tion of the New York Crystal Palace, and devoted much time to its duties entirely at his own expense. For the cause of agricultural education he was, from the first, a most earnest and eloquent advocate, urging it upon the people of this State, especially, with voice and pen, whenever an opportunity was presented for him to make such appeal. In 1853, with Delafield, King, Wager, Buel and their still surviving associates, he became a trustee for the State Agricultural College; and when John Delafield, the chairman of the board, was stricken down in the midst of his usefulness, none labored more earnestly for the reorganization and enlargement of the board, as authorized by the act of February, 1857. With the late Governor King as chairman, in place of his friend Delafield, the trustees went forward with the enterprise, and finally saw it opened for the reception of students but a few weeks before the outbreak of the war. Had not that war burst upon us at that critical moment of its history, the college might, perhaps, to-day have been in successful operation. But its work was not in vain, inasmuch as it prepared the way for, and was instrumental in, the establishment of an institution so richly endowed by private munificence, that the State could not withhold from it a still more ample endowment from the national domain, though it had refused the smallest portion of these lands to the State Agricultural College already established.

Upon few northern men did the great fact of the war fall more sadly than upon our friend. In the southern States he had many warm personal friends, especially in Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky. Strongly anti-slavery as he had ever been, he had greatly mistaken the character of a portion of his countrymen, and could not believe that any circumstances would make a war between the States possible. But the war became a reality, and the husband of his only daughter entered the navy as a paymaster, and his second son followed, leaving the Colonel almost alone, his youngest son being at school and the eldest settled in the west. His wife, too, on whom he had almost wholly relied for years to manage all domestic affairs, had become quite an invalid from an accident on the Albany northern railroad a year or two previous, and for the first time, perhaps, he began to realize that his seventy years of life were almost spent.

But he had work yet to do for his country, work that none knew so well how to execute, and though he could not march to the fight with those who did battle under the stars and stripes, he could as effectually uphold the honor of his country in a foreign land and on the field of his former triumphs.

The international exhibition of 1862, like that of 1851, owed its origin to Prince Albert and the Society of Arts, though the prince was not permitted to witness the success of the enterprise, having died on the 14th of December, 1861. The royal commissioners, charged with the management of the exhibition, having extended an invitation to this country, the subject was presented to Congress by the President in 1861, and an appropriation of $2,000 was made to defray the expenses of preparing a representation for the exhibition. A commission was appointed with William H. Seward, Secretary of State; Caleb Smith, Secretary of the Interior; Edward Everett, Robert B. Minturn, Joseph Henry, J. H. Klippart, J. R. Partridge, G. D. Coleman, R. Wallack, W. W. Seaton, Eli Whitney, J. C. G. Kennedy, and Benjamin P. Johnson, as its members. The commissioners met in Washington, October 15th, 1861, and organized with William H. Seward as chairman and Mr. Kennedy as secretary. An Executive Committee, with Col. Johnson as chairman, was appointed, an office opened, and applications received for entries from seventeen States in twenty-eight of the thirty-six classes into which the exhibition was divided; a very large contribution indeed at any time, but especially in a time of civil war.

The proceedings of the commissioners were reported to the President, and by him to Congress. It was referred to the committee of ways and means, in the House, by whom an appropriation of $35,000 was recommended to defray the expenses of exhibitors; but, with the country involved in war, all other interests were postponed for the present, and the appropriation failed in the House, as did a like recommendation subsequently made, in the Senate. As a consequence, most of those who had entered articles for the exhibition, withdrew them; but many of those who had already forwarded their articles to the agency of the commissioners, in New York, decided to go to London.

Mr. Holmes, the agent of the commissioners at New York, having received an appointment as agent for a large portion of those who thus decided, was furnished with credentials to the royal commissioners, requesting them to allow our exhibitors to enter their articles, and permit Mr. Holmes to take charge of them as assistant commissioner from the United States. At the same time Col. Johnson, who had been appointed, by President Lincoln, commissioner from the United States, wrote to the royal commissioners, that he would be there at an early day to take charge of the contributions from this country.

On his arrival in England, he was most cordially welcomed by the royal commissioners, Earl Granville, president of the council, as also several others of the commission, having been his associates at the exhibition of 1851. Although there were but ninety-five entries from the United States (against 599 exhibited in 1851), every facility was afforded to give them the most favorable presentation, the commissioners expressing their regret that our nation was not more fully represented. And this regret was more strongly expressed by the representatives of other governments, when shown the original list of entries at Washington, as many of these representatives had been instructed to secure samples of our implements and machinery for their respective governments.

If proof were wanting of our success in that exhibition, which was on a much broader scale than that of 1851, it would be found in the fact, that of the ninety-five articles exhibited, eighty-three were awarded prizes-a much larger proportionate number than was awarded to any other nation; while in the class of machinery, in which England was eminently successful, of the twenty-eight American exhibitors, every one was awarded a prize; and the same result, too, in the class of agricultural implements, where competition was strongest, every one of our implements being awarded a prize. It is unnecessary to follow up this exhibition; for no sooner had the awards of the 615 jurors been officially announced than "the United States department was crowded with visitors to see what had come to benefit the world, from that land where a contest, unexampled in the history of our race, was being carried on.”* The press, as in 1851, took up the articles exhibited, in detail, "and advised the public to give special attention to the valuable inventions from the United States."+ But, notwithstanding our success in this great exhibition, and the pleasure of again meeting, in fraternal intercourse, with the best and noblest of Europe, the Colonel's heart was sad, and he longed to re-cross the ocean; for his country was in peril, and he feared that his own home would soon be desolate. So soon, therefore, as he could leave the exhibition, he bade a final adieu to the many friends he had made in England, and took passage for New York. The letter of the Earl of Granville, president of the council, to Col. Johnson, as he was about to leave, is couched in such terms of high personal regard, blended with such graceful recognition of his public services, that it leaves no doubt as to England's estimate of his character.†

The Colonel reached this country in October, and not too soon;

• London Times.

+ See letter of Earl Granville, page 6, Commissioner's Report.

for within a few weeks thereafter the calamity he had feared came suddenly upon him. On the 1st day of December, Mrs. Johnson died. Mr. Woodbridge, his son-in-law had died in service, in the December previous, and Mrs. Woodbridge, with her young daughter, returned to her father's house to contribute, as only a daughter can, to the comfort of a father in his declining years. His threescore years and ten had been reached, and, from the stroke that had fallen upon him, he never fully recovered; though he rallied bravely, and at times appeared to renew the strength of his perfect manhood.

To those friends who knew him well, it was painfully evident that decay was making rapid progress with his, so long, vigorous constitution, and it became necessary for those to whom he had looked for counsel, and who were bound to him by many ties, to take such measures as would, quietly and gently, relieve him, from year to year of many of the burdens of his office. To have dropped him from the rolls of the Society as its Secretary, would have been to pronounce his sentence of death. So kindly and delicately was he relieved from his duties, one by one, that, as his faculties waned, he was scarcely conscious that he was no longer the animating spirit and executive officer of the Society. The close of the year 1866, had found him much reduced in strength; but, with the commencement of 1867, afflictions came upon him that well nigh overwhelmed him. His oldest son, Alexander, died in Chicago, on the 24th of February, while his second son, Kirk, was lying on a sick bed, at his father's house, from which he, too, was carried to his grave on the 18th of April following.

Through the summer and autumn of 1867, the Colonel struggled manfully against the lethargy that was stealing over him, and, for the last time, attended our State fair, held that year at Buffalo, though without any anxiety as to his duties, their performance having been otherwise provided for. On the 12th of February, 1868, he met the Society for the last time, in this room, but was obliged to retire before the meeting closed. Through all the following months of 1868, he slowly wended his way toward that bourn whence no traveler returns. At our last annual meeting, for the first time in twenty-eight years, his seat at our board was vacant, and his strength was almost gone. Watched over, tenderly and lovingly, by his two surviving children, on the 12th of April, 1869, his heart ceased to beat, and his spirit ascended to Him who gave it. His remains were followed to the grave* by as many of the officers and members of this Society as could reach here from other parts of the State, as well as by the many

The remains were interred at Rome, in the burial ground of the Johnson family.

friends he had gathered around him during his residence in this city. In that grave may his honored dust remain, until that day when all that in him was mortal shall have put on immortality, and, in his glorified body, he shall behold Him in whom his soul had so long trusted as its Savior.

No sketch of Col. Johnson's life would be complete that did not recognize in him the controlling power of religious principle-of living faith in the Son of God-that faith which worketh by love, that purifieth the heart, that overcometh the world.

Until the close of his thirty-second year, Col. Johnson had been wholly indifferent to the subject of religion, if not openly opposed to it. About that time (1825) the celebrated Charles G. Finney arrived at Rome, and began to preach to the crowds that flocked to hear him. Impelled by curiosity, the young lawyer dropped in one evening to ascertain wherein this man's strength lay. If there are any present who knew Mr. Finney in those days, it is needless to remind them of his wondrous power in the pulpit. His was just the style of eloquence to arrest the attention of a man like Benj. P. Johnson, and hold it captive until his powerful logic should complete the victory. Such was the result in the case of our young lawyer, who was early converted, soon afterward made a public profession of his faith, and became a member of the Presbyterian church in Rome.

To him a profession of religion was something more than an observance of its forms, and he became a most earnest and active Christian. With his emotional nature, his warm sympathies, and ready command of language, he became prominent as a public speaker in all gatherings of a religious character, taking an active part in establishing Sabbath schools, and in the temperance reformation of those days. Indeed, so efficient was he in all enterprises having for their object the promotion of morals and religion, that, by advice of the Presbytery of Oneida, he was licensed to preach the Gospel, and, for some time, supplied the pulpit of the Second Presbyterian church in Rome, to the acceptance of the church and congregation.

For a time, he thought much of abandoning law for divinity, but the duty he owed to his family, and the impossibility of suitably providing for the wants of those dependent upon him, while he should be pursuing a course of studies in theology, finally determined him to adhere to the profession in which he had been trained. With the settlement of a pastor over the church to which he temporarily ministered, he left the pulpit, no more to enter it; but during all the remaining years of his life, and wherever duty called him, until laid.