CORNELIUS K. GARRISON.

BY WILLIAM Y. WELLS

HIS gentleman was born on the Hudson river, near

ancestors were Hollanders, and among the first settlers of New Amsterdam: on the father's side the Garrisons and Coverts, and on the mother's the Kingslands and the Schuylers-among the earliest of the old Knickerbocker families. His father, Oliver Garrison, was at one time a large capitalist, but lost his property when Cornelius was quite young. The latter, at the age of thirteen, left his home and found employment in the carrying trade on the Hudson river, following this occupation during the business season for about three years. Alive to the value and necessity of an education, he diligently applied himself throughout the winter months when the navigation of the river was suspended, to study at a country school. At the request of his mother, he abandoned the river and went to New York city, to learn architecture and the building trade. He remained in New York three years. The knowledge which he acquired of architecture during that period was extensive, and valuable to him in the years which immediately followed.

At the age of nineteen, young Garrison removed to Canada, where for five or six years he was actively engaged in the erection of buildings, and the constructing of

steamboats on the great lakes. During his residence. there, he became a married man, espousing a lady of Buffalo, New York.

In Canada, Mr. Garrison acquired the reputation, which he has ever since enjoyed, of being a reliable, clear-headed, and sagacious business man. The Upper Canada Company-one of the wealthiest in England, and owning extensive possessions-gave to him the general supervision of the Company's affairs in the province; a trust upon which he entered, but which he soon surrendered, owing to the threatened outbreak of hostilities between England and the United States, growing out of the border difficulties existing at the time. Having led an active life in Canada for nearly six years, Mr. Garrison returned to the United States, and went to the Southwest, where he long followed the same business he had so successfully prosecuted in the British provinces, and was also engaged in several other important mercantile enterprises connected with steam navigation on the Mississippi.

About the time of the discovery of gold in California, Mr. Garrison removed to Panama, where he established a commercial and banking house. This enterprise was the most successful of any which had thus far engaged his attention. In the latter part of the year 1852, being then on a visit to New York city, with a view to establish there a branch of his Panama house, our subject accepted an offer made him by the Nicaragua Steamship Company, to take the San Francisco agency of their line of vessels.

A sketch of Mr. Garrison's seven years' residence in California would almost involve a history of San Francisco during that period. He landed in that city when the newly-established Nicaragua Steamship Line was rapidly declining under inefficient management, and had fallen into disrepute by the terrible calamities of the Independence and S. S. Lewis. The Mail Steamship Company, with its splendidly equipped line under the able direction of Captain Knight, was in the full tide of success, and it seemed that the rival line, growing more