CHAPTER XLII.WESTERN MILLIONAIRES IN NEW YORK.

Eastward the Star of Wealth and the Tide of Beauty Take their Course.—Influence of the Fair Sex on This Tendency, and Why.—New York the Great Magnet of the Country.—Swinging Into the Tide of Fashion.—Collis P. Huntington.—His Career from Penury to the Possessor of Thirty Millions.—Leland Stanford.—First a Lawyer in Albany, and Afterward a Speculator on the Pacific Coast.—Has Rolled Up Nearly Forty Millions.—D. O. Mills.—an[**An?] Astute and Bold Financier.—Courage and Caution Combined.—His Rapid Rise in California.—He Makes a Fortune by Investing in Lake Shore Stock.—Princes of the Pacific Slope.—Mackay, Flood and Fair.—Their Rise and Progress.—William Sharon.—A Brief Account of His Great Success.—Wm. C. Ralston and His Daring Speculations.—Begins a Poor New York Boy, and Makes a Fortune in California.—John P. Jones.—His Eventful Career and Political Progress.-“Lucky” Baldwin.—His Business Ability and Advancement.—Lucky Speculations.—Amasses Ten or Fifteen Millions.—William A. Stewart.—Discovers the Eureka Placer Diggins.—His Success as a Lawyer and in Mining Enterprises.—James Lick.—One of the Most Eccentric of the California Magnates.—Real Estate Speculations.—His Bequest to the Author of the “Star Spangled Banner.”—John W. Shaw, Speculator and Lawyer.

Not a few Western men of wealth have in recent years taken up their abode in New York. This is partly, and doubtless largely, due to the influence of ladies. The ladies of the West of course have heard of Saratoga, the far-famed spa of America, and as the fortunes of their husbands mount higher and higher into the millions, they become more and more anxious to see this great summer resort ofwealth and fashion. Their influence prevails, and at the height of the gay season they may be seen at the United States or the Grand Union. They are in practically a new world. There is the rustle and perfume, the glitter and show, the pomp and circumstance of the more advanced civilization of the East, and the ladies, with innate keenness, are quick to perceive a marked difference between this gorgeous panorama and the more prosaic surroundings to which they have been accustomed. As people of wealth and social position, they are naturally presented to some of the society leaders of New York, whom they meet at Saratoga, and who extend an invitation to visit them in their splendid mansions in the metropolis. In New York the Western ladies go to the great emporiums of dry goods and fancy articles of all sorts, to the famous jewelry stores, and other retail establishments patronized by the wealthy. They form a taste for all the elegancies of metropolitan life, and this is revealed in a hundred little ways.

They have been accustomed, for instance, to wearing two buttoned gloves, but now, in emulation of their New York sisters, they must have them up nearly to the shoulder. Their dresses of Western make do not bear comparison with the superb toilettes of New York ladies, and so they seek out the most fashionable modistes in the city, and the change in their appearance is as marked as it is favorable. The innate refinement and love of elegance which is so striking a characteristic in most American women is exemplified, perhaps, in no respect more strikingly than in their taste in dress, and the Western ladies soon require the finest French silks for their dresses. They must have the most expensive real lace; their toilettes must be numerous, rich, and varied, and the refinements of other articles of dress or ornament to which American women have attained may well astonish and even awe the masculine mind.

In a word, people of wealth are apt to be drawn to New York because it is the great magnet of the country, whoseattractive power is well nigh irresistible. What London is to Great Britain, what Paris is to the Continent, what Rome was in its imperial day to the Empire, what proud old Nineveh was to Assyria, the winged lion of the Orient; what Tyre was to old Syria, whose commercial splendor aroused the eloquence of the Hebrew prophet—New York is to the immense domain of the American Republic, a natural stage, set with innumerable villages, towns, and populous cities, with mighty rivers and vast stretches of table-lands and prairies, and far-reaching harvest fields and forests, for the great drama of civilization on this Continent. New York has now a population of approximately 1,500,000. By the close of the present century it will certainly reach 2,000,000, and the next century will see it increase to perhaps ten times that number. The great metropolis attracts by its restless activity, its feverish enterprise, and the opportunities which it affords to men of ability, but in the connection which I am now considering more particularly it attracts as an enormous lode-stone by its imperial wealth, its Parisian, indeed almost Sybaritic luxury, and its social splendor.

New York city has more wealth than thirteen of the States and Territories combined. It is really the great social centre of the Republic, and its position as such is becoming more and more assured. It will yet outshine London and Paris. Go where we may throughout the country, see what cities we may, there is always something lacking which New York readily affords. There is emphatically no place like New York. Here are some of the finest stores in the world, and mansions of which a Doge of Venice or a Lorenzo de Medici might have been proud. Here are the most beautiful ladies in the world, as well as the most refined and cultivated; here are the finest theatres and art galleries, and the true home of opera is in this country; here is the glitter of peerless fashion, the ceaseless roll of splendid equipages, and the Bois de Boulogne of America, the Central Park; here there is a constant round of brilliant banquets, afternoon teasand receptions, the germans of the elite, the grand balls, with their more formal pomp and splendid circumstance; glowing pictures of beautiful women and brave men threading the mazes of the dance; scenes of revelry by night in an atmosphere loaded with the perfume of rare exotics, to the swell of sensuous music. It does not take much of this new kind of life to make enthusiastic New Yorkers of the wives of Western millionaires, and then nothing remains but to purchase a brown stone mansion, and swing into the tide of fashion with receptions, balls, and kettle-drums, elegant equipages with coachmen in bright-buttoned livery, footmen in top boots, maid-servants and man-servants, including a butler and all the other adjuncts of fashionable life in the great metropolis. It is of interest to glance at the career, by the way, of some of the more famous financial powers of the West, who have either settled of recent years in New York or who are frequently seen here.

C P. Huntington

One of the financiers who may be seen daily entering the palatial Mills Building in Broad street, New York, is a tall, well-built man, with a full beard tinged with gray, a square, resolute jaw, and keen bluish-gray eyes. Though now in his 66th year, his step is light and quick, betokening good habits in his youth and due care of himself in his later years. He is one of the best known of American financial chieftains. It is Collis P. Huntington. He is a born leader of men. As a boy of 15 he came to New York, with scarcely a penny. Now he is worth thirty million dollars. He was born October 22d, 1821, at Harwinton, in Litchfield county, Connecticut. He numbers among his ancestors Samuel Huntington, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who was also President of the Continental Congress and Governor and Chief Justice of Connecticut; and also Bishop F. D. Huntington and the artist Daniel Huntington. C. P. Huntington’s father was a farmer and smallmanufacturer, in his fourteenth year Huntington left school and asked his father to give him his time on condition that he should support himself. He came to New York in the following year, 1836, and bought a small bill of goods, a neighbor of his father’s becoming his surety. At that early age he showed the same shrewdness in business, the same energy and resolution in carrying through his projects as he did in later life. At twenty-three he settled at Oneonta, Otsego county, New York, as a general merchant. In 1844 he married a Connecticut girl, who proved a valuable helpmeet in days when it was never supposed he would ever attain any particular financial distinction. In March, 1849, he sailed for San Francisco, going by way of the Isthmus, and following a consignment of goods which he had made in the previous year. He was now in his 28th year, and a future full of marvellous success awaited him. This was not immediately apparent, however. Business success is not usually attained without long and persistent efforts, and in spite of repeated discouragements. He found San Francisco at that time a resort merely for the idle and the reckless. It did not prove at this particular juncture a satisfactory field for his business; his funds ran low, and he determined to go to Sacramento. He earned his passage money thither on a schooner, by helping to load her for a dollar an hour. In Sacramento he started in business, after a time, with a small tent as a store, and a limited supply of general merchandise as his stock in trade; he worked hard; he labored early and late. Here he met Mark Hopkins, and they formed a business co-partnership, which proved so successful that by 1856 the firm was known as one of the wealthiest on the Pacific slope. California, however, was isolated. It was a long trip over the plains by wagon trains to the nearest point of commercial importance east of the Rocky Mountains, and the ocean voyage by way of the Isthmus of Panama was long and slow. A railroad to the East was imperatively needed, in order to develop the enormous resourcesof the broad territory lying west of that natural barrier known as the Rocky Mountains. But how to bring it about was the question. Few were daring enough to seriously grapple with the problem. It was in the store of Huntington & Hopkins that the project was first considered with a resolute purpose to push it through. The Civil War, however, broke out just then, and the first gun fired on Fort Sumter seemed like the knell of this great project. Collis P. Huntington was undaunted. “I will,” he says, “be one of the eight or ten, if Hopkins agrees, to bear the expense of a careful and thorough survey.” The result was that seven gentlemen agreed to defray the expense of such a survey. Two subsequently ceased to give their aid. The remaining five organized the Central Pacific Railroad Company. Mr. Huntington at once went to Washington to secure Government aid in constructing the first trans-continental railway. He was successful. When the Pacific Railroad bill was passed he telegraphed to his partners with characteristic humor and terseness: “We have drawn the elephant.” He at once came to New York to form a syndicate to take the bonds. Many at such a time would have gone to speculators begging for aid and pledging his bonds for railroad material with which to commence the great line. He did nothing of the kind. The French saying, “Toujours de l’audace,” seemed to be his maxim. He was always bold. He coolly announced that he would not dispose of his bonds except for cash, and, strange as it may have seemed, he capped the climax by refusing to sell any at all unless $1,500,000 worth were taken. He was again successful, but the purchaser required more security. Thereupon Mr. Huntington made himself and his firm responsible for the whole amount. It was thus on the pledge of the private fortunes of Mr. Huntington and his partner that the first fifty miles of the road were built. After a time, however, funds ran low; it seemed inevitable that the number of laborers should be reduced. Certainly more means were necessary. At thattime the Government held the first mortgage on the road, and no Government subsidy bonds were obtainable until a section of fifty miles of the road had been completed. Huntington and Hopkins stepped into the breach, and agreed to keep five hundred men at work for a year at their private expense, and three other gentlemen agreed to furnish three hundred men for the same length of time. This resolution ended their troubles; the road was built through to a connection with the Atlantic seaboard, and trans-continental transportation became a fact and no longer a dream. Mr. Huntington came to New York again, and here he now resides in a fine mansion on Park avenue. He is still a hard worker, but after business hours he dismisses as far as possible the cares of his financial functions. Among the railroad systems controlled and operated by him and his associates, the executive conduct of which is largely directed by himself, are the Central Pacific, the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Trans-Mississippi roads, and the Southern Pacific, making a total of nearly eight thousand miles of line. He is also heavily interested in roads in Mexico and Central America and steamship lines plying to the Chesapeake Bay, to Brazil, China and Japan and other parts of the world. Directly or indirectly he has thirty thousand men under him. In business he is an autocrat; his manner is quick and decisive; he is direct in his speech, and expresses himself with force when he says anything. He also knows when silence is golden. He is a good story teller, and has a large fund of anecdotes; he has original wit, a store of quaint, homely sayings, which are often singularly apt. Sitting in his office chair, with a black skull cap, which he usually wears in business hours, pushed back on his head, he has an open, jolly, unassuming look, and the stranger would hardly take him for one of the uncrowned financial kings of this country. He is one of the few men in this country who have shown themselves more than a match for Jay Gould.

Leland Stanford.

Leland Stanford, one of California’s United States Senators, is worth from thirty to forty million dollars. He was born in Albany county, New York, March 9, 1824. He received an academical education and entered a law office in Albany in 1846, and, after three years’ study, was admitted to practice law in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. He removed to Port Washington, in the northern part of Wisconsin, and there engaged in the practice of his profession for four years. In 1852 fire destroyed his law library and other property, whereupon he went to California and became associated in business with his three brothers, who had preceded him in seeking fortune on the Pacific Slope. His first business venture was in Michigan Bluffs, but in 1856 he removed to San Francisco to engage in business enterprises on a large scale. His business at one time, it seems, was in oil, and, later, in various manufacturing and agricultural ventures. He was elected Governor of California in 1861. He insisted upon being inaugurated as provided by the State constitution, at the Capitol building, though the locality was under water by reason of floods. He became President of the Central Pacific Railroad and superintended its construction over the mountains, building 530 miles of it in 293 days. He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1884, and his term does not expire till 1891. He is still the President of the Central Pacific Railroad and of several of its associated lines, while he is a director in others. He owns a princely domain in California, known as Palo Alto ranch, comprising six thousand acres, which he has devoted to the site of an Industrial University for both sexes, as a memorial of his only son, who died some years ago. He has richly endowed this great educational institution, setting aside for it about ten million dollars. Here both sexes will be fitted to fill a useful part in the battle of life; they will be instructed in mechanical arts and agricultural as well as in other branches of education,which will start the student fairly in life. He found, as President of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, that many bright young men of collegiate education were not specially fitted for any particular work in the great school of life, and those who are familiar with great cities know that thousands of men have really wasted their years in obtaining a collegiate education which never enabled them to earn more than barely enough to live upon. They become, in many cases, ill-paid book-keepers, entry clerks, salesmen, car conductors, postmen, and sometimes find themselves obliged to turn their hands to hard manual labor, or else starve. Senator Stanford’s beneficent plan, then, of giving the young such a practical education that they can face the world with confidence and with a reasonable certainty of remunerative employment, or with the requisite knowledge to guide them in enterprises of their own, is worthy of the highest commendation, and his example is likewise worthy of the emulation of gentlemen with millions to spare in all parts of the country. If Samuel J. Tilden had endowed a university of this kind he would have been a far greater benefactor in many respects than he has undoubtedly shown himself in his will. Governor Stanford’s great ranch, which is to become a seat of learning, is situated about 32 miles from San Francisco, and promises to be the educational Mecca of the Pacific Slope. His fortune, notwithstanding this princely donation, is still enormous, amounting to twenty-five or thirty million dollars.

One of the most notable figures daily seen on Wall Street is a man about five feet nine inches in height, with handsome, florid features and a firm jaw, indicative of great decision of character. He is now about fifty eight years of age, and is as industrious and energetic as when he began his eventful career. It is Darius O. Mills. He is one of the most astute and one of the boldest financiers in thiscountry. He has the courage of a Richelieu, joined to that famous statesman’s caution and conservatism when the march of events requires it. Of the California magnates he is one of the most notable. In New York he has taken the highest rank, socially and financially, of them all. As I have intimated, he is bold, and yet, on occasion, he wisely acts upon the maxim that discretion is the better part of valor. He was born in a small town on the Hudson River, in this State. Before the California gold excitement broke out he and his brother were in the hotel business. He has always been dependent on his own exertions; he has fought his way to opulence, such as a prince might envy, by his own keen intelligence and undaunted enterprise. He began in humble circumstances. To-day he is worth twenty millions. He is a permanent resident in the metropolis, and is regarded as one of New York’s best and most influential citizens.

D. O. Mills

He laid the foundation of his vast wealth in California. On the breaking out of the gold fever he and his brother left their native town for the fields of adventure, where men of shrewd foresight and determined courage achieved a success stranger than the wonders of a Persian tale. The brothers did not trust to luck. They chartered a sailing vessel, loaded it with commodities likely to be in demand among the miners, and then sailed for the Golden GateviaCape Horn. After a narrow escape from shipwreck they arrived at San Francisco and at once opening a store, they sold their merchandise to the eager miners at fabulous prices. D. O. Mills rapidly accumulated wealth, and when Wm. C. Ralston organized the Bank of California, he became its President. During the time that Mr. Mills gave his attention to the Bank of California it was the most successful institution of a similar character in this country, but when he decided to remove to New York his connection with the great bank was severed. Disaster came under Ralston’s administration. Mr. Mills had continued to be astockholder, and when a financial hurricane struck the bank, he was quick to go to the rescue. He contributed largely to provide for the bank’s losses and to reorganize it with new capital, which placed it again among the foremost financial institutions of the United States. The credit of this Herculean achievement was due more to him perhaps than to any other man. His social position is deservedly high. His son married the daughter of a member of the historic Livingston family, one of the oldest and most illustrious in this country. His daughter married the successor to the editorial chair of Greeley, Whitelaw Reid, whose able management of theTribunehas established a world-wide fame for that gentleman. These marriages of his children strengthened his already strong position socially, which he soon won despite the fact that he was a newcomer. Mr. Mills is distinguished for a princely liberality. He believes in distributing his property generously while living. He has built, therefore, one of the finest residences in this city for his son; he bought for his daughter, Mrs. Reid, at a cost of four hundred thousand dollars, the Villard palace on Madison Avenue. His other acts of generosity are numberless. He himself lives in fine style. He paid the highest price ever paid per foot for a residence in New York when he bought from D. P. Morgan, for one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, that gentleman’s residence directly opposite St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. This mansion occupies two lots on a Columbia College leasehold. After purchasing it Mr. Mills gave acarte blancheorder to a noted decorator of New York, and during a trip to California the work of decoration was done. On his return he at once took possession of a mansion of which a Shah of Persia might be proud. He was delighted with all that had been wondrously wrought by the beautifying touch of splendid art; with the richly carved wood work, the gorgeously picturesque ceilings, the inlaid walls and floors, and thetout ensembleof Oriental magnificence. His contentmentwas complete, but a surprise awaited him. It was the decorator’s bill for four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This, it is said, slightly disturbed his serenity. It caused him to look with a critic’s eye on the splendid decorations which constituted a study in the fine arts at such high rates of tuition. As with the eagle eye of a connoisseur, he perceived that the bill was altogether too high. He succeeded in getting, however, only a slight reduction. Moral: Don’t give carte blanche orders to decorators any more than you would hire a cab without first making a bargain.

Mr. Mills came to New York to take up his residence some years ago, with a fortune of many millions of dollars. He is particularly worthy of a place in this book, as from the time of making his home here he has been prominently identified with Wall Street. Soon after taking up his residence here he became acquainted with William H. Vanderbilt, at whose suggestion he invested very heavily in Lake Shore. He made by this operation no less than $2,700,000. This large sum he devoted to the construction of a palatial building on Broad Street, which bears his name, and is probably the finest and most complete structure for office purposes in the world. It has a frontage of 175 feet on Broad street, 30 feet on Wall Street, and 150 feet on Exchange place, and is nine stories high. Thirteen buildings were torn down to secure its site. It was begun in May, 1880, and was practically finished in one year, the men working night and day. It is built largely of Philadelphia brick, with Belleville brown stone trimmings. It is otherwise ornamented with terra cotta, and Corinthian and Renaissance capitols, and red Kentucky marble pillars. On the first three floors the wainscoting is of Italian marble, and there is marble tiling throughout the building; the woodwork on the first two floors is mahogany, and on the upper floors it is reeded and panelled cherry. There are 400 offices, and the tenant population is 1,200. For weeks at a time the total daily average number of persons carriedon six elevators has been no less than fifteen thousand. The working force necessary to look after this magnificent structure numbers 60 person. The net annual rental is about $200,000, the highest individual rent paid being $20,000.

Mr. Mills’ exceptional skill as a financier has won him a high reputation in New York, and his counsel on vexed and abstruse questions has often been quoted by powerful corporations. He is a director in several railroads, including the Erie, and it is understood is interested in mining enterprises. In the battle of life he has achieved signal success. His career is a fitting lesson to future generations.

Chas Crocker

Charles Crocker is now about 65 years of age, and lives in New York city. He was born in Ohio in humble circumstances, and early in life followed for a time the occupation of blacksmith. He used to get up at four o’clock in the morning and work hard all day. It was a hard life, and he engaged, after a time, in other occupations, gradually, in the meantime, by thrift and industry, amassing a sufficient sum to enable him to go to California, in the height of the mining fever, and establish a general store in Sacramento. He met with considerable success in trade, and when the project was formed to build the Central Pacific Railroad, he lent his aid to the enterprise, and has ever since been identified with that corporation. He is now its Secretary and Vice-President, and is also interested in associate roads.

Mark Hopkins died some years ago, worth fifteen million dollars. He was from Massachusetts, and went to California on the breaking out of the mining furore, and settled in Sacramento, where he soon engaged in the hardware business with C. P. Huntington, with whom he also embarked in the ambitious enterprise of building the Central Pacific Railroad. He won a large fortune in his railroad operations.His widow has a magnificent estate at South Great Barrington, in Massachusetts.

We come now to the famous mining princes of the Pacific Slope. The discovery of gold in California, and of the rich deposits of the precious metal elsewhere on the Pacific Slope, led not merely to the accumulation of vast individual fortunes; it sent the currents of new life humming through the veins, so to speak, of the entire country; it stimulated trade; it awakened new life; it gave a tremendous impulse to a thousand industrial enterprises; it sent the Republic forth as a conquering hero of commerce, leveling all obstacles and laughing at difficulties; tunneling mountains, building railroads whose very rails seem to catch a golden gleam from the rich traffic; spanning great rivers with majestic bridges, building ships and steamers; setting vast manufactories to awake the solitude of primeval forests with the thunder of machinery, the ringing of hammers and the thousand voices of labor; building villages, towns and cities with such marvelous rapidity as to suggest the touch of the magical wand of genii. With the treasure taken from her bosom nature herself was subdued; an electric thrill stirred the older centres of population as it led the new sections, and the Republic has ever since, regardless of those periodical reactions known as panics, kept its onward march in fulfillment of that far-sighted prophecy that the star of empire takes its way to the West, and that on the broad stage of the American Continent the Anglo-Saxon race will win far greater triumphs than it has ever achieved in its amazing career since it sprang from the barbarism of the Northern wilds of Europe to take its proud station as the dominant family on this globe. The rich gold mines, and later the great silver mines, have given this country a feverish dream of speculation, in which gigantic fortunes have been amassed. The richest deposit of silver in Nevada, if not in the world, was the Comstock lode on the east side of Mount Davidson, in Storey county, and partly under the towns of Virginia andGold Hill. At one time its ores contained one-third in value of gold and two-thirds of silver. The lode has been traced on the surface some twenty-seven thousand feet, and has actually been explored about twenty thousand feet, within which space most of the larger mines are located. The lode has been opened to the depth of about twenty-two hundred feet. The various mines on this lode have given a total return, it is estimated, of some three hundred millions of dollars.

J W. Mackay

One of the most famous of the bonanza magnates is John W. Mackay. His rise to financial power reads like a romance, and yet his astounding success was by no means attained as by turning over a hand. He believed in the richness of the bonanza field; he and a number of associates purchased the controlling interest in the corporations which owned it. Then began the grand hunt for the ore body. Others had tried to find it, but had given it up in despair. The idea that the property was worth working was laughed to scorn. The men who believed in it persisted in spite of all discouragements, which were many; they spent about half a million in prospecting. They made in 1875, after long and trying efforts, the famous strike which astounded the business world, and stirred up a speculative fever which did not die out for years. This plain, quiet, unpretending financier was born in the humblest circumstances in Dublin, Nov. 28, 1835, and is consequently in his 52nd year. He came to this country very early in life, and as a boy worked for Wm. H. Webb, the once famous shipbuilder of New York. In 1852 he went with a party to California, sailing in one of the ships of his former employer. It has been said that previous to this he kept a liquor saloon in Louisville. Like so many others, however, he caught the gold fever, and on arriving in California he immediately engaged in placer mining in Sierra county of that State. He met with the usual vicissitudes of fortune, but at last a fair degree of success rewarded his untiring efforts, and he thereuponwent to Virginia City, Nevada, and started a tunnel in what was called the Union ground, north of the Ophir mine. The speculation was disastrous. He lost all he possessed, but he was not conquered. He secured work as a timber man in the Mexican mine, and he engaged also as a miner, swinging the pick and shovel, and little dreaming that this would be told as an interesting circumstance in a career which was to be successful beyond his wildest hopes. He labored industriously; he saved his money, and he watched his opportunities, which very few people do. He got his first important start in connection with the Kentuck mine in Gold Hill, but he had frequent fluctuations of fortune until finally, in 1863, he formed a mining co-partnership with J. M. Walker, a brother of a former Governor of Virginia, and subsequently the firm was strengthened by the addition of Messrs. Flood, O’Brien, and Fair. The firm struck their first great success in 1865-67 during their control of the Hale & Norcross mine. Later came the celebrated California and Consolidated Virginia mines, the wonders of the mining world. He was married in 1867 to the daughter of Daniel Hungerford. Hungerford, by the way, was a Canadian, who came to New York many years ago and lived in West Broadway, where he followed the occupation of a barber. When the Mexican war broke out he enlisted, and at the close of that war he returned to his family and his previous occupation. When the famous Colonel Walker raised a force in New York for the invasion of Nicaragua, Hungerford, who seems to have been of an adventurous spirit, enlisted, and barely escaped the fate of Walker and those of his force who were captured and shot by the Nicaragua authorities. He escaped by fleet running, and again returned to his family and tonsorial profession, dying soon after his return. His daughter married a physician, with whom she went to Nevada. He died and left her in reduced circumstances. With the open-handed generosity characteristic of the financiers of the Pacific Slope, a number ofwealthy gentlemen, learning of the circumstances, started a subscription, to which Mr. Mackay made a large contribution. She called to thank him, and the acquaintance thus begun ripened into mutual attachment, whose happy consummation was their marriage a few years later. Mrs. Mackay, during the last few years, has resided for the most part in Paris and London, where she has lived on a scale of magnificence which has dazzled and astounded foreigners. Mr. Mackay himself has apparently little inclination for social triumphs; he is well liked wherever he is known for his quick, genial manners, but seems to avoid publicity. He alternates, for the most part, between New York and San Francisco. In New York his office is at the Nevada Bank, in which he is a large stockholder, owning, in fact, half of the stock. In recent years he has become largely interested in a cable line to Europe, started in opposition to other well-known lines. His fortune is estimated at twenty millions. Mr. Mackay’s step-daughter was married a few years ago to the Prince of Colonna, who belongs to one of the most ancient and wealthy families of the nobility of Italy.

JAMES C. FLOOD.

James C. Flood was once a poor boy of New York city, now he is worth more millions than can exactly be told. He went to San Francisco in 1849, poor and friendless, and in company with the late W. S. O’Brien, opened a liquor saloon, where he sold whiskey at 12½ cents a glass. He drew the liquor from casks piled one upon another. In those early days of the future queen of the Pacific Slope there were no gorgeous saloons with tesselated marble floors, a dazzling stretch of costly mirrors, and a gallery of rare pictures. Such resorts as Flood’s, in the slang of the day, were termed “gin mills,” and in the man who drew whiskey from the casks rather than tendering a heavy cut glass decanter, it would have been difficult for the most fanciful to have recognized the future famous man of millions. He made money and went into mining stocks. The first great mining speculation in which Flood, with his partner, O’Brien, embarked was in1862, in Kentuck and the stocks of other mines on the Comstock lode. Then they went heavily into Hale & Norcross, one of the old time favorites. They were generally successful in these operations, but a crowning and dazzling triumph awaited them. In February of 1874 there were whispers that the Consolidated Virginia, which had caused a furore some ten years previous, but had fallen off materially, and the newer mine, the California, would soon develop rich bodies of ore. Flood and his partners, who owned these mines, became certain of this prospective bonanza in the following winter, and early in 1875 came the announcement of the discovery of the fabulous ore bodies which made the name of the Comstock lode known round the world, and lifted the owners of the celebrated mines at once into wealth so enormous as to make the extravagances of the Arabian Nights seem tame. The establishment of the Nevada Bank was the idea of Mr. Flood, who is said to possess a natural aptitude for finance. He became president of the bank and a large stockholder in it. He is a man of compact robust build, five feet nine inches in height, with quiet, courteous manners, and of an energetic, self-reliant and industrious disposition. He has had a remarkable rise, but has shown himself equal to the surprising good fortune which has attended his strange career.

JAMES G. FAIR.

It is of interest to recall the fact that the original Comstock syndicate, most of whom derived such enormous wealth from the Comstock lode, was composed of Messrs. Mackay, Flood, O’Brien, Fair and Walker. Soon after these gentlemen became associated in their great enterprises, Walker sold out his share of one-fifth to Mackay, for a very small consideration, and this consequently gave that gentleman an interest of two-fifths, against the one-fifth share held by each of the three others in the firm, a fact which accounts for Mackay’s greater wealth. Walker, one of the original parties in interest, afterward not only lost in mining and other speculations the amount which Mackay had paid him for his share,but all his other means, and was, in fact, completely beggared, and died in an asylum for paupers. He had experienced dramatic vicissitudes of fortune. He ought to have been worth fully twenty millions of dollars. He died without a penny.

W. S. O’Brien was associated with Mackay, Flood and Fair in developing mines on the Comstock, and died in 1878, enormously wealthy. He was born in New York, went to San Francisco in the early days of the gold excitement, and at first kept a liquor saloon with Flood. He gradually engaged in mining speculations, and ultimately met with such success that he died famous as one of the bonanza kings. It is an interesting circumstance that four Irishmen secured the lion’s share of the bonanza millions, and they were all born poor. The harp of Tara’s halls never was struck to so strange a roundelay as this.

James G. Fair is another of the bonanza kings who has had an interesting career. He was born Dec. 3d, 1831, near Belfast, Ireland. He came to this country with his parents in 1843 and settled in Illinois. He received a thorough business education in Chicago, and at the same time devoted considerable attention to scientific studies. On the breaking out of the gold fever in 1849 he removed to California, settling at Long’s Bar, Feather River, in that State. He mined on the Bar for some time without much success, and then turned his attention to quartz mining. Placer mining in those days was conducted in too primitive a fashion to suit a man of his mechanical ingenuity. Placer, by the way, is a term of Spanish origin, signifying a gravelly place where gold is found, especially by the side of a river or in the bed of a mountain torrent. In quartz mining, on the other hand, the metal is obtained by smelting after crushing the rock ofwhich it forms a part. Mr. Fair engaged in quartz mining in Calaveras county, California, and later became superintendent of various quartz mines in other parts of the State. In 1855 he became superintendent of the Ophir, and four years later of the Hale & Norcross. In 1860 he removed to Nevada and became actively engaged in developing mines. In 1867 he formed a partnership with John W. Mackay, James C. Flood and Wm. S. O’Brien. The firm, at Mr. Fair’s suggestion, obtained control of the California and Sides mine, the White & Murphy, the Central Nos. 1 and 2, and the tract known as the Kinney ground, and it was in this rich field that the famous California and Consolidated Virginia mines were developed, the yield of which, under Mr. Fair’s superintendence, is estimated at about two hundred million dollars. He began speculative buying of real estate in San Francisco in 1858, and is now said to own seventy acres of land in different parts of that city, constituting in itself an enormous fortune. He was elected to the United States Senate as a Democrat to succeed the Hon. William Sharon, and took his seat in 1881, his term expiring March 3d, 1887. In person Mr. Fair is of about the medium height, of compact, solid build, has handsome features, and is a man who would be likely to attract attention anywhere. His fortune is estimated at from ten to twenty millions.

William Sharon was one of the remarkable men developed by the mining excitement in this country, one of the sagacious, self-reliant men who inevitably come to the front wherever they are found. He showed his mettle when the Bank of California was forced to suspend, and when a commercial pall hung over San Francisco. In the midst of the frenzied excitement he was one of the few who kept cool and never lost their courage. The wild excitement on the Stock Exchange of San Francisco was stopped at his suggestion that the sessions be indefinitely postponed.Then he called a meeting of the Bank of California directors and made a stirring appeal to them to stand by the bank in the hour of its misfortune, and rescue the business interests of the coast from the paralysis by which they were likely to be seized if they did not take a resolute stand, put their shoulders to the wheel and acquit themselves like men. He proposed that each subscribe liberally to put the bank again in operation, and set the example by a very large subscription—said to have been five million dollars. Others also subscribed liberally, and to the astonishment and joy of the city the bank again threw open its doors for business. He had some years prior to this become connected in business with the lamented Ralston.

William Sharon was born in Ohio, and early in life began the practice of law in Illinois. He went to San Francisco, and immediately engaged in the real estate business, and ultimately became a very large operator in lands, but failed, and in 1863 went to Nevada to take the agency of the Bank of California in Gold Hill and Virginia City. The bank had large loans out on mining property, and as the production of many of the mines had seriously declined, Ralston grew uneasy, and was greatly relieved when Sharon offered to become personally responsible for these loans on condition that the bank advance him a considerable sum to be used in contemplated mining developments, and allow him two years in which to meet the loans. The terms were accepted. Sharon ran new drifts here and there, and in four months, to Ralston’s amazement, paid all the loans, and placed on deposit three-quarters of a million to his own account. This feat drew general attention to him; he was consulted in large operations; he became a director in the great bank. He never forgot Ralston’s kindness to him. He assumed entire charge of the personal affairs of Ralston after his death, and settled on Mrs. Ralston nearly half a million of dollars. He finally entered politics, and represented California in the United States Senate. He was a conspicuousexample of business acumen and surprising energy, as well as of becoming gratitude to the knightly Ralston, of whom he always said: “He was my benefactor.”

Wm. C. Ralston was one of the most notable, as he was one of the most remarkable, of all the financial giants of the Pacific Slope. He ascended the gilded summits of financial renown, and he fell into a shadowy valley of stern retribution and utter ruin. No man could be more popular, none could exhibit greater daring in his business enterprises. He was a New York boy, but drifted to the West, and became a clerk on a Mississippi steamboat, finally became Captain, and having amassed some money, he leaped into speculative waters, like another Leander, to swim the Hellespont of California finance. He became associated with Commodore Garrison and two others in the banking business in San Francisco about 1853. Finally he organized the Bank of California, and became first its Cashier and then its President. His rise was marvellous. At one time he was supposed to be worth $20,000,000 or more. He had a country seat at Belmont, in San Mateo county, that a king might have been proud to own, and here he entertained in royal fashion. Every celebrity that visited California was received with regal hospitality by this monetary prince of the golden State. But as the allied armies arrayed against Napoleon were often put to rout from being too much spread out, so this financial Titan, combining the genius and courage of many in one, was finally overthrown by adverse fortune, because his enterprises were too much spread out. He had too many projects on hand at one time. He lost heavily in mining and real estate speculations; he lost in manufacturing enterprises. Fate struck him suddenly as with the hammer of Thor. In one fearful storm of trouble all his misfortune descended upon him at once. All the waves andbillows of adversity broke over him. He had no chance to recover himself. Birnam seemed all at once to come to his financial Dunsinane. An investigation of the affairs of the Bank of California was made by the directors of that institution. Their suspicions had been aroused that Ralston’s administration of its affairs was open to grave criticism. He attended the meeting of the directors, and was coldly requested to withdraw during the discussion. He who had been absolute in the great bank saw that his power was gone; he stood on the brink of a moral Niagara. He left the Directors to make the inevitable discovery that he had over-issued the stock of the bank some $6,000,000, and crazed with grief and despair, found a suicide’s death in the waters of the bay. He had over-issued the stock hoping and believing that success in some one of his numerous and gigantic enterprises would enable him to provide for it, but disaster stealing on him suddenly, like a thief in the night, frustrated any plan of restitution, and he paid for his fault with his life. He was a man about five feet seven inches in height, with a rather florid complexion, a full light brown beard and kindly brown eyes. He was once the idol of California, and his one great fault is almost swallowed up in the memory of his princely generosity, his hearty geniality, and his many other engaging traits.

John P. Jones has had an eventful career. He has made and lost millions. He was worth at one time five or six millions. He lost very heavily in railroad enterprises in Southern California. He had been engaged in mining and had won a big heap of treasure, probably as much wealth as any one needs, or more, but with the restless ambition of one who would travel still higher up the glittering heights of financial fame he sought to emulate Huntington, Stanford and others and become a railroad magnate. It was a case of vaulting ambition o’erleaping itself and falling on theother side. He lost almost his entire fortune, but he has now regained his feet again and is once more wealthy. He profited by the revival of interest in mines and mining stocks in 1886, and secured, moreover, a considerable interest in the Alaska mine, in which D. O. Mills was interested. He bought stocks of once famous mines at low prices, and when the advance on the revival of public interest in mining shares took place he was a large gainer. John W. Mackay has within the last few years shown a disposition to lend him assistance in his endeavors to recover his former footing. John P. Jones is one of a number of Englishmen who have won financial celebrity in this country. He was born in Herefordshire, England, in 1830, and came to this country with his parents when only a year old, settling in Ohio. For a few years he attended school in Cleveland. In the early days of the gold excitement in California he emigrated to that State and engaged in farming and mining. He acquired a taste for politics. He represented his county in both houses of the State Assembly. In 1867 he went to Gold Hill, Nevada, and has ever since been engaged to a greater or less extent in developing the mineral resources of that State. In his earlier days he worked hard as a miner in one of the counties of California. He worked in placers and tunnels; he had many ups and down. He was daring and ambitious, and sometimes seemingly reckless. He spent a million dollars trying to develop some mines in Mono, California, and then gave up the attempt. At one time he controlled the Ophir, Savage and Crown Point mines on the Comstock lode; he owned large establishments for the manufacture of ice in Georgia, Louisiana and Texas and elsewhere; he made large purchases of land in California; he engaged in a multitude of ambitious enterprises. He had too many irons in the fire. Misfortune did not daunt him. Like the old hunter of tradition, his motto was, “Pick the flint and try it again.” He may yet become a financialpower again. He has a certain readiness as a speaker; he is of large frame and not unpleasing aspect, and his taste for public debate and the excitements of the political arena have led him into contests for public honors which have been successful. He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1872, and has twice been elected, so that his term will not expire until 1891.

R. J. Baldwin has become widely known by the sobriquet of “lucky.” He is 59 years old and was born in Ohio. His father moved to Indiana and had a farm adjoining that of Schuyler Colfax. There he worked till he reached his twentieth year. He married in the following year and went to a small place in Indiana and kept a country store; he soon built canal boats to ply between Chicago and St. Louis. He went to Racine, Wisconsin, in 1850, and engaged in the grocery business with considerable success. He was keen at a bargain and always had an eye out for the main chance. His so-called “luck” was in reality business skill. He went to California in 1853, after purchasing a number of horses and wagons and an ample supply of merchandise. He found a good market for his goods in Salt Lake, making nearly four thousand dollars on the venture, and further on he sold his wagons and harness and made up a pack train over the mountains, and, arriving in San Francisco, sold his teams at good prices. His trip had been a complete success. He now went into the hotel business, and, after selling out twice to good advantage, he formed a partnership to engage in the brick trade, which, proving very successful mainly through his skill in drumming up business, he decided to go into it alone. He himself knew nothing about brick making, but he studied up the subject and eventually became an expert. He obtained remunerative contracts with the Government; he boarded his men and made for a time about fifteen hundred dollars a month. He finally sold out and went into the livery business. He made money and invested considerable in real estate. He sold out and wentto Virginia City, Nevada, at the breaking out of the mining excitement there. At that point he started a lumber yard. He speculated in mines and met at times with great success, but once he was so badly worsted in this great game that he was compelled to mortgage all of his property; but the tide turned soon and became a flood of gold. He speculated in such mines as the Crown Point, Belcher, Consolidated Virginia, California and Ophir. He acquired at one time the controlling interest in the Ophir. He has speculated heavily in San Francisco real estate, and with marked success. He erected a building there that cost, with all its appurtenances, over three million dollars. Part of it is used as a theatre. He bought sixty thousand acres of land in Los Angeles county, and had practically a town of his own. He spent about half a million dollars improving this tract, more particularly his Santa Anita ranch of over fifteen thousand acres. His sagacity and industry, rather than mere “luck,” have won him his fortune of ten or fifteen million dollars.

William H. Stewart, another successful man of the Far West, who has twice represented Nevada in the United States Senate, was a New York boy, born in Wayne county in 1827. A good many New York boys have succeeded in the West. He went to California early in 1850. In the fall of that year, while prospecting, he discovered the Eureka placer diggings; he built saw mills, worked claims because disgusted with mining, went to Nevada City in the spring of 1852, and in December of that year was appointed District Attorney, was elected to that office in the following year, and in 1854 was appointed Attorney General, thereupon taking up his residence in San Francisco, where, by the way, he married a daughter of ex-Governor Foote, of Mississippi. Later he returned to Nevada City and established a very lucrative law practice, and remained in that county till the spring of 1860, when the furore over the Comstock minesinduced him to go to Virginia City, Nevada. He thoroughly understood mining law, and soon had a large practice. The large sums which his legal talents brought him were invested in mines, and he became one of the leading operators on the Comstock lode. He invested half a million dollars in San Francisco real estate. He rendered important services to mining interests while in the United States Senate, in preventing the passage of a bill providing for the sale of all the mineral lands of the country at public auction, a measure which it was supposed would concentrate much of the mining property of the United States into the hands of the wealthy.

James Lick, born in Pennsylvania in 1796, was one of the strange characters of California. He went there in 1847, after having been a manufacturer of pianos in this country and different parts of South America. He took $30,000 to San Francisco, which he invested in real estate, foreseeing that it was to become the great city of the Pacific Slope. He bought lots by the mile. His profits were enormous. He became one of the great millionaires of California. He set aside $2,000,000 in 1874, to be held by seven trustees, and to be devoted to certain public and charitable purposes. In 1875 he desired to make some changes in his schedule of gifts, and when the trustees expressed some doubts as to their legal right to give assent, at his request they resigned. The next year he died, and then followed a litigation by his son and other heirs, which was finally so adjusted as to leave a large sum to be devoted to various public and charitable projects. He left $60,000 to be devoted to a statue of Francis Scott Key, the author of the “Star Spangled Banner.” He was very eccentric, due, it is said, to an early disappointment in love. He sought the hand of a miller’s daughter, but was dismissed by the father, because young Lick did not own a mill. When he became enormouslywealthy, James Lick built a large mill, and adorned it with mahogany and costly woods as a memorial of his youthful attachment. He seemed to derive almost childish pleasure in contemplating this splendid building, which would have so far outshone any that could ever have been owned by the man who had once spurned him for his poverty. The poor young men of one generation are often the millionaires of the next. One of the great monuments to his memory is the great Lick Observatory.

John W. Shaw, who made considerable money in mines and mining stocks, is one of the Western millionaires who reside in New York. He was a superintendent of mines, and speculated on his information. He was at one time prominently identified with the Eureka Consolidated mine. He is supposed to be worth $4,000,000 to $5,000,000, and is now President of the Hocking Valley Road. Messrs. Keene, Lent, Dewey, Harpending, Verdenal and other more or less successful men well known in California, live here. One of the distinguished lawyers of the West who have come here to establish a practice is ex-Governor Hoadly, of Ohio. Austin Corbin, though at one time a lawyer in Iowa, found his true field in New York, and Alfred Sully, after amassing some means in the same State, likewise found himself drawn to New York, and won unexpected success in finance here.

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