SKETCH OF MR. HAND'S LIFE.
Daniel Hand was born in Madison, Conn., July 16, 1801, and was therefore in the eighty-eighth year of his age when he made his gift for the education of the colored people at the South. His ancestors have resided in that town for several generations and were always landholders, industrious, quiet and respectable. To this ancestry Mr. Hand is probably indebted under God for his physical vigor, long life, strength of character and success in business. He was the fourth son of seven, and was on the farm under his father's direction until he was sixteen years of age, when he was put in charge of his second brother, Augustus F. Hand, who was then a merchant at Augusta, Ga., and whom he succeeded in business. In 1854 Mr. Hand went to New York in connection with his Southern business, and remained there in that capacity until the beginning of the war in 1861. He resided in some portion of the Southern Confederacy during the entire war, and was never treated with violence in any way, and no Confederate officer ever offered him indignity or even an unkind word.
Mr. G.W. Williams, a native Georgian, was, at about the age of sixteen, employed by Mr. Hand as a clerk in Augusta, and in a few years was taken in as partner. Mr. Williams suggested a branch of the business in Charleston, and conducted it successfully. When the war came on Mr. Hand's capital was largely employed in the Charleston business, which Mr. Williams as a Southern man continued, having the use of Mr. Hand's capital, which the Confederate Government vainly endeavored to confiscate by legal proceedings against Mr. Hand, as a Northern man of pronounced anti-slavery sentiments. After the war Mr. Hand came North and left it to his old partner, Mr. Williams, to adjust the business and make up the accounts, allowing him almost unlimited time for so doing. When this was accomplished, Mr. Williams came North and paid over to Mr. Hand his portion of the long-invested capital and its accumulations, as an honest and honorable merchant and trusted partner should do.
Many years ago Mr. Hand was bereaved of wife and children, and he has since remained unmarried. This fact, together with his benevolent impulses, led him to form plans to use his property for the benefit of mankind. He thought at first of devoting a part of it to some Northern colleges, but his attention being turned to the needed and successful work done among the colored people of the South, his purpose was soon formed to aid them. He said he knew them, and the disadvantages arising out of their ignorance, their inability to keep accounts, to secure their rights in making settlements, and consequently the hindrances they encountered in their industries and in the acquisition of lands and homes. As it was known that he had money and benevolent intentions in regard to the use of it, many methods were suggested to him for that purpose. Some of these he investigated with care, but he never saw occasion to change the purpose which he formed more than ten years ago, to make the colored people his beneficiaries through the American Missionary Association, which he found was doing so large and successful a work among the very people whom he wished to benefit, and in methods in accordance with his own views. More than ten years ago he had incorporated in his will a legacy of $100,000 for the Association. It was suggested to him at that time that he should become his own executor, but he felt that his securities were safe and productive, and at last it became a cherished purpose with him to make the gift a million of dollars as soon as he could do so with due regard to other objects he had in view.
The consummation of this great purpose was finally closed by the transfer (October 22nd) of the securities to the Association by the Hon. Luzon B. Morris, who has been throughout his trusted and honored legal and financial adviser. This gift enrolls Mr. Hand among the honored names of wealthy men who have devoted their fortunes, not to mere display or personal gratification, but to elevate and bless the ignorant and needy.
Mr. Hand is a man of tall, commanding presence, and still at the age of eighty-seven writes with a firm and bold hand, and expresses himself in brief and vigorous language.
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THE DEED OF TRUST.
The purposes and conditions of this great trust are as follows:
"The said Daniel Hand, desiring to establish a permanent fund, the income of which shall be used for the purpose of educating needy and indigent colored people of African descent, residing, or who may hereafter reside in the recent slave States of the United States of America, sometimes called the Southern States; meaning those States wherein slavery was recognized by law in the year A.D. 1861, and in consideration of the promises and undertakings of the said American Missionary Association, hereinafter set forth, does hereby give, transfer and deliver unto the said American Missionary Association the following bonds and property in trust, viz.: (Here follows a list of the property transferred, amounting at par value to $1,000,894.25. The market value is more than that sum.) Said bonds and property to be received and held by said American Missionary Association, upon trust, and for the following purposes, viz.: To safely manage the said trust fund, to change investments whenever said Association may deem it necessary or advisable to reinvest the principal of said trust fund in such securities, property and investments as said Association may deem best, and to use the income thereof only for the education of colored people of African descent residing in the recent slave States of the United States of America hereinbefore specified.