43rd congress. During his first term in Congress. Phelps was considered by his colleagues to be a serious, well-versed and mature public servant - a successful young lawyer, ambitious, with money and energy who was expected to make his mark on politics and statesmanship. Phelps failed in his first bid for reelection, in 1874. After his term ended, Phelps returned in 1875 to his Teaneck home, where he planned improvements to the homestead and looked for additional land investments nearby. In the next year, he embarked upon a European tour, partly to regain his health which had suffered from a bout of typhoid fever. While abroad, Phelps investigated institutions of learning and art in England, France and Germany, and enjoyed the society of scholars, authors and scientists. Arboriculturist Returning to the United States, Phelps spent most of his time resting and working on his most important hobby—his estate. His great passion was trees and the woods; he was a devotee of arboriculture. Between 1875 and 1880 Phelps was responsible for planting approximately 600,000 trees of numerous varieties. In 1880 Phelps was selected to manage the Republican Presidential campaign but he was unable to complete the assignment because of feeble health. In 1881, President James A. Garfield named Phelps as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Austria-Hungary, but he held this post for only a few months, resigning after Garfield was assassinated. Still active in politics, Phelps was re-elected to Congress in 1883, 1885 and again in 1887. Art collector In 1886 the Phelps mansion was completed. At Christmas time the family held a glorious celebration with people from all over the country viewing the mansion for the first time. Phelps' favorite room was a gallery which he had designed himself to hold his priceless collection of art treasures from the ends of the earth. It was nearly midnight on April 1, 1888 when Phelps, returning to his apartments in Washington, D.C. after an evening with friends, found on the table in his bedroom two telegrams which told him that his mansion in Teaneck, where his family then was, had been totally destroyed by fire, with a loss of nearly all its valuable contents. He disturbed no one upon receiving this startling news, but very early in the morning awakened his secretary, told him what had happened, and said that he was going to take an immediate train for New York.