge. Kv<Ai 

 at that time with one of the 'be.<t worked roads 

 all the way, Mr. Phillips was obHged not only to 

 reduce the tolls, but to buy an interest in the 

 stages lo induce the first owners of iho.xe vehicles 

 of travel to tfirn from lli-e longer distance of some 

 fifteen miles to Boston through old Haverhill and 

 Woburn. The t»liillips turnpike built up villages 

 at 50me points — it had its excellent taverns at the 

 pri>per points. But the enterprise of the citizens 

 jealous of the monopoly of turnpike owners came 

 in with such competilion in shortening distances 

 and improving the roads, that all the way up to 

 this time the Londonderry turnpike in its detach- 

 ed travelled points has become a free road, and 

 in no inconsiderable part of its distance has grown 

 over to grass pasturage, interrupted by no travel. 

 Before it was abandoned by the proprietors, the 

 shrewd men in its direction endeavored to escu|>e 

 its ultimate destiny by altering, at great expense, 

 the course at various points to the foot and sides 

 of the hills rather than directly over their tops. 

 All would not do — after hard fighting in the courts 

 for years, a " IMainmoth road" of less than any 

 old road, but not so short in distance as the turn 

 pike, so far supplanted the latter as to take away 

 entirely the long travel. 



In searching for the means of improving the 

 roads, our sagacious citizens, in the infancy of 

 road engineering, began to find out the value of 

 the cheerless and rocky forbidding water courses 

 coming through and over the hill and mountain 

 ranges. Great improvement was made in these 

 at first ; but in travelling up the track of some 

 mountain valley or stream even then the great 

 value of the princijile of keeping at the lowest 

 point seems not to have been imderstood : lo avoid 

 ugly rocks in the pathway, the road-constructors 

 seemed to he inclined lo go over a more smooth 

 pathway up and down a hill. It is now obvious 

 that in surnioimling these upon an inclined plane 

 gaining an ultimate point of elevalion, with sharp 

 pitches at each place of internipliun, the grand 

 benefits of the anticipated improvement become 

 grailiially lessened. Improvements in our roads 

 do not so much regard distance as easy grades 

 of rise or fall. The railroads constructed nearly 

 upon a level or so near it as to divide the rise and 

 fall in the longer way, seem almost lo have anni- 

 hilated distance in the greater ease and rapidity 

 with which the motive power is made lo pass 

 over them. Better and better iinderslood as this 

 principle has become in New England by those 

 who have the direction of our common roads, 

 the advantages of good roads are already felt in 

 almost every direction. 



Take, for example, the little town of Wilton, 

 of less than six miles square, among the high- 

 lands of New Hampshire, itself a specimen of 

 magnificent hills, with its ancient church erected 

 upon the highest, hy contributions fiom every 

 landholder in the tuniiship — a town which has 

 varied little fiom a thuiisand inhahilauts for the 

 last fifty years. To and ihrough this town in that 

 time we have often travelled : at first the only 

 tolerable means of personal transport was upon 

 horseb.ick ; and then in that mode the roads were 

 almost of as sleep and difficult ascent and de.<cent 

 as is now the back-horse ride over the Crawford 

 roads lo the top of Mount Washington. Through 

 the town of Wilton from its higher sources that 

 tributary of the Merrimack, the Soiihcgan stream, 

 upon which have been erected numerous mills 

 fi)r various manufactures, comes down, uniting 



arrow over the hills, making less than forty miles three several tributary streams. The sharp hill.s 



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It IS not only in accordance with the munificent I m the di.lance from Concord to the site of the I broken dee|. into the'earth m the course of lime 



