WILLIAM W. CORCORAN AND HIS ART GALLERY.
William Wilson Corcoran was born Dec. 27, 1798, at Georgetown, D.C. He was the son of Thomas Corcoran, who settled in Georgetown when a youth, and became one of its leading citizens. He was mayor, postmaster, and one of the founders of the Columbian College, of which institution he was an active trustee while he lived. He was also one of the principal founders of two Episcopal churches in Georgetown, St. John's and Christ's Church, and was always a vestryman in one or the other.
His son William, after a good preparatory education, spent a year at the Georgetown College, and a year at the school of the Rev. Addison Belt, a graduate of Princeton. His father desired that he should complete his college course; but William was eager to enter upon a business life, and when he was seventeen went into the dry-goods store of his brothers, James and Thomas Corcoran. Two years later they established him in business under the firm name of W. W. Corcoran & Co. The firm prospered so well that the wholesale auction and commission business was begun in 1819.
For four years the firm made money; but in the spring of 1823, they, with many other merchants in Georgetown and Baltimore, failed, and were obliged to settle with their creditors for fifty cents on the dollar.
Young Corcoran, then twenty-five years of age, devoted himself to caring for the property of his father, who was growing old. The father died Jan. 27, 1830. Five years later, in 1835, Mr. Corcoran married Louise A. Morris, who lived but five years after their marriage, dying Nov. 21, 1840, leaving a son and daughter. The son died soon after the death of his mother; the daughter grew to womanhood, and became a great joy to her father. She married the Hon. George Eustis, a member of Congress from Louisiana, and died in early life at Cannes, France, 1867, leaving three small children.
Mr. Corcoran long before this had become a very successful banker. Two years after his marriage, in 1837, he moved his family to Washington, and began the brokerage business in a small store, ten by sixteen feet, on Pennsylvania Avenue near Fifteenth Street. After three years he took into partnership Mr. George W. Riggs, the son of a wealthy man from Maryland, under the firm name of Corcoran & Riggs.
In 1845 they purchased the old United States Bank building, corner of Fifteenth Street and New York Avenue; and two years later Mr. Corcoran settled with his creditors of 1823, paying principal and interest, about $46,000. During the Mexican war the firm made extensive loans to the government, which conservative bankers regarded as a hazardous investment. Mr. Riggs retired from the firm July 1, 1848; and his younger brother, Elisha, was made a junior partner.
"In August, 1848, having about twelve millions of the six-per-cent loan of 1848 on hand, and the demand for it falling off in this country, and the stock being one per cent below the price at which Corcoran & Riggs took it, Mr. Corcoran determined to try the European markets; and, after one day's reflection, embarked for London, where, on arrival, he was told by Mr. Bates, of the house of Baring Bros. & Co., and Mr. George Peabody, that no sale could be made of the stock, and no money could be raised by hypothecation thereof, and they regretted that he had not written to them to inquire before coming over. He replied that he was perfectly satisfied that such would be their views, and therefore came, confident that he could convince them of the expediency of taking an interest in the securities; and that the very fact that London bankers had taken them would make it successful.
"Ten days after his first interview with them, Mr. Thomas Baring returned from the Continent, and with him he was more successful. A sale of five millions at about cost (one hundred and one here) was made to six of the most eminent and wealthy houses in London, viz., Baring Bros. & Co., George Peabody, Overend, Gurney & Co., Dennison & Co., Samuel Jones Lloyd, and James Morrison.
"This was the first sale of American securities made in Europe since 1837; and on his return to New York he was greeted by every one with marked expressions of satisfaction, his success being a great relief to the money market by securing that amount of exchange in favor of the United States. On his success being announced, the stock gradually advanced until it reached one hundred and nineteen and one-half, thus securing by his prompt and successful action a handsome profit which would otherwise have resulted in a serious loss."
On April 1, 1854, Mr. Corcoran withdrew from the banking-firm, and devoted himself to the management of his property and to his benevolent projects.
In 1859 he began, at the northeast corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Seventeenth Street, a building for the encouragement of the Fine Arts. The structure was used during the Civil War for military purposes. In 1869 Mr. Corcoran deeded this property to trustees. "I shall ask you to receive," he wrote the trustees, "as a nucleus, my own gallery of art, which has been collected at no inconsiderable pains; and I have assurances from friends in other cities, whose tastes and liberality have taken this direction, that they will contribute fine works of art from their respective collections.... I venture to hope that with your kind co-operation and judicious management we shall have provided, at no distant day, not only a pure and refined pleasure for residents and visitors of the national metropolis, but have accomplished something useful in the development of American genius."
In 1869 Mr. Corcoran also deeded to trustees the Louise Home, erected in memory of his wife and daughter, as a home for refined and educated gentlewomen who had "become reduced by misfortune."
The deed specified that "there shall be no discrimination or distinction on account of religious creed or sectarian opinions, in respect to the trustees, directresses, officers, or inmates of the said establishment; but all proper facilities that may be possible in the judgment of the trustees shall be allowed and furnished to the inmates for the worship of Almighty God, according to each one's conscientious belief."
The building and grounds of the Louise Home in 1869 were estimated at $200,000, and are now worth probably over $500,000. The endowment consisted of an invested fund of $325,000.
Mr. Corcoran gave generously as long as he lived, having decided early in life that "at least one-half of his moneyed accumulations should be held for the welfare of men."
In Oak Hill Cemetery he erected a beautiful monument to the memory of John Howard Payne, author of "Home, Sweet Home." It is a shaft of Carrara marble, surmounted by a bust one and one-half times the size of the average man.
In his old age he purchased the Patapsco Institute at Ellicott's Mills, and gave the title-deeds to the two grand-nieces of John Randolph of Roanoke, who were in reduced circumstances, that they might open a school.
He gave to Columbian University, it is stated, houses and lands and money, amounting to a quarter of a million dollars. The University of Virginia, the Ascension Church, and other colleges and churches, were enriched through his generosity.
Mr. Corcoran died in Washington, Feb. 24, 1888, at the age of ninety years. He had given away over five million dollars.
"The treasures of the Corcoran Art Gallery," said its president in laying the corner-stone of a new building two years ago, "represent a money cost of $346,938 (exclusive of donations), a cost value which, of course, is greatly below the real value which these treasures represent to-day. The total value of the gallery, in its treasures, its endowments, and its buildings, is estimated to-day at $1,926,938. The total number of visitors who have inspected the paintings and sculpture exhibited in the gallery from the date of its opening down to the beginning of this month [May, 1896] was 1,696,489."