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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 17, 1907)
52 THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAX, PORTLAND, FEBRUARY IT, 1907. i m t:; 5 MM BY DEXTER MARSHALL. M EN who accumulate great for tunes are grenerally anJ justly credited with working: much Tiar-ier than the average of their fel ' lows. They also do a lot of pr.-ictlcal ' hard thinking: in the course of their f fortune building-. s But the fortune builder has only be- BUn his task when he has sot Ills . . money together. He must then plan j "' nnd work to keep it together, not only Z. during lil.s lifetime, but after death. C since he knows from t!ie bitter expe rleneci of others that the heirs to i ' great fortunes arc often Quite unable ,to conserve them. But the mole fa moua of the multi-millionaires of to -r day believe they have found a better ; way to perpetuate their wealth than the country's pioneer millionaires knew J about, and this is probably true, k The mere fact that the great fortunes j of today are so much larger than wero 5 . those of yesterday is one thing that will make for their permanency, but the linking of tho great transportation j and productive properties together. ; through the device of interlocking ownership, is expected to prove the ; ', greatest factor in their stability. 5 The Indolent, unbusiuess-like or pleasure-loving heir to a fortune of a ltundred millions even, might easily dissipate it through bad management or personal extravagance if it were all invested in one enterprise of which lie were the sole owner. But if his hundred millions are distributed among a half dozen or perhup3 a score of great corporations, each managed by experts who have risen to high ex ecutive place through successive stages and by dint of the hardest sort of work, his fortune can hardly be de stroyed through his own bad manage ment. "The buying of stock in a rival's railroad and selling him a part of the stock in your own road not only les sens the necessity of competition be tween the two roads,, but also helps to insure the property of both after you are gone," said a railroad "mag nate" to the writer the other day. Undoubtedly the conviction that this view Is correct has bad its Influence In bringing about the great combina tions which we call "trusts.'.' If these combinations are allowed to remain Intact there is little danger to the permanence of tho most famous for- Itunes of thi3 century. Jay Gould, It will be remembered. mat nadc a sort of family trust -for the preservation of tho family millions. and it was effective even against the j assaults of tho Count de Castellane jj upon the portion of them Inherited by J the younger daugnter of the family. k Many of the pioneer fortune build- ! ere were not nearly so wise in their $ day and generation as those of today 5 hope they are. It is doubtful whether J there are now a score of millionaire y families In the whole country which ij were in milllnnalredom aO years ago: . it would be hard to make an off-hand ! list of more than 'half a d07.cn. Bare- ly one of them can say Its fortune ran I Into, the millions 100 years ago. The fortunes of Abbott and Amos Iawrencc, the founders of Lawrence, Mass., wore possibly tho most famous !n the whole country in the middle of the lost century. There may bo here and there among my readers a gray head who will remember the paragraph devoted to Abbott Lawrence in the old geography books. He was described as a "merchant king." his fortune was estimated lit JO.OUO.OOO, which was enormous In the before-thc-war days, , wh"n he flourished. He was (is much of a phenomenon as J; Astor or Vandcrbilt, his millionaire contemporaries, whose fortunes are i Btlll conspicuously in evidence. There are many well-to-do Lawrences today, of course, but the fame of the family t) an exceptionally wealthy one haa disappeared, except near Groton, Mass. Xncre Abbott Lawrence's own country house, guarded by a fine, more than century-old elm, still stands. -The Moses Taylor fortune was an other wonder of New York in the mid dle of the nineteenth century which ts never heard of any more. It was much larger than the fortune of Charles J. Osborn, whose son, Howell, rot away with his patrimony in a sur prisingly short time with the help of ler'nln associates In theatrical circle. Ilia foituna of Asa Packer, builder Fvporfsi Wood HARPER'S WEEKLY of one of the most famous of the o caJled "coal railroads." is another which lias disappeared completely. Yet In the sixties and seventies he was the richest man in all Pennsylvania, and at his death his wealth was estimated at S40,0r0.00D. The disappearance of the millions in herited by William and Amasa Sprague of Rhode Island attracted more atten tion, probably, than the dissipation of any other great contemporary fortune. It was effected in a very few year. after nearly a century of careful and laborious upbuilding, and it was attended by no end of startling and picturesque incidents. A.1 William Spt-ague, the man who lost it had been Governor of his State and was a United States Senator when the crash came, and as his wife was Kate Chase, famous for her beauty, her clever ness and her power in politics, the whole country watched the dissolution of the fortune with the greatest interest. At the time of his collapse in the 70's William Sprague was the head of the firm of W. & A. Sprague. cotton manu facturers, of Providence. The firm's mills employed 15,000 men and women. The capital Invested in the business ' ran well into tho millions, and while the world of cotton manufacturers knew of the firm's embarrassment it was un guessed by the general public. The concern was established in the early days of the Republic by AVilllam Spraguc's grandfather. His two sons, William and Amasa, carried it on after his death, and Amasa's sons al-o Wil liam and Amasa, took it over in thMr turn, so that its style was W. & A. Sprague for two generations. Both tho William Spragues, uncle and nephew, went into public life and each became first Governor and then Senator: the. first was only two years in the upper House, from 1812 to 1844; the second served an even dozen years, from 1S63 to 1S7. He Is still living at Narragansett Pier, across the bay from Newport : the last I heard of him he was chief of police there, and with hardly a trace of his former mag nificence and power. His father and uncle had left their great business so buttressed that no one dreamed of its posKible failure. Men who knew both W'illiam and Amasa declare today that had Amasa been in control of the business it would now be running, along with other great cotton milling establishments founded contemporarily with the Spragues' and still being operated by the founders' descendants. Amasa and William were opposites. Amasa was fond of horses and a thorough-going business man. William was a politician, no horseman and es sentially a poor business man. At one time Amasa had 30 horses in his private stables at Cranston, 100 brood mares on his stock farm there and 100 more on an other stock farm near Leavenworth, Kas. He spent $1,000,009 breeding trotting stock, In the hope of producing a world beater on the track, In which he failed. His three stallions Karragansett, Rhode Island and Sprague's Abdallah were fa mous all over the country. He never rode horseback, but he was a master hand at the reins; William drove only when he had to go about, and always badly. When Amasa Sprague Was Licked. Amasa was a fighter, but a fair man, and they still tell of a fist fight which he had with a laboring man in front of the firm's office at Cranston. The man was one of a gang engaged in digging a ditch in which water pipes were to be laid. Amasa looked into the ditch and told the man that he wasn't doing the work n he should. "You're a liar!" shouted back tlie man; "besides, it's none of yer business. I kin lick yer for two cente anyway." "Come out of the ditch and try it," re sponded Sprague. Out cama the man and a lively set-to followed, in which Sprague got the worst of It. He wasn't badly damaged, but he was well whipped. He retired to his office to wash up, put court plaster on his cuts and nurse his black eye. The workman went back, to his digging remarking to Ms mates that he had taught one med dlesome chap a good lesson. "Yes" was the reply, "but do you know who it was you licked? It was Amasa Sprague!" This put a new face on the matter. The man climbed out of the ditch a second time and sneaked into tha otBce. wliore 1 Iff5 l. ,s - v"'FJ" ff : : - , . 1 i I IT 9-,,,.. . vgSisigg?gggSg ii ' V INTERIOR OF' THE GA&DEtJ CITY, A.T. orivwA'zo most NOTEWOR THY MONUMENT he asked for his "time." From his desk in the back room Sprague -saw him at tho counter. "What do you want now?" called out Sprague. "Aren't you satisfied?" The man stammered out that he sup posed he'd bo discharged anyway, and wasn't waiting to be kicked out. "Go back to the ditch!" roared Sprague. "You're the kind of man I want to keep around here." The Sprague family's town house was in Providence, near Brown University. Ama sa's own home was at Ladd's Watering Trough. six miles below Cranston. "Ladd's Watering Trough" is not a fancy namo; there is there a great circular stone, spring-fed trough, built so high that horses may drink from it without be ing unchecked. Amasa Sprague's daugh ter still lives in the house. Amasa -Sprague seemed to grieve more over the loss of his horses than the loss of his fortune. William had bought the famous place Canochet, half a mile north of Narrangansett Pier, two or three years before the smash came, and Mrs. Sprague Kate Chase was devoting all her energies to the beautiflcatlon of the house. It was understood in the neigh borhood that she had contracted" to ex pend 500,000 or more in that way. At all events a large number' of artisans im ported from France were at work on the decorations at the moment the news of the failure reached her. Old-timers remember very well the' com plications that followed tho Sprague bankruptcy; the differences that arose between husband and wife who had been married only eight years; the divorce, af ter which the wife was legally known as Mies Kate Chase, and her later career in Washington, which had been the scene of so many triumphs, both political and social, during her father's life. He was Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln in Civil War times; although a- Democrat, and he as pired unsuccessfully to the Presidency in 18S8. Kate Chase ' herself declined the nomination for her father, in his absence, when emissaries went to his house to ten der it. on the ground' that the platform agreed upon for the 'convention's adop tion would not be satisfactory to him. Later he confirmed the declination. Kate Chase first met William Sprague, then Governor of Rhode island, at Cleve land in 1861, upon the anniversary of the battle of Lake Erie. After their divorce, following the failure, he took for second wife a Mrs. "Wneatley, who had" a con siderable fortune of her own. part of which was devoted to the retention of Canonchet, which Kate Chase had taken so much delight in beautifying. There the second Mrs. Sprague and her two daughters are still living with William Sprague, now away past 70, who in his day has been millionaire, soldier he was in the Civil War Governor of his state. Senator of the United States and chief of a police force numbering little more than a dozen officers. Kate Chase died a few years ago in comparatively strattened circumstances, her only support being the small estate left by her father, who died Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Kate Chase bore William Sprague one child, a daughter, Ethel, who. it was an nounced some years ago, was going on the stage, but she has never made a repu tation as an actress. . Vast Stewart Fortune Gone. The fortune which the Belfast boy. Alexander Turner Stewart, began to build up in 1825, and to which he added not ably every year for a twelvemonth more than a half century when he died in 1876, was 'much larger than the Sprague fortune. And while It was built up more rapidly than the Sprague fortune, its disintegration was much slower. It is not many months since the latest act in the Stewart-Hilton drama was played, when Sylvia Gerrish Hilton, the actress who became the wife of George- Hilton, one of the judge's sons, was having her own troubles with the Hilton, creditors. They were trying. to eject her from a house In th noxtiiern. part of Manhattan, (0 w . ( ilia U'Vf : . . . 11J&N r '4 THE PRESENT MRS. J.CRJ2A.GCSE: AHJ2JJ-E3 TWO EJl CGJJTEi&S . . one of the last vestiges of the once vast fortune. A. T. Stewart did not begin piling up his millions until John Jacob Astor had been in the country more than ,40 years,' but-all through the middle of tho last century he was as famous for his wealth as the furrier. When he died, the year before the Centennial Exposition., his accumulation 'amounted- to J40.000.000. Stewart brought a ltttle money' with him to New York. He began, by buying up at a ridiculously low price a lot of linen, napkins, etc., so shopworn that it could not be easily sold. He had it carefully washed and ironed so that it looked better than new. He advertised it judiciously and displayed it with much better taste than was then often shown in New York, and the result was prompt sales at a big profit. In the early years of his mercantile career he worked harder than any of his employes, and his wife helped him personally; the linen pieces which he bought on his first venture, were laundered by her own hands. Stewart was one of the shrewdest and oddest men of his times. He looked like either a preacher or an old-fashioned gambler; henot only dressed In black, but the expression of his face and his air were always studiously sanctimonious. These characteristics may have come from the fact that when young he studied for the ministry. He was able to speak his mind unconventionally on occasion, however, and there are still plenty of stories concerning him afloat In New York's dry goods district. He added immensely to his fortunes In Civil War times from the abnormal rise in values incident to the conflict. Once, however, he failed to profit by an ad vance and lost nearly J70.000 in pros pective profits. This was Just befere the war, and was brought about by the shrewdness and nerve of a farmer named Jeroloman, who lived in Hilton, N. J. This man foresaw the practically Imme diate breaking out of the war, and that war meant a great rise in cotton. Argu- It ing, therefore, that cotton would be a "good buy," Jeroloman went looking after some of it. It didn't take him long to find out that A. T. Stewart & Co. had the bulk of the visible supply of manufactured cotton in their store. . Stewart himself was not present when Jeroloman. called, but his partners sold practically all their muslin to the fanner, at from 12 to 15 cents a yard. The aggregate cost was $33,000, and Jeroloman had some . trouble raising enough money to bind the bargain, . but - '-'u V - 1 & I s WILLIAM I " C4AOAC:JS: T"' THT LZO he did it. and gave his note for the balance. He asked that the muslin bo allowed to stay in the store till he called' for it. Within a few days Sumpter was fired upon and the price of muslin began to jump. A. T. Stewart & Co. found, when they attempted to restock, that it had gone up 100 per cent. They sent for the farmer and Stewart himself 'tried to get him to give up his bargain, but in vain. "Well," said Stewart, after Joroloman had offered to sell at Jt a yard, "no less"; "you'll have to get your goods out of hero at once." The - farmer said "All . right" quietly enough, but that made Stewart very angry and the interview closed with the merchant prince swearing like a trooper ot the top of his voice. Next day. a pro cession of wagons drove up to tlie Slew art establishment and carted the muslin to the farmer's New Jersey home. He had to store the goods in his house and rhcy filled It from ground floor to attic. He had to wait only a short time for his profits. His first sales were made at 25 cents a yard, then finally $1. When the last piece was disposed of he counted up and found that he had made $05,000. -Mr. and Mrs. Stewart had no -children, and -their life in the Fifth-avenue palace was not what they had looked forward to. Many another self-made millionaire has been able to climb Into the glories of New York eoclety, but the Stewarts wero not. Mrs. Stewart, left alone most of each day, surrounded by magnificence and waited upon by servants who looked down upon her because she was so clear ly -unused to her splendor, and with no acquaintances among the women ot the clty'9 rich families, her life is said to have been almost pathetically dreary. Hor husband', business continued to 'f t - .1 - - y:s:iVv!i 'ORMEfi GOVEJ2MG& WIL.L.TAM Jl . &RACCfEr.-rXM ATNARRAGAMSETT PLE& TWO Oft THJZEE YEARS AGO. f nsSi f1"- A v prosper to the day of his death, and finding that his tine house g;ive him no social entree he stu.-k s close to his merchandising in l'l. lad r yenrs as he had when building up. Stew:irt did h.ivo s.miio political ac quaintanceship, however. President Grant was unusually fond of Wm. nnd nominated him to the Treasury portfolio, but tho Senate failed to confirm. Death lirouglit Disintegration. Stewart died ebout 33 years ago and disintegration attacked the Stewart for tune ft onec. The late Judge Henry Hil ton, who had been the merchant's legal adviser, was made executor of his estate and bequeathed f 1.000.000. For years the newspapers g.ivo much space to accounts of its gradual decay. But prior to the first rumors that the estate was going by the board came the news that Stew art's body had been stolen from the cem etery :it Tenth street and Second avenue. That caused o greater sensation than had been caused by anything Stewart ever did In bis lifetime. Also it gave Super intendent Availing of the New York police a, chanc? to make himself famous, A'hich he did by the alleged finding of the re mains. Tho story of the Stewart millions" dis appearance and the many side dramas which accompanied it would fill a vol ume as thrilling as the most thrilling ro mance ever written. The will was con tested vigorously, and as late as 1903, 27 years after Stewart's death, a court order was issued for its photographing, in or der that the photograph might be used as evidence. Albert Hilton, one of Judge Hilton's sons, who was placed, in charge of the drygoods atore, run under the style of How the Millions Controlled by Governor William Sprague of Rhode Island Were Frittered. Away. The Dissipation of the Wealth Amassed by A. T. Stewart Has Been Complete, but Garden City With Its Cathedral Serves as His Monument. , - : - - S;:!: SL PHOTOGRAPH TAKEhT v it A ztf 1' 1 s if-1 CAS J-fOII? OF TtfE Hilton. Hushes Co.. became so de voted to stamp - collecting that he neg lected the business,' tiiue letting it nm down still further. The Judge himself set up in great style near Saratoga, where ho entertained at Woodlawn Park at big expense for yeara In those ila h kept horses and dogs and fancy dairy stock. During all the latter part of Mrs. Stew art's life she died several years ago -she lived a lonely, secluded life In the Thirty-fourth street house. It was charged and admitted in certain court proceeding? that she transferred practi cally all the Stewart property to the Judgo in consideration of ll.OOOO In cash. Judge Hilton himself died a few years later than Mrs. Stewart. But, although the Stewart millions have gone and the famoiw mansion on Fifih avenue has disappeared, there remain three or four monuments to his memory one of which nt least will last many ycnis. This if the cathedral at Garden City. L. I., built, with its contributory schools, after his death, on a plot of land part of the famous Hompsteu'l Plains, which he bought as the site of a model city. It is supposed, but ; not known, that his remains are now in a beautiful S3pulcher In tho cathedral. The Park Avenue Hotel In New York, built as a hotel for women, but found unprofitable, is another, and the buildings of his two stores, one of which is now the home of a great deportment store, are also still In use," and likely long to remain so. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart were childless. Had he founded a family it is possible that the Stewart fortune would still be a potent factor in tho finance and busi ness of the country. tCopyrigbt, 1507, by Dexter Marshall.)