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SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY HIS DAUGHTER 
 JANE L. HOXIE 
 

 Copyright 1922 by 
 JANEL. HOXIE 
 
 JAN . 
 
 (2.J23 
 
 C1A692058 
 
 V D 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Introduction 1 
 
 PAET I — Beginnings 5 
 
 Chapter I — Childhood 7 
 
 Chapter II — Youth and Early Manhood 16 
 
 PAET II — A. Cattle Interests 29 
 
 Chapter I — The Unadilla Valley Dutch Stock Breeders' 
 
 Association 31 
 
 Chapter II — First Visit To Holland 37 
 
 Chapter III — Another Visit To Holland and The New Herd 
 
 Book 45 
 
 Chapter IV — Third Visit To Holland — International Confer- 
 ence of Breeders of Dutch Cattle 57 
 
 Chapter V — In Guernsey 65 
 
 Chapter VI — Home Again — The Advanced Eegistry 72 
 
 Chapter VII — Holstein-Friesian Propaganda 88 
 
 Chapter VIII — Eetirement 92 
 
 PAET II — B. Other Interests and Activities 97 
 
 Chapter I — The Village of Mr. Hoxie 's Adoption 99 
 
 Chapter II — Philosophy of Life 109 
 
 Chapter III — Eecreations and Intellectual Interests 121 
 
 PAET III— Closing Years 133 
 
 Chapter I — The Formation of Native American Breeds of Cat- 
 tle 135 
 
 Chapter II — Ideas and Activities of An Octogenarian 143 
 
 Chapter III — A Modern Patriarch 167 
 
"There is nothing but Life. And the 
 Spirit of Life is Love. And Love is 
 God." 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Whenever I think back upon my association with Solomon 
 Hoxie, some of the words that Tennyson wrote as he thought 
 of his lost friend, Arthur Hallam, come fittingly to mind : 
 
 "How pure at heart and sound in head, 
 With what divine affection bold 
 Should be the man whose thought would hold 
 An hour's communion with the dead." 
 
 With most of us, affection can chiefly be spoken of as 
 expressed for certain persons only, or at most for the com- 
 paratively small circle that we best know and that we sup- 
 pose best know us. Anything beyond this, like the people 
 outside ancient Palestine, we are apt to look upon as mere 
 Gentiles, with whom we need have only necessary dealing. 
 
 But with Solomon Hoxie the case was different. All dur- 
 ing the nearly forty years that I knew him, he was a constant 
 inspiration to greater breadth of sympathy and deeper inter- 
 est in universal welfare, such as I have felt from scarcely 
 any other person. Not alone his family and friends and 
 business acquaintance; not alone the church or political party 
 with which he might be acting; not alone the country that 
 gave him birth and home and opportunity, filled the measure 
 of his affection for mankind. The whole world, rich and 
 poor alike, fortunate and outcast, honest men and rogues, 
 fellow partisans and opponents, righteous men and women 
 and wallowers in sin and wreakers of vengeance — all had a 
 place not only in his hope that they would eventually fulfill 
 their true mission on earth, but in an affectionate regard 
 that prompted always to his doing what he could to help 
 them to their eternal realization, as well. How long ago, at 
 first — how often since — I have heard him read or quote from 
 the Gospel and letters of St. John the definition of God as 
 love, and the injunctions to love our fellows as the pre- 
 requisites to heavenly companionship. How often, too, have 
 I heard him mellow his voice as he tried to express the 
 softening of his heart toward those who had wronged him- 
 
2 THE LIFE OP SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 self, or were wronging others. "God is love," was no mere 
 theological definition, one among many others, with him; it 
 was a breath from the divine All-Father himself, a living 
 force, a compensatory joy, an enticing and invigorating hope, 
 a resurrection before death — it was the very Life of Life to 
 Solomon Hoxie, to be thought upon, expressed in every 
 prayer, taken by the hand at every crisis, leaned upon 
 through every trial and radiated everywhere unto the ends 
 of the earth. When, during the time that he was trying to 
 rid his neighborhood of a pestiferous saloon, someone 
 attacked him maliciously to his bodily hurt, he was heard to 
 say of his assailant: "He was crazed — he didn't mean to 
 hurt me." And it was not very long after, that he might be 
 found on the street corner any evening fellowshipping with 
 the Salvation Army in loving endeavor to save those who 
 were under the sway of intemperance and kindred vices. 
 
 Solomon Hoxie's soul simply could not hate even those 
 that hurt him, much less attempt to hurt them in return. 
 He could explain away, excuse and forgive everything, even 
 while his heart was sinking and tears would appear. In all 
 his relations he was a magnificent exemplar of the doctrine 
 that "He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and 
 there is none occasion of stumbling in him." 
 
 Sturdily through all his declining years did Solomon 
 Hoxie continue to live in generous answer to the revelation, 
 "Whoso hath this world's good at heart and seeth his brother 
 have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from 
 him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" Whether culti- 
 vating vacant lots in Chicago and dispensing their produce 
 to whomsoever needed it, or bending his back to weed the 
 gardens of helpless neighbors in Edmeston; whether preach- 
 ing in the church near his ancestral home or laying the 
 foundations of the recently organized one in Yorkville ; 
 whether buying or selling, or advising or working or visiting, 
 you could always be sure of his right feeling heart, his sound 
 judgment, his instructed conscience and his unswerving de- 
 votion to the right as he might see it at the time. Neighbor 
 might misunderstand and laugh at or revile him, Prohibition- 
 

 <—£s 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 3 
 
 ist or Abolitionist might differ seriously with him as to aim 
 or method, orthodox church people might condemn his liberal- 
 ism, or familiar friend might criticise or turn from him; he 
 would hold on to his aims and course until the moment when 
 he could really see clearly and then, if advisable, act accord- 
 ingly. Much as he loved his friends and much as he "loved 
 approbation," as he once said to me, clear as some altruistic 
 course might appear and hopeful as he might be of the 
 triumphant outcome of any cause in which he might be inter- 
 ested; yet he could never be cribbed within limits that could 
 not be extended whenever the "light" should indicate that 
 expansion or variation should be entered boldly upon. Politi- 
 cally, socially, religiously, he was thus ever growing into the 
 universality that is the disgust of narrow partisans and the 
 perplexity and confounding of shallow conservatives every- 
 where. 
 
 Mr. Hoxie never trusted in his own intuitions alone, or to 
 instruction that he had once received as authoritative. He 
 always sought further light, read new discoveries and dis- 
 cussions, and latterly turned to Royce and James and Berg- 
 son, as he had formerly turned to Bushnell and Parker and 
 Martineau and Beecher, and read and reflected and prayed 
 until whatever of light such expositors had appeared to his 
 hospitable soul and helped him on his developmental way. A 
 favorite book, one by Henry M. Alden, entitled "God in His 
 World," he read to the wearing out of at least three copies, 
 every one of which is written all over with his questions and 
 comments and acquiescences. Solomon Hoxie did not stop 
 growing at some premature stage, as is the case with so many 
 of us. His soul and heart were ever responsive to the spirit 
 within. With him God was always in his world, in humanity 
 not alone, but in the cattle upon a thousand hills, in all the 
 operations of nature, in the flowers he loved to cultivate and 
 generously give away, in the yearnings of his own soul, in all 
 genuine poetry from Bryant to Browning as well as in all the 
 strifes and commotions and horrors that so perplexed and 
 depressed him. As a child of God he would give his all — to 
 friends, to neighbors, to missions of every sort, to sufferers 
 over seas, to unfortunates at home, in order that his Father's 
 love might be made manifest as fully as possible unto men. 
 
4 THE LIFE OP SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 The greatest of all Christian virtues, charity, came at last to 
 possess his mind and heart even to its fullest capability. 
 
 And there is no wonder that, as the days of his pilgrim- 
 age grew less in number, his soul already had arisen so that 
 it lived complacently in touch with the Divine Source of his 
 great love for humanity. "God bless you all," and soon 
 after, "I love you all," were almost his last words. His only 
 abiding sorrow seemed fully expressed in, "I am so tired of 
 war," and again in, "Cry out against this war, O my people !" 
 And as he seemingly looked over into his land of promise, how 
 expressive of his whole life — its ambitions, its endeavors, its 
 hopes and now its nearby realizations — was this : "Open the 
 window, I want to see Jesus and Lincoln, when they pass by." 
 Yes; Jesus, the ideal Son of God, and Abraham Lincoln, the 
 ideal son of his own kind, these two constituted the embodi- 
 ment of the creed and polity that had commended themselves 
 unreservedly to the mind and heart of Solomon Hoxie. And 
 as I looked upon his face, reposeful in death, there came to 
 mind what I would put on his monument in the gold that 
 could never tarnish: Here lies god's good man! 
 
 Smith Baker. 
 
PART I. 
 
 BEGINNINGS. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 "To be human; to give, not take; to serve, not rule; to 
 nourish, not destroy; to help, not crush, if need be to die, 
 not live." This motto of Charles Kingsley, written in many 
 of Solomon Hoxie's books, seemed to him to express the ideal 
 of useful living, and well did he exemplify it in his life. To 
 give, to serve, to nourish, to help, these were the purposes of 
 his life, the key to his every thought and act. It was this 
 spirit of service that so endeared him to all who knew him 
 best and any interest that may attach to the story of his long 
 life is due, not to varied or unusual incident, but to this 
 actuating motive of unselfish love. 
 
 In Central New York, in the little town of Brookfield, on 
 July 29, 1829, was born Solomon Hoxie. He was of English 
 descent and his earliest paternal progenitor, Lodowick Hoxie, 
 settled in New England about the year 1650. "This first 
 known ancestor," says Solomon, "established himself in 
 Sandwich, Colony of Plymouth, along the shores of Cape Cod 
 Harbor. His motives in coming to this country were un- 
 doubtedly the same as those of other settlers of that locality 
 at that time, a desire for freedom of religious thought and 
 worship. From the form of the birth records of his chil- 
 dren, he was thought to have held to the Quaker faith 
 and the fact that many of his descendants were Quakers 
 strengthens this belief. Such being the case, he must have 
 passed through that period of severe trial, the persecution of 
 the Quakers which began in the colony in 1655, and which 
 resulted in the death of several of those deeply conscientious, 
 and harmless religionists." 
 
 The descendants of Lodowick Hoxie and of his wife, Mary 
 Presbury, are now to be found in every State in the Union,, 
 and engaged in nearly every vocation in life. But, wherever 
 they are located or whatever their occupations or professions, 
 these descendants seem to have inherited and maintained the 
 
8 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 honesty, courage, independence and conscientiousness which 
 appear to have characterised their first mother and father 
 amidst those troublesome times in the early settlements of 
 New England. 
 
 Stephen Hoxie, the paternal great-grandfather of the sub- 
 ject of this sketch and the forebear whom he is said to have 
 most strongly resembled, moved from Rhode Island, about 
 1792, by means of ox teams, to a spot in central New York on 
 the banks of ithe picturesque Unadilla, now known as Leon- 
 ardsville. At that period few settlements had been made in 
 the central or western part of the state. The location chosen 
 by Stephen was then almost an unbroken wilderness, but he 
 was a man of force and ability, well able to cope with the 
 exigencies of a pioneer life. 
 
 "Stephen," says Solomon, "never sought office or political 
 preferment of any kind but he was chosen a member of the 
 state convention that was held in Albany in October, 1801, 
 pursuant to an act of the Legislature, to settle the contro- 
 versy which had arisen regarding the relative powers of the 
 Governor and Council of Appointments respecting nomina- 
 tions for office, and to consider the expediency of altering the 
 Constitution of the State. The president of that convention 
 was Aaron Burr. It was composed of 107 members, among 
 whom were DeWitt Clinton and Daniel Tompkins, both of 
 whom were afterwards governors of the state. He was also 
 chosen a member of the Assembly of New York State for two 
 terms, in 1803 and 1804. He was an influential and consist- 
 ent adherent of the Society of Friends or Quakers. His home 
 was not only a home for himself and his children, but it was 
 a home for his friends as well and a refuge for all who were 
 worthy and who needed his help. He lived on the spot first 
 chosen for that home to celebrate his one hundred and first 
 birthday." Solomon Hoxie remembered his great-grandfather, 
 Stephen, vividly, and many were his reminiscences of the old 
 gentleman. 
 
 Elizabeth Tift, the wife of Stephen, was no less able and 
 forceful than her husband. She was conceded to be a woman 
 of unusual character and attainments, long known in the 
 country districts around about her home, as an earnest ex- 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 9 
 
 pounder of the Quaker faith, a Quaker preacher of no mean 
 ability. 
 
 Stephen Hoxie's fourth son, Solomon, in honor of whom 
 the subject of this sketch received his name, which had been 
 handed down from generation to generation for many years, 
 married Lois Brown. Neither he nor his wife was dis- 
 tinguished for aggressiveness or force of character, but 
 rather for mildness and sweetness of disposition. 
 
 Nathan Brown, the eldest of the nine children of Solomon 
 and Lois, and the father of the Solomon of our story, inher- 
 ited the qualities of his parents, rather than of his grand- 
 parents. A prominent characteristic was his keen sense of 
 humor. Apropos of this trait of his father's, Solomon was 
 wont to say in later years : "I can remember numerous in- 
 stances when it flooded over all barriers and made the poor 
 environment of our lives glow with brightness." He was 
 liked and respected by all with whom he came in contact and 
 was known through life as a kindly neighbor, an unselfish 
 friend, a devoted husband and a gentle and unexacting par- 
 ent. He was an industrious man, by trade a farmer, but he 
 was a versatile man also, much skilled in the handling of tools 
 and doing the work of shoemaker and carpenter with the ease 
 of a trained craftsman, but he had little worldly wisdom and 
 barely succeeded in gaining a meagre competency for the 
 maintenance of his family. 
 
 On the maternal side, Solomon Hoxie was scarcely less 
 fortunate than he was in the forebears of his father. 
 Andrew and Rachel Hubbard Langworthy were the founders 
 of his mother's family in America. They, too, possessed the 
 sturdy virtues of the successful pioneer. They, too, migrated 
 from England about the middle of the seventeenth century 
 and they also made their first home in the new world in New 
 England. The surname, Langworthy, was originally spelled 
 Longworthy in the mother country, where it had been be- 
 stowed upon a remote member of the family by some English 
 ruler in recognition of his long and faithful service to king 
 and country. 
 
 Solomon Hoxie's maternal grandmother, Abigail Lang- 
 worthy, loomed large in his memories of childhood. He 
 
10 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 often referred to her, even in old age, as a potent influence for 
 good in his early life and as a character possessed in no small 
 degree of the virtues of patience, strength and gentleness. 
 
 Solomon's mother, Eliza Langworthy, was an aspiring, 
 temperamental creature, with a highly developed nervous 
 organization, not well equipped physically or mentally for 
 the rugged life of privation which was the portion of most 
 members of large families inhabiting the country districts of 
 the newly settled sections of New York State. Her early 
 marriage, the birth of her three children and the untimely 
 death of the eldest, the responsibilities, hardships and duties 
 incident to her husband's poverty and to their endeavor to 
 wrest a subsistence from the soil, together with the lack of a 
 naturally hopeful and elastic disposition, conspired to under- 
 mine her sensitive organization and she gradually sank into 
 a state of chronic nervous invalidism from which she never 
 recuperated during her long life. 
 
 Brookfield, the earliest home of this pair and the birth- 
 place of Solomon, was the typical country village of nearly 
 a century ago. It had been largely settled by New England 
 colonists and most of its inhabitants preserved the sturdy 
 qualities and the intellectual and religious traditions of their 
 forefathers. The community was made up largely of self- 
 respecting tillers of the soil who lived independently upon 
 their own land. The village church and school formed the 
 center round which revolved the social life, while the town 
 meetings, or company training days, as they were called, 
 made the village a political as well as a social center. 
 
 But this desirable and wholesome atmosphere was not 
 destined long to be the environment of the little Solomon. 
 When he was only four years old, his parents moved and 
 established the family upon a small tract of land in a par- 
 tially cleared wilderness, in the Unadilla Valley, not far dis- 
 tant from the then recently settled town of Edmeston Center. 
 Here conditions were primitive in the extreme, and privation 
 became the rule and not the exception of everyday living. 
 Here the scream of the "panther," or "painter," as this ani- 
 mal was locally called, was no novelty to the childish ears of 
 Solomon, and he sometimes heard and caught glimpses of 
 less formidable wild beasts in the surrounding forests. The 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE ll 
 
 physical features of this section are strikingly picturesque, 
 and it is probable that Solomon Hoxie owed his intense love 
 and admiration for all that is beautiful in nature and his 
 feeling of fellowship with nature to the influence of his early 
 life among the hills and dales of the romantic Unadilla. 
 
 Two incidents haunted the boy's early childhood, remained 
 vivid memories throughout his life and materially influenced 
 his career. One, his earliest memory, was of the tears of his 
 mother, as she bent above his crib, when he was only two 
 years old, mourning the death of her little daughter. This 
 occurrence was probably many times repeated for it made 
 such an indelible imprint and stirred such pity in his heart, 
 that, from that time to the day of his mother's death, after 
 he himself had reached middle life, his chief care was to 
 make his mother happy — a task in which he never succeeded 
 because of her temperamental disabilities. But to this end 
 he bent his energies and sacrificed almost every early per- 
 sonal ambition. Thus he gave up, at its very beginning, col- 
 lege training, although it had been the goal of his ambition 
 and the prize toward which he had striven through all his 
 early life of hard work and privation, because his mother 
 feared for the effect upon his health, and consequently the 
 reaction upon herself, of the double task of earning the 
 money and of doing at the same time the intellectual work. 
 His early business ambitions were also frustrated by the 
 same deep regard for his mother's feelings and desires. He 
 wished to make his home in the West but this desire also 
 yielded to her opposition. 
 
 The other circumstance which so affected his early life 
 and which helped to shape his mature convictions, resulted 
 from the death of a little playmate. This is the story in his 
 own words, as related to a young grand-nephew, in Solomon's 
 eighty-third year: 
 
 "There was one playmate of whom I was very fond, little Andrew 
 Abbott, who was a little older than myself. At this time I was about 
 five years of age. He was suddenly taken sick. Then I was told that 
 he was dead. Really, I doubt if I had ever thought of such a thing as 
 dying. My father took me by the hand and led me to the couch upon 
 which little Andrew lay. He lifted me up so that I could look into the 
 face of my little playmate and said to me, 'He is not here. His body is 
 
12 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 here but he himself is with God. He is happy now. We must all die, 
 but, if we are good, we, too, shall go to the place where little Andrew is 
 and there we shall live always. God is our Heavenly Father. He loves 
 us and knows all about us.' Then I learned to trust God. Then I 
 learned to pray. From that day to this I have been trying to live so 
 that I may meet little Andrew Abbott in a better life than this." 
 
 Solomon Hoxie's first ideal was his uncle Cyrus, an ambi- 
 tious and studious youth who died at the age of eighteen, 
 when the former was only a young boy. In a letter written 
 to a cousin in Solomon's eightieth year, he refers to this uncle 
 as follows: 
 
 "I was old enough to appreciate his character. He was my ideal 
 man. I not only honored him but I loved as a child loves. I wanted to 
 grow up to be like him. He talked with me about school — even about 
 going to school with him. To do so was my highest ambition before he 
 died. From the time of his death forward for years I wanted to be like 
 my uncle Cyrus Richmond Hoxie. I did not care to be like any of my 
 other uncles, but to be like him seemed to me to be perfect in character." 
 
 When Solomon was three years old, a brother, Samuel, 
 was born. To this child he became passionately devoted, 
 protecting and caring for him and sacrificing his own prefer- 
 ences, comforts and possessions to the other's will and pleas- 
 ure. This spirit was stimulated and fostered by his mother 
 and it grew and strengthened with his growing years, ceasing 
 only with the death of his brother in old age. 
 
 As soon as the younger child was able to walk about, he 
 attached himself to his brother and they became inseparable. 
 Whatever the elder did the younger must do also. Together 
 they ate and slept and worked and played, the elder always 
 shielding the younger brother, always bearing the brunt of 
 any work or burden that became their portion and making 
 his path 'smooth and straight before him. Together they 
 performed the duties that were assigned, in those early days, 
 even to small members of a household — the collecting of fuel 
 for the fire, the weeding and watering of garden vegetables, 
 the gathering of those in the field, the herding of the cattle, 
 the folding of the sheep and lambs, the husking and shelling 
 of corn, the paring and drying of apples, the gathering of 
 wild fruits and berries to serve as a relish to the family's 
 rude fare, the collecting of herbs and plants for family medi- 
 cines and the hundred-and-one tasks which made the child an 
 indispensable member of the family of that day. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 13 
 
 Together they roamed the fields and hillsides to watch 
 small furry creatures in their native haunts, to listen to the 
 song of birds, the buzz and hum of insects, to note the tracer- 
 ies upon rocks and stones and to pluck wild flowers. They 
 dabbled and waded and splashed and played at fishing and 
 boat-sailing in the tiny brook that babbled at their door. 
 They watched the clouds sail overhead by daylight and 
 together they wondered at the starry dome at night. Each 
 morning they trudged the two-mile footpath leading to their 
 rude schoolhouse, the elder sometimes carrying his weary 
 small brother pick-a-back. Each evening they perused their 
 lesson books by the flickering light of a pine-knot fire, while 
 the elder brother untangled the problems of the small one's 
 tasks. At night they climbed the unrailed stairway leading 
 to the rude unplastered loft where they slept, often with the 
 snowflakes drifting or the raindrops falling upon their up- 
 turned faces. Solomon occasionally walked in his sleep and, 
 sometimes, in those unconscious night wanderings he would 
 fall down the unrailed stairway to the kitchen floor below. 
 But even in such adventures as these he was not alone. 
 Samuel was always a close second and so determinedly did 
 he follow his brother's example that, although he himself was 
 wide awake at the time, he invariably fell down after his 
 brother, replying to his mother's query, "Why did you fall, 
 too, Samuel?" with "How could I stop, when I was already 
 half way down?" In the winter time, so great were the 
 rigors of the climate and so rude their surroundings, that 
 they were forced to perform their morning ablutions in 
 water upon which the ice had congealed during the night 
 time, breaking through its surface for that purpose. 
 Together they donned their rough homespun garments and 
 ate their primitive breakfast, consisting of johnnycake made 
 from corn meal and cold water and baked in the ashes of the 
 wood fire. 
 
 The amusements and recreations of the two brothers were 
 simple and few indeed. Their chief joy was in their two 
 household pets, little Pompey, a dog, belonging to the elder 
 and a large, striped, partially tamed wild-cat, the property 
 of the younger brother. Solomon was intensely fond of ani- 
 
14 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 mals and his attachment to Pompey was second only to his love 
 for his brother. In after life, he delighted to sound Pompey's 
 praises and to relate the small dog's adventures to his chil- 
 dren and his grandchildren. Indeed, so fondly was Pompey 
 remembered that this pet of Solomon's early childhood days 
 haunted even the imaginings of his death bed. 
 
 Once a year the brothers attended a function called Gen- 
 eral Training, where they listened to the music of a crude 
 band and consumed much gingerbread. For months previous 
 to this celebration the boys anticipated its pleasures, magnify- 
 ing the joys of previous General Trainings in the exuberance 
 of their recollections. This function, together with an occa- 
 sional visit to an indulgent grandmother, their rambles about 
 the field, their plays in the brook and the companionship of 
 their two pets, made up the sum total of their amusements. 
 
 Solomon was but a tiny boy when he first ventured forth 
 into the untried world of a district school. Even thus early 
 the character of his mentality was beginning to manifest 
 itself. He had commenced to think and to grope dimly for 
 reasons. He must understand the meaning of a group of 
 words before he could memorize them and repeat them to his 
 teacher. Parroting a lesson was an impossibility with him. 
 In after years he often laughed with relish of the humor of 
 the childish tragedy of his first lesson at school, the difficul- 
 ties he encountered in trying to commit to memory the first 
 assignment of his teacher. This consisted of the rote learn- 
 ing of a high sounding, elaborate definition of language. For 
 several days he labored untiringly, trying to remember the 
 sequence of the long words, but in vain. At length his 
 teacher threatened him with physical chastisement unless the 
 task was accomplished, but even this did not avail. Finally, 
 in desperation, the child confided in his mother and, with her 
 co-operation, the desired result was at last attained. 
 
 This tendency to try to understand, to get at the mean- 
 ing of things, to think out and reason over his problems, 
 grew with his years and became the most prominent charac- 
 teristic of his student days. He early excelled in mathemat- 
 ics and, after reasoning out a problem and reaching a given 
 conclusion, he was very tenacious of his result. He used to 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 15 
 
 relate an experience in connection with an arithmetic lesson, 
 when he was still quite a young lad. He had reached a cer- 
 tain conclusion in reasoning out a problem. The teacher 
 questioned his result. The problem was finally discussed by 
 Solomon's family, friends and neighbors, all of whom took 
 the same stand that had been taken by the teacher; but, in 
 spite of all this opposition, the boy held firmly to his first 
 conclusion. At length, his father threatened him with the 
 rod because of his stubbornness and put his threat into execu- 
 tion, but still Solomon held on with bulldog tenacity to what 
 he believed to be correct. Finally, wider publicity was given 
 to the discussion; higher learning took a hand, and Solomon 
 was vindicated. 
 
 His thirst for learning and the keenness of his ambition 
 to secure an education were equaled only by his devotion to 
 study and his never flagging pursuit of facts. So earnest was 
 he that often in his sleep he prosecuted his studies, dreaming 
 out solutions of problems that had eluded him in his waking 
 hours. As he grew from childhood to youth he spent every 
 spare moment in study. Hours snatched from sleep were 
 used for this purpose. Books were perused far into the night 
 by the light of only a dying wood fire and the hours of early 
 dawn saw the boy again at his self-appointed tasks. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD 
 
 Solomon attended district school for several years in 
 Edmeston, and later he studied for brief periods in New Ber- 
 lin and DeRuyter Academies. Finally he became a special 
 student at Madison University, now known as Colgate Uni- 
 versity. He was prevented from continuing his studies here 
 by the insistent demands of his mother and the feeling of the 
 necessity that he contribute to the support of his parents. 
 
 As Solomon grew in years and stature, he early became 
 the head of the household, the self-reliant and independent 
 leader. This was inevitable. The easy-going character of 
 his father and the physical weakness and nervous terrors of 
 his mother naturally shifted the family burdens and decisions 
 upon his immature shoulders. 
 
 He early learned to put aside his own fears, such, for in- 
 stance, as his natural timidity in the face of the sterner 
 manifestations of nature. He used to say, apropos of an 
 electric storm: "When I was a little boy I had to be brave. 
 For instance, I had to overcome my fear of thunder and light- 
 ning. My parents were timid in the face of these. My little 
 brother was terrified. There was no one left to be brave but 
 me, so I just had to put my own fears aside." It is interest- 
 ing to note that, later in life, Solomon seemed actually to de- 
 light in a thunder shower and appeared never to tire of its 
 manifestations. So also with his natural fear of wild beasts. 
 Such creatures were not uncommon visitants of the forests 
 surrounding his early home and often they came forth at 
 night to prowl and to give utterance to their protests against 
 man, in the vicinity of the dwelling. At such times it seemed 
 to rest upon the boy to calm the apprehensions of the other 
 members of the family. 
 
 By nature, Solomon was deeply religious. He was reared 
 in the Quaker faith, and early absorbed much of the strength 
 and gentleness of that religion. When about eleven years 
 
SOLOMON HOXIE AT EIGHTEEN 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 17 
 
 old, he became especially sensitive to religious influences and 
 particularly concerned in the welfare of his own spiritual 
 life. At this time, he took part in a series of "protracted 
 meetings," then being held in his neighborhood. When he 
 was seventeen years of age he was one day approached by 
 his brother on the subject of uniting with a church. The 
 brother wished to join the Free-will Baptist Church, this de- 
 nomination being the only one owning an edifice or holding 
 meetings in their vicinity. To this request of his brother, 
 Solomon consented, and together they were immersed and 
 received into that church. Solomon, however, held tenac- 
 iously to Quaker theology. He new began to feel a calling to 
 preach. "But where and to whom," he writes, "I knew not. 
 My father's family were Quakers. I must wait to be moved 
 by the Divine Spirit. I wanted to go to McGrawville Col- 
 lege, N. Y., to study for such a career, but instead I went to 
 Madison University for a short time. The impression was 
 still upon me that I ought to preach the Gospel in the manner 
 of the Friends. Then I was visited by an able layman of 
 the Universalist Church, and my religious views became 
 somewhat modified." His boyish journals are filled with 
 thoughts on religion and the religious character and show 
 how truly profound was his tendency toward a life devoted 
 wholly to the service of his Master and his fellow men. 
 
 "In the spring of 1846, in my seventeenth year," wrote 
 Solomon, "I entered the only kind of dairy school then in 
 existence in America. In other words I was engaged to work 
 for a dairy farmer for six months for which my father was 
 to receive forty-eight dollars. For this magnificent sum I 
 was to be cow boy, milker and general utility man on the 
 farm, working every day from early morning, often far into 
 the night." For several years thereafter Solomon worked 
 out upon neighboring farms during the summer season and 
 taught district school in the winter time. In this way he 
 materially increased the family income, although the wages 
 of a farm hand and the salary of a teacher were very meagre 
 at that period. But living expenses were comparatively small 
 also, and, in the winter, his stipend was eked out by "board- 
 ing round" in the homes of his pupils. This gave him an 
 opportunity to increase largely his value as a teacher, for his 
 
18 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 evenings were gladly devoted to helping and tutoring those 
 pupils who were either backward or ambitious. 
 
 As a teacher, Solomon was earnest and efficient, endeavor- 
 ing with all his might to arouse worthy ambitions in those 
 who came under his tutelage and to stir them to greater intel- 
 lectual efforts. He was ever ready to sacrifice his own time 
 and comfort to their interests. In after years, many men 
 and women were eager to testify to the efficiency of his work 
 and to give him the credit for arousing their dormant ambi- 
 tions and for giving the initial impetus to their subsequent 
 careers of success and usefulness. 
 
 After definitely relinquishing his hopes of a college train- 
 ing, Solomon began seriously to take stock of his intellectual 
 and physical resources and to consider what course he could 
 best pursue in order to increase his efficiency and earning 
 powers and to be of most value to those with whom he came 
 in contact. His lack of a higher education closed to him his 
 heart's desire, the ministerial field, as well as deterred him 
 from the hope of entering any of the other professions. The 
 fact that about this time he began seriously to study stenog- 
 raphy leads us to infer that he had thoughts of entering an 
 office in the capacity of a clerk. Finally it appears he con- 
 cluded that school teaching was the most useful and desirable 
 work offered by his limited choice. But he longed for change 
 of scene and a new field for the exercise of this vocation. His 
 thoughts turned ever toward the West, the goal of his early 
 ambitions. He would go West and teach. But how to secure 
 the necessary funds for such a journey was a question. 
 Finally he hit upon the plan of canvassing for books as a 
 means of defraying his expenses. Well fortified with the 
 materials for trafficking in this trade, and accompanied by a 
 young friend, similarly equipped, he set forth with high 
 hopes. 
 
 He made his way slowly through what had appealed to his 
 boyish imaginings as the promised land. Although only mod- 
 erately succssful in the sale of his wares, he was every- 
 where met with friendliness from the settlers of the new 
 country, who were all eager to hear about the "folks back 
 home." In many instances he was received and treated as 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 19 
 
 an honored guest and he never forgot the kindly encourage- 
 ment of the western people. The country, too, appealed to 
 him. He liked the wide, bare stretches of the prairies and he 
 appreciated the opportunities for material growth and ad- 
 vancement which the West oifered ; he longed to take up land 
 and to become a settler, but home ties and responsibilities 
 weighed too heavily upon his sensitive spirit for him to carry 
 this longing into effect. At length, came the favorable open- 
 ing for which he had hoped. In Nebraska he found a desir- 
 able school without a master. But his young friend and com- 
 panion was also seeking a like opportunity, and Solomon, 
 true to the ruling motive of his life, surrendered his own 
 hopes and desires and retired in favor of his friend. No 
 other worthy opening presented itself in the course of his 
 travels and, at length, after visiting some western relatives, 
 Solomon made his way slowly back home, defraying the ex- 
 penses of his return trip by plying his book trade as before. 
 About this period the young man indulged in some phreno- 
 logical experiments, hoping for light and guidance thereby in 
 modeling his character and career. He was told by the 
 phrenologist, who took stock of his mental and physical 
 equipment, that he especially needed to cultivate the virtues 
 of hope and cheerfulness. Solomon took this advice to heart 
 and thereafter held doggedly to a certain course of thought 
 and action until it had become a fixed habit. He read cheer- 
 ful books, sought cheerful society, recounted humorous stories 
 and anecdotes, endeavored strenuously and persistently to see 
 the happy side of life, the bright lining to the cloud, and so, 
 from a naturally hopeless and despondent temperament he 
 built a character whose distinguishing feature seemed to all, 
 but his nearest and dearest, to be its trustful optimism. They 
 alone knew what a fight he put up daily to sustain the atti- 
 tude which he ever kept before him as an ideal, never owning, 
 even to himself, that he was other than, by nature, joyfully 
 sanguine. Not only was his own character enriched thereby 
 but he became known among friends and acquaintances as a 
 man who inspired all with whom he came in contact with 
 this spirit of trust and hope. Many a discouraged and dis- 
 illusioned brother sought his help and counsel, never in vain. 
 Such always went out from his presence with renewed pur- 
 
20 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 pose and strength and the determination to fight on cheer- 
 fully in the face of all difficulties. 
 
 "Trust in God and ever stand ready to offer up yourself as a 
 sacrifice to humanity," Solomon writes in 1852, showing his at- 
 titude toward the then unpopular anti-slavery movement. His 
 youthful journals bristle with allusions to slavery and his 
 detestation of that institution. For years he waged uncom- 
 promising war against this great blot upon the fair fame of 
 his country. By means of public speeches and debates, by 
 contributions to the press and in social intercourse with his 
 friends and neighbors, he did all within his power to arouse 
 and stimulate public sentiment in favor of anti-slavery. This 
 was at a period when even the churches of the North were 
 defending slavery and the ministers of the Gospel were re- 
 ferring to it, in their sermons, as a "divine institution," 
 proved to be such by Scriptural teaching. Solomon stood 
 almost alone in his vicinity in his convictions and the fearless 
 expression of them turned friend into foe, and neighbor into 
 enemy. Even members of his own family, who should have 
 loved and admired him more dearly than ever before for his 
 fearless championship of the downtrodden and oppressed, 
 came to dread and dislike him because of his untiring propa- 
 ganda for this cause. But he went steadily on in the face of 
 all opposition, battling for what he believed to be righteous- 
 ness and justice. 
 
 In 1852 Solomon was old enough to cast his first vote for 
 President, which he gave to John P. Hale, Free-soil candi- 
 date. He helped to organize the Republican party in Edmes- 
 ton, and his second vote was cast for John C. Fremont, the 
 first Republican candidate for President. Solomon never 
 sought office or prominence in the political field, but, when 
 he was called upon to do what he believed to be his duty, he 
 never shrank from undertaking any task or assuming any 
 responsibility, however great. During early middle life he 
 was quite active in political circles and held various minor 
 offices, among them that of town supervisor, in which capac- 
 ity he acted for five years continuously. 
 
 When at length the Civil War broke out, he was deterred 
 from enlisting by the cares and responsibilities of a family, 
 but he was active in every other way possible that could con- 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 21 
 
 tribute to the triumph of the cause he loved. As the chief 
 figure in his vicinity who had for years vigorously opposed 
 and denounced slavery and worked in opposition to all politi- 
 cal measures favoring it so, now, at this crisis, people natur- 
 ally looked to him for advice and assurance and he soon found 
 himself the center of a small whirlpool of hysterical friends 
 and neighbors. Men and women went wild with terror. The 
 end of the world seemed imminent to them. Fathers and 
 mothers pleaded with Solomon to secure immunity from the 
 draft for their sons. Wives appealed to him to prevent their 
 husbands from being sent into the conflict. Relatives be- 
 sought him to act as a substitute for those nearer and dearer 
 to their hearts. Amidst all this disquiet and turmoil he 
 stood unmoved, a tower of strength, assuring and calming 
 the disorganized community. As the conflict between the 
 North and South waxed stronger, he became recruiting agent 
 for his town, by the appointment of Governor Horatio Sey- 
 mour, and spent much time and energy in this capacity. 
 
 Solomon Hoxie was an ardent admirer of Lincoln and 
 mourned his untimely end, not only as an irreparable loss to 
 the country, but as a personal bereavement as well. His 
 second child, born amidst those troublous times of the Civil 
 War, although a girl, bore the name of the martyred Presi- 
 dent and, throughout his life, Solomon cherished the memory 
 of Abraham Lincoln as an ideal character for emulation. 
 Even upon his death bed, in the wanderings of his enfeebled 
 mind, he coupled the name of this savior of the colored race 
 with his highest ideal, the Savior of mankind. 
 
 In the autumn of 1859 Solomon was married to Lucy P. 
 Stickney of Edmeston and, after teaching for a year a school 
 in which his young wife assisted him, he purchased a farm 
 adjoining the old homestead in the Unadilla Valley and, in 
 1860, he began to erect a house that should be his future 
 home. The lumber for this purpose was cut and drawn 
 from a woodland patch upon his own farm. The main part 
 of the work of erecting the house, as well as of planning it, 
 was accomplished by Solomon, with the assistance of his 
 father. Here his three children were born, two boys and a 
 girl, and here what was probably the happiest period of his 
 
22 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 life was passed, for he now entered upon an era of great 
 usefulness to his fellows. 
 
 He began to take a somewhat unique position among his 
 townspeople, who acknowledged his integrity of character, 
 respected his judgment and his superior intellectual endow- 
 ments, recognized his sane, vigorous, optimistic point of view 
 and his unselfishness. All knew and trusted him, many loved 
 him. All referred to him with a somewhat proprietory air 
 as "Sol." If any question requiring unusual knowledge and 
 research arose among them, it was invariably referred to 
 "Sol" for solution, and his conclusions were taken as final and 
 quoted as authority. If "Sol" said thus and so, that seemed 
 definitely to settle the case in hand. Matters of right and 
 honesty in business were likewise referred to him, as were 
 also many questions of legality. If it seemed desirable to 
 give publicity to neighborhood plans or happenings, "Sol" 
 wrote them up. If mathematical calculations were necessary 
 in the business affairs of individual or town, "Sol" was ap- 
 pealed to to do the figuring. Matters of church and school 
 and local politics were his especial care. 
 
 He became the champion of the poverty stricken and 
 oppressed. If some shrewd, prosperous and respected citizen 
 had driven a sharp bargain with a simple-hearted trusting 
 neighbor Solomon always ranged himself on the side of the 
 wronged, and many a wrong was righted by his efforts. The 
 self-righteous old deacon who beat an impecunious resident 
 in a horse-trade was persuaded to make restitution. The 
 miserly church member who had secured the services at half 
 price of an able but unfortunate laborer was induced to do 
 justice to his hireling. The supposedly honorable farmer 
 who had taken advantage of the dire needs of a ne'er-do-well 
 and purchased his adjoining acreage at greatly reduced 
 valuation was incited to make good the loss he had occa- 
 sioned. He was the community peacemaker, smoothing dis- 
 agreements and misunderstandings, reconciling neighbor with 
 neighbor and turning enemies into friends. 
 
 Ambitious but impecunious young men, struggling to get 
 a foothold and recognition in the business and social world, 
 found in Solomon a helper and counselor. He gathered the 
 poor and the forlorn about him, providing or securing em- 
 
THE LIFE OP SOLOMON HOXIE 23 
 
 ployment for some, helping others to make a start by means 
 of loans, inspiring still others to give up undesirable habits 
 and companions and to become good citizens. He gathered 
 them into the church, the Sunday School, the literary society 
 and the temperance lodge. No effort was too strenuous, no 
 act too insignificant, no abasement too humble for Solomon 
 if, by such means, he could help or reclaim a fallen brother. 
 One instance, which occurred in connection with "Good Temp- 
 lars Lodge," as an organization of total abstainers from 
 spirituous liquors was called in those days, will suffice to illus- 
 trate. A weak brother member had succumbed to tempta- 
 tion and indulged in a drunken debauch. He must confess 
 his downfall in public assembly and pledge himself anew to 
 abstinence, if he were to be "re-obligated" or reinstated. 
 Knowing the improbability of the deposed member taking 
 such a step alone, Solomon offered himself as a candidate for 
 "re-obligation" in the company of the other, confessing to 
 having imbibed a potion of spirituous liquor in time of sick- 
 ness. 
 
 Solomon was extremely democratic both in theory and 
 practice. He not only believed that all men are created free 
 and equal but he lived this belief. He kept open house not 
 only to the prosperous citizen and honored friend, but to the 
 colporter, the superannuated minister, the peddler, the book 
 agent, the student out of a job, the slightly deranged but 
 harmless denizen of the town bereft of all shelter save that 
 of the poorhouse. A bed, an easy chair beside his hearth 
 and a place at his board were always open even to the most 
 humble and the least of these, and he was ever ready to listen 
 with a sympathetic ear to tales of misfortune and frustrated 
 ambition. 
 
 In those days there were two disqualified aged ministers, 
 endeavoring to eke out a livelihood by the sale of Biblical 
 literature, who made constant demands upon his hospitality. 
 One, known as Elder Rice, was a somewhat ridiculous figure 
 in rusty clerical garb who drove about the country in an 
 ancient turnout, his old horse accompanied by a clumsy, 
 shaggy colt as large as herself. One winter this reverend 
 elder occupied an easy chair beside Solomon's living room: 
 
24 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 fire so persistently that, before taking his final departure, 
 he had worn a hole completely through the carpet beneath 
 his feet and his old horse and her offspring had grown sleek 
 and fat and even frisky with riotous living. The other poor 
 creature, Elder Webb, had a mild mania directed against the 
 folly and wickedness of those frivolous and misguided 
 human beings who insisted upon bedecking themselves with 
 wedding rings, time pieces, brooches and similar "trappings 
 of the Devil." He also traveled in the capacity of a colpor- 
 ter, but having small success with his wares, lingered at the 
 homes of long suffering brethren. His sojourns at Solomon's 
 fireside were no less lengthy than those of his impecunious 
 colleague, although not so tranquil, being attended with many 
 incidents of a somewhat disconcerting nature owing to his 
 strenuous endeavor to inoculate all whom he met with his 
 own ideas. During one of his visits he taxed a carpenter, 
 engaged in repairing Solomon's house, with unpardonable 
 wickedness. The man wore a ring. The decrepit Elder 
 painfully mounted a ladder leading to the top of the house, 
 and harangued the offender and barely escaped being thrown 
 from the roof by the irate workman, who was blessed with 
 a temper but not with much sense of humor. 
 
 Then there was the Second Adventist, the brother who 
 came crying in the wilderness : "Repent for the clay of judg- 
 ment is at hand," who never failed to seek refreshment at 
 Solomon's board. A peddler of tinware and collector of 
 paper rags, called Bill Joles, rarely failed, upon his rounds, 
 to occupy a bed at "Sol's." He was a rotund, rollicking, loud- 
 voiced creature, simple both in heart and mind and overflow- 
 ing with droll tales to which the children listened raptur- 
 ously. Upon his appearance one season he found that tales 
 of "Lilliput" were being read to the children by their father. 
 At this time he proved to be an eminently appreciative mem- 
 ber of "Sol's" audience. He laughed uproariously till the 
 tears ran down his face and he even rolled over and over 
 upon the floor in utter abandonment to his enjoyment of the 
 predicaments of Gulliver among the dwarfs. 
 
 A dispenser of perfumes and essences, Ed Meeker, 
 afflicted with shaking palsy and half blinded by a squinting 
 vision, always counted upon a welcome at "Sol's" fireside. 
 
THE LIFE OP SOLOMON HOXIE 25 
 
 Meyers, the pack-peddler, paused there for patronage and 
 succor, and there Betsy Gray, the harmless lunatic, was pro- 
 vided with clean raiment, nourishing food and simple occu- 
 pation during her periodic flights from the poor-farm. Billy, 
 the half-wit, Ralph, the wornout pedagogue, each and all were 
 received beneath Solomon's roof with smiling welcome and 
 kindly courtesy. 
 
 Solomon Hoxie rendered much valiant and well nigh 
 indispensable service throughout his neighborhood in times of 
 sickness. The country district where he resided was sparsely 
 settled. Physicians were few in number and the demands 
 upon their time and attention were very great. Often one 
 could not be secured immediately in cases of emergency. 
 Trained nurses were unknown. Again and again Solomon 
 hastened to the assistance of friends and neighbors in such 
 periods of stress. He seemed to have a natural aptitude for 
 caring for the sick and, regardless of the season or of the 
 hour, he could always be depended upon to respond to any 
 call for help. He knew intuitively what to do. His courage 
 in the face of danger was indomitable, his judgment sound. 
 He gave unstintingly of his time and strength. He not only 
 supplemented the efforts of family and physician in times of 
 illness but he was often forced to act upon his own initiative 
 in emergencies, saving lives as well as inspiring all with 
 whom he came in contact with renewed strength and cour<- 
 age. When a little child had fallen and cut a frightful gash 
 in its forehead and no physician was available, Solomon 
 stopped the flow of blood and dexterously sewed up the 
 wound. A lad suffering from fever found his family unpre- 
 pared in the emergency when the fever "turned." No pulse 
 was discoverable and it seemed that the patient must die, as 
 no stimulants could be obtained in time to save him. Solomon 
 administered a strong brew of tea. The boy rallied and 
 eventually recovered. An entire family, dangerously ill from 
 scarlet fever and avoided by nearly everyone else, was nursed 
 back to health by Solomon's ministrations. He quieted hys- 
 terical subjects who were beyond the control of members of 
 their own family. At one time he restored order and calm- 
 ness to almost the entire community, distraught by the vio- 
 lent death of one of its members. And so instances might be 
 
26 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 multiplied almost indefinitely. Wherever he went anxiety and 
 terror fled away and peace and order reigned in their stead. 
 
 One of Solomon's own little sons was very delicate and, 
 during the early years of his life, suffered from almost chronic 
 invalidism. The father was untiring in his attention to this 
 child, repeatedly nursing him through periods of well nigh 
 hopeless illness. In fact the preservation of this child's life 
 was due almost alone to Solomon's genius for nursing and to 
 his ever watchful care and tireless devotion. 
 
 Next in intensity to Solomon's love for humanity was his 
 fellowship with nature. The undulations of his meadows, 
 the stretches of his timber land, the river which skirted them, 
 fields, hills and woods and streams all held for him a name- 
 less charm. He used to say that he loved every stick and 
 stone upon his acreage. A picturesque little canyon with its 
 straggling stream was one feature of his farm. Solomon 
 delighted endlessly in this and he expended much time and 
 thought in adding to its beauty. Its channel and waterfall 
 were cleared of rubbish. Its crags and ledges were planted 
 with trees and ferns and wild flowers. Rustic tables and 
 seats were erected wherever space afforded. Birds and squir- 
 rels were fed and encouraged to haunt its neighborhood and 
 it became a veritable pleasure resort to the entire family. 
 The children, in particular, delighted in this gorge, tracing 
 its stream to the source, damming the flow of its waters to 
 turn their crude toy millwheels, angling for minnows and 
 cray fish and caddis worms in its depth, wading and splash- 
 ing and listening to its bubbling murmurs and its dashing 
 falls. 
 
 Solomon entered with zest into all the activities incident 
 to life on the farm. He reveled in seed time and harvest, in 
 the winter tasks of logging and icing and the early spring 
 occupation of sugar making. He had a real attachment for 
 the farm animals and the young of his flocks and herds re- 
 ceived his most devoted care. Stray lambs were invariably 
 sought and brought back to the fold. Baby calves, benumbed 
 by inclement weather of the early spring, were revived and 
 fed by the kitchen fire. Young chicks and turkeys, drabbled 
 by the too early far-afield adventuring of their mothers, were 
 rescued and warmed and sheltered by his hands. He was 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 27 
 
 interested in ornamental trees and filled the ample grounds 
 around his dwelling with fine specimens of these, while he 
 never tired of planting, pruning and tending fruit trees in 
 his two large orchards. He loved bee culture and went about 
 his apiary at all times unprotected, the bees seeming to recog- 
 nize his friendly intent. 
 
 His recreations were few and simple, gathering wild 
 flowers, ferns and mosses, watching and listening to the 
 birds, in which he took great delight, roaming over the hills, 
 stone-hammer in hand, trailing a small son or daughter in his 
 wake, in search of fossils in which the native rocks abounded. 
 Fishing, in which he delighted, was a rare treat, for he had 
 little leisure except during some of the winter months when 
 he angled for pickerel through holes cut in the ice of the river. 
 Family gatherings and sleigh rides were not infrequent 
 amusements incident to the winter season. 
 
 Solomon Hoxie was a devoted parent, though he seemed 
 at times to his children to be a stern and exacting one. He 
 was untiring in his efforts to develop early in them the vir- 
 tues of courage, truth and unselfishness. Their intellectual 
 growth was one of his chief cares. When they were very 
 young he proved himself to be the most fascinating of story 
 tellers, especially during the hours just before bedtime. 
 Later, as his children grew older, he read aloud to them from 
 the best books at all available times. He was unflagging in 
 his efforts to secure the best for them, both in material and 
 method. Having himself failed of the most desirable educa- 
 tional advantages, he was determined to do all within his 
 power to give his children what his early life had lacked. He 
 was always vitally interested in school matters and assumed 
 the responsibility and work of a near-by school for several 
 terms, after two of his children were old enough to attend its 
 sessions, hoping there-by not only to help his neighbors but 
 also to stimulate and guide his own children in their studies. 
 
 In the late sixties an incident occurred which gave Solo- 
 mon Hoxie the opportunity which he had always desired, 
 namely, to preach. One day the little church to which he be- 
 longed found itself without a pastor. At first Solomon was 
 asked to read sermons to the congregation on a Sunday morn- 
 ing. Then he began to write and deliver his own sermons. 
 
28 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 As time wore on his hearers were so impressed with his abil- 
 ity and success, for the church flourished and grew apace 
 under his leadership, that they urged him to secure a preach- 
 er's license. This he finally did and he then became the regu- 
 lar pastor of that little Free-will Baptist Church, giving his 
 services, without money and without price, for five years, 
 believing that a preacher of the good news, as long as he was 
 able to support himself otherwise, should do so. During these 
 years he still carried on the duties of his farm and dairy as 
 well as other activities, preparing his sermons largely during 
 the night-time in hours snatched from sleep. At this period 
 he helped to establish and build a church at South Edmeston, 
 where he frequently preached on Sunday afternoons. Occa- 
 sionally he also occupied the pulpit at Unadilla Forks and 
 other near-by villages. 
 
 In a few years changed circumstances and new activities 
 crowded out this work of his heart's desire and he was forced 
 to give up preaching, but he always deeply regretted this 
 and, even to the day of his death, he did not quite lose the 
 hope that some time he might be given an opportunity to 
 renew this activity which, more nearly than anything else, 
 satisfied his intense longing and ambition to benefit and uplift. 
 
 All through these years of his early manhood, Solomon 
 was an efficient dairy farmer and took an active interest in 
 native breeds of cattle. In the early seventies his attention 
 was called to the Friesian breed of cattle, known at that time 
 in this country as the Holstein. Then that period of his life 
 opened and those activities were begun which led to his 
 business and professional success and which made the name 
 of Solomon Hoxie known throughout this country and the 
 dairy sections of Europe. 
 
PART II. 
 A. CATTLE INTERESTS. 
 
SOLOMON HOXIE AT FORTY-RYE 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE UNADILLA VALLEY DUTCH STOCK 
 
 BREEDERS' ASSOCIATION 
 
 The story of Mr. Hoxie's life during the thirty-one years, 
 from 1874 to 1905, runs parallel with the history of the incep- 
 tion and growth of the black-and-white cattle movement in 
 this country. Solomon Hoxie's genius and early efforts, and 
 his alone, were the means which have brought this movement 
 to its present successful issue in the United States. At the 
 very beginning of his interest in Dutch cattle, he had a far- 
 seeing vision of what it would mean to the farmers and dairy 
 interests of America, if this splendid breed could be intro- 
 duced and maintained here in its purity, and, during long 
 and arduous years, he never for a moment lost sight of this 
 vision. He bent every energy to the fulfillment of this dream. 
 He cared little for his own interest or his own credit or posi- 
 tion in this, his chosen work. His care was for the interest 
 of the breed. He fought the spirit and tendency that would 
 introduce an inferior grade of animals through greed and 
 gain. He fought misrepresentation which came through the 
 early misnaming of these cattle, and which he saw would 
 inevitably lead to confusion, degeneration and the ruin of 
 the best interests of the breed. He fought every form of 
 error, injustce, mismanagement and misunderstanding in the 
 handling of these cattle, regardless of the fact that he made 
 many personal enemies and detractors by the course he was 
 pursuing. He inspired others with his own high ideals. He 
 allowed others to take the credit for his own work and ideas, 
 if only it advanced the cause so dear to his heart. At great 
 personal sacrifice, he did the work of ten men, writing, lectur- 
 ing, traveling, buying, selling, testing, examining and exhibit- 
 ing cattle, all for a mere pittance, in order that his ideals 
 might be realized. 
 
32 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 In 1870, when his attention was first called to this breed 
 of cattle, a group of young farmers of Central New York, 
 located in the Unadilla Valley, had begun to investigate Dutch 
 breeds with a view to the improvement of their own native 
 herds. Mr. Hoxie united with this group, and, in 1874, a 
 company was formed, known as the Unadilla Valley Dutch 
 Stock Breeders' Association. Their first purchase of pure- 
 bred stock was made from Thomas E. Whiting, of Massachu- 
 setts, one of the earliest importers and breeders of these cat- 
 tle in America. More cattle were purchased of Whiting in 
 1876: and this association then moved its headquarters from 
 the Unadilla Valley to Whitestown, or more correctly speaking 
 to Yorkville, a suburb of Utica, N. Y. Mr. Hoxie bought a 
 small farm in that village and became the chief agent of this 
 company and its intellectual leader and moving spirit. 
 
 What's in a Name? 
 
 At the time when the members of this association made 
 their first purchase, they found Whiting engaged in a contro- 
 versy with Winthrop M. Chenery on the name, origin and 
 characteristics of Dutch cattle. Chenery, the earliest im- 
 porter in this country, had at first correctly designated the 
 cattle as Dutch; but later, in an article on this breed written 
 for the United States Agricultural report of 1864, he referred 
 to them as "Holstein" cattle. Holstein being a province of 
 Denmark rather than of Holland, this name was grossly in- 
 correct and misleading; but it caught the popular fancy. 
 Whiting took up the cudgel for the Holland breeders against 
 the misrepresentation and injustice, and this disagreement 
 led finally to a bitter controversy among American breeders. 
 
 At the present day, looked at in perspective, the question 
 of name may seem to have been a small matter to quarrel 
 about, but in reality it was not. The designation, Holstein, 
 opened the whole of Northern Europe, with its variety of 
 breeds, as a source of supply for Dutch cattle. It credited 
 the origin of these cattle to Denmark instead of to North 
 Holland. It took the honor for their development and per- 
 fection away from the Dutch breeders, who had labored un- 
 ceasingly for hundreds of years to improve this breed and to 
 preserve it in its purity. It tricked unwary American pur- 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 33 
 
 chasers into buying, as pure-bred Dutch or Fresian, the cattle 
 of other breeds and other localities and led to endless confu- 
 sion. It is of interest to note in this connection that in 1918, 
 at a meeting of breeders of Holstein-Friesian cattle in Eng- 
 land, it was voted to drop the word Holstein from the title 
 of their organization, this body to be known in the future as 
 "The British Friesian Cattle Society." A similar action has 
 been taken by the breeders of black and white Holland cattle 
 in New Zealand and South Africa. Thus are the Dutch cat- 
 tle and their breeders coming into their own again. Thus it 
 has taken more than fifty years to overcome Chenery's casual 
 misnaming of this breed of cattle. 
 
 In December, 1877, Mr. Hoxie's company purchased the 
 balance of Mr. Whiting's herd, together with papers and let- 
 ters of importance from Mr. Whiting's executors, he having 
 died a short time previously. "The correspondence which 
 came into their hands at that time," says Mr. Hoxie, "showed 
 that Mr. G. J. Hengerveld, of the Royal Veterinary Institute 
 of Utrech and head examiner of the Herd Book of the Nether- 
 lands, assisted by eminent breeders and judges had selected 
 these cattle of Mr. Whiting's from the best pure-bred herds 
 of North Holland with great care and at much expense, the 
 understanding being that these animals were to become a 
 nucleus of an American Herd Book of Dutch or North Hol- 
 land cattle." Mr. Hengerveld had already prepared an intro- 
 duction for this proposed book and it was hoped that this 
 Herd Book would set matters right in America by definitely 
 fixing the correct name and locality of the pure-bred Dutch 
 cattle imported from North Holland and would counteract 
 the misconception originated by Mr. Chenery and promul- 
 gated by the Holstein Herd Book already being published in 
 America. But Mr. Whiting died before these plans could be 
 consummated. 
 
 At this time the Unadilla Valley Dutch Stock Breeders' 
 Association was in its infancy. It was inexperienced and 
 possessed little wealth. It was concerned mainly with the 
 development of its own herds. It believed Mr. Whiting's 
 stand as to name and origin of these cattle to be the correct 
 cne and, while it did not wish to quarrel with American 
 
34 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 breeders, it decided, largely at Mr. Hoxie's instigation, to 
 stand firmly by the name North Holland or Dutch-Friesian 
 
 cattle. 
 
 A Statement of Policy 
 
 At a meeting of this association, held at about the time 
 the last of Mr. Whiting's cattle were taken over by them, Mr. 
 Hoxie outlined what he regarded as the best policy for his 
 association to pursue. He said in part: 
 
 "In regard to our attitude toward the public, we have placed our- 
 selves under the sharp eye of the public gaze. We have by our acts 
 challenged public attention. We have made claims, and these claims 
 must be submitted to the severest scrutiny. Our business is not con- 
 fined to a neighborhood. It is as broad as our country. If we attempt 
 to conceal any misfortune or imperfection, we cannot succeed in doing 
 it. We shall never be able to stand upon anything but merit. I would 
 rather not keep the cattle, as much as it may be for my pleasure and my 
 interest, than to attempt to conceal any bad or to magnify any good 
 qualities. Another thing we must be careful not to run down the cattle 
 of other breeders. Let us simply point out those things that make up a 
 pure-bred animal and let the men to whom we are talking draw their 
 own conclusions in regard to other men's cattle. The true policy, I 
 believe, is not to allow ourselves to be disturbed by what others may say 
 against our cattle but, in return, to speak as well of their animals as 
 our consciences will allow us to do. There is room for all the breeders 
 in this country and there is no need of jealousy or envy. By and by 
 the public will find where there is true merit. 
 
 "I see no reason to enter into combination with other breeders. I 
 think we ought to cling to the name, Imported North Holland Cattle or 
 North Hollanders. Time may lead me to alter some of my views and 
 perhaps all of them. I sometimes think that we have entered upon a 
 business that we shall not be able to carry through successfully. It is 
 a large undertaking requiring more thought and more skill and more 
 money and more time than I had ever anticipated. The public is slow 
 to admit superiority and then slow to reward it. We must make up our 
 minds that cur rewards are not coming immediately and suddenly. If 
 we have cherished the hopes of wonderful success and great profits im- 
 mediately, we are doomed to disappointment. Our success will be the 
 growth of years. We shall make mistakes in the future as in the past. 
 Misfortunes will come and we must make up our minds to this. But, if 
 we persevere, it seems to me we may be the means of giving our country 
 the best family of cattle of the best breed that has ever yet been known. 
 If we persevere, I think our generation is not to see the end of this mat- 
 ter. Our children may take up the business where we lay it down and 
 carry it on to a far greater success and reap a greater reward than we 
 pcssibly can. But the honor will rest upon our names, that a company of 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 35 
 
 common farmers had the capacity and the intelligence and the persever- 
 ance to originate and carry forward to success an undertaking the 
 importance of which the distant future can alone estimate and appre- 
 ciate." 
 
 Mr. Hoxie now entered upon a most strenuous period of 
 activity. For not only had he the care of a considerable 
 number of valuable cattle but prospective buyers were flock- 
 ing to his farm and much of his time was perforce spent in 
 the exhibition of animals with a view to making sales as his 
 company's agent. Then, too, he was beginning to make milk 
 and butter records from individual members of the herd. He 
 was also engaged in a propaganda for the benefit of his asso- 
 ciation, which consisted in the writing of numerous articles 
 for the dairy press of the country, setting forth the advant- 
 ages and desirabilities of this breed of cattle. Added to this, 
 he wrote and delivered papers and addresses before the 
 American and State Dairymen's Associations and various 
 other cattle organizations in which he was interested or of 
 which he had become a member. Numerous letters of inquiry 
 were constantly coming to him and considerable time and 
 energy were consumed in correspondence. 
 
 As a recompense for all these activities, Mr. Hoxie re- 
 ceived the modest stipend of three hundred dollars a year 
 from the Unadilla Valley Dutch Stock Breeders' Association. 
 But he was not working for money alone, although compara- 
 tively a poor man at this time. His main thought in this, as 
 in every other enterprise in which he engaged, was the benefit 
 that might come to others through his efforts. Here was a 
 worthy undertaking which might become far reaching in its 
 effects. In some branches of his work he was assisted by his 
 eldest son, Charles DeForest, then a versatile and talented 
 youth of sixteen. It was this son who, during the late seven- 
 ties and early eighties, made many of the original drawings 
 for seals, letter-heads, catalogues and herd books used by 
 the Unadilla Valley and Dutch-Friesian Breeders' Associa- 
 tions. 
 
 In 1877, the Unadilla Valley Dutch Stock Breeders' Asso- 
 ciation was incorporated under the laws of New York State. 
 It had already begun to exhibit at fairs and its members, 
 largely through Mr. Hoxie's efforts, had taken their places 
 
36 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 among the prominent breeders of black and white cattle in 
 the United States. In the following year there appeared the 
 first catalogue of Dutch-Friesian cattle owned by this associa- 
 tion. Mr. Hoxie had prepared the copy for this and had 
 supervised its publication. This catalogue contained the in- 
 troduction, originally written by Mr. G. J. Hengerveld for the 
 proposed American Herd Book of Dutch Cattle previously 
 referred to. It also contained a statement to the effect that 
 the association wished to pursue a peaceable policy and to act 
 in harmony with other breeders, "in bringing before the pub- 
 lic the oldest and best race of cattle in the world." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 FIRST VISIT TO HOLLAND 
 
 The catalogue of the Unadilla Valley Dutch Stock Breed- 
 ers' Association recorded forty-nine animals, the importations 
 of Mr. Whiting, together with their offspring. These ani- 
 mals included representatives from the then famous Hartog, 
 Beets, Bleeker, Korndyke, Hengerveld and Twisk families. 
 So careful was this association, under Mr. Hoxie's leadership, 
 to handle only the finest specimens of North Holland cattle, 
 those of whose pure breeding they were fully assured, that 
 they soon established an enviable reputation among prospec- 
 tive buyers in this country and shortly they were unable to 
 supply the demand for these cattle without importation. 
 Consequently Mr. Hoxie left for Holland in the fall of 1879 to 
 purchase cattle. 
 
 He went alone and brought back fifty pure-bred Dutch 
 calves, selected with great care and with the help of native 
 experts. His stay in Holland at this time was brief and was 
 attended with many difficulties. The climate was trying and 
 he suffered severely from malaria. He was unacquainted with 
 the language and customs of the people and had everything to 
 learn regarding their business methods; but he had himself, 
 ere this, become an expert judge of the qualities of pure-bred 
 cattle, and this fact was of great assistance to him. 
 
 In a letter written home at this time, he says : 
 
 "I think this journey will result in good to us all. I am not home- 
 sick and have not been and do not expect to be. But you know my ten- 
 dency to excessive labor and anxiety, when I have anything before me. 
 I wish I could ease up a little but it is not in me or of me to do so. I 
 cannot let go when my hands are once put to the plow." 
 
 One very valuable asset in Mr. Hoxie's favor was a friend- 
 ship which he formed at this time with Mr. K. N. Kuperus of 
 Marssum, Friesland, a Dutch breeder of culture and educa- 
 tion. This gentleman received Mr. Hoxie into his home and 
 family as an honored guest during the greater part of his 
 
38 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 sojourn in Holland and gave him many suggestions and much 
 counsel of value. This friendship was confirmed during Mr. 
 Hoxie's return trips to Holland and by means of a corre- 
 spondence extending over a long period. It grew and 
 strengthened with time and ceased only with the death of 
 Mr. Kuperus, nearly forty years after their first meeting. 
 
 The return voyage across the ocean with the cattle he 
 had purchased was an anxious and troubled one. The freight 
 boat he had chartered proved to be almost unseaworthy and 
 the captain not too friendly to his interests. In fact, after 
 sailing, he learned positively that a plot was on foot to run 
 the steamer ashore for the purpose of securing insurance for 
 her owners. This, together with the storms at this season 
 attendant upon the northern route by which they were bound, 
 and the fact that they spent several days in perilous proxim- 
 ity to icebergs, rendered this voyage memorable as one of the 
 most exciting and trying, though brief, experiences of Mr. 
 Hoxie's life. In after years he was wont to dilate upon the 
 incidents of this voyage, the memory of which still seemed 
 to hold a fearsome fascination, and when, amidst other per- 
 plexities and anxieties of his later career, he was rendered 
 sleepless, he lived this experience among the icebergs over 
 and over again, during wakeful night hours. The little craft, 
 which in spite of all difficulties and hazards finally landed 
 him and all his precious cargo safely in New York Harbor, 
 was never seen after she sailed again, outward bound. It is 
 probable that she went to the bottom with all hands on board 
 as neither captain nor crew were ever heard from afterwards. 
 
 Some Impressions of Holland 
 Some impressions of this trip to Holland wers set down 
 by Mr. Hoxie in a paper read at the New York State Dairy- 
 men's Association near the close of the year 1879. In this 
 "Glimpse of Dairy Husbandry in West Friesland," he says : 
 
 "In the northern part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in extent 
 of territory not much exceeding Herkimer County of this state, is the 
 province of West Friesland, for ages the head center of dairy produc- 
 tion on the continent of Europe. It is bounded upon nearly three sides 
 by the sea, from which the larger portion of it has been won through 
 incredible labor, by a system of dykes and canals. The whole country 
 was once a series of shallow bogs, lagoons, swamps and islands, formed 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 39 
 
 by the sediment of the river Rhine meeting the sandy deposits washed 
 shoreward by the currents of the North Sea. Surrounding all these 
 has been built an immense sea-wall, and, by the constant operation of 
 pumps, formerly worked by huge windmills which in modern times are 
 giving place to steam engines, the country is kept sufficiently drained 
 for cultivation. 
 
 "Within so small a district one is surprised to meet with such a 
 variety of soils, ranging from light sand up through the mucks and 
 loams to the heavy clays. All of these soils are productive of the 
 grasses. Lying so low, the larger portion of the country being from 
 nine to twenty-nine feet below the level of the sea and covered with a 
 complete network of ditches, the moisture of the soil is almost absolutely 
 under human control. The only exceptions are the more depressed 
 portions during an exceedingly wet season. Hence, its pastures are 
 always green and luxuriant, like the pastures of Central New York in 
 early June. 
 
 "A person is impressed at first sight with the unity of all the 
 agricultural operations. The whole system has but one object; the 
 handling of cattle for purposes of beef, butter and cheese production. 
 Scarcely any grain is raised, only a few potatoes for home use and 
 almost no fruit. It is really pitiable to see the few dwarfed, half-dead 
 fruit trees that here and there a more enterprising farmer has gathered 
 about his dwelling. But the whole country is a paradise of grass, and 
 every farm, including the dwelling and its inmates, is simply a great 
 machine for converting this grass into butter and cheese. The farmer, 
 his wife, his servants and his cattle, are simply so many wheels and 
 levers in this machine. 
 
 "There is but one building of any importance upon the farm. The 
 roof of that building covers everything that requires protection. It is 
 always a huge structure of brick and tile constructed in a square or 
 slightly rectangular form, varying from forty to eighty feet in length 
 and breadth according to the requirements of the farm. In every other 
 respect, excepting in size, this building upon one farm is the almost 
 exact counterpart of that upon every other farm. 
 
 "One distinguishes the farmhouse built during the present season 
 from one built two hundred years ago only by the fresher appearance 
 of the materials. The outside wall rises about seven feet perpendicu- 
 larly from the surface of the ground, then a very steep roof inclines 
 upward from thirty to fifty feet to the ridge pole. The walls are 
 invariably built of brick, the roof of tiles made of the same material, 
 the flooring of the butter and cheese rooms of stone, the flooring of 
 the stables of brick, and of the family rooms, wood. 
 
 "The rest of the flooring is usually of firmly pounded clay or 
 brick. The center of this building is generally occupied by the hay- 
 mow built upward from the floor in a cubic form, upon one or two 
 sides are the stables, upon a third side is space for carriages and tools, 
 and upon the fourth side are the butter and cheese rooms and the family 
 apartments. 
 
40 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 "A Friesian farm is kept permanently in grass as much as possible. 
 Rotation of crops is but little practiced. We saw pastures and meadows 
 that had not been broken within the remembrance of man, yet the sod 
 was exceedingly dense and luxuriant. Manures are usually applied as 
 top dressing. In many cases these are composted with refuse from 
 the ditches or earth from some portions of the fields, then rotted and 
 disintegrated by being repeatedly shoveled and piled. We think com- 
 mercial manures are but very little used. 
 
 Origin of Family Differences 
 "At least ninety per cent of the cattle are of the piebald black and 
 white race called in Europe 'Dutch' or 'Friesian' cattle, but incorrectly 
 known in America as 'Holsteins.' There are numerous local families 
 of these cattle which have originated on different varieties of soil and 
 from different local uses. At first it is difficult for an American farmer 
 to understand how these families have been produced, varying as they 
 do so much in size, build, quality and general appearance. The explana- 
 tion is not difficult. Every distinct and separate polder (drained lake) 
 or series of polders has a soil peculiar to itself. Upon one polder or 
 series, the soil will be a heavy clay, upon another it will be a deep 
 black muck, upon a third a light or heavy sand or loam, the quality 
 of the natural grasses varying with the quality of the soil. Farmers 
 residing in different localities and hence upon different soils rarely 
 exchange cattle. Dutch self-esteem makes the farmers in a given 
 locality believe that their cattle are the best in the world, and Dutch 
 persistence keeps father and son for generations breeding in the same 
 line and for the same purpose. Indeed, this system prevails in the 
 human family. The true Friesian never marries a foreigner. The 
 farmer rarely ever sells cattle except on the public markets. These 
 markets are held upon some particular day of each week during the 
 months of September and October. At this time the farmer looks over 
 his herd, selects out his finest cattle, those best adapted to his own 
 particular use, drives the balance to the public market place, sells 
 them for what he can get, and returns to his farm to repeat the same 
 process from year to year and from generation to generation. Two 
 principles thus operate to build up distinct families of cattle: First, 
 constant selection with view to particular use. If that is butter-making 
 exclusively, it results in a butter-making family; if that is cheese- 
 making, in a cheese-making family; if that is beef production, in a 
 family superior for that purpose; or if his process of farming has the 
 three objects in view it results in a family with these three qualities 
 quite evenly balanced. Second, the soils upon which they are fed for 
 generations produce varieties in size and general development. Upon 
 the sands these cattle are of comparatively small size and of close 
 build; upon the mucks, loam and lighter clays, of larger size but of 
 finer bone; and upon the heavy clay, the richest land perhaps in the 
 world, they are of large size, of heavy build, of coarser bone and some- 
 times ungainly proportions. 
 
THE LIFE OP SOLOMON HOXIE 41 
 
 Marketing the Surplus Animals 
 
 "Over the larger portions of West Friesland, butter and cheese- 
 making are combined. A few localities make butter only, while other 
 localities unite the three objects, beef, butter and cheese production. 
 Especially is this the case around the city of Leeuwarden, the central 
 and largest city in the province. Here are held the largest cattle 
 markets (London excepted) in the world. Frequently fifteen hundred 
 to two thousand head of cattle are brought here and disposed of in a 
 single day. Some of these cattle go to France, some to Belgium, others 
 to England and still others to America. Germany, until quite recently, 
 has been a large purchaser, but importations to that country are now 
 prohibited on account of the lung plague. Here are found on every 
 market day, fresh cows with enormous udders, fat cows, heifers that 
 have never been bred, cows lean from excess of milk production and 
 calves of all ages. The cattle that the farmers regard as their best 
 are invariably kept at home. These are as precious stones in their 
 sight. They will almost as quickly part with their wives and children 
 as from them. 
 
 "In localities where butter and cheese-making are combined, the 
 farmers rely upon the butter for their chief income. The milk is gen- 
 erally set from twelve to thirty-six hours in shallow earthen pans, and 
 the butter made on what is called the old Friesian system. From two 
 and one-half to four pounds of butter are taken from a hundred pounds 
 of milk, according to the season and other circumstances. Then the 
 skim milk is made into cheese and the whey fed to the calves. The 
 butter is not washed in the process of manufacture, the buttermilk being 
 worked out. The result of this process is a light colored salvey-textured 
 butter. This is packed in firkins holding from twenty to one hundred 
 pounds. The style of these packages, even to the number of hoops, is 
 prescribed by the government. A government officer weighs the tubs 
 before filling and afterward, and determines the grade of quality of 
 butter. The butter is also sold on public markets. We were present 
 on two of those market days and saw many packages opened and tested. 
 The butter appeared much more even in quality than American butter, but 
 none of it of so high a grade as the best American. At the time we 
 visited the market, the farmers were rejoicing over the fact of the 
 Friesland butter, made by this Friesian process, taking the sweepstakes 
 prize over all other foreign butter at the recent international dairy fair 
 held in London. We wondered if any gilt-edged American was in com- 
 petition. We have since learned that large quantities of Friesian butter 
 are sent to other portions of Holland, where the water is good, re- 
 churned, washed and re-salted before being sent to London and Liver- 
 pool markets. The probable reason why the butter is not washed under 
 the old Friesian process, is the unfitness of the water for that purpose, 
 it being universally impregnated with the soil to such an extent that 
 it cannot be used for even ordinary drinking and cooking purposes. 
 Rain water is used instead. There is, no doubt, more butter produced 
 
42 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 in West Friesland than in any other territory of equal extent in the 
 world. And what is more, this enormous production has been going 
 on for ages. Before America was discovered West Friesland was a 
 dairy country, and we judge that the cattle and the soil have been slowly 
 but constantly improving from its earliest history to the present time. 
 The cattle were originally of a pure white color. This has been changed 
 by the process of selection and by the introduction of foreign blood in 
 past ages, to the present piebald race. The natural tendency, even now, 
 is to breed back to the original white. 
 
 Dairy Husbandry in Holland 
 
 "One element in Friesian dairy husbandry, and one undoubtedly of 
 great importance, is the early cutting of their hay. This crop is har- 
 vested before the grass heads show to any extent. A second crop and 
 sometimes a third is gathered before the winter sets in. In fact their 
 hay is similar in quality and appearance to our well-cut rowen. One 
 can readily imagine the effect of this forage upon milk, butter and 
 cheese production. Very little grain is ever fed to their cows. Limited 
 quantities of oil cake are used in the winter, but their cows feast and 
 give milk and grow fat during the cold months upon what we Americans 
 would call rowen. Soiling is not practiced, except after the time the 
 cows are put upon the stables, which is during the latter part of October 
 or the earlier part of November, the date depending upon the severity 
 of the weather. Then the third crop, if not cut before, is mown and 
 fed to the cows uncured. 
 
 "After the cows are put upon the stables they are never removed 
 until spring. The stables are usually arranged so that the cows' heads 
 are toward and close to the outer wall. The flooring upon which they 
 stand is elevated above the other floors from eighteen to thirty inches. 
 This platform is just wide enough for the cows to stand upon crosswise 
 and feed, without manger or any other contrivance for holding their 
 hay. Low partitions usually separate them into divisions of two, a 
 chain for each cow, with an attachment to go around the neck resembling 
 a common horse-fetter bow but much longer, is brought back and 
 fastened to a hook driven into the floor at the end of the partition near 
 the flank of the cow. This prevents her from pressing forward upon 
 her hay thrown upon the level floor in front of her. The length of 
 this chain is easily adapted to the length of the animal to just keep 
 her in a position for the droppings to fall to the trench or the lower 
 floor. She is thus kept in remarkable neatness. A small rope around 
 her horns and fastened at the side of her head to the partition completes 
 the arrangement. This manner of fastening gives considerable freedom, 
 but there is no chance for the filthiness of American stables. Here the 
 cow is watered, fed and milked without being removed from her place 
 until she is turned to pasture in the spring. In some of the stables 
 the watering is done at a trough immediately in front of the cows, 
 through which water is passed at the proper hours for drinking; in 
 others, by the much slower process of carrying water to them in pails. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 43 
 
 All of their water is pumped from wells or cisterns within the barns. 
 
 "The cattle are put upon these elevated stables and removed by 
 use of a cleated movable bridge, closely resembling the bridge used in 
 this country in moving an animal to and from a common horse-power. 
 The tails of the cows are suspended by small cords that permit them 
 to nearly touch the floor when the animals are lying down. The 
 temperature of these stables must be more comfortable and the air 
 much purer than in the average American stable. 
 
 "After the cows are turned to the fields in the spring, there they 
 remain under all circumstances of weather until winter comes again. 
 The climate of Holland at certain times is exceedingly trying to cattle 
 in the fields. The latitude is about as high as Labrador in America. 
 Cold, drizzling storms of wind and rain from the North Sea are of 
 frequent occurrence. To protect their cows from these storms coarse 
 cotton or linen blankets are provided, covering the back from just 
 forward of the shoulders to within about four inches of the rump. 
 These blankets cover the sides to about the middle of the body. These 
 are removed when the storm is over. 
 
 "The Frieslanders are exceedingly slow in adopting new customs, 
 opinions and modes of farming. The hay crop is almost universally 
 cut and cured by hand. Mowing machines, tedders and horse rakes 
 are just beginning to be introduced. Their tools are all heavy, seeming 
 to have been made with view to lasting forever. Their farm wagons 
 are without neaps, being turned about by the action of the foot of the 
 driver upon a beak attached to the forward axle. 
 
 "At their ordinary meals they often sit with their hats on their 
 heads, seeming to disdain the graces of modern civilization. They are 
 quite hospitable and regard it a mark of disrespect to refuse to enter 
 their homes to smoke and drink with them. In fact they smoke and 
 drink immensely. They keep everything about their farms in order, 
 but the marvelous neatness of their households, of which we had read, 
 we did not find. The women of that country are industrious, intelligent 
 and fine-looking. They are not addicted to the degrading dissipations 
 so universal with their lords. The Friesian farmer thinks much of his 
 word and, when he gives it, usually fulfills it to the letter. He meets 
 his appointments to the minute. He socially belongs to the third class, 
 in which merchants and professional men do not mix. He is generally 
 tall and muscular, with a bearing proud and independent, and, if he 
 could be instilled with a little Yankee uneasiness and versatility, would 
 soon bring about a social revolution that would place him in the foremost 
 rank among the people of Europe. 
 
 "The question has often occurred to us, could the American dairy- 
 man adopt any of the Friesland system with success and profit? We 
 have invariably answered, Yes! In our humble judgment there is much 
 that he might adopt with increased comfort to himself and cattle and 
 increased accumulations to his income. But we confess to only a glimpse 
 of that peculiar country and its husbandry. We looked little into the 
 details; a closer inspection might impress us less favorably, and we 
 
44 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 might come to regard our American system of dairy farming, as we 
 regard our government and social system, preferable in all respects." 
 As the result of actual contact with the Dutch breeder, 
 Mr. Hoxie became more and more assured of the truth and 
 honesty of the stand taken by Mr. Whiting, and more and 
 more in sympathy with the desire of the North Holland 
 breeders to maintain the integrity of their cattle by insist- 
 ing upon the correct designation incident to the section 
 where they were bred. Consequently, upon Mr. Hoxie's re- 
 turn to America, after this first visit to Holland, a meeting 
 of the Unadilla Valley Dutch Stock Breeders' Association was 
 called on December 8, 1879, to consider the advisability of 
 continuing the keeping of the Dutch Herd Book commenced 
 by Mr. Whiting. After some discussion, the members agreed 
 to form an organization to be called the "Dutch-Friesian 
 Association of America," the object of which should be the 
 preservation of the purity of Dutch-Friesian cattle in Amer- 
 ica and the advancement of the interests of the breeders and 
 importers of the same. On motion the following resolution 
 was adopted : 
 
 "Resolved, That the Herd Book of Dutch Cattle, kept by Mr. T. E. 
 Whiting of Massachusetts (deceased), with the introduction to the same, 
 written by Prof. G. J. Hengerveld of the Royal Veterinary Institute of 
 Utrecht, Kingdom of the Netherlands, be and is hereby made the 
 nucleus of the Dutch-Friesian Herd Book of America." 
 
 Soon after the formation of the Unadilla Valley Dutch 
 Stock Breeders' Association another breeders' organization 
 sprang into being in the nearby county of Madison, at Hamil- 
 ton, N. Y. The members of this company rallied to the 
 standard of the Dutch-Friesian Association, as did a few 
 other farmers and breeders in various sections of the coun- 
 try. The secretary's book shortly showed eighteen life mem- 
 bers. But it was not until two years later that the first vol- 
 ume of the Herd Book actually appeared in print. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ANOTHER VISIT TO HOLLAND AND THE 
 
 NEW HERD BOOK 
 
 In the spring of 1880 Mr. Hoxie again visited Holland to 
 purchase more cattle, his association having been successful 
 beyond all hopes in disposing of its first importation. This 
 time he did not go alone; Mr. Irwin Langworthy, a young 
 cousin and a member of the Unadilla Valley Dutch Stock 
 Breeders' Association, accompanied him. On board the 
 steamship Hecla, about four hundred miles out from Queens- 
 town, Solomon writes to his wife on April 2, of this year: 
 
 "In two days more we expect to see land. The steamer will first 
 stop at Queenstown in Ireland. Then we shall go to Liverpool in the 
 northern part of England. From Liverpool we expect to go by rail to 
 London and then to Hartwick. From Hartwick we shall take another 
 steamship to cross the English Channel to Rotterdam. There is nothing 
 to write about. On shipboard every day is alike. The only changes 
 are in degrees of roughness or cold. We have had a remarkably 
 pleasant voyage for this season of the year. We hope good fortune 
 may smile upon us for the rest of the journey. I suspect that you 
 know I think of you almost every hour in the day. If love were sent 
 by the cargo I would spend my money and send you a ship-load. But 
 love goes like the light and I feel that I am in an atmosphere of it 
 from you and the children." 
 
 On the seventeenth of April, after about two weeks' 
 sojourn in Holland, Solomon writes to his mother: 
 
 "I am pretty well tired out. No one can appreciate the difficulties 
 we have met in our business and the weariness and anxiety we often 
 feel. But hoping and believing that you are all well at home keeps 
 up our spirits. I get along much better than last year. Cattle are 
 much higher in price and we are spending much money in looking for 
 the best. 
 
 "This is a very strange country. They bore holes in the ground 
 about eighteen inches apart with a tool something like an auger. That 
 lifts out a plug of dirt, or rather clay, about six inches long and two 
 and one-half inches thick. Into these holes they drop their seed potatoes 
 and cover them a little with the hand. Then they harrow the ground. 
 They hoe their wheat. I have seen men and women together hoeing 
 
46 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 wheat many times. They always tie the cows' legs when milking 
 them and they keep their cows without a speck of dirt on their sides 
 or hips. The stable floors are so high that they have to have a bridge 
 over which the cows walk when removing them from the barn. Few 
 men will remove a cow without being paid for it. Day before yesterday 
 we paid a man a dollar just to take a bull from his stable and show 
 him to us. A fine horse was shown at another time but the servant 
 must have a half-guilder. I think I pay sometimes from ten to twenty 
 men a day for doing such things as these. There are no hitching 
 posts and nobody ever hitches a horse; so a man holds your horse and 
 must be paid, and so it goes from day to day. I do not write this 
 because I object to this system but it seems so odd and so different 
 than with us at home. If I had ten cents for every time I have shown 
 our old bull, Burgomaster, I should have quite a little pile. 
 
 "Then another peculiarity is the wonderful quietness and slowness 
 with which everything goes along. One may drive all day upon a paved 
 public road and not meet a single team. He will meet men and women 
 on foot and carts drawn by dogs and carts pushed by men, but, except 
 upon market days which come once a week, it is very rare to meet a 
 horse and wagon. The country is so quiet one might think every day 
 was Sunday. I think a majority of the people are quite poor. The 
 largest share of the wealth is in the hands of the few. Rich men are 
 large land holders and rent their land to the farmers, who are a sort 
 of middle class, and then they hire the laborers who work very slowly 
 but make exceedingly long days." 
 
 Later Mr. Hoxie writes to his children: 
 
 "I think people in fair circumstances are quite happy here, for 
 they make a great deal of home and of their friends and relatives. 
 The children are healthy and robust and have very red cheeks. They 
 dress quite warmly and some of them look like little old men and women. 
 You would laugh to see the little wooden shoes. You ought to see how 
 pleasant the children seem to be to one another. I hope each day you 
 will cultivate forbearance and love for one another. The more of love 
 we put into our lives, the richer our lives are. This great truth is 
 often learned when much of our time in this world is passed. I hope 
 it may not be so with my children." 
 
 The cattle purchased, Mr. Hoxie and his companion were 
 forced to tarry some days before their steamer set sail on the 
 return voyage. During this time he had leisure for a daily 
 letter to his family. Some of these have been preserved and 
 extracts from them follow: 
 
 "We expect to start from Antwerp the tenth of May, on the Helvetia 
 of the White Cross Line. Her usual passage is fifteen or sixteen days. 
 So you may expect our arrival in New York on the twenty-sixth, not 
 before. The owners of the boat say we must take hay for twenty days. 
 So you need not be alarmed if you do not hear from us before the 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 47 
 
 thirtieth of May. We have bought one hundred head of cattle, twenty- 
 four of them being over two years of age, sixty-six yearlings and ten 
 calves. We have had to pay very much more than last fall, three, 
 four and five times as much, but we have bought cattle that are 
 superior; the best that we could possibly find; and on this account 
 reasonably expect, if American prices keep where they were last winter, 
 we may realize as great a profit per animal as on the others. We have 
 bought the first prize cow of this country and many others that are 
 regarded as very valuable; and now, if we can only get home safely, 
 we shall be thankful. 
 
 "The spring in this country comes on very slowly. Flowers were 
 blossoming when we came and they seem but little farther advanced 
 now. I never knew what purple violets signified before. The wild 
 violet here is purple instead of blue, and often a whole half acre will 
 appear as one mass of deep purple. I saw a robin and a catbird in 
 a cage at Antwerp. They looked wonderfully home-like and I almost 
 wanted to get hold of them and kiss them. The catbird was singing 
 his odd song as naturally as though he were dodging among the bushes 
 of America. The babies here all coo in English and laugh and cry in 
 English; and it is a wonder how they ever learn to talk Dutch. Every 
 word in Dutch sounds as if it had its tail bitten off. I have got so I 
 can say the 'Yaw, yaw' with short, quick jerks of the lower jaw." 
 
 To his wife he says: 
 
 "I think I have not written you anything about North Holland. 
 This country is so curious. It seems so strange that there should be 
 different customs and different styles of dress comparatively only a few 
 miles apart. In some sections the dames (ladies) wear the gold head 
 dress of which I have told you. In North Holland they wear a gold 
 band across the forehead and, rising from this on each side of the 
 head, will be a little arch from which are hung pendants, usually ear- 
 rings. ... I leave you to imagine a Dutch beauty, for I don't think 
 I have fairly represented her in this drawing. Her cheeks are as red 
 as two roses and she has eyes that, like our ladies in America, are 
 wonderfully inquisitive. She loves to peek at the 'Amerikans' (accent 
 on the last syllable) and then giggle the tiniest kind of a giggle in 
 plain English. The women of North Holland are very fond of high 
 colors, red and yellow and blue and green. The houses are painted the 
 same variety of colors and the rooms also and then highly polished. 
 They scrub everlastingly but do not, after all, keep as neat as American 
 women. But for fresh, clear, bright complexions they excel. There 
 are. probably no women in the world with such fair complexions. 
 They are the picture of health. No doubt one cause of this is so much 
 out-of-door life. They know but little of the indoor confinement of 
 American women. They walk as much as the men and often we see 
 them in the fields at work with the men. If it were not for their style 
 of head dress they would be quite beautiful as a class. Why they 
 will adhere to a head dress that makes them look perfectly bald I 
 
48 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 cannot see. Some of the city women, who have discarded the Friesian 
 costume, have very beautiful hair. 
 
 "Kindje are one of the national institutions. They marry young 
 and, oh, such piles of kindje, kinderen! These kinderen are as neat 
 as wax. Though the vaders and moeders are poor the kinderen have 
 to be dressed neatly and are indeed pretty. You would laugh to see 
 the young vader and mceder walking out together on Sunday drawing 
 a little wagon containing two, one a little larger than the other, and 
 then perhaps two or three little toddlers, hold of hands, ahead or behind. 
 Maybe the oldest being not more than six or seven, but acting as nurse 
 and guard over the others. Families of from half a dozen to ten 
 kinderen are not uncommon. But the women do not have the house 
 work or the demands upon their nervous systems in other respects 
 that American women do. Society is more simple, the care of rooms 
 not an iota the labor, the meals more simple. The women do not 
 pickle and preserve and bake and wash dishes as American women do. 
 And then, oh, the everlasting labor of the toilet, to which many of the 
 American women are almost slaves! Of this they know but little. But 
 they are still beautiful in the eyes of the heeveen (gentlemen). I con- 
 fess that I admire the style and independence of the Fi-iesian ladies. 
 There is none of that pretension to extreme gentility that is sometimes 
 seen in America. I have been so fortunate as to be invited into the 
 houses of some of the best families in this country but this same sim- 
 plicity I have always found. I have never found that pretension that 
 is sometimes seen in America. Nor have I found bashfulness. The 
 women' have always appeared unpretentious, innocent and frank. 
 . ,. As I wrote you last year, the men smoke and drink im- 
 moderately. But I can say that there is far, far less of this among 
 the higher than among the middle and lower classes. . . . 
 
 "I will write you now our mode of living. In the morning, whether 
 we rise early or late, it is always the same. We go down to the dining 
 room where a salver, about twice the size of this sheet of paper, is set 
 with a teapot, a sugar bowl, a milk cup and a slop jar, two cups and 
 saucers and a chest of tea. Beside the salver will be two small plates 
 and knives. At the right hand, on the floor close to your chair, stands 
 a teakettle of boiling water. You make your own tea and sit down 
 and help yourself to bread, butter, cheese, radishes and a peculiar kind 
 of little cracker kept in a little round black box. I have really fallen 
 in love with the Friesian style of breakfasting. You have no other 
 regular meal until five p. m., the dinner hour. Then we have soup 
 and a small slice of bread and about four courses of meats. Let me 
 give you one menu as a sample. Friesch soup, cold roast beef and small 
 string beans, beef steak and potatoes, roast veal and greens, beef tongue 
 and lettuce, brandy pudding. At the side of my plate stands a bottle 
 of wine in grave solemnity at each meal. The cork is the glass head 
 of a Dutchman, trying to look facetious. Dinner over, then if our 
 business is over, we walk out. When we return in about an hour we 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 49 
 
 miss our tea so badly that we usually call for a pot of it. Then the 
 morning salver, with its accompaniments, makes its appearance. We 
 sit gravely and sup our tea as a Dutchman sups his wine or beer or 
 gin. . . . 
 
 "Our cattle are now all purchased and our arrangements for return 
 are being rapidly made. We hope Old Ocean will be propitious and 
 that, sometime about the twenty-sixth of May, we shall land safely in 
 New York. And we hope to come home and to live enough better to 
 make up for lost time. A voyage to Europe in a pleasant season of 
 the year, upon one of the staunchest of steamships, in the company of 
 friends and acquaintances and, especially with the wife of one's heart 
 and with plenty of money, would no doubt be a very pleasant thing. 
 Then to journey over Europe in the same company, without a care, 
 visiting the noted places, would be a rich treat. But to come here on 
 business among sharpers of the sharpest sort — Yankee sharpness cannot 
 begin with Dutch sharpness. You know there is a homely expression, 
 'That beats the Dutch.' I never appreciated its meaning until I had 
 experience with them. I think I can solemnly witness to the truth of 
 the remainder of the expression, 'and the Dutch beat the Devil' — is 
 another thing." 
 
 On May 5, he writes to hs son : 
 
 "We are having a few days of waiting before we can ship our 
 cattle, so I improve the time in writing to my loved ones across the 
 Atlantic. I have written almost every day to your mother, so now I 
 will write to you. In some respects a young man has superior ad- 
 vantages in this country, if he is born wealthy; but Heaven help the 
 poor! A young man of wealthy parents is immediately put to learning 
 the various European languages, English, French and German. I think 
 such a young man spends less time than he would in our country in 
 mathematics and the sciences. By constant contact with people of ad- 
 joining nations he very soon learns to speak their languages with 
 tolerable accuracy. It is surprising how many farmers' sons even are 
 learning English. After the proper age, say about eighteen, his business 
 or profession is chosen and then his education is specialized with a view 
 to his future calling. He may go into the army, one-third of the young 
 men being drafted for that service every year. I think their army life 
 is not irksome. If talented, promotion awaits him and, in that case, it 
 may be a life calling. You would be surprised to see the number of 
 young men here in the various uniforms of the different branches of 
 the army service. These uniforms are blue and gaily trimmed, some 
 with red, some with yellow, some have epaulets, and some gold or silver 
 stars on their collars. With their highly polished buttons, belts and 
 shining scabbards and their white gloves they really make a very fine 
 appearance. Other young men enter the civil service, post offices, tele- 
 graph offices, dyke offices, etc., where they are also generally uniformed. 
 Besides this the railroads take another class of young men, all of them 
 in uniform. Even the common porters wear uniforms. 
 
50 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 "Young ladies are more secluded, I think, than in America, although 
 much the greater number of retail shops are kept by them. They also 
 learn the different European languages to some extent. They are very 
 fine looking and fully as intelligent as the men. They are generally 
 tall and quite commanding in appearance. I have seen scarcely any of 
 that silly, smirking pretension to extreme childishness and simplicity 
 that is sometimes seen in America. They are not bashful, neither are 
 they forward. All classes and ages of men, from the youth to the 
 grandsire, smoke — I think I have only met with two exceptions — and 
 drink. They smoke almost constantly. At the close of dinner cigars 
 are always passed at the hotels. Wine always accompanies the meal. 
 A bottle sits beside each man's plate. One thing seems very curious 
 to me. At not a single dinner at a public house have I seen a lady. I 
 think they take their meals separately. The Dutch men as a class are 
 not refined in manner, nor do I think in sentiment. I sometimes think 
 they pride themselves upon their animal qualities. It is a wonder to 
 me that the ladies preserve the purity and delicacy of which they seem 
 to be possessed, considering their male associates. 
 
 "There is but little chance for a young person to rise above his 
 surroundings in this country. He is born into a certain class and 
 always remains there. I think wealth is honored more than in our 
 country. To put it emphatically, the poor in this country are the 
 slaves of the rich. The people, I think, are quite fond of dress but 
 extremely careful of their clothing. Fashions do not change as often as 
 in our country, so that a fine suit of attire may last for years. The 
 influence of surrounding countries is seen in the dress of the inhabi- 
 tants of the large towns. I presume half of the ladies of Leeuwarden 
 dress in the French style. But outside the cities nearly all dress in 
 the old Friesian way. The people show much self-esteem. They have 
 been educated for generations to regard themselves as a superior race. 
 Their eyes are beginning to be opened especially among the better edu- 
 cated and more intelligent. I have no doubt that fifty years hence 
 great changes will be effected. Communications with the rest of the 
 world will do away with many prejudices and awaken them to their 
 imperfections. One great promise of this is found in the fact that the 
 upper classes, who travel to other countries, drink and smoke less and 
 show much greater delicacy and refinement. Naturally the Friesians 
 are a splendid race. In perseverance and courage they probably have 
 no superiors." 
 
 In preparation for the transit of his cattle from Leeuwar- 
 den to Antwerp, previous to loading them upon the Helvetia 
 for shipment to America, Mr. Hoxie was accidentally sepa- 
 rated from his companion and his purchases and was 
 stranded alone in Leeuwarden with all the baggage but with- 
 out money. His assistant had gone on to Antwerp with the 
 cattle and there was not time to get the necessary funds from 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 51 
 
 him for the release of the baggage, the hotel bill and Mr. 
 Hoxie's railroad fare, before the vessel sailed. Mr. Hoxie 
 was greatly perturbed. Not knowing enough of the Dutch 
 language to make the situation clear to a native and being 
 absolutely without friends or acquaintances in Leeuwarden, 
 what could he do? How extricate himself from the diffi- 
 culty? He strode up and down the railroad tracks in front 
 of the station, audibly voicing his distress. A stranger, a 
 Hollander who understood English and who observed Mr. 
 Hoxie's discomposure and listened to his involuntary self- 
 communings, approached him and said, "I have heard what 
 you were saying. I like your face and I am going to venture 
 to loan you the money with which to reach Antwerp." Upon 
 Mr. Hoxie's third visit to Holland, the first person he met 
 upon leaving the train at Leeuwarden was this same man, 
 this friend in need who had helped a foreigner, a perfect 
 stranger in a strange land, out of what seemed an insur- 
 mountable difficulty because he "liked his face." 
 
 The Dutch-Friesian Herd Book and the Beginnings 
 of Advanced Registration 
 
 On landing in America this second importation of cattle 
 was taken directly to Mr. Hoxie's farm in Yorkville, as had 
 also been the fifty head of calves previously brought over, for 
 the necessary period of quarantine. Thus increased duties 
 and responsibilities were added to Mr. Hoxie's already multi- 
 tudinous burdens. 
 
 All his interrupted activities in America were now re- 
 sumed, speaking and writing in the interest of Dutch cattle, 
 supervising his farm and dairy and exhibiting and making 
 sales of his new purchases. Added to these numerous labors 
 a wholly new task was now required of him — the editing and 
 publishing of the first volume of the Dutch-Friesian Herd 
 Book of America. This book was brought out in the fall of 
 1880 by the Dutch-Friesian Association, Mr. Hoxie having 
 performed all of the work of compiling and editing it unas- 
 sisted. Also, he had personally examined most of the ani- 
 mals recorded therein. On account of the meagre numbers 
 composing the association and their lack of funds, Mr. Hoxie's 
 remuneration for his first year's work as editor of the herd 
 
52 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 book, examiner of cattle and secretary of the organization 
 was the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars. His duties 
 were now so manifold that he was forced to resign as chief 
 sales agent of the Unadilla Valley Dutch Stock Breeders' 
 Association, although many of its cattle were still kept upon 
 his farm, under his care, and he still continued to edit and 
 publish its annual catalogues and to carry on his propaganda 
 for its benefit through correspondence, writing and speaking. 
 With this first volume of the Dutch-Friesian Herd Book 
 a new era in the breeding of black and white cattle in Amer- 
 ica was ushered in. Mr. Hoxie set forth in its pages a sys- 
 tem 1 of registry based upon the development of the escutch- 
 eon and milk records. Two forms of registry were adopted, 
 viz: The Pedigree form, in which all cattle of pure blood 
 must first enter, and the Main or Advanced form, to which 
 the animal advances by special merit. The idea of this latter 
 form was original with Solomon Hoxie and, in this book are 
 to be found the small beginnings of that system of Advanced 
 Registry around which the significant history of this breed 
 in America almost entirely centers. In this volume was pub- 
 lished the introduction by G. J. Hengerveld, originally written 
 for the proposed Herd Book of Dutch cattle which was to 
 have been issued by Thomas Whiting. It also contained this 
 statement regarding the name Dutch-Friesian, which had 
 been adopted by this association: 
 
 "In the Netherlands Herd Book every animal is described from 
 the province in which it was bred, thus: 'Noord Hollandsch veeslag,' 
 'Friesche veeslag', literally North Holland kind, Friesian kind. In 
 the certificates of breeding required to entitle imported animals to 
 registry in America, these two kinds are regarded as identical and are 
 described as pure 'North Holland or Friesian black and white piebald 
 cattle.' Upon arriving in America, however, they are popularly given 
 the name 'Holstein.' This name is a peculiarly unfortunate one, from 
 the fact that there is a breed in the province of Holstein (Denmark) 
 differing widely from this breed to which the Europeans have very 
 properly attached the name Holstein. Hence it is very likely to lead 
 to misunderstanding and confusion as intercourse increases between 
 American and European breeders; besides it robs the true originators 
 of the breed of the honor justly due them. The Dutch-Friesian Asso- 
 ciation has discarded this name (Holstein) and adopted one 'that was 
 
 i This system, in the next volume of the Dutch-Friesian Herd Book, was 
 materially changed. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 53 
 
 applied to the breed as early as 1825 by the European author Sturm, 
 in a work entitled 'Races, Crossing and Improvement of Indigenous Do- 
 mestic Animals.' This name (Dutch-Friesian) is comprehensive, includ- 
 ing the black and white dairy cattle of both North Holland and West 
 Friesland; it designates the origin of the breed and is in harmony with 
 the importer's certificates. We think all disinterested men, lovers of 
 exact statements, will approve of this name." 
 
 This volume contains the pedigree of sixty-three bulls and 
 two hundred and four cows. Upon its pages there is no 
 manifestation of unfriendliness to the Holstein Association. 
 
 At about this time Mr. Hoxie wrote a series of articles 
 for the "American Live Stock Journal," the leading cattle jour- 
 nal in this country, since named the "Breeders' Gazette." These 
 articles gave a comprehensive account of the origin of the 
 Dutch breed, its history in Europe, its valuable qualities, its 
 products and their markets and the treatment of the breed in 
 North Holland and Friesland. These articles called forth the 
 following statement from a prominent Holland breeder : 
 
 "I constantly read the 'Live Stock Journal' with great interest, 
 especially the articles you are publishing about the Friesian or Dutch- 
 Friesian cattle. It astonishes me from whence you get the knowledge 
 as to their origin and so many particulars concerning our cattle." 
 
 Mr. Hoxie had intended to use these articles later as a 
 basis of a truthful history of these cattle both in Europe and 
 America, but they were largely culled from by Mr. F. L. 
 Houghton in the construction of his book on Holstein-Friesian 
 cattle. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THIRD VISIT TO HOLLAND— INTERNATIONAL 
 
 CONFERENCE OF BREEDERS OF 
 
 DUTCH CATTLE 
 
 The Unadilla Valley Dutch Stock Breeders' Association 
 soon became so widely known for the quality of its cattle 
 that it could not begin to supply the demands made upon it by 
 American purchasers, consequently Mr. Hoxie again set sail 
 for Holland in the spring of 1882, to buy more cattle. He 
 planned that this trip should be a somewhat leisurely one; 
 that he should take more time than ever before to study the 
 Dutch cattle in their native environment and to get into 
 closer touch with North Holland breeders. He also designed 
 to visit the Island of Guernsey and to investigate its breed of 
 cattle, largely in the interests of his brother, Samuel, who 
 wished to own some Guernseys for experimental purposes. 
 Upon this, his third journey to foreign shores, he was accom- 
 panied by his genial and well beloved friend, Sylvester Bur- 
 chard, a prominent breeder of Holland cattle and a member 
 of the Chenango Valley Stock Breeders' Association. 
 
 One of the most interesting events during his stay in Hol- 
 land at this time was an International Conference of Breeders 
 of Dutch cattle which was held at Amsterdam, on the thirtieth 
 of May, 1882. Mr. Hoxie writes thus to his wife regard- 
 ing it : 
 
 "Last evening I received a formal invitation to the International 
 Conference of the Herd Book Associations of Europe and America, 
 from the Secretary of the Netherlands Association, and shall, with Mr. 
 Burchard, take a seat in this body to represent the Dutch-Friesian. 
 Association of America. Mr. P., who is here buying cattle, says he 
 would rather be a member of this conference than to be a member of 
 Congress in America. I am not particularly proud of the honor but I 
 see, from the conference, great results that will grow in importance 
 long after I am gone, and perhaps my children and their children may 
 regard it as an honor to them." 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 55 
 
 At this conference the Netherlands Association of Hol- 
 land was officially represented by Prof. G. J. Hengerveld, 
 Vice-President S. J. Huisman, Director C. J. Vd Oudermeulen 
 and Secretary P. F. L. Waldeck. The Friesian Association of 
 Holland, by President C. Van Eijsinga and Director K. N. 
 Kuperus. This was an epoch making conference, the first of 
 its kind in the history of the breed, and, although it con- 
 vened forty years ago it is worthy of some record here, 
 as it helped to lay the foundations for unity of policy in the 
 future breeding of Dutch cattle. 
 
 Mr. Hoxie's account of this conference published in the 
 second volume of the Dutch-Friesian Herd Book, says in part : 
 
 "An International Conference of Breeders of Dutch or Friesian 
 cattle was held at Amsterdam, May thirtieth, 1882. Official delegates 
 were present from the Netherlands, the Friesian and the Dutch-Friesian 
 Associations. 
 
 "Among the delegates was the venerable Prof. Hengerveld. This 
 gentleman has retired from the active duties of his professorship in the 
 Royal Veterinary Institute, but still is able to perform the duties of 
 inspector of the Netherlands Herd Book. 
 
 "The character of this conference was simply advisory, yet there 
 is little doubt of the early adoption of the measures it has recommended. 
 Upon the subject of a common and appropriate name for this breed of 
 cattle, Prof. Hengerveld said: "Their history can be traced two thou- 
 sand years; to the Friesian and Batavian people we owe their origin 
 and improvement. It is simply nonsensical to call them Holstein cattle.' 
 The conference recommended that the Friesian Association retain the 
 name Friesian for their pure-bred black-and-white variegated cattle, 
 that the Netherland's Association prefix the word 'Hollandische' or 
 Dutch, to this name, to distinguish this class, which are bred in North 
 Holland, and that the American Association be at liberty to use the 
 names Friesian and Dutch-Friesian interchangeably. 
 
 "The conference recommended the separate registry, numbering 
 and breeding of this class of cattle, free from admixture with other 
 colors. Mr. Van Eijsinga, President of the Friesian Association, in- 
 formed the conference that this measure had already been adopted by 
 his association. The Netherlands Association will no doubt adopt it as 
 soon as proper action can be taken. 
 
 "The use of family names for cattle bred in a direct line, the use 
 of numerals to designate animals of the same family, and that no two 
 animals take the same designation was recommended. This is a meas- 
 ure of much greater importance than it would at first appear. In the 
 volume of the Netherlands Herd Book for 1880 the name Marie is given 
 to six different cows, between which there is no discoverable relation- 
 
56 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 ship. The confusion of such naming will probably be avoided by this 
 measure. 
 
 "The type of the breed was briefly discussed. At the present 
 time three types are designated in the herd books of this country. 
 They are described as 'beef and milk form,' 'milk and beef form,' and 
 'milk form.' Under the first only large animals are recorded, which 
 take the outline of a parallelogram viewed from the side, being deep 
 in the brisket and heavy in the chest and shoulders. Under the second 
 type, animals of less size can be registered. Very large cattle, having 
 the proper form, are recorded in this type, but they have comparatively 
 less weight in the chest and shoulders, being in consequence moderately 
 wedged shaped. Under the 'milk form' type, still smaller cattle may 
 be registered. Extremely large cattle are also registered under this 
 form. All in this class have the wedge shape in great perfection. The 
 delegates from the American Association advocated the registry of only 
 cattle of the second and third types. It was decided to leave this sub- 
 ject to future consultation between the Friesian and the Netherlands 
 Associations. The 'milk and flesh form' is the ideal type of this breed. 
 In this type it has a position which no other breed can so successfully 
 occupy. The breeders in this country claim for their cattle an equal 
 rank in the beef type, hence their hesitancy to adopt the suggestions of 
 the American delegates. 
 
 "The publishing of milk records in connection with the descriptions 
 in the herd books was also referred to. The delegates from both Euro- 
 pean associations were unfavorable to such a measure on account of 
 their want of confidence in records as they are ordinarily kept. 
 
 "The question of closing the herd books against the admission of 
 foundation stock at some future fixed date was discussed briefly. The 
 Friesian delegates were favorably inclined toward such a measure, but 
 the Netherlands delegates conceived that it would not be for the inter- 
 ests of their association. The time is not distant when this measure 
 will be adopted. The experience of all other associations points un- 
 mistakably to such action. The sooner the pure-bred cattle of this 
 country are registered and the herd books closed against foundation 
 stock the sooner the breeding will become reliable, the more rapidly will 
 improvement be made and the sooner the breeders of superior cattle will 
 be rewarded for their labors. 
 
 "This conference closed its work by recommending the calling of 
 such conferences at least triennially." 
 
 Progress of Friesian Breeders 
 During May and June of the year 1882, Mr. Hoxie wrote 
 frequent letters from Holland to the "National Live Stock 
 Journal." Some extracts from these letters are of interest in 
 showing conditions among breeders in North Holland 
 forty years ago and also in showing Mr. Hoxie's ideas re- 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 57 
 
 garding the policy which American breeders would do well 
 to follow as a means of future success: 
 
 "Since my visit to this country in 1879 a noticeable improvement 
 has been made in its cattle. Fewer animals of the mongrel type are 
 seen. Long, heavy limbs, coarse hair and steep rumps are rapidly going 
 out of date. Without doubt this improvement is due to the educational 
 influence exerted by the Herd Book Associations. 1 
 
 "The Friesian Association held its annual meeting on the twentieth 
 of May. Upwards of fifty members were present and much interest 
 was manifested. It was held with open doors. Upon the subject of 
 raising the standard of requirements for registry there was great 
 unanimity favoring a constant advancement. A proposition for a sep- 
 arate register for the different families or breeds of Friesian cattle, 
 that is, a separate register for the black-and-white variegated, a second 
 register for the red-and-white variegated and a third for the other 
 colors, was adopted — 38 votes in the affirmative and 13 in the negative. 
 If I am correctly informed, the Netherlands Association has adopted 
 a similar rule. Henceforth, no one in America can justly criticize the 
 European Associations at this point. The standard of requirements for 
 registry here, is much higher than the standard generally adopted by 
 American importers; and the time is not distant when American breed- 
 ers will demand that only registered cattle shall be brought to our 
 country. 
 
 "According to the rules of the Friesian Association, a bull must 
 be at least fourteen months of age before admission to full registry, 
 and a cow two and one-half years of age, even though their sires and 
 dams were herd book animals. In the past there has been no compe- 
 tent authority to pronounce upon the purity and worthiness of younger 
 animals. 2 The burgomaster's signature and seal to the certificate of 
 breeding have been simply and only an attestation that the signatures 
 of the breeders and sellers were genuine. Aside from this, it has been 
 no evidence of purity or excellence, and American purchasers have 
 generally had erroneous impressions in regard to its value. The whole 
 certificate might be a palpable fraud and the signatures of breeders and 
 sellers genuine. An arrangement is now made for the examination of 
 young animals by the inspector of the Friesian Association, and the 
 giving by him of a certificate of the purity, worthiness and markings 
 of each animal, in addition to the certificates bearing the burgomaster's 
 signature and seal. These certificates of the inspector amount to 
 nearly the same as actual registry in the Friesian Herd Book and are 
 the best that can be done until the American associations adopt rules 
 refusing to register imported cattle not previously registered in the 
 Netherlands or Friesian Herd Book. 
 
 "It would be a work of much difficulty to forecast the future of 
 Friesian, or Dutch-Friesian, cattle. I will not attempt it, but I will 
 
 i The oldest of these Associations, the Netherlands, was chartered in 1875. 
 2 The writer is speaking here of animals purchased for exportation to 
 America. 
 
58 THE LIFE OP SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 mention some things that must materially affect that future. 
 
 "My observations in this country lead me to attach much impor- 
 tance to the extreme conservatism of Friesian farmers. It is difficult 
 for the people of other countries to fully appreciate the strength and 
 influence of this conservatism. The Friesian farmer admits of little, 
 if any, innovation upon the manners, customs or dress of his ancestors. 
 He does not intermarry with the people of other countries or even with 
 the inhabitants of his own towns and cities. He still uses the old 
 Friesian dialect, although his books and newspapers for many years 
 have been mainly printed in Dutch. This extreme conservatism has 
 produced the Friesian breed of cattle, by the aid of soil and climate, 
 and the uninterrupted following of the dairy pursuits for ages by the 
 same families; and this conservatism will continue to guard the purity 
 of this breed with a greater degree of vigilance than statute law could 
 possibly enforce. 
 
 Prospects for the Breed in America 
 "From Friesland as a center, this breed has been disseminated to a 
 greater or less extent, over all the lowlands of Northern Europe. It 
 has become extensively mixed with the cattle of Belgium and with the 
 cattle of large portions of France and Germany. It is everywhere 
 gaining ground, and to-day upon the continent of Europe, it is what 
 the Short-horn breed is to English-speaking countries — the most noted 
 and the most valuable breed. 
 
 "In regard to the future of this breed in America I hope to be able 
 to speak plainly at this point, yet without partisan bias. Everyone 
 must see that it is unfortunate that a name was not given to this breed 
 in America that would harmonize with the names by which it is known 
 in Europe and that its territorial bounds, whence pure-bred cattle are 
 allowed to be imported, were so widely extended. It is never too late 
 to correct manifest errors. As long as these errors are maintained by 
 the American breeders, they will be a bar to harmony with the Euro- 
 pean associations. Americans may affect to despise the European or- 
 ganizations, yet their herd books are the only basis upon which an 
 aristocracy of breeding in the future, either in Europe or America, can 
 be founded. Neglect these herd books, and importation to America will 
 be governed almost entirely by laws of commerce and not of breeding. 
 A few extraordinary cattle will give reputation to the breed. Upon 
 this reputation thousands of cattle will be imported. These will consist 
 mainly of calves and yearlings — animals untested, without registry or 
 known pedigree. They will be of the orthodox color and markings; 
 but, beyond this, little can positively be said. Some of these cattle will 
 be purchased in South Holland, others in Groningen and still others 
 from North Holland and Friesland. Some will be pure-bred, others 
 will be of impure breeding. There will be some exceptionally good impor- 
 tations in cases where breeders make selections for their own personal 
 breeding purposes, but the mass of cattle thus imported will be such 
 as would naturally be selected under the sole influence of the laws of 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 59 
 
 trade and will not build up the reputation of the breed. The supply 
 of such cattle is unlimited. All the lowlands of Northern Europe 
 swarm with them ; and, if the demand in America continues to increase, 
 as it seems likely to do, for some time to come, the result is not difficult 
 to forsee. The reputation of the breed, built upon the few selected 
 cattle that would be acceptable to registry in European herd books, will 
 be swamped under the great mass that would under no circumstances 
 be received. 
 
 "The only remedy against such a result that I can see is to base 
 the American herd books upon the European herd books and thus refuse 
 to accept of any more cattle that cannot trace their ancestry to, or 
 prove their records in, these herd books. There can no longer be any 
 objection to such a measure. 
 
 "If this measure could be adopted, it would stimulate the breeders 
 of Europe to breed and register a class of cattle that would be up to 
 the highest standard of American demand. One such animal brought 
 to our country would be worth to our people more than a hundred ani- 
 mals of the other class of which I have spoken. The experiences of 
 American breeders of other foreign breeds point unmistakably toward 
 the adoption of such a measure. There are greater reasons for its adop- 
 tion in the case of this breed than could have been found in the case of 
 either Jerseys or Guernseys. There was no possible danger of impure 
 blood from the Channel Islands, but there is more or less danger of 
 getting impure blood in the importation of these cattle. 
 
 "I state these things because I am a great admirer of this breed. 
 I have faith in its future. Every person who understands the situation 
 will confess, to himself at least, that we have too many ordinary cattle 
 already in our herd books. The quality should be raised by every new 
 importation. If some such action is not taken in America, I think I 
 can see in the future 'a going up like a rocket and a coming down like 
 a stick.' After that I shall expect a change in policy that will finally 
 result in success. In the natural order of events, if this breed has a 
 permanent success in America, there will be great attention paid at 
 some future day to purity of blood. To be able to trace a strain of 
 blood to the herd books of the Netherlands will add value to it, espe- 
 cially if the same family should become noted in Europe. Americans 
 ought to build on a sound basis, though the edifice should go up more 
 slowly." 
 
 On May 23, Mr. Hoxie writes to his wife from Leeuwarden : 
 "Saturday we attended the Friesian Herd Book meeting. We were 
 received with much cordiality and respect. The president employed an 
 interpreter to receive communications from us. I have had an interview 
 with Prof. Hengerveld and Mr. Bultman, president of the Netherlands 
 Association, and was received with much cordiality. One of the pleas- 
 antest things connected with my trip was the reception by Amersfort. 
 He is probably one of the first agriculturists of Europe and kings have 
 been honored by his society. He is an aged man, very fine looking and 
 
60 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 dignified. His wife, one of the finest appearing ladies I ever saw, 
 entered into our conversation with great interest. Both speak English 
 quite fluently. Amersfort showed me two books of original drawings, 
 no doubt made by his wife, illustrative of the escutcheon. These draw- 
 ings were of all sorts of animals, except carniverous ones, even birds, 
 fishes and insects. They were very true to nature and colored natur- 
 ally. 
 
 "Friday there was a Friesian wedding here at Wiedema Hotel. Of 
 course we did not go in to see the ceremony. There were about fifty 
 guests, and from noon, Friday, to seven o'clock Saturday morning, it 
 was a jolly craze. The men were so full of wine that I do not believe 
 they could tell one person from another. You would have laughed and 
 scolded and scolded and laughed to hear the Dutch songs and the hurrahs 
 at the close of the verses. They just went in for a glorious time. I have 
 written so many times before of the habits and customs here that you 
 will not care to have me dilate further upon this topic. I wish I could 
 bring some larks to America and domesticate them around our home. 
 I send my love to all, even to R.'s scratching chickens. Oh, you ought 
 to see the house cleaning in Holland, but I will wait till I come home 
 to tell you about it. 
 
 "Tell G. that he would enjoy a visit to this country wonderfully. 
 One can form no conception without seeing them of the tools, carriages, 
 the trotting buggies and so on. They are huge, from five to ten times 
 as heavy as ours, and yet they are quite elegant. Tell him I have been 
 to a bull show and a horse trot combined. The horses are all ridden 
 by heavy men, each man riding his own horse on a saddle without stir- 
 rups. The race track was about eighty rods long in a straight line. 
 The horses were immense, one of them at least seventeen and a half 
 hands high. It is jolly to see a big-bellied Dutchman ride such a horse, 
 the horse's tail switching with a vengeance at every step and the ground 
 jarred for rods around as they pass. Then, would you believe it, we 
 were invited to a dinner at the Agricultural Society, and had to click 
 a glass of wine and offer a toast to the Dutch cows and their breeders. 
 Well, among Romans, I have to do a little as the Romans do." 
 
 The next day Mr. Hoxie writes to his little daughter : 
 
 "You can have no conception of the class system as it affects the 
 women of this country. The members of the lowest class are simply 
 drudges and beasts of burden. Farmers' wives and daughters belong 
 to the third class. I do not think they have a very hard time. They 
 always have the drudging class under them. No equality is recognized 
 between the two classes. Then come the wives and daughters of the 
 second class, of business men in the cities and villages, and lastly the 
 wives and daughters of the first class, or of the landlords, barons, 
 etc. The members of each class are educated and trained for the 
 places and positions they occupy. 
 
 "The women never bake their own bread in this country. The 
 baking is all done at the bakeries. You will see old women and young 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 61 
 
 women traveling with baskets of bread to sell, and then you will some- 
 times see a man or a woman with a bread cart drawn by dogs, two, 
 three or four dogs. Sometimes the peddler will ride and the dogs will 
 trot quite lively together. Then, when they stop, the dogs will lie down to 
 rest. It is surprising how much such a dog team will draw. Then again you 
 will see women peddling milk with a dog cart. Washing is one of the prin- 
 cipal things done by women. Traveling through the country one would al- 
 most get the impression that they wash and scrub all the time here. But 
 they wash in such dirty water and in such a primitive way. Around each 
 dwelling is a great ditch, often ten or twenty feet wide and often very 
 deep. It is quite a distance down to the surface of the water in these 
 ditches. Upon the water there is a thick, green scum. When the wind 
 blows this scum is driven about from one part of the ditch to another. 
 Upon examining it you will find it is made up of a minute plant with 
 little roots that grow in the water just as plants usually do in the soil. 
 Underneath this scum the water is quite black. It is very rare that 
 you can see the bottom of a ditch. In these ditches the washing is 
 done. A little path is usually paved from the door of the house to the 
 ditch, then steps are built, leading down to the water, and then a little 
 platform is made. The washer kneels on the platform and washes in 
 the ditch, wringing her clothes with the hands. How they get such 
 clean clothes from washing in such dirty water is a marvel. I presume 
 some of the washing is done indoors with rain water. 
 
 "The farmers' wives dress in the old Friesian style; the women in 
 the villages and cities, largely in the French style. I think by and by 
 the women of farmers will assert their independence and dress like 
 their sisters in the villages. But Madam Grundy has much more in- 
 fluence here than in America. 
 
 "I am well, yet I am weary and there is a sense of lassitude of 
 body and mind that is quite overpowering. I must try to rest some 
 to-day. I shall never be able to come here again, and I think there 
 will be no need of it. It seemed quite important that I come this time, 
 but when my work is over I shall be very, very glad. I know my own 
 country is much pleasanter to travel in even for pleasure. There is 
 little that is worth seeing in Europe if one's eyes and heart must be 
 constantly pained with the degradation of the lower classes. What 
 should we care for towers and cathedrals and works of beauty when 
 every stone and brick is only a measure of so much wrung from the 
 lower classes to their suffering and degradation. Our slaves were sold and 
 families separated but in other respects slavery was no worse than the 
 European class system. It is terrible, and why it should be is a problem 
 that I cannot fathom. May you be kept from having your heart pained 
 by such scenes of oppression." 
 
 A letter home, bearing the date of May 29, contains some 
 further account of the people and their customs : 
 
 "The children are very pretty, and on a Sunday or a holiday they 
 are so clean and sweet that I want to kiss almost every little boy or 
 
62 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 girl I meet. They have light blue eyes, flaxen hair and the skin on 
 their cheeks seems to be so transparent that you would almost feel 
 that one more scrubbing would rub it all off. Some of the women are 
 quite handsome but, as a rule, I think American women are far ahead in 
 beauty. Clothes cost much less here and for this reason almost every- 
 body, especially almost every woman that we meet in the city, is finely 
 dressed. Of course there are exceptions here as everywhere else. The 
 country women all dress in the old style, wearing the gold head-dress 
 and cap and full skirts." 
 
 Concerning the customs of the country Mr. Hoxie writes: 
 
 "It is curious to notice how strongly the class system is adhered 
 to. A farmer is rated as third class; hence, when he rides out he sits 
 upon the left side to drive, but a gentleman or first class man sits on 
 the right side to drive. A gentleman or first class man may wear a 
 white shirt and collar and cuffs, but a farmer or laborer must not put 
 on a white collar, as he would not be able to withstand the laughter of 
 his acquaintances so attired. There are separate hotels for farmers 
 and third class men and these men, however wealthy or worthy, are 
 not expected to step out of the class customs. There are no statutes 
 upon the subject. I think it all results from the inexorable laws of 
 custom and fashion. 
 
 "One of the serious objections to this country is the ownership of 
 the land by a few proprietors. These proprietors have the people under 
 their rule almost as absolutely as the slave masters of our country 
 used to have the slaves. They exact almost all the profits as rent and 
 thus leave the farmers and laborers with comparatively a mere pittance. 
 The landlords live in ease, entail their estates to their children and 
 grandchildren and thus one class lives in idleness and luxury, another 
 class in toil and poverty. I sometimes feel like rebellion against all 
 their customs and views and against all their government. I do not 
 wonder at the prevalence of Nihilism in Russia when, in a country as 
 free as Holland, we find such slavery. 
 
 "Almost every fifth man one meets is a soldier. Five have just 
 passed the window of the room where I am writing. What can be the 
 object in supporting such an army? A standing army for Holland is 
 as useless as the second tail would be to a cat. Then there is so much 
 drinking here. Dinner hour here is at five o'clock. Yet five men are 
 still sitting at the table at half-past seven, all of them about as full 
 of wine as they can hold. Every man and every boy above the age 
 of ten years smokes. They smoke until the mouth is dry and then 
 they must drink. They actually smoke at their meals, taking a few 
 whiffs between sips of tea at their breakfasts. Why can it be neces- 
 sary for the men thus to dissipate while the women do not smoke and, 
 I think, generally do not drink? 
 
 "To-day laborers are going into the country to mow just as hop- 
 pickers in our country go out to pick hops. I have seen several boat 
 loads start from the canal in front of this hotel, nearly all were pretty 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 63 
 
 nearly drunk. But, for all their drinking and smoking, I never saw- 
 such a sensitive people. One grand thing in their favor, I think; they 
 are men who generally adhere to the truth in their statements. You 
 can trust their word. This is a very great and redeeming feature of 
 their characters." 
 
 Early in July the Dutch cattle that Mr. Hoxie had pur- 
 chased during his third stay in Holland, numbering two hun- 
 dred and seventeen head, were shipped to America. Mr. 
 Burchard accompanied them. They were quarantined upon 
 Mr. Hoxie's farm in Yorkville and afterwards sold at auction. 
 Mr. Hoxie was left to make his way alone into Guernsey for 
 the purpose of investigating and perhaps purchasing some 
 Guernsey cattle. From London on July 4, he writes : 
 
 "Yesterday Mr. Burchard left Antwerp with the cattle. We had 
 a dreadfully hard week's work previous to his sailing, but he got off 
 about half-past one o'clock in pretty good spirits. I started for Lon- 
 don at the same time and the boat I was on passed his in the river at 
 Antwerp. Mr. Burchard waved his handkerchief as long as it could 
 be seen, and, of course, I returned the salutation. I got here about 
 half-past seven this morning, and after I ate my breakfast I actually 
 fell asleep in my chair. On awaking I lay down and slept until half- 
 past eleven. I feel rather sad at being left alone, but as long as I 
 have plenty of business I shall keep in good spirits. You need have 
 no anxiety about me. I am pretty well considering the burden that 
 has been and is still upon my hands. I am trying to recuperate for 
 the Guernsey business and have got to rest a few days. 
 
 "London is a world in itself. There are probably as many inhabi- 
 tants in what is called the City of London as in New York State. 
 There is every grade and kind of people here that the world produces. 
 Yet there is not the noise and crash of business that one hears in New 
 York City. There is a system of underground railroads under the 
 whole city. I have been on them several times. You ride in the dark 
 from station to station, excepting the light from the lamp in the car. 
 It seems quite gloomy, yet perhaps much less than one would imagine. 
 The stations are probably not more than a half-mile apart, and at each 
 one there is a large open space which lets the light down. Then you 
 go up to the level of the street by a stairway generally broad and easy. 
 It keeps the city much quieter and neater than in New York City with 
 its elevated railways. The buildings are not as many stories in height 
 as in American cities as there is probably plenty of room here on all 
 sides to build. The great Thames, the wonderful river Thames that 
 has played such an important part in the history of the world, is a 
 sluggish, muddy stream of very small dimensions. I should say it is 
 not nearly as wide as the Hudson at Albany, not so rapid nor so beauti- 
 ful. I have been out from London in two directions, to Hartwick, the 
 seaport, and to Windsor. 
 
64 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 "Windsor Castle is a wonderful work, and from its tower some of 
 the most noted places in England are to be seen. The spot where the 
 Magna Charta was signed by King John and the place where William 
 Penn was born and many others. The park at Windsor contains six 
 thousand deer. We did not look for these but went and looked at the 
 queen's cattle and dairy. We saw the queen (Victoria) in her carriage, 
 thirty or forty rods distant. The carriage was an old one, quite plain 
 and not in half the style I have often seen driving past our house. A 
 single horseman rode ahead, some five or six rods distant. I think the 
 English people are not ordinarily much inclined to show. The country 
 is highly cultivated, yet the natural scenery does not compare with the 
 scenery along the Mohawk." 
 
 After several days of resting in London Mr. Hoxie crossed 
 over to St. Peter's Port in Guernsey. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 IN GUERNSEY 
 
 Unfortunately only three letters have been preserved tell- 
 ing of Mr. Hoxie's six weeks' sojourn in Guernsey and of his 
 impressions of the island and its people. 
 
 "St. Peter's Port, Guernsey, 
 
 "July 9, 1882. 
 "Dear L., 
 
 "The Island of Guernsey is a little larger than the town of Edmes- 
 ton. Yet this small territory is dignified by a governor appointed by 
 the crown of England with all the attending offices. It seems to me 
 more like playing at governing than anything else. Everything else 
 is on the same scale. St. Peter's Port, the capital, is a city of about 
 fifteen thousand inhabitants. The town is situated upon several steep 
 hills separated by gorges, the whole rising abruptly from the water's 
 edge. Much of it is terraced. The place where I am staying is at 
 least one hundred and fifty feet from the gorge below. Along the sides 
 of the hill high walls are built and the earth leveled between, and on 
 this elevation a row of houses is built on each side of a narrow street, 
 then there are stairways of stone leading up to a still higher terrace 
 where there are more houses and so on. The house at which I am stay- 
 ing is on the pinacle of one of these abrupt hills. Another peculiarity 
 of the island is the height of the hedges and the solid stone fences laid 
 in mortar. In the city and out these high stone fences or walls pre- 
 vail. One cannot reach to their tops often. On going along the narrow 
 road often a person cannot see out on either side. In the country it is 
 very thickly settled and the smallness of the farms seem like playing 
 at farming. High walls and hedges also prevail in the country. When 
 one can get in a position to see out the scenery is very beautiful and 
 if in a position to take in the sea it is very grand. 
 
 "While I am writing I am sitting upon an elevated platform resting 
 on one side of a high stone wall. The people are gathered at the 
 churches. Two places of worship are right below me and I can see 
 another place that I think is a meeting of the Salvation Army. I can 
 hear the loud singing at the latter place very clearly. There is a great 
 deal of ringing of bells at the two churches. Over the hill on the oppo- 
 site side of the gorge, I see the flag of Fort George. This work has 
 cost the government a million of dollars. I was in this fort yesterday. 
 It rises, terrace after terrace, from the high rocky shore and on every 
 side are all the grim implements of war and multitudes of soldiers. In 
 the harbor, about a quarter of a mile away, is Castle Comet. This is 
 
66 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 a fort that has been built a long time, probably several hundred years. 
 Beyond, probably about two miles distant, are several small islands. 
 One of these has been, until quite recently, owned by one man who has 
 farmed the whole of it himself. I am told it has recently been pur- 
 chased by one of the religious orders of France, who propose to build a 
 monastery upon it, a refuge from persecution, as the religious orders, 
 Jesuits, Franciscans and others, are now being driven out of that 
 country. 
 
 "The climate of Guernsey is peculiar; now, in the middle of sum- 
 mer, I am not uncomfortable with heavy underclothing, but in winter 
 ice is rarely formed. Very little frost even is known. A great many 
 pigs are produced here. The farmers are digging their potatoes and 
 sending them to market. The people live very simply. A little bread 
 and butter and perhaps milk I think constitutes the living of the well- 
 to-do farmers. I do not think there is near the drinking there is in 
 Holland. The country people are mainly of French extraction and 
 speak a peculiar dialect of the French language and all that I have 
 met also speak the English language. They are rather fine looking. 
 The women and children are quite pretty. Land is very high. Rent 
 is from thirty to forty American dollars per acre and the selling price 
 is about two hundred pounds English money, or about one thousand 
 dollars American money per acre. 
 
 "I was never made for a traveler. I am a home man and there is 
 always lingering about me a sense of homesickness, a sort of hysterical 
 faintness at the thought of the vast distance that separates me from 
 my family. But reason comes in and says it can only be for a short 
 period. But the time lags. The anxiety connected with my business 
 makes everything seem like mountains that I grow faint-hearted in 
 climbing. But I hope to be able to overcome everything and to come 
 home early. I have fairly decided that I will never go away again. 
 If a sacrifice must be made for Herd Book or anything else connected 
 with the cattle business, someone else must make it. I have done 
 enough and a thousand times more than probably will ever be appre- 
 ciated. It may be, after I am dead and gone, someone may rise up 
 that can understand the work that I have done and may appreciate its 
 importance, not only for the members of the Dutch-Friesian Associa- 
 tion but for the members of the Holstein Association also. I have laid 
 the foundation upon which this breed of cattle can be successfully 
 built and upon which the two associations may unite and prosper, but 
 if such a union is effected and the way of success is entered upon, 
 which I have opened, I have no idea of being recognized or rewarded. 
 
 "But I must stop. The time will rapidly roll away and I hope to 
 be at home early in September. I am glad to have the days hasten on 
 when I can return. Good-bye and love to all. 
 
 "From your wandering, loving husband, 
 
 "Solomon." 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 67 
 
 "St. Peter's Port, Guernsey, 
 
 "July 26, 1882. 
 "Dear L., 
 
 "I regret the delay that keeps me here ten or twelve days longer 
 than I anticipated. But I must take the matter as one of the inevitable 
 incidents of business. I have had a great deal on my mind since I left 
 home and it has been telling on me somewhat. But to-day, at least 
 nearly all day, I have been resting. I feel better for it this evening. 
 I have really had no Sunday rest. But to-day seems like a Sabbath to 
 me. I have taken a short walk into the country and gathered some 
 leaves and flowers for J. and tried to feel a release from excitement. 
 This evening I feel the better for it. 
 
 "You can scarcely understand the peculiarities of this little island. 
 It is so small to be out, as it were, in the great ocean. A piece of land 
 in Whitestown, exactly five miles each way, would contain the same 
 number of acres as Guernsey. It is very picturesque in its way. The 
 farms are so small, the roads are so crooked, the walls and hedges so 
 high, the farm houses so strong and the customs and methods of house- 
 keeping so ancient. 
 
 "There are three military roads that wind their way around and 
 across the island. These military roads are about thirty feet wide 
 and are solid and hard as a rock. The roadbed occupies the whole 
 space clear to the side walls and hedges. Not a blade of grass is seen 
 in them. Frequently the side walls or hedges, what we would call 
 road fences, are ten or even more than ten feet high. The walls are 
 always laid up in mortar and made of large granite fragments. Over 
 these walls and hedges the English ivy creeps and spreads with wonder- 
 ful luxuriance. When one is walking on such a road he seems at times 
 to be entirely shut in. He cannot see over the walls nor can he see far 
 ahead or behind for the crookedness of the roads. There is a great 
 variety of height and form to the hedges and walls, and every once in 
 a few rods a farm house and its surrounding buildings appear. After 
 the military roads, there is a perfect labyrinth of narrow roads and 
 lanes, curving and crossing in every direction. All of these are fenced 
 in in the same way. Some are so narrow that a man has to back up 
 as close as possible to the hedges to let a team pass. 
 
 "The houses are all built from the same rough, irregular fragments 
 of granite and laid up in a very hard mortar. They are generally a 
 story and a half high and almost always sheltered by some little hill 
 or clump of trees from a view of the sea. You enter one and you are 
 immediately reminded of old-fashioned ways and styles. Perhaps on 
 one side the door will open to a kitchen, at one end a fireplace upon 
 which the kettles hang to boil and very likely you will see the woman 
 of the house reaching over these kettles with a great spoon in one 
 hand, and with the other hand keeping back her skirts from the fire. 
 Then in another room, also with its fireplace, in which a modern range 
 of small size is set, you will find an old-fashioned long table, and on 
 each side of it a long bench upon which they sit when eating. Then in 
 
68 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 another room the nice fixings of an old-fashioned spare room (parlor). 
 I had forgotten the tall clock that is always seen in the dining-room or 
 parlor, an exact image of the one that used to go 'tick, tack; tick, tack,' 
 in Grandmother Langworthy's spare room. A few books and papers, 
 mostly of a religious character, lie in the deep niches in the walls 
 occupied by the windows. 
 
 "The farms and fields are so small that it almost seems like play- 
 ing at farming. The fields are almost always irregular in shape and 
 of almost every fantastic form you can imagine. Every field is sur- 
 rounded with high walls or hedges although there seems to be no need 
 of them as the cattle and horses are all tethered. A tethering pin 
 about twelve or fourteen inches long is driven into the ground. This 
 holds a rope or chain ten to fifteen feet long fastened around the 
 animal's horns or neck. Once or twice a day the tethering pin is moved 
 so that the animal may get fresh grass. 
 
 "The custom of dividing up farms and building houses for the 
 children in different parts makes the settlement of the country seem 
 very irregular. You stand upon some elevated place and look way 
 down upon the fields and see houses fronting in every direction, little 
 lanes running to them and then branching off to run in some peculiar 
 form to the main road. Little clumps of trees and bushes in the wildest 
 tangle of ivy and the slanting windows of a greenhouse or grocery at 
 almost any place give a peculiar picturesqueness to the country. 
 
 "I am asked many times and in many places, 'How do you like 
 Guernsey?' and finally I have settled down upon a uniform reply. 'I 
 wouldn't live here even if I possibly could. It is so delightful I never 
 should be willing to die and go to Heaven.' This always brings a cheer- 
 ful response from the questioner. 
 
 "Almost everyone here has a large family. Such lots of little boys 
 and girls. They look like bees around their nests. The children ques- 
 tion is one which has two sides. I well understand the idea of Ameri- 
 cans. On the other side, I see the healthiest, freshest and finest looking 
 women here with a train of little children that would perfectly craze 
 an American woman. The landlady of the house at which I am staying 
 is a young, fresh looking woman. I cannot think she is over thirty. She 
 is a perfect busy bee in work, in the kitchen, in the dining-room, 'up- 
 stairs, downstairs and in the lady's chamber,' yet she has five little 
 children the oldest of which is of the ripe age of seven. They are in 
 fact all babies. This is only a moderate example. I have found ten 
 in one family and the woman hearty, fresh and rosy, a young woman, 
 at least in appearance. 
 
 "As in Holland I find the men are not equal to the women, they 
 drink too much, they look too much of the animal, too sensual. I speak 
 of them as a class. There are many noble and refined men among the 
 farmers. As a rule, throughout the portions of Europe I have been in 
 the hard part of life seems to rest upon the woman. The man is often 
 an exaggerated brute, overbearing and sensual. I do not believe there 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 69 
 
 is any country in the world where the women are honored and respected 
 as in America. From my present point of observation it seems to me 
 American women must be envied by their sisters in other nations all 
 over the earth. I wish they could all combine to live a more happy life. 
 If they would only combine to strive less for show and more for sim- 
 plicity of life their burdens would be much lighter. Our mode of living 
 in America is more complex and therefore more trying to body and 
 mind than that of other nations. I am glad you are resolved to take 
 life a little easier. If I am blessed with a safe return I hope to live 
 a little easier than in the past. I hope D. and J. and R. will be able to 
 live more close to nature than we have done and be therefore more 
 happy. I grow more tender and therefore sadder in heart every day. 
 I cannot bear to see or read of the suffering of my fellow creatures that 
 I cannot relieve. One man is such an infinitesimal thing. What can one 
 man do to relieve the wants and woes of humanity? Yet I mean to 
 continue to try to live bravely not for myself but for my family and 
 the world. I am pained everywhere I go at what I see. I try to find 
 relief in thinking of what life is and of its future destiny. If it is only 
 for the present it is not worth the living. If there is a future then 
 the world may groan and travail in pain, but life is a glorious thing. 
 I hope a higher and more hopeful philosophy may fill all of our hearts. 
 The past cannot be recalled. Its mistakes cannot be corrected by 
 mourning over them. But every day we have opportunity for begin- 
 ning anew. If I am so happy as to return we will try to begin anew 
 together. But, whatever the future may be, I hope to be able to take 
 its bitter and its sweet alike without being a burden or a sorrow to my 
 family. God bless you all and grant to me a speedy return to you. 
 
 "My love to you all, good-bye, 
 
 "Solomon." 
 
 "Highlands, St. Peter's Port, Guernsey, 
 
 July 30, 1882. 
 "Dear L., 
 
 "It seemed quite strange and sad to spend yesterday, my birthday, 
 so far away from home and friends. I will tell you how I spent the 
 day. The man I have hired to come with the cattle has two children, 
 two little boys, one seven and the other nine. He is a widower. A 
 few evenings ago I had occasion to go to his house. I found it very 
 poorly furnished. The man has a family in it that takes care of his 
 children. When I went in the eldest was sobbing as if his heart was 
 broken. I asked what was the matter and was told that the house- 
 keeper had punished him, she said, for telling a falsehood. He tried 
 to speak, to explain, but she stopped him repeatedly. The father said 
 nothing except that the boys must be good and mind. I felt so much 
 pity for them that I went the next day and asked if the children might 
 go out with me on the island in the country. They were not in school, 
 as it was Saturday, and I was told that they could go. I accordingly 
 took them out. They gave me some trouble. They did not seem to 
 
70 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 understand how to mind by simple request. I presume they had been 
 used to a good many blows. I took them to a little bay, setting in from 
 the sea, called Firman's Bay. It is a very beautiful place. The rocks 
 around the bay are two hundred and fifty feet high, the shore for sev- 
 eral rods is a border of smooth pebbles. It was about all I could do to 
 keep the boys from going in swimming. They got to throwing stones 
 into the water which made a large dog bark and run up to them. This 
 scared them and they ran behind me and raised stones to defend them- 
 selves. This only made the dog bark the louder as he expected the 
 stones to be thrown that he might run after them. I had all that I 
 could do to settle matters, get the boys to put down the stones and quiet 
 the dog. 
 
 "You can scarcely realize how anxious I am to come home. I was 
 never fit to go away from home. I can do the business all right enough 
 but the longing for home is a burning pain constantly in my heart. I 
 expect all my family are doing their part with the best aims and pur- 
 poses. I do not anticipate much in regard to the future. D. and J. 
 have been brought up to good principles and now I expect to have to 
 resign the work of very much guiding of them. I can only show my 
 continued ever increasing love for them by trusting to their own plans 
 and hopes. But sometimes, even here in the Old World, I build castles 
 and people them with my loved ones, too bright to ever be realized. 
 Then I think of going back to the old home 1 , and spending the remainder 
 of my life and so I dream and plan and hope. 
 
 "I have been writing a little poetry in the visitor's album here. 
 You can tell G. he may look out for competition in wooing the muses 
 when I return. He may have to divide honors with me. Tell R. I shall 
 expect him to have things pretty slick in the yard and the garden and 
 among the chickens and the kittens when I get home. 
 
 "Love to all and to everything, 
 
 "Solomon." 
 
 Early in August Mr. Hoxie returned to Leeuwarden, pre- 
 paratory to taking ship for America. Shortly before setting 
 sail he wrote: 
 
 "Leeuwarden, West Friesland, 
 
 "August 13, 1882. 
 "Dear Wife and Children, 
 
 "I intend to try to start for home on the nineteenth of August, 
 next Sunday. I have written to Rotterdam to see if I can get a pas- 
 sage on the S. S. Maas. I shall then be probably about fourteen days 
 on the water. I might possibly get passage on a faster steamship 
 from Liverpool, but it would cost considerable to get to Liverpool, and, 
 on the whole, I think I shall try to come on the Rotterdam and Amer- 
 ican Line. So, if you do not hear from me again, you may expect me 
 
 i The place in Edmeston where Mr. Hoxie and his wife started life together 
 and for which he always had a deep affection and longing-. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 71 
 
 on that boat about the third of September. It seems a good while to 
 wait, but everything considered, it is for the best. 
 
 "The letters that I got on my arrival here were quite dishearten- 
 ing. The death of C. H. seemed so sad. Then Mr. Burchard wrote 
 of his hard and long voyage, and finally D.'s rather discouraging letter. 
 I am keeping up good spirits, however, as far as possible, and hope to 
 get home in good health. 
 
 "I was never made or educated for such business and the long 
 stay from home seems like a dismal banishment. I hope you will try 
 to 'keep the best foot forward.' Keep cheerful and happy as far as 
 possible. Do not take mistakes to heart but simply try to correct them 
 when they occur. I long for a more quiet life and less responsibility. 
 In the transactions here I hope I have made no serious mistakes. On 
 the whole, I have the consciousness of having striven faithfully to per- 
 form the duties imposed upon me. I have 'left no stone unturned' that 
 would make my mission a success and, if through a long and rough 
 voyage anything should go wrong, it is no fault of mine or anything 
 I could foresee. In the matter of Herd Book and of our relations to 
 the European Associations I do not know how anyone could have done 
 better, and I do not think anyone could have done better in selecting 
 cattle. The hot weather, the storms and delays no one could foresee. 
 
 "I hope you will all be trying to look upon the bright side of life 
 when I return; that you will not be fretted and worried over those 
 things that are of little consequence. To be of kind, generous char- 
 acter, to have patient, loving hearts and to be cheerful and hopeful 
 amidst the pains and trials of life is, after all has been done and said, 
 the only thing pertaining to this life worth one's attention. I feel that 
 the future is not to be doubted. The same power that has made us 
 and kept us can and will provide for us in the future of this life and 
 of the life to come. Oh, the bright hereafter! I look to that as the 
 healer of all wounds, the curer of all sorrows. There must be such a 
 future, though dimly we see it or fail to see it. There must be a 
 place for the development, activity and enjoyment of our intellectual 
 and moral powers. A place where love will reign supreme. I will 
 come as soon as possible. I feel as if I could fly to you but I must be 
 patient and so must you. Brave, cheerful, patient and, if I am spared, 
 I trust we shall not be separated again. 
 
 "Good-bye, from your ever loving husband and father, 
 
 "Solomon." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 HOME AGAIN— THE ADVANCED REGISTRY 
 
 Upon Mr. Hoxie's return home, after this third business 
 trip to Holland, his first imperative duty was the preparation 
 and publication of the second volume of the Dutch-Friesian 
 Herd Book. 
 
 As secretary of the Dutch-Friesian Association, his duties, 
 which included, not only the compiling and editing of its herd 
 books and the testing and examining of many of the animals 
 recorded therein, but also a voluminous correspondence, lec- 
 turing, traveling and writing for agricultural journals and 
 periodicals, rendered it impossible for Mr. Hoxie to carry on 
 all the burdens and activities that had previously been his as 
 a leading member of the Unadilla Valley Dutch Stock Breed- 
 ers' Association. While he had resigned his position as agent 
 and general manager of this company he still acted in the 
 capacity of adviser, compiler of its catalogues, author of 
 numerous articles setting forth the value of its importations 
 and exhibitor of many of its animals. 
 
 From the time of the organization of the Dutch-Friesian 
 Association up to 1880 the relations between it and the Hol- 
 stein Association had been one of mutual friendliness. 
 Everything seemed to indicate a revision of principles and 
 ultimate union of all breeders of Dutch cattle in America in 
 one organization. In that year such a union was attempted 
 but failed. In the autumn of 1881 a bitter controversy broke 
 out, which originated in a protest against the exhibition at 
 fairs of cattle recorded in the Dutch-Friesian Herd Book in 
 the same classes with cattle recorded in the Holstein Herd 
 Book, but fortunately the effort to shut out the Dutch-Fries- 
 ians was defeated. Thereafter a state of chronic warfare 
 continued to exist for some time between the two associations. 
 It is not the purpose or desire of the writer of this sketch to 
 enter into the reasons or the arguments of this controversy. 
 The facts in the case are a matter of public record and may 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 73 
 
 be found in a pamphlet, published in 1882 by Mr. Hoxie, 
 called "Some Information Concerning North Holland or Fries- 
 ian Breed of Black and White Piebald Cattle" ; also in the 
 second volume of the Dutch-Friesian Herd Book, published as 
 before stated, in the fall of 1882. Besides a report of the 
 controversy this second volume of the Dutch-Friesian Herd 
 Book contains a review of the origin and history of Dutch- 
 Friesian cattle, written by Prof. G. J. Hengerveld, which was 
 originally published in the Agricultural Report of Massachu- 
 setts for 1873. Also it contains a statement of the positions 
 of the two associations in America at the time that the second 
 volume of the Herd Book was issued. An account of the In- 
 ternational Conference, held at Amsterdam on May 3, 1882, 
 may likewise be found in its pages, as well as a statement of 
 the situation in Europe at that time regarding Dutch cattle. 
 
 In this volume Mr. Hoxie states that the progress made 
 by the Dutch-Friesian Association during the past two years 
 has been due to a "Disposition to accept of whatever is true 
 of Dutch-Friesian cattle and to reject whatever is false, re- 
 gardless of former views or predilections." He continues to 
 say: 
 
 "At the same time the association has been governed by a wise 
 conservatism. The fundamental principles of its origin, a pure register 
 and a correct name, have been firmly maintained. The principle of 
 Advanced Registry has also been maintained. The rules for admis- 
 sion to registry have been somewhat changed to make them more com- 
 prehensive and practical. All animals are now required to enter the 
 first form, which has been re-named Pedigree Register. Cows are 
 admitted to the advanced form or Main Register only upon actual milk 
 records, but such records are now accepted for less periods. A few 
 days' or a few weeks' trial establishes the milking capacity of an animal 
 and thus avoids the laborious and often questionable practice of milk- 
 ing valuable breeding animals the full year. The association prefers 
 records that have been produced without forcing. Every record has 
 to be established by the appearance of the cow as well as by the sworn 
 statement of its owner. The scale of points has also been revised to 
 make it conform to more recent observations." 
 
 For some time previous to the publication of the first 
 volume of the Dutch-Friesian Herd Book, in 1880, Mr. Hoxie 
 had been thinking and working out a plan designed to advance 
 the interests of cattle breeding and, in this volume are to be 
 
74 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 found the first results of his thought in what he there calls 
 the Main Registry. 
 
 Early in his business career Mr. Hoxie saw that there 
 were two opposite tendencies in the handling of every im- 
 proved breed of cattle. "One toward degeneration, the other 
 toward further improvement; the former brought about by 
 illiberal feeding and unskillful selection and breeding, the 
 latter by wiser management and better methods." This sys- 
 tem of Main or Advanced Registry, originated by him, "Is 
 designed/' he says, "to encourage especially the work of 
 improvement by increasing and maintaining public interest 
 in the breed." He also believed that the observations made 
 and recorded in the carrying out of his method, would provide 
 the means upon which a science of cattle culture might be 
 built. How great were his wisdom and foresight in this 
 respect the results have long testified. 
 
 Like many great ideas this one of Advanced Registration 
 is a simple one. It is merely this, that while in pedigree 
 registry purity of blood alone is required, in Advanced Reg- 
 istry an animal must also show especial individual merit as 
 well as pure breeding in order to be promoted and entered In 
 the Main or Advanced Registry. In other words animals ad- 
 vance to it from a pedigree registry by special excellence and 
 by such means only are eligible to enter it. 
 
 Thus began a system which has made possible a science of 
 cattle breeding. At first, Mr. Hoxie placed great faith in 
 what was known as the escutcheon theory and much attention 
 was given to the escutcheon, udder and milk veins, as well as 
 to the milk and butter records, in accepting or rejecting ani- 
 mals for Advanced Registry. Later, after more study and 
 more observation, he modified his system, abandoning to some 
 extent the escutcheon theory and substituting descriptions 
 and a system of measurements devised by himself. Espe- 
 cially made instruments planned by Mr. Hoxie were required 
 in securing these measurements. After a time these also 
 were given up much to his regret, animals being accepted on 
 records alone. 
 
 In a recent work, 1 containing a history of Holstein-Fries- 
 ian cattle, we find these words: 
 
 1 Encyclopedia of Agriculture, by Bailey. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 75 
 
 "The significant history of this breed in America centers almost 
 entirely about the establishment and maintenance of a system of Ad- 
 vanced Registration. The Advanced Registry was originated by Solo- 
 mon Hoxie while secretary of the Dutch-Friesian Association. The 
 necessity for it was suggested to him by the fact that many cattle of 
 doubtful merit and unknown breeding were being entered in the Hol- 
 stein Herd Book. There was need of recognized intrinsic standards of 
 merit to serve as guides in breeding and selection. Accordingly he in- 
 duced the Dutch-Friesian Association to maintain an Advanced Register 
 in which cattle should be entered only in case of special merit, deter- 
 mined for bulls by means of an official scale of points, and in the case 
 of cows by an additional scale of productiveness. While there was 
 much early opposition to the Advanced Register, it has abundantly 
 demonstrated its value. Since about 1894 it has been recognized as 
 the chief means for the advancement of the interests of the association 
 and its members, and its essential principles have been adopted by 
 other breeders' organizations, both in Europe and America." 
 
 During recent years there has been a tendency to discount 
 the credit due Mr. Hoxie for the invention and establishment 
 of this system of registration. Mr. Hoxie was the most 
 modest and retiring of men. He was slow to make claims for 
 himself. With him it was always first the advancement of 
 the cause ' for which he was working, then the unselfish 
 thought of other people and their interests. Only last of all 
 came the thought of self. The result of this attitude very 
 often was that his own efforts -and ideas were kept decidedly 
 in the background. He pushed others forward, and again 
 and again others rather than himself received the credit for 
 his own creative ideas and actual work as well as the pecun- 
 iary gains. His claim, however, to the full credit for the 
 invention and establishment of this system of registration is 
 beyond question, as an, honest and thorough investigation of 
 the history of cattle breeding proves beyond the shadow of a 
 doubt. 
 
 In the early years of his struggle against overwhelming 
 odds to establish and maintain this system he was often heard 
 to say in the bosom of his family: "I care nothing for the 
 credit of this work for myself, but I do care for the sake of 
 my children. Some day, perhaps, they may come to be as 
 proud of the fact that their father originated and established 
 this system of registration as they would have been had he 
 been President." 
 
76 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 Four volumes of Herd Books containing the advanced as 
 well as the pedigree registry were compiled and edited by 
 Mr. Hoxie, without assistance, during the six years in which 
 he acted as secretary of the Dutch-Friesian Association. 
 Throughout this period the rules of the Advanced Registry 
 remained, with slight alterations, the same as when they were 
 first formulated by him. These were years of increasing 
 struggle and tremendous effort. Lack of the necessary funds 
 for the carrying forward of this work was only one of the 
 many deterrents. His idea met with great opposition. He 
 stood practically alone, with little encouragement or sympathy 
 and he was obliged to carry on all the details of his system 
 unaided and unsustained. He did most of the examining and 
 testing of animals which were entered in this register, him- 
 self. He spent lavishly of his time and energy, while receiv- 
 ing the most meagre of monetary compensation. But he was 
 sure that he had a great idea, one that would benefit mankind, 
 and his purpose never faltered. He marched breast forward 
 in face of all discouragement and opposition. Nearly thirty 
 years afterwards Mr. Hoxie says, in a letter to a friend, 
 apropos of the early opposition and lack of support and the 
 later lack of reward and appreciation which were his portion : 
 
 "Nevertheless, in spite of all this, I do not and will not complain. 
 I am happy in the consciousness of my great work for the world. 
 Everywhere that dairy cattle breeds are appreciated the principles of 
 the system I invented are prevailing." 
 
 Mr. Hoxie's work received more immediate recognition 
 abroad than it did in his own country. In May, 1885, he was 
 elected an honorary member of the Friesian Herd Book Asso- 
 ciation of The Netherlands. From this time to the day of 
 his death his name headed the list of Honorary Leaders of 
 this "Friesch Rundvee-Stamboek." He was the only Amer- 
 ican thus honored. 
 
 A union of the two associations was at last effected in 
 1885, under the name Holstein-Friesian Association. The 
 former Holstein breeders agreed to adopt Mr. Hoxie's origi- 
 nal conception, the Advanced Registry, as a part of their reg- 
 istration system, Mr. Hoxie to be superintendent of this 
 department of the new organization. 
 
 It might seem that at last a sort of haven had been reached 
 and that Mr. Hoxie might now somewhat slacken his labors. 
 
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THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 77 
 
 Not so, however. Not even a brief respite was his, for the 
 battle for Advanced Registry was not yet won. In face of the 
 fact that the ten years previous to this union had been years 
 of intense struggle and activity, he must now work with 
 renewed energy. He must redouble his efforts to establish his 
 system upon such a firm basis that it would become a perma- 
 nent institution, impossible to annihilate under any circum- 
 stances. He felt that he must work and write and lecture 
 and argue and demonstrate until every member of this new 
 association saw the vision that he himself saw — Holstein- 
 Friesian cattle, because of Advanced Registry, making fabu- 
 lous milk and butter records ; Holstein-Friesian cattle, because 
 of Advanced Registry, brought to the highest degree of per- 
 fection and efficiency that was possible with any breed; Hol- 
 stein-Friesian cattle of America, as a result of Advanced Reg- 
 istry, imported back into North Holland by breeders there 
 because of their superiority over those bred in that country; 
 Holstein-Friesian cattle, because of Advanced Registry, lead- 
 ing the pure breeds of the whole world ! 
 
 Thus he, through his superintendency, carried on a con- 
 stant propaganda. His correspondence was large. He lec- 
 tured and wrote voluminously, endeavoring to put his vision 
 before the Holstein-Friesian public, in the face of much 
 active opposition from many of its members and indifference 
 on the part of the great majority of them. As early as June, 
 1886, an effort was made, at a meeting of the board of officers 
 of the Holstein-Friesian Association, to cripple and discour- 
 age the development of Advanced Registry by changing its 
 name. This proposition, however, was voted down. About 
 a year after the union of the two associations, and before the 
 second meeting of the new organization, and before the first 
 volume of the Advanced Register of the Holstein-Friesian 
 Association had been published, a movement was set on foot 
 by two prominent members of the old Holstein Association to 
 overthrow the Advanced Register, without giving it a trial, 
 as the new organization had faithfully promised to do. These 
 two members issued a pamphlet and a circular letter attack- 
 ing the Advanced Registry system and soliciting proxies for 
 its defeat at the second annual meeting of the Holstein- 
 Friesian Association. A friend to Mr. Hoxie and his system 
 
78 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 sent him copies of these documents, about a month previous 
 to the annual meeting, which called forth the following circu- 
 lar letter from his pen : 
 
 "To Members of the Holstein-Friesian Association of America: 
 "Dear Sirs: 
 
 "As I am busily engaged on the closing pages of the first volume 
 of this Registry, a friend sends me a copy of a pamphlet recently issued 
 
 by Mr. , and also a circular letter from Mr. , both 
 
 attacking the system of Advanced Registry of this Association, and both 
 soliciting proxies for its overthrow at the next annual meeting. 
 
 "Presuming that these documents have been generally sent to mem- 
 bers of the Association, it becomes my duty to issue this circular letter, 
 briefly reviewing the position taken by these gentlemen, and kindly ask- 
 ing, as an act of justice, that you reserve your verdict until you have an 
 opportunity of seeing the first volume, which I hope to send you early in 
 March. 
 
 "I am astonished that two prominent officers of the Association 
 should have attacked the work before they had an opportunity of judg- 
 ing of its merits and before the first volume was commenced, after 
 agreeing to give it a fair trial. And one of them, at least, was with 
 others, instrumental in formulating rules for its government. 
 
 "The principal points attempted to be made by both these gentle- 
 men are: 
 
 "1. The Advanced Registry tends to create a monopoly of wealthy 
 breeders. 
 
 "This is not only untrue, but the opposite is true. Large breeders, 
 having a large amount of money invested in this breed, find it to their 
 interest to advertise liberally, and in consequence, have facilities for 
 bringing their herds and their records to the notice of the public that 
 small breeders do not have. Journals in all parts of the country are 
 glad to publish descriptions of their beautiful cattle, their noted milk 
 and butter strains, and their wonderful performances. They can afford 
 to do so for the liberal advertising patronage they receive from these 
 breeders. Thus the herds of large breeders become known through the 
 length and breadth of the land and their wonderful production is upon 
 every man's tongue. Not so with the small breeders. They have, per- 
 haps, just as worthy or superior animals, but, not being patrons of the 
 public press, they can expect no favors of this kind. In this respect 
 large breeders have a monopoly, as large interests always have in all 
 kinds of business. But in this work is present a medium, tending in a 
 great measure, to counteract this monopoly and to bring to public notice 
 the marvelous performances of this breed, where every breeder's ani- 
 mals meet on a common level. Extended pedigree, beauty of form, con- 
 dition, aristocracy without merit, have no influence here, but every cow 
 rests on her own individual performances, without regard to family 
 connections. Here the merits of the small breeder's cattle are as im- 
 partially set forth as those of the large breeder's, and he not only has 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 79 
 
 the advantage of the records made by his own animals but all the 
 records contained in the work enhance the value of the breed directly, 
 and of his own cattle indirectly. The expense of registration is not 
 beyond the means of any one who can afford to invest in this breed of 
 cattle and, no matter how small his investment, he can well afford to 
 register his animals for the enhanced value it gives them. It is worth 
 what it costs for his own satisfaction in testing the comparative merits 
 of his animals. A fee of three dollars, the extra time and trouble to 
 make a seven days' butter test, or two ten days' milk tests, eight 
 months apart, the inspector's traveling expenses, surely, who cannot 
 afford this who has any interest whatever in the Holstein-Friesian 
 breed? 
 
 "2. The next point is that it creates an aristocracy that is preju- 
 dicial to the general interests of the breed. 
 
 "This would be the case if it attempted to build up strains or 
 families of cattle on a fictitious basis, without actual performance as a 
 foundation upon which to rear an aristocracy (if you choose to call it 
 so) ; but this is a true aristocracy, not ruled by the power of lineage, 
 where all, by actual superiority, constitute an aristocracy that will lift 
 the entire breed upon a higher plane of usefulness and popularity. 
 Advanced Registry establishes no aristocracy but that based on actual 
 merit. 
 
 "I will glance briefly at the secondary points advanced by these 
 gentlemen : 
 
 "First, that Advanced Registry is not within the province of our 
 Association. 
 
 "Let the Charter answer, it reads: 'For the purpose of improving 
 the breed and for ascertaining, preserving and disseminating all useful 
 information and facts as to their pedigrees and desirable qualities and 
 the distinguishing characteristics of the best specimens.' 
 
 "Second, that it is a mass of undigested facts. 
 
 "These are just the facts wanted ; facts that those seeking informa- 
 tion concerning the breed can assimilate and digest, free from any 
 extraneous matter to prejudice or influence them. And as this work 
 progresses these facts will become so thoroughly digested that all inter- 
 ested in dairy cattle will have to acknowledge that, for general dairy 
 purposes, combining more perfectly than any others size, form, milk, 
 butter, cheese and beef qualities, the Holstein-Friesians are without an 
 equal. 
 
 "Third, that it is designed to create a boom. 
 
 "Breeders need never fear the creation of booms on the basis of 
 merit. Such booms are permanent and will never injure the interests 
 of the breed. Booms on a fictitious basis alone operate disastrously. 
 
 "Fourth, that it disregards physical form and appearance. 
 
 "This statement will have no weight with you after you have seen 
 this work. It really brings vigor of constitution into special promi- 
 nence; on almost every page the fact will be impressed upon you that 
 
80 THE LIFE OP SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 this is the basis of successful breeding. 
 
 "Fifth, that the records are based upon third or fourth handed 
 statements. 
 
 "If you will examine the rules which govern this work you will see 
 that this is a misrepresentation. 
 
 "Everyone in any way connected with making a record is required 
 to make an affidavit to it, including the owner in every case. The evi- 
 dence required to authenticate these records is considered competent in 
 all business and judicial transactions. Can more be asked to establish 
 the authenticity of records made by the intelligent and reputable breed- 
 ers of Holstein-Friesian cattle than is required of the world at large in 
 the transaction of all kinds of business, involving claims for large 
 amounts, as well as affecting the honor and happiness of every citizen? 
 Besides this the Examiner must be convinced, from the appearance of 
 the animal, that she is capable of making the record, and in case of 
 any doubt, the Superintendent is required to order an actual test, under 
 the personal charge of the Inspector, for any length of time he may 
 deem necessary. The largest records received for the first volume 
 have thus been substantiated by one of the Inspectors. 
 
 "Sixth, that Mr. Hoxie has repeatedly said that only one in ten 
 were fit for registry in this system. 
 
 "I have no recollection of making such a statement. I have re- 
 peatedly said 'that not one in ten of the cattle of the Netherlands was 
 fit for registry in any herd book.' This is probably the statement that 
 
 Mr. refers to; and I stand by it, and I think that every candid 
 
 man who has studied the cattle of the country will agree with me. 
 
 "Mr. , [referring to the author of the pamphlet], is a nat- 
 ural foe of Advanced Registry, but I am bound to exercise the same 
 charity toward him that he bestows upon me. He doubtless has the true 
 interests of the breed at heart, as he sees them. 
 
 "Mr. , [referring to the author of the circular letter], was 
 
 one of the committee who signed the compact that resulted in the for- 
 mation of the Holstein-Friesian Association, and is doubly bound to 
 allow Advanced Registry a fair trial before attempting its overthrow. 
 
 "I quote briefly from his language in private session of the Holstein 
 Association when it met to consider the question of union with the 
 Dutch-Friesian Association. (See Vol. 9, page 121, H. H. B.). 
 
 "The secretary reads: 'That the new Association establish a 
 thorough system of Advanced Registration.' 
 
 "(A member said) : 'If that does not commit us I don't understand 
 the English language.' 
 
 "Mr. : 'As to that recommendation of the conference 
 
 committee, I think the position might as well be stated plainly. Unless 
 the Association sees fit to adopt the resolution recommended by the joint 
 committee to try the Advanced Registry system, we might as well 
 adjourn now and have no more words about it. The Dutch-Friesian 
 Association will not come in unless we agree to try the Advanced Reg- 
 istry.' 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 81 
 
 "How has he and a combination, of which he is one of the leaders, 
 fulfilled the terms of the compact that he so plainly acknowledges? 
 From the first they have sought to weaken Advanced Registry by 
 changing its name and character, and have done all they could to defer 
 its publication, and now, before the breeders have a chance to see the 
 first volume, are soliciting proxies for its overthrow! Is this keeping 
 good faith? 
 
 "Whatever arguments these gentlemen [of the pamphlet and circu- 
 lar letter] present, neither of them does or can refute the all important 
 fact that the tendency of Advanced Registry will be to encourage care- 
 ful and accurate tests, without which the true merits or value of animal 
 or breed can never be definitely known or duly appreciated. Without 
 these tests, where would the breed have been to-day, and where will it 
 be in a few years, if the Holstein-Friesian Association, through its 
 officers, persists in discouraging such tests and in throwing discredit on 
 them? Every breeder who has a Holstein-Friesian animal has been 
 benefited and the value of his stock greatly increased by these records. 
 Every attempt made to discourage such records tends to depreciate the 
 value of all animals of the breed. The object and tendency of this 
 work is to encourage such tests on a systematic, uniform plan, and 
 authenticate the same by evidence which would establish the accuracy 
 of the same in any court of justice. Had it not been for the records 
 (particularly butter records) that have actually been made, and the 
 prizes won by Holstein-Friesian butter, in competition with Jersey and 
 that of other breeds, what conception would the public have of the pos- 
 sibilities of the breed? What else has brought the advocates of all 
 other dairy breeds to admit freely that our cattle surpass all other 
 breeds for milk production? What but our butter records, carefully 
 made and well authenticated, could have opened the eyes of Jersey 
 breeders so that they could see in Holstein-Friesian milk something 
 besides water with a little casein? 
 
 "Is there a man on this continent who owns Holstein-Friesians 
 to-day and wishes to sell animals that are in any way connected with 
 those of breeders who have made records, who will not take advantage 
 of those records every time he recommends an animal to a purchaser? 
 Examine the catalogues of any breeder in America or the catalogues of 
 those who have had auction sales, and if you can find an animal in those 
 catalogues that has one per cent of the blood of any animal in any 
 breeder's herd that has made a record, that record will be given. These 
 men are not willing that the Association should encourage the making 
 of records by authenticating and preserving them, but they will, upon 
 every opportunity, sell their cattle upon these records, thus taking 
 advantage of the records made by others, that they, upon all occasions, 
 try to depreciate and render valueless. 
 
 "The friends of Advanced Registry have no selfish interests to 
 consider, but they are in earnest for they believe that the principle is 
 vital to the future interest of the breed, and they will use all honorable 
 means to foster and continue it in operation, until it is shown not to 
 
82 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 be for the best interests of the breed, when they will be the first ones 
 to advocate its discontinuance. Until then I ask you to consider the 
 matter and weigh all the facts, pro and con, and not be influenced by 
 appeals to prejudice and individual self-interest, but place above that 
 the interests of all, which are mutual, to further develop this unrivalled 
 breed of cattle. 
 
 ''By all means try to attend the meeting. I enclose a blank proxy. 
 In case you are unable to attend, decide the case upon its actual merits 
 and send your proxy to some one who you are sure will carry out your 
 views. 
 
 Superintendent of Advanced Registry. 
 "S. Hoxie, 
 "Whitesboro, N. Y., Feb. 24, 1S87." 
 
 Shortly after this letter, issued by Mr. Hoxie, and just 
 previous to the second meeting of the new association, another 
 letter was issued by four prominent members of the old Hol- 
 stein Association, condemning the attack on Advanced Reg- 
 istry. This letter said in part: 
 
 "We, the undersigned, all members of the committee appointed by 
 the former Holstein Association of America, to confer with a like com- 
 mittee from the former Dutch-Friesian Association, to recommend terms 
 and conditions of the union which formed the present Holstein-Friesian 
 Association, feel impelled by a sense of honor to appeal to our fellow 
 members to fulfill and carry out in good faith and honorably all the 
 conditions of that union. 
 
 "The Dutch-Friesian Association was smaller and, in point of 
 members, the weaker of the two bodies. In the consolidation it was 
 evident to all that the weaker element must throw itself entirely upon 
 the honor, fairness and sense of justice, of the stronger. 
 
 "The one condition which the Dutch-Friesian Association insisted 
 on, and without which there could be no union, was the establishment of 
 an Advanced Registry. 
 
 "This was thoroughly discussed and fully understood and agreed 
 to by every member of the committee of both associations. The report 
 of the committee was thoroughly and fully discussed, pro and con, by 
 the Holstein Association. It was plainly stated and fully understood 
 by every member present that a union could be effected only on the 
 agreement that an Advanced Registry should be established and given a 
 fair trial. Some members opposed the by-law which provided such a 
 registry, but after full discussion, the by-laws as a whole, including 
 the one which provided for such a registry, were adopted without a dis- 
 senting vote. The same by-laws were again unanimously adopted by 
 the consolidated Association. 
 
 "It was fully understood by all members present that this system 
 was to be given a fair trial— a thorough test. Has this been done? 
 Have we in good faith fulfilled this part of our solemn obligation? At 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 83 
 
 the first annual meeting of the united Association, only a few months 
 after the adoption of the necessary rules governing those who had this 
 work in charge, and when the books had hardly been opened for regis- 
 try, a movement was made in the board of officers, intended to cripple 
 and destroy the efficiency of this work and thus evade the original 
 agreement and understanding. Failing in this first attempt, a second 
 was made at a special meeting of the board, called for what — if not for 
 the express purpose of destroying this work? 
 
 "A third and more determined effort is now being made to abolish 
 this work before the first volume has been published, before anyone 
 has had an opportunity to judge of its merits or value, before anyone 
 will pretend to say that it has had a fair trial. Circulars and letters 
 have been freely distributed, belittling this work, condemning it before 
 it has been seen, without knowing the number of animals recorded 
 therein, without any consideration of the obligation the Association is 
 under to the forty different members, both small and large breeders 
 who have paid their money under the rules to have their animals re- 
 corded in this work. These circulars actually misrepresent the facts; 
 they appeal to the prejudice, the passions and not to the judgment, rea- 
 son or honor of the members. They attempt to array one class of 
 breeders against another and thus create discord and strife in the 
 Association which is detrimental to its best interests, impairs its useful- 
 ness, lowers its standard and weakens its influence among kindred 
 associations and in the estimate of the public. 
 
 "The interests of all members and of breeders are mutual, the suc- 
 cess of each contributes to the prosperity of the whole. Every good 
 record made by any cow of the breed adds to the value of every animal 
 of the breed. Our interests are mutual and cannot be separated. To 
 create a division in our association, to destroy confidence and prevent 
 hearty cooperation among its members, is to check the growth and 
 prrsperity of the breed, to shake the confidence of the public, to reduce 
 the value of our cattle and depreciate in the estimation of the public the 
 best breed of cattle the world has produced. 
 
 "Our association, as such, has done but little — very little — to en- 
 courage the development of the breed. What has been done to raise 
 the standard of excellence, to elevate the breed to its present high stand- 
 ard, in public estimation, has been accomplished by individual enterprise. 
 But for these individual efforts where would the breed have been to-day? 
 What would be the present value of our cows, and where will we look 
 for a demand for these cattle in the near future, if every attempt at 
 the development of the breed is to be throttled in its incipiency, if dis- 
 credit is to be thrown upon the best efforts of those who have made the 
 breed what it is, as is the object, effort and design of those who are 
 distributing these misleading circulars? 
 
 "The Advanced Registry, although the first volume is not yet given 
 to the public has, in our judgment, done more to develop the butter 
 qualities of the breed than the parent association has done during the 
 
84 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 whole period of its existence. Consider that over one hundred and fifty 
 cows, nearly half the number recorded therein, have been admitted to 
 this first volume on their butter records, the standard being higher 
 than that established by any other breed. Shall we, through prejudice, 
 abolish or cripple such a work without seeing it — without studying its 
 effect upon the future of the breed? 
 
 "We are not surprised — in fact, it is to be expected — that such 
 shrewd and designing circulars would naturally put into the hands of 
 their authors the proxies of those who have not given this subject full 
 and careful consideration in all its bearings, those who did not under- 
 stand the pledges made at the time of the union of the two associations 
 and the obligation which we were in honor bound to fulfill. We do not 
 — we cannot — believe that there is any large number of our association 
 who will knowingly, willingly, use their influence, or allow their proxies 
 to be used, to enforce a breach of faith on the part of our honored and 
 honorable association. 
 
 "As members of the committee who labored faithfully to bring 
 about the union of the two associations, having personally assured our 
 new friends that they could depend upon the conditions of the union 
 being faithfully fulfilled, we feel deeply on this subject. 
 
 "Therefore we feel justified in appealing to each and every mem- 
 ber of the Holstein-Friesian Association, in the name of justice, of har- 
 mony, of honor, in behalf of the rights of those who in good faith 
 placed themselves in our hands, in behalf of the good name and honor 
 of our old association, to see to it that our obligations and agreements 
 as members of our organization — as men — are faithfully and honorably 
 fulfilled." 
 
 It is needless to say that at the annual meeting convened 
 soon after the appearance of these two letters, the movement 
 to overthrow the system of Advanced Registry was defeated. 
 
 The first volume of the Advanced Registry of the Hol- 
 stein-Friesian Association was brought out on January first, 
 1887. This book contained entries of three hundred and fifty 
 cows and thirty-one bulls, besides the Rules and Regulations, 
 the revised Scale of Points, and a chapter entitled Plan of 
 This Volume. In its preface, Mr. Hoxie says: 
 
 "What will be its effect upon the general interests of the breed? 
 This naturally will be the first question in regard to this work. The 
 answer as naturally follows. If the production of milk and butter 
 records in fugitive ways, in the past, has given a worthy reputation to 
 the breed, how much more should the substantiating and gathering 
 together of such records add to that reputation. The records of our 
 grand cows are a common heritage, and no friend of the breed can 
 doubt the utility of gathering and preserving them in some unquestioned 
 form. In this work large and small owners have equal opportunities. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 85 
 
 In public journals large advertisers take precedence. It would seem 
 that on the ground of common justice some work of this kind is needed 
 to awaken in all breeders equal incentives to improvement, and espe- 
 cially to inspire smaller owners to join in further building up a reputa- 
 tion for the breed in which all shall continue to feel a common pride. 
 The fine showing made in this volume of the butter capacities of the 
 breed must also have a stimulating effect upon all classes. The ex- 
 penses of making butter records are within every breeder's means, and 
 yet such records are among the most valuable. The information 
 gathered in this work in regard to the structure and style of our noted 
 cows must be of value to all who are interested in improving the breed. 
 The means are here afforded of determining models and of intelligently 
 seeking such combinations of breeding as will produce our ideals in 
 form and structure. The measurements have been taken with much 
 care, and the descriptions have been made as correctly as fallible judg- 
 ment and condensed language have permitted. Years will add special 
 value to this part of the work. The time is coming when it will be 
 regarded quite as important to trace peculiarities of structure and pecu- 
 liarities of qualities in the lines of ancestry as to trace pedigrees. 
 
 "This work is also a slight offering to science. There is yet to be 
 a science of cattle selection and cattle breeding. But such a science 
 can never be established without a multitude of observations such as 
 this work affords. Finally, it may be said that it is a step in the 
 direction in which all progressive breeders and thinkers upon cattle 
 subjects are looking. It destroys no institution to take its place. It is 
 simply a step forward into an unoccupied field. The same kind of 
 ingenuity will be required to maintain that it injures any Holstein- 
 Friesian breeder as it did in 1492 to prove that the setting out of the 
 little fleet of Columbus injured his patroness, the Queen of Spain. No 
 one can be more conscious of the defects of this volume than the editor 
 — defects resulting from inexperience and want of precedents. But he 
 believes they are no more inherent in the system than were the early 
 defects of the steam engine inherent in the principal of propelling 
 machinery by steam." 
 
 In an article on Holstein-Friesian Advanced Registry, 
 written by Mr. Hoxie, and published in 1897 in F. L. Hough- 
 ton's book entitled "Holstein-Friesian Cattle," is a statement 
 of the manner in which this first volume was received. We 
 quote Mr. Hoxie's words: 
 
 "The result both in general makeup of this volume and the number 
 of entries, was a surprise, even to the friends of the new system. An 
 immediate wave of interest was created, not only in this country, but 
 in Europe. Breeders in England and Scotland wrote for information in 
 regard to it and discussed the subject before their cattle associations; 
 and in Germany several publications reviewed the system at great 
 length. It was evident that, whatever the fate of this system in Amer- 
 
86 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 ica, the fundamental idea had taken a firm hold on the minds of breed- 
 ers of improved cattle. 
 
 "The permanence of the new registry was not, however, yet assured. 
 It continued to some extent to be an object of disapproval, on grounds 
 outside of its purposes or its principles. Gradually it won its way as 
 it was seen that it was a distinct benefit to every breeder, whether he 
 had cattle in it or not, by its service in sustaining and advancing the 
 interests of the breed as a whole. Between 1886 and 1891, three other 
 volumes were published, bringing the total registration to ninety-six 
 bulls and one thousand and fifty-one cows." 
 
 These five years were years of tremendous struggle and 
 great discouragement to Mr. Hoxie because of the scant back- 
 ing his work received from the great mass of the Holstein- 
 Friesian Association, but he never gave up. He held fast to 
 his vision and battled on in the face of almost overwhelming 
 odds. The labors of his office and his superintendentship 
 were enormous, and he performed all these practically alone. 
 His salary was very meagre and he was obliged to supplement 
 it by much labor in other directions. At length, however, 
 backed by a few of the members of the association, Mr. 
 Hoxie's system began to gain in favor and soon he was 
 inspired to redouble his efforts in its behalf by expressions of 
 approval which began to come to him from officers and promi- 
 nent fellow members, who declared that his work was the 
 leading feature in the progress of the breed, that it was be- 
 ginning to be recognized, that full success could only be 
 attained through the Advanced Registry and that the associa- 
 tion was proud to give him the necessary opportunities and 
 basis for his great work. 
 
 But now a period of reaction set in against Holstein- 
 Friesians, such a period as "inevitably overtakes every new 
 breed introduced in this country." This reaction period 
 against Holstein-Friesians, from 1891 to 1895, was a critical 
 one for Advanced Registry. We find Mr. Hoxie writing: 
 
 'When the annual meeting of the association assembled in March, 
 1894, it was passing through the darkest period of its history, which 
 had now reached its climax. The active membership of the organiza- 
 tion was at its lowest ebb. Many of its wealthiest members had sold 
 out their herds and others were preparing to do so. The treasury of 
 the association had only a very small balance to its credit. It had 
 been largely depleted a few years before by paying bounties on 
 slaughtered bull calves. The reputation of the breed was in a seriously 
 depressed condition in consequence of its failure to enter the contest 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 87 
 
 of dairy cattle breeds held at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago the 
 previous summer. Public sentiment had not only pronounced its verdict 
 against the claims of the breed but also against its Advanced Registry 
 that it was said 'had been foisted upon the association by the Dutch- 
 Friesian cranks.' And there also was, within its loyal membership, a 
 lack of heart, of confidence in the dairy characteristics of at least a 
 thousand head of imported cattle and their offspring that had been im- 
 ported merely for commercial purposes, which the association had been 
 obliged to take over at the time of its origin, notwithstanding one of 
 the principal objects at its origin was to wholly prevent further impor- 
 tations of this undesirable class. 
 
 "Then suddenly a glimmer of hope appeared. At this meeting, to 
 stimulate the making of butter records, a thousand dollars was placed 
 in the hands of the board of officers to be offered at their discretion, as 
 prizes, for largest officially authenticated records. ... In accordance 
 with such action a contest was inaugurated, open to breeders of the 
 association, with a list of twenty-seven prizes, to be awarded the best 
 seven day tests conducted under the supervision of the superintendent 
 or some inspector designated by him or by the officer of some experiment 
 station or other state institution. The effect of this competition was 
 exceedingly gratifying. The showing of butter production exceeded 
 all unquestioned official records of any breed previously made in Amer- 
 ica. It reanimated the breeders, stimulated again wide-spread public in- 
 terest in the breed and went far toward establishing its pre-eminence 
 as butter producers. Apparently all opposition to Advanced Registry 
 ceased with this showing." 
 
 Since that time the value of Advanced Registry has be- 
 come thoroughly recognized, "not only by Holstein-Friesian 
 breeders, but by all breeders of improved cattle." Other 
 associations and those handling other breeds of cattle have 
 established similar registries and its principles will undoubt- 
 edly "continue as long as the breeding of improved dairy 
 cattle continues." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 HOLSTEIN-FRIESIAN PROPAGANDA 
 
 No record was kept of Mr. Hoxie's publications during all 
 the long period, covering nearly thirty years, of his active 
 connection with cattle interests, but his pen was never idle. 
 His powers of application were the wonder and admiration of 
 his friends. During certain periods he worked uninterrupt- 
 edly at his writing, every day and all day, often far into the 
 night, for weeks and months together, without rest or respite. 
 When he could no longer endure sitting at his desk he would 
 take his work to the top of some article of furniture of con- 
 venient height and stand as he wrote. An old organ was 
 utilized for this purpose for several years as was also a spe- 
 cially constructed shelf placed against the wall in one corner 
 of his study. These, both allowing of an upright position, 
 gave the much needed rest to a back that was always trouble- 
 some. The possession of a great idea, coupled with an iron 
 constitution and an iron will, alone made possible this habit 
 of unceasing application without utter shipwreck to both 
 mind and body. 
 
 As has been said before, he was the most modest and self- 
 effacing of men. He had no vanity. He did not preserve 
 copies of his articles and speeches in any form. Hence the 
 matter in hand is very fragmentary; indeed, consisting only 
 of an occasional lecture or essay that, by accident, has escaped 
 destruction. Mr. Hoxie never had an eye to his reputation 
 with posterity. His eye was always single with a view to the 
 cause which he was serving and, after his thoughts were once 
 conscientiously and painstakingly put upon paper and placed 
 before the public, they were of no further moment to himself. 
 Could his writings be collected they would doubtless fill many 
 volumes and be a permanently valuable contribution to dairy 
 interests. 
 
 It is indeed to be deeply regretted that only a very few of 
 his many efforts may be mentioned. Nothing has been pre- 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 89 
 
 served previous to the union of the Dutch-Fresian and Hol- 
 stein Associations except the four volumes of the Dutch- 
 Friesian Herd Book; a pamphlet, entitled "Some Information 
 Concerning the North Holland or Friesian Breed of Black 
 and White Piebald Cattle"; the series of articles on Friesian 
 or Dutch-Friesian cattle previously mentioned, published by 
 the old Live Stock Journal of Chicago, about 1883, and a few 
 addresses. In 1888 his article, "Holstein-Friesian Cattle," 
 was puhlished in Harper's Magazine — a fact which also indi- 
 cates the wide spread general interest in the new breed at 
 this time. 
 
 Fifteen volumes of Advanced Registry were edited by Mr. 
 Hoxie after the union of the two associations and he prepared 
 the bulk of the copy for the sixteenth volume, turning it over 
 to his successor in office in 1905. He assisted Mr. F. L. 
 Houghton largely in the preparation of material for the "Blue 
 Book," from its inception up to the time of his retirement, 
 practically all the detailed and valuable matter contained 
 therein being prepared by him 1 . In the preface to the second 
 volume of the "Blue Book" are found these words: 
 
 "All of these records, [contained in the 'Blue Book,'] are from the 
 office of the Superintendent of Advanced Registry, Mr. S. Hoxie, and 
 were originally compiled by him. . . . Acknowledgment of the in- 
 valuable services of Mr. Hoxie in making such a work as the Year 
 Book [Blue Book] possible and for actual compilation of parts of this 
 work are most heartily made, and to this gentleman are due the thanks 
 and appreciation of all breeders." 
 
 Mr. Hoxie also assisted Mr. Houghton in the preparation 
 of his book, called "Holstein-Friesian Cattle," first published 
 in 1897. In the preface grateful acknowledgments are made 
 "of the very valuable assistance of that profound dairy stu- 
 dent and originator of the Advanced Registry system, Mr. 
 Solomon Hoxie." 
 
 His "Twelve Years' Butter Tests at American Fairs," is 
 an illustration of the immense amount of painstaking labor 
 expended by Mr. Hoxie upon much of the original work which 
 he put before the public. A prominent member of the Hol- 
 
 i In a letter, bearing the signature of Mr. D. H. Burrell, dated August 24, 
 1903, referring to the "Blue Book," this statement is made "All the detailed 
 work is prepared by our able Superintendent, Mr. Hoxie." 
 
90 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 stein-Friesian Association writes to Mr. Hoxie, apropos of 
 this article, under date of August 29, 1898 : 
 
 "I am just in receipt of your article on twelve years' butter tests 
 at fairs. I wish to compliment you on the successful manner in which 
 you have brought out the superiority of the Holstein-Friesians over 
 Jerseys as butter producers. If this article can be widely disseminated 
 among breeders, it should have a very helpful and healthful influence 
 in favor of our breed. Even if the summary, given on the last two 
 pages, could be put into the hands of every farmer in America, it would 
 have a very salutary effect in my opinion. I am glad that you have 
 had the wisdom and foresight to publish this article." 
 
 In 1900, Mr. Hoxie's report at the annual meeting of the 
 Holstein-Friesian Association says in part: "The steady 
 growth of this system of Advanced Registry in public esteem 
 and the absence of criticism seem to show that its principles 
 are settled." But, while Mr. Hoxie seems to have felt that 
 the battle for the establishment of this system was now fairly 
 won, within his own association, he did not feel that he could 
 yet slacken his labors for there were many detractors of Hol- 
 stein-Friesian cattle among the admirers and breeders of Jer- 
 seys, Guernseys, Ayrshires, Devons, Brown Swiss, Dutch 
 Belted, Red Polled and Short Horn cattle. The superiority 
 of North-Holland cattle over all these various breeds as but- 
 ter, milk and beef producers and as cattle best adapted to the 
 needs and conditions of the American dairy farmer must be 
 fully demonstrated once and for all. Hence, as chairman of 
 the Literary Committee, of the Holstein-Friesian Association 
 (a position which he held for years), whose function it was 
 to write, collect, edit and publish data favorable to this breed ; 
 as contributor to nearly all prominent agricultural papers ; as 
 lecturer before dairymen's associations and as demonstrator 
 of the Advanced Registry system in various colleges and ex- 
 periment stations, he carried on a vigorous and vigilant cam- 
 paign of public education in the behalf of the "Black and 
 Whites." During this year (1900) fortunately, Mr. Hoxie's 
 salary was increased in such measure that he was now en- 
 abled to employ a clerk regularly and was thus relieved from 
 much of the drudgery of office routine. 
 
 In 1901, Mr. Hoxie prepared a pamphlet entitled, "Hol- 
 stein-Friesian Breed of Cattle," giving salient points of their 
 history and characteristics and of their development and reg- 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 91 
 
 istration. This was published by the Holstein-Friesian Asso- 
 ciation. It filled a need, which the association had felt, for a 
 brief and accurate account of its breed of cattle for busy 
 farmer and dairyman. This pamphlet, which was christened 
 the "Yellow Book," met the popular demand, by giving all the 
 important facts and characteristics of these animals in small 
 compass. It was widely read and circulated over a period of 
 several years and it was one of the most valuable and useful 
 publications of the association. On the appearance of a re- 
 vised edition of the "Yellow Book," in 1904, Mr. E. A. Powell, 
 a prominent breeder of Holstein-Friesian cattle, said in a let- 
 ter to Mr. Hoxie, bearing date of February seventeenth, 1904 ; 
 
 "I have spent the evening in reading this work and wish to congrat- 
 ulate you most heartily on this able and valuable production. It is, 
 to my mind, the most complete, able and convincing document yet pub- 
 lished in the interests of the breed and must be of great value." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 RETIREMENT 
 
 In the spring of 1903 a vital question regarding the policy 
 of calculating its records began to agitate the Holstein-Fries- 
 ian Association. In 1894 the association had adopted the use 
 of 80 per cent of a pound of butter fat for an equivalent of a 
 pound of butter in computing its records. This was done "with 
 a view to conforming to the usages of the World's Fair at 
 Chicago the previous year. The records of heifers there 
 tested were all calculated on 80 per cent fat as shown in the 
 milk for a pound of butter ; and the records of the cows on 80 
 per cent of fat as shown in the churned butter." Previous 
 to this date (1894) the per cent required in calculating the 
 records of the association had been 83^. The 80 per cent 
 standard had recently been shown to be false beyond a doubt, 
 all the facts going to prove that 85% P er cent was the 
 correct basis for computation. The Association of Agricul- 
 tural Colleges and Experiment Stations recommended this 
 latter ratio as a common basis for calculation in connection 
 with all breeds. The American Jersey Cattle Club had also 
 adopted it. 
 
 Mr. Hoxie was most anxious that his association should 
 drop the incorrect and misleading basis of computation, 
 adopted in 1894, and thus place itself on record as standing 
 for truth, honesty and justice and beyond reproach or criti- 
 cism. He therefore put forth every effort to induce the asso- 
 ciation to abandon the computation of its records by what had 
 been discovered to be a dishonest ratio. Many members were 
 of an equal mind with Mr. Hoxie in this matter, but others 
 were opposed to any change of policy, fearing that it might 
 result in monetary loss to themselves. The question came up 
 in the form of an amendment, to drop the 80 per cent factor, 
 at the annual meeting in June, 1903, and at this time, the 
 amendment was adopted by a majority vote. This action of 
 the association lead to a bitter controversy among its mem- 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 93 
 
 bers in which eventually Mr. Hoxie and his supporters "went 
 down to defeat," and the former act of the association in 
 adopting the amendment was repudiated. 1 
 
 It is not the desire or the purpose of the writer of this life 
 record to enter into the details of this controversy. In years 
 to come, other history will be written and those who stood 
 firmly for the right will be fully vindicated. 
 
 This failure of the association to hold by its former action 
 to banish the false standard disheartened and discouraged 
 Mr. Hoxie, who felt that, first and foremost and above all else, 
 the association should try to lead the dairy world in those 
 things which are of truth and justice and of good report. He 
 felt that the step it had now taken was a backward step and 
 a disastrous one. He writes to a fellow member at this 
 time: 
 
 "When a man says, 'I have made a mistake,' yet continues to use 
 his mistake (because he imagines that to do so is for his financial inter- 
 est) he cannot avoid loss of reputation. I fear it will be so with our 
 association. I am utterly disheartened. Must I abandon all hopes that 
 our association will be true to itself, to its own best interests, to truth 
 and right? I am at a loss as to my duty under the circumstances. 
 What ought I to do?" 
 
 This friend replied: 
 
 "If we fail in the perfection of our rules this year we will make a 
 stronger fight next year." 
 
 Another associate writes : 
 
 "I sympathize with you fully in your desire to do good during the 
 closing years of your life and anything that I can do for your peace and 
 comfort I wish to do. God bless you, my dear Mr. Hoxie, for all you 
 have done to maintain the honor and credit of our association. You 
 may rest assured that in the years to come the highest encomiums will 
 be paid to you for the position which you have taken." 
 
 Thus encouraged Mr. Hoxie forged bravely ahead in the 
 continuance of the duties of his office as Superintendent of 
 Advanced Registry and in his efforts to cause the association 
 to recognize the mistake it had made in its decision to main- 
 tain the 80 per cent standard, although he knew that such 
 efforts would not redound to his own advantage and might 
 jeopardize his position as superintendent. But he hoped that 
 in another year or two the association would see this matter 
 
 1 This action of the association was severely condemned in Friesland where 
 the bases of computation were from 88% to 91% lbs. fat for 100 lbs. butter. 
 
94 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 in its true light and reverse its decision. But this hope was 
 doomed to disappointment. 
 
 Its failure to take what Mr. Hoxie regarded as the only- 
 just and true measure for it to take so preyed upon his mind 
 that it was one of the causes which undermined his health and 
 lead to his voluntary retirement from office in June, 1905. 
 
 When it became known that Mr. Hoxie contemplated re- 
 tirement scores of letters of protest began to pour in from all 
 sections of the country. Prominent members of the associa- 
 tion expressed themselves as positively refusing to even con- 
 sider his resignation. They would do anything before they 
 would give him up. They would hire someone else to do the 
 actual work while he supervised it only. He was told that no 
 one else could fill his place acceptably to the great mass of the 
 association; that not only was he loved and trusted by all its 
 members but he was trusted and admired as well by all breed- 
 ers of every class and kind outside the association. 
 
 When at length it became apparent that Mr. Hoxie's 
 health would not permit him to retain his position, even with 
 a competent secretary's help, a movement was set on foot to 
 appoint him Superintendent Emeritus. Many letters were 
 received by Mr. Hoxie assuring him that the association 
 would be glad and proud to place him in such a position. One 
 prominent Eastern breeder writes: 
 
 "I view with the greatest satisfaction your willingness to devote 
 yourself to our work in an emeritus capacity. I am certain that the 
 idea will be heartily commended by everyone, for I have already heard 
 the suggestion so discussed in many places. . . . The strong friend- 
 ship of those who have been in contact with you will never permit you 
 to be separated from them and the association." 
 
 A Western member says: 
 
 "To the best of my knowledge it is the general opinion throughout 
 the West that the Holstein-Friesian Association owes a very large debt 
 of gratitude to you for the prosperity it has met with and the idea is 
 that you should have this position with a year's entire vacation to start 
 with, and no obligation thereafter to exert yourself any farther in the 
 interests of the association than may be agreeable to you. The thought 
 is to make the position truly emeritus." 
 
 And so on through a score or more of similar communica- 
 tions. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 95 
 
 Mr. Hoxie was pleased with the proposal to honor him 
 thus, but feared that his acceptance of it might be detrimen- 
 tal to his successor and he wrote to an officer of the associa- 
 tion saying that if in his opinion the new Superintendent of 
 Advanced Registry would in the slightest degree be ham- 
 pered by his acceptance of such a position he would not con- 
 sider it for a moment. But he was assured that no such 
 result would follow. When, however, the motion to thus 
 honor him came before the annual meeting it was tabled. 
 
 The following extract is quoted from the address of the 
 President of the Holstein-Friesian Association in June, 1905, 
 at the time of Mr. Hoxie's retirement. 
 
 "Since the adoption of our Advanced Registry system, Mr. Hoxie 
 has served as its most efficient superintendent, giving to this work, to 
 this association and to our beautiful breed of cattle, his time, his best 
 thought and undivided attention. Though weary at times in both mind 
 and body, he has never tired. We have all profited by his good word 
 and work, cheerfully given on every occasion. We have all learned to 
 honor and respect him, not only because of the great results he has 
 been able to accomplish in his line of work, but also because of his wise 
 and valuable counsel, his sincerity, his strong personality, and his true 
 manly character. . . . 
 
 "Certainly there is not a member of this association who does not 
 feel a most profound sense of regret that Mr. Hoxie no longer finds 
 his strength adequate to the task of discharging the duties involved in 
 the office of Superintendent of Advanced Registry. . . . 
 
 "Mr. Hoxie is a man whose every impulse has been guided by his 
 convictions of right and justice and his administration of the affairs of 
 his office has been such as justly to merit the standing and confidence 
 it now enjoys. 
 
 "His retirement from office is of his own predilection and we can 
 assure him that he has with him in his retirement the kindest wishes 
 of every member of this association. 
 
 "Being a recognized authority on all that Advanced Registry im- 
 plies, we trust we may for many years hear his voice in the councils of 
 this association and profit thereby as we have in the past." 
 
PART II. 
 B. OTHER INTERESTS AND ACTIVITIES 
 
CHAPTER I 
 THE VILLAGE OF MR. HOXIE'S ADOPTION 
 
 During all the years, from 1876 to 1905, business alone did 
 not absorb Mr. Hoxie's attention. A man of such virility, 
 such insight, such broad sympathies, such ambition to benefit 
 humanity could not be content to confine his activities within 
 the limits, however extensive, of cattle breeding and the de- 
 velopment of dairy affairs. His interests were far too wide 
 and the motive power of his existence, his ambition to help 
 and succor and inspire his fellow beings, was far too insist- 
 ant. Other channels for the expression of this desire must 
 be found. 
 
 During the first few years of his residence in Yorkville, 
 Mr. Hoxie continued to occupy the pulpit of his home church 
 at Columbus Quarter, going there for that purpose on alter- 
 nate Sundays. This required a sixty-mile drive, which 
 eventually proved too great a strain, and the congenial activ- 
 ity was therefore regretfully abandoned. 
 
 A fertile field, however, for the fulfillment of Mr. Hoxie's 
 heart's desire to benefit his fellow men, lay ready to hand in 
 the community of which he had recently become a part. The 
 little village of his adoption lay close between the city of Utica 
 and the manufacturing town of New York Mills. It was un- 
 incorporated, unofficered, unprotected by any league of 
 authority. It had no church, no club nor organization of the 
 better class. It occupied just the right position to render it 
 a resort for the dregs of humanity from both the larger 
 places, and such a resort it became. Here saloons were 
 opened of a character that would not be tolerated in either 
 the Mills or Utica, and here the rough and disreputable ele- 
 ment of (both places congregated to carouse and to break all 
 rules of decency and law and order. The few respectable 
 residents of the village were almost helpless in face of this 
 element. It was a great change for Mr. Hoxie, coming as he 
 did from the clean, decent, self-respecting atmosphere of the 
 
100 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 farming community, where he had lived almost from birth, 
 into this haunt of the vicious and corrupt. Almost immedi- 
 ately he began to work for the betterment of the town, but 
 he found himself practically alone in his efforts. Other 
 decent citizens were either too indifferent or stood too much 
 in fear of possible injury to life and property from the law- 
 less class to join with him in a campaign to make the village 
 a safe and desirable place of habitation. So for years he 
 labored almost single handed, fighting against drunkenness, 
 debauchery and lawlessness of every sort. At one time he 
 acted as night watchman, helping to police the village against 
 marauders who had attempted a series of housebreakings and 
 robbery. 
 
 Previous to his residence in Yorkville Mr. Hoxie had been 
 a temperance man, but he now became a Prohibitionist. The 
 drink evil, showing its results so conspicuously here, could 
 not fail to make him one. He now began a long and syste- 
 matic fight against the saloon, which brought him the bit- 
 terest enmity and endangered both his life and his posses- 
 sions. He was once assaulted upon his own premises by a 
 drunken brute and barely escaped alive. A thoroughbred 
 collie dog, to which he was devotedly attached was lured away 
 and poisoned. He was reviled and persecuted and annoyed 
 in all manner of petty ways by the vicious element that he 
 tried to combat, but he was absolutely fearless and slackened 
 his efforts not one iota in consequence. He not only voted 
 the Prohibition ticket but he took the stump for the party. 
 He labored in season and out of season to disseminate its 
 ideas and to show the evils resulting from the liquor traffic. 
 He acted as chairman of the county committee for years. He 
 ran for Representative to Congress on the Prohibition ticket 
 and for various minor offices. He organized, edited and pub- 
 lished a Prohibition paper, "The New York Central News," 
 himself doing most of the writing for its columns until, when 
 it had become firmly established and had begun to pay finan- 
 cially, he gave it away, although he still continued to contri- 
 bute largely to its pages. 
 
 He entered into personal relations with the drunken and 
 debauched, encouraging and inspiring them to fight against 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 101 
 
 their evil tendencies; inviting some to his home, instructing 
 some in the elements of an education, supplying all who de- 
 sired with good reading matter and good counsel, giving 
 financial aid to the most promising — those who showed a per- 
 sistent wish to reform and to become desirable citizens. 
 
 Poverty was rife in this little town as well as drunken- 
 ness. The readiness with which Mr. Hoxie always responded 
 to any appeal for help is typified by a little incident which 
 for a long time was a source of much amusement and good- 
 natured chaffing on the part of his family. An unkempt, 
 ragged fellow, quite evidently a knight of the road, one day 
 appeared at the door. Mr. Hoxie responded to his knock and 
 to his request for boots, gave the tramp his only pair, saying : 
 "Here, take them, they are the only ones I have." The fellow, 
 nothing daunted, received this offering with avidity and went 
 on his way rejoicing. 
 
 His proximity to the city and his activity in public affairs 
 revealed to Mr. Hoxie a hitherto undreamed of debased con- 
 dition in the politics of Oneida County, and he now not only 
 began to oppose the saloons and the liquor interests, but he 
 also began to fight political corruption. Letters written to 
 his son, in the fall of 1888, show something of his attitude in 
 these matters. 
 
 "Yorkville, N. Y., October 27, 1888. 
 ''Dear R., 
 
 "We have plenty of politics and a great deal of excitement on the 
 subject in the neighborhood. The canvass between the Republicans 
 and the Democrats of the county is being conducted on the lowest pos- 
 sible plane. I went into the office of the yesterday [referring 
 
 to one of Utica's daily papers] and one of the editors said to me, 'You 
 know enough of the management of the old parties in the county to 
 make you disgusted, but, if you knew as much as I do, it would make 
 you sick!' On election day there will probably be more money spent 
 in buying votes than ever before spent on such a day. The men who 
 sell their votes, the men who buy them and the men who knowingly 
 furnish money for that purpose are all alike violators of our laws, de- 
 stroyers of republican institutions and criminals. If justice should 
 prevail they would find themselves shortly in the penitentiary. What 
 a comment on the character of our people, our public officers and our 
 wealthy men. What transparent sham in all their pretended political 
 virtue! Republicans in the county have more money and will therefore 
 probably buy more votes than Democrats. But both will buy all they 
 can and 'pot cannot call kettle black.' What young man, living in 
 
102 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 Oneida County, of really noble character can feel like joining either of 
 these parties? The endorsement of such methods is and must be a 
 greater evil to our country than the adoption of any of the measures 
 of a public nature advocated by either party can counteract. The evil 
 of liquor selling and drinking, enormous as it is, cannot be greater than 
 such a wholesale corruption of the suffrage. Of course we Prohibi- 
 tionists can do nothing but abhor and denounce such things and stand 
 up and be counted. The canvass will soon be over and whichever party 
 wins will make but little if any difference to me personally. Yet I 
 confess I feel saddened over the inevitable triumph of the evil elements 
 of society. 
 
 "In our present condition of political affairs the saloon and its 
 hangers-on hold the balance of power. Its men will be elected in state 
 and nation. I have not the least idea that any material change will 
 be inaugurated in the present policy of the government whichever 
 party prevails. On general principles public welfare demands a reduc- 
 tion of taxation. Both parties admit this but neither party will dare 
 to offend the various monopolies that have arisen under the policy of 
 the last twenty years, by doing anything practical for the relief of the 
 masses of the people. It does not follow that we should be disheart- 
 ened by these things. Our country is advancing, through other means, 
 at wonderful strides. Higher views of moral obligations and of intel- 
 lectual attainments are being rapidly diffused. An army of young 
 men and of young women is being raised up that will have the neces- 
 sary strength of character and the necessary exaltation of character to 
 meet and overcome political corruption at no distant day. I do not 
 expect to live to see that 'good time coming.' But that does not mat- 
 ter. I expect my children to see it and I expect they will help to bring 
 it about. I hope they will be careful to maintain the balance of judg- 
 ment and the charity toward all that will be so important in this 
 work. 
 
 "I look forward to the time when both you and D. will be men of 
 influence. I believe you will always stand up for the right. It is of 
 little matter whether you become rich or poor but it is of great matter 
 that you become truly men of honor, integrity and moral courage, that 
 you keep your eyes clear, that you may recognize the nature of the 
 sham honor, sham integrity, sham patriotism and sham morality with 
 which you will probably find yourselves surrounded. Do not be caught 
 by shams of any kind. Real wealth is of the character. That is the 
 kind which goes with us beyond the grave. If you are tempted by 
 show, remember such coin is spurious. It will not pass beyond this 
 world. We all send love. 
 
 Father." 
 
 "Yorkville, N. Y., November 13, 1888. 
 "Dear R., 
 
 <4 You have requested me to keep you posted on the gymnasium. 
 The young men have decided to run it again. I am president, further- 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 103 
 
 "You inquire the cause of the falling off of the Prohibition vote 
 in the state. Every possible pressure was brought to bear. Some who 
 work in our mills were indirectly threatened with the loss of employ- 
 ment. The tariff question was magnified out of all proportion. All 
 sorts of falsehoods were published. Prejudices were appealed to. In 
 this county stories were industriously circulated that the leading Pro- 
 hibitionists were going to vote with either the Democrats or the Republi- 
 cans. The falling off of our vote, while it is not a pleasant thing to 
 contemplate, need not discourage us and I think will not discourage 
 the party. Our party is a pure one. I should be ashamed, knowing 
 what I do of their corruption, to belong to either of the old parties. 
 
 "There were probably fifteen hundred corrupted votes in 
 
 alone. I have no doubt more than two thousand men took part in the 
 work of corruption and, were the laws to be executed, would find them- 
 selves in the penitentiary. Many of these men call themselves respect- 
 able and some of them are dubbed honorable. A man that has any 
 degree of virtue cannot help feeling hostility and indignation toward 
 a crime so loathsome. Why! I would rather stand alone and be a 
 party of one single voter than to stand by either of the old parties and 
 assent to such a foul crime. I hope you may ever feel as I do in such 
 matters. A man who surrenders his moral sense to such deeds is not 
 worthy the name. Success is a grand thing in a good cause and 
 through worthy means but success, won by such means, is simply 
 shameful; we have moral natures and the only true success is the 
 triumph of the right. I want my children to always stand for the right 
 under all circumstances. I would rather have them enthused with this 
 idea than to have them become rich or renowned. . . ." 
 
 Affectionately, 
 
 Father." 
 
 Together with his younger son, before the latter de- 
 parted for college, Mr. Hoxie organized and helped to main- 
 tain The Yorkville Athletic Club for the young men of the 
 town, putting up a small building for that purpose. Pre- 
 viously the street corners and saloons had been the only meet- 
 ing places available for friendly intercourse and such an in- 
 stitution was sorely needed. Here all were welcome to come 
 for a social hour, to participate in games and plays and gym- 
 nastic exercises, to read good books and papers and to listen 
 to an occasional lecture or entertainment. 
 
 After Mr. Hoxie's son left home for college and could no 
 longer give his attention to its concerns, the club languished 
 and was finally temporarily abandoned. But it was reorgan- 
 ized again and at this time Mr. Hoxie writes to his son re- 
 garding it : 
 
104 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 more I am a deputy sheriff of the County of Oneida. After the boys 
 decided to start up again I thought that someone must have authority 
 to protect the property and to insure good behavior. So I have quietly 
 obtained the appointment. . . . 
 
 "The boys have organized with a short constitution and a long set 
 of by-laws. The constitution provides for five officers elected semi- 
 annually. These officers constitute a board for the government of the 
 club. The name of the association is Yorkville Athletic Club. . . . 
 
 "The by-laws forbid all gambling, forbid the bringing of intoxicat- 
 ing drinks into the gymnasium and the taking part in any of the amuse- 
 ments or exercises of anyone who shows any sign of intoxication. 
 Such, however, may come and sit still and sober up but may take no 
 part. They forbid spitting upon the floor, stove or furniture, and also 
 forbid injury to anything in the room. In general they provide that 
 no ungentlemanly conduct shall be tolerated. 
 
 "The first night after the adoption of the by-laws, one young 
 man held a pipe in his mouth pretending to smoke, while the club was 
 convened for the transaction of business. He no doubt did it to try 
 the board of officers. One of the board got up and called attention to 
 this act and asked if it should be considered orderly and gentlemanly. 
 I put it to the decision of the house and an almost unanimous vote 
 declared that it should not be so considered. I called the board to 
 come to the table and asked what should be done with the offender. 
 They imposed a fine of five cents. The young man declared he would 
 not pay it. I then asked what should be done and the board voted to 
 expel him at once. I then said to the young man that he would have 
 to leave. He got up and took his hat. About two minutes after the 
 adjournment of the business meeting he came back and wanted to be 
 reinstated. I called the board together. They decided in a half minute 
 that if he would pay his fine, he might come back. He did so, and as 
 far as I can observe behaves himself as well as anyone. No one spits 
 upon the floor (the most difficult thing to observe, probably) , and I 
 have heard but one word of profanity. There is a membership of forty- 
 one. Card-playing is allowed. The gymnasium is open every night 
 and also on Sundays. It was a question with me whether I should 
 allow card-playing on Sundays. After weighing the matter as con- 
 scientiously as I knew how I decided that it might be allowed. 'The 
 Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.' If the 
 weight of probable benefit to these boys was for card-playing, rather 
 than against it, I said to myself, as a Christian man I have no right 
 to refuse it. 
 
 "So far there has been no offense given that I have heard of. As 
 the saying goes, 'we are not out of the woods,' but the prospect is 
 encouraging. It looks as if good might result. I think it takes off at 
 least half of the attendance on the saloons, both on Sundays and the 
 evenings of other days of the week. A committee is making arrange- 
 ments to have debates one evening each week. . . . The boys are 
 now talking of trimming the rooms with evergreens to conceal the 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 105 
 
 seats that have to be put overhead when not in use for lectures. I 
 usually go over to the gymnasium a few minutes every evening and 
 during the afternoons on Sundays. Up to the present time everything, 
 so far as I know, has been conducted in strict accordance with the by- 
 laws. Of course nearly all use tobacco, but they go way across the 
 room to expectorate in a cuspidor, thus the stove and the floors are 
 kept tolerably decent. I am hopeful for them. I shall try, if possible, 
 to arrange matters so that the children can come in the afternoon — 
 those who cannot pay the fees. I will write as further developments 
 may occur. Next Monday evening is the time for paying dues for 
 November. The board hopes to be out of debt then." 
 
 It is impossible to estimate the amount of good resulting 
 from this club or to know definitely the number of young men, 
 employed in the cotton factories of New York Mills, who were 
 given a permanent impetus to better living through its efforts. 
 In later years there were some, at least, of its frequenters, who 
 gladly bore testimony to its value as an inspiration in the 
 development of their characters. 
 
 At length the Salvation Army established a post at York- 
 ville. Mr. Hoxie welcomed this innovation and gladly identi- 
 fied himself with its workers. His motto was, "Deed, not 
 Creed." He cared not what beliefs his fellow laborers enter- 
 tained nor what means they employed, if they were worthy 
 ones. He looked but to the fruits of their toil. Thus he 
 entered heartily into the work of the Army, conforming to its 
 methods, praying, speaking and singing with its members on 
 the street corners, laboring with its half-reluctant converts, 
 encouraging its back-sliders, opening his heart and his home 
 to all who wished to enter, giving lavishly of his strength and 
 his time and his material substance. No labor was too great 
 for him, no means too humble, if thus he could render service 
 to those unfortunate fellow mortals whom the Army sought 
 to reclaim. In a letter to his son in September, 1895, apropos 
 of the work, methods and belief of the Army, Mr. Hoxie 
 writes : 
 
 "Sunday I attended the Salvation Army meeting at eleven A. M. 
 The meetings held at that hour are called holiness meetings. The 
 services consist of prayers, readings from Scripture and exhortations 
 to practical, every day uprightness of conduct and purity of heart. I 
 have never heard from any pulpit such simple, straightforward advo- 
 cacy of truth telling, honest dealing, careful speaking and of cleanly 
 habits and cleanly thinking as I have listened to in these meetings. In 
 the afternoon your mother and I both attended their services. This 
 
106 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 afternoon meeting is called a Christian praise meeting. They have a 
 jolly time of it." 
 
 The following year the Army did little in Yorkville except 
 to protect and preserve its old converts from backsliding. 
 Changes of officers and rivalry between the two factions, the 
 Salvation Army and the Volunteers of America, being the 
 cause of its slackened efforts there. At length the Army 
 ceased to maintain a post in the village, and Mr. Hoxie sought 
 other means through which to work for the uplifting of the 
 community life about him. 
 
 About this time a group of young men, working in the 
 factories of New York Mills, appealed to him for help. 
 These young people had begun to realize that there was little 
 opportunity in their present employment and with the meager 
 educational groundwork they possessed for them to advance, 
 to get better jobs, to go into business for themselves or to 
 become independent. They were all ambitious and at length, 
 knowing Mr. Hoxie's kindness of heart and desire to help and 
 benefit all his fellows, they ventured to ask him to instruct 
 them in the elements of a business education. Although 
 already overburdened with the work of his office and with 
 other duties connected with his farm and business, he gladly 
 responded to this appeal. He gave his time and energy, 
 evening after evening, until his pupils were proficient enough 
 to enable them to secure and hold such positions as they de- 
 sired to occupy in the business world. Many years later, 
 after Mr. Hoxie had become a resident of Chicago, he received 
 a letter from one of these young men who, after telling of the 
 business success of all Mr. Hoxie's former pupils in this 
 group, says: 
 
 "You cannot realize how many times I have thought of you and 
 of your kindness when you, in your generous spirit, braved the cold 
 and stormy weather and came evening after evening to our little school 
 room to impart to us the knowledge which we had neglected to acquire 
 in our younger days. All this you did without any compensation, ex- 
 cept the knowledge that you were doing what your heart prompted 
 you to do for the welfare of the young men of your home town. I 
 think, if there were more Mr. Hoxies in the world who would take 
 some interest in the young men there would be a great improvement in 
 the coming generation. It is my sincere wish that you may be spared 
 for many years yet to enjoy a noble and a useful life." 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 107 
 
 In the late nineties a series of cottage prayer meetings 
 were inaugurated in Yorkville, in which Mr. Hoxie was vitally 
 interested, but these meetings did not reach a large number 
 of the people. A place for public religious services was 
 needed. Fortunately Yorkville had outgrown its little school- 
 house and a new one was necessary. Mr. Hoxie induced the 
 specially interested citizens to move the little old schoolhouse 
 back a few yards, instead of tearing it down as had been pro- 
 posed, and to attach it to the large new building. Thus was 
 provided something which Yorkville had never possessed be- 
 fore, a commodious room available for any public meeting. 
 Through Mr. Hoxie's efforts this room was furnished with 
 chairs, benches, tables and an organ, and he now began to 
 agitate a subject which had long occupied his mind. He 
 visited his neighbors and placed before them his ideas regard- 
 ing the formation of some sort of an organization for public 
 worship in the town. He felt that, if nothing more than a 
 Sunday school for the little children could be established it 
 would be a great step forward for Yorkville. A place of 
 meeting was now available and all that was needed was the 
 energy and enthusiasm and push of a few earnest workers to 
 make a success of such an undertaking. Many of his townsmen 
 were uninterested and even pessimistic regarding the matter 
 but others were sympathetic. Finally, through his persistent 
 effort and earnestness and his enthusiasm, he inspired a very 
 few of his neighbors with the desire to help in such a project 
 and, with the co-operation of two young women, fellow citi- 
 zens, the Yorkville Society for Christian Work was organized. 
 A Sunday school was convened for the children and young 
 people every Sunday afternoon and this was followed by a 
 preaching service for the older people. 
 
 All through the early years of its struggle, Mr. Hoxie 
 never gave way to discouragement, never for a moment 
 doubted of its eventual prosperity and success. When, in the 
 face of many disheartening difficulties, all other workers were 
 ready to abandon the enterprise, he not only went ahead dog- 
 gedly and determinedly with his own part of the work but 
 he inspired the faint hearted, the hopeless and the depressed 
 with his own undaunted courage and his own unflagging 
 energy. 
 
108 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 This society finally took root in the hearts of the towns- 
 people and all came to have a personal interest in what was 
 affectionately spoken of by everyone, young and old alike, as 
 "Our Little Church of Yorkville." Mr. Hoxie lived to see 
 "Our Little Church" firmly established, after fifteen years of 
 varying vicissitudes — years of hopes and fears, years of ela- 
 tion and depression, years of promise and fulfillment. He 
 lived to see it housed in a new and commodious structure, but 
 he died before this edifice could be dedicated, a function in 
 which he had fondly hoped to participate in spite of his 
 eighty-seven years and his residence at a distance. 
 
 In "Our Little Church of Yorkville" is a bronze tablet to 
 the memory of Solomon Hoxie. "A memory," as one if his 
 co-workers there has said, "of unusual strength and sweet- 
 ness; a memory of one ever ready to assist in every good 
 enterprise; a memory calling forth only tender, loving 
 thoughts of him." 
 
 Largely through Mr. Hoxie's efforts Yorkville became 
 finally an incorporated village where order and decency prevail. 
 
SOLOMON HOXIE IN 1907 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 
 
 Family letters written at this period show not only Mr. 
 Hoxie's outlook on life, but also his insistent wish to encour- 
 age and sustain others by the expression of a hopeful, opti- 
 mistic philosophy. Many of these years, near the close of 
 the last century, were years of great discouragement in mat- 
 ters pertaining to his business affairs and of great anxiety 
 because of the serious illness of his two sons. He must have 
 been both anxious and depressed much of the time, yet he 
 allowed not a glimmer of such feeling to appear in his letters. 
 To his mother, who was not of a sanguine temperament, he 
 writes at this time: 
 
 "Do not look backward but forward. You have no idea how bright 
 everything is when we look ahead. I realize this more and more every 
 day. What matters it if everything in this world has not been just to 
 our minds or our own lives just what we would have been glad to have 
 had them? Our Father rules. He brings good out of everything for 
 us and to us, if we will only receive it. . . . What a happy world 
 this would be if we would all look to the compensations that we are all 
 the time receiving. . . . How blind we are not to see the good 
 things that always come to offset the bad! 
 
 ". . . It is a beautiful, pleasant morning and I realize that our 
 Father is everywhere present. I can almost see Him with my eyes of 
 flesh, and I feel His presence as really as I do the presence of my 
 earthly friends. What a good Father He is and how restful we can be 
 in His care! 
 
 ". . . It is not best for me to say much about the sympathy I 
 feel for all who are in trouble. It can do them no good and can only 
 make you feel sadder. I have an abiding faith in the future life and 
 expect to meet all of our friends in a better world. I do not believe 
 in those terrible torments that preachers seem to think necessary to 
 advocate constantly. God is good. He knoweth our frame and He 
 pitieth His creatures. The love of Christ constraineth me and it is 
 strong enough, rightly seen, to constrain others. Why should my 
 loving mother be thinking always upon the dark side rather than upon 
 the bright side? Is it not sufficient to know that God is good? 
 
 "This will not make you sad, I know. The future world is no 
 dream but a plain reality quite as much as this world. We should not 
 
110 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 be constantly tormenting ourselves by saying we are not good enough 
 for it. God knows better than we do. We will not mourn over His 
 gifts to us. It is His will and that is enough. Let us accept of His 
 goodness with thankfulness and cheerfulness. I believe He loves a 
 cheerful receiver as well as a cheerful giver. 
 
 "... I think I am growing happier as I grow older. It seems 
 to me I was never more content with the events of life. I have largely 
 given up my ambitions. I just simply rest my interests, my life, my 
 family, my all in the hands of a kind Providence. I think I have seen the 
 folly of struggling to be rich or great. I think the only ambition worth 
 our attention is that of generosity, kindness and love. 
 
 ". . . We are all having a pleasant time, notwithstanding the 
 troubles little and big that come to us. Such things come to everybody. 
 They really need make none of us unhappy. Nobody need expect to go 
 through life without more or less trouble. It depends a great deal on 
 ourselves whether or not it makes us unhappy. I have things that I 
 might be unhappy over but I think that I can say truthfully that I feel 
 more at rest and happier than at any other period of my life. It seems 
 to me I can see the Heavenly Father's care and love in all things. 'My 
 times are in His hands.' My life, my friends, my all I leave to His 
 care. I hope you feel that way. Your children and your friends and 
 your life — all are in His care. Why should we try to carry burdens, 
 to borrow trouble? I hope you will lay down all your troubles and 
 pains, if you have not done so already. It is so foolish to live unhap- 
 pily! What a good thing it is to rest, free from all anxiety, to just 
 rest! 
 
 "... I am not lonely for I see God in the clouds and hear Him 
 in the winds and see Him in the flowers and hear Him in the songs of 
 birds and in everything that I have to do with. 
 
 " 'I know not where His islands lift 
 
 Their fronded palms in air; 
 
 I only know I cannot drift 
 
 Beyond His love and care.' 
 ". . . Perhaps I ought not to write it but it seems to me that 
 this world, leaving out the people, is a perfect world. The bad in it 
 comes from the ignorance and willfulness of the people and not from 
 anything in nature. The unhappiness comes mostly through the cruelty 
 and selfishness of the people that are constantly striving with each 
 other to get the biggest share of the good things that God is showering 
 upon the world almost without limit. When we get down to the real 
 facts we almost always find that those we call the fortunate people are 
 the most unhappy people. There is probably more unhappiness caused 
 by greed than by anything else. When we give up our greed how 
 quickly we find ourselves at rest! Why should we not be content? 
 Our Saviour says even the hairs of our heads are numbered; nothing 
 can injure us, for our Father in heaven (a heaven not away off in the 
 skies but right here near us and around us) careth for us. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE m 
 
 ". . . It makes me laugh when I realize what a Father we have 
 and what a beautiful world He has given us for our present home and 
 what a glorious home is prepared for us. . . . You must think of 
 nothing but being happy, being at rest. How good it is to be at rest! 
 To give up the fighting and battling and scratching and pulling and 
 hauling of this poor miserable world of greedy, greedy, greedy people! 
 (Not God's world). I am trying to keep out of its whirlpool of strife 
 as much as I can and to live in God's beautiful, restful world as much 
 as in me lies." 
 
 Referring to the death of an infant child of an acquaint- 
 ance, he says: 
 
 "The loss of such little ones is, we know, very painful and so is 
 the loss of all our dear ones that go, one by one, but we must bear in 
 mind that they only fall asleep to awaken in a better life. It is the 
 way of the Infinite Love in whose hands we are, whether we wake or 
 whether we sleep, whether we are in the flesh or out of it, whether we 
 are in our clay houses or in our spiritual houses. It seems to me 
 that the Infinite Love is around us and with us everywhere and under 
 all circumstances. Why should we be sorrowful? Why need we be, 
 even in what we may call our trials; or why need we mourn or why 
 should we mourn? He worketh all things for our ultimate good. It 
 is good to come into this world and good to live and good to fall asleep 
 and good to awaken. It is all good, nothing but good. I do not know 
 as you will think it is good for me to thus write. Nevertheless, I 
 believe what I write; and, it seems to me, there would not be so much 
 struggling to get our share, or more than our share, so much mourn- 
 ing over our losses and crosses, if all who claimed to believe in Infinite 
 Love tried to realize what they believe in. I ought not to have written 
 that word, claimed. I ought to have written the word do, in its place. 
 We all do believe in it. How can we help believing in it? We are 
 surrounded by love, love, love at every step and at every moment. Why 
 may we not rest in its sweetness and goodness? I laugh because of 
 love. Oh, I do dislike long faces and old-fashioned preaching and 
 groans and sighs." 
 
 In spite of his long residence in Yorkville and his efforts 
 for its betterment, Mr. Hoxie never felt fully reconciled to 
 living within its precincts. He longed for the scenes of his 
 childhood and early manhood. The old place in the Unadilla 
 Valley was really home to him. He always spoke of it in the 
 tenderest manner as "down home." About this he writes : 
 
 "I am convinced that it was wise for me to move here, 
 yet, when I am not well, I feel somewhat homesick for the woods and 
 the hills, the wild flowers and the wild birds, where I used to live. I 
 should not be surprised if, sometime, I came back. ... I am quite 
 full of work and feel so tired at times. But I say 'courage up' and I 
 
112 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 suppose that is the way for us all to do. I feel sure that everything 
 is for the best. . . . The older I grow the more I dread strife. 
 I think it might be one of the happiest places in the world in the 
 neighborhood where I used to live, if it were not for so much strife 
 there. I wonder when I think of this strife. Yet I do not wonder 
 when I think of poor human ambition. 
 
 ". . . Long ago I came to the conclusion that happiness does 
 not depend upon the things we possess, or the people we know or what 
 they say or think. Happiness is in loving, not our children alone, or 
 our friends alone, but in loving others' children and other people as we 
 love our own and as we love ourselves. Our good Father in heaven 
 has made it so and we may try to find happiness otherwise as long as 
 we have a mind to, but it will not be found by us. The selfish heart 
 will be an unhappy heart, though it has all that it can grasp. And 
 the unselfish heart will be the happy heart, though it has nowhere on 
 earth to lay its head. We are all happy in just the degree of our 
 unselfishness." 
 
 Mr. Hoxie's religious views and inclinations at this time 
 are set forth in letters written to his younger son, who was 
 then, in the early nineties, an undergraduate student at Cor- 
 nell University: 
 
 "I see no reason why you may not unite with the Unitarian society 
 of Ithaca. It is a matter that you must decide largely for yourself. 
 Christianity is not a matter of creeds and not mainly of emotions. It 
 is spiritual life, vitality, divine indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The 
 pure in heart see God because they live. He is to them, 'Our Father.' 
 He reveals himself to them in nature, in history, and, above all, in the 
 character of Christ. The only objections that I have had against the 
 Unitarians is that they seem to me to presume to take the dimensions 
 of God and to measure the divine in Christ. The same objections lie 
 against them that lie against other denominations that have been con- 
 tending for a single idea. The Christian contends for vital life. His 
 striving is to 'abide in the vine,' to be in union with Christ. 'He that 
 loveth is born of God and knoweth God.' If you decide to unite with 
 them, try to live a Christian life and leave contention, for its forms 
 and doctrines, to others. I would give the same counsel were you to 
 join any other denomination. It is indeed a great thing to be a true 
 Christian. It involves denying one's self and the taking up of the cross 
 daily. It is to be meek and lowly of heart. Among its fruits are love, 
 joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem- 
 perance. It is a great thing to be a Christian! 
 
 ". . . Let me quote a few of the sayings in George MacDon- 
 ald's 'Elect Lady,' that have been a great comfort to me personally. 
 'Good, endless good, was on the way to them all.' Let me change this 
 a little and make it read: Good, endless good, is on the way to us all. 
 'I do not make schemes of life, I live.' Again, 'If God did not care for 
 His creature He would be no true God.' 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 113 
 
 "... I often go to sleep with these lines from Whittier: 
 'And so beside the Silent Sea 
 
 I wait the muffled oar; 
 No harm from Him can come to me 
 On ocean or on shore.' 
 
 ". . . It is a very sweet experience to look back over the day 
 and inquire, Have I been obedient to His will to-day? And then to just 
 rest oneself in the arms of Him who pervades and controls all things. 
 
 "... I am glad you write to me without reserve. I think you 
 have the right plan of education in your mind but do not neglect your 
 studies in the course. I admire your aspirations and ambitions. But 
 do not open your mind much to others on these matters. . . . You 
 refer to religious matters. I think it may be that you would like to 
 know more fully your father's views. I will therefore inclose an essay 
 recently read before the club in Utica. You will see that it is a brief re- 
 view of two of Horace Bushnell's works. It is also a pretty fair statement 
 of my religious views. . . . One thing in it I want to call your 
 especial attention to. ... I refer to a peculiar sensibility. The 
 New Testament calls this the Holy Spirit. When you have time read 
 First Epistle of John in which it is called an unction from the Holy 
 One. This sensibility leads one to see a glory in the character of 
 Christ such as is not seen in so great a degree in any other character. 
 It makes us love Christ's character and the possession of such a sensi- 
 bility is the chief glory of a true Christian. In illustration of this I 
 quote a few sentences from Bushnell: 
 
 " 'What is loftiest and most transcendent in the character of God, 
 His purity, goodness, beauty and gentleness can never be sufficiently 
 appreciated by mere intellect, or by any other power than a heart 
 configured to these divine qualities. And the whole gospel of Christ 
 is subject in a great degree to the same conditions. It requires a 
 heart, a good, right feeling heart, to receive so much of heart as God 
 here opens to us. Indeed the Gospel is, in one view, a magnificent 
 work of art, a magnification of God which is to find the world, and 
 move it, and change it, through the medium of expression. Hence it 
 requires for an inlet, not reason or logic, or scientific power, so much 
 as a right sensibility. The true and only sufficient interpreter of it is 
 an aesthetic talent, viz., the talent of love, or a sensibility exalted and 
 purified by love. It is not my design to discard opinion, science, syste- 
 matic theology or even dogma in the best sense of the term. I would 
 only set the judgments of the natural life in their proper place — or 
 rather in a place that is not most improper; for in proper truth all the 
 thinkings, judgments, analyzings, opinions and the faculties by which 
 they are wrought, should themselves be filled with the same quickening 
 spirit, and exalted by the same faith that animates the heart; with 
 that, also bathed in the radiance and indwelling light of God, so as to 
 be themselves organs and vehicles of essential truth and life.' 
 
 ". . . If you want to recognize the reality of a Higher Power, 
 who does listen to your earnest appeal for knowledge of the truth and 
 
114 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 strength to live according to it, as you say, — learn to see God immanent 
 in all things. He is the life of your life. He has a thousand times 
 more to do with you than you have to do with yourself. Trust Him. 
 Love Him. When you get so you want to read 'God in His World' you 
 will find some things in it that will make you recognize Him more and 
 more. 
 
 "I am glad that you are having such opportunities and that you 
 have high ideals. We are here in this world to do the work that is at 
 hand, not to dream of what may be in the future. In doing such work, 
 the work that is at hand, development follows. Our Creator has de- 
 signed that life should be intensely practical. The lives of all who have 
 achieved anything worthy have been practical. Jesus said 'He that 
 doeth the will shall know of the doctrine.' The way of development 
 is in doing, doing each day, hour and moment the duty at hand. And, 
 in this doing, our own selves are forgotten. He that saveth his life 
 shall lose it. That is, he that is thinking of himself, his own growth, 
 his development — but he that loseth his life in doing, doing, doing, shall 
 save it. To him the growth, the development shall come. The habit 
 of introspection, especially if it becomes morbid, is not a good habit. 
 You are in school to do, to study, to acquire, with view to ability to 
 do more. We do not add to our stature by taking thought but we 
 develop in stature by the life that is given us. It is from a higher 
 source than self. It is ours to use — to do with. Do not spend your 
 time in thinking of yourself, your growth, your development, but think 
 of your present duties — things that lie at your hand. The less you 
 think about yourself, beyond the necessary daily care that you must 
 have for your health of body, mind and spirit, the better. Work, play, 
 think, study — in all these things do, but avoid introspection. Confine 
 your aspirations and ideals to loving and serving your fellow-creatures, 
 your brothers and sisters and your Father which is in heaven, forgetful 
 of yourself. 
 
 ". . . If we could only live and love as God designed us to, 
 what a happy world this would be. Nature and Christ are in harmony. 
 Take no anxious thought for the morrow. Behold the lilies how they 
 grow. Love one another. He that loveth is born of God and knoweth 
 God. The meek inherit the earth. How all these things would be 
 practical, if we were in harmony with nature and Christ. But things 
 are out of joint and always will be out of joint until we become like 
 little children, knowing no such thing as selfish strife for mastery and 
 money. 
 
 ". . . It is a question with me whether I ought to 'preach' to 
 you. Perhaps I have done too much in former letters. I will only say 
 a word now. Be careful to look at things as they are. Not that I 
 want you to imbibe the spirit of the present pushing, hauling, compet- 
 ing world. But you must recognize that this spirit rules. To be 
 Christ-like in this age, one must have the prudence of Christ as well 
 as his love." 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 115 
 
 This advice, regarding a hopeful attitude of mind as 
 necessary to accomplishment, appears in one of Mr. Hoxie's 
 letters, written to his son in 1893 : 
 
 "Do not fret or worry or have any anxiety about us or about J. 
 It is always unwise to raise fears in the minds of our friends. If J. 
 should begin to doubt her ability to go through it would be one of the 
 worst things that could come upon her. There is nothing so bad 
 for health of body and mind as fear and hopelessness. And there is 
 nothing so good as courage and hopefulness. The mind dominates the 
 body. We are all greatly affected by the atmosphere of our friends, 
 the physical atmosphere. Somehow such atmospheres go in letters, 
 though the words may not seem to convey anything of the kind. We 
 should all strive to fill our surroundings and our letters with the 
 atmosphere of health." 
 
 To his daughter, just beginning her work as a teacher, 
 Mr. Hoxie writes in June, 1894: 
 
 "I have come to think that this world is, after all, the best possible 
 world for us, notwithstanding the seemingly unfavorable things that 
 come to us. The assurance of this is a wonderfully uplifting influence. 
 The more I have it the more calmly I can work and wait, and bear and 
 wait, see others in trouble beyond my help and still wait. It has been 
 a slow process for me to attain such an assurance. I think you can 
 attain it, if you have not already, without struggling with darkness for 
 so many years. 
 
 "This world is the best possible world. Good is on its way to all; 
 that way is through the complexities of our existence but from a 
 Father that loves all. He is taking the only possible way to build up 
 divineness in us. The only way that could be taken with beings that 
 have freedom of choice. I never was so happy in my life as I am at 
 this period, and I hope and trust and expect to grow happier and 
 happier until I begin to die, as it is possible for everyone to do in his 
 intelligence. Even then the darkness will be only for a little time. 
 The light and joy are sure to come when the natural body is laid aside. 
 If I could only give you the assurance that I have, but it must come to 
 my children as it has come to me, simply by turning my eyes toward 
 the sun. 
 
 ". . . While eating dinner mother and I discussed your worry- 
 ing propensities. We both agreed that worrying is foolish and per- 
 haps sometimes wicked; but how can we reach the highest enjoyment 
 without having a little taste of it as a contrast? I do not know how 
 soon I may get to worrying again, but this much I know. I have set 
 up my Ebenezer that I will not worry. When the blues come I will 
 fight. Now, do not say your father will weaken. He is not going to 
 do any such thing, not if he knows himself. 
 
 "I have been reading 'John Ward, Preacher,' aloud to your mother. 
 Z. listens pretty well considering the doctrines. Last evening she was 
 
116 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 away so did not have to suffer having hell questioned. That word looks 
 harsh put in a letter to you, but pardon your father for his irrever- 
 ential use of it. No! It is not irreverential. That wickedness is and 
 must be punished in all worlds, must be true; but God builds no hell 
 for victims of a vengeance He never feels. Read the thirteenth chap- 
 ter of First Corinthians. In such love there can be no worry. Love, 
 love, love, must be the atmosphere into which you will finally come. 
 Work hurts no one, if it is happy work. I hope you will not get hold 
 of any other kind." 
 
 In 1894 Mr. Hoxie writes to his son, then at the Univer- 
 sity of Chicago: 
 
 "You are made up very much on the pattern of your 'daddy.' 
 You never will be able to have three or four things on your mind at 
 one and the same time. 'This one thing I do.' I can do this one 
 thing well. But I cannot do two things at the same time well. It no 
 doubt results from extreme continuity in our mental habits. I cannot 
 do my cattle business and write upon my essay to be read before the 
 club during the same day, or week. I have got to drop one for the 
 time being. Yet in my continuity is my strength. I think it is the 
 same with you. You have not learned this fact. If you learn the 
 lesson, do you not see that the experience you have passed through 
 shows you where your strength lies? If you do not learn it from this 
 experience you will probably have other similar ones. I fancy I have 
 said enough. Take the language of St. Paul for your motto. "This 
 one thing I do.' One thing at a time until it is finished. . . . 
 
 "I am glad that you are through with your article and that it is 
 coming out in due time. You must lift your thoughts from adverse 
 criticism and remember that we all have to creep before we can walk. 
 I realize that you have taken up a difficult study, that it must neces- 
 sarily involve endless variety of opinions. I doubt if there can be 
 established any sure or unquestioned principles in it, for many years 
 to come. I think the deeper you go into it the less sure you will feel in 
 regard to the doctrines of any School of Political Economy. While I 
 say these things I do not underrate the importance of the study. In 
 giving one of my children up to it, I feel, no doubt, somewhat like one 
 who gives up a child to become a missionary — a missionary without a 
 denomination back of him. Nevertheless, it is a high calling — one that 
 may well be cherished and loved because of its promised service to the 
 world. 
 
 "... I want to counsel you to study style as well as matter. 
 Take good care of yourself. Keep hopeful and trustful in that Power, 
 beyond ourselves, that works for righteousness. You no doubt need the 
 discipline that you are receiving and will be the better and stronger 
 for it. . . . 
 
 "I am more and more impressed as the years go by with the won- 
 derful provisions in this world for our happiness — the air, the earth, 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 117 
 
 the sky, society, home, friendship, love and the greatest thing of all 
 the drawing and impelling force or power upward we call God." 
 
 Referring to the ignorance and illiteracy of the mass of 
 the common people, Mr. Hoxie says: 
 
 "It is saddening. And yet it will not do to be discouraged. The 
 evolution upward in the past has been exceedingly slow, but it has 
 been sure. So now, there is progress undoubtedly, and in this fact we 
 must rest and be satisfied. These reflections lead, or may lead, to an 
 examination of our personal part in the work of advancement. Of 
 course the 'bread and butter' question must not be lost sight of. We 
 must eat and be clothed or we cannot live and be of service to the 
 world. At my age personal ambition is mainly of the past. My love 
 of approbation is pretty well put down. I have little, if any, love of 
 wealth. But I have a strong desire to be of noble service within my 
 narrow field. I want to help in the progress of the world and I feel 
 that here is my responsibility. I have only a few more years left. I 
 look to my children, not to help me personally, but rather to help in the 
 progress of the world, to help forward the great desire of my heart. 
 I doubt not you may have a work to do in this. It may be an unrecog- 
 nized work so far as public attention is concerned, nevertheless, it is 
 just as important as though it drew the attention of all the world. It 
 is the calm, persistent but often unrecognized effort that tells and 
 really brings genuine reward. It is my constant prayer that you and 
 J. and D. may be of great service in the upward progress of the world. 
 Of course you must have food and raiment and be comfortably housed. 
 While I would have you have a reasonable care for these things, I 
 would have you live to help in the upward progress of your fellow 
 creatures — your friends, your enemies, your associates and companions 
 in all the positions that you may occupy. 
 
 "... I think back sometimes regretfully over the past at the 
 little I have done for good to anyone. Perhaps, had I had other oppor- 
 tunities it might have been different. Still I think I am as happy as 
 the most of men. I believe opportunities may be opened in another 
 life. I have no complaint to make. Could I understand the whys and 
 wherefores I have no doubt that I should see that all had been for 
 the best. I rest assured that this world is the best possible to ac- 
 complish the end for which it exists. I will await a fuller revelation." 
 
 On September 12, 1896, to his son, then in Germany, he 
 writes : 
 
 "This morning as I lay in my bed and looked out of the south win- 
 dow of my room and saw the apple and maple leaves lighted up by 
 the morning sunlight and the reflection of colors, you can have little 
 idea of the joyfulness of the sight to me. What a wonderful world our 
 Father has given us ! What overflowing riches, ever new and ever glor- 
 ious! A word of counsel — an earthly as well as a heavenly paradise is 
 near that man or woman who courts nature and is indifferent to the 
 artificial that lays its claims on everybody. 
 
118 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 "The birds are beginning to leave us; in a few days more they 
 will all be gone. This is not a sad thought. Something new comes in 
 their place just as fruitful of joy as they have been. Your father 
 hopes you are enough of a child to find happiness in all the changes 
 of nature." 
 
 Of his changing political views at this period he says : 
 
 "I am slowly developing into a Socialist to the extent of hoping 
 and believing that the time is surely coming When the means of pro- 
 duction will be in the hands of the producing classes. . . ." 
 
 On the death of a relative he writes: 
 
 ". . . If what we call death is simply a part of life, the reverse 
 throwing of the shuttle in the weaving of life, of existence, it matters 
 but little when or where or how it comes and it should not depress 
 our friends. Notwithstanding, sadness results. I will not write a 
 homily — only I wish all my children and all my friends could feel as 
 I do, i.e., that death is like night to a coming day or like winter to a 
 coming springtime. The positive side of all things is overflowing, 
 abundant life. Life must have its downs as well as its ups or it would 
 not be life. The shuttle is thrown back and forth to weave the woof, 
 even of the finest material. To have life in the world there must be 
 death in the world. There must be successes and reverses and the 
 latter are fully as important as the former. The future is always 
 bright to genuine nobility of character. 
 
 ". . . We all have to acquire through experience. If one could 
 learn, really learn, from others' experiences, I should write you much 
 about coming into harmony with our environment. I will say but 
 little. I have learned to be happy by coming to see that the things 
 that come to us, come through eternal wisdom. You will not see the 
 truth of this now but you will sometime. So do not worry over plans 
 for the future. 
 
 ". . . We are looking forward to seeing you in America, glor- 
 ious America, in a few weeks. It does us good to learn that you look 
 forward with pleasure to the thought of teaching as your life profes- 
 sion. There is no profession in which you can be of more service to 
 humanity. After all, service to the world is the noblest of all ends. 
 I am proud of my children because they are all engaged in such serv- 
 ice. They are not living the lives of drones in the great world-hive. 
 We have visions of the brightest kind, a little farther on, for you. Your 
 father is not going to preach but he will quote just this, 'We are per- 
 fected through suffering.' " 
 
 Three years later he writes to his son: 
 
 "I am going to write to you about 'blueness.' I think this word 
 even, should be tabooed by each and every member of my family, be- 
 ginning with myself. The feeling should most positively be tabooed. 
 We are not rich nor are we famous, but I do not know of a family, 
 father, mother, daughter and both sons, that have less reason to use 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 119 
 
 that word or to have that feeling. We ought, each one of us, to praise 
 God every hour of our lives for the wonderful means of happiness con- 
 stantly at our hands. And we ought to be golden, not blue. I sin- 
 cerely hope you will not darken your life by such words and feelings. 
 I have just passed my seventieth birthday and I am not going to cherish 
 any such words or feelings; and, if I do not, why should you? 
 
 ". . . The Father of all is working out His good purposes in all 
 things. Praise be to the immanent and transcendent God, the Father 
 and Lover of us all! Rest and be contented. We cannot help being at 
 rest when we realize that the Father is caring for us a thousand times 
 more than we are caring for ourselves." 
 
 In the same year he writes to his daughter : 
 
 "Your mother has read to me a letter from you this evening, in 
 which she reads between the lines that you are unhappy. She has now 
 gone over to Z's, and I venture to write to you with a loving heart, 
 although, you may think, with a muddled head. I cannot bring myself 
 to believe that you are unhappy. You have your hopes and fears, your 
 encouragements and discouragements; and so does every person, what- 
 ever may be his surroundings or talents. These things are the warp 
 and woof of every life. They are the threads that make up the cloth 
 with which the garments of our souls are made. If there were no dis- 
 couragements we should never know the joy of encouragement. If 
 there was no night we should never know the freshness and the beauty 
 of the morning. And thus I might go on contrasting things evil with 
 the things we call good. In every step upward our feet are lifted to 
 fall downward. These motions are in all progress — the putting forth 
 and the reaction. Our Father has so ordained, and, I most assuredly 
 believe it is the ordination of perfect wisdom and perfect love. The 
 time will surely come when you will see as I do. You may trust my 
 experience of many years (more than seventy of life's struggle), with 
 comparatively few friends and little means. Success is seen to crown 
 endeavors such as you are putting forth. It may not be just the kind 
 that you think you would like, but it will be the kind that wisdom 
 and love know is best for you." 
 
 In another letter to his daughter, written in 1902, he 
 says: 
 
 ". . . Now let me write a few things I have learned. There is 
 always more joy in giving than in receiving. I do not mean giving 
 money or presents, but the giving of one's self. You are giving your- 
 self to the little ones under your care. If you were deprived of so 
 doing, you would look back and remember the happiness of it. The 
 most unhappy persons I ever knew were those who gave of themselves 
 the least. 
 
 "No man should ever long be unhappy for any failure he has made, 
 except the failure to do righteously. You may not like that word, 
 righteously, but it is the best and most inclusive word I can think of. 
 
120 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 As I now look back on more than seventy years of ups and downs, 
 nothing brings any unhappiness to me except such failures. There 
 are one or two things of this kind that, once in a while, come up to 
 my memory, that make me unhappy. But they cannot be changed. 
 I was made subject to 'vanity' and, if I had not failed, how would I 
 be able to sympathize with others that fail? Hearts are bound together 
 by failures and hearts are bound to the Father in heaven by failures. 
 "... I am drudging away as usual, but am happier in so doing 
 than I could probably be in any other way. I would like to do some 
 things for the neighborhood, but I have little chance to work except by 
 a patient, silent influence. I want my children to be happy and noth- 
 ing would hurt me any more than to have any one of them unhappy." 
 
 In still another letter to his daughter, written in 1902, he 
 says: 
 
 "I well remember the letter received from D. when his physician 
 in New York announced to him that he had a fatal disease and would 
 probably not live to exceed six months longer. He said: 'Everything 
 has its compensations.' He was coming home to stay those months 
 that were left to him on earth, with father and mother. 
 
 "You, my dear girl, have a tremendous will. It is a good thing to 
 have such a will. Now let me counsel you to let the storm have its 
 way. God has not forsaken the world. 
 
 'Evil is only the slave of Good; 
 Sorrow the servant of Joy.' 
 
 ". . . Do not worry a single worry. The worry unfits you for 
 just what you want to do. Of course you must not overdo. But turn 
 your back to the storm instead of pushing against it. 
 
 "... I have little doubt that I shall be elected to fill my present 
 place another year, and possibly with an increased salary. Six months 
 ago the times looked dark as to any such thing. The storm that pelted 
 upon me was a heavy one. I said: 'I will be content whatever may 
 come from it.' I scarcely lost a minute's sleep. I just yielded myself 
 to rest; to that great Being who is immanent in each one of us. Not 
 by force of will but by simple trust. I said: 'I must do my part'; 
 that is, I must yield myself to rest, and I trusted that all would finally 
 be for the best. . . . Think up hill! Look only on the hopeful side 
 of life. Read hopeful books and love 'daddy' and 'mammy' and, above 
 all, that good Being in whom you live. What a blessing life is, even 
 amidst all kinds of discouragements! 
 
 "With more love than words can express, a love that I am sure 
 will survive the wreck of time. 
 
 Father." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 RECREATIONS AND INTELLECTUAL INTERESTS 
 
 Although the middle years were filled full to the brim and 
 overflowing with hard work there was yet a fragment of time 
 left within their bounds for recreation and the cultivation 
 of personal tastes. 
 
 Flowers, birds, animals and children were a constant 
 source of interest and enjoyment with Mr. Hoxie. He took 
 keen pleasure in his flower garden in which he worked almost 
 every day during the summer season. One of his chief de- 
 lights was to make excursions to the nearby woods, from 
 whence he returned laden with the plants of wild flowers and 
 ferns which he set out about his grounds and garden. He 
 was especially fond of pansies and always had a splendid big 
 bed of these flowers, showing every imaginable variety of 
 color in their companionable faces. These, as well as all the 
 rest of his flowers, he appeared to cultivate largely for the 
 pleasure he experienced in giving away their blossoms. 
 
 He passed hours in watching the birds, listening to their 
 music and making little houses and boxes for their nests, 
 which he fastened to trees and buildings. The blue birds and 
 wrens always took kindly to these places of refuge and they 
 were scarcely ever untenanted. He constructed a fish pond 
 near the house and stocked it with young fish. These crea- 
 tures were never angled for and became quite tame, always 
 rising to the surface of the water in search of crumbs or other 
 food at the sound of an approaching step. His dog, Tobe, a 
 thoroughbred collie of unusual intelligence, was almost a 
 human companion to him, seeming to recognize a special sym- 
 pathy between himself and his master, to whom he always fled 
 for protection and defense, if reproved or punished by any 
 other member of the household, or if frightened by any un- 
 usual or inexplicable sight or sound. Tame cats abounded 
 on the premises. His poultry followed him about like cade 
 lambs and every animal on the farm seemed to recognize in 
 
122 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 him a special friend and protector. 
 
 Mr. Hoxie made friends with all little children and rarely 
 did one of these go out from his presence empty handed. A 
 bouquet of his cherished blossoms, a specially fine apple, pear 
 or melon, or some other equally desirable treasure, generally 
 terminated a friendly visit or chance encounter with one of 
 them. His heart was big enough to enfold every ragged and 
 dirty street urchin. 
 
 He retained his early interest in trees. The grounds 
 about his Yorkville residence, when first occupied by him, 
 were singularly bare of these natural beautifiers. But this 
 lack was soon supplied, and ere long the place was the admira- 
 tion of all his neighbors. Mr. Hoxie always felt that to plant 
 a tree was really to confer a blessing upon posterity. His 
 kitchen garden, as well as his posy bed, was an object of great 
 interest and enjoyment. The fine vegetables he raised therein 
 were as generously bestowed upon friends and neighbors as 
 were his flowers. 
 
 At the age of seventy years, Mr. Hoxie learned to ride a 
 bicycle in order that he might accompany his children upon 
 some of their wheel trips throughout the surrounding region. 
 He also took a hand at tennis, for the first time, at about this 
 age, so that he might join in other sports that interested 
 them. 
 
 But his intellectual interests took precedence of all his 
 other recreations. To read and study his favorite books was 
 not only pure joy to him but it was also the most complete 
 diversion from the atmosphere of strenuous effort and anx- 
 iety which filled his working hours. Of all his books, the 
 Bible and "God in His World," by Henry M. Alden, were pre- 
 ferred. With these two books he held daily and almost 
 hourly converse. The writings of Horace Bushnell and of 
 George MacDonald were prime favorites at this period of his 
 life. Of the poets, Whittier, Wordsworth, Tennyson and 
 Browning lay nearest to his heart. "Hypatia" and "Ivanhoe" 
 were favorite stories, read and reread, over and over again, 
 during these middle years. 
 
 Fortunately, during the early years of his residence in 
 Yorkville, he found congenial companionship in his intellect- 
 ual interests, in a study club, made up largely of professional 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 123 
 
 men in nearby Whitesboro. The personnel of this club was 
 described, during the winter of 1917, by its only surviving 
 member, Dr. Smith Baker, who says in an issue of the Utica 
 Daily Press : 
 
 "Then followed on the club's list the modest but stable Solomon 
 Hoxie. Mr. Hoxie had pondered deep upon the practical aspects of 
 religion and had sought guidance in the books of Henry Ward Beecher 
 and Horace Bushnell and Theodore Munger and their like, with prayer- 
 ful devotion. Never fluent in expression when at the club, yet he 
 would occasionally flash upon the discussions beams of vitalizing light 
 that would stir all the good that was in the heads and hearts of others 
 to renewal of growth for many days. From Bushnell especially would 
 he bring gifts of genuine inspiration; and some of his quotations from 
 his beloved St. John were as pertinent as they were dynamic." 
 
 Later, Mr. Hoxie became a member of the "Twenty Club," 
 which held its meetings in Utica. This organization was 
 composed almost entirely of Baptist ministers from Oneida 
 and Madison Counties, the late Dr. William Newton Clark of 
 Colgate University, being among its members. Here all mat- 
 ters of religion and theology were openly discussed. Nothing 
 could have been more congenial to Mr. Hoxie than to meet 
 and talk freely with such men as these. A paper called 
 "Christian Realism," written by Mr. Hoxie for this club, in 
 1896, sets forth his own views and aspirations so comprehen- 
 sively during this period of his life that it is here given in 
 full. 
 
 Of this essay Mr. Hoxie says, in a letter to his son, writ- 
 ten November twenty-seventh, 1897 : 
 
 "Yesterday your mother hunted up 'Rabbi Ben Ezra' and read it, 
 then I read it and then Aunt Z. took the book home to read it. Your 
 mother and I agree that it expresses the very best religion, real genuine 
 Christian realism. By-the-by, you know that 'Christian Realism' was 
 the subject of my last paper for the 'Twenty Club.' I think of having 
 it printed for my children. It has no special literary merit and is 
 really a personal apology or confession of faith." 
 
 CHRISTIAN REALISM 
 By Solomon Hoxie 
 My subject easily lends itself to a dogmatic style. I have tried to 
 avoid this. I assure the Club, that as far as I know myself, I have none 
 of the dogmatic spirit. My essay is really an apology. 
 
 Christian realism is defined in that deeply thoughtful book, "God in 
 His World," as "the submission of all our conscious activities to the 
 control and determination of the divine life." This seems to me to be a 
 
124 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 very full and correct definition. The author adds that "the divine life 
 is chiefly manifested in Christ," and that "it is also manifest in nature 
 and in man." That it is manifest in man, seems to me, to accord with 
 the teachings of the Bible. Paul writes in the first chapter of Romans, 
 "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and 
 unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness because 
 that which may be known of God is manifest in them." From this I 
 draw the inference that the altruistic beatings of the human heart, 
 in every age and in every clime and in every man, are manifestations of 
 the divine life. That the divine life is manifest in nature seems to me to 
 also accord with the teachings of the Bible. "But I say unto you," said 
 Jesus, "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good unto them 
 that despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of 
 your Father which is in heaven; for He maketh his sun to rise on the 
 evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." Thus 
 God acts in nature. Thus is shown the divine life in nature. Nature 
 sometimes appears to us dark and cruel, yet I trust and believe that 
 behind all its manifestations there is the everflowing tide of divine life, — 
 the divine love. Therefore I find myself unable to continue to hold the 
 dogma of nature's depravity or that of man's total depravity. And with 
 these dogmas go all their corollaries, imbibed in my earlier days from 
 God-fearing teachers of Calvanism. 
 
 What Does Christian Realism Involve? 
 1. It does not involve pietism. Professor John Bascom defines piet- 
 ism as piety vigorously expressed but in circumscribed form deemed dis- 
 tinctly religious. Pietism grows out of what seems to me a fallacious 
 idea, that there is a service to God in no way connected with service 
 to God's creatures. Allow me to illustrate, by an anecdote. The Quar- 
 terly Meetings of the Free Baptist Church, as a rule are held on three 
 successive days, four times a year. The sessions are usually three in a 
 day, and are devoted to sermons, essays, discussions of moral and reli- 
 gious topics, prayer meetings and business conferences. Early on the 
 opening day of one of these meetings, at which I was in attendance, the 
 pastor of one of the churches rose with much solemnity, and addressing 
 the chair said: — "Brother Moderator, I move that two days of our 
 Quarterly Meetings be devoted to the service of God." A brother with 
 perhaps too much of the humorous in his make-up, sprang to his feet, 
 and with a twinkle in his eye, addressing the chair said, "I will second 
 the brother's motion if he will include the other day, — we do not want 
 to serve the devil on any day." It is needless to add that the motion was 
 dropped, — but oh! what a whipping for impiety that humorous brother 
 received, and what an appeal to God in his behalf was made in the open- 
 ing prayer of the next session from the lips of that solemn brother. Evi- 
 dently in his conception, the service of God was limited to praying, 
 preaching, and devotional singing and perhaps fasting and alms-giving. 
 This conception is a largely prevailing one. We listen to it in the ex- 
 hortations of the Salvation Army, and in the prayer meetings of many 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 125 
 
 of our Protestant churches. It prevails largely in the Roman Catholic 
 Church, and probably in the Greek Church. It enters largely into our 
 conceptions of Sabbath-keeping. A large class of intelligent Christians 
 manifestly hold, that God has given us six days out of the week for 
 services that are in no sense His, and has reserved one day for services 
 exclusively His. Back of these conceptions lies the impression that God 
 seeks His own glory, separate and distinct from any and all other beings, 
 and that there is a service of ours that administers to that glory. This 
 impression is more or less fostered from the pulpit and through the reli- 
 gious press, — perhaps not often intentionally. It is manifest in all forms 
 of asceticism; it is seen in all forms of dependence on rites and cere- 
 monies; it is manifest in cultivating and magnifying religious emotions 
 disconnected from love to God's creatures. Evidently it was a pietist who 
 came running and kneeling to Jesus to whom he replied, "Go sell what- 
 soever thou hast and give to the poor, . . . and take up thy cross 
 and follow me." The sect of Pharisees, the most upright and devoted 
 members of the church in the time of Christ, largely trusted in pietism. 
 And their intense opposition, and even hatred of Christ, mainly grew 
 out of their pietistic views of purification, of Sabbath-keeping, of alms- 
 giving, of fasting and of prayer. Christ rarely prayed in public. This 
 doubtless was one of their strong points against him. He seems to have 
 recognized this in his vocal prayer at the grave of Lazarus, "Father, I 
 thank thee that thou hast heard me; and I knew that thou hearest me 
 always, but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may 
 believe that thou hast sent me." It seems to me that the picture of the 
 divine judgment which he drew, found in the twenty-fifth chapter of 
 Matthew, had, at least, for one of its objects the uprooting of pietistic 
 conceptions. How graphically and how emphatically he enforces the 
 great principle that service to men, even to the very least, is service, and 
 really the only service that humanity can render to the Judge of all 
 nations. 
 
 But are we not commanded to worship God, and is not worship 
 service to God? Jesus worshiped God and taught his disciples to worship 
 God. He said to the woman of Samaria, "The hour cometh and now is 
 when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth ; 
 for the Father seeketh such to worship Him," but in such worship the 
 Father really serves us, not we Him. There is a transforming influence 
 in true worship, but it cannot be that it transforms God. He is all-wise 
 and all-good and needs no change of knowledge, of purpose, of character, 
 nor of conduct. He knoweth what things we have need of before that 
 we ask Him. The transforming influence is alone upon us. I quote 
 again from "God in His World": "Wherefore then do we pray? If the 
 divine life, waiting only our acceptance, taketh such mastery of us, 
 wherefore do we pray? It is that we have hunger and thirst for this 
 life — and these are prayer. It is that we do not simply submit our 
 wills to His will but co-operate with Him — aspiring for the coming of 
 His kingdom. It is our articulate response to the gracious articulation 
 for us of the divine Word. It is an outspoken loving recognition of an 
 
126 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 outspoken love. It is the color and fragrance of the flower, the joy of 
 the fruit which answers unto His quickening — the festival song of the 
 vintage to the Lord of the Vineyard. We pray as our Lord prayeth and 
 as He teacheth us to pray. God giveth and forgiveth without the asking; 
 but the children ask. The heavenly Father knoweth whereof they have 
 need before they ask Him. But their asking is the crying out of this 
 need — especially for His gift of eternal life. They do not make petitions 
 as to One who waiteth therefor, and is moved thereby; their asking 
 is as spontaneous as His giving. They ask in Christ's name. It is not a 
 condition imposed upon them, but their recognition of what unto them is 
 a reality — that He is the way to life." 
 
 I have not assumed and neither do I assume that pietism has had no 
 use or place in the Providence of God. Says Professor Bascom, "It is hard- 
 ly necessary to say that an effort to correct a method does not necessarily 
 involve an oversight of the gains that have accompanied it, or of its 
 unavoidable character as a transitional phase in development. . . . 
 Asceticism has played an important part in the spiritual improvement 
 of the world. It offers another illustration of the familiar fact that the 
 road to truth is always one of error. . . . Ritualism arises in 
 accommodation to a sensuous temper. It gives an artificial approach to 
 God, when the soul is failing of ready access to Him. . . . This 
 relation of rites to religion implies a disparagement of them and yet 
 it involves their immense value in the history of the world." The pietism 
 of wrought-up emotionalism is doubtless now, to-day, doing much good 
 in the world in arousing certain classes to a sense of their sins and to 
 hopes of recovery through Christ. Nevertheless none of these forms 
 of pietism are Christian realism and their assumption to its place has 
 been and still is of immense loss and injury to mankind. How strongly 
 Paul declares himself against this assumption in his letter to the Gala- 
 tians. "But now," said he, "after that ye have known God, or rather 
 are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements 
 whereunto ye desire to be again in bondage? Ye observe days and months 
 and years; I am afraid of you lest I have bestowed upon you labor in 
 vain." And how earnestly he calls his brethren back from such pietism. 
 "Stand fast," said he, "in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us 
 free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. ... Be 
 not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall 
 he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh (to the sensuous) shall 
 of the flesh reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the 
 Spirit reap life everlasting." 
 
 2. Christian realism involves the holding of no special system or 
 type of theology; but whatever the system or type that may be held it 
 vitalizes it with love for mankind. When a theology is thus vitalized 
 it easily throws off effete conceptions that cease to minister to this love, 
 and easily takes on new conceptions that energizes the soul anew for 
 the work of love. On a certain occasion Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, 
 "I thank thee, O! Father, Lord of heaven and earth because Thou hast 
 hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 127 
 
 babes; even so Father; for it seemed good in Thy sight." The babes 
 were receptive to divine love. Whatever theology they may have had it 
 was thus vitalized. They probably had no fixed systems; while the 
 prudent scribes and Pharisees and the philosophic Saducees had such 
 systems all logically grooved and tongued, morticed and tenoned, so 
 that every part fitted every other part to a nicety; but unfortunately 
 there was little or no vitality of love in them. They failed to throw 
 off old conceptions and to take on new ones though pressed to their very 
 hearts by incarnate love. It seems to me that a child's theology to be 
 thus vital must be such as conforms to a child's development and reason; 
 that an uneducated man's theology to be thus vital must conform to an 
 uneducated man's development and reason; that a philosopher's theology 
 to be vital in him, must conform to his development and his reason; but 
 to limit the philosopher's theology to that of the uneducated man or 
 to that of the child, or to require the uneducated man, or the child 
 to expand his theology to that of the philosopher, is to do violence 
 to the hearts and souls of men. It is doubtful if any two persons can 
 vitally hold exactly the same theological convictions. Why then should 
 Christians of the same neighborhood separate one from another and re- 
 fuse to work and worship with one another because of differences in the- 
 ology in the face of that prayer of Jesus at the hour of his betrayal, 
 that they all might be one as he and the Father were one? and as Saint 
 Paul says, "With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, for- 
 bearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit 
 in the bonds of peace . . . till we all come in the unity of the faith, 
 and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the 
 measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." 
 
 Some writer has said, "It is a strange anomaly that Christianity 
 has brought freedom of thought and inquiry to the State, and still denies 
 it to the Church." It seems to me that it is not only proper but com- 
 mendable for members of the same church to hold different opinions on 
 points of theology, at least until they all do reach the measure of the 
 stature of the fullness of Christ, — a time probably far distant. And it 
 seems to me that no covenant of faith or creed should be imposed as a 
 condition of membership, except the covenant of common love and Chris- 
 tian living: for the reason that all such impositions inevitably restrain 
 thought and inquiry; and turn the activities of the mind into the more 
 or less narrow channels of such covenants. This is not objecting to the 
 right use of theology or of creeds ; it is only objecting to their wrong 
 use. Says Lyman Abbott, "Those of us who are accounted as object- 
 ing to creeds, object to them not because they involve a clear con- 
 ception of religion. We are as far as possible from the agnostic 
 who says all talk about God is sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. We 
 hold that men ought to wrestle with the great problems of life. But they 
 ought not to be satisfied to take anything that men thought in the six- 
 teenth century or in the fourth century as final and conclusive. They 
 are themselves to think. This thinking is vital and essential. Men 
 
128 THE LIFE OP SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 are made by their thoughts; the thoughts are the foundations on which 
 the whole fabric is built." 
 
 It seems to me a great weakness, in and to our churches, that the 
 laity have so generally accepted creeds and systems of theology ready 
 made for them. I believe this is why so many Christian men and women 
 are today trembling in confusion and sorrow at the presence of theories 
 of evolution and of the higher criticism. Having accepted without much 
 thought the dogma that every book, chapter, and verse of the Bible are 
 the words of God himself, hence infallible; and that Christianity de- 
 pends on the maintenance of this view, they tremble for the stability 
 of their cherished hopes of heaven. And I think that many of our 
 educated young men and women are being pushed, through the influence 
 of these dogmas, to the brink cf agnosticism. In view of these facts, I 
 think that our leaders should specially study the theories of evolution 
 and of the higher criticism without prejudice and conform their teach- 
 ings to whatever appears to be the truth, regardless of former creeds. 
 Are they not thus called, in this evidently great transitional period, 
 that they may save the young and comfort the old? Can it be that true 
 Christianity stands any danger from investigations in philosophy, or nat- 
 ural science? And is it wisdom to refuse to listen to suggestions of 
 changes in our theologies? It was unchanging theology that rejected 
 Christ as he came to his own, the long-cherished church of God. 
 
 On the relations of science to Christianity I trust you will pardon me 
 as I quote at some length from a writer who is widely recognized both 
 as a scientist and a Christian. I refer to Professor LeConte, of the Uni- 
 versity of California. "We hear," says he, "much of the traditional con- 
 flict between the Church and science. From every branch of such conflict 
 science seems to come out victorious, and yet from every apparent defeat 
 the Church has come out purer and stronger. The method of science 
 is the method of reason and must be applicable to the whole domain of 
 thought. It is already being applied and will continue more and more 
 to be applied to the traditional beliefs of the Church. The effect will un- 
 doubtedly be revolutionary, but also, I am convinced in the highest degree 
 beneficent. Like all else human Christian beliefs were at first narrow, 
 local, provincial. They have all along been slowly expanding. But the 
 final effect must be, what it has ever been, only beneficent. The mission 
 of science toward the Church is to elevate the plane of religious thought 
 and test the validity of religious beliefs; to purify by driving out the 
 false and low, to strengthen by verifying the true and noble. Let 
 us consider very briefly an example of these effects. 
 
 "The Conception of God. This, the most fundamental of all religious 
 conceptions, has gradually changed from a gross anthropomorphism 
 to a true Christian theism, and the change is largely due to science. 
 There are three main stages in the evolution of the idea of God. First, 
 a low anthropomorphism. He is altogether such a one as ourselves but 
 larger and stronger. His action on nature, like our own, is direct. His 
 will is wholly man-like — capricious and without law. The second stage 
 is still anthropomorphism, but of a nobler sort. He is man-like but also 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 129 
 
 king-like. He is not present in nature, but sits enthroned above nature, 
 in solitary majesty. He acts on nature, not directly in person, but 
 indirectly by physical forces and natural law. He interferes personally 
 and by direct action only occasionally to initiate something new or rectify 
 something going wrong. This idea culminated in the eighteenth century, 
 and was in full accord with the scientific ideas then prevalent — pre-es- 
 tablished eternal stability of cosmic order and fixedness of organic types. 
 God was the great artificer, the supreme architect working as it were on 
 foreign material and conditioned by its nature. He established all things 
 as they were in the beginning, and they have continued substantially the 
 same ever since. This conception still lingers in the religious mind, 
 and is, perhaps, the prevailing one now. It is a great advance on the pre- 
 ceding one, but alas! it removes Him beyond the reach of our love. We 
 are His creatures but not His children. The last stage of the evolution 
 of the conception of God is true spiritual theism. God is immanent, 
 resident in nature. Nature is the house of many mansions in which He 
 dwells. The forces of nature are the different forms of His energy, act- 
 ing directly at all times and in all places, and determining all its phenom- 
 ena. The laws of nature are the modes of operation of the omnipresent 
 divine energy, invariable because He is perfect. He is again brought 
 very near to us and restored to our love. In Him we live and move and 
 have our being. This view has been held by noble men in all ages, espec- 
 ially in early Christian ages, but is now at last verified, and well-nigh 
 demonstrated by the theory of evolution. No other view is any longer 
 tenable. 
 
 "In our view of the nature of God," continues Professor LeConte, "the 
 choice is not between personality and something lower than personality, 
 namely, a blind, unconscious force operating by necessity, as a panthe- 
 ist and materialist would have us believe; but between our personality 
 and something immeasurably higher than personality as we know it. 
 Our language is so poor that we have to represent even our mental 
 phenomena by physical images; how much more then, the divine nature 
 by its human image. Self-conscious personality is the highest thing we 
 know or can conceive. We offer God the best we have when we call Him 
 a person, and we know this falls far short of the infinite reality." 
 
 We have in this extract three forms of conceiving God, — his char- 
 acter and method of operation. I believe Christian realism refuses 
 not to associate with either of them. This is not saying that I believe 
 that they are equally exalted or equally true. Nor is it saying that 
 we should be content to hold the first or the second or even the last. I be- 
 lieve that Christian realism stimulates us to constantly seek to know 
 more and more of and about God and of our relations to Him. 
 
 But What Is Christian Realism? 
 
 If it is neither pietism nor any special system or type of theology, 
 
 what is it? Let us go to the New Testament for its definition. It is 
 
 what Jesus and Paul, and John declare to us in such passages as the 
 
 following: — I am come that they may have life 1 and have it more 
 
130 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 abundantly." "I am the resurrection and the life, . . . whosoever 
 liveth and believeth in me shall never die." "If thy hand or thy foot 
 offend thee cut them off and cast them from thee; it is better for thee 
 to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands, or two 
 feet, to be cast into everlasting fire." "In him was life and the life 
 was the light of men." "I am crucified with Christ," said Paul, "never- 
 theless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." It is very much more 
 than what we ordinarily mean by character. As that old book, Ecce 
 Homo puts it, it is "the enthusiasm of humanity," — the enthusiasm 
 of unselfish love to our fellow beings, — the life of God. "It is 
 Christ within you," said Paul, "the hope of glory." "It is the 
 love of God," love such as God has, "shed abroad in the heart" — that love 
 which is "the supreme law of existence and the ultimate principle of be- 
 ing. 2 It comes not to destroy the law and the prophets of any past age; 
 but to fulfill by going beyond. The law and the prophets require justice, 
 but Incarnated Love goes beyond. Where justice demands the coat 
 love gives the cloak also. The law and the prophets may require a 
 certain standard of morality; but the realism of love lifts soul and body 
 above lust. The law and the prophets reverence God, they shudder at 
 the taking of His sacred name in vain; but Christian realism sees God 
 in the heavens above and the earth beneath, in the mind and heart of 
 man, and in man's wonderful works under divine leadership, and shud- 
 ders to treat with irreverance any manifestation of Jehovah. The law 
 and prophets demand tithes of all we possess; but Christian realism 
 gives all it has and lowly whispers, 
 
 "I can but give the gifts He gave 
 And plead His love for love." 
 Let us go beyond even these definitions. Christian realism either is, 
 or it results in divine inspiration. "If any man will do His will he shall 
 know of the doctrine," said Jesus, "whether it be of God or whether I 
 speak of myself." What is divine inspiration if it is not the normal fac- 
 ulties of the soul under the control and determination of the divine life 
 — under the control of that love "which is the supreme law of existence 
 and the ultimate principle of being?" I believe, every true Christian is 
 possessed of inspiration, the same in kind, 3 as the inspiration of Moses, 
 
 i A thoroughgoing Christian in a man with a stronger reason, kinder heart, 
 firmer will, and richer imagination than his fellows — one who has attained to his 
 height in Christ. A bigot, or a prig, or a weakling is a half-developed Christian, 
 one not yet arrived at full age. What ought a Christian to read? Every book 
 which feeds the intellect. Where ought he to go? Every place where the 
 moral atmosphere is pure and bracing. What ought he to do? Everything that 
 will make nobility of character. Religion is not negative, a giving up this or 
 that but positive, a getting and a possessing. If a man will be content with 
 nothing but the best thought, best work, best friends, best environment, he need 
 not trouble about avoiding the worst. The good drives out the bad Christianity 
 is not a drill; it is life, full, radiant and rejoicing. — Ian Maclaren. 
 
 2 The central point of the Calvanistic theology is the sovereignty of God. In 
 place of this Jonathan Edwards (America's greatest theologian) put the love 
 of God. Both in his earliest and his latest writings appears the idea that the 
 supreme law of existence and ultimate principle of being is love. — James W. 
 Whiton in The Outlook. 
 
 3 Manifestly, far from the same in degree — H. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 131 
 
 of Isaiah and Paul; that it is a divine insight that conies by giving the 
 reason, the conscience and the attention up to the control and determina- 
 tion of the divine life. It seems to me that the New Testament is full 
 of teachings that warrant these conclusions. "If ye love me," said 
 Jesus, "keep my commandments ; and I will pray the Father, and He shall 
 give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; even 
 the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot conceive, because it seeth 
 Him not, neither knoweth Him ; but ye know Him ; for He dwelleth with 
 you, and shall be in you." "But the Comforter, which is the Holy 
 Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all 
 things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have 
 said unto you." "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God," 
 said Paul, "But ye," — the ordinary Christians in the Church of Rome — 
 "are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God 
 dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of 
 His. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the 
 Spirit is life because of righteousness." Said the author of the First 
 Epistle of John, "But ye," — ordinary Christians of his day — "have an 
 unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." And again, "But 
 the annointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need 
 not that any man teach you; but as the same anointing teacheth you of 
 all things and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye 
 shall abide in Him." I do not infer from such language that divine in- 
 spiration is infallible or mystical, or that it was ever super-imposed 
 from without on any being. God is unchangeable, and His laws are un- 
 changeable, because they are perfect. It seems to me, God immanent 
 in the human soul, and God immanent in all nature, and the fullness of 
 God in Christ, recognized by the ordinary faculties of the human soul, 
 received to govern and determine all the conscious activities of our being 
 is a sufficient source and explanation of divine inspiration. I believe 
 the most potent means to this inspiration, at least since the days of the 
 apostles, are the records of the life of Christ and of his teachings, 
 stripped of all additions, and of all traditions and of all scholasticism, 
 Thus I magnify the value of the Bible far above the teachings of mystics 
 or the teachings of Papal or Protestant Churches as our greatest means 
 of divine inspiration, and therefore I welcome the Higher Criticism and 
 rejoice in that undefined movement called the New Theology. But I am 
 far from believing that any or all instrumentalities will be the means of 
 building up an unchanging system of theology or of establishing unchang- 
 ing forms of worship. Life, at least in this world, will always overgrow 
 and bring to ruin again, theologies and methods of worship, just as liv- 
 ing vines overgrow and bring to ruin trellises on which for a season they 
 may be supported. But Christian realism will always remain the same. 
 
 I sincerely believe that Christian realism has its disciples in all 
 churches and outside of all churches; that it is manifest in the origin 
 and work of all our beneficent institutions, and in all movements toward 
 the recognition of the common brotherhood of man, though not always 
 
132 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 recognizing the common Fatherhood of God. It is laying strong hands 
 on the art and literature and science of our day. It is struggling in 
 politics, business and industry, — though it does not seem to be gaining 
 much control in these departments of life. It has unlimited faith and is 
 pressing on to bring all things into the heavenly kingdom. It is asking 
 and receiving, seeking and finding, and knocking and being opened unto 
 in all the vocations of life, — slowly indeed to our impatient vision, but 
 perhaps as rapidly as possible in this world of ours — still in the process 
 of creation by divine Wisdom and divine Love. 
 
PART III. 
 CLOSING YEARS 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE FORMATION OF NATIVE AMERICAN 
 
 BREEDS OF CATTLE 
 
 The year 1905 not only saw the close of Mr. Hoxie's busi- 
 ness career as Superintendent of Advanced Registry, but it 
 also saw the termination of his connection with the little vil- 
 lage which had been his abiding place for twenty-nine years. 
 For he now, at the age of seventy-six years, gave up his home 
 in Yorkville and removed to Ithaca, New York, to be with his 
 younger son, Robert, who was a teacher in Cornell Univer- 
 sity. 
 
 Here he not only found congenial diversion and com- 
 panionship in the atmosphere of Cornell University but he 
 experienced great refreshment and delight in the natural 
 beauty of his new surroundings. His health began to im- 
 prove, and, almost at once, he found new interests and new 
 fields of activity. 
 
 In the very beginning of his career as a cattle breeder and 
 importer he had manifested a lively interest in cross-breeding 
 and in the formation of new breeds of cattle. As early as 
 1879 he began to study, write and speak on this subject and, 
 had it not been for his devotion to the advancement of pure 
 bred Dutch cattle in this country, he would early have become 
 an enthusiast on the formation of native American breeds. 
 
 At the seventeenth annual convention of the American 
 Dairymen's Association, in 1882, he delivered an address on 
 this subject. He also spoke on several occasions before the 
 Central New York Farmers' Club upon this topic. Through- 
 out the twenty-five years of his connection with the Dutch- 
 Friesian and the Holstein-Friesian Associations, he had pon- 
 dered the subject and now, that he had leisure and was no 
 longer bound to give his energies wholly to the advancement 
 of the "black and whites," his attention began to center upon 
 this theme of his early interests. In his endeavor to awaken 
 
136 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 enthusiasm for this work he wrote as follows to the New York 
 Central Farmers' Club: 
 
 "At one of your meetings in the winter of 1903 you will recall 
 that great interest was manifested by the members present in the pos- 
 sibilities of scientific breeding on the basis of native and grade stock 
 and that resolutions were adopted, urging the formation of an American 
 breed of dairy cattle. The present time is, I believe, a propitious one 
 for action in the spirit of those resolutions. I therefore write this 
 letter. I do not regard the project to form such a breed of dairy cattle 
 a costly or hazardous one. With me it has long been a matter of ear- 
 nest concern. Nearly a quarter of a century ago, in an attempt to 
 arouse our dairymen to practical interest in it, I set forth the general 
 reasons for such an undertaking and the strong probabilities, based on 
 experience, of its success. The probabilities of success are now much 
 greater than at that time, and the reasons then advanced are still more 
 cogent. Allow me to set forth these probabilities and reasons very 
 briefly, substantially as they were then presented: 
 
 "It is a fact little known that many of our most prominent breeds 
 of cattle are of comparatively recent origin and are simply the results 
 of careful selection and breeding on a small scale. The improved 
 Shorthorn breed, for example, originated with the Colling Brothers, 
 who were tenant farmers in England. They commenced work for this 
 purpose about the year 1780. They made the bull, Hubback, the initial 
 point. His dam was a street cow, and Robert Colling purchased him 
 for forty-two dollars. This breeder qlosed his work in 1810, twenty- 
 seven years from the purchase of Hubback. He then sold his herd, I 
 think, at auction. It consisted of forty-eight animals and sold for 
 $35,580, an average of $741 per head. The bull, Comet, sold for one 
 thousand guineas, about five thousand dollars. This illustrates the 
 rapidity with which a breed may be formed. From the bull, Hubback, 
 purchased in 1783 for forty-two dollars, to the bull, Comet, sold in 1810 
 for five thousand dollars, was a mighty stride in twenty-seven years. 
 The course pursued by the Colling Brothers appears to have been simple. 
 They are reported to have been excellent judges of cattle and as having pur- 
 chased the best cows that they could obtain that approached the type 
 at which they aimed; as never parting with their best cattle as long 
 as they continued breeding; and as constantly weeding out their least 
 valuable animals, but as never giving any man a pedigree of any ani- 
 mal in their herd as long as they remained in the business. It is 
 assumed that they inbred to some extent. 
 
 "The origin of the Hereford breed is largely, if not mainly, cred- 
 ited to Benjamin Tompkins of Hereford County, England. He com- 
 menced with two cows that possessed a remarkable tendency to take 
 on flesh. From time to time he sold to other breeders, and, at his 
 death his whole herd, consisting of fifty-two animals, including twenty- 
 two steers, was sold at auction for $22,670, an average per head of 
 $436. One bull sold for about $3,000, and several cows were sold for 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 137 
 
 upwards of a thousand dollars each. Considering the number of cas- 
 trated animals that necessarily brought only their value for beef, this 
 sale was quite as remarkable as that of Robert Colling and illustrated 
 again the rapidity with which a breed or herd and its reputation may 
 be built up. In the formation of this breed, there appears to have 
 been little attention given to color. In 1845, when a general herd 
 book of this breed was established in England, it was regarded as ex- 
 pedient to group the animals admitted to it into four classes: Mottled- 
 Faced, Light Grey, Dark Grey and Red White-Faced. 
 
 "The oldest family of the Ayrshire breed was produced by Theop- 
 hilus Parton of Swinly farm, near Darley, Scotland, who took great 
 pains to select a herd of superior cattle from the common cattle of his 
 district. This foundation stock was of composite origin. Dutch, Al- 
 derney and Teeswater blood had been imported and bred indiscrimi- 
 nately, somewhat in our American style, with the original native cattle. 
 This native breed is described by one who personally investigated the 
 subject in Scotland as being 'of small size, ill-shapen, high-boned, 
 coarse haired and of poor milking qualities.' The indiscriminate mix- 
 ing had produced a class of cattle of 'larger size than the native breed 
 and of better milking qualities, but possessing little uniformity.' If 
 this description is correct, and I have no doubt about it, what advant- 
 age had the district of Ayr, at that time, over any dairy district of 
 New York or New England, at the present time, to produce a valuable 
 breed of cattle? 
 
 "With regard to other improved dairy breeds, for example, the 
 Guernseys, Jerseys, Holstein-Friesian, Red Polled and Dutch Belted 
 cattle, substantially the same may be said. They are all the product, 
 within comparatively recent time, of careful selection from unim- 
 proved stock of the sections in which they originated. 
 
 "I have endeavored thus briefly to state the leading facts in the 
 formation of breeds of cattle with which our farmers are more or less 
 acquainted. They are all of foreign origin. Their introduction into 
 this country has no doubt been of incalculable value. Other foreign 
 breeds should be searched out and brought to this country, not, how- 
 ever, with view of having Americans contented with foreign breeds. 
 Our climates, our soils, and our ways of handling cattle are peculiar. 
 The proposition that America needs American breeds of cattle, more 
 perfectly adapted to our wants than foreign breeds, requires no argu- 
 ment in proof. The impression that it requires ages to form a breed 
 of cattle has hitherto operated to prevent any large effort towards the 
 production of such breeds. Here and there an incipient germ of a 
 breed has sometimes appeared but, not being carefully fostered, or 
 from not being skilfully handled, in a short time it has generally dis- 
 appeared in the common class we call native cattle. 
 
 "A number of years ago there appeared in Massachusetts two of 
 these breeds, or one breed with two names. They were called James- 
 town and Creampot breeds. I remember reading short sketches of them 
 in the United States reports of the Commission of Agriculture. If 
 
138 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 these sketches were accurate, they were undoubtedly beginnings of 
 what might have been made very valuable American breeds. There ex- 
 isted in Madison County, New York, in the section around East Hamil- 
 ton when I was a young lad a valuable family of cattle called the 
 Ackley breed. If my recollection of them is correct they very closely 
 resembled the Sussex breed that, not many years ago was brought out 
 in England, but I should judge superior to the latter breed in sym- 
 metry of form. Had they been carefully preserved, I have little doubt 
 they would have taken rank with Herefords and Shorthorns for beef, 
 and, on account of their hardiness, withstood the climate of the North- 
 west equal to the Galloways and West Highlanders. 
 
 "From this very imperfect summary, we may draw some practical 
 conclusions that may be applied to the formation of an American breed 
 under your auspices, or, at least, give encouragement in this direction. 
 The work of forming breeds is not one that requires ages upon ages. 
 This idea has been fostered by various publications of parties inter- 
 ested in different foreign breeds, each of course, anxious to trace his 
 particular breed in all its present qualities to the original one that 
 came out of Noah's Ark. Breeds may be formed from composite ma- 
 terials. The universal contempt with which our agricultural societies 
 and our agricultural journals treat our native, grade and cross-bred 
 animals is not deserved. Similar classes of cattle are not so treated 
 in Europe. Classes are there made for them and premiums offered, 
 not only by local organizations, but by Royal Societies and Interna- 
 tional Exhibitions. From composite materials nearly all European 
 breeds of horses, cattle, sheep and swine have originated. 
 
 "It may be asserted that we have breeds enough. With equal rea- 
 son we might assert that America needs no more varieties of fruits, 
 flowers, vegetables and grains, and it is sheer absurdity to attempt the 
 formation of new and superior varieties. In the face of this we find 
 men engaged in producing new varieties as a profession and they are 
 meeting with marvelous success along this line. Reports of the suc- 
 cess of the so-called wizzard, Burbank, and his work are typical of 
 what is being done in a quiet way all over our country. Similar laws 
 of reproduction and improvement prevail in the animal kingdom to 
 those that prevail in the vegetable kingdom; and why may we not look 
 for similar results? 
 
 "We need American breeds of cattle. Our foreign breeds are not 
 so perfectly adapted to our soils and climates that we do not need 
 better ones and a greater number of them. Northern New England 
 needs a breed of cattle as hardy as the West Highlanders of Scotland, 
 of the size of Devons, yielding a generous supply of milk of the rich- 
 ness of the Jerseys. Western New York, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois 
 need a dairy breed of the size, constitution and flow of milk of the 
 Holstein-Friesians with the quality of the Jerseys. Central New York 
 and every locality supplying milk to our cities need a dairy breed giv- 
 ing large quantities of milk of the texture of Holstein-Friesian milk, 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 139 
 
 in other words, of small fat globules, and in quality closely surrounding 
 four percentage of fat. 
 
 "I have little doubt that you have cattle now in your hands in 
 Central New York that may be made the foundation of a breed like the 
 last described. It will cost breeders very little to experiment in this 
 direction. The attempt to form such a breed would not interfere with the 
 interests of valuable foreign breeds. There is such a thing as generous 
 competition good for all parties engaged in it. It is opposed to that 
 contemptible spirit that would crush out all attempts toward improve- 
 ment. 
 
 "There need be no fear of overdoing in such attempts. England 
 with a territory not much larger than the State of New York, has more 
 than a half-score of native breeds with herd books and other organ- 
 ized means of improving and disseminating them; and every few years 
 a new one appears and is brought to the front by its progressive 
 breeder. They find room enough for all and in most cases a very 
 profitable foreign demand for them. 
 
 "The United States Department of Agriculture is an advocate of 
 the formation of American breeds of domestic animals. The fifty- 
 eighth Congress, at its second session, passed an act appropriating to 
 that department $25,000 for investigations in animal feeding and breed- 
 ing, in co-operation with state agricultural experiment stations. In 
 planning work under this act, Secretary Wilson selected Iowa Station 
 to undertake the formation of an American breed of sheep, the Station 
 in Maine to undertake the formation of a superior breed of hens, and 
 the Colorado Station to develop an American breed of carriage horses. 
 His attitude on this subject is shown by the paper read by George M. 
 Rommel, who was selected by him to represent the United States De- 
 partment of Agriculture at a meeting of herd book secretaries held at 
 St. Louis, August 12, 1903. I quote extracts from that paper: 
 
 " 'With a fertile soil and an invigorating climate, rich pastures and 
 abundant grain, we have here in the United States the conditions that 
 have made North America the greatest grazing and feeding ground in 
 the world. Yet we must confess with shame that we have no animal 
 types that are distinctly American, except the trotting horse and the 
 saddle horse, the lard hog, a family of Shorthorn cattle that is gradu- 
 ally being lost, and various breeds of poultry. We underestimate the 
 possibilities of our native animals when handled with system and 
 perseverance. The word 'imported' still attracts us with an irresistable 
 charm. For a hundred years we have been looking across the ocean 
 for our breeding animals, while, if we but know it, all around us, like 
 the fresh water in the story of the sailors in the mouth of the Ama- 
 zon River, we have what we really need. We have imported thousands 
 of animals to establish the improved breeds on our soil. Are we not 
 rapidly approaching the time when we will mold and shape what we 
 already have into products distinctly American? The Department of 
 Agriculture stands ready to render all the assistance in its power to 
 
140 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 the breeders of the United States in their work of perfecting American 
 breeding stock for American stockmen.' 
 
 "The favorable attitude of the general government and the possi- 
 bility of support from it in an attempt to establish an American 
 breed of dairy cattle is not of itself the main reason which makes the 
 present a propitious time for you to go ahead with this movement. 
 There is a still more potent reason. At the present time you can 
 secure the earnest co-operation of Cornell Agricultural Experiment 
 Station and the wise leadership of Cornell's dairy professor, Mr. H. H. 
 Wing. Such leadership will insure permanence to your work. As for 
 me, I am still anxious to work for the advancement of the interest of 
 American dairymen, and you may depend on me to help this matter 
 forward to the best of my ability. 
 
 "I should advise you to place at the disposal of Professor Wing, 
 for scientific breeding, at least one hundred cows. The machinery for 
 the selection of these cows has already been created in connection with 
 a dairy survey of Central New York, which will be undertaken by me, 
 the coming season, under the direction of Cornell Station. These 
 cattle can be kept at home and the expense and labor of breeding them 
 to selected bulls will be small. Perhaps Congress, during the com- 
 ing season, may be called upon for funds to continue the work in Iowa, 
 Maine and Colorado. If your Representative in Congress is informed 
 of this work that you propose to undertake, it seems quite probable 
 that support might be secured by him for this effort. Let us join 
 hands at this propitious time for furthering a noble and far-reaching 
 end." 
 
 In October, 1905, Mr. Hoxie writes to a friend and for- 
 mer associate: 
 
 "I inclose copies of blank forms of an original movement — a dairy 
 survey with a possible design of forming a new breed, producing milk 
 ranging in quality between the Holstein-Friesian and the Channel 
 Island breeds. I have felt for a long time that there was a place for 
 such a breed. It is proposed that the work of forming such a breed 
 be taken up by Cornell University Experiment Station, in connection 
 with the New York Central Farmers' Club. Nearly two years ago 
 this club passed resolutions to undertake such a project. I was urged 
 by the members to take hold of the movement, but of course refused 
 in view of the fact that my services were required for more firmly 
 establishing the principle of Advanced Registration. 
 
 "It would surprise you to know how greatly my health is im- 
 proved. I feel the return of the vigor of ten or fifteen years ago. I 
 am working from five to eight hours a day. After quite a good deal of 
 urging by Mr. B., editor of the Holstein-Friesian World, I have con- 
 sented to write a series of articles for him. The subject chosen is 
 'Breeding, Selection and Management of Dairy Cattle.' 
 
 "Thus you will see that I am not going to rot with old age or rust 
 out. You can have little idea of my ambition to work for the good of 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 141 
 
 my fellowmen — more especially for my fellows, the ordinary class of 
 farmers and dairyman to whom my labors for many years have been 
 consecrated." 
 
 In a letter to his elder son, written the following spring, 
 Mr. Hoxie says: 
 
 "R. has recently received a work on sociology for review. I have 
 read it and, at his suggestion, very briefly reviewed it for the Holstein- 
 Friesian World, for which I have been writing since last fall. 
 
 "I anticipate that I may be employed a part of the time next sum- 
 mer in making a dairy survey of Central New York for the Agricul- 
 tural College here. The hope of doing so has been better than any 
 'doctor's stuff' for my health." 
 
 The dairy survey, referred to in these letters was, how- 
 ever, never undertaken by Mr. Hoxie, and his anticipations, 
 regarding his own hoped-for part in serving the dairymen 
 of the country in this connection were finally abandoned, 
 although he continued for some time thereafter to publish 
 articles on the formation of American breeds of cattle. 
 
 In the fall of 1906, Mr. Hoxie's activities were diverted 
 into new channels. His son was called to a position in the 
 University of Chicago and thither his father accompanied 
 him. At first Mr. Hoxie's health suffered by this change, 
 and temporarily he lost interest in some things which pre- 
 viously had engrossed his attention. 
 
 After this change of residence he writes back to a friend 
 in Ithaca: 
 
 "The exceeding hot weather and the change of diet (we are in a 
 boarding house) have nearly 'floored' me. We are waiting for the 
 finishing of a house, which R. has rented, but we hope to get settled 
 by the middle of next week. ... I hope to recover soon, at least 
 a part of the energy I have lost. 
 
 "Your poem was read to me by my son last Sunday. I think the 
 time will come when you will take a more hopeful view of the future. 
 As I have said to you, life is a farce to most of us if the future offers 
 us no hope. Sometime when I feel better I will write more on this 
 subject and return your poem." 
 
 Again he writes to the same friend: 
 
 "I am happy at the thought of a garden next summer. You will 
 probably be surprised that I have spaded up nearly or quite an eighth 
 of an acre of the toughest kind of sod for such a garden. Besides I 
 have trenched the house-yard, or rather a large portion of it, to nearly 
 two feet in depth. My mind is constantly dwelling on what I shall 
 plant, how I shall arrange the rows and how cultivate them; and above 
 
142 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 all upon the crops that I expect. What do I care for money, except 
 for the purchase of seed for my expected garden? What do I care for 
 the world's approval, other than for my garden that I expect to have 
 next summer? . . . If it were in my power to do good literary 
 work for advancing the interests of my fellowmen, especially the com- 
 mon people, the class . . . that I love; if it was in my power to 
 thus advance Christian Socialism, I think I would forget my garden 
 or if I could thus advance the new ideas that are constantly living in 
 me or with me (in my brain or outside of it) in relation to new Amer- 
 ican breeds of cattle, I think I would forget my garden. . . ." 
 
SOLOMON HOXIE AT 82 AND HIS GRANDSON 
 
CHAPTER II 
 IDEAS AND ACTIVITIES OF AN OCTOGENARIAN 
 
 With the energetic outdoor work of his garden, Mr. 
 Hoxie's health began gradually to improve and with its im- 
 provement came back all his old-time vigor and all his inter- 
 est in life and in his fellows was renewed and intensified. 
 Scarcely had he become accustomed to his new surroundings, 
 however, when the most grievous blow fate had thus far dealt 
 out to him fell with crushing weight upon his heart and spirit. 
 His eldest son, one in whose happiness and success his whole 
 life was bound up, was suddenly stricken, in full vigor and 
 at the beginning of his best success, with a fatal malady and 
 survived but a few days. 
 
 Shortly before his death, Mr. Hoxie had said to him in a 
 letter : 
 
 "There is one thing more that I want to write about but I do not 
 want to 'preach.' I have great assurance of a life beyond the grave. 
 My conception of it is exceedingly interesting and pleasant to me. I 
 want my children to acquire similar conceptions. While, as a matter 
 of animal instinct, we cling to this life just as we ought to, I want 
 them to feel with me that the present is only a short probation period 
 and that, when disease or old age come and our work is completed 
 here, we shall enter on a higher stage of life there. I want them to 
 cultivate this feeling. The separation from one another will be only 
 for a short time. In the meanwhile, let those that remain be cheerful 
 and even joyful, not gloomy or faint-hearted." 
 
 Little did he dream, at the time of this writing, that this 
 dearly beloved one would precede him into the life of his "in- 
 teresting and pleasant conception." But now he endeavored 
 with all his might to maintain that cheerful attitude which 
 he so firmly believed it is our duty and our privilege to main- 
 tain in the face of such separation. All his letters of this 
 period show how, in spite of his own loss, he put the thought 
 of self aside in his endeavor to comfort and assuage the 
 anguish of the remaining members of his heartbroken family. 
 To his daughter he writes on the day following her brother's 
 death : 
 
144 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 "Since receiving your telegram announcing that D. was at rest, 
 many thoughts in regard to him and our relations to him have been 
 on my mind. It may be a comfort to you for me to write a few of 
 them. I sincerely believe in a life higher and better than this beyond 
 the scenes of this world. If it is not so, what a farce is our exist- 
 ence! . . . The majority of our higher critics hold that the book 
 of Corinthians (the first Epistle of Paul) was written only a very few 
 years after the Crucifiction of Jesus. Really sufficient time had not 
 elapsed to warrant the creation of a myth in regard to His resurrec- 
 tion. Paul wrote positively that He, Jesus, had appeared to many, in- 
 cluding himself. I cannot think he was deceived or that he deceived 
 others. One who suffered so much and labored so hard, without expec- 
 tation of reward, to maintain that Jesus was raised from the dead must 
 have been convinced beyond all possibility of doubt. His testimony 
 alone would seem to establish the claim. In thus writing I am making 
 no claim that he (Paul) was divinely inspired. 
 
 "It seems to me that nature is full of hints — I think I may say 
 positive teachings — in regard to our resurrection. They are innumer- 
 able in every department. What is the butterfly but a resurrected 
 caterpillar? 
 
 "I think the apostle, Paul, taught that the resurrection of Jesus 
 was a spiritual resurrection, not such as the church creed generally 
 claims. . . . 
 
 "D. is not dead but more alive than ever before. He is not away 
 in some 'unearthly continent.' He is near us and does not wish us to 
 mourn his translation. He has not lost anything — nothing of his noble, 
 generous character, the education he acquired nor the love which filled 
 his heart for us. 
 
 "Soon after he was taken sick, it seemed to me that he would not 
 recover, and I said at our table one morning, 'D. believes in a future 
 life,' and then I quoted from Browning's Epilogue to Asolando, lan- 
 guage that seemed to apply to him. 
 
 What had I on earth to do 
 
 With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly, 
 
 Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel 
 
 Being who?' 
 
 'One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, 
 
 Never doubted clouds would break, 
 
 Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph, 
 
 Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
 
 Sleep to wake.' 
 
 "Are we not proud that he was such a brave, true man? Shall we 
 refuse to look on the bright side of his death? The side that recog- 
 nizes that he is more alive than ever before, that he still loves us and 
 that he would gladly have us look forward with hope, if not with posi- 
 tive joy, to the change that must come, not long hence to each one 
 of us. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 145 
 
 "Let us comfort one another with the bright things in his life 
 here, and in the bright hopes that we can certainly cherish of the life 
 he now lives, invisible to our fleshly eyes." 
 
 Again, the next day, he writes: 
 
 "I have been lying down . . . and of course my children, espe- 
 cially one of them, D., has been uppermost in my mind. At first, in a 
 suffering way — in pain at what seemed a great loss to me. Then came 
 to me, after a while, this thought — perhaps I may say message: 'He 
 wants my love, as much as ever — perhaps needs it.' It impressed me 
 strongly. . . . You can have but little idea of the effect that this 
 'thought or message' had upon my heart. 'He wants my love as much 
 as ever.' I really felt a great renewal of nearness to him. I was as 
 conscious of his living in strong reality as when he was teaching in 
 New York. It was a great uplift to me. I think I may truthfully say 
 I rejoiced at his entrance on another field of existence. My conscious- 
 ness of him ceased to be shadowy. It was as real and concrete as it 
 has been at any time since he began his career in New York. As I 
 have said, 'it is a great uplift to me.' 'He wants my love as much as 
 ever,' and how happy I am and shall continue to be in giving him all 
 the fullness of love of which I am capable. . . . 
 
 "I believe D. is in as real a world as this one we are in which he 
 has just left. His environment is higher and better than it was here. 
 He has entered there to 'strive and thrive' as Browning says. We 
 must bid him 'speed' in his work there whatever it may be. I sin- 
 cerely believe that his work there will be more important than ever 
 his work was here. He needs your love and my love to encourage him. 
 You will give it to him fully and thus you will come into a conscious- 
 ness of him as really as when he was with you. And you will rejoice 
 and be happy in this experience. 
 
 "Loving is the greatest thing that we can do for one another. It 
 is the highest possible aid in helping to the attainment of supreme 
 success — success in character building. . . . 
 
 "I cannot bear to contemplate the dark side of any event that 
 occurs to us or to anybody, anyhow or anywhere. And it is a sad 
 thing to me that I cannot make others see the bright things that I 
 see. D. is not away from us in the sense of distance in space. He is 
 probably near to us now. The new environment into which he has 
 entered is a spiritual one. Although he has a spiritual body, prob- 
 ably formed to some extent here before he went away, without doubt 
 that body moves with great rapidity. His elevation to the higher life 
 affords opportunities for knowing our hopes and feelings so far as we 
 are willing for him to know them. Our personality is undoubtedly 
 protected against the knowledge of any other but our 'Father in 
 Heaven,' in all environments of all worlds, so far as we wish to have 
 it protected. Therefore I say he knows more about us now than ever 
 before, so far as we are willing and glad for him to know. He cannot 
 desire to have us mourn for him — to thus suffer pain. If there were 
 
146 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 no other reason for us to stop mourning this would be enough. He 
 desires to have us recognize the higher conditions on which he has 
 now entered — to rejoice with him at the greater opportunities for de- 
 velopment and happiness that he now has. 
 
 "I believe in a communion of all the good in all worlds and in a 
 common employment. Perhaps this communion is rarely recognized 
 by us on earth, but is more fully and frequently recognized by those 
 in the spiritual body. You may ask what is this employment? As I 
 conceive it, it is the advancement of life — that of ourselves and others 
 in intelligence, love and happiness. I believe this was the chief aim 
 of D., at heart, while in this earthly life. He loved his fellow crea- 
 tures. . . . His love was unselfish. . . . He wanted everybody 
 to have the opportunity of rising. ... He took his stand for 
 humanity and never 'turned his back' from trying to advance its inter- 
 ests. We ought to be proud that he thus bravely stood at his post. He 
 strove for the common good of all who live in all worlds. . . . He 
 has gone on in a higher school to be further educated and disciplined, 
 to rise higher and higher in character and, I believe, in usefulness. 
 . . . Really 'Death is the way to Life.' The death of D. is the way 
 of his exaltation to the higher spiritual life and it is also the way of 
 discovery of the noblest qualities of his life here. My dear child, you 
 have not lost him. If you will only look on the bright side of the event 
 you will realize that he has been exalted in your own heart. You can 
 realize this by hope. 'We are saved by hope.' 
 
 "Do not presume to pity him. He does not want you to. He 
 wants you to turn your back to everything that he may have suffered, 
 every error that he may have made, and to think of his perfection 
 through error and suffering, and then look ahead to the eternal life 
 beyond where we may enjoy his companionship forever." 
 
 On the event of a family anniversary, soon after this, Mr. 
 Hoxie again writes to his daughter: 
 
 "To-day is mother's birthday. R. presented her with a dwarf 
 rambler rose bush having seventy-one buds and flowers more than half 
 in full bloom. L. gave her a large box of letter paper and envelopes. 
 B. gave her a jacket, knitted of woolen yarn, almost as white and 
 fluffy as new fallen snow. I gave her a good kiss accompanied with 
 a two-pound box of candy. . . . Your present came earlier. She 
 prizes it more than all the others — the picture of D., and this brings 
 me to the thought that he may have been present with us as she re- 
 ceived these gifts and was thereby made happy. If so, he rejoiced 
 with us. Is it not better to believe so? Whether actually present or 
 not, he was and is of that great invisible association, reinforced by 
 all the loving ones on earth or in heaven, the secret of whose life is 
 their childlike faith in the Real Presence — the Divine Presence here 
 and now shaping our ends 'rough hew them as we may.' 
 
 "... I sometimes think I must stop preaching from the same 
 old text, 'Look on the bright side.' But it is a great transformer of 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 147 
 
 life. It results, if thoroughly applied, in joy and health. It brightens 
 the gloomiest experiences and makes them pass away like the passing 
 of darkness before the rising sun." 
 
 The following fragment is from a letter to his daughter, 
 written a few months later : 
 
 "You ought to see the flowers, such an abundance of them. The 
 show of asters is wonderful and the morning glory vines are full of 
 blossoms, some a deep golden, some orange and others a pale yellow. 
 I came across some verses this morning that suited me 'to a T.' Here 
 they are: 
 
 '0 Earth! Thou hast not any wind that blows 
 That is not music. Every weed of thine, 
 Pressed rightly, flows in aromatic wine; 
 And every little hedgerow flower that grows 
 And every little brown bird that doth sing 
 
 Has something greater than itself and bears 
 A living word to every living thing, 
 
 Albeit it holds the message unawares.' 
 "What a blessing it is to be in harmony with the message of the 
 birds and flowers! . . . D. loved them all. I think he still loves 
 them and, with a higher perception than we have, still sees the beauti- 
 ful flowers in our world, and listens to the songs of innumerable birds 
 that inhabit our lands." 
 
 In July, 1909, Mr. Hoxie passed his eightieth milestone. 
 His general health continued to improve and the failure of 
 his memory for words, which had been slightly noticeable, 
 was now practically overcome. Most of his time was passed 
 in working his large garden, a plot of waste land which he 
 had cleared and fertilized, in reading his favorite books, in 
 performing small tasks about the house and grounds and in 
 corresponding with friends and relatives. 
 
 To cousins, bereft of an aged mother, he writes: 
 
 "When I was told that Aunt S. had 'fallen asleep,' the thought 
 came rushing to my mind — 'sorry for her children but glad for her.' 
 . . . I know something of the great pain that must follow this event 
 — for you, for weeks, months and perhaps years. I feel the loss of 
 my father and mother even now as I near the completion of my eight- 
 ieth year. . . . 
 
 "I have studied the relations we sustain to loved ones 'gone be- 
 fore' to some extent and have come to the conclusion that we may con- 
 tinue to commune with them through our prayers. Do not understand 
 me that we are to pray to them, but that it is well-pleasing to 'Our 
 Father who art in Heaven' for us to pray to Him for them. I have 
 not ceased to thus pray to Him for my parents and D. I think thus we 
 
148 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 may have three parties in Divine Communion. In such communion I 
 am sometimes humbled in thinking that I often failed in just apprecia- 
 tion of them. At the same time I feel, as it were, their presence with 
 me in a more deeply loving relation than when they were on earth with 
 me. I am reminded often of the little things that I did at their re- 
 quests as if they were replying to me. 
 
 "I am not thus writing to lead you into like experiences — only this, 
 I would have you feel that you are not shut off by death from com- 
 muning with your dear father and mother, though always in the 
 presence of our 'Father who art in Heaven.' 
 
 "Of course you must know that I believe with the poet, Browning, 
 that when we leave the shores of time it is not to be idle through all 
 eternity, but that there is work for us beyond the grave. . . . The 
 following, from Browning's writings, I think is published in every 
 edition of his poems as the last one. It thus appears as a farewell to 
 his friends left behind him. 
 
 'At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time 
 
 When you set your fancies free, 
 Will they pass to where — by death, fools think imprisoned — 
 
 Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so. 
 —Pity me?' 
 
 'Oh to love so, to be so loved, yet so mistaken! 
 
 What on earth had I to do 
 With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? 
 Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel, 
 —Being— Who?' 
 
 'One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, 
 
 Never doubted clouds would break, 
 Never dreamed tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph, 
 Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
 Sleep to wake.' 
 
 'No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time, 
 
 Greet the unseen with a cheer! 
 Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 
 'Strive and thrive!' cry 'Speed, — fight on, fare ever, 
 There as here!' 
 
 "How different are such views than St. Paul's that we are 'work- 
 ers together with God' — not only in this life, but in that beyond the 
 grave! Such a view removes, at least in my heart, the terror of death. 
 I never wanted to be an idler, even in heaven, and I think your mother 
 never wanted to be. Think of her, dear cousins, as more loving and 
 more active, more beautiful and joyful than ever before. Also think 
 of her as not far away from you." 
 
 In responding to the letter of an Eastern friend he says: 
 ". . . True! 'About the only thing worthy of consideration is 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 149 
 
 the approval of one's conscience.' . . . No medicine is better than 
 good heavy doses of conscience. But I have to take such medicine in 
 an overflowing bowl of optimism. Yes! You may call me a boy at 
 eighty — a cranky one, too. But I hesitate to recommend crankiness to 
 you. . . . 
 
 "I have to go to the poets, such as Browning, Whittier, Lowell and 
 Tennyson. Let me quote a few lines from the last named, the little 
 poem entitled, 'The Higher Pantheism.' 
 'The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains, — 
 Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns? 
 
 'Is not the Vision He, tho' He be not that which He seems? 
 Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams? 
 
 'Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb, 
 Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him? 
 
 'Dark is the world to thee; thyself art the reason why, 
 For is he not all but thou, that has power to feel 'I am I'? 
 
 'Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom, 
 Making Him broken gleams and a stifled splendor and gloom.' 
 
 "I will not quote the next, the last verse. If you do not recall it 
 and really want to know what it is, I will trust you to look it up. It 
 is the medicine for my weakness and disease. I think the poets, many 
 of them at least, are the prophets of the ages. They are possessed of 
 what is sometimes called the divine afflatus. All men in their child- 
 hood and youth are more or less gifted with it as Wordsworth seems to 
 have held. 
 
 "... A number of years ago I read the life of Huxley. As it 
 was depicted by the author it seemed to be nearer the standard that 
 Jesus of Nazareth set forth than I have succeeded in living. . . . 
 Huxley stood for what he believed to be true. The truth, as one sees 
 it, is one of the fundamental principles of Christianity. No man can 
 maintain prejudice against truth and be a Christian in a full sense. I 
 am now reading about the myths in the Bible. It may seem very 
 strange to you, that, believing as I do that the Bible contains many 
 myths and incorrect statements, I yet believe it the source of the high- 
 est aspirations that I have or know. It is because of these aspirations 
 that I know and confess my frailty. As I wrote in a former letter to 
 you, if there is no further life beyond the grave, the universe is irra- 
 tional." 
 
 He writes to his son in October, 1910 : 
 
 "Sunday, I took my October number of the 'Gospel of the Kingdom' 
 
 and went to the Presbyterian church. Mr. came and told me 
 
 that there would be no teacher for our class before the next Sunday. 
 'Well, then,' I replied, 'I will go over to the Universalist church and see 
 if they will not take up the study there.' You can hardly imagine my 
 
150 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 surprise to find the Universalists singing the old evangelistic songs — a 
 dozen or more of them, such as 'Tell Me the Old, Old Story.' Another 
 surprise followed. The minister seemed to preach a sermon taken 
 bodily from 'God in His World.' What could it mean? Later I was 
 introduced to him, a Mr. Alden, and then I learned that he was a 
 nephew of Henry M. Alden, the author of the book I so admire. We 
 walked together to Sixty-third street and he told me about his uncle. 
 I learned that he, himself, was a great admirer of this uncle. . . . 
 and that he was also something of a Socialist. Of course I was strongly 
 drawn to him and I let him have my October number of 'The Gospel 
 of the Kingdom' to examine. ... I have been reading 'Man and 
 Superman' for the second time. It is not only an amusing but it is a 
 wise play. 
 
 "I had a bit of talk recently with Mr. ... I repeated 
 
 these lines of Tennyson's to him: 
 
 'Speak to him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet — 
 
 Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.' 
 
 'I don't know,' he replied. 'Of course,' said I, 'I cannot prove my ex- 
 istence, can you?' He seemed to admit that he could not. 'Therefore, 
 shall we deny that we exist? Why demand absolute proof that God 
 exists, or that we exist beyond the grave? Negativism. . . . 
 allow me to coin that word . . . takes out of our lives the very soul 
 of every laudable ambition. . . . The real man is spiritual. The 
 body is his instrument, it may be his dwelling. Are we sure he was 
 not, before the first evidence of life discovered by scientists? If we 
 are not sure, how absurd is negativism. . . . Why cultivate it? 
 . . . There has never been a particle of proof for negativism. Yet 
 many have been ruined for this life by it. . . . Why talk of mysti- 
 cism? Is there greater mysticism than in the belief that the grave 
 ends all without a particle of proof? It is simply an assumption. 
 
 "There is nothing the matter with me except trusting in the on- 
 going universe (scientists call it cosmos). I call it God, assuming that 
 there is more righteousness in it, or in Him, than in me, or that He 
 knows more than I do. And further, I live and move and have my 
 being in it or in Him. Jesus of Nazareth, the best man I ever heard 
 of, confidently rested in Him and why should not I?" 
 
 It was Mr. Hoxie's fate to identify himself, through life, 
 with great, unpopular causes. In youth with the anti- 
 slavery movement; later, with the Whig and Republican par- 
 ties in their early struggles and the purity of their aims ; then 
 with the Good Templars, in their fight against the drink evil. 
 He stood with the Prohibitionists through that period of their 
 existence when it required much heroism to endure the ridi- 
 cule and revilement which were early heaped upon adherents 
 of that organization. So now, when more than eighty years 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 151 
 
 had passed over his head, he embraced the unpopular cause 
 of Socialism and, from now on to the close of his life, his in- 
 terest in this movement grew and developed. He became an 
 enthusiast in what he called 'Christian Socialism.' He read 
 all available books, papers and articles on Socialism. He con- 
 tributed financially to the support of this movement and soon 
 began to write articles upon this topic, for publication. His 
 letters to friends were filled with allusions to socialistic theory 
 and practice and with his own ideas regarding the move- 
 ment. 
 
 In answer to the question, "What is Socialism?" he 
 writes : 
 
 "Socialism as a spiritual movement is a burning, glowing, flaming 
 passion for the welfare of mankind. As an economic movement, it is 
 the culmination of the principles of democracy — the direction of eco- 
 nomic forces for the welfare of mankind. It is also a political move- 
 ment, developing in the enactment of laws and the establishment of in- 
 stitutions the sole object of which is the welfare of mankind. It is 
 moreover a party movement. It is called the Social Democratic party. 
 It is advocated by a greater number of educated, unselfish men, in com- 
 parison to its membership, than any other national party." 
 
 In writing to a favorite cousin he says: 
 
 "I have thought of sending you a book that has renewed my faith 
 in Christ and in the Living God. . . . The book is entitled 'They 
 Must, or God and the Social Democracy.' Allow me to quote a few 
 words from it. Referring to the Social Democrats the author says: 
 'They dream of an all-embracing brotherhood and, at the same time, 
 care for the immediate help of the poor. They are dreamers and fanat- 
 ics in the eyes of men, and yet accomplish what none of the sane have 
 done. They are ridiculed and insulted for their fanaticism, yet feared 
 for their activity. They are irresistible. They alone are living, force- 
 ful, sound. They have the Living God. They do not pray to Him. 
 . . . But they have Him in fact. Jesus acknowledged as his not 
 those that say 'Lord, Lord!' but those who do the will of God. They do 
 that will. They resist Mammon and preach a new world of love for 
 all men. They halt at no impossibilities which men raise; they care 
 not for limits. They know that the old order must fall. They be- 
 lieve all things, hope all things, endure all things. This is their divine 
 mark and seal.' " 
 
 Later, in response to a sermon, advocating some liberal 
 doctrine sent to him by this cousin, he writes : 
 
 "... I am now urging Christian Socialism — that which Jesus 
 taught, just as forty years ago I fought in my own soul for the teach- 
 ings that your Dr. M. now so ably advocated. I am going to ask you 
 
152 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 to read the sixty-fifth chapter of Isaiah. I quote a few words: 'I am 
 required of by them that asked not for me. I am found of them that 
 sought me not. . . . For behold I create a new heavens and a new 
 earth. . . . And they shall build houses and inhabit them; and 
 they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They shall not 
 build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat. 
 . . . They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for calamity'. 
 Have these divine prophecies been fulfilled? Have we a right to 
 look forward to a time when they will be fulfilled? The ful- 
 fillment of these prophecies is just what the great International Social 
 Democrat party are laboring for. The members of this party, very few 
 of them, know that such prophecies are in the Bible, but God has written 
 them in their hearts. 
 
 "Fifty years ago, the Bible taught the principles that your Dr. M. 
 now advocates. Yet it was a very small number that accepted these 
 principles and generally these few were condemned at that time. 
 Everybody else either held to the literal words or condemned them as 
 absolutely false. Fifty years hence some Dr. M. may discover that 
 God in the Old Testament and in the New Testament announces the 
 great principles of Socialism. 
 
 "You may recall the following lines from Lowell. I quote from 
 memory: 
 
 'Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne — 
 Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, 
 Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own!' 
 "You remember Jesus referred to the tombs of the prophets as being 
 built by the children of those who slew them. Conservatism in all 
 past ages has been regarded as a chief virtue. Dr. M. would not have 
 been tolerated in the Seventh Day Baptist Church nor in the church 
 of which I am a member twenty-five years ago, had such views as his 
 been acknowledged." 
 
 Again he writes to the same cousin, evidently referring to 
 some question called up by previous correspondence: 
 
 "Christian Socialism in America is organized in two societies, 'The 
 Christian Socialist League and The Christian Socialist Fellowship. 
 The latter receives members who belong to the churches, i.e. its mem- 
 bership is limited to professors of religion, while the former receives 
 all persons who willingly contribute to its object as stated in its con- 
 stitution as follows: 'Its object shall be to carry to churches and other 
 religious organizations the message of Socialism; to show the necessity 
 of Socialism to a complete realization of the teachings of Jesus; to end 
 the class struggle by establishing industrial and political democracy 
 and to hasten the reign of justice and brotherhood on earth.' Any 
 person who maintains this ground (professor or non-professor) may 
 become a member, if he subscribes to this object and lives up to the 
 other requirements of the League as expressed in the remaining arti- 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 153 
 
 cles of its constitution. I am a member of this League and I have 
 contributed money from time to time to the other organization, The 
 Christian Socialist Fellowship, to help sustain its organ, 'The Christian 
 Socialist'. . . . 
 
 "On the first of this month. . . the League commenced pub- 
 lishing a monthly journal called 'The Socialist Crusader.' I have a 
 copy of it lying before me as I am writing. Its articles are short and 
 telling. It contains the testimony of Frances E. Willard, given at 
 the W. C. T. U. convention at Buffalo, N. Y., in 1897. She says: 'I 
 am a Socialist. . . . Oh, that I were young again and it should 
 have my life ! It is God's way out of the wilderness and into the prom- 
 ised land. It is the very marrow and fatness of Christ's Gospel. It 
 is Christianity applied.' I fully agree with her statements. It is the 
 voice of the Holy Spirit in my heart. I know you believe in the New 
 Testament and that there is a Holy Spirit that regenerates the human 
 heart if allowed to do so. It is the spirit of Jesus. . . . 'And he, 
 when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of right- 
 eousness and of judgment.' It is not the letter of the Bible but the 
 Holy Spirit, especially manifested in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke and John and the Epistles of Paul and John, that we must receive 
 and manifest to the world, that entitles us in the sight of God, to the 
 name Christian. It is the spirit of unselfish love. Let me ask you a 
 question. Does it not seem to you that professed Christians have 
 largely lost this spirit? To-day selfishness is almost universal. Our 
 business and politics, in the main, are systems of organized selfishness. 
 . . . Socialism is Christianity applied. And Christianity pure and 
 simple is unselfish love for every sentient being." 
 
 In a letter written to a friend shortly after the preceding 
 he says : 
 
 "My zeal for the principles of Socialism is still increasing. Of 
 course they must come gradually, one by one. The first, perhaps, an 
 eight-hour law for women who work in mills and factories and better 
 conditions for work. Then, perhaps, an employer's liability law for 
 injuries due to neglect of employers. Then perhaps a law requiring 
 municipalities to furnish work to all unemployed men and women and 
 so on. Of course common ownership of land and factories will be 
 among much later acquisitions. . . . You and I may depart before 
 the dawn of a better day but our children, I trust, will see that better 
 day. For one, I join with Whittier in his song: 
 
 'Hail to the coming singers! 
 
 Hail to the brave light-bringers ! 
 
 Forward I reach and share 
 
 All that they sing and dare. 
 
 'The airs of heaven blow o'er me; 
 A glory shines before me 
 Of what mankind shall be, — 
 Pure, generous, brave and free. 
 
154 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 'Ring bells in unreared steeples, 
 The joy of unborn peoples! 
 Sound, trumpets far off blown, 
 Thy triumph is my own! 
 
 'Parcel and part of all, 
 I keep the festival, 
 Fore-reach the good to be, 
 And share the victory.' 
 
 "Sometimes I seem to myself to be immeasurably happy. . . . The 
 happiest man of any of whom I have knowledge. 
 'I feel the earth move sunward, 
 I join the great march onward, 
 And take, by faith, while living, 
 My freehold of thanksgiving.' " 
 
 At this time he also writes: 
 
 "I am living a strenuous life, although not a hard one. I get a 
 few minutes, a half hour generally, to walk out for exercise. . . . 
 I enjoy everything, unless too tired. And then I gather up something 
 to keep the optimistic spirit going. I enjoy living." 
 
 The family now moved to a residence nearer the Univer- 
 sity, and Mr. Hoxie was forced to abandon the plot of ground 
 he had so assiduously cultivated, and to begin his gardening 
 anew upon unimproved soil. Nothing daunted, he earnestly 
 renewed his outdoor labors. His garden plot was now suffi- 
 ciently extensive, covering as it did about one-fourth of an 
 acre, to enable him not only to supply his own family with 
 nearly all kinds of vegetables which would grow and ripen in 
 that locality but to contribute also to the support of others. 
 And, as his one aim in life was still to be helpful and useful 
 to others, he joyfully gave of his produce, not alone to friends 
 and neighbors, but he sought out the needy in the vicinity 
 and bestowed upon them also the fruits of his labors. To a 
 friend he writes at this time: 
 
 "Thus far, this season, I have had a very remarkable amount of 
 produce from my garden. Bushels and bushels of corn, full three- 
 fourths of which I have given away. Beans, beets, lettuce and so 
 forth in great abundance I have distributed with the corn. I com- 
 pleted planting over again nearly the whole ground for new crops 
 last week." 
 
 In spite of his increased manual work, he still continued 
 to read widely and to write occasional articles for publica- 
 tion. Much of his leisure was devoted to a blind and helpless 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 155 
 
 neighbor. To whom he read and talked upon social, political 
 and religious topics in an effort to encourage and cheer this 
 unfortunate fellow creature. 
 
 In 1911 Mr. Hoxie's life was brightened by the advent of 
 a grandson to whom he became devotedly attached and as the 
 baby developed they became almost inseparable companions. 
 He writes to a friend at this time: 
 
 "The boy is remarkaby bright and active both in mind and body. 
 I think I never saw a more beautiful baby. . . . Every day I roll 
 him out in his baby carriage in the street about the parks of the city. 
 You can scarcely imagine how strongly he is held in our affection." 
 
 It was about this time that Mr. Hoxie united with the 
 Hyde Park church of the "Disciples of Christ," while still re- 
 taining by permission his membership in the little Free-will 
 Baptist church of his youth, the church which he served as 
 pastor for many of the years of his early manhood. Now, 
 once more, he had a church home and was happy in the com- 
 panionship of congenial, broad-minded fellow workers. De- 
 scribing this Church of the Disciples in a letter he says in 
 part : 
 
 "It is a great satisfaction to me to be allowed to be a member of 
 two churches at the same time. . . . Two churches that differ in 
 many respects from each other. The members of the Church of the 
 Disciples are largely students and teachers in the University of Chicago. 
 Its pastor, Dr. Edward Scribner Ames, is one of the teachers in that 
 institution. His church is emphatically a working organization. It 
 sustains a missionary in China and a home missionary in the city. 
 Yet I doubt if there is a Baptist church within my knowledge that 
 has fewer members who would generally be regarded as 'well off' in 
 money or property of any kind. Entering the church building one 
 passes through a small room containing, among other things, a box 
 for contributions of money that alms may be given in secret, as Jesus 
 commanded. During the hour of worship no collection is taken up. 
 No one ever need know what is individually given." 
 
 Early in his eighty-third year Mr. Hoxie again took up his 
 pen in the interest of Holstein-Friesian cattle and their 
 breeders. He began to write regularly articles for the "Hol- 
 stein-Friesian Register." His contributions to this periodi- 
 cal, dealing with a variety of topics, which his ripe experi- 
 ence and years of study rendered him surpassingly able to 
 expound, extended over a period of about four years. Re- 
 garding this activity he writes to a former business associate : 
 
156 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 "I am interested to the extent of what ability I have left to do all 
 that I can to advance the interests of our association. In so doing I feel 
 that I thus advance the interests of the country." 
 
 At about this time, Mr. Hoxie was also invited to write 
 for the "Breeders' Gazette." The editor of this periodical 
 said to him in a letter of May 18, 1912 : 
 
 "Will it not be possible for you to supply us from time to time with 
 articles of especial interest to the breeders of Holstein cattle? I have 
 no particular line to suggest, but you are full of the matter and would 
 have no difficulty in supplying us once every two or three weeks with 
 an article of about twelve or fifteen hundred words on some topic of 
 especial interest to breeders of the 'black and whites.' " 
 
 In the same year, Mr. Hoxie writes to his old friend, Mr. 
 K. N. Kuperus of Holland : 
 
 "I am still working for the breed with my pen, writing for the 
 'Holstein-Friesian Register,' and I have promised to write for the 
 'Breeders' Gazette,' the largest journal on breeding in the world. 
 . . . I am eighty-three years old. . . . My mind seems to hold 
 out better than my body. ... I have worked for the Friesian 
 breed, not for money but for the good of our dairymen and others. 
 . . . As I look back I feel that I have 'fought a good fight.' " 
 
 Later, in 1915 and 1916, Mr. Hoxie's pen was also solicited 
 by the editors of the "Holstein-Friesian World" and the 
 "Black and White Record." 
 
 In the spring of 1913, Mr. Hoxie returned East to live in 
 the vicinity of his old home. Though it wrung his heart to 
 leave his son and his grandson and the companionship of 
 many friends, possessing something of his broad outlook 
 upon life, it seemed the expedient thing to do, and he tried 
 to console himself for the privation that this change would 
 bring to him by planning fresh activities for the betterment 
 of his fellows in the changed surroundings. He had never 
 quite given up the hope of sometime preaching again, and, 
 just before he moved, he wrote in his journal: 
 
 "In case I go to Edmeston, I will try to organize neighborhood 
 circles of Disciples of Christ, using the monthly rituals of the Sunday 
 School of Hyde Park Church, Chicago. Perhaps at the church at South 
 Edmeston, Babcock's Mills, Columbus Quarter and other places, private 
 houses, school-houses, etc. I could thus awaken religious interest, 
 undenominational, making it contributory to the churches already or- 
 ganized, Baptist, Methodist, or others." 
 
 Mr. Hoxie was an enthusiastic advocate of church union 
 and writes to a friend at this time: 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 157 
 
 "I have become thoroughly impressed with the idea that our earth 
 can never be Christianized until all churches are united simply in living 
 the spiritual life. How earnestly Paul set forth this view in First 
 Corinthians ! The spiritual view involves all righteousness — an active 
 righteousness. Let every individual believe as he can believe. 'Other 
 foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus 
 Christ. But, if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly 
 stones, wood, hay, stubble; each man's work shall be made manifest; 
 for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire 
 itself shall prove each man's work of what sort it is. If any man's 
 work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward. If 
 any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself 
 shall be saved; yet so as through fire. . . . Therefore let no one 
 glory in men, for all things are yours; whether Paul or Apollos, or 
 Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to 
 come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's and Christ is God's.' It 
 almost seems that the words of Paul that I have quoted are especially 
 written for us in this present century. Our philosophers and scientists 
 have been led of God in the discovery of great truths unknown to Paul 
 or any other man of his day. Let every individual believe, one or 
 more of them as he can; but he, himself, shall suffer loss if the fire of 
 truth destroys one or more of them; yet he, himself, shall be saved. 
 This I believe of all of us who are trying to bless the world. 
 
 "To stand still, doing nothing, like those Christians who refuse to 
 work together with God is an awful thing. Knowing the truth we 
 shall receive many stripes, either in the present or in the future, if 
 we do not work for it. Old and decrepit as I am, I am impressed that 
 I must work, preach, if I can obtain the opportunity to do so. Jesus 
 wisely awaited opportunity. Last evening I was invited to speak be- 
 fore a farmers' club that holds its meetings in this village. Knowing 
 that I would not be able to gain access to either of our church build- 
 ings here, in connection with my topic, I opened with earnestly urging 
 the spiritual life upon the attention of those present as the sole device 
 for Christianizing our world. They listened, apparently with interest, 
 while I interlarded agriculture with spiritual life for nearly two hours. 
 
 "I am doing all I can, as it seems to me, to induce less selfishness 
 in the community. . . . Among the books that I am trying to get 
 into the hands of the people is the 'Twentieth Century New Testament.' 
 . . . It is in our common vernacular. After you get used to read- 
 ing the New Testament in the words in which we now write and talk, 
 I am sure its revelations will be delightful to you. ... I hope this 
 letter will find you at your life work of doing good to your associates, 
 thus living as Jesus lived. It is the way of real life. Life for ever 
 and ever. The one life of every true Christian, whatever his or her 
 intellectual views. All who are living this life on earth or in heaven 
 are comrades of one great community.' ... I believe in a 'Beloved 
 Community' of similar souls. I hope I may yet be one among them. 
 You will agree with me that qualification for it is not in dogmas but 
 
158 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 in ends for which we labor and live. ... I am trying to live in 
 love. . . . God is in his world. The gospel of Christ is a gospel 
 of release, release from fear and anxiety, release 'from the lien upon 
 the soul of material possessions, from the strife of ambition, from the 
 bonds of sin and from the power of death.' . . . 
 " 'There is no good in life but love — but love, 
 
 What else looks good is some shade flung from love, 
 Love gilds it, gives it worth.' 
 . . . 0, my brother, hold fast to the love of Christ! Do not imagine 
 that doctrines can impart that love. . . . Live in love. Trust in 
 love. The newest translation of the New Testament has this summing 
 up of what makes a man a real follower of Christ: 'He who lives in 
 love lives in God, and God in him.' 'Seek love, give love and leave the 
 rest,' says the poet Robert Browning." 
 
 In the year 1915 a great burden of anxiety fell upon the 
 shoulders of one who was already bowed beneath the weight 
 of many years of struggle, care and sorrow. Mr. Hoxie's 
 daughter was stricken with a well-nigh fatal disease and was 
 obliged to relinquish the companionship of her aged parents 
 and the care of their home and to enter a far-distant hos- 
 pital. In spite of his intense solicitude for her welfare and 
 the loneliness to which her exile condemned him, Mr. Hoxie 
 did not seek sympathy for himself but he buckled on anew 
 the armor of his hope and courage and still went about the 
 chief business of his life, his Father's business, the endeavor 
 to help and inspire others. 
 
 At this time he writes : 
 
 "The great business of life is service to our fellow creatures. This 
 I have held as paramount nearly all my life. . . . The love of man- 
 kind seems to have been born in me. . . . Very likely you may 
 wonder how I can be cheerful. ... I will tell you in as few words 
 as I can. ... I have lost a son who was as precious to me as my 
 own life. But I think of him as taken from foreseen evil and the best 
 that is in me responds to the thought 'God is love.' I believe that all 
 the universe is full of life, that the Being we call God is the soul of the 
 universe, the mind of it just as our minds are souls of our bodies. And 
 may I not draw upon my imagination? Here I go! There is no such 
 thing as annihilation to matter or to mind. We shall live hereafter 
 and love our friends. The variety of life in the hereafter will be in- 
 finitely greater than it is upon this little, insignificant home here. 
 Why not? Really all things are made for good. As Browning says: 
 
 'The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; 
 
 What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more.' 
 
 "At least I find myself happy amidst the unpleasant things of time 
 here in thinking so. . . ." 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 159 
 
 To his daughter, at a western sanitarium, he writes on 
 June sixteenth, 1916: 
 
 "There is nothing like hopefulness and courage to keep up our 
 days in this world. No medicines are equal to peace, gentleness, pa- 
 tience and goodness in keeping us alive. . . . But I feel sometimes 
 that it is selfish to cling to this world. Why should I cling to it? I 
 feel great assurance of a better, nobler, sweeter, fairer and purer life 
 where D. is and I almost wish that I could be with him. Yet it is 
 natural to love to live here. All the universe is mind. It is the only 
 real existence." 
 
 A few days after the above writing, while he was still 
 doubtful of the ultimate recovery of his daughter and while 
 he was nearing his eighty-seventh birthday, Mr. Hoxie was 
 destined to experience the supreme sorrow of his life. His 
 remaining son, the one most like himself in thought and as- 
 piration, the one in whom his hopes and ambitions and de- 
 sires culminated, met with a tragic death. Yet, in the face 
 of this crushing calamity, he rallied and once more and 
 almost for the last time he put aside the thought of self and, 
 in spite of his own anguish of soul, strove to comfort the 
 remaining members of his family. He had said, previous to 
 this event, that he could not endure another death in the home 
 circle, that he, himself, must be the next to go, but now, in 
 this supreme crisis, he rallied to the standard of his life's 
 ideal, to help and succor others. He said, "I can bear any- 
 thing now," and, on the very evening of the day of this trag- 
 edy he writes to the wife of his son: 
 
 "Your telegram is received. ... I am comforted by the 
 thought that R. is in a better world and is really nearer to us than he 
 was in Chicago. I cannot come to you, yet I wish you could come to 
 us. We want you and both the children near us. ... I know God 
 will bless you and them. I fear that J. will not be as brave as you. 
 But she, as well as you, is blessed in having a Heavenly Father who 
 cares for all the great universe. He is the Cosmic Father and loves every 
 creature that is from Him. Nothing is lost and all things are alive. 
 Not a particle of the universe is beyond His control. He is love. He 
 is law. He is life. He is the Eternal Goodness. Browning wrote: 
 'Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name? 
 
 Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands! 
 What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the same? 
 
 Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands? 
 There shall never be one lost good! What was shall live as before; 
 
 The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; 
 
160 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; 
 
 On earth the broken arcs; in heaven a perfect round. 
 'AH we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist ; 
 
 Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power 
 Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist, 
 
 When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
 The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, 
 
 The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, 
 Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; 
 
 Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by-and-by.' 
 
 "Read Browning's poem on his own death. It is always the last in 
 all his publications. Read it and be comforted. Oh, how my heart goes 
 out to you!" 
 
 The next day, to his daughter, he writes : 
 
 "About three o'clock, your telegram came. We knew you must 
 have already received curs saying, 'We are all right ; do not worry 
 about us.' We both of us believe and feel that R. is in a better state 
 of existence than the one in which we now live. I have had experience 
 that it seems ought to be convincing. Step by step, I have been driven, 
 against my will, into Monism, i.e. the belief that the whole Cosmic 
 Universe is a living thing. Even Haeckel is driven to this position. 
 The Universe has all kinds of life. Scientists generally conclude that 
 there are many kinds of life. The trees and flowers have life. The 
 human consciousness is alive with a grade of life above the lower plane. 
 It is intelligent life. R. was one of the noblest of men. I am so sure 
 of his eternal welfare that I can scarcely conceive how any reasonable 
 person can doubt after such a man as Haeckel is obliged to admit 
 what he dees. 'That all things are alive, even the dust at our feet.' 
 
 "I, personally, find that my life is really prolonged by the belief in 
 Mcnism. Although I know that my arteries are hardening and that it 
 may be truly said that I have heart disease, I may possibly live to be 
 as old as my great grandfather was, who died at the age of one hun- 
 dred and one. If I can only be useful and not have the trouble that I 
 have referred to extended. The Cosmic Father has taken R. from the 
 evil to come just as he took D. from the evil to come. The Cosmic 
 Father loves all. Every grade of life is tending upward. Evolution is 
 evidence of this fact. 
 
 " 'There is a tide.' at least 'in the affairs of (some) men.' I be- 
 lieve this was true of R.'s departure. . . . Rejoice, my dear child, 
 that he was chosen through the will of the living universe. There was 
 no way of hope for him. Our Father designed it all. . . . You will 
 get over your illness and come home. Then we can talk of the won- 
 derful character of R., the good that he has ever sought to do for the 
 welfare of the oppressed and downtrodden. The University of Chicago 
 will be a different one from its past because of the life and death that 
 R. has given." 
 
 A little later, Mr. Hoxie says in a letter to a friend: 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 161 
 
 "R. was the most unselfish man I ever knew. He was a great 
 lover of mankind and extremely tender toward all creatures that are 
 liable to suffer pain. ... I am a great believer in unselfish love. 
 You may possibly recall this fact. He, my son, was the most per- 
 sistently unselfish lover with whom I ever became acquainted. He not 
 only loved father, mother, wife and children, unselfishly, but extended 
 his love, I sincerely believe, to all mankind. . . . He possessed the 
 soul of religion. At the time of his death my daughter was in Roches- 
 ter, Minn., recovering from an operation. ... It seemed to her 
 father and mother very doubtful if she ever returned to us in this 
 world, but she is with us now. How can I avoid being happy? My 
 two sons, I trust and believe, are in a not far off heaven — a heaven of 
 usefulness and happiness." 
 
 To a dear cousin he says: 
 
 "Jesus died to win us from selfishness. I cannot help believing R. 
 has given up his life for the same purpose. Not that I presume to 
 exalt him to the infinite importance of Jesus, but as a humble worker 
 with Jesus. I am now past my eighty-seventh birthday and I am 
 'going on,' as little children often say, 'to be older.' I am greatly 
 broken but I am remarkably well and strong for a person of my 
 age. . . . 
 
 " 'Gone they tell me is youth, 
 
 Gone is the strength of my life; 
 
 Nothing remains but decline; 
 
 Nothing but age and decay. 
 
 Not so: I am God's little child, 
 
 Only beginning to live, 
 
 Coming the days of my prime, 
 
 Coming the strength of my life, 
 
 Coming the vision of God, 
 
 Coming my bloom and my power.' " 
 
 Mr. Hoxie survived the death of his son less than a year 
 but these last months were marked by the same spirit of in- 
 domitable courage, hope and unselfishness that had character- 
 ized his entire life. His mind retained most of its original 
 vigor and clarity to the very end and his vital interest in 
 problems of the day abated not one whit in its intensity. His 
 bodily weakness debarred him from much physical exercise, 
 but he read almost continuously books on philosophy, religion, 
 psychology, biography and history. Early in the year, he 
 sent a much marked copy of Josiah Royce's "Problems of 
 Christianity" to his daughter-in-law, with these penciled 
 words: "Read and grow strong in the spirit of Christ, 
 Loyalty to God and the Beloved Community." One of the last 
 
162 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 books in which he took an especial interest was the life of 
 William Newton Clarke, a man whom he had known person- 
 ally and whom he intensely admired. He was reading, almost 
 at the last, the last volume of Woodrow Wilson's "History of 
 the United States," when the book grew too heavy for his 
 hands to hold and it was laid aside and never finished. 
 
 Books had always been his solace and his best companions. 
 When no longer able to read from them, he would ask for one 
 to be brought to his bedside and it seemed to make him 
 happy just to hold a dearly loved volume in his hand. The 
 day previous to his death, when his mind became so weak- 
 ened that he failed to recall the name of Whittier, who was one 
 of his favorite poets, he called for his "Quaker Book" and 
 listened eagerly to the reading of several poems which he 
 selected. 
 
 His thought for the comfort and good of others, his 
 sweetness and gentleness of character persisted to the very 
 end. He manifested an anxiety to give as little discomfort to 
 those who nursed him as possible and he endeavored to ease 
 the burden, which he foresaw for his family when he should 
 be gone, by trying to plan out something of the future with 
 his daughter. He deplored the inevitable separation but he 
 begged his daughter to let him go willingly so that he might 
 go in peace, for he longed intensely to put away the flesh, to 
 be released and to go to meet his beloved sons. During the 
 last days he repeated over and over these words from "God 
 in His World," a book that had been his solace and almost his 
 daily companion for nearly thirty years : "In every way our 
 Lord's Gospel is that of Release — release from weariness, 
 from care, from all solicitudes, from all questionings, from 
 conflict, from all the maxims and traditions and command- 
 ments of men, from all outward authority, from the lien upon 
 the soul of material possessions, from the strife of ambition, 
 from the bonds of sin and from the power of death." And, 
 with this thought in his soul, "God's Good Man" went home 
 to meet his loved ones. 
 
 The life of Solomon Hoxie "was a magnificent achieve- 
 ment, long, good and useful." He was thoroughly imbued 
 with the spirit of service which made him defend the weak 
 and helpless, inspire the ambitions, give hope to the de- 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 163 
 
 pressed, encourage the downtrodden and strengthen the err- 
 ing. All who knew him loved him. It was a privilege to call 
 him friend and a real benediction to come into his presence. 
 He looked on life from a mountain top. No one had higher, 
 sweeter views of God and man and the ultimate destiny of 
 humanity, but he labored with his fellows in the valley. At 
 eighty-seven he was younger in spirit than any other person 
 I have ever known and he kept his interests and enthusiasms 
 to the very close of his life. He was unselfish to a fault. He 
 cared nothing for material possessions, for things, but every- 
 thing for people and ideas. "Why should I call anything 
 mine," he often said. "It was the father's bounty that the 
 prodigal spent." 
 
 Sometimes it might have seemed to strangers that he 
 wished to proselyte. When he experienced an inspiring 
 thought, or discovered a new idea or theory which delighted 
 his soul or appealed to his intellect ; or when he found a new 
 author or a new book that soothed or uplifted his spirit, his 
 great, glowing heart and his unselfish love made him so eager 
 to share this idea, or thought or pleasure with others, that 
 they too might know the joy of its possession, that he may at 
 times have appeared to those who knew him least, to be 
 trying to force his point of view upon others. But this was 
 not true. 
 
 After Mr. Hoxie's death a fried, Mr. William P. F. Fergu- 
 son, in writing to the former's daughter, said : 
 
 "For a thoughtful man to know Solomon Hoxie was to respect him. 
 For any man who thinks and feels for his fellow men and dreams of the 
 Better To-morrow, to come to know him well was to love him. 
 
 "As I think back to the days when I much walked and talked with 
 him, there are two things which strike me with special force: 
 
 "First, his splendid, kindly tolerance. 
 
 "Always, I realize, he was thinking on a plane higher and broader 
 than that on which most of us with whom he talked were thinking — often 
 far higher than we were able to think — but he never held himself above 
 us; never jarred the conversation with an exposure of the ignorance or 
 pettiness of another. If he tried to lift your thinking, it was never 
 with any patronizing air. You seldom went away from him without a 
 distinct sense of uplift, but so kindly was the hand that lifted that you 
 probably never suspected that he had revised or corrected your thinking 
 — never that he had discovered the paltry standards of your thoughts 
 or your dim ideals. 
 
164 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 "The other, his utter lack of what you may call the spirit of the 
 'propagandist.' 
 
 "He Was indeed a propagandist of the highest, noblest order. He 
 sowed seeds of truth, constantly; and few sowed with a better harvest. 
 
 "When a new truth dawned upon him it was sheer desire to give 
 others the joy that it brought him that sent him to tell somebody else. 
 The attitude of forcing you to believe as he believed, of drafting you to 
 the support of some theory in theology or some policy in politics was 
 wholly absent. 
 
 "He was a good soldier of the Better To-morrow, with all a soldier's 
 courage in standing for what he saw as right; no pressure could force 
 his assent to an error or his consent to a wrong, but he was no 'antag- 
 onist,' no 'disputant.' His approach to every man to whom he had any- 
 thing to tell was that of a joyful messenger bringing good news. 
 
 "First and last he handed me many a book to read, some of them 
 revolutionary as regards the world's common way of thinking; but I 
 never felt that he was trying to 'convert' me. He gave me the chance 
 to read the book, just as he set the chair for me by the fire on a cold 
 day, or invited me to a seat at his table or to rest in the shade of his 
 trees — upon the motion of a heart that loved to do kind things. 
 
 "On his book-shelf, yonder, I see four worn copies of a book he 
 found great joy in, 'God in His World.' He loaned that book constantly, 
 not to shake faith in orthodoxy, not to win adherents to any sect or 
 company, but because it had opened to him a field of glorious thinking 
 and splendid discoveries, and he wanted to share the delight of it with 
 others. 
 
 "Solomon Hoxie walked a high path with God; he abode under the 
 shadow of the Almighty in 'the secret of His tabernacle,' but no man 
 with whom he went a mile or sat a moment ever felt a 'holier-than- 
 thou' chill. When in his converse with others there was, as indeed there 
 was sure to be, aught of intimation of the higher realm of things he 
 knew, it was always in the tone and spirit of one who says, almost diffi- 
 dently, 'I know where there is something beautiful; would you like to 
 see it?' 
 
 "In that Higher Life, beyond the divide, in which he so firmly and 
 so joyously believed, I some way feel I would joy to have him take me 
 around and point out the beauty spots and the glory heights and intro- 
 duce me to the tall souls with whom he must now be 'walking in white.' 
 And it will be like him, like him as we knew! him here, to be coming 
 down, day and night — no, there is no night there; to be coming down in 
 those everlasting mornings to the gates of pearl, to meet the earth souls 
 as they come in and say: 'Come and see what nice things I have found 
 here.' " 
 
 Solomon Hoxie was one of those great, rare souls to be 
 met with once in a lifetime. Deeply religious, living his re- 
 ligion, the key note of which was love for his fellow men. 
 Indeed the joy of loving and giving was his in prodigal de- 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 165 
 
 gree. These words of the poet, which he often repeated, 
 seemed written especially for him : 
 
 "O, might I, in my exaltion, 
 
 To all the world this joy impart; 
 Would I might clasp the whole creation; 
 
 Friends or strangers; foes or brothers; 
 With ardent rapture to my heart." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 A MODERN PATRIARCH 
 
 "Without looking in the dictionary for a precise definition of the 
 term, I judge it will apply properly to Mr. Solomon Hoxie, because I 
 think of a patriarch as a man of prophetic vision combining the wisdom 
 of the sage with the kindliness of one who loves his fellow men, all of 
 which is true of Mr. Hoxie. He has always been more interested in 
 others than in himself. Entirely foreign to his nature is the careful, 
 calculating spirit that provides first for the welfare of 'number one.' 
 His support of a cause has ever been prompted by regard for the cause, 
 which, I suppose, is true of the world's best workers in every field." 
 
 "Until I met him to-day in his own home, I had not seen Mr. Hoxie 
 in nearly a decade. The last time was at the annual meeting of the 
 Holstein-Friesian Association in Syracuse, near the close of his long 
 term of service as superintendent of Advanced Registry. Then he 
 seemed in a troubled mood. The duties of his office, which he had always 
 taken very seriously, were evidently becoming too great a burden for 
 one of his age to bear. Accordingly I was agreeably surprised in the Mr. 
 Hoxie of to-day with whom I have just been spending a very pleasant 
 hour. Though somewhat bowed in figure — but no more so than a dozen 
 years ago — he walks with a quick firm step ; his eye is bright and his 
 brow is untroubled. When he came to the door to meet me, and gave 
 me a welcoming hand-clasp, I was wondering if he had actually grown 
 younger during the years since I saw him before. His heavy gray beard 
 is still dark in places and his long shaggy eyebrows are black. 'Except 
 for my sight and hearing,' he remarked, 'I'm in pretty good shape. I 
 can read fairly well, with the aid of glasses, but at a little distance I 
 see several images where I ought to see only one. For instance, when 
 I look at the moon, I seem to see parts of three moons.' His hearing, 
 I found, was good enough so that we had not the slightest difficulty in 
 visiting together, but though keenly interested in the topics suggested 
 and perfectly willing to give me the information I asked for, he was 
 evidently less ready of expression than in the past, and the little time 
 allowed me between trains for our interview was regrettably short. His 
 thoughts do not come as rapidly as when he was younger, but they are 
 worth waiting for; and he looks back with clear vision over such a long 
 span of years that his observations are valuable as well as interesting." 
 
 "He is nearing the close of his eighty-sixth year and has, therefore, 
 been a contemporary of all but four of the twenty-seven men who have 
 
 Written in 1915 by E. M. Hastings as the result of an interview. 
 
168 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 filled the office of president of the United States. He was born July 
 29th, 1829, at Brookfield, Madison County, N. Y., on his grandfather's 
 farm which his father occupied as a tenant — an arrangement that was 
 continued when the family removed, three and a-half years later to a 
 farm acquired by the grandfather near Edmeston. Here Solomon and 
 his brother Samuel grew up together and both, as we know, later became 
 closely identified with early Holstein history in this country, the one 
 eventually fulfilling a mission for the improvement of the dairy industry 
 that will perpetuate his influence through the centuries. However, 
 today I was mainly interested in learning some of the things that only 
 Mr. Hoxie could tell me, and that are not already matters of record." 
 
 "His school advantages, I gathered, were those of the average coun- 
 try boy of his time. He attended district school for a time, and at eleven 
 years old spent two terms in a select school at Leonardsville. 'I learned 
 easily,' said Mr. Hoxie, 'and in the Leonardsville school (though per- 
 haps I ought not to say it) had no trouble in doing the same classwork 
 with the young men and women who were several years older than I 
 was.' Solomon's desire for an education evidently led him to put forth 
 every effort to make the most of the opportunities within his reach, for 
 he spent one term at New Berlin Academy, attended, for a term, what 
 was then known as the McGrawville College, and later spent three 
 months in Madison (now Colgate) University. 
 
 "Meanwhile, at seventeen, he had commenced teaching school during 
 the winter-time and outside of teaching and attending school did farm 
 work. For his first winter's teaching he was paid at the rate of eight 
 dollars a month and 'boarded around." The next year his salary was 
 increased to eleven dollars a month, these amounts being equivalent to 
 the wages paid farm help at that time. He continued to teach, mainly in 
 winter schools until after his marriage, filling positions, among others, in 
 West Edmeston, Brookfield and Leonardsville. At twenty-nine he mar- 
 ried Lucy P. Stickney, who was also a teacher. At this point in our 
 interview Mr. Hoxie remarked, 'My wife is still living; she is here 
 now, and I want you to meet her.' Whereupon he summoned the lady 
 who for nearly three score years has been the partner of his joys and 
 sorrows. She is now eighty years old, of remarkably attractive face; 
 slight of figure but forceful, and still young in spirit. Mr. Hoxie ex- 
 plained that when they were married, each was the possessor of a small 
 amount of property — Some sixteen or seventeen hundred dollars, which 
 it was agreed they should continue to hold independently, a fortunate 
 arrangement whereby Mrs. Hoxie is now able to provide the home where 
 they live, Mr. Boxie's money having been spent (as his friends well 
 know) for various benevolent purposes. Like others of the world's most 
 successful men, he has always been interested in more important things 
 than making money. 
 
 "The aged pair are fortunate in having a daughter, Jane Lincoln 
 Hoxie, who is making it her special mission to care for her parents. 
 For a dozen years this daughter was a teacher in the Felix Adler School 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 169 
 
 of Ethical Culture in New York city. Some six or seven years ago, upon 
 the death of her brother, who was a teacher in a school in New York, 
 she gave up teaching, and established the family home in Edmeston. For 
 a time Mr. and Mrs. Hoxie lived with their son, Robert F., who is a pro- 
 fessor of Economics in the University of Chicago, but Mr. Hoxie told 
 me that he prefers Edmeston to Chicago. The air is better in the quiet 
 country village. 'Winter and summer,' he said, 'I sleep with my win- 
 dows wide open.' The daughter is absent on a visit to Chicago now, but 
 I saw her photograph, and also the pictures of her two brothers, a 
 bright-looking trio, all three accomplished teachers and well up in their 
 profession when the family circle was broken into. The death of the 
 son must have been a severe blow to his parents, but in their mention 
 of him now is no note of complaint at their bereavement. Mr. Hoxie's 
 frame of mind was indicated in his answer to my question as to the 
 number of children. 'I have three,' he said, 'that is to say, I have 
 three children but one of them, a son, has died,' which reminded me 
 of Wordsworth's 'We Are Seven.' 
 
 "One cannot talk with Mr. Hoxie for very long without discovering 
 that his is a religious temperament. At the age of seventeen he was 
 impressed with the belief that he had a mission to perform in the social 
 work of his community, and commencing as a lay preacher while still 
 in his teens, he served for eight years as pastor of the little country 
 church in his home neighborhood. This church was of the Free Baptist 
 persuasion, and Mr. Hoxie is still one of its members, but his religious 
 views are too broad to be circumscribed by the creed of any one organ- 
 ization. 'When I went to Chicago,' he said, 'I joined a church there, 
 with the understanding that I could at the same time retain my member- 
 ship in my home church. Also, when I was in Yorksville, I became a 
 member, in the same way, of a church there, in which I am still inter- 
 ested, so that properly, at the present time, I belong to three churches/ 
 and, he added, with engaging simplicity and seriousness, 'I would join 
 them all if I could. By natural inclination I am a Quaker, and would 
 have joined the Society of Friends if one of their churches had been 
 within reach, but I united with the Free Baptists because theirs was 
 the only church in my community. I am interested in every means of 
 social welfare. I have even worked in the streets with the Salvation 
 Army.' Personally, I have only admiration for those who, like Mr. 
 Hoxie, are interested in every means of social welfare, and I am little 
 concerned under what name such means are exerted, but Mr. Hoxie with- 
 out knowing how broad or how narrow my own opinions might be, 
 wanted me to understand his point of view, so he added, 'Doubtless you 
 are surprised at my statement of religious views. Perhaps they are 
 best shown in some of the poems of J. G. Whittier, such as "Our Master" 
 and "The Eternal Goodness." ' Since it happens that the latter has long 
 been one of my favorite poems, I was glad to discover in Mr. Hoxie a 
 disciple of the Quaker Poet, whose creed is so well expressed in the 
 ▼erses named ; and certain of whose lines must now appeal to our aged 
 friend with special force: 
 
170 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 I long for household voices gone. 
 For vanished smiles I long; 
 But God hath led my dear ones on 
 And he can do no wrong. 
 
 I know not what the future hath 
 Of marvel and surprise, 
 Assured alone that life and death 
 His mercy underlies. 
 
 And so beside the Silent Sea 
 
 I wait the muffled oar; 
 
 No harm from him can come to me 
 
 On ocean or on shore 
 
 I know not where his islands lift 
 Their fronded palms in air; 
 I only know I cannot drift 
 Beyond his love and care. 
 
 "The success of Mr. Hoxie's efforts as a preacher is shown by the 
 fact that under his pastorate the membership of the little church was 
 increased from fifty-six to more than one hundred and fifty, and in the 
 four Sunday schools that were maintained under his direction he stimu- 
 lated an interest in good reading by building up a community library 
 consisting of books of the profitable kind — literature of accepted excel- 
 lence and, in particular, scientific works, of which Mr. Hoxie has always 
 been an interested student. He wished me to understand that he did 
 not receive, nor would he accept, pay for his preaching during the first 
 five years of his Columbus Quarter pastorate. Accordingly, while per- 
 forming the duties of a home missionary, he continued to teach during 
 the school year, and did farm work outside of school. So we may think 
 of Mr. Hoxie as a leader in the important departments of activity in his 
 neighborhood, not barring politics, for we find that for several years 
 he held the office of Supervisor in his town. 
 
 "It was his desire to help in a worthy cause that led to his first con- 
 nection with the Holstein interests. A meeting had been called for the 
 purpose of forming an organization that later became known as the 
 Unadilla Valley Dutch Stock Breeders' Association, and Mr. Hoxie was 
 invited to be present for the purpose of assisting and carrying out the 
 purpose of the meeting. Always ready to help in any effort for progress 
 he decided to attend and was made secretary of the organization, an 
 office which he filled for many years with growing credit to himself and 
 the society that came to assume a foremost place among the early organ- 
 izations in this country devoted to the improvement of the dairy breeds. 
 Eventually (in 1880) the interests represented in this society organized, 
 with Mr. Hoxie as secretary and his brother, Samuel L., as president, the 
 first Friesian herd book association in America. This was known as the 
 American Association of Breeders of Thoroughbred Dutch or Friesian 
 
THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 171 
 
 Cattle and its herd book was designated the Dutch-Friesian Herd Book. 
 It thus appears that to Mr. Hoxie belongs a large share of the credit for 
 the pioneer work that led to the organization of our present Holstein- 
 Friesian Association of America. In this work Mr. Hoxie took the 
 greatest interest from the very beginning and thereafter devoted his 
 most earnest efforts during the best years of his life to the upbuilding 
 of the wonderful breed represented by this organization. It is also worthy 
 of special mention that it was largely due to Mr. Hoxie's influence that 
 the breeders of Friesland organized a herd book association — the 
 'Friesch Rundvee Stamboek,' at the head of whose list of 'Eereleden' I 
 see, by the latest volume of this publication, stands the name of S. Hoxie, 
 the only American that has been accorded this honor. 
 
 "Prior to the organization of the Dutch-Friesian Association Mr. 
 Hoxie purchased a farm in Yorkville (in 1876) where for some years 
 he maintained a herd of pure bred Holsteins owned by the Unadilla Val- 
 ley Stock Breeders' Association. In the fall of 1879 he visited Holland 
 and brought over an importation of fifty calves and the following spring 
 made a second importation consisting of more than a hundred head 
 which were purchased for the Unadilla Valley Stock Breeders' Associa- 
 tion and a company of breeders in Michigan. The next year, with Mr. 
 Burchard of Hamilton, N. Y., and Mr. Paine of Ohio, he made another 
 journey to Europe spending two months in Holland, six weeks in Guer- 
 nsey and two weeks in England. On this trip he bought about fifteen 
 Guernseys for his brother whose farm was located at Leonardsville. 
 Referring to this transaction Mr. Hoxie remarks that he later asked his 
 brother which of the two breeds he preferred, Holsteins or Guernseys, 
 and his brother answered, 'Personally I like the Guernseys the better, but 
 the Holsteins are a good deal more profitable,' a point which probably 
 explains the phemnomenal growth of the Black-and- White breed in this 
 country. 
 
 "While maintaining the herd of which he had charge on his farm at 
 Yorkville, Mr. Hoxie from the start kept a continuous record of the 
 milk production of the cows under his charge, a plan which later cul- 
 minated in the record system that has made our breed famous. It is 
 well known that our Advanced Registry system owes its origin to the 
 genius and perseverance of Mr. Hoxie. It was a flash of inspiration (for 
 Mr. Hoxie tells me that the idea came to him like a flash) which sug- 
 gested the plan of an Advanced Register in which to record animals of 
 special merit. Concerning the development of this idea and its far- 
 reaching influence, it is not the purpose of this article to attempt to 
 record but it is worthy of note that at the outset Mr. Hoxie's plan was 
 violently opposed by many breeders of prominence and others high in 
 authority in the Holstein-Friesian Association. ***** i n a 
 sketch concerning him written many years ago Mr. Hoxie is quoted as 
 saying, ***** 'After the Advanced Register was given form 
 it would have failed for a time had. it not received the support of such 
 men as T. G. Yeomans and W. Brown Smith." It is now close to three 
 
172 THE LIFE OF SOLOMON HOXIE 
 
 decades since the adoption by the Holstein-Friesian association of our 
 present Advanced Register system. Mr. Hoxie, the originator, and for 
 more than two-thirds of that time the man at the head of this system, 
 has lived to see it develop into the most potent factor that has ever been 
 devised for the improvement of the breed, and in addition has witnessed 
 its adoption in modified forms by the other great dairy breed organiza- 
 tions. 
 
 "Mr. Hoxie's library and his favorite books, and the cottage in 
 which he dwells, with its shrubbery and flowers, and the great maples 
 that shade the village street — these are the pictures that come before 
 me as I look back to my brief interview with the 'Grand Old Man' of 
 the Holstein-Friesian Association. He walked with me to the corner 
 by the postoffice — his step as firm and quick as my own — and as I turned 
 to leave he gave me a message of appreciation and gratitude to the mem- 
 bers of the association for remembering him with the annuity which 
 was voted him three years ago, and which has proved most acceptable. It 
 was characteristic that he should thank the association, but we all 
 know that the obligation is the other way, and that the account cannot 
 be squared, for the world is always indebted to its benefactors."