The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 | Page 2

for education was the district
school, two miles distant--where, during the cold and windy winter
days, with a fire roaring in the capacious fire-place, he acquired the
rudiments of education. A few academies had been established in the
State, but there were not many farmer's sons who could afford to pay,
at that period, even board and tuition, which in these days would be
regarded as but a pittance.
Very early in life this Campton boy learned that Pemigewassett valley,
though so beautiful, was but an insignificant part of the world.
Intuitively his expanding mind comprehended that the tides and
currents of progress were flowing in other directions, and in April,
1823, before he had attained his majority, he bade farewell to his
birthplace, made his way to Boston--spending the first night at Concord,
New Hampshire, having made forty miles on foot; the second at
Amoskeag, the third in Boston, stopping at the grandest hotel of that
period in the city--Wildes', on Elm street, where the cost of living was
one dollar per day. He had but two dollars and a half, and his stay at the
most luxurious hotel in the city of thirty-five thousand inhabitants was
necessarily brief. He was a rugged young man, inured to hard labor,
and found employment on a farm in Newton, receiving twelve dollars a
month. In the fall he was once more in Campton. The succeeding
summer found him at work in a brick yard. In 1826 he was back in
Boston, doing business as a provision dealer in the newly-erected
Quincy market.
But there was a larger sphere for this young man, just entering
manhood, than a stall in the market house. In common with multitudes
of young men and men in middle age he was turning his thoughts
towards the boundless West. Ohio was the bourne for emigrants at that

period. Thousands of New Englanders were selecting their homes in the
Western Reserve. At Ashtabula the young man from Quincy market
began the business of supplying Boston and New York with beef and
pork, making his shipments via the Erie Canal.
But there was a farther West, and in the Winter of 1833-4 he proceeded
to Chicago, then a village of three hundred inhabitants, and began to
supply them, and the company of soldiers garrisoning Fort Dearborn,
with fresh beef; hanging up his slaughtered cattle upon a tree standing
on the site now occupied by the Court House.
This glance at the condition of society and the mechanic arts during the
boyhood of Sylvester Marsh, and this look at the struggling village of
Chicago when he was in manhood's prime, enables us to comprehend in
some slight degree the mighty trend of events during the life time of a
single individual; an advancement unparalleled through all the ages.
For eighteen years, the business begun under the spreading oak upon
what is now Court House square, in Chicago, was successfully
conducted,--each year assuming larger proportions. He was one of the
founders of Chicago, doing his full share in the promotion of every
public enterprise. The prominent business men with whom he
associated were John H. Kuisie, Baptiste Bounier, Deacon John Wright,
Gurdon S. Hubbard, William H. Brown, Dr. Kimberly, Henry Graves,
the proprietor of the first Hotel, the Mansion house, the first framed
two-story building erected, Francis Sherman, who arrived in Chicago
the same year and became subsequent builder of the Sherman House.
Mr. Marsh was the originator of meat packing in Chicago, and invented
many of the appliances used in the process--especially the employment
of steam.
In common with most of the business men of the country, he suffered
loss from the re-action of the speculative fever which swept over the
country during the third decade of the century; but the man whose
boyhood had been passed on the Campton hills was never cast down by
commercial disaster. His entire accumulations were swept away,
leaving a legacy of liability; but with undaunted bravery he began once

more, and by untiring energy not only paid the last dollar of liability,
but accumulated a substantial fortune--engaging in the grain business.
His active mind was ever alert to invent some method for the saving of
human muscle by the employment of the forces of nature. He invented
the dried-meal process, and "Marsh's Caloric Dried Meal" is still an
article of commerce.
While on a visit to his native state in 1852, he ascended Mount
Washington, accompanied by Rev. A.C. Thompson, pastor of the Eliot
Church, Roxbury, and while struggling up the steep ascent, the idea
came to him that a railroad to the summit was feasable and that it could
be made a profitable enterprise. He obtained a charter for such a road in
1858, but the breaking out of the war postponed action till