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Show IS FOUR SCORE FIVE Levi P. Morton Dean of Living Ex-Vice-Presidents. Has Just Celebrated Eighty-Fifth Birthday, Birth-day, and Is Still Hale and Hearty Accumulated Fortune in Banking Business. New York. Still fresh aud vigorou in mind and sound In body. Levi P. .Morton, the oldest living vice-president of the United States, recently ce ebrated his eighty-fifth birthday anniversary. anni-versary. Bes.les Mr. Morton there are now living only three other meu who have held the position of vice-president vice-president of the United States Adlai E. Stevenson, Theodore Roosevelt and Charles W. Fairbanks. Not only i Mr. Morton by far the oldest anions his surviving colleagues, but, with one exception, he has already attained a greater age than any other former vice-president. The only exception was John Adams, the first vice-president of the United States, who died in 1826 at the age of 90 years. While Mr. Stevenson has reached the age of 74, the other two surviving surviv-ing colleagues of Mr. Morton are still comparatively young men, Mr Roosevelt being 51, Mr. Fairbanks 57 years old. Of his predecessor who have joined the silent army only John Adams lived to be older than Mr. Morton is now. Thomas Jefferson died at the age of 82, Hannibal Han-nibal Hamlin at the age of 81 and Aaron Burr at the age of 80 The latter holds the record In one respect, however, among the deceased former vice-presidents; he survived the end of his term of office by 31 years, a longer period than shows the record of any other of the deceased former holders of that office. Mr. Morton will have to live until he is 100 years old to surpass Burr's record Levi P. Morton is a New Englander. and the descendant of a family of clergymen. cler-gymen. His family was founded in Levi P. Morton. America by Rev. George Morton, one of the conspicuous members of the Pilgrim colony of England. He was the financial agent of the Pilgrims and raised and conserved the funds which fitted out the expedition on the Mayflower, May-flower, although he was not a passenger passen-ger on the initial voyage. He arrived ar-rived in America in 1623. Levi P. Morton may have inherited his taste for finance from that treasurer of the Pilgrim band. When at the age of 16 years he saw no hope of realizing his ambition ambi-tion to go to Dartmouth college, Levi P. Morton entered a country store at Enfield, Mass., where he worked until un-til he has enough money to start a modest establishment of his own, at Hanover, N. H., in 1849, at the age of 25 he came to Boston and became a partner in a small dry goods house. Five years later he went to New York, where he joined a dry goods firm. He failed a few years before the civil war, but immediately started a banking business, appreciating that the rebellion rebel-lion would mean a great demand for financiers to handle the government loans. Mr. Morton founded the banking bank-ing house of Morton, Bliss & Co. in New York, and Morton, Rose & Coin Co-in London, and dealt largely in government gov-ernment bonds. Just before the close of the war, when he had accumulated a fortune, Mr. Morton gave a dinner to the creditors of his former dry goods firm. Every one found under his plate a check for the amount still owing him with interest. Mr. Morton's first essay in politics was in 1878, when he was elected to congress from a New York district. He might have been president if his loyalty to the wishes of Senator Ros-coe Ros-coe Conkling had not made him refuse re-fuse the nomination for vice-president on the ticket headed by James A. Garfield in 1880. President Garfield made him minister to France in and Mr. Morton made a fine record. He was elected vice-president in 1883 on the ticket with-President Harrises, but was not nominated with the president presi-dent in 1S92. In 1894 he was made governor of New York. Since his retirement re-tirement from the governorship ia 1896 Mr. Morton devoted himself to the direction of his large financial interests in-terests and to extensive travel abroad. While in this counrty he spends most of his time in New York or Washington. |