John Grigg
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SEPTEMBER 3, 1864 ] HARPER'S WEEKLY.565 THE LATE JOHN GRIGG, ESQ.THE LATEJOHN GRIGG, Esq.IN 1816 a young man, twenty-four years of age, came to Philadelphia and assumed the position of a clerk in the Publishing House of Warner & Johnson. His life thus far had been for the most part an adventure. Left an orphan at six in Cornwall, England, be began with the world as a farmer's boy. But there was a spirit of enterprise with in him which overleaped the limits of the farm. Looking out upon the sea from the Cornish coast, he thought he saw harvests of brighter promise; and at twelve he began to seek a sailor's fortunes. Soon tired of this field of labor, he came to Richmond, Virginia. Here we find him engaged in a survey of the State before he was yet out of his teens. Leaving Virginia for Ohio, we next find him a clerk in a Judiciary court, and afterward superintendent of a woolen factory. This young man was JOHN GRIGG, Esq., long known as the enterprising Philadelphia publisher and bookseller, and whose portrait is here given. He came to Philadelphia, as we have said, at the age of twenty-four. Here he resided until his death, August 2, 1864. Serving Warner & Johnson seven years as a clerk, he, in 1823, commenced publishing on his own account, securing immediately the patronage of the firm with which he had been connected, and which, by the death of WARNER, had been dissolved. He had closed up the business of this. firm, and his sagacity and perfect integrity soon built up his own fortunes. In eight years his business was so large that he was induced to take Mr. HUGH ELLIOTT as partner. In 1847 three younger partners were also introduced. In 1850 Grigg & Elliott sold out to their juniors, Messrs. Lippincott & Willis, and the firm was styled J. B. Lippincott & Co. At his retirement Mr. GRIGG was fifty - eight years of age. He was married to Miss M'CLELLAN'S, sister of the celebrated surgeon, and aunt of General GEORGE B. McCLELLAN. He was a man possessed of a very genial disposition—as characteristic for positive benevolence as for good humor. Although a millionaire, the modesty of his youth never gave place to the swaggering boldness or the curt manners which so frequently distinguish the very wealthy. Money only gave him the opportunity to exhibit the inherent nobility of his nature. For the most winning traits of his character he was know only to associates, but his public spirit endeared him to all. Mr. GRIGG was also a man of cultivated tastes. Music and poetry delighted him, and in the latter his judgment was very good. But the strong development of his understanding gave him a keen relish for history and biography. And, as in all cases where the judgment is superior, his memory was remarkable. It was in immediate connection with these mental characteristics that those habits of method were developed which, though they never create, yet chiefly secure and regulate success. After he retired from the publishing business he was engaged until his death as a private banker, and in the management of his large fortune, which included real estate in Philadelphia, Illinois, and Mississippi. But he was always especially interested in the Book Trade, with which his fortunes had been so intimately connected. He died at the age of seventy - two, leaving many friends to mourn his loss, and leaving on record an example not only of enviable success but of inestimable worth. NASSAU, N. P.NASSAU, New Providence, of which we give a view on this page, is a point of great interest at this time as the principal rendezvous of the Anglo Confederate blockade runners. A correspondent says of the place: The enterprise of British merchants"— an enterprise, we may remark, which no honorable nation would care to justify—" has lined its quays with long, light-colored, rakish-looking steamers, discharging their rich freights of cotton that have run the gauntlet through the Federal cruisers off Wilmington. The voyage front the (Next Page) NASSAU, NEW PROVIDENCE, THE PRINCIPAL RENDEZVOUS OF THE ANGLO-CONFEDERATE BLOCKADE-RUNNERS. |
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