, with his parents' consent,
he came back to New York, and looked about for work on his own
account. He had saved up from his small earnings, while with his
father, the sum of ten dollars, and with this, he tells us, he
bought a lottery ticket, which drew a blank. This seeming misfortune
he turned to good account, for he then determined never to trust to
luck again, but to be content to earn his bread in the appointed
way: it was his first and last speculation. On reaching New York he
had the usual difficulty in finding employment, but at length was
accepted as an apprentice by a firm of carriage-makers, to whom,
with his father's consent, he bound himself until he should come of
age; his masters agreeing to pay him $25 a year and his board. His
grandmother had a house on Broadway, in which she gave him the use
of an upper room, and here in his spare hours he employed himself in
wood-carving, in which he acquired some proficiency. In his business
he worked so industriously, and made himself so valuable to his
employers, that when his time expired they offered to lend him the
money to go into business for himself; but he did not accept this
generous offer, as he was determined never to be in debt. While with
Messrs. Burtis and Woodward he had invented a machine for mortising
wheel-hubs, thus giving the first evidence of an inventive faculty
which, though never accomplishing great things, was often of
considerable service both to himself and the community. On leaving
the business of carriage-making Peter Cooper went to Hempstead, L.
I., where he found work in a woollen factory. Here he invented and
patented an improvement on the machine in use for shearing the nap
of cloth; and as during the war of 1812 all commerce with England
ceased, cloth-making in America flourished, and from the sale of his
machines, which he could hardly make fast enough to supply the
demand, young Cooper reaped a considerable profit. One of his first
customers was the late Matthew Vassar, of Poughkeepsie, to whom he
not only sold some of his machines, but also the right to dispose of
them in Dutchess County. When he found that his earnings had enabled
him to lay by the sum of $500, he thought himself justified in
asking a young woman, Miss Sarah Bedel, whom he had met when in
Hempstead, to become his wife; but before doing so, he determined to
visit his parents in Newburgh, and inform them of his intention. He
found them in great trouble, his fath