The ablest physicians of the city were standing at George Ingram’s bedside in despair, as all hope of his recovery had vanished. Gertrude stepped aside into her library, and was in the very agony of prayer for help, when in rushed her brother Alfonso, whom the family believed dead. He had come from California with his wife, and stopping at the company’s office, had learned of the terrible trouble of his family.
Lifting up his broken-hearted sister, who for a moment thought that she had met her brother on the threshold of the other world, he kissed Gertrude and said, “Be brave, go back to your husband, and trust your brother to look after the steel company’s matters.”
Alfonso learned that one million dollars were needed at once to tide over the company’s affairs; he drew two checks, for five hundred thousand dollars each, upon his banks in San Francisco and requested the creditors to wire to the coast. Before two o’clock replies came that Alfonso Harris’s cheeks were good, and the only son of Reuben Harris had saved the “Harris-Ingram Experiment.” Mariposa’s band of beaten gold had worked its magic.
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A public funeral was given George Ingram. He was a man the city could ill afford to lose, and every citizen felt he had lost a personal friend. All business was suspended, and the mills were shut down. For two days the body of the dead mayor lay in state in the city hall he had built and given to the people. The long line of citizens that filed past the coffin continued through the night till dawn, and even then, great throngs stood in the rain with flowers for his casket.
As a token of their high regard the people voted to change the name of the city of Harrisville to Harris-Ingram, the suburb which was annexed, and to place a bronze statue of George Ingram on the tower above the city hall, which now became his fitting monument. Labor and capital united in electing for the head of the great Harris-Ingram Steel Company, Alfonso, the millionaire and artist-son of Reuben Harris.