The suggestion resulted in his being commissioned to prepare such a biography, the publisher advancing the funds which enabled Mr. Parton to spend several months in collecting materials among the people in New Hampshire and Vermont, who had known Mr. Greeley in his early life. The book made a great sensation and at once gave its author high standing in the literary world. He began to contribute to a number of leading periodicals on political and literary topics, and soon appeared as a public lecturer and found himself one of the most notable men of the day.
Mr. Parton was married in 1856 to Mrs. Sara Payson Willis Eldredge, whose brother, the poet, N. P. Willis, was his former associate. Mrs. Willis was a popular contributor to “The New York Ledger” and other papers, under the pen-name of “Fanny Fern,” and Mr. Parton was soon engaged in similar work, and later became a member of the editorial staff of the “Ledger” and closely associated with Mr. Robert Bonner. This was of the greatest advantage to him, as it furnished a steady income, while allowing him leisure in which to devote himself to the more serious works which were his real contribution to literature and upon which his fame rests. His next book was “The Life and Times of Aaron Burr,” which was prepared from original sources, and which made Burr a somewhat less offensive character than he was at that time generally thought to be. He next prepared a “Life of Andrew Jackson,” which finally met with great success, but which, being published at the beginning of the War of the Rebellion and being subscribed for largely in the South, involved both author and publisher in considerable immediate loss. For twenty years he labored upon a “Life of Voltaire,” giving to the study of the great European Liberal of the last century all the time and energy he could spare from the contributions which he must regularly supply to the “Ledger” and “The Youth’s Companion.” The “Life of Voltaire” was his only biography of a European character, and while he thought it his best work, and while it is a wonderful picture, not only of the life and character of the great Frenchman, but of manners and morals in Europe in the eighteenth century, the public interest in its subject was not so great, and its success by no means so complete as that which greeted his American biographies. He was greatly interested in the robust character of Gen. Benjamin Butler, and his next book was the story of the administration of the city of New Orleans, by him. He then offered to the public the first comprehensive study of the “Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin” that had appeared. This is, by many, thought to be his best book. It was followed by a “Life of Jefferson,” and later by three books drawn from his contributions to periodicals, “Famous Americans of Recent Times,” “Noted Women of Europe and America,” and “Captains of Industry.” His last work was a volume upon “Andrew Jackson” for the “Great Commanders” series.
After the death of “Fanny Fern” Mr. Parton took up his residence in Newburyport, Massachusetts, with Miss Eldredge, his wife’s daughter, who was charged with the care of an orphaned niece. This child had for several years been a member of his family, and had closely engaged his affection. The relations thus established resulted presently in the marriage of Mr. Parton to Miss Eldredge, a union, which, until his death in 1892, filled his life with joy and happiness. Mr. Parton took an active interest in the social life about him, joining frankly in every village enterprise and gradually acquiring very great influence in the community.
OLD VIRGINIA.
HEN John Rolfe, not yet husband of Pocahontas, planted the first tobacco seed in Jamestown, in 1612, good tobacco sold in London docks at five shillings a pound, or two hundred and fifty pounds sterling for a hogshead of a thousand pounds’ weight. Fatal facility of money-making! It was this that diverted all labor, capital and enterprise into one channel, and caused that first ship-load of Negroes in the James to be so welcome. The planter could have but one object,—to get more slaves in order to raise more tobacco. Hence the price was ever on the decline, dropping first from shillings to pence, and then going down the scale of pence, until it remained for some years at an average of about two pence a pound in Virginia and three pence in London. In Virginia it often fell below two pence; as, during brief periods of scarcity, it would rise to six and seven pence.
Old Virginia is a pathetic chapter in political economy. Old Virginia, indeed! She reached decrepitude while contemporary communities were enjoying the first vigor of youth; while New York was executing the task which Virginia’s George Washington had suggested and foretold, that of connecting the waters of the great West with the sea; while New England was careering gayly over the ocean, following the whale to his most distant retreat, and feeding belligerent nations with her superabundance. One little century of seeming prosperity; three generations of spendthrifts; then the lawyer and sheriff! Nothing was invested, nothing saved for the future. There were no manufactures, no commerce, no towns, no internal trade, no great middle class. As fast as that virgin richness of soil could be converted into tobacco, and sold in the London docks, the proceeds were spent in vast, ugly mansions, heavy furniture, costly apparel, Madeira wine, fine horses, huge coaches, and more slaves. The planters lived as though virgin soil were revenue, not capital. They tried to maintain in Virginia the lordly style of English grandees, WITHOUT any Birmingham, [♦]Staffordshire, Sheffield or London docks to pay for it. Their short-lived prosperity consisted of three elements,—virgin soil, low-priced slaves, high-priced tobacco. The virgin soil was rapidly exhausted; the price of negroes was always on the increase; and the price of tobacco was always tending downward. Their sole chance of founding a staple commonwealth was to invest the proceeds of their tobacco in something that would absorb their labor and yield them profit when the soil would no longer produce tobacco.
[♦] ‘Stafordshire’ replaced with ‘Staffordshire’
But their laborers were ignorant slaves, the possession of whom destroyed their energy, swelled their pride, and dulled their understandings. Virginia’s case was hopeless from the day on which that Dutch ship landed the first twenty slaves; and, when the time of reckoning came, the people had nothing to show for their long occupation of one of the finest estates in the world, except great hordes of negroes, breeding with the rapidity of rabbits; upon whose annual increase Virginia subsisted, until the most glorious and beneficial of all wars set the white race free and gave Virginia her second opportunity.