ELIAS BOUDINOT AND STEPHEN GIEARD 303 



eud a philanthropist and benefactor. He was one of the 

 most eccentric of men ; and his homely chaise, drawn by 

 a sleepy looking farm horse, was for years to be seen 

 every day except !Suiiday at about the same hour, making 

 its way slowly along the main business street of his 

 adopted city. This description of him is given by a 

 recent writer : ' ''His low, square, sturdy frame was in- 

 variably clad in a faded coat of an ancient and foreign 

 pattern. His slouch hat half concealed a cold and melan- 

 choly face marked with deep lines of thought and care. 

 His small, bright eye looked hard and cunning, and his 

 firm, determined mouth and square jaw indicated the 

 indomitable will that lay beneath the uncouth exterior." 



He was born near Bordeaux, in France, May 24, 1750, Bom 1750 

 of seafaring parents. His childhood was unhappy, and 

 at fourteen he ran away from home, shipping as cabin- 

 boy on a trading vessel bound for the West Indies. Dur- 

 ing his voyages he read carefully every book he could 

 get hold of, and gained a large fund of information. Of seif-Made 

 a keen mind, he studied thoroughly the commercial con- 

 ditions and operations of the countries he visited. By 

 and by he rose to the command of a shij), and presently 

 became ship owner, purchasing vessel after vessel until his 

 fleet was famous the world around. He made Philadel- Philadelphia 

 phia his headquarters in 1777, and became engaged in '^^^ 

 numerous enterprises. His marriage to a Philadelphia 

 shipbuilder's daughter was unhappy, his wife becoming 

 insane and spending twenty-five years in an asylum be- 

 fore death relieved her. This blasting of his domestic 

 happiness, together with his boyhood miseries, embittered 

 him, and led him to assume a harsh and cynical exterior 

 foreign to his real nature. 



He bent all his energies to the accumulation of wealth, 

 and came to be regarded as a miser. The truth would Miser- 

 seem to be, however, that all this time he had the fixed rh^roput 

 purpose of founding an institution that should through 

 > W. H. Kirkbride. 



