CHAPTER LIX.
MEN OF MARK.
CYRUS W. FIELD—HON. STEPHEN V. WHITE—AUSTIN CORBIN—PHILIP D. ARMOUR—HON.
LEVI P. MORTON—JOHN A. STEWART—ANTHONY J. DREXEL—THE JEROME
BROTHERS—ADDISON CAMMACK—RUSSELL SAGE—CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW—JAMES M.
BROWN—STEDMAN THE POET—VICTOR H. NEWCOMBE—MOSES TAYLOR—FORMER GIANTS
OF THE STREET—HENRY KEEP—ANTHONY W. MORSE.
CYRUS W. FIELD.
Cyrus W. Field has been termed a locomotive in trousers. The simile
illustrates the indefatigable energy of the man. His indomitable
resolution and his energy of character have placed him high among the
distinguished men of the age. He was born at Stockbridge, Mass., in
1819. His father was a clergyman. At fifteen years of age, Cyrus W.
Field came to New York with a trifling sum in his pocket. For three
years he was in the employ of A. T. Stewart, the dry goods merchant, and
then went to Lee, Mass., to work in his brother’s paper mill. Two years
later he became a partner in the paper firm of E. Root & Co., in Maiden
Lane, but the co-partnership was not successful. Later on he again went
into the paper business, and by 1853 had acquired a competence,
whereupon he partially withdrew from mercantile pursuits, and his health
having failed he took a trip to South America. He was about to withdraw
entirely from business, when he was induced, with considerable
difficulty, to look into a project for laying a telegraphic cable to
England. Frederick N. Gisbourne had interested Matthew D. Field, a civil
engineer, and a brother of Cyrus W. Field, in a project for establishing
a telegraph line between New York and St. John’s, Newfoundland, partly
on poles, partly under ground, and partly under water. At St. John’s,
the fastest steamers ever built were to sail for Ireland, and the time
between the two countries was to be shortened to six days or less. A
company had attempted to carry out this project, and had become
bankrupt. The idea was un-American; it was unsatisfactory; much quicker
communication was needed. It was not till Mr. Field conceived the idea
of laying a cable direct from Newfoundland to Ireland, that he became
really interested in the enterprise. He was assured by high scientific
authority that the idea could be carried out. In March, 1854, Mr. Field
went to St. John’s, Newfoundland, and obtained from the legislature a
charter, granting an exclusive right for fifty years, to establish a
telegraph line from the Continent of America to Newfoundland and thence
to Europe. Then, with considerable difficulty, he obtained in New York
subscriptions amounting to $1,500,000, which he thought would be
sufficient. The line really cost $1,834,500, being more than 2,600 miles
long. His first attempt failed in 1857. He succeeded in the following
year, and then the cable became silent, and the incredulous public
thought that this would end all attempts to do something that seemed
miraculous. For seven years no attempt was made to lay a cable, as the
Civil War intervened, but in 1865 Mr. Field again took up the
enterprise, in which he had never lost faith. By this time sub-marine
telegraphy had been greatly improved, a better cable was constructed,
and a better machine for laying it was invented. The famous steamer
_Great Eastern_ took the cable, but after going some 1,200 miles, the
great vessel gave a lurch that broke the cable and an attempt to grapple
it was unsuccessful. In 1866, however, a cable was successfully laid. A
private citizen seldom receives such honors as was showered on Mr.
Field, in 1866, when Europe and America realized that largely through
the exertions of one man, they were joined by the Atlantic cable. He had
pushed a vast project to a successful consummation in spite of
incredulity, ridicule, indifference and strenuous opposition.
Peter the Hermit did not preach the crusade with more fervor and
enthusiasm than this priest of commerce, so to speak, advocated the
great work with which history will always link his name. If any one had,
a few centuries ago, ventured to predict that the day would come when
there would be six or seven cable telegraphs stretched along the ocean
bed between America and Europe—along dim prehistoric valleys, four miles
under water and over great sub-marine mountains—by means of which a
message could be sent nearly three thousand miles and an answer received
in thirty seconds; he would have been in danger of incarceration as a
lunatic, or even of death on the scaffold or at the stake. This daring
utilitarian age, however, has grown accustomed to startling exhibitions
of human ingenuity. Mr. Field owns considerable Western Union stock, and
is interested in a number of railroads, including the Manhattan
Elevated. He owns one-fifth of the stock of the Acadia Coal Co., is a
special partner in the grain firm of Field, Lindley & Co., and owns the
_Mail and Express_, one of the great papers of the metropolis. He has a
house in Gramercy Park and a fine mansion at Irvington on an estate of
about 500 acres. He is a large owner of real estate in that very
pleasant section, owning some 56 houses besides considerable land. He is
fully six feet in height, of light complexion, with penetrating,
bluish-gray eyes, which peer sharply into those of an interlocutor. The
nose is prominent, the brows knit with years of thought, the mouth and
jaw indicate great decision of character. He is a man of courtly manners
and exceptional abilities.
[Illustration:
_Philip D Armour_
]
HON. STEPHEN V. WHITE.
Hon. Stephen V. White is a short, compactly built, dark-complexioned man
of 54. In manners he is courteous and unassuming; in business methods he
is quick and straightforward. He is a Director in the Western Union and
the Lackawanna road. He is a bold, dashing operator in stocks, and in
Wall Street has met with considerable success. One of his greatest
favorites is Lackawanna. He expects to see it some day go to 200. He has
several times badly squeezed the shorts in that stock, and, now that he
has practically demonstrated what they ought to have known before,
namely, that the stock can easily be cornered, the bears are apt to
fight shy of it. He has a large _clientele_, and, being a natural
leader, he has plenty of followers in his speculative campaigns. He was
born in North Carolina. He was graduated from Knox College at Galesburg,
Illinois. He studied law in the office of the Hon. John J. Kasson,
afterward United States Minister to Germany. He drifted to St. Louis,
and there became a reporter for the Missouri _Democrat_. He went to Des
Moines, practised law for nine years, and was elected a Judge. He came
to New York, and for a time practised law, but soon became a stock
broker as well. He still occasionally appears as counsel in the Federal
Courts, and sometimes in the Supreme Court of the United States. He is a
ready and forcible speaker, full of vim and fire. He was a warm personal
friend of the late Henry Ward Beecher, the grand old Chrysostom of the
nineteenth century, who has left the world brighter for his memory and
darker for his absence. In the frank, keen, practical financier and
lawyer, and the great, warm hearted preacher, glowing with fervid
idealism and generous enthusiasm and high aspirations for the human
race, there were kindred qualities that made them friends. Mr. White, in
1886, was elected to Congress from Brooklyn, where he resides. He is
scholarly in his tastes, well versed in the classics, and is especially
fond of astronomy, for the study of which he has a fine observatory in
his palatial home. He is popular in Wall Street.
[Illustration:
_L. P. Morton_
]
AUSTIN CORBIN.
Within a year Austin Corbin has become a prominent figure in the
financial world, winning wide business celebrity by his identification
with the reorganization of the Reading Railroad. He is by nature the
reverse of an iconoclast, namely, a builder up. He would construct
rather than destroy. He would save a property if it were at all
possible, and in pulling that poor, tired, financial pilgrim Reading out
of the slough of despond, and in directing its way toward a primrose
path of prosperity, he is engaged in a congenial task. He is about 58
years of age, and was born in Newport, New Hampshire. He studied law,
and was graduated from the Harvard Law School. For a time he practised
law in his native town as a partner of Ex-Governor Metcalf, of New
Hampshire, but in 1851 he went to Davenport, Iowa. There he really
organized the first national bank under the new system, which was to
prove of such incalculable financial benefit to the nation. Mr. Corbin
made the first application under the new law, but it happened to be
faulty in some minor technicalities, and before their trivialities could
be corrected four other national banks were organized, so that his bank
became number five under the new system. He came to New York in 1865,
and established a banking-house here. He is President of the Reading,
Long Island, Indiana, Bloomington & Western, Elmira, Cortland &
Northern, and Manhattan Beach Railroads. He is a member of the Union
League, Manhattan and Saturday Night Clubs of New York, the Somerset
Club of Boston, and the Conservative Club of London. He is a man of
strict probity, genial in his manners, and deservedly held in high
esteem.
PHILIP D. ARMOUR.
Philip D. Armour was born in a little village near Watertown in the
interior of New York State, in 1832. He is powerfully built, with broad
shoulders, a large head and firm, square features and light gray eyes,
that never seem excited or disturbed. His manners are quiet, composed
and courteous. In 1849, leaving his native village, he went to
California. He crossed the plains with a six-mule team which he drove
himself. He worked for a few years in the gold fields, accumulated a
little capital, and in 1855 went to Milwaukee and engaged in the grain
and warehouse business. He prospered moderately but steadily. Then he
thought of going into the lumber business, but bought an interest in the
pork packing establishment of Layton & Plankington, the former retiring.
At this time he was worth half a million. He soon increased this
three-fold. In the war, provisions were very high, but when Gen. Grant
was closing in on the Confederacy for the final struggle that could only
end in the triumph of the North, Mr. Armour saw that prices must come
down with the Confederacy. He came at once to New York and began to sell
pork short. He began to sell at $40 a barrel. He covered at $18 and
netted, it is said, nearly two million dollars. He now enlarged his
business, established new packing houses in Chicago and Kansas City as
well as agencies all over the world. He has sold sixty million dollars’
worth of food products in a year. He has five thousand names on his pay
roll. He has cornered pork three times within recent years, and in 1880
made, it is said, three millions in punishing bears who tried to sell
the market down. A campaign against the bears in pork or meats he calls
protecting his cellars. Those cellars are well protected. No bearish Ali
Baba has the pass-word to go in and plunder them, and the number of
cinnamons and grizzlies, big and little, who have licked their paws in
rueful remembrance of the attempt are not a few. He has made millions in
successful grain speculations. He invested four millions in St. Paul
stock, buying it outright. He is now one of the recognized financial
leaders of the country, as aggressive as a Wellington at the proper time
and cautious as a Fabius when caution is the watchword of wisdom. He
lives in a plain house on Prairie Avenue in Chicago, and is himself a
man devoid of ostentation. He works from 7 A. M. till 6 P. M. His
fortune is estimated at fifteen millions of dollars.
Hon. Levi P. Morton received his business training in the dry goods
trade. Then he became a banker. He has a national reputation as a
financier. He is shrewd, genial and successful. President Garfield made
him Minister to France. He had previously done good service as a member
of Congress. He is now in his sixty-third year. He is a lineal
descendant of George Morton, one of the Pilgrim Fathers who came to this
country in 1623. Mr. Morton was born in the State of New Hampshire. At
20 he became a clerk in a country store. He had to shift for himself.
Necessity is the stimulus that men of real ability require. He stayed
five years in the obscure New Hampshire village and then went to Boston,
where he ultimately engaged in business. But New York attracted him. He
embarked in the dry goods business here and went into banking
afterwards, and soon laid the broad foundations for the successful firms
of Morton, Bliss & Co., of New York, and Morton, Rose & Co., of London.
His Congressional and diplomatic laurels followed. He filled the French
Mission with great satisfaction to the French people as well as those of
the American traveling public, as he was a free and generous
entertainer. His large fortune has been amassed since he came to Wall
Street. He has a fine villa at Newport and also one on the Hudson.
[Illustration:
_John A Stewart_
]
JOHN A. STEWART.
John A. Stewart is President of the United States Trust Company, one of
the largest banking and trust corporations in America. Its deposits are
over forty millions of dollars. Its great success is largely due to the
able management of President Stewart, who has in fact shown marvellous
ability in the management of large financial interests. Mr. Stewart
during the war period was urged by Secretary Chase to became
Sub-Treasurer of the United States in this city, and he finally
consented to take the position, although at a great personal sacrifice,
being actuated solely by a patriotic spirit. He is one of the financial
lights of the metropolis, and is respected for his financial acumen and
his sterling qualities as a man.
ANTHONY J. DREXEL.
Anthony J. Drexel is the head of the house of Drexel & Co. in
Philadelphia and Drexel, Morgan & Co. in New York. The house was founded
by Joseph Drexel, who emigrated to this country from Germany early in
the present century, and began business in Philadelphia in a small way
as a sort of exchange broker. When the California gold fever broke out
he made connections with parties in San Francisco and received large
amounts of gold. In these transactions he got his first great start. The
returns from the exchange were large. As his means increased he
gradually extended his business, and finally, by thrift and diligent
attention to business, he accumulated quite a snug fortune. In the end
he built up a successful banking business, in which his sons became
interested, and at his death inherited his wealth and the business. The
elder brother died a few years ago, leaving ten million dollars to his
family and to various charities. Anthony Drexel, the present head of
this signally successful firm, is 55 years of age, and is a man of
excellent business capacity. He is one of the successful business men of
the United States.
THE JEROME BROTHERS.
Addison Jerome, who died some years ago, was a gigantic operator in his
day, and displayed great ability in the conduct of speculative
campaigns, but he went beyond his depth and disaster followed. Like many
others in Wall Street, he gained his business education in the dry goods
trade. He met with one of his greatest reverses in his attempt to corner
Lake Shore. Others followed, one after another, and the end was
financial shipwreck.
[Illustration:
ANTHONY J. DREXEL.
]
[Illustration:
_yours truly
Leonard W Jerome_
]
At this time his brother, Leonard W. Jerome, was one of the foremost men
of Wall Street and was a partner of Wm. R. Travers, the firm name being
Travers & Jerome. Leonard Jerome is splendidly built and nearly six feet
in height. His ancestors were Huguenots. He was born in Pompey, Onondaga
county, New York. His grandfather was a Presbyterian clergyman. At 14
Leonard was sent to Princeton College and was graduated with credit. He
then spent three years reading law in Albany, and at 22 was admitted to
the bar. He practiced law with his uncle, Judge Jerome, of Rochester.
Afterward with his brother Lawrence he established a newspaper, called
the _Rochester Native American_, and he made a good editor. President
Filmore appointed him Consul at Trieste. He came to Wall Street in 1854.
His first operation was in putting up all he could spare, about two
thousand dollars, as margin on five hundred shares of Cleveland and
Toledo stock, one of the old-time speculative favorites. He bought it on
a sure point from the treasurer of the road. He bought. The treasurer
sold. Result: The stock fell, and Jerome lost all his spare funds. He
was not discouraged. He studied Wall Street tactics, and in the end he
made the treasurer pay dearly for his former success in spearing a lamb.
He invested $500 in buying calls and made $5,000 within thirty days. He
became a partner of William R. Travers. They were very successful on the
short side of the market. He was to meet with some reverses, however. In
1862 the agent of the State of Indiana, in a manner that would have
deceived the very elect, through an unauthorized issue of Indiana 5 per
cent. bonds, swindled him out of $600,000 by the hypothecation of the
bonds. The State repudiated the acts of its agent, and as an individual
is not allowed to sue a State, Mr. Jerome was robbed of the money. Still
another reverse was met in Pacific Mail. When the capital stock was
increased to $20,000,000 he took 50,000 shares at 200. The price
advanced soon thereafter to 243, and he sold a part of his stock, but
kept a large block of it on account of his faith in its value. At the
next quarterly meeting of the Board of Directors, however, it was
decided by a majority of one, five directors being present, to reduce
the dividend from five to three per cent. The street was thunderstruck
at the audacity of this move; the market broke, and in two hours Mr.
Jerome’s stock depreciated $800,000. Still he made large gains in
Pacific Mail as well as big losses. He left Wall Street years ago with
an ample fortune. He went there with next to nothing, and in spite of
reverses, came out a substantial victor in the financial tourney. In the
war he was always enthusiastic in his devotion to the cause of the
North, and subscribed with princely liberality to aid patriotic
movements. When the first great Union meeting was held at the Academy of
Music he paid all the expenses. He was Treasurer of the Union Defense
Committee, and he likewise paid all of its incidental expenses. He was
the most liberal in his contributions and the most devoted in his
allegiance to the Government in its darkest and gloomiest hours. He was
the founder of the fund for the benefit of the families of those who
were killed or wounded in the New York riots of 1863, growing out of the
draft. His checks for $10,000 and more to aid the Union arms were
frequent; he contributed $35,000 toward the construction of the
“Meteor,” a war vessel built to destroy the famous “Alabama” of the
Confederacy. During the war Mr. Jerome purchased and held for some years
the largest interest in the _New York Times_, then edited by the great
war editor, Henry J. Raymond, an old friend of Mr. Jerome’s. Like Mr.
Travers, his early partner, Mr. Jerome has done much to encourage all
out-of-door sports, especially on the race course. He established the
Jerome Park Jockey Club, and became half owner in a famous speed horse
which cost $40,000. No one has done more to improve the breed of blooded
horses in this country than Mr. Jerome. He has also been prominent in
yachting. He first owned the “Undine”; then, with Commodore McVickar, he
bought the “Restless,” and still later, with Commodore James Gordon
Bennett, the “Dauntless.” He paid $125,000 for the steam yacht “Clara
Clarita,” which proved a failure, and since then he has not been so
enthusiastic a yachtsman as formerly. He made $45,000 on the great ocean
yacht race of 1866. He had much to do with introducing the taste for
four-in-hands in this country. He has been a liberal patron of American
art in all its branches. He paid for the musical education of a number
of well-known singers, whose voices were trained in the best Italian
schools. His social position has always been high, but it has been still
further promoted by the marriages of his beautiful daughters. The elder,
Clara, is married to Mr. Morton Frewen, a member of an old English
family which long represented their shire in Parliament. Another, Leoni,
married Mr. John Leslie of the Guards, and son and heir of Sir John
Leslie; while Jennie married Lord Randolph Churchill, the notable but
erratic statesman. Leonard W. Jerome, whose history I have followed
somewhat minutely, is one of the best-hearted men that Wall Street ever
knew. The more he made the more he gave. He was liberal to a fault. He
was never happy but when making others happy. He was a Sir Philip Sidney
of chivalry and peerless generosity—a man in whom the warmest and most
ingratiating traits of human nature were as natural as the winning
sunniness of his disposition and the courage which once made him one of
the great gladiators in the arena of Wall Street. Both he and his
brother Lawrence are old members of the Union Club. Lawrence was
formerly a stock broker. He had his ups and downs, and withdrew from
Wall Street several years ago. He sold his seat in the Stock Exchange
and placed the proceeds, about $30,000, in an annuity which insures him
about $4,000 a year for the remainder of his life. This, with his other
income, places him in easy circumstances and preserves his naturally
cheerful disposition, rendering him one of the most companionable men in
the city. He is about five feet ten inches in height, stout and of light
complexion. Since the death of his old friend, Wm. R. Travers, to whom
he was as Damon to Pythias, he stands pre-eminent among the wits of New
York. He is the prince of metropolitan wags and wits. His friends are
legion. The great, genial, warm hearted, boyish Larry Jerome, as his
friends love to call him, is literally a man without an enemy, and long
may he live to brighten society with his happy exuberance of spirits,
his scintillating humor and his brilliant wit.
ADDISON CAMMACK.
Addison Cammack is about sixty years of age and was born in
Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He was reared in comfortable but humble
circumstances. Early in life he began his business career as a clerk in
the house of J. P. Whitney & Co., then the largest ship brokers in New
Orleans. He showed decided business talent, and ultimately became a
partner in the firm. In the early part of the Civil War he was located
in Havana, but in 1863 he went to London and and engaged in business and
speculation there. He returned to this country in two years, and in 1866
embarked in the wholesale liquor business in New York with J. W. George,
the firm being J. W. George & Co. In about two years the firm was
dissolved and Mr. Cammack became a member of the Stock Exchange, having
previously formed a co-partnership with the late Chas. J. Osborn, under
the name of Osborn & Cammack. This co-partnership, after some years of
great prosperity, was dissolved, and since then Mr. Cammack has been an
operator on his own account. In this capacity he has become widely
known. He is a shrewd operator, and quickly changes his mind if he
thinks he has been wrong. He jumps from one side of the market to the
other with the greatest celerity when occasion demands it, but in the
main he seems most at home on the bear side. In bear operations he has
met with some reverses, while in this direction he has also made
millions. He seems to place great faith in Benner’s book of “Financial
Prophecies.” At times he operates on a very large scale, and he has been
known to cover fifty thousand shares of stock in a single day. He is
tall, well built, and has strong features, with keen, gray eyes. In
manners he is very democratic and candid, and occasionally somewhat
bluff; but he is a man of generous impulses, very charitable, and has
plenty of friends, both for his financial acumen and for his qualities
as a man who never deserts his friends, and who has not a few of the
characteristics of mediæval chivalry joined to the shrewd practicality
of a great stock operator of this practical epoch.
[Illustration:
_Very Respectfully
Addison Cammack_
]
RUSSELL SAGE.
Russell Sage is one of the best known of Wall Street celebrities. He was
born seventy years ago in Oneida county, of this State. As a boy, he was
employed in a country general store, beginning life in this fashion at
14. His business aptitude early manifested itself, and at 20 he bought
out his employer in Troy, to which he had in the meantime removed. He
became later on a member of the Troy Board of Aldermen, served seven
years, and was then elected Treasurer. Still later he was elected to
Congress, serving from 1853 to 1857. He started the project of
purchasing Mount Vernon and making it a national domain, and took great
pride in the success which attended his efforts in this direction. While
in Congress he became connected with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company,
and later Vice-President of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, also for
a time its acting president. He is now a director in the Gould telegraph
and railroad systems, is interested in a number of trust companies and
is also said to own a large amount of stock in the Importers’ and
Traders’ Bank. He is the king of puts and calls. He has usually been
successful in writing privileges, but in the summer of 1884, when the
market broke so badly as to produce a panic, Mr. Sage met with a decided
reverse. He had sold a large number of puts, and the loss was several
million dollars. He is known as, in one sense, the largest capitalist of
Wall Street, inasmuch as he keeps the largest cash balance. It runs far
up in the millions, giving him quick resources with which to carry out
any project that may seem desirable. He is quiet and simple in his
habits, making no display. He lives on Fifth Avenue, and also has a
place at Babylon, Long Island. He is worth about twenty millions. He is
tall, light complexioned, with keen, gray eyes, and in Wall Street might
be taken for a country gentleman seeing the sights.
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW.
Chauncey M. Depew owes his rise to native abilities and the friendship
of the Vanderbilt family, which he has thoroughly merited. He made the
acquaintance of Wm. H. Vanderbilt about the year 1866 and became the
attorney of the New York and Harlem Railroad. On the union of the New
York Central and Harlem roads, in 1869, he was appointed attorney of the
consolidated company, and in 1875 he was made general counsel. A few
years previous he had been elected director of the New York Central
road, and subsequently became a director in the Chicago and
Northwestern, Michigan Central, St. Paul and Omaha, the Lake Shore and
the Nickel Plate. In 1882 he was elected second vice-president of the
New York Central, and in 1885 succeeded Mr. Rutter as president of that
great railroad. He was born in Peekskill in 1834, and comes of an old
French Huguenot family. He still owns the homestead purchased two
hundred years ago by his ancestors. His mother is a descendant of the
brother of Roger Sherman, of revolutionary fame. Mr. Depew was graduated
from Yale College in 1856, and three years later was admitted to the
bar. In 1862 he was elected to the New York Assembly and acted as
Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means and part of the time as
Speaker. In 1863, the year after Governor Seymour’s election, Mr. Depew
was a candidate for Secretary of State on the Republican ticket,
overcame the Democratic ascendancy, and was elected by about thirty
thousand votes. He declined re-election and was appointed Minister to
Japan by Secretary Seward. He held the post several years, and resigned
it to resume business. His commission as Collector of the Port of New
York was once made out by President Johnson, but in consequence of
Senator E. D. Morgan’s refusal to sustain Mr. Johnson’s veto of the
Civil Rights bill the President never sent the nomination to the Senate,
but tore it up in a rage. In 1872 Mr. Depew was a candidate for
Lieutenant-Governor of New York on the Liberal-Republican ticket, and
was defeated. Two years later the Legislature elected him Regent of the
State University. He served one year as one of the Commissioners to
build the new Capitol at Albany. In the memorable contest for the United
States Senatorship in 1881, Mr. Depew for eighty-two days received the
votes of three-fourths of the Republican members, retiring then to
ensure the election of Warner Miller. Mr. Depew is President of the
Union League and a member of many other clubs and societies, and is very
popular wherever he is known. He is one of the wittiest and readiest
after-dinner speakers in this country, and when occasion requires, rises
to the height of a born orator. His tastes seem to be those of a
statesman and a scholar rather than those of a financier in the ordinary
acceptation of the term, but his conservative and able administration of
his office as President of one of the greatest trunk lines in this
country, reveals a thorough apprehension of railroad problems and a
natural capacity for whatever duties may be imposed upon him. His great
versatility is exemplified by the fact that he has succeeded in law,
politics and railroad management.
[Illustration:
_Russell Sage_
]
JAMES M. BROWN.
James M. Brown, the banker, was born in New York city, and is about 65
years of age. He is ex-President of the Chamber of Commerce, and is held
in general esteem and respect. The house of Brown Bros. & Co., in which
he is now the senior member, has an interesting history. Early in the
present century Alexander Brown came from Belfast, Ireland, to this
country, and settled in Baltimore, where he engaged in the dry goods
business under the firm name of Alexander Brown & Sons. Subsequently the
firm comprised five sons of Alexander Brown. The business of the dry
goods firm prospered, and branch houses were established in
Philadelphia, New York and Liverpool, a son going to each of these
cities to represent the parent house in Baltimore. In New York and
Philadelphia the style of the firm was Brown Brothers & Co., as the
father had died in the meantime. In Liverpool they associated with them
Mr. Shipley, and the firm there was Brown, Shipley & Co. Another house
was established in London later on under the same title as the Liverpool
firm. All the houses were still engaged in the dry goods trade. Here in
New York, in which we are more particularly interested, the firm made
advances on cotton, and received linens from abroad, and also orders to
buy cotton for Liverpool. Gradually the house began to make larger
advances to planters and others engaged in the cotton trade, and finally
the banking business became so large as to swallow up the dry goods
trade and the house thereupon dropped merchandise and became bankers.
Later on a branch house was established in Boston, and at times it has
had branch houses in New Orleans, Mobile, Galveston, Savannah and
Charleston conducted under the name of the parent firm. At present it
has houses in London, Liverpool, New York, Philadelphia, Boston,
Baltimore and New Orleans. All of the original Brown brothers are dead.
James M. Brown is a near relative of James Brown, whose picture appears,
and who was the original head of the house in New York. James M. Brown
did not enter the house in his youth. He was for years the senior member
of the dry goods house of Brown, Seaver & Dunbar. On the dissolution of
this firm James M. Brown became a partner in the house of which, by
reason of his years and large experience, he may be considered the head.
The other partners here are Howard Potter, John Crosby Brown, Charles D.
Dickey, Waldron Post Brown, a son of James M. Brown, and W. F. Halsey.
The New York partners are interested in the branch houses in this
country and abroad. James M. Brown was a member of the famous Committee
of Seventy which contributed to the downfall of the Tweed Ring in this
city. He is of the medium height and florid complexion, well preserved,
genial in manners, and is a man of high character.
[Illustration:
_Yours Very Truly.
Chauncey M. Depew._
]
STEDMAN, THE POET AND FINANCIER.
A small, slightly built gentleman with iron gray side whiskers, a
refined face and expressive gray eyes, is one of the notable figures in
Wall Street. It is Edmund Clarence Stedman, the banker poet. He was born
in a small town in Connecticut in 1833, studied at Yale, entered
journalism in 1852, came to New York in 1855, and soon began to
contribute poems to the _New York Tribune_. He became a war
correspondent for the _World_ on the outbreak of the rebellion, and
continued in this capacity till 1863. In that year he became private
secretary to Attorney-General Bates at Washington. Meantime he studied
law, and contributed to the _Atlantic Monthly_ and other leading
magazines. As a poet, he holds high rank; as a writer of polished,
graceful prose he has few equals; as a thorough gentleman and a
scrupulous man of business he is held in the highest respect. Through
the imprudence of another he has within a few years met with some
financial reverses, which he met courageously and honorably, and he is
now well on his way towards his former position of financial ease.
Although a poet, he understands Wall Street business thoroughly, and is
considered a keen judge of financial opportunities.
Victor H. Newcombe was born in Louisville, Kentucky, about 48 years ago.
His father was President of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, and the
son succeeded the father in that position. The elder Newcombe was a
financial power in Kentucky. He was sagacious and far-seeing. In every
respect, he was an excellent business man. Victor Newcombe has fallen
heir to his father’s laurels and is a successful operator in Wall
Street. He has achieved signal success in most of the campaigns in which
he has engaged, whether on the bull or the bear side of the market. He
is cautious, and turns quickly when he thinks there is occasion. He
seems to act on the French saying, that “only a fool never changes his
mind.” He lives in fine style on Fifth avenue, and also has a beautiful
residence at Elberon. He is one of a number of prominent gentlemen from
the South who have enrolled themselves among the citizens and taxpayers
of New York. He is an ex-director in the New York & New England road,
and a prominent member of the Union and Tuxedo Park Clubs.
MOSES TAYLOR.
Moses Taylor, now deceased, was one of the notable figures in Wall
Street life for many years. He started as a South street merchant, after
having been a clerk with G. G. & S. Howland. Wm. H. Aspinwall was also a
clerk with that house at the same time. When Mr. Taylor gave up his
situation to embark in business for himself, Mr. Aspinwall was admitted
into the Howland firm as a junior partner. Moses Taylor was a man
governed largely by intuition. There was little argument; with him, so
to speak, it was a word and a blow. Having formed his impression and
taken his quick resolution, there was no length to which he would not go
in the transaction, either in buying or selling or advancing money. He
was President of the City Bank and owned a large amount of its stock.
Under his administration the bank was wonderfully successful. His
son-in-law Percy R. Pyne, is now its President. Moses Taylor was a
valuable aid to the Union cause during the war. He was a close friend of
Secretary Chase, and whenever the Government needed the assistance of
the banks, the Secretary’s influence with the great merchant speedily
brought about the desired result. Moses Taylor realized the fact that
the support of the Government by the entire banking system was an
imperative necessity. The presidents of the banks would be called
together on one of these appeals from the Secretary of the Treasury, and
whatever action Mr. Taylor favored would be adopted, so strong was his
influence, and so high his standing as a merchant and financier. He
accumulated wealth very fast in connection with the sugar branch of his
business. Most of the large sugar planters consigned their product to
his firm, and they were also governed by his superior judgment in
investing their money, so that he always had important connections with
Wall Street, a fact that entitles him to a place in this book. While
investing millions for Cuban capitalists, he also invested very largely
for himself. Moses Taylor was the first to discover the value of the
Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Coal property, and while the stock was
kicked about Wall Street, because the company was bankrupt, he picked it
up at a few cents on the dollar, and made millions of dollars from this
investment alone. At his death he was one of the largest owners of the
stock, as his faith in it was so strong that he had refused to sell it,
even though the price had risen above 140. He died worth at least forty
millions of dollars. He had no social aspirations, and no interest in
anything but business. It was his idol. Few men have been harder workers
from early in life up to their last days. He never felt that he could
spare time for recreation, and was seldom known during his long business
career to leave the city over night, summer or winter, except on
business. Moses Taylor had for partners in his business his son-in-law
Percy R. Pyne and Lawrence Turnure, both excellent business men, and Mr.
Taylor owed much of his success to the selection of these gentlemen to
aid in the management of his affairs. Mr. Taylor placed in the hands of
these two gentlemen, especially during the last ten years of his life,
the laboring oar of his vast business, and the successful results are
the evidence of their sagacity and marvellous ability.
[Illustration:
_James Brown_
]
ANTHONY W. MORSE.
Anthony W. Morse was once one of the remarkable men of Wall Street. He
made $150,000 in speculation, bought a yacht and went to Europe during
the war. While in England, he mingled with the aristocracy, and became
strongly imbued with the idea that the North would not be successful in
the war, and that the National currency would become almost valueless.
He thought that the more the National currency depreciated, the more
railroad stocks and bonds would advance; in short, that whatever the
currency would buy would advance, while the currency itself would become
nearly worthless. He therefore became a rampant bull on stocks. He
bought almost the whole list, and also did a large business in buying
for others whom he succeeded in impressing with his own ideas. He had
many followers and made a tremendous inflation. Secretary of the
Treasury Chase was advised of this Morse speculation, which might prove
prejudicial to the National credit, and he announced that if the
inflation was carried any further, he would prick the bubble by selling
gold. Anthony W. Morse thereupon personally sent Secretary Chase a
dispatch saying that he would take all the gold that the United States
Government had to sell. Mr. Chase immediately ordered Assistant
Treasurer John J. Cisco to sell $10,000,000 of gold to the highest
bidders. The usual notice appeared in the morning newspapers, and a
panic at once followed. At 12 o’clock, or two hours after the opening of
the Exchange, it was announced from the rostrum that Anthony W. Morse
had failed. This terminated the career of Mr. Morse as a large operator
and manipulator, and with his downfall the death knell was sounded to
his imported theories. He straggled manfully for several years to regain
his footing, but his prestige was gone, and he failed in every effort to
push his way again to the front. His ill-success soured him. His health
failed, and he went to Havana to recuperate. There he died with
profanity on his lips, enraged at the failure of all his hopes. He paid
the penalty of disloyalty. His friends of the English nobility were
largely to blame for all his misfortunes. Their predictions of the
success of the South led him on to irretrievable ruin. He did not see
that their wish was father to the thought.
[Illustration:
_Edmund Clarence Stedman_
]
FORMER GIANTS OF THE STREET.
Henry Keep, once President of the Lake Shore road, and also of the New
York Central, was in his day a power in Wall Street. He was the first to
discover the intrinsic value of railroad property in the Northwest, and
manipulated Chicago & Northwestern stock, both common and preferred,
very successfully, making a great deal of money for himself and friends.
He died very wealthy. He came to New York city from Watertown, in the
interior of New York, and at first was an exchange broker, dealing
mainly in uncurrent money. He had previously served in some humble
position on a railroad. By careful and economical habits he was able to
leave a fortune of several million dollars, largely in common and
preferred Northwestern stock. The plot of ground on which William H.
Vanderbilt built his palatial Fifth Avenue home was once the property of
Mr. Keep, who originally bought it for about $250,000 for the purpose of
building a charitable institution, but changed his mind when the
property quadrupled in value. Then he concluded that charity should
begin at home. He sold the plot, extending for one block along Fifth
Avenue, to Mr. Vanderbilt for one million dollars. Still his original
intentions were good, and it was only after the real estate market, as
with Satanic malice, had in that locality advanced 400 per cent. and
taken him up into a high mountain of temptation, that his
philanthropical project turned awry and lost the name of action. While
Mr. Keep made a signally good President of the Lake Shore road and was a
great manipulator of stocks, he was a failure as President of the New
York Central, and he resigned that post having no confidence in the
future of the property. Commodore Vanderbilt, who believed in the
property, became his successor, and in a previous chapter I have given
the story of the rise of that remarkable man. It is of interest to
recall, by the way, that while President of the Lake Shore road Mr. Keep
went largely short of the stock. As the President he naturally had
inside information. Addison Jerome, a brother of Leonard Jerome, was a
big operator of the day, and undertook to corner President Keep. In
those days a great deal of stock was sold on seller’s option for thirty
and sixty days. Mr. Keep had sold largely in this way, and Addison
Jerome and his clique had bought heavily, expecting that the corner
would be complete when the options should mature. A surprise awaited
them. Mr. Keep made deliveries promptly in brand new shares. They were
really an over-issue by the Company. It was a Waterloo in a double sense
for Jerome and his fellow bulls. They were in over their heads. It had
such a dampening effect that they immediately threw up the sponge and
the stock came down with a crash. The issue of this new stock was
smoothed over by turning the avails into the treasury of the Company, a
fact, however, which did not prevent Mr. Keep from making a pretty good
turn on his shorts.
J. PIERPONT MORGAN.
J. Pierpont Morgan, known as the “Railroad Reorganizer,” and who has won
a place in the front rank among American financiers, is a son of the
well-known Junius S. Morgan, the head of the firm of J. S. Morgan & Co.,
of London, and the successor of George Peabody, the great philanthropist
in the banking business there. George Peabody, some years before his
death, visited this country, and, desiring a partner in his great
banking house, made inquiry in Boston for a suitable person. Junius S.
Morgan was recommended as a young man of exceptional business talents
and he was selected for the responsible post, the firm being known as
George Peabody & Co. On the death of the celebrated head of the firm,
the name was changed to J. S. Morgan & Co. The success of the father has
been repeated in the signally successful career of the son. During the
palmy days of the firm of Duncan, Sherman & Co., once renowned among the
financial strongholds of the country, J. Pierpont Morgan was one of the
clerks. It was there he graduated as a practical student of financial
achievements; it was there he won his spurs for the monetary campaigns
that awaited him. Leaving the house that was then a synonym for
invincible solidity, Mr. Morgan established the firm of Dabney, Morgan &
Co. Mr. Dabney was formerly one of the firm of Duncan, Sherman & Co.
After a few years the firm in which Mr. Morgan had thus first engaged in
business on his own account was dissolved. But the check, if it may so
be termed, was only momentary, and colossal feats of financiering were
to deck his career with triumphs. He formed a connection with the
wealthy Drexels, of Philadelphia, and a New York branch of their banking
house was established, under the name of Drexel, Morgan & Co., which has
for some years been largely engaged in the reorganization of crippled
railroads like the West Shore, Reading and many others. And they have
been very successful. They have been financial physicians, healing sick
corporate bodies; monetary surgeons, amputating needless expenditures
and reckless methods; or, in perhaps more happy figure, skilful pruners
of the vine, that the ultimate vintage might be more abundant.
[Illustration:
_Yrs Sincerely
H. Victor Newcombe_
]
Mr. Morgan is endowed with very positive traits of character. He has the
driving powers of a locomotive. He cares nothing for show; he is a plain
man of action. He strikes hard blows; he is naturally aggressive. In
speech he is candid to the verge of bluntness; in action he is short,
sharp and decisive. Like a true soldier, he is a man of acts rather than
words. Rugged as a Spartan in his nature, hating circumlocution, bombast
and palaver, going straight to the mark, yet with due caution and
prudence, he exhibits many of the best traits of the practical
financier.
I have asked Mr. Morgan for his picture for publication in this book,
but with natural personal modesty, he has recommended that his handsome
partner, Anthony Drexel, of Philadelphia, be selected in his place, and
with a view to encouragement in Wall Street of blushing modesty—that
century flower of the financial conservatory—I have complied with his
request.
THOMAS L. JAMES.
President of the Lincoln National Bank, has had a career in New York
brilliant in the service of the public, and marked in the practical
skill with which confidences and enterprises have been directed by him.
His training has contributed largely to his success as a financier. He
came from Utica in 1861 and entered the Custom House as Deputy, and
finally attained the position of Postmaster-General after a long and
successful term as Postmaster of the City of New York. Mr. James
directed the affairs of the Lincoln Bank so successfully that what
promised to be a small up-town bank has developed into a National bank
of considerable importance. He is one of the men of the times, one who
feels the tide of local affairs, a man of the people who acts from
wholly conscientious motives, and whose ambition has never exceeded his
sense of duty.
[Illustration:
_Moses Taylor_
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------