Reminiscences by Emory Fisk Skinner

REMINISCENCES BY EMORY FISKE SKINNER 1908 VESTAL PRINTING COMPANY CHICAGO CHAPTER XXX Recapitulation My business experience led me to adopt certain rules by which to be governed. One was never to put money where I could not control it myself; another was not to give accommodation endorsements to others. When I feel it is right, and wish to help someone, I prefer to loan him money, take his note, and, if necessary put my own notes in the bank. I believe that no note which I have given has ever been protested; all have been paid when due or extended by mutual consent. My observation is that few men, companies or corporations escape the necessity of borrowing money for use in their business; some require credit occasionally, others all the time. I learned also that in order to make money a man must take chances; otherwise he will fail to make a fortune. I have always found that it paid to be truthful in all business transactions. I have lost much through the failure of others, and I have usually found that the men who have deceived me are men who boast of their honor and integrity and made a cloak of religion. I prefer to give such people a wide berth and allow them no opportunity to cheat or defraud. I have found it very hard to forgive a person who has deliberately insulted or defrauded me; my disposition in this respect has often resulted in loss financially. I was brought up to be economical, and this has been one of my leading characteristics. When a person has once gained my confidence, I am very loyal to him until I have positive evidence of his treachery, but when I have once reposed trust in a person and he betrays it, it is impossible for me to trust him again. The first time a person deceives me it is his fault, the second time it is my fault. I cannot say that my judgment in likes and dislikes is always correct, but I am careful never to betray a friend or do an act which I think dishonorable. During my boyhood days I was under an influence intensely religious. I have no doubt that my mother believed that if she prayed to God that He listened and would answer the petition. I was taught that I was under the constant surveillance of the Deity. The anecdote I have told before of the Sunday when I went bathing and cut my foot on an old axe in the water, and how I managed to walk home, though the injury was a serious one and the comfort I had received was the assurance that the punishment was inflicted on me because “I was breaking the Sabbath.” This is a sample of the religious conviction under which I was trained. All the boys in our neighborhood were kept steadily employed week days, and Sunday was about the only day in which we could play. Indeed, I was so confined that I had scarcely an opportunity to take advantage of that day even. Occasionally I would provide myself with a gun and go hunting, but game was scarce and there was not much pleasure in the sport. The most of my boyhood pleasures were obtained by visiting neighboring children after dark; as we had, however, no neighbors who lived less than half a mile from our house, my social interaction was quite limited. My father was a dignified, austere man; he believed that to spare the rod was to spoil the child. I have no recollection of his taking me on his knee or playing with me; yet he was a 176 very kind and honorable man. He was known in the neighborhood where he lived as Uncle Alfred. My earliest recollection of my father was when he was about sixty years old. He was a strong, sturdy man of about 180 pounds weight. The top of his head was bald with a fringe of white hair beneath. He wore, if I remember correctly, a 7 ½ size hat. When dressed for church the hat was a tall one. He wore a stock about his neck, and a blue swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons. He was a fine appearing man. The following story will illustrate my father’s high sense of humor. I sold a colt to a neighbor for $100 and the man came for the horse, as agreed. My father met him at the gate and said: “Mr. Low, Emory tells me that he has sold the colt to you for $100.” Mr. Low replied that it was so. “I do not think the colt worth as much as that, and you may have it for $80,” said my father. I protested that I would not sell it for that price, and Mr. Low paid the $100 and took the colt. I, perhaps, had a better knowledge of what the animal was worth than my father had, although I was but sixteen years old at the time. But this incident serves to illustrate the honorable character of my father. It was his custom every morning to read a chapter in the Bible and have family prayers. He always repeated the same prayer. When I was a lad I tried hard to learn that prayer, but in some way was never able to commit it to memory. At the beginning of each meal he also asked a blessing, and it was worded the same, but that blessing I was never able to repeat. In spite of this custom of praying it seemed to me that the religious convictions of my father did not run very deep. I think that his father, my grandfather Stephen Skinner, of whom I have but a faint recollection, as he died when I was about nine years old, was an Episcopalian, and that my father was brought up in that faith, but became a Methodist after his marriage to my mother. She had become converted after her marriage and became very religious. She was somewhat noted in the neighborhood for her ability to make an eloquent prayer. My father told me that she was a very handsome girl when he married her. As I remember her, she was quite stout, weighing perhaps 160 pounds. She did not exceed 5 feet 6 inches in height. She had long, coal black hair, which retained its color up to the time of her death, and it was her custom to wear a lace cap over it. She had sharp, black eyes, long eyebrows, a strong nose, high cheek bones and a brunette complexion. She was but fifteen years old when married, my father was six years older. This was in 1802. She was the mother of fifteen children, of which I was the youngest. My parents both lived to be over ninety years of age. They would have celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary had my father lived a year longer. Considering the number of children my mother had to care for, she was very kind to us all. She had a failing of busting into tears at the slightest censure. I have seen nothing in recent educational methods that seems equal to the country schools [of our locality] in my youth. They seldom taught anything except the common branches of education, but the children were taught very thoroughly in reading, writing, arithmetic and geography. A child, if he tried, could get a good practical education in these schools, and for those who desired higher, there was the academy, then a feature of nearly every village. 177 In my own school work the study in which I excelled was geography, and it has only been in later years that I would fail if any part of the earth were mentioned to tell where it was located. When I was a little chap I spent much of the time in the house with my mother, her daughters having all married and left home. My mother and the “hired girl” did not tease me as did my older brothers. I remember many things which my mother told me about her own father in those days; she had great respect and admiration for his memory. He was born in Francistown, N.H. in 1765. According to American Archives, Vol. 6, p. 1120, he enlisted from that place May, 7, 1782, in Captain Isaac Frye’s Company of the First New Hampshire Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Dearborn. At Newburgh, N.Y. June 16, 1783, he was transferred to the Commander-in Chief’s Guard, assigned the special duty of guarding the person of General Washington and his personal baggage and papers. On September 5, 1783, Lieutenant Bezaleel Howe was detached from the New Hampshire Battalion and assigned to the command of the Commander-in- Chief’s Guard. In November of that year Washington issued the following letter of instructions to Captain Howe with respect to the delivery of his papers and baggage at his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia. “To deliver the baggage at my house, ten miles below Alexandria, as you know, they contain all of my papers, which are of immense value to me. I am sure it is unnecessary to request your particular attention to them, but as you will have several ferries to pass, some of them wide, particularly the Susquehanna and Potomac, I must caution you against crossing there if the wind should be high or there is, in your opinion or the judgment of others, the least danger.

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