Mary.
To the enterprise and perseverance of two men was mostly due this
rapid improvement of the city and its new and extended accommodations
to commerce--Samuel J. Peters and James H. Caldwell. Mr. Peters was a
native of Canada, and came when quite a youth to New Orleans. He
married a Creole lady, a native of the city; and, after serving as a
clerk for some time in the business house of James H. Leverick & Co.,
commenced business as a wholesale grocer. In this business he was
successful, and continued in it until his death. He was a man of
splendid abilities and great business tact, great energy and
application, and full of public spirit. New Orleans he viewed as his
home; he identified himself and family with the people, and his fame
with her prosperity. To this end he devoted his time and energies;
around him congregated others who lent willingly and energetically
their aid to accomplish his conceptions, and to fashion into realities
the projections of his mind. I remember our many walks about the
second municipality--when, where now is the City Hall, and Camp and
Charles streets, and when these magnificent streets, now stretching
for miles away, ornamented with splendid buildings and other
improvements, were but muddy roads through open lots, with side-walks
of flat-boat gunwales, with only here and there a miserable shanty,
with a more miserable tenant--to contemplate and talk of the future we
both lived to see of this municipality.
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