In the midst of twenty acres stands Lehigh University, at South Bethlehem, Penn., founded by Asa Packer,—a great school of technology, with courses in civil, mechanical, mining, and electrical engineering, chemistry, and architecture. The school of general literature of the University has a classical course, a Latin-scientific course, and a course in science and letters.

To this institution Judge Packer gave three and one-quarter millions during his life; and by will, eventually, the University will become one of the richest in the country.

He did not give to Lehigh University alone. "St. Luke's Hospital, so well known throughout eastern Pennsylvania for its noble and practical charity," says Mr. Davis Brodhead in the Magazine of American History, June, 1885, "is also sustained by the endowments of Asa Packer. Indeed, when we consider the scope of his generosity, of which Washington and Lee University of Virginia, Muhlenburg College at Allentown, Penn., Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, and many churches throughout his native State, of different denominations, can bear witness, we can the better appreciate how truly catholic were his gifts. His benefactions did not pause upon State lines, nor recognize sectional divisions.

"In speaking of his generosity, Senator T. F. Bayard once said, 'The confines of a continent were too narrow for his sense of human brotherhood, which recognized its ties everywhere upon this footstool of the Almighty, and decreed that all were to be united to share in the fruits of his life-long labor.'"

Asa Packer was born in Groton, Conn., Dec. 29, 1805. As his father had been unsuccessful in business he could not educate his boy, who found employment in a tannery in North Stonington. His employer soon died, and the youth was obliged to go to work on a farm.

He was ambitious, and determined to seek his fortune farther west; so with real courage walked from Connecticut to Susquehanna County, Penn., and in the new county took up the trade of carpenter and joiner.

For ten years he worked hard at his trade. He purchased a few acres in the native forest, cleared off the trees, and built a log house, to which he took his bride. When children were born into the home she made all the clothing, and in every way helped the poor, industrious carpenter to make a living.

In 1833, when he was twenty-eight years old, Mr. Packer moved his family to Mauch Chunk in the Lehigh Valley, hoping that he could earn a little more money by his trade.

When he had leisure, his busy mind was thinking how the vast supplies of coal and iron in the Lehigh Valley could be transported East. In the fall of 1833 the carpenter chartered a canal boat, and doing most of the manual labor himself, he started with a load of coal to Philadelphia through the Lehigh Canal.

Making a little money out of this venture, he secured another boat, and in 1835 took his brother into partnership, and they together commenced dealing in general merchandise. This firm was the first to carry anthracite coal through to New York, it having been carried previously to Philadelphia, and from there re-shipped to New York.

With Asa Packer's energy, honesty, and broad thinking, the business grew to good-sized proportions. Then he realized that they must have steam for quicker transportation. He urged the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company to build a railroad along the banks of their canal; but they refused, thinking that coal and lumber could only pay water freights. In September, 1847, a charter was granted to the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill, and Susquehanna Railroad Company; but the people were indifferent, and the time of the charter was within seventeen days of expiring, when Asa Packer became one of the board of managers, and by his efforts graded one mile of the road, thus saving the charter. Two years later the name of the company was changed to the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, and Mr. Packer had a controlling portion of the stock.

So much faith had he in the project that no one else, apparently, had faith in, that he offered to build the road from Mauch Chunk to Easton, a distance of forty-six miles, and take his pay in the stocks and bonds of the company.

The offer was accepted; and the road was finished in 1855, four years after it was begun, but not without many discouragements and great financial strain. Mr. Packer was made president of the railroad company, which position he held as long as he lived.

Already wealth and honors had come to the energetic carpenter. In 1842 and 1843 he was elected to the State Legislature, and became one of the two associate judges for the new county of Carbon.

In 1852, and again in 1854, he was elected to Congress as a Democrat, and made a useful record for himself. So universally respected was he in Pennsylvania for his Christian life, as well as for his successful business career, that he was prominently mentioned as a presidential candidate, Pennsylvania voting solidly for him through fourteen ballots; and when his name was withdrawn the delegates voted for Horatio Seymour.

In 1869, Judge Packer was nominated for governor; but the State was strongly Republican, having given General Grant the previous year 25,000 majority. Judge Packer was defeated by only 4,500 votes, showing his popularity in his own State.

Two years before this, in the autumn of 1867, his great gift, Lehigh University, had been opened to pupils. It has now considerably over four hundred students, from thirty-five various States and countries. It was named by Judge Packer, who would not allow his own name to be used. After his death the largest of the buildings was called Packer Hall, but by the wording of the charter the name of the University can never be changed. The Packer Memorial Church, a handsome structure, is the gift of Mrs. Packer Cummings, the daughter of the founder. To the east of Packer Hall is the University Library with 97,000 volumes, the building costing $100,000, erected by Judge Packer in memory of his daughter Mrs. Lucy Packer Linderman. At his death he endowed the library with a fund of $500,000.

Judge Packer died May 17, 1879, and is buried in the little cemetery at Mauch Chunk in the picturesque Lehigh Valley. He lived simply, giving away during the last few years of his life over $4,000,000.

Said the president of the University, Rev. Dr. John M. Leavitt, in a memorial sermon delivered in University Chapel, June 15, 1879, "Not only his magnificent bequests are our treasures; we have something more precious,—his character is the noblest legacy of Asa Packer to the Lehigh University....

"He was both gentle and inflexible, persuasive and commanding, in his sensibilities refined and delicate as a woman, and in his intellect and resolve clear and strong as a successful military leader.... Genial kindness flowed out from him as beams from the sun. Never at any period of his life is it possible to conceive in him a churlish or niggardly spirit.... During nearly fifty years he was connected with our church, usually as an officer, and for much of the long period was a constant and exemplary communicant.... Like the silent light giving bloom to the world, his faith had a vitalizing power. He grasped the truth of Christianity and the position of the church, and showed his creed by his life."