THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES MAKCUS T. C. GOULD AT FOKTY (FKUM AN OIL PAINTING) JMarcus T. C. Gould, By Charles Currier JBeale, Reprinted from The Phonographic Magazine and National Shorthand Reporter, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1904. The following biographical sketch was read at the Fifth Annual Convention of the Na- tional Shorthand Reporters' Association, held in Cincinnati, Ohio, in August, 1903, and was printed in full in the Phonographic Mag- azine and National Shorthand Reporter, from which the present edition of 100 copies is re- printed with several additional illustrations. Copyright, 1904, The Phonographic Institute Company. Z 4 7563 T Marcus T. C. Gould. "*HERE are those who dispute the title of shorthand reporting to be clast among the true professions ; and there have been many arguments advanced pro and con ; but to me there is a most encouraging sign of progress toward the point where such denial and op- position shall cease, and the general public shall accept us as entitled to that distinction from the man with uj the hoe or the man with the hod or even from the man (or more often the woman) who taps off " Dear sir : Yours of recent date at hand and contents noted," on ^ the trusty typewriter ; and that sign of progress is the very noticeably increast pride in our calling, as mani- fested by these yearly gatherings of reporters from dif- erent sections of the country. Aside from anything which is or may be accomplisht in the strictly business j,, matters of these conventions and our association work, ^ I believe there is ample reason for these annual as- m semblages in the broadened outlook and the increast fraternal spirit which are thus engendered. We depart * to our homes feeling that we have met men and women eminent in our profession, whom it is a privilege and pleasure to know, and we begin to feel that pride in our work and its exponents that must permeate any -J class of educated workers before it can be fairly rankt among the learned professions. gj Indeed a profession without a history and literature would be almost an impossibility, and it is a reason for Marcus T. C. Gould. congratulation, I believe, that there has been of late a more general interest in such matters on the part of reporters and shorthand writers. And I am sure we are inculcating a better knowledge of what our profes- sion really is when we acquaint the public with the character and worth and achievements of those men eminent alike in our profession and for their other at- tainments, to whom we are proud to look back as the founders of shorthand reporting in this country. On Saturday next this association honors itself in extending its tribute of respect to the memory of Thomas Lloyd, who has been well styled the " Father of American Shorthand Reporting," while here in Cincinnati the shorthand writers of America are offer- ing their token of affectionate esteem to him who shares the greatest name in modern shorthand history, and who has for fifty years held a pre-eminent place in our ranks, not alone because of the name he bears but because he has worthily upheld and been the foremost exponent in this country of the ideas and reforms which his venerated brother introduced in England, with his hearty sympathy and co-operation, sixty-seven years ago. Indeed, Cincinnati may well be termed the Mecca of American stenographers, and to use a per- haps pardonable paraphrase, where sits Benn Pitman, there is the head of the table, and to him we all yield our respect and veneration. A full century and parts of two more lie between Thomas Lloyd, beginning his reporterial career in 1785. and Benn Pitman, eighty years young, like the genial Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, and still full of enthu- siasm for shorthand at the beginning of the twentieth century, yet the shorthand career of just one man spans the gap between the two and forms the connecting link in a great American triumvirate of shorthand reporters. And it is of this man, who, taking up the work of Marcus T. C. Gould. Thomas Lloyd, became, like him, the foremost steno- graphic reporter of his time, and like Benn Pitman, was also the leading and most voluminous shorthand author of his day, and who did not lay down his facile pen until long after Mr. Pitman had firmly establisht in America the only successful rival to the hitherto victo- rious system of Samuel Taylor, it is of this great re- porter, author, and teacher, towering head and shoulders above his fellows, yet already, alas ! almost forgotten by his successors, that I am privileged to tell you to-day a man great in intellect, in achievements, in body, and in name, Marcus Tullius Cicero Gould. If there is anything in the theory that one' s life is influenced or one's tendencies and occupation shaped by the name bestowed by one's fond parents at the baptismal font, it is signally borne out in the case of Marcus Tullius Cicero Gould ; for by many investi- gators Marcus Tullius Cicero is credited with being one of the earliest patrons of our art, and to Marcus Tul- lius Tiro, his namesake, freedman, and friend, we are said to owe, if not the invention, at least the improve- ment and popularization of that curious Roman method of shorthand once so commonly used, and to which in his honor has been given the name of "Tironian Notes." It was, then, a happy augury that to him who was to be the foremost American stenographer of his time, should be given the name made famous by a great Roman orator and a great Roman shorthand author and writer. Yet it is a curious commentary on the ingratitude or indifference of our craft in modern times, that while we are almost as familiar, or at least have ample oppor- tunity to be, with the life and works of Tiro, as we are with many a latter-day notable in literature or science, so far as I can learn there has never been publisht any memoir or biographical sketch of a shorthand author so Marcus T. C. Gould. prolific that his manual ran through some fifteen edi- tions from 1823 to 1845, the final edition appearing as recently as 1860 ; of a reporter who for more than a score of years was almost constantly employed in the practical pursuit of his calling, whose publisht reports of trials, debates, conventions, etc. , would form a con- siderable library in themselves ; of a teacher so suc- cessful that he held classes of pupils sometimes num- bering into the hundreds and often under the sanction and approval, if not under the direct auspices, of some of the prominent colleges of the land ; of a publisher who in his particular line of "Friends'" or Quaker books and periodicals, must have been widely known wherever the disciples of George Fox dwelt ; of an in- ventor whose patent on a fountain pen was granted more than seventy years ago, when Andrew Jackson ruled this country, and whose "Index Rerum" and ' ' Common Place Books ' ' might well be imitated profit- ably at the present day ; of a "boomer" and promoter whose buoyant fancy pictured a new metropolis in west- ern Pennsylvania, and whose glowing encomiums thereof outrival any of our great modern real estate operators ; of a man, in short, who must have been a potent factor in the educational and commercial affairs of his day, and a credit to the profession of shorthand writing. He was a follower of Samuel Taylor, whose system he adapted to the needs of American reporters, but like Taylor himself, who, dying, left the greatest name in shorthand history, except that of Isaac Pitman and left nothing else beyond a few shadowy reminiscences for shorthand historians to work on Gould, as a man, has been almost unnoticed by historians of the art, by whom little or nothing has been known concerning his life and personality, and it is only by long and diligent search and investigation in many directions, much of it THE ANALYTIC GUIDE, AND AUTHENTIC KEY TO THE OP 'By which the Language of a Public Speaker may be- recorded, in a style at once beautiful and legible. BEING A compilation from the latest European and American publication*, with Sundry improvements, adapted to the present State of Literature in the United States. BY M. T. C. GOULD, Stenographer. JILBAMY? PRINTED BY PACKARD Sf VAN BENTHUTSEV 1823. TITLE-PAGE OF FIRST EDITION. From copy in American Antiquarian Society library, Worcester, Mass. 8 Marcus T. C. Gould. fruitless and most of it productive of not more than a " scrap" of information at a time, that I have been able to prepare the following somewhat meager, but I hope not unworthy, sketch of this eminent stenographer. The name of M. T. C. Gould does not appear in any dictionary of biography so far as I am aware, and even in Allibone's great work on English and American authors, he is dismist with a mere notice of one of his least important works, " The Stenographic Re- porter, Washington, 1841." The dates of his birth and death do not appear in any publisht records, to my knowledge. Nor can I obtain any information con- cerning him from the various historical societies of Phil- adelphia, where he made his home for many years. Indeed, it was only after I had given up all hope of solving this seeming mystery, that a happy chance gave me a clue, which, followed up, revealed the existence and place of residence of one of Mr. Gould's daugh- ters, now his only surviving child, and thus led to my securing information hitherto lacking concerning Mr. Gould' s parentage, birth, family, and death. Let me add that while, in the preparation of this memoir, I have "fisht in many waters" with the pro- verbial angler's lack of success, I am, on the other hand, greatly indebted to three good friends who have shown their practical interest in my endeavors by spending time and labor in researches which have been fruitful of important information. To these gentlemen Mr. Moses Finzi Lobo, of Philadelphia ; Mr. Julius Ensign Rockwell, of Washington, D. C. ; and Mr. Hugh Morrison, Jr., of the Library of Congress I hereby acknowledge my indebtedness. Valuable hints and suggestions have been received also from Mr. Jerome B. Howard, of Cincinnati ; Mr. B. C. Murray, of Denison, Texas ; Mr. William T. Reeder, of Beaver Falls, Pa.; and Mr. H. F. Hawkins, Postmaster of Marcus T. C. Gould. Beaver Falls, to all of whom, as well as to the members of Mr. Gould' s family, who have cordially assisted me so far as lay in their power, I wish to express my obli- gations. M. T. C. Gould, like his great namesake, was a Ro- man, but Rome, New York, and not the Eternal City, claims the distinction of being the birthplace of our modern Marcus. His parents were Chester and Mary (Warren) Gould. Chester Gould was born in England, of Welsh ancestry, and in recognition of his inventive genius in important lines connected with the British Navy, was granted a pension of five hundred pounds sterling and the title to ten thousand acres of land in South Carolina. The exact date of his coming to this country is not clear, nor the length of stay here. The son Marcus was born February 27, 1793, and there are evidences that as late as 1796 Chester Gould was still living in this country. He died in England, date un- known, and there, too, in 1801 or 1802, died his wife, the mother of Marcus. Chester Gould had two broth- ers, Calvin and James, and a sister Mary, who married Thomas Gaylord. It was with this aunt in Utica that young Marcus made his home after his father's death, which was soon followed by that of his uncle, Dr. Calvin Gould, who had been appointed his guardian. Chester Gould was evidently a man of substantial means, but through carelessness or neglect on the part of some one it is not certain just whom the patrimony of Marcus was largely mismanaged or lost, so that when he started in business he was possest of only moder- ate means. I cannot forbear relating a characteristic little story of Gould's childhood, which is current in his family, told me recently by his great-granddaughter. It illus- trates clearly the determination to accomplish his pur- poses regardless of opposition, which Gould demon- io Marcus T. C. Gould. strated so well in later life. Before Chester Gould's visit to England, from which he never returned, he fan- cied that he would like to see his little boy, then three or four years of age, dressed in the coat and trousers to the wearing of which all boys look forward with so much pleasurable anticipation. Accordingly, little Marcus was duly arrayed in these manly garments for his father's inspection, and the result was so much to his own delight that he strenuously insisted that he would not go back to skirts. The feminine members of the family, however, put a veto on his masculine aspira- tions, and considered the matter settled. Not so Mar- cus, who, even at this early stage, had a mind of his own, and when the time came to separate him from his cherisht jacket and trousers, no traces of his former and now despised clothing were to be found, nor was the most extended search able to bring them to light, and little Marcus was allowed to wear his new costume in triumph. Long years afterward, upon the occasion of alterations being made upon the dwelling, a large bun- dle of childish apparel was found concealed far back under the attic eaves, where the sharp eyes of the mother and other feminine relatives had not been able to discover it, and even to this day the story of this little early triumph is told to each new generation of Gould's descendants. Whether there is any moral in this tale, I leave it to you to decide. When about twenty-one he engaged in business with his brother-in-law, R. L. Hess, and conducted a store at Onondaga Hill, near Syracuse. From here he was accustomed to ride over to Camillus, to pay his respects to Miss Maria Collins of that town, a most attractive young lady, who soon after became his wife, and who survived him after a married life of about forty years, dying in 1871. They had four children, Mary E., Tullius, Marcus, and Adele E. Tullius and Marcus Marcus T. C. Gould. 1 1 died in childhood, but the two daughters survived their parents, Mary, the elder, dying in 1890, while Adele, who married Harrison Mendenhall, still lives, in New Brighton, Pennsylvania. While Mary and Adele were but little tots, Gould was for a time located at West Point, where he was engaged in teaching and report- ing, and it is said that the army officers stationed there greatly admired the charming young matron and her beautiful children, and might often be seen pulling the latter up and down the long piazzas, while gal- lantly addressing characteristic compliments to their mamma. About the time of his marriage, Gould engaged with his partner and brother-in-law in operating salt works near Syracuse, but eventually gave this up ; Mr. Hess becoming clerk of courts at Syracuse, a position he held for many years, and Mr. Gould taking up the profession of shorthand teaching and reporting in which he was to achieve so signal success. Mr. Gould' s life was so busy and his enterprises so varied, his activity continuing up to the time of his death, that he never had time or inclination to indulge in the reminiscences and harmless garrulity of age, so that comparatively little is known by his descendants of his early years and the details of his education ; but the latter, whether the result of academic training or self- acquired, was very evidently thorough and of surprising extent, as shown by the quality of his original writings and the ability and taste displayed in the publications which he compiled or edited. It is probable that all his life up to 1820, when our knowledge of his shorthand labors begins, was spent in New York state. In the year 1811 he was doubtless located near what is now Rochester, New York, as shown by an interesting allusion in a pamphlet publisht by him twenty-five years later, which I quote, as follows: \ 12 Marcus T. C. Gould. In the year 1811 I forded the Genesee River at a point, now the center of Rochester, just above the first considerable Fall. At that time I was obliged to sleep in my wet clothes, upon a green oak^ plank, because the place afforded no better accommodations it being then a wilderness, the night dark, and roads intolerable. I spent a long and sleepless night, amid the roar of a tremendous waterfall, contending with musquitoes (sic.), and listening to the music of owls and frogs, the only inhabitants of the place. As little did I then imagine that the place would, within twenty years, be the center of a large manufacturing and commercial city, as do those who visit the Falls of Beaver imagine that in twenty years we shall have a much larger city where I now write- but it will be even so. The earliest authentic trace that I have found of his work as a stenographer is in Albany, New York. There, on June 19 and 20, 1821, he reported the im- portant second trial of Medad M'Kay for the murder of his wife, the report of which was publisht in pamph- let form, and shows evidence of his ability as a law re- porter. There are some allusions in the printed volume which would perhaps lead us to infer that Mr. Gould reported the first trial of M'Kay in the preceding year, but this cannot be definitely stated without better authority. Later in the same year Gould did what was perhaps his most important piece of reporting, also in Albany, for there he took part in the reporting of the New York State Constitutional Convention, held August 28 to November 10, inclusive. There were at least two publisht reports of this convention, one by L. H. Clarke, publisht in New York, and one by N. H. Carter and William L. Stone, publisht in Albany, the latter containing an engraved plate. Both were based upon the stenographic report made by Mr. Gould. In a remarkably exhaustive and interesting paper prepared and read by my friend, Spencer C. Rodgers, the distinguish! Albany reporter, a paper which evinces great patience and research, read at the 1901 convention of the New York State Stenographers' Marcus T. C. Gould. 1 3 Association at Buffalo, Gould' s work in this convention is described as follows : The proceedings of the Constitutional Convention held in 1821, occupying 703 pages, were reported by Marcus T. C. Gould, and bear evidence of considerable condensation. In a diagram of the Assembly Chamber, the space assigned to Mr. Gould is off at the extreme left side, and outside of the most outer row of members, and from my personal experience in reporting debates in that old Assembly Chamber, although I had a central position, his opportunity for inaccurate hear- ing must have been greatly enhanced. His position is markt upon the diagram "Gould," and the interior of the space is occupied by some words in the Gould system of hieroglyphics. The introduction is worthy of being transferred in part to satisfactory, but with all their industry and labor it is not improbable that amidst other avocations errors may have escaped their observation, and in some cases perhaps injustice has been done to the speakers. If such defects shall be found, the reporters trust they will find an apology in the difficulty of hearing at all times distinctly, speakers in a re- mote part of the house ; of comprehending their arguments always when they were heard, and of following with minute accuracy the detail of the proceedings amidst intricacies and confusion in which the convention sometimes found itself in- volved. The office of reporter is one of responsibility, invid- ious and ungrateful. While its duties are arduous and re- sponsible, requiring great labor and vast industry, the most unwearied and faithful discharge of these duties is attended with no adequate reward in a literary point of view. The nature of the office precludes the exercise of those faculties of the mind which can alone confer dignity and reputation upon literary efforts; and the reporter in his best estate is but a manufacturer of intellectual wares from such raw materials as are furnisht at his hands. This reduces his province to ey . would be equally incompatible with the principles of correct taste and with the fidelity of the reporter, to attempt to invest plain sense and dry argument with the embellishments of fancy or elaborate elegance of diction. It is the duty of the reporter to give the speeches both in matter and manner as they were delivered, except in such inadvertent inaccuracies as might be supposed to occur in the heat and hurry of de- bate." 14 Marcus T. C. Gould. In another report of the convention the publisher states that it was found impossible in the course of proceedings for one reporter to take and transcribe verbatim the speeches of all those who at different times occupied the floor, and there- fore he has entered into an agreement with Messrs. Gould, Stone, and Carter, by which he has been enabled to avail himself of the labors of all those who were engaged in re- porting. Stone and Carter I think were editors. In the same year he was engaged to some extent in legislative reporting in Albany, as shown by the " De- bate in the Senate of New York on Mr. Granger's motion . . . with Mr. Granger's address to the Conventions of the two Republican Parties in the West- ern District," taken in shorthand by Mr. Gould and publisht in Albany, 1821. All this work was done previous to the issuing of his text-book on shorthand, although, as will be shown, he was engaged at this time in teaching the art as well as in reporting. Gould based his method upon that of Samuel Taylor, first publisht in England in 1 786, and already applied to a number of the European lan- guages. In 1809 appeared in Boston a cheap reprint of a small London-publisht pamphlet explaining Tay- lor's system (see PHONOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, Vol. XVI, p. 161), which may have fallen into Gould's hands, but it is fair to presume that the well-gotten-up Albany edition of Taylor's complete work, brought out in 1810 (see PHONOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, Vol. XVI, p. 163), may well have been the basis of Gould's sys- tem, for only eleven years after, in 1821, we find traces of his successful teaching of the art. His earliest pub- lisht work now extant is the "Analytic Guide," first publisht in Albany in 1823. There is reason to be- lieve, however, that even earlier than this, Mr. Gould had prepared printed lesson material in some form for the use of his scholars. It is probable that this was of such an ephemeral nature, perhaps mere leaflets or Marcus T. C. Gould. 15 cards, that none have survived the vicissitudes of eighty- odd years; but allusions in his earliest known works seem to point to the existence of something of the kind, and copies may yet turn up to delight the heart of some fortunate collector. When we remember that the lesson-sheets prepared and used by one of the most successful teachers of phonography in its early days, Rev. Oliver Dyer, have vanisht from the knowledge of shorthand scholars and bibliographers in the much shorter space of time elapsing since he instructed his immense classes in the fifties and late forties, and that the only set now known is that resurrected by Mr. David Wolfe Brown, from a Philadelphia bookstall, we can understand how aperhaps still more evanescent presentation of Gould's system, publisht a quarter cen- tury before, has totally disappeared. It appears reason- ably certain, moreover, that some time before his manual appeared, Gould had arranged Taylor's system briefly in the form of a map or chart with the title " Steno- graphic Synopsis." This is referred to in an adapta- tion of Taylor publisht by Jonathan Dodge, of Provi- dence, Rhode Island, in the early part of 1823, practi- cally contemporaneously with the first edition of Gould's ' 'Analytic Guide. ' ' It would seem from the manner in which Dodge alludes to Gould that the former was not aware of the publication of the " Guide," but was familiar with the aforesaid chart. This chart was ad- vertised by Gould in his 1823 and later editions, vari- ously as a "map," "chart," and "card," at first at one dollar, and later, in a "revised edition," at two dollars. It was described as being so large that when hung on the wall the characters were clearly visible to a whole school. Gould also publisht and advertised a set of " stenographic cards in a neat morocco case," at two dollars, devised to accompany this chart. I do not know of the location of any of these sets. 1 6 Marcus T. C. Gould. Gould's reputation as a teacher of shorthand seems to have become firmly establish! even before the publi- cation of his text-book, because in the first edition some glowing testimonials are printed, which demonstrate him to be, at least for the period, a teacher of remarkable ability and success. We of the latter days are apt to think and speak dis- dainfully of those whose benighted eyes never saw the beautiful and compact combinations of right lines, cir- cles, and quadrants, which go to make up phonography as a genus, regardless of ' 'system " or " method, ' ' the most successful and perhaps the only really adequate means of recording human speech yet discovered but it must be admitted that a system which has endured, under the most exacting conditions and despite all com- petition, for nearly 120 years, as has Samuel Taylor's, and which as taught and practist by Gould received such encomiums as were bestowed upon him and it by some of the leading educators and jurists of his day, which was indorst by hundreds or even thousands of sat- isfied students, and which has preserved for us thousands of printed pages of speeches, sermons, debates, and tes- timony, must have had elements of viability and at least the possibilities in skilful hands of real and credit- able reporting. So that from the vantage-point of acknowledged superiority, we may at least esteem those early systems and the reporters who used them so skilfully, as not unworthy predecessors, and per- haps, all things considered, more able and credit- able representatives of our profession in its youth than we are in its prime. Perhaps even at a distance in the future no greater than that from which we look back pityingly at Gould and his fellow reporters toiling away in a desperate endeavor to follow a rapid speaker, some stenographic New Zealander, curiously inspecting our text-books and our printed reports, and perchance even Marcus T. C. Gould. 17 a few specimens of our shorthand notes, laid away in some museum or library as mementos of the time when the old-fashioned methods of shorthand writing used at the beginning of the twentieth century were in vogue, will wonderingly glance through your note-book or mine, and see where we floundered along wildly about fifty words behind some fluent lawyer cross-examining a glib witness about the manner of taking a culture for the bacillus of tuberculosis, or the result of a test of the alignment of a compound steam engine, and think how crude and imperfect our methods must have been. To be sure, in our up-to-date self-sufficiency, we know our systems are the acme of shorthand progress ; but Mar- cus Tullius Cicero Gould thought his was ; and that elder Marcus Tullius doubtless advertised in the Rome Sunday Stylus that at last the problem of verbatim reporting was solved, and warned all readers to beware of the antiquated methods of Andrew J. Romulus and Isaac P. Remus. ' ' Tiro' s system is absolutely the only one indorst by the orators of the Tribune and Forum. Reporting speed in three months. Engage- ments made by the author to furnish accurate reports of speeches, debates, and trials. ' Daily copy ' if desired. References, Col. M. T. Cicero, and many other emi- nent senators. Pocket edition, on papyrus, 15 sestertii ; edition de luxe on real parchment, IO denarii. No. 1625 North Appian Way." Truly there is nothing new under the sun, and doubtless those swift writers "out of Zebulon," of whom we read in Holy Writ, really thought themselves as skilful as we to-day be- lieve our Murphy and Brown and Irland and Dem- ming and Rodgers and even (whisper it softly) our- selves ! But it is a far cry from Habakkuk and his robed and sandaled scribes on the banks of the Euphrates to M. T. C. Gould half way up the Hudson, and we, nearing 1 8 Marcus T. C. Gould. that century point previous to which it is said no true and unbiased history can be written, may perhaps be able for the time being to imagine ourselves unpreju- diced onlookers, and follow him in his stenographic peregrinations. In those days competent reporters were few. There was not sufficient lucrative employment to warrant the establishment of reporters' offices here, there, and everywhere, as at the present time. Consequently, the services of the proficient stenographer were liable to be called from widely separated portions of the country ; and the field of Gould' s reporting experiences seems to have ranged from New England to South Carolina, as shown by the printed reports issued by him or by those employing him. It is noticeable that in the early his- tory of shorthand reporting printed transcripts of the reporter's notes were issued with much greater fre- quency than now, and it would not be difficult for a collector of such "literature" to get together a library of most imposing dimensions. It is, therefore, to these "landmarks" and the internal evidence of his other publications that we owe much that we are able to glean concerning the career of Gould. His text-book of shorthand must have been received with immediate favor, since we find him publishing his second edition in Albany, in 1823, only a few months after the first, and in 1824, he issues in New Haven, Connecticut, a third edition, followed by a fourth edi- tion the same year in New York City. The demand would then seem to have abated, or the editions may have been larger, for the fifth edition did not appear until about two years later, in 1826, in Baltimore, Maryland. In the mean time, however, one H. L. Barnum had brought forth in Baltimore, in 1824, a seemingly absolute plagiarism of Gould's "Guide." By comparing the title-page and frontispiece, the great 'V s M* r v ' f O L- r >a ^\ S r 0-7 ^r^ o-t^s-. ^ V i r r -,i ~v r^* . 0""'--' 6 9 v <\/| > ^ KAf'SlMII.K OF PAGE OF NOTES FROM M. T. C. GOTTI.n'S NOTKI1OOK 20 Marcus T. C. Gould. similarity of wording and style is at once apparent. In the body of the book there is hardly a word altered, and with the exception of some omissions and an occa- sional attempt to re-arrange the wording on some of the plates, it seems impossible that it could be anything but a premeditated "steal." It is probable that Gould alluded to this work of Barnum's when he says in his own 1824 edition : The numerous attempts of quacks and pretenders, to rob the author of the lawful fruits of his labour by plagiarism and falsehood, instead of injuring, have helpt to raise his system to the station which it merits ; and to depress, in an equal ratio, the individuals who would thus wantonly trample upon the rights of a benefactor. And to make the allusion more pointed, he adds in a footnote : A number of the author's pupils have violated the rights of their benefactor, and forfeited their claims to the name of gentlemen, by imposing upon the public their plagiarisms, and perversions of a subject, which neither their reading, nor experience, had qualified them to comprehend. Yet any differences between Gould and Barnum would seem to have been adjusted later, since in 1832 we find an apparently authentic edition of his ' 'Guide' ' issued in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the same H. L. Bar- num's name appearing as publisher. Capt. H. L. Barnum was, it seems, a man after Gould' s own heart. He was by turns a shorthand author, teacher, and pub- lisher, a compiler of works on farriery and farming which attained a wide circulation, and a civil engineer. His principal bid for fame, however, is his " Spy Un- maskt," publisht in 1828, purporting to be the memoirs of the original of the hero of Fenimore Cooper's popular novel, "The Spy." The full title was "The Spy Un- maskt ; or Memoirs of Enoch Crosby, alias Harvey Birch, the hero of Mr. Cooper's tale of the Neutral Ground : being an authentic account of the secret serv- Marcus T. C. Gould. 21 ices which he rendered his country during the Revolu- tionary War, (taken from his own lips, in shorthand), comprising many interesting facts and anecdotes never before publisht. By H. L. Barnum. Embellisht with a correct likeness of the hero, with a fac simile of his signature." The portrait alluded to bears the inscrip- tion, "Drawn from life by Capt. H. L. Barnum." This book was very popular, several editions being issued in this country, and it was reprinted in England in two volumes. Barnum was also for a time editor of an agricultural paper, the Farmer 1 s Reporter. Dodge, before mentioned, seems to have modeled after Gould to some extent, but is candid enough to mention him, albeit with "faint praise." It is pos- sible, however, that Gould included him also in his de- nunciatory expressions. At all events, Dodge and Barnum were the only publishers of Taylorian short- hands in this country between the issuing of the first edition of the "Guide" and the third edition, in which these expressions occur. Rev. Phinehas Bailey, to be sure, was quite actively engaged in disseminating a modification of Taylor's system throughout New En- land, but at least three editions of his little manual appeared in 1821 and 1822, thus antedating any of Gould's known works, and it is probable that as early as 1819 he had publisht something in the nature of instruction material ; so that he cannot fairly be in- cluded in the ' ' imitators ' ' of Gould. The sixth edition of Gould' s work was publisht in Philadelphia in 1827, being the first printed in that city, from which, however, every later edition ex- cept that of 1832 in Cincinnati, before mentioned, was to issue. This (sixth) edition is very rare, my copy being the only one known to me. It would seem that at least as early as 1826 Gould had made Philadelphia his home and was engaged in 22 Marcus T. C. Gould. teaching and reporting there. The earliest newspaper advertisement of Gould' s business that I have seen, was printed in the National Gazette of Philadelphia, of November 13, 1826. This is in the collection of Mr. M. F. Lobo, of Philadelphia. I have in my collection similar advertisements publisht in the Saturday Eve- ning Post of the same city, 28 February and 9 May, 1829 ; and doubtless a perusal of the Philadelphia papers of that period would show many more. An interesting phase of Mr. Gould's life is his con- nection with the Hicksite Quakers, which covered a period of eight or nine years. For a considerable time he conducted or was interested in a ' ' Friends' Book Store" at 420 Pearl Street, New York City, and for some years publisht in Philadelphia reports related to the So- ciety of Friends or its members; and he republisht various works by or relating to the early Quakers, among them the works of George Fox, the founder of the Society, in eight volumes. The earliest work of this nature that I have seen is a book in my own collection entitled : "Sermons | by | Thomas Wetherald, ] delivered in the Friends' meeting | Washington City, | March 20 and 27, 1825. | Taken in short hand, | by Marcus T. C. Gould, | stenographer. | Second edition. | Philadel- phia : | Printed for the Proprietor, | Price 25 cents. | 1825." This is a pamphlet of about fifty pages and demon- strates Gould's ability as a reporter of religious dis- courses. In 1828 he reported two important trials of Quakers, one in Philadelphia, in June, and the other in Steuben- ville, Ohio, in October. The reports were printed, and the titles, taken from copies of the books in my collec- tion, are as follows : Report of the Trial of Friends in the City of Philadel- phia, June, 1828, or, the case of Edmund Shotwell, Joseph TF E ANALYTIC Gin OK . JiMtrrKarit Sc FRONTISPIECE TO FIRST EDITION. From copy in American Antiquarian Society library. 24 Marcus T. C. Gould. Lukins, Charles Middleton, and two others, taken in short- hand by M. T. C. Gould, Philadelphia. J. Harding, Printer, 1828. 154 pp. 8vo. Report of the Trial of Friends at Steubenville, Ohio, 15- i6th of October, 1828. Philadelphia, 1829. In the following year, 1829, appeared the seventh edition of his text-book. This was a "stereotyped" edition, and with few changes was reprinted in 1830, 1832, 1841, 1844, 1845, 1858, and 1860. The 1832 edition is the last which bears his name as publisher. The 1830 edition bears no publisher's imprint, but was doubtless issued by Gould, as the 1832 (Philadelphia) edition bears the familiar words, ' ' No. 6, North Eighth Street." The same year he issued, as publisher, the following curious work on Quakerism : ' ' The | True Christian's | Faith and Experience | briefly declared, | (fourteen lines of explanatory title) | by William Shewen. | (seven lines of Biblical quotations) | (Lon- don) printed 1684-5. I Philadelphia, reprinted and publisht by M. T. C. Gould, 1830. | Jesper Harding, printer. Printed continuously with this are two tracts entitled "A Few Words Concerning Conscience, what it is; and what estate it was in before transgression. . . By William Shewen. Philadelphia : Marcus T. C. Gould, No. 6, North Eighth Street. New York;: Isaac T. Hopper, No. 420, Pearl Street. 1830," and "A small treatise concerning evil thoughts and imagi- nations, and concerning good thoughts and heavenly meditations By W. S. Philadelphia : Marcus T. C. Gould, No. 6, North Eighth Street. New York : Isaac T. Hopper, No. 420, Pearl Street. 1830." Notwithstanding his deep interest in the doctrines of Elias Hicks and his followers, Gould never became a Friend, but later joined the Episcopal Church. He gave the ground for the Episcopal church buildings in Marcus T. C. Gould. 25 Rochester, Pennsylvania, and in Newport, Kentucky, and was a tithingman in the Rochester church. This year, 1830, also witnest the appearance of his ingenious little periodical entitled : The American Repertory of Arts, Sciences, and Useful Literature, Vol. II. January, 1831, No. I. Publish! in periodical monthly numbers, of 24 pages each, at $i a year; or sold in single numbers at 12^ cents each. By M. T. C. Gould, No. 6, North Eighth Street, Philadelphia, and No. 420, Pearl Street, New York. Philadelphia. Jesper Hard- ing Printer. 1831. Postage under 100 miles, i% cents; over 100, 2^. (This is the full title of the first issue of Volume 2; I have not seen a copy of the original issue of Volume I.) The objects of this work may be best explained by quoting his prospectus, which was in part as follows : Introduction to the first volume of the American Reper- tory of Arts, Sciences, and Useful Literature. The object of this work is to furnish, in numbers, to the rising generation, a Miniature Encyclopaedia, or General Cabinet, embracing an epitome of the most interesting topics of the age. In carrying out this design, three important principles will be constantly in view : First. To select from the great mass of human knowledge that only which is useful or ornamental. Second. To condense matter and language as far as prac- tical utility will admit. Third. To systematize and arrange the whole in such manner, that each and every portion may be turned to at pleasure, without the usual alphabetic order of the several articles, or the trouble of a common index. The example of the bee, in drawing from an almost in- finite variety of substances, that only which is adapted to its particular wants and mode of life, to the exclusion of all superfluous or extraneous matter, and the ingenious method pursued in arranging its small, but precious, stores, for future use, suggested the idea of a small periodical, of which this is a specimen. Though the primary aim of the work will be to extract, abstract, and concentrate, within convenient limits, that which is evidently useful still, whatever is ornamental in literature, science, and the arts, will not be overlookt. Another prominent object will be, to furnish the best practical system for accumulating, independently of this work, appropriate mental stores, for the varied purposes of 26 Marcus T. C. Gould. life, in whatever department it may fall. The first few numbers will communicate a practical knowledge of that labour and time-saving art, Short-Hand ; after which they will exhibit in their progress, a model place book, to be copied, or imitated, as circumstances shall justify, by all who approve the plan. For illustration, suppose two individuals, tn every respect equal, take a volume of 500 pages the one hurries through it, and lays it down to be neglected and forgotten ; the other takes time while he reads, to weigh deliberately each chap- ter, section, or topic ; and, while it is fresh in the mind, enters in his place book, in short-hand or common-hand, the substance, or, at least, the name of the subject, and page where it is found. Upon the completion of the volume, he will have formed, perhaps upon five pages, a summary of the 500. For most purposes, a perusal of the five pages will be as beneficial and satisfactory, as the re-perusal of the whole 500, though requiring but looth part of the time. These five pages then serve as a general brief, or index to the volume by which its contents are made familiar, or any particular part referred to, when occasion requires. Need the question then be askt, which of the two will make the greatest im- provement, the one practising this plan, or the one neglect- ing it ? The result is too obvious to deserve the question, or answer, as can be testified by many who have made the ex- periment. It is only necessary, then, to go one step farther, and pre- pare a key to the place book thus constructed ; and all the reading of a long life may be referred to, as the merchant re- fers to debit and credit in his leger, by the aid of his alphabet, journal, day-book, &c." Volume I of this work contained his system of short- hand and other valuable and interesting information, and was received with so much public approval that in 1832 it became necessary to reprint Volume I complete. In the mean time Volume II, for 1831, had appeared, and although the shorthand lessons were not included in this volume, there are a number of side-lights thrown upon Mr. Gould and his work. The prospectus to the first volume explains the scope of the work, which dis- plays good judgment and considerable scholarship. An interesting advertisement in this periodical de- scribes his recently-patented (October, 1830) fountain Marcus T. C. Gould. 27 pen, which he retailed at from $2 to $15, according as it was plain silver, gold trimmed, or "all gold." This appears to have been one of the earliest, if not the earliest patent issued in this country on a fountain pen. In Philadelphia, also, beginning about 1827, he publisht two Quaker periodicals, one styled the Quaker, consisting of sermons, prayers, etc., of Hicksite Quaker preachers, taken in shorthand by Mr. Gould himself; and the Friend, or Advocate of Truth, devoted to spreading the doctrines of Elias Hicks and his followers. In 1832 editions of his shorthand text-book appeared in Philadelphia and Cincinnati, and after that year Mr. Gould appears to have nothing to do with the publish- ing of his system, editions of which appeared at inter- vals for nearly thirty years, with the imprint of a Philadelphia firm of booksellers. Gould' s system, as has been stated, has received scant attention at the hands of shorthand historians. He is not mentioned by Matthias Levy or Isaac Pitman in their respective histories, and Anderson dismisses him with a line, not even giving his name correctly : "Gould, M. J. The Stenographic Reporter, Washing- ton." In Benn Pitman's " History of Shorthand," under the heading of "Samuel Taylor, 1786," he says : ' ' The system extensively known in this country as Gould's (Marcus T. C. Gould) is with some trifling alterations copied from Taylor's." Only this and nothing more of the man who had done more than any other to popularize shorthand before the advent of pho- nography and its brilliant and energetic propagandists. John Westby-Gibson, with no apparent foundation, implies that Gould merely reprinted William Harding' s adaptation of Taylor. But Gould' s " Guide ' ' appeared early in January, 1823, being copyrighted January 2 of that year, and Harding' s first edition, publisht in 1823, 28 Marcus T. C. Gould. could not by any possibility have reacht this country in time to be seized upon and reprinted by Gould at the date his own work appeared, and in all probability Gould' s work appeared first, to say nothing of the fact that although there is little difference in the system pre- sented, both being offshoots of Taylor's stenography, the manner of presentation is entirely different. Indeed it would seem that the good old Doctor, who had probably never seen an edition of Gould earlier than 1829 or 1830, drew upon his often buoyant imagina- tion a little, and putting two and two together, made Jive. It is of interest in this connection to note that Gould's favorite printer was a Philadelphia Quaker named Jesper Harding, whose name appears in connec- tion with the " Repertory" and various other publica- tions of Gould, and this association of names may have caused Dr. Westby-Gibson by "unconscious cerebra- tion ' ' to record this fancied indebtedness of Gould to another Harding. Edward Pocknell, however, more discerning, must have given Gould' s work a careful examination, for he says (" Shorthand," Vol. I, page 27) that he has a copy "printed in Philadelphia in 1831 " (an error, he writes me, for the 1832 edition, which was copyrighted in 1831), and states that Gould' s system is noticeable as pairing several consonant strokes, light and heavy, for example, f, v; k, q ; j, g. This is true, and Brother Pocknell might have included also in his statement, d, r ; and s, z; which are likewise paired by Gould. Julius Ensign Rockwell, our impartial and compre- hensive bibliographer, was the first to show Gould in his proper colors, by giving in his Bibliography (1884) the long list of Gould's shorthand works and the alphabet of his system, and it is to be hoped that in future, however preferable we may think our modern methods are, we shall be ready to give due credit and Marcus T. C. Gould. 29 honor to the indefatigable Gould, as a good stenogra- pher, a successful teacher, and an earnest worker for the popularization of shorthand. At least two able reporters of Congress learned Gould's system, though neither of them used it in congressional reporting. Mr. William Henry Burr, who was a congressional reporter in the sixties, learned Gould's system at school, but never made any practical use of it, dropping it eventually to take up phonography under the instruction of Rev. Oliver Dyer. But Mr. John Howard White, who for the past quarter century has had a brilliant record as one of the official reporters of the house of representatives, thoroughly mastered Gould's system and used it for a number of years in practical shorthand work as a court reporter, finally defying the old adage about " swapping horses while crossing a stream," by successfully changing to the Benn Pitman system in the midst of the arduous duties attendant upon reporting a four months' constitutional convention at Richmond, Virginia. Mr. White, it is said, still retains the vowel scale of Gould, somewhat modified by himself. Gould's Quaker son-in-law, Harrison Mendenhall, was an expert writer of Gould' s system, and it appears from their correspondence that he sometimes wrote to Gould in stenography ; while Mr. Gould' s cousin and favorite pupil, Titus William Powers of New York, wrote the New Testament in his system, had it neatly bound and presented it to him. This copy is now, I believe, in the State Library at Albany, where also are said to be the original shorthand notes taken at the Albany convention. Edward Hopper, son of Isaac T. Hopper, a promi- nent Quaker, who had charge for some time of Gould's publishing business in New York, and between whom (the father) and Gould a bitter and deplorable contro- 30 Marcus T. C. Gould. versy arose, was for some time Mr. Gould' s assistant in teaching shorthand, and afterwards did some creditable reporting. I have seen several printed trials with his name as reporter on the title-page. I believe that the most famous writer of Gould's system, however, was Patrick Kean, of Richmond, Virginia, who was the shorthand reporter of the Con- federate Congress, and who may very likely have been one of Gould' s pupils. Adam Miller, of Chicago, author of an adaptation of Gould's system styled " Laconography," publisht about 1890, I believe, was in his youth a pupil of Mr. Gould, and stated that he used the system for upward of fifty years in reporting and for all classes of shorthand work. Indeed, we must conclude that Gould' s system was at one time extensively used, and that it has stood the test of practical work in many hands besides those of the inventor himself. As it is always a matter of interest to know what manner of man physically a noted personage was, I may say that Gould was a man of striking personal appearance ; lacking only a fraction of an inch of being six feet tall, straight and well-proportioned, with a ruddy complexion, bright blue eyes, and hair, which, gray at thirty, became snow white in later years, so that, especially when drest in the picturesque small clothes which had not even then been quite abandoned, and which in early manhood he was fond of wearing, he must have made an imposing figure, and it is per- haps easy to understand how he was never at a loss to interest those with whom he came in contact, in his various plans and enterprises, or how he was able to hold the attention of large classes of pupils. He was a good and ready speaker, and never hesi- tated to ' ' take the stump ' ' in behalf of any of his projects. Indefatigable himself, seemingly tireless, M. T. P. OOUI.D IN I.ATKK I,IKE (From a crayon portniit 32 Marcus T. C. Gould. and, like Napoleon, requiring but a few hours' sleep, he urged his associates on to greater activities by tongue, pen, and example, and was a true prototype of that restless hustling Americanism which seems bound to dominate the world. In 1835 or earlier Gould seems to have taken up a new role that of land ' ' boomer ' ' or real estate pro- moter, and he seems to have gone into this new line of business with the same energy which he displayed in every other enterprise in which he embarkt. In the extreme western part of Pennsylvania, about thirty miles northwest of Pittsburg, at the junction of the Beaver and Ohio rivers, is the town of Beaver, county seat of Beaver county, with a population of two thousand, more or less. A few miles up Beaver river is the thriving little city of Beaver Falls, with rising ten thousand inhabitants. Scattered between and around them are the little villages of Brighton, Roches- ter, New Brighton, Fallston, Bridgewater, Freedom, and others. Here, if Gould's prophetic visions had been well founded, there should be to-day, instead of these straggling country towns and villages, one grand homogeneous manufacturing metropolis, vast in area, population, industry, and wealth, a united whole under the euphonious and appropriate name of Beaver City. For thus ran his bright dreams of the future. Here, in a region blest by nature with mineral richness (as he thought) almost beyond belief, with an immense and continuous natural waterpower, capable of almost un- limited artificial extension, with no less than eight rail- roads and two canals (all then on paper) eager to make the coming city their center and meeting place ; with every facility for the economical production of all kinds of manufactures, the ardent fancy of our whilom teacher, reporter, author and inventor painted a glowing picture of a city rising Aladdin-like, populous, wealthy and Marcus T. C. Gould. 33 beautiful, to enrich its projectors and hand their names down to posterity as the farseeing founders of Beaver City the great. But alas, all that remains of these beautiful dreams is this cluster of towns and hamlets, some of them some- what increast in population, others barely holding their own, certainly as an aggregate no more than keeping up with the average growth of similar American communi- ties in the same period ; and if it were not for a curious old pamphlet of thirty pages, and yellow paper cover, of which a few copies fortunately still survive, this in- teresting phase of Gould's career might have past en- tirely unnoticed. This pamphlet was issued by Gould as the agent of the exploiters of "Beaver City," in 1836. It is an octavo pamphlet, bearing the simple title "Beaver City," and on the cover is a rough woodcut map show- ing the location of the " city " as before stated, at the conflux of a network of rivers, canals and railroads, all but the rivers being apparently in futuro. The pam- phlet also contains a map finely engraved on copper, illustrating the topography in detail. This pamphlet describes the proposed Beaver City, which was to be "a general term for a community of small villages or towns, clustering round the mouth and falls of Beaver River, like so many wards of a great city ; viz. ; Brighton, New Brighton, Fallston, Sharon, Bolesville, Beavertown, Bridgewater, East Bridgewater, Fairport, Freedom, Philipsburg, etc." After setting forth their unrivaled advantages of water-power, coal mines, etc., and the fact that eight railroads and canals are to find here a common center, he states that the proposed city already has a population of nearly six thousand enterprising inhabitants. He then mentions numerous inquiries he has received from New England, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, 34 Marcus T. C. Gould. Virginia, North Carolina, Western New York and Ohio, and says : " Now, after wasting reams of paper, in my best endeavors to appease the cravings of a hungry com- munity by letter writing, till I have grown gray in the service, I have at last determined to sum up the whole matter, in the following pages and sell it to anybody who is willing to buy and pay for it, whether they read it or not ; for of writing letters there is no end, except this be so called. " M. T. C. Gould, of Beaver City." "Philadelphia, Nov. 1836." The pamphlet contains five letters headed, Letters from Marcus T. C. Gould, New Brighton, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, to Samuel C. Atkinson, the first being dated New Brighton, September, 1835, the next three without date, and the last one dated New Brighton, September 28, 1835, and addrest to S. C. Atkinson, Esq., Philadelphia. These letters are ex- tremely interesting both as showing Mr. Gould's powers of description and as carrying us back to the days before the age of electricity, when even the rail- road was a new factor in human progress, and methods of communication and of doing business generally were crude and cumbersome as compared with the extraor- dinary facilities of to-day. I have space for only a few selections from these letters, but can assure my hearers that the remaining portions were of the same tenor. We are here placed at an elevation of some seven hundred feet above the level of the ocean, and from fifty to one hun- dred miles west of the Allegheny mountains those mighty purifiers of the United States atmosphere, whose summits look down upon the great lakes of the north-west, the St. Lawrence of the north-east, the Delaware, the Chesapeake and the Atlantic in the east, the Gulf of Mexico south, and the Rocky Mountains west. To those at all conversant with Alphabet and Common \Vords * 3 Vi ^ c \ Kvrfy f/ /f JC 64 X f /mty 5