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CHAPTER ONE Athlete into Immigrant I'E W young mon ha.o ",'.od in Am"i", un· der such auspicious circumstances. In the summer of 1876 William B. Close of Trinity College , Cambridge, was twenty-three years old, a handsome, noted athlete of the day, president ,'$ of the University Boat Club and captain of the British crew scheduled to row in the Centennial Regatta at Philadelphia. President Ulysses S. Grant was expected to watch the regatta. New York newspapers ran front-page articles about the English visitors; as the Times explained, the extensive coverage was called for "because the Centennial Regatta will raise amateur boating from a local to an international position." Even while the Brittanic was still on the high seas, the virtues of "the English stroke" were discussed in print and whether it was patriotic or merely foolish to stick to the "thoroughly American stroke." "Are not Oxford, Cambridge, ..and Dublin undergraduates formidable opponents? If so, is it not probable that their stroke is dangerous?"I William B. Close had been around water all his life. He was the fifth of eight children who had grown up on board the sailing yacht Sibilla, which cruised the Mediterranean and Adriatic, with a home base at Antibes, France. His father, a banker and intimate business advisor of Ferdinand II of Naples, had accumulated enough money at the time of the king's death in 1859 to retire and devote himself to his family, yachting, and other hobbies. When he died of a heart attack six years later, the boys were placed in English schools and expected to pursue careers that would enable them to earn a proper living, although only the year before their mother's father, Samuel Brooks of the wellestablished firm of Brooks Bank, had died, leaving her £100,000. William's father hoped his sons would learn the habits of gentlemen, yet "acquire the impression that labour and industry are absolute requisites to their independence and happiness." Thus at an early age, William was exposed to the idea that being a gentleman and earning money were in no way incompatible. His father had done just that. The Closes even had connections with the British aristocracy. While William was still a schoolboy at Wellington, his cousin Amy Brooks married the Marquis of Huntly, a socially lustrous name since the seventeenth century, when the daughter of King James I of Scotland married the second Earl of Huntly. This family access to the upper levels of society later helped William in the development of his Iowa colony; proper blue-blood credentials enabled him to reach persons of means who could invest.2 9 10 GENTLEMEN ON THE PRAIRIE "CHAMPAGNE corks fly about and they welcome us to America," wrote William in his journal as the Cambridge oarsmen arrived in New York on a hot July morning in 1876. Writing a journal was not only more economical in time than composing individual letters, but it was also a suitable way to relate his adventures and gain a perspective on them. He seldom postured or played false with his brothers, sisters, and other relatives reading the journal-they all knew him too well. He enjoyed the role of bright observer and seized upon aspects of his experiences that would throw light on the American character, in the manner of Tocqueville, Martineau, or Dickens. For instance, the bad streets and roads puzzled him; there was even grass growing on famous Fifth Avenue: "one could keep three cows comfortably." He reported discussing this situation with a fictional Jonathan. I said, "The American nation, instead of being the go-ahead people one had heard of so much were behind the age in patronising such bad streets." "Not a bit of it. It only proves we are far ahead of the time. What does it matter to us if our roads are rough? We build carriages to suit the roads, with such light springs that going over these rough stones only makes a pleasant rocking motion, and the Corporation save vast amounts of public money which ought to be spent on roads, but which the Corporation spend on themselves, and thus encourage trade." "But your carriages and horses cannot last you long. They must get worn out by this rough usage." "So they do, and that is just another proof that we are not behind time. In England your grandfather's coach will last until your Grandchildren . It cannot be worn out with your good roads...

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