ROBERT B. SWAIN.

BY WILLIAM Y. WELLS.

TH

HE reputation for enterprise, intelligence, and liberality which San Francisco in her remarkable growth has acquired abroad, is undoubtedly due, more than to any other class, to her merchants. The same may be true of most communities, where commerce is the vital element of their prosperity; but it is especially so in one whose merchants have always exerted the chief influence in directing the policy of municipal or State government, in shaping congressional legislation relating to the Pacific coast, and giving the tone to public sentiment and measures. In this light, biographical sketches of commercial men long identified with the city, assume something of historical value, as inseparably connected with its material and social progress. For many years Mr. Swain has been known as a prominent merchant of San Francisco, filling, during that time, positions of the highest responsibility, political and social, and honorably associated with important movements. The records of societies organized for literary, religious, and benevolent purposes, are silent testimonials of his activity in charitable works; while to public discussions of maritime questions, he brings a quickness of perception and a familiarity with those subjects, only to be acquired through business talent of a high order joined to great experience. It is not, however, from a merely commercial stand-point that we propose to sketch

Mr. Swain. In the last ten years his name has been interwoven with men and events which have become ceiebrated, and the character before us is thus additionally representative.

Mr Swain, who is of Quaker origin, was born about the year 1825, in Nantucket, Mass., his island home fronting upon the rude Atlantic, and his earliest associations having been among rugged and adventurous seamen. At the age of seventeen, he went to New York, and becoming a clerk in the famous house of Grinnell, Minturn & Co., received a thorough mercantile education. In 1855, failing health, caused by a too close attention to an extensive commission business, in which, after having remained with the above named firm for many years, he had embarked for himself, obliged him to seek a milder climate, and in that year he came to California intending to remain only long enough to ensure a restoration to health. Increasing interests and duties, however, required a longer stay, and here he has ever since found his field of labor, pursuing his legitimate business of Commission Merchant and Fire and Marine Insurance Agent. His sphere of occupation speedily displayed an ability and readiness of application to diverse subjects in the walks of social and business life, and he was evidently destined to be a leading man in the State of his adoption. Soon after his arrival, he was elected a Trustee of the Mercantile Library Association. of San Francisco, and thenceforth served that institution in various capacities, having for the past four years been either President or Vice President. He has been untiring in his labors to subserve the interests of the Library, and his disinterested efforts while presiding over its welfare indicate a painstaking care for its advancement. On the inauguration of the new Library building in June, 1868, Mr. Swain thus concluded a speech, in which he had proposed at some length a plan for bonding the debt of the Association, which bonds he trusted would be eventually liquidated by the donations of zealous and liberal minded citizens:

Of the ultimate success of this scheme, the Trustees have not a thread of doubt, and it now remains to be seen whether the people

of this city will at once second their efforts; whether the people of this city are alive to the necessity of a literary centre like this, which is destined to work a silent but potent influence upon the morals of the community and the future prosperity of the State; whether the fathers and mothers who have sons ripening to manhood, and to whom membership in this Association may be a matter of vital consequence, are anxious that their talents and energies be not wasted on selfish and ignoble objects; whether they prefer for their sons the reading-room to the race-course-the sure delight of books to the uncertainties of the gaming table-literary pleasure to licentious indulgence-and the cultivation of a refined and ennobling taste to mere sensuous weakness and fashionable frivolity.

Afterwards, when the Mercantile Library was threatened with extinction by reason of a crushing indebtedness, this appeal presented itself with renewed force. In the efforts to rescue the institution from its financial difficulties, Mr. Swain, who was still its President, took an active part, devoting valuable time to the subject, and originating numerous practical suggestions to that end.

In New York he had been an intimate friend and parishioner of the Rev. Dr. Bellows, and joining the First Unitarian Church on his arrival at San Francisco, he at once became influential as an executive member, and was soon after elected President of the Board of Trustees, an office which he continued to hold for ten years. While he was filling this position, it became necessary in 1859 to select a new pastor for the Society. Mr. Swain at once placed himself in communication with the Rev. T. Starr King, then in pastoral charge of the Hollis street church in Boston, the result of which was that Mr. King consented to transfer his labors and influence to the Pacific coast. A portion of this correspondence appears in an address delivered by Mr. Swain before the Society in 1864, and published by request. It forms a most interesting chapter in the life of the eminent divine, a few days after whose death, and in whose memory it was delivered; and in its style and matter, the affecting and beautiful tribute is highly creditable to the oratorical powers, as well as the liberal Christian spirit of Mr. Swain. In the spring of 1860, Mr. King arrived, and from that time until March, 1864, the date of his decease, he found in Mr. Swain his wisest and closest ad

viser and friend. Indeed, from the time of his landing in San Francisco, the two were almost inseparable, and this intimate companionship may be said to have imbued our subject with his highest aspirations and worthiest aims in life. The sketch of that great man elsewhere in these pages, renders unnecessary any further allusion to this particular point. Truly fortunate was the advent of Mr. King in San Francisco, not only for the church which he raised out of bankruptcy by the magic of his genius, but for the State and the country; for to the splendor of his eloquence is largely owing the sentiment which saved California from the vortex of secession and the horrors of civil war. Since his arrival in California, Mr. Swain has seen the affairs of the Unitarian Society changed from the most deplorable financial aspect to one of flourishing prosperity—a result traceable in no small degree to his own prudent management and unwearied efforts. About the time of his retiring from the Presidency of the Board of Trustees, the pews rented for a premium of $24,750 above the annual assessments, amounting to $12,000; enabling the society to wipe out entirely the debt of the church, which had lingered along from the time the new edifice had received the shock of its illustrious builder's decease two months after it was consecrated. Mr. Swain resigned only when the society was free from debt.

Although frequently solicited to serve in a public capacity, having been several times applied to by nominating conventions to become a candidate for Senate and Assembly, he invariably refused. While claiming to be an ardent and original Republican, he shrunk from contact with the coarser machinery of politics, preferring the dignity of his own calling as a merchant and his books, to active participation for personal ends in a political canvass. Early in 1863, he was appointed, without solicitation, and as we believe without his knowledge, Superintendent of the United States Branch Mint at San Francisco. Following the rule that had invariably guided him hitherto, he hesitated before accepting, but finally yielded at the request of many citizens and all the officers of the Mint. The complimentary manner in which the office

was tendered by President Lincoln, would scarcely have justified a refusal.

The office upon which Mr. Swain now entered has of late years come to be regarded as more strongly identified with the interests of California than any other in the gift of the Federal Government. It has been a reliable bank of deposit for the miner, with a capital of thousands of millions behind it for security, and to some extent the regulator of finance on the Pacific coast. The position was no sinecure. The Mint is a hard-working mill, with the glare and heat of a chemist's laboratory. It has never been a stepping-stone to political preferment; it has never been a school for Senators or Congressmen. It requires skilled labor and scientific attainment. The amount of work done within its walls may be imagined from the fact that since its creation in 1854 not far from three hundred millions of dollars, or more than half the sum coined by the Philadelphia Mint since 1793, has been struck from its presses. Mr. Swain's management of the vast funds placed in his charge, merits a much more lengthy and detailed description than can be here devoted to the subject. In the manipulation of the precious metals, the Government supposes that there will be a considerable natural loss or wastage, and accordingly a large allowance is given by law to the officers of the Mint for that purpose. Although in some years, under a previous administration, this allowance had not only been exhausted but largely exceeded, under that of Mr. Swain the loss in no year was ever more than a few hundred dollars, showing the nation an instance in which a great public trust was conducted as honestly and thoroughly as any private business. It has been said of Mr. Swain, that "he has succeeded in accomplishing what few men ever accomplish -administering a department of the government service so as to disarm party animosity, and leave no place for criticism to hang a complaint upon." In assuming control, he resolved to be uninfluenced by cliques, combinations, or parties. Of course, tremendous pressure was brought to bear for places, but office brokers and office hunters soon learned that the new Superintendent could not be