was myself indebted for the original suggestion and advice to make the donation to this cause", the seminary. In 1859, Charles guided the creation of the First Presbyterian Church of Manteno, Illinois, securing a donation from McCormick which funded nearly half of the amount necessary for the building of the church. In 1866, he gave the parsonage as a gift (it burned down soon after his death, in 1895). In 1861, Charles was a delegate to the Presbyterian General Assembly in Philadelphia which considered the Gardiner Spring Resolutions propounded by his brother, Rev. Gardiner Spring, of New York City. The assembly finally approved the resolutions, which meant the church would stand behind Abraham Lincoln's attempts to keep the Union intact. In 1865, Spring cared for William Sanderson McCormick, the inventor's brother and partner, during his long illness. When William died that fall, Charles A. Spring, Jr. took over the management of the McCormick Co., as well as McCormick's extensive real estate holdings. The elder Spring often helped his son in this, especially during the busy spring leasing season. Charles Sr. repeatedly tried to convince McCormick to carry out one of William's last wishes, which was to found a home for young girls (age 5-10) to save them from “destructive Parental & other influence” and to clothe, feed, and educate them in a religious environment. Charles himself had successfully petitioned the Chicago City Council to set aside funds to establish the Chicago Reform School for Boys, one of the first of its kind in the nation. According to Hutchinson, McCormick's biographer, Charles believed that “too much emphasis was placed upon punishment, and not enough upon the prevention of crime. Later life By 1868, Charles's eyesight was failing, but he was still farming, living most of the year with his daughters Edwina and Frances and sons George and Winthrop in Manteno. As he wrote C. H. McCormick in May 1865, he spent his days “raising strawberries and grandchildren." In 1877–1878, Charles retired and moved to Le Mars, Iowa, where his son Winthrop worked as a McCormick reaper agent, his son George owned a hardware company, and where his daughter Edwina soon married Byron Mudge, a Civil War pensioner. He lived with the Mudges for the last 15 years of his life. He stayed quite active in his old age. In 1884, at the age of 84, Charles caught a white Pacific crane