in doing
so my eyebrows and whiskers were burned, and my fur hat was scorched
down to the body of the fur. How I escaped I know not. I seemed to be
literally blown out by the explosion, and I narrowly escaped with my
life."

The ironworks were finally removed to Trenton, New Jersey, where to this
day, under the vigorous management of Mr. Hewitt and his partners, they
are very successful.

During these active years Peter Cooper never for a moment lost sight of
the great object of his life. We have a new proof of this, if proof were
needed, in the Autobiography recently published of the eloquent Orville
Dewey, pastor of the Unitarian Church of the Messiah, which Peter Cooper
attended for many years.

"There were two men," says Dr. Dewey, "who came to our church whose
coming seemed to be by chance, but was of great interest to me, for I
valued them greatly. They were Peter Cooper and Joseph Curtis.[2]
Neither of them then belonged to any religious society, or regularly
attended any church. They happened to be walking down Broadway one
Sunday evening, as the congregation were entering Stuyvesant Hall,
where we then temporarily worshiped, and they said:--

"'Let us go in here and see what _this_ is.'

"When they came out, as they both told me, they said to one another:--

"'This is the place for _us_!'

"And they immediately connected themselves with the congregation, to be
among its most valued members. Peter Cooper was even then meditating
that plan of a grand educational institute which he afterwards carried
out. He was engaged in a large and successful business, and his one
idea--which he often discussed with me--was to obtain the means of
building that institute. A man of the gentlest nature and the simplest
habits; yet his religious nature was his most remarkable quality. It
seemed to breathe through his life as fresh and tender as if it were in
some holy retreat, instead of a life of business."

Indeed there are several aged New Yorkers who can well remember hearing
Mr. Cooper speak of his project at that period.

After forty years of successful business life, he found, upon estimating
his resources, that he possessed about seven hundred thousand dollars
over and above the capital invested in his glue and iron works. Already
he had become the owner of portions of the ground he had selected so
long ago for the site of his school. The first lot he bought, as Mr.
Hewitt informs me, about thirty years before h