JOHN BROMFIELD,
MERCHANT.
John Bromfield's monument is more lasting than brass. It was he who left to the city of Newburyport, in Massachusetts, ten thousand dollars for planting and preserving trees in the streets, and keeping the sidewalks in order. The income of this bequest would not go far in any other sort of monument, but it has embowered his native city in beautiful trees. Every spring other trees are planted, and, as long as that bequest is faithfully administered, he cannot be forgotten.
Nothing brings a larger or surer return than money judiciously spent in making towns and cities pleasant. It not only yields a great revenue of pleasure and satisfaction to the inhabitants; it not only benefits every individual of them every hour, but it invites residents from abroad; it is a standing invitation to persons of taste and good sense. The wisest thing the city of New York ever did, next to the introduction of the Croton water, was the creation of the Central Park; the one feature which redeems the city from the disgrace of its dirty streets and its agonizing tenement region.
This John Bromfield, merchant, was just such a thoughtful and benevolent man as we should naturally expect to find him from his bequest. He belonged to a class of merchants which is rapidly becoming extinct. The cable telegraph and the steam freight ship are superseding the merchants of moderate capital, and are concentrating the great business of interchanging commodities in the hands of a few houses who reckon their capital by millions. Born at Newburyport, in 1779, he was brought up by excellent parents near Boston, who practiced the old-fashioned system of making him hardy and self-helpful. His mother used to say that when he was old enough to wear leather shoes she bored holes in the soles in order to accustom him to wet feet, so that he might be made less liable to catch cold from that cause. This appears to have been a custom of that generation, for it is recorded of the mother of Josiah Quincy that she would never let him take off his wet shoes, regarding it as an effeminate practice.
On approaching the time of entering college his father met with misfortunes and could not bear the expense. Two aunts of his, who could well afford it, offered to pay his expenses in college. He firmly declined the offer. The foundation of his character and career was a love of independence. He asked to be apprenticed, as the custom then was, to a mercantile house, and remained in it as long as it held together. After its failure he tried for months to obtain a clerkship, but, not succeeding, he arranged with a carpenter to learn his trade. Just before putting on the carpenter's apron an opening occurred in his own business, and he became a merchant. About the year 1801 he went out to China as supercargo, and continued to visit that part of the world in similar capacities for many years, occasionally making small ventures of his own, and slowly accumulating a little capital. He had a series of the most discouraging misfortunes. In the year 1813 he wrote to his sister from Cadiz:—
"It is a melancholy truth that in the whole course of my life I never arrived at a good market."
On that occasion everything promised well. He had a ship full of valuable goods, and the market to which he was carrying them was in an excellent condition for his purpose, but within twenty-four hours of his port he was captured, and detained ten weeks a prisoner. After the peace of 1815, merchants could send their ships across the ocean without fear of their being taken by English or French cruisers. From that time he had better luck, and gradually gained a moderate fortune, upon which he retired. He never kept a store, or had any sort of warehouse, but made his fortune by sending or taking merchandise from a port which had too much of it to one that was in want of it.
On one of his winter passages to Europe he found the sailors suffering extremely from handling frozen ropes, as they were not provided with mittens. Being a Yankee, and having been brought up to do things as well as read about them, he took one of his thick overcoats and made with his own hands a pair of mittens for every sailor.