er in debt and needing help;
and without hesitation he placed his small savings at his disposal,
paid the most pressing of the debts, and made arrangements for
paying off the rest. His father was thus saved from bankruptcy by
his son's devotion; but the action was characteristic of Peter
Cooper, both in its unselfishness, and as indicative of his business
integrity. He would never be in debt himself, and he was equally
resolved to keep those belonging to him as free as himself. He took
pride in the fact that neither he nor his father had ever failed in
business; and this is the more remarkable, since in the course of
his business life the country passed through no less than ten
serious commercial panics.

Peter Cooper and Miss Bedel were married on December 22, 1813, when
he was twenty-two and the lady twenty-one. Their married life, as it
was exceptionally long, so it was exceptionally happy. It lasted
fifty-six years; Mrs. Cooper died in 1869, and Mr. Cooper survived
her fourteen years, dying in 1883. Their golden wedding was
celebrated in 1863. They had six children, but only two lived to
grow up; the Hon. Edward Cooper, once mayor of the city, and Sarah
Amelia Cooper, the wife of the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt. Mr. James
Parton says: "There never was a happier marriage than this. To old
age Mr. Cooper never sat near his wife without holding her hand in
his. He never spoke to her, nor of her, without some tender epithet.
He attributed the great happiness of his life and most of his
success to her admirable qualities. She seconded every good impulse
of his benevolence, and made the fulfilment of his great scheme
possible by her wise and resolute economy."

Mr. Cooper seems to have inherited something of his father's
business restlessness, for in addition to the many pursuits in which
we have seen him engage, he now bought a grocery stand, and in about
a year gave that up and purchased a glue factory, selling his
grocery business and buying a lease of the glue factory for
twenty-one years, for $2,000, his whole savings. He differed from
his father in this, that everything prospered with which he had to
do. The grocery had done well, but the glue factory did better. "At
that time nearly all the glue used in this country was imported from
Ireland, and sold at a high price. Mr. Cooper studied the subject
and experimented, until he was able to make better glue than the
Irish and sell it at a lower price, and he soon had nearl