Jno. Pierpont.
Washington, D. C., 3 Dec., 1863.”
In 1902 one of the owner’s family, coming into possession of this volume, presented it to Mr. Morgan with this inscription:
This volume, formerly the property of my uncle, Mr. Paul H. Berkau, to whom the poet wrote the inscription, is respectfully presented by me to Mr. John Pierpont Morgan, who has done so much to keep our “paper” as “good as gold.”
Mr. Morgan received the volume with evident delight.
For many years it was Mr. Morgan’s custom to engage a furnished house in the city in which a general convention of the Episcopal Church was to be held (he himself being always a lay delegate from New York), and to entertain therein, as long as the convention lasted, a group of his particular friends in the episcopate. A private car conveyed these parties to their destination; and once, when the place of meeting was San Francisco, a special train was engaged for the long journey. Mr. Morgan’s guests on these occasions were usually Bishop Potter or (later) Bishop Greer of New York, Bishop Doane of Albany, the Bishops of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and the wives or other members of the families of these gentlemen. The present bishop of New York relates that once, when some one raised the question of the familiarity of the members of the party with the services of the church, it proved that their host was better versed in the collects, the hymns, and the Shorter Catechism than any of his clerical guests. This only confirms other anecdotes illustrating the extraordinary retentiveness of his memory; for, while he was a habitual church-goer, never missing a Sunday morning service if he was within reach of a church, he could hardly have attended as many services, in the course of his life, as the youngest of the bishops present. His similar hospitality and constant attention to the Archbishop of Canterbury, primate of the Church of England, during that prelate’s visit to America a few years ago, caused a wit to speak of His Grace as “Pierpontifex Maximus.”
His devotion to the interests of the church was of long standing. It showed itself, of course, at Highland Falls, on the Hudson, the village nearest his summer home; and more conspicuously at St. George’s in Stuyvesant Square, New York City, where the simple, impressive service chosen by himself was read at his funeral on the fourteenth of April. To the activities of this church—a body less distinguished for the wealth and social prominence of its members than for its work among the poor—he was for many years a liberal subscriber. The spacious, well-equipped parish-house commemorated his father-in-law, Mr. Charles E. Tracy, a former vestryman. And at a time when there was special need of larger revenues, he made it known that, for a considerable period, he would duplicate every contribution made by other parishioners. At the time of his death, he was senior warden of St. George’s, and he never had missed a meeting of the vestry when he was in New York.
His interest in denominational affairs manifested itself in other directions. To the building fund of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral in Albany he gave handsomely. When subscriptions were first asked for the building of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in New York, he put his name down for half a million dollars; and to this sum he afterward added $100,000. At a meeting of a committee appointed to raise money for a synod house, when he learned that $50,000 had been subscribed but that $250,000 more was needed, he made himself responsible for the whole amount, requesting that the earlier subscribers be relieved of their obligations. Finding, however, that Mr. Bayard Cutting wished to participate on equal terms in this gift to the General Convention, he contented himself with assuming one half the entire burden—which in its entirety proved to be $350,000 instead of the estimated $300,000. Thus his gifts in connection with the new cathedral amounted to nearly $900,000, and his friends in the church were not surprised that his will made no further provision for this great undertaking. Not only at home but abroad was he the cheerful giver the Lord is said to love, as witness the installation of electricity in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, at a cost approximating $200,000.
The benevolent institution that ranked next to the church in Mr. Morgan’s regard was the Lying-In Hospital, near St. George’s Church, in Stuyvesant Square. Having bought the house and grounds of the late Mr. Hamilton Fish, skirting Second Avenue from Seventeenth to Eighteenth Street, and some adjoining houses, he sent Dr. James W. Markoe abroad to study the hospitals of Europe, and in due time authorized the preparation of plans for a model building to cost about $750,000. By the time these plans had been drawn and specifications had been worked out, the price of materials had greatly increased, and the estimated cost proved to be about half a million more than was expected. Instead of abandoning the project, or waiting for prices to decline, or demanding a drastic revision of the plans, Mr. Morgan’s word was, “Go ahead—and cut out nothing.” When the hospital was built and thoroughly equipped, Mr. Morgan made up for the city’s inadequate annual contribution to this great charity by giving $100,000 a year toward its maintenance.
Harvard University, especially the Medical School; the Art Museum at Hartford, founded in memory of his father, Junius Spencer Morgan of London; the New York Trade School, which he handsomely endowed; the American Academy in Rome, and the Loomis Sanatorium were the other chief beneficiaries of his discriminating bounty. But the institutions, causes, and individuals (many of the latter personally unknown to him) that were indebted to Mr. Morgan for substantial aid, at one time or another, were innumerable as the autumnal leaves of Vallombrosa. Many of his benefactions were not publicly recorded, and if he recollected them himself, it was only because his memory was incapable of relaxing its grasp on anything, large or small, that had once entered it. As the London “Spectator” said, never was there a millionaire so set upon effacing his name from his deeds of beneficence.