JOHN HAKOLD,
General Snpt.
\. v. State Agricultural {Society.
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MEMORIA.L

EDWARD G. FAILE.

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MEMORIAL ADDRESS

CHARACTER AND PUBLIC SERVICES
OF THE LATE
EDWARD G. FAILE, Esq.,
EX-PRESIDENT OP THE
DEIilVEREU BEFORE THE SOCIETY
AT THE CLOSE OF ITS
ANNUAL EXHIBITION AT ROCHESTEIi,
SEPTEMBER 23d, 1804
AND AT THE REQUEST OF ITS EXECUTIVE CUMMITTEE, BY THE
HON. A. B. CONGER,
"Waldbzeo, N. Y., ex-president of the society.

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ALBANY :
CHARLES VAN BENTHUYSEN, PIIINTEE.
1865.

^m |J0vfe ^Uit gigtWtuval <f owtg.
Executive Meeting, Mat 19, 1864.
Mr. Conger presented to the Board for approval
and entry on its records, the following minute
on the death of Edward G. Faile, Ex-President:
" The Executive Board, so often of late called to
mourn the loss of those who have heen eminent
in the service of the Society, has now to record
the decease of one of its own associates — its late
presiding officer.
Edward G. Faile died on the 20th of April last,
in the 66th year of his age, in the blissful hope
of a life beyond life. The disease which bore him
from us with such fatal rapidity, was contracted,
not in the furtherance of any private interest, but
in a service rendered on an industrial farm, of
which he had been for years a liberal supporter
and an efficient manager. Happy he was in this
respect, also, in his death ; its occasion was a
crowning glory to a beneficent career.
Devoting the prime of his manhood to commer
cial pursuits, he early developed that unbending
integrity, that love of order, and that practical

sagacity, which secured to him not only success, but
confidence and respect ; and when he retired from
active business with a competency at his command,
his untiring energy was directed to various honor
able trusts, of which the advancement of the
agricultural interests of his neighborhood and
State was his choicest labor.
In the councils of our Society his sterling
qualities were admirably brought out and fully
prized ; and we had fondly trusted that he might
have been spared to fill up the measure of those
years for which, by virtue of his Presidential
office, he was set apart as a councillor of our
Board ; but it has been otherwise decreed by Him
" who doeth all things well."
His place no man may fill ; his chair is vacant,
and will remain so for years ; we shall miss his
ripe experience. Only in memory can we now
feel the power of his inflexible adherence to his
convictions of right, and the grace of his diffidence
in what he was not thoroughly assured. His
honors were placed upon a modest brow ; he sought
only usefulness, and this he bravely achieved.
We mourn a brother and a friend — one whose
life was without reproach, and whose course was
without fear ; and with so poor a tribute to his

worth, we yet desire that it may serve as an
incentive to others to emulate his example, and
prove some source of consolation to his bereaved
family and friends."
Mr. Geddes and Mr. Peters made appropriate
remarks in relation to our deceased associate, and
on motion of Mr. Peters the testimonial submitted
by Mr. Conger was approved and ordered pub
lished, and a copy of the proceedings of the
Board to be forwarded to the family of the
deceased by the Secretary.
A letter from Hon. Lewis F. Allen, of Black
Rock, was read, in relation to the loss sustained
in the death of Gen Wadsworth and Mr. Faile,
and suggested that a testimonial be prepared and
presented at the annual Fair at Rochester
Mr. Allen was appointed to prepare the testi
monial as to Gen. Wadsworth, to be read before
the Society at the annual Fair at Rochester, and
Mr. Conger was requested to take charge of the
testimonial to Mr. Faile, and have it presented
before the Society at the same time.

FALL MEETING

fumn.

ON THE FAIR GROUNDS OF THE SOCIETY
AT ROCHESTER, SEPT. 23, 1864.

James 0. Sheldon, Esq., President, in the chair.
On the conclusion of the address of Hon. A.
B. Conger, on the presentation of the foregoing
minute, the same was read before the Society by
the Secretary, B. P. Johnsotst, and adopted by the
unanimous vote of the Society. B. P. JOHNSON,
Secretary,

A-DDRESS.

Gentlemen of the Society :
I bear to you the minute adopted by your
Executive Committee on the decease of their late
presiding officer. It is their hope that this
memorial tribute, which voiced that sharp sorrow
and sought to speak the worth of him who was
taken from their council-board, may be received
by you all as giving utterance, though in feeble
strains, of our common and irreparable loss.
The bereavements of the Society for the past
few years have been severe and frequent — too
frequent for that narrow circle on which its chief
cares are thrown. These afflictions I would not, I
could not depreciate, for I have shared in them,
and have mourned with you as often as the rude
hand of Death has pierced your official list. But
these two last so fresh upon us ! within the brief
waning of a moon! First of him who, but a
twelvemonth since, presided over our festive
gathering ; then of him who twenty years ago,
in his second term of office, quickened our infant

8
efforts with a strong and far-sighted prowess !
Alas ! words may not tell the sadness of these
trials. Doubtless, gentlemen, you have felt how appro
priate it was that those* who have preceded me in
this service of affection and respect for our
departed ones, themselves having, in the earlier
struggles of our Society, shared its toils and worn
its highest laurels on their brows, should now,
that these are touched with the frost of years, stand
here to-day and be for you the living witnesses of
the past to the present, with their early enthu
siasm for your Association and its prosperity not
a whit abated.
While they traced the uncheckered career of
their noble associate, who, of all other men in the
Society, seemed bound for life, by choice as well
as interest, to the cares and delights of his count
less acres, but who, having heard his country's
plaint, separated himself from his friends and
co-workers in the soil, and earned, with unstinted
sacrifice, the guerdon of a nation's gratitude ; it
seemed as if the sound of the martial trump had
been lost in the softer tones of the rustic pipe, —
as if the glory of the martyr-soldier had been
* Hon. L. F. Allen and Hon. John A, King.

9
veiled under the garb of the citizen-farmer. And
this without the art of one studious of the occa
sion, but true to the life of the man.
Now you will indulge me further in saying that
no plea more eloquent than such a tribute to
departed worth could have been addressed to us,
gentlemen, in claim that some part of our public
action is appropriately due to an earnest and
solemn commemoration of our dead, — no public
utterance thrilling in touches so true to our
nature could have wrought in us a more lively
sensitiveness to the proprieties of this occasion,
and led us, with common consent, to pause at the
close of our festival, and, as with one mind and
heart, to mark the spot where our trusty and
loved leaders have fallen, and record the good
which they have wrought for us, as well as for the
world in which they moved.
My task to-day is limited — limited by the
simplicity of the character I have to sketch, and
by the fewness of facts in his life which I have
to bring to your remembrance. I rejoice in this,
then, that I have only to tell you that 'which you
yourselves do know,' and that all responsibility in
this tribute is merged in our common appreciation
of the man whom we have trusted, — not in vain.
2

10
Born in Scotland, the lad of two years accom
panied his parents, about the commencement of
this century, to that Western Home which the
father had sought, from his strong faith in Demo
cratic Institutions and his earnest longing for a
share, however humble, in their development.
The hearthstone was laid in the town of East
Chester, and about it soon arose the evidences of
that healthful content which piety gives to frugal
labor. The character of the youth was being
moulded by the example of a father, the calm
current of whose life was never rippled by
neighborhood contentions, whose even and unpre
tentious energy found its counterpart in the spirit
of the mother, her lineage having given her the
motto of its crest, " I Adhere."
With some preparatory training for business
life, the undaunted youth of seventeen years
sought a higher school in the city of New York,
and at his majority enrolled his name with those
whose thrift and enterprise have made it the
mercantile centre of the Continent, pursuing his
calling with steady success, unscathed by the
financial storms which, from time to time, swept
so many to ruin and neglect. Just eleven years
ago he retired from the commercial world, but not

11
without an abiding sense of the kindness of its
fellowship, and a warm desire to add to its
augmenting prosperity. His first debt of grati
tude was paid in his masterly onset on a system
which flooded the currency with factitious issues
of paper money, and exacted large percentages
for its redemption. The establishment of an
institution for the reform of this evil, and the
moulding of clear and tersely-phrased plans for
its successful working, was due, and by the assent
of his coadjutors, in no small degree to him, and
has, beyond all question, prepared the way for
other measures designed to give greater stability,
to our banking system. In this, as in all other
reforms he projected, he sought the good, but
avoided its notoriety.
So, too, when called to participate in councils
presiding over the comfortable and speedy carry
ing of persons and property, and the due
management of the means invested for that
purpose, his quick eye detected abuses in the
administration of the department of supplies, his
inventive genius proposed an improved system of
transfer, and then, with a straight forward, honest
advocacy, he accomplished his aim. Nor did he
rest in this branch of public service until he

12
had secured, measurably at least, the blessing of
the day of rest for the employees of a vast carry
ing trade, whom he regarded as fellow men
entitled to his protecting care.
Will you deem it strange that I should take
you to his home — to the fields which he tilled —
the trees which he planted — the cattle which he
reared ? Many men achieve, it may be said, the
same outward results. Yes ; but with him all
this was not an ambition ; it was a joy.
His love of nature was that of his boyhood, not
dwarfed, but growing with increasing years. No
coveting of wealth or of honors ever cankered
his heart. No stress of business ever weighed
him down so heavily that he could not look up to
Him who had made the bursting bud, the blos
soming grass and ripening grain so beautiful to
look upon, so delicious in aroma, such a bliss of
sustenance. Yet his enthusiasm did not abide in the region
of poetry, but of fact. . He knew that these delights
were not the possessions of the idly -rapturous, and
hence he loved labor. He submitted cheerfully
to the literal interpretation of the law which
secures their true and permanent enjoyment only
to those who earn them by the sweat of the brow.

13
As he honored all labor, so did he the more
prize that of the farm. Did you ever catch the
beam of his eye when he told you of some youth,
haply escaped from the snares and close imprison
ment of city life, bound for a mountain home
and resolved to be a farmer ? You almost heard
the benediction of his paternal heart going out
after the lad.
Do you remember the glad tale of the little
urchin snatched from the dens of New York, his
better nature breaking the cerements of vice, as
it were, into a new life, under the quickening
influence of kind words and kindly training, boil
ing some musty hay at the Industrial Farm for
the stock ? 'Ah, my boy why do you do this ?
Is it wise ? ' ' Oh, yes, sir ; it makes it sweeter
than ever, and the cows won't leave a stem ! '
Who could ever forget his bursting glee, when
his little troop, erst candidates for prisons and
poor houses, at a public exhibition under the
auspices of the American Agriculturist, carried off
the first prize for the finest and largest yield of
a new variety of strawberries ?
As was his love of labor and of all of his race
who did not spurn its obligation, so was his love
of truth. Beware how you approach him with a

14
subterfuge ! His eye is no longer soft and melting
as a girl's. The voice rasps under the suffocating
tide of the quickened blood, and you quail before
the outburst of an indignant nature close pressing
the verge of wrath.
Truth with him was not simply verbal ; it was
not separate from its vital forms, its practical
realities. Observe a few instances of the strivings
of his truthfulness in the especial department of
Agricultural Mechanics to which he devoted for
your benefit so much of his care and time.
We need not here insist that to his sagacity is
mainly due the rule now established in this
Society, not to award any premium to a mere
model, but to reserve its commendation to the
farmer until the inventive idea has been realized
in an implement fully equipped for service in the
field, the barn or the workshop. Let us note the
accuracy with which each part of a working
machine was examined, and the care with which
the whole was scrupulously tested; nor let us
omit to notice his great satisfaction when a field-
instrument of American design surpassed in
originality and adaptation its English competitor.
Manufacturers, too, who seek by their skill to
lighten the stress heretofore exacted from the

15
sinews of the farmer, will not shrink from being
reminded of the zeal with which he inveighed
against that penny-wise folly which denied mate
rial sufficient for the strain required, grudged an
eighth of an inch of iron to a stop — or a true
angle of incidence to a pall — in gearing, or sub
stituted a strap of hoop-iron for a veritable spring
of steel.
With exactness in the particulars of the farm
service, as in the general routine of his daily life,
he united order and system, animated with cheer
fulness and sustained by frugal methods ; and to
these was superadded a liberal view of the higher
scope and ultimate destiny of an agricultural life.
Educating himself in it he gladly imparted to
others the results of his observations and studies,
not as teaching by rule, but by practically verify
ing his conclusions. Much, however, as he strove
in himself and through others, for the advancement
of every branch of our farming interest, his hopes
of its future centered in our youth. Hence the
readiness with which he co-operated with his
high-minded associates in efforts for inaugurating
the scheme of wise, experimental field work,
based upon and elucidating a scientific training
in our State Agricultural College.

16
Well may I fear, gentlemen, that thus far I
have not risen to that ideal so clearly engraved
on your memories, of a character in which modesty
graced activity, and earnestness was guided by
sagacity. At least let me group together that
pure love of right and duty, and that inflexible
obedience to their promptings, and not forgetting
the diffidence which rendered him unconscious
of the attainment, say that he had realized the
conception ot the Roman moralist, the
" Jnstuni et tenacsm propositi virum."
But I may not rest here, nor would any who
knew the secret springs of his being desire it.
Who, of such, would ask me to sum up its
hidden workings in the play of its natural traits,
or to give the expression of its force in the com
bined power of inherited qualities happily blended?
Estimable in themselves, these were but tributary.
I may not aver that his blessed spirit surveys this
scene, intent as ever upon the rightful issue of this
hour, but if summoned hither from his serene abode,
he would not now shrink from the gaze of man
upon the secret of the mastery of his life and self,
and shall I blush to own it here ? Mr. Faile had
early discovered that the bias of his natural
faculties was, in themselves, neither to true har-

17
mony or power, and with an innumerable company
sought escape from their tumult and weakness in
the peace and strength that is derived from above.
He gladly submitted every question of duty to
the promptings of the Divine Teacher, and aimed
to track his course in time by the light which
beameth from the Eternal Throne.
We have seen him then moving before us in life
as a christian man, actuated by a holy impulse to
make his talents an occasion of blessing to others
in every department of human labor which he
entered. And if I may surprise some of you by
the declaration that a quarter of a century of his
life was passed in the Sabbath school of his neigh
borhood, of which he was the prop and principal
teacher, you will agree with me that this was but
a type of his unostentatious and beneficent career.
Gentlemen of the Executive Board — who have
shared his private friendship and public counsel ;
who have enjoyed the hospitalities of his home, a
center whence happiness diffused itself, and his
careful strivings after good for our Society, with,
as we trust, propitious results — I turn to you, not
to open afresh the wounds which his removal has
inflicted, for were I so prompted, I have not the
hardiness to dwell upon the personal issues of this
3

18
calamity. Each ' heart knoweth his own bitter
ness!' There are, however, two relative considerations
to which I may allude. By the constitution of
our Society, each one who has received its highest
public honor in the Presidential office, is set apart
for a period of five years after that term of office
has ceased, as an Honorary Member of the Execu
tive Committee. Under a plan of organization,
so eminently conservative, after having proved
the training requisite for that office, each incum
bent is expected to render to the Board newly
elected from the body of the Society, the benefit
of his ripe experience. But in the case of our
beloved Faile, after one brief session with him, the
decree of the All-wise hath cut the rest off forever.
His chair is vacant at our Board, and will remain
so for years. There is no constitutional provision
to fill it, and if there were, who would assume to
occupy it 1 Let it stand then for the term of its
desolateness, the silent monitor to us of counsels
in which were blended benevolence and frankness,
justice and judgment.
You will not charge me with fatuity, if I repeat
what I have before expressed, that I have deemed
Mr. Faile to have been happy, not only in his

19
death, but in the occasion of it. He had gone
to the Industrial Farm, of which he had been,
from its establishment, a chief director and hearty
patron, by the aid of chosen assistants, and with
the skill in which he was practiced as an expert, to
prune its orchard of pear trees, that it might
mature for his alms-children a more bountiful and
luscious supply of fruit. Here in the exposure
incident to this work he received the fatal shaft ;
not in the pursuit of any private end, of any care
revolving on family or fortune. Why was not
this the happiest of stand-points for the swift
message ? The soldier seeks reputation in the
cannon's mouth; the statesman, not rusting in
the public service, sinks in his cabinet chair, and
men count such and all, however humble their
vocations, falling at the post of duty, honored in
their death. Why, then, may we not entertain it
as the highest felicity next to euthanasy itself,
when a Christian Agriculturist enters the portals
of another world, his last public act consumma
ting the beneficence of his life ?
Gentlemen of the Society : But a twelvemonth
ago, and he whom we to-day commemorate pre
sided at our autumnal festival. He shared our
happines then, and loved to linger on the thought

20
that in the midst of an intestine struggle, on the
issues of which pended the salvation of our
Republic, we were permitted to come together as
if no alarums of war had sounded in our ears, and
bring up the evidence of blessings which the
Divine Providence had given to our industries in
Agriculture and the Arts.
Of that gathering you have left pleasant memo
ries — of him, those of his life. This may serve
as a bright exemplar for us all, especially for the
young men of our Society, of whose future career
his hopes knew no limits, though for their present
guidance his example was so sedulously guarded.
Let them study it as a model, and from it they
may learn that integrity, animated by cheerful
ness, robed with modesty and directed with
discretion, finds readily its sphere of useful intent
and pious action, and an easy entrance to the
esteem and affections of the wise and the good.