"L'l B R.AR.Y
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
Of ILLINOIS
,377.31
1*3
N-L. HIST. SURVEY
Illinois Historical Survey
INDUSTRIAL;
VOLUME IV.
THE
COMMERCIAL
INTERESTS
ILLUSTRATED
Chicago
TttE GOODSP&ED PUBLISHING GOMPflNY
1894
COPYRIGHTED
1894
ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
W. B. CONKEY COMPANY,
PRINTERS AND BINDERS
CHICAGO
.-*
J_v>3 c-
v, 4. -^^0-1
PREFACE.
/I\ BOUT two years ago the publishers began the task of compiling their two
-^ ^\^,^ volumes on the Manufacturing and the Commercial Interests of Chicago, and
are now pleased to hand herewith Vol. IV (The Commercial Interests) to their
patrons. The delay in issuing these volumes is due wholly to the impossibility of
securing satisfactory steel portrait work on short notice. There are not more than
half a dozen houses in the United States (all in the East except one) which can do
first-class steel portrait work, and, as all were filled with orders, the publishers were
obliged to wait, in order to secure engraving of the most perfect style of the art.
Special attention is called to the value and importance of this volume. Several
chapters are written in logical and brilliant style by prominent citizens, whose names
alone are a guaranty that the thought and history are clear and creditable. The
publishers, with this volume, have thus completed four of their ten volumes on the
History of Chicago. The others will make their appearance as rapidly as they can
be prepared. The next two will contain the history of the Legal and the Medical
Professions. Their great success is already assured.
THE PUBLISHERS.
21078
i
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE.
William D. Kerfoot 18-19
Henry L. Turner 26-27
Samuel E. Gross 33
Albert L. Coe 41
Aaron B. Mead 45
William A. Bond 49
Edgar M. Snow 53
Chancellor L. Jenks 57
Jacob Forsyth 61
Dunlap Smith 65
William C. Goudy 69
William J. Goudy 76
B. F. Cronkrite 80
Valentine H. Surghnor 85
Charles H. Mulliken 89
Ferdinand W. Peck 93
Edward S. Dreyer 97
William A. Me'rigold 105
Silas M. Moore 109
Lewis E. Ingalls 114
William R. Kerr 118
Horace A. Hurlbut 124
John A. Bartlett 131
James P. Mallette 135
Martin Van Allen 144
Jerome P. Bowes 151
Bernard Timmerman 158
Charles W. Spalding 197
Edward S. Lacey 202
Charles L. Hutchinson 206
Orrin W. Potter 214
Lyman J. Gage 218
David B. Dewey 222
John B. Kirk 228
George Schneider 232
Chauncey B. Blair 236
Robert Stuart 242
Franklin D. Gray 246
Hempstead Washburne 252
Paul O. Stensland 258
Franklin H. Head 314-315
Thomas B. Bryan 326-327
Samuel W. Allerton 347
Cyrus H. Adams 354
Lyman Blair 358
Norman B. Ream 367
Lyman Everingham 372
Portus B. Weare 378
James C. Bohart 381
PAGE.
William L. Pierce 388
Orrington Lunt 393
Edson Keith 399
Henry W. King 404
William Blair 408
Robert Morrisson 414
Jonathan W. Plummer 417
Robert J. Bennett 424
Hiram A. Spaulding 427
Marcus A. Farwell 436
Charles M. Henderson 443
Charles F. Gunther 448
Daniel R. Cameron 458
Alexander H. Revell 462
Edward Ely 467
Le Roy M. Boyce 472
John T. Chumasero 476
Edward Carqueville 486
Julius W. Butler 490
Henry E. Weaver 494
Charles N. Holden 502
Seneca D. Kimbark 508
Benjamin J. Rosenthal 518
Peter Smith 524
Ransom R. Cable 530
Warren G. Purdy 534
Benjamin Thomas 540
John B. Turner 546
Daniel B. Robinson 551
William H. McDoel 559
Voluntine C. Turner 563
Timothy B. Blackstone 567
Anson S. Hopkins 575
Charles Fargo 579
George Tapper 583
John A. Roche 589
George Messersmith 603
Ludington Building 607
William Harlev, Sr 611
Alfred Harlev 614
William Harlev, Jr 617
T. E. Courtney 621
Henry M. Wilmarth 625
Philip F. W. Peck 489
J. S. Kendall 320-321
H. C. Rew 266-267
George M. Pullman 280-281
Phillip D. Armour 298-299
View of World's Fair. . . .334-335
TABLE or CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
CHICAGO REAL ESTATE. v
Enhancement of realty values 15
Canal commissioners 16
Boundaries of " Original Town " 16
Early prices of lots . 16
Terms of the sales 16
First public auction 16
Diagonal streets were old roads 17
The Peck and the Dole buildings 17
Speculators 17
First big sale of land 17
School section sold 18
The Kinzie-Pearson syndicate 18
The boom of 1836-36 18
The auctioneer's boast 18
Valuation of lots 18
Collapse of 1837 19
Real estate agents of 1839 T9
Paving of the streets 20
City grade raised 20
Railroad refused right-of-way 20
Public land sale of 1843 20
Steady improvement during the fifties 20
Values during the war 21
Values after the war 21
"Star" transactions. .
PAGE.
21
Effects of the great fire
The panic of 1873 22
Acre purchases 22
Syndicates and companies 23
Pullman land deals 23
Chicago Real Estate Board 24
Concerning abstracts 24
The " Golden Era " 24
Wonderful advancements 25
Outside development 25
Lines of growth 25
Unique methods of dealers 25
Immense acre deals 26
Operations of syndicates 26
Suburban development 26
Phenomenal activity of 1890 27
Effects of the World's Fair 27
Building operations 28
Stringency of 1893 28
Demand for high office buildings 28
Long-term lease system 29
The great "skyscrapers" 29
Supplementing existing holdings 29
The large realty agencies 30
30
CHAPTER II.
SKETCHES OF REAL ESTATE MEN.
Samuel E. Gross 32
Henry L.Turner 37
Albert L. Coe 40
Aaron B. Mead... 44
William A. Bond 47
Edgar M. Snow 51
Chancellor L. Jenks 55
Jacob Forsyth 60
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
L>unlap Smith 64
William C. Goudy 67
William J. Goudy 77
B. F. Cronkrite 81
Valentine H. Surghnor. . 84
Charles H. Mulliken 88
Ferdinand W. Peck 92
Edward S. Dreyer 96
William W. Weare 102
William A. Merigold 104
S. M. Moore 108
Lewis E. Ingalls 115
William R. Kerr 119
Horace A. Hurlbut.. . 125
PAGE.
William D. Kerfoot 127
John A. Bartlett 130
James P. Mallette 134
Ralph E. Brownell 138
Albert F. Dexter 139
Henry C. Morey 140
Martin Van Allen 145
Henry G. Young 148
George S. Eddy 149
Jerome P. Bowes 150
Harry W. Christian 154
Edward W. Zander 155
Bernard Timmerman 159
Arthur C. Gehr.. . 161
CHAPTER III.
BANKING IN CHICAGO.
First banking operations 165
George Smith 165
Chaotic condition in the thirties 165
The Wisconsin Insurance Company 166
Gurdon S. Hubbard 166
State Bank of 1835 166
Improvement bonds 167
Bankruptcy, ruin and disgrace 167
Scrip of all sorts 167
Milwaukee certificates of deposit 168
George Smith's bank 168
Alexander Mitchell 168
Sagacity of Smith 169
The crash of 1837 17Q
List of early bankers 170
First incorporated bank 171
List of banking establishments 171
Certificates of deposit circulated 172
Violations of banking laws 173
George Smith & Co 173
Panic of 1857 173
Bursting of the war cloud 173
Chaos of 1859-1861 174
Suspension and liquidation 174
Worthless securities 174
The National Banking Law 175
Period of great prosperity 175
Banks of 1857-63 176
The earliest National banks 176
Important private banks 176
Authorized capitalization 176
Status in 1871 176
Banks in the Great Fire 177
Vaults full of money 177
Condition in 1872 177
Panic of 1873 178
Suspension was counseled 178
Bank failures 179
New banks 1870-80 180
General prosperity of 1878 181
"Fat" years of 1880-82 181
New banks 1882-83 181
Growth of banking capital 181
New banks of 1884-90 181
Status in 1891 182
Immense increase in capital 182
Panic of 1893 182
Healthy condition in 1894 183
Statistics of local National banks 183
Statistics of local State banks 184
Chicago as a reserve center 184
Chicago Clearing House 18. r >
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Volume of bank clearings 185
Deposits since 1879 186
Great bankers named 186
State banking law 186
End of "wild-catting" 187
Runs on local banks . 187
CHAPTER IV.
BANKS AND BANKERS.
First National Bank 188
Its building 188
Statement of its condition 191
Its officers 192
Fort Dearborn National Bank 192
Its officers and statement 193
Its stockholders 194
Globe Savings Bank 195
Its incorporators 195
Globe Safety Deposit Vaults 196
Charles W. Spalding 196
Horatio G. Cilley 199
Charles M. Jackson 200
Edward S. Lacey 201
Charles L. Hutchinson 207
Samuel M. Nickerson 210
Orrin W. Potter 215
Lyman J. Gage 219
David B. Dewey 223
John B. Kirk 229
George Schneider 233
Chauncey B. Blair 237
Robert Stuart 243
Franklin D. Gray 247
Solomon A. Smith 249
Hempstead Washburne 2 J3
Paul O. Stensland.. . 259
CHAPTER V.
THE BOARD
Organization of the Board 262
Chicago at that date 263
System of the Board 264
Early members and officers 265
Act of February, 1849 266
Canal and railway advantages 266
System and improvement 267
Special act of incorporation 268
The Board during the war , 269
New rules and methods 270
Board from 1866 to 1871 271
Warehouse bill 271
Corners 271
Havoc of the great fire 272
Trade of Chicago
OF TRADE.
The building of 1872 273
Membership, fees, etc 274
Statistics 274
Large deals 275
General matters 276
Officers and membership 276
The building of 1383 276
List of presidents 277
Chicago's annual trade 277
Board of Trade Clearing House 278
Battle vs. bucket shops 278
Board in 1892 279
Trade of 1893 279
Clearing House transactions 279
. 280
CHAPTER VI.
TRADE AND COMMERCE.
Influence of the trading post 281 Report of the engineer 282
The river as a factor 281
The old portage 281
Keating's report
Influences vs. the Calumet
282
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Chicago in 1833 2&S
Reasons for Chicago's growth 284
Early business enterprises 284
The crowds of 1834 and 1835 284
The early traders 285
Lake traffic 286
Products and prices 287
First lake boats 288
First exports 288
Claims vs. the Indians 289
Early business men 289
Buildings and manufactures 290
Depression of 1837 291
Chicago in 1839 291
Commerce of 1840 292
Exports of 1842 293
Great progress 1842-43 293
Trade of 1844 294
The Journal's view 295
Imports and exports 1845 295
The rush of business 296
River and harbor convention 296
Imports and exports 1836-47 297
Comparative imports and exports 297
CHAPTER VII.
TRADE AND ENTERPRISE.
Trade of the canal 299
The first railroad 299
The first telegram 299
Exports of 1848 300
Chicago in the Mexican War 300
Immense and growing trade 301
Improving the Chicago River 301
Enterprise and building 301
Other railroads arrive 301
Shipments of flour and grain 302
Comparative grain productions 302
Trade of 1855 303
Manufactures of 1855-57 304
Business of 1&58 304
Cattle and hog statistics 305
General review of trade. .
Value of annual trade 1850-93 306
Effects on trade of the war 306
Sale statistics 307
Produce statistics 308
Statistics of manufactures 308
Arrivals and clearances of vessels 309
Duty on imports 309
Clearing House Association 310
Banking capital 310
Internal revenue 310
Sale of stamps and envelopes 310
Money order business 81 1
Chicago's trade 311
Buildings erected 311
Chicago's great commercial advantages 312
. 313
CHAPTER VIII.
THE COMMERCE OF CHICAGO. *
Chicago's advantageous location 314
What the French fathers found 314
Path of the Indians 315
Railroads and canal assisted 315
Influence of the lake 315
Chicago a natural distributing point 315
Geographical position and climate 315
Agricultural excellence of tributary country. . 315
Importance of Chicago's manufactures 316
Natural causes for Chicago's growth 316
Chicago's lumber trade 317
Chicago's grain trade 318
Character of lake commerce 319
Rail and water routes compared 320
Importance of double carriage 320
Chicago the best route eastward 321
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAG.
The I nter-State commerce law 321
Long and short haul 322
Its disadvantages 322
Chicago's manufacturing interests 323
Its facilities for handling raw materials 323
PAGE.
Labor troubles 324
Future of the metropolis 325
Continued growth a certainty 325
Wage earning and rents 326
Rapid transit 326
CHAPTER IX.
THE WORLDS COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.
Monotony of country towns 327
Glimpse at the great Fair 327
The Fair an educator 328
The struggle to gain the Fair 328
Fight of bureaus and committees 328
The battle at Washington 328
Efforts of New York millionaires 329
The prize gained by Chicago 329
Organization and effort 329
The Fair located * . . 330
Chaotic mud vs. White City 330
The first money raised 330
Commissioners sent abroad 330
Their energy and arguments 331
Great eventual success 332
Attitude of foreign countries 332
Erection of the great buildings 333
Beauty of the architecture 333
Dedication Day 334
The Liberal Arts building 334
Palace of Mechanic Arts 335
The wonderful engineering 335
The marvelous electrical works 336
The grandeur of the displays 337
The opening day 337
Electricity building 337
Self sacrificed to art 338
Great fairs compared 338
Transportation building 339
The foreign exhibits 340
Cyclopean architectural triumph 340
Wealth and beauty of the exhibits 341
The Fisheries and the Mining buildings 343
The minor exhibits 344
The Midway Plaisance 345
Poetry of the great Fair 345
CHAPTER X.
PROMINENT BOARD OF TRADE MEN.
Samuel W. Allerton 346
Hugh Adams 352
Cyrus H. Adams 355
Lyman Blair 359
Nathaniel K. Fairbank 361
Harris A. Wheeler 365
Norman B. Ream.. . 366
Lyman Everingham 373
John R. Bensley 375
Portus B. Weare 379
James C. Bohart 380
Melville S. Nichols 385
William L. Pierce 389
Orrington Lunt 392
CHAPTER XI.
PROMINENT WHOLESALE MERCHANTS.
Edson Keith, Sr 398
Henry W. King 405
William Blair... . 409
Robert Morrisson 415
Jonathan W. Plummer 416
Leonard A. Lange 420
10
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
William M. Hoyt 420
Robert J Bennett 425
JAlonzo M. Fuller 426
Henry A. Spaulding 426
Marcus A. Fajwell 437
Fred M. Farwell.. . 438
Christopher Strassheim 439
Anthony F. Seeherger. 440
Charles M. Henderson 442
William G. Hibbard 445
Charles F. Gunther 449
John V. Farwell 453
CHAPTER XII.
OTHF.R DISTINGUISHED BUSINESS MKN.
Daniel R. Cameron 459
Alexander H. Revell 463
Edward Ely 466
Le Roy M. Boyce 473
John T. Chumasero 477
Marshall Field 479
Shubael D. Childs 484
Edward Carqueville 487
Philip F. W. Peck 488
Julius W. Butler 491
Henry E. Weaver 495
Henry W. B. Hoyt 4i>6
Charles N. Holden 503
Lev! Z. Leiter 505
Seneca D. Kimbark 509
Daniel K. Pearsons 510
Edward Forman 514
Lloyd Milnor 516
Benjamin J. Rosenthal 519
Hugh Ervin 520
Bernard F. Weber 521
Peter Smith . . . 525
P. F. Pettibone... . 526
CHAPTER XIII.
DISTINGUISHED RAILROAD MEN.
Ransom R. Cable 531
Warren G. Purdy 535
David G. Hamilton 536
Benjamin Thomas 541
Milton C. Lightner 543
John B. Turner 547
Daniel B. Robinson 550
Everette St. John 554
Marshall M. Kirkman 556
William H. McDoel 558
Voluntine C. Turner 562
Timothy B. Blackstone 566
CHAPTER XIV.
SKETCHES OF CITIZENS.
Anson S. Hopkins 574
Charles Farg.i 578
George Tapper 582
H. N. Higinbotham 586
John A. Roche 58
Hiram P. Thompson 592
Thomas B. Bryan 594
C. Everett Clark . . .599
George Messersmith 602
Andrew M. Mangson 605
Ludington building 606
William Harlev & Sons 609
E. H. Amet 616
T. E. Courtney 620
W. J. Root 623
Henry M. Wilmarth 624
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
11
CHAPTER XV.
THE RAILROADS OF CHICAGO,-
Chicago & Northwestern 637 Lake Shore & Michigan Southern 661
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 640 The Pennsylvania 663
Wisconsin Central 642 Pan Handle 664
Northern Pacific 643 Baltimore & Ohio 664
Chicago & Calumet Terminal 643 New York, Chicago & St. Louis 665
Illinois Central 644 Chicago & Erie 666
Chicago & Alton 647 Chicago & Grand Trunk 666
The Wabash 648 Louisville, New Albany & Chicago 667
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific 650 Chicago & Eastern Illinois 671
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 654 Chicago Junction 672
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe 657 Chicago & Western Indiana 672
Michigan Central 659 The Belt Line 673
Elgin, Joliet & Eastern 674
CHAPTER XVI.
INSURANCE METHODS AND COMPANIES.
Fire insurance 675 Life companies of 1855 678
First company at Chicago 675 Other agents 679
First agent here 675 Mutual companies 679
Other early agents 676 From 1863 to 1871 679
The fire of 1839 676 Business of 1869 680
Methods of underwriters 676 Aggregate fires 681
Other early companies 677 The Great Fire 681
Board of underwriters 678 List of fire companies 682
Chicago companies 678 List of life companies 683
Companies of 1855 678 List of accident companies 684
Aggregate statistics 685
i
GLOSSARY OF COMMERCIAL TERMS.. 686
INDUSTRIAL
CHICAGO
THE
COMMERCIAL
INTERESTS.
CHAPTER I.
CHICAGO REf\L ESTf\TE.
BY HENRY L. TURNER.
fe^l O write a history of Chicago real estate is to write a romance, in which earth and
<sU_ air, humanity, waterways, railways, the westward movement of the " Star of
Empire," each must have its part. To write a complete story of the city's real estate
is also to write a philosophical chapter on sociology, on the science of growth, to dip
deep into the causes which lead to civic prosperity; to balance nicely political, finan-
cial, sociological and race developments; to ascertain whether cities build up railways
or railways make great centers. But to do all this would require volumes, not chap-
ters, so that the essayist must of necessity confine himself to the bare narrative of
facts and leave to more fortunate future writers the fascinating task of moralizing,
questioning, guessing at the whys and wherefores of Chicago's real estate greatness.
In no direction has Chicago made history more rapidly than along the line of
material development and enhancement of real property values. In the phenomenal
growth of sixty years the real estate man has played no insignificant part. He has
helped to advertise Chicago until what is now the first city on the continent has
become the best known city of the world. He has believed in Chicago and made his
neighbors, immediate and remote, believe in it.
A history of this interest may be excused for not going back further than the
summer of 1830 to find an initial point. It is true that a settlement at the mouth of
the Chicago River had been in existence for many years prior to that time, but in
that year a survey and plat were first published. The canal commissioners appointed
16 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
by the Legislature of 1829 were the official fathers of the city. The board was com-
posed of Dr. Jayne, of Springfield; Edmund Roberts, of Kaskaskia, and Charles Dunn.
It was empowered to "locate the Illinois and Michigan Canal, to lay out towns, to sell
lots, and to apply the proceeds to the construction of the canal."
The line of demarkation between the Fort Dearborn settlement and Chicago was
furnished by this survey. A single section now known technically as the " Original
Town," and bounded by State, Madison, Kinzie and Halsted Streets, furnished an
ample site for the then scarcely promising village, and within these old boundaries
were included the settlement at Wolf Point, at the junction of the north and south
branches of the river, and what was known as " Lower Village " on the South Side.
The prices paid for canal lots and lands brought into market in 1830 indicate that
land was much more abundant than money, and that supply was in excess of the
demand. A lot in Block 20, that bounded by South Water, Lake, Franklin Streets
and Fifth Avenue, was bought for 850. J. B. Beaubien is credited with having bought
Lots I and 2, Block 17, the block in which the Commercial Hotel is located, at the
same rate per lot. In fact, this seems to have been about top price for Chicago lots
at that time. Lots I and 2, in Block 29, the block bounded by Canal, West Water,
Randolph and Lake Streets, rose to $138. Two lots in the block just north of the
present Courthouse square sold at $24 apiece.
The city was laid out principally along the south side of the main river. Lake
Street was well built up from State Street to Franklin. The skyscrapers of those days
were the few four-story brick blocks on Lake and Water Streets.
The canal trustees' sales were made on peculiar terms. A purchaser paid one-
quarter cash and one year's advance interest on the balance, made payable in one, two
and three years. " Canal terms " and " canal time " were the expressions with which
real estate men were familiar as late as the year of the fire.
It is difficult to determine just what portion of the town was considered most
desirable, but the sales indicate a preference for the blocks along the river. Jedediah
Woolsey, Jr., possibly had a premonition of the southern tendency in development, for
he was willing to pay 850 for a lot in Block 44 bounded by Washington Street on the
south and Canal Street on the west. In the tier of blocks north of the river the range
was from 37 to 860 per lot. Alexander Wolcott took all of Block I, south of Kinzie
and east of Dearborn Streets, and supplemented this by buying an eighty-acre tract
in the unsubdivided portion of Section 9, at 1.625 an acre.
About a year after the survey of the village, sixteen out of twenty-four lots
granted to the county to defray expenses of erecting public buildings were sold, and
the remaining eight, now the site of the courthouse and city hall, were set aside for a
public square. The first public auction of Chicago real estate was held to dispose of
that portion of the grant not reserved as a building site. James Kinzie acted as
auctioneer and earned 814.50 on a commission basis of two and one-half per cent, for
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 17
the first $200 and one per cent, for all over that sum. The gross amount of sales was
in the neighborhood of $1,150.
The question of roads was reached at an early date, but interest did not bring on
village improvement so much as the extension of country roads to the southwestern
part of the county. Some of the prominent diagonal streets of the present city,
Ogden and Archer Avenues for example, were originally country roads.
The village did not increase in population rapidly, but its inhabitants soon awoke
to its possibilities from a geographical point of view. The year 1832 is credited with
the erection of the first two business structures built in Chicago. They were built by
George W. Dole and P. F. W. Peck, and as they both occupied South Water Street
corners, that street suggestive now of butter, eggs and produce markets, may lay claim
to seniority as a leading business street. The building erected by Mr. Peck was
used as a store, while that built by Mr. Dole was the first packing house. On the
present Tremont House site hogs were slaughtered to furnish provisions for the lake
trade.
The real estate man as now recognized was not in evidence in those early days,
but the loan man was on the ground, and in the person of a Mr. Strachan advanced $60
to the town for the purpose of draining State Street in the vicinity of Lake and Ran-
dolph Streets. This was the first financial obligation entered into by the town, and
the money was not furnished without misgivings.
Up to 1835 or '836 the real estate agent did not form a distinct feature in the
development of the city. There were plenty of speculators and investors in a small
way, and in the period prior to the city's first boom and subsequent panic there was
considerable transferring of property. The stories of transfers of lots, now valued by
the square foot, for ridiculously low considerations date to this period. The specu-
lator with a little money, a little credit and more faith in Chicago had a golden
opportunity, but the calling of the real estate agent could not have been very
remunerative.
During 1833 Charles Butler and Charles Bronson, of New York, were induced by
Robert A. Kinzie, to visit Chicago, and the next year arranged for the purchase of
one-half of Kinzie's addition to Chicago, and the property bought by Alexander Wol-
cott at the original canal land sale, known later as Wolcott's addition, and Block I
of the original town for $20,000. In 1835 the sa me tracts, which had been bought in
the name of Mr. Bronson, were transferred to Mr. Butler for $100,000. A sale of this
land in lots was arranged to follow a sale of Government lands, and to manage this
operation Mr. Butler selected his brother-in-law, W. B. Ogden. The claim that Mr.
Ogden was the first real estate agent, in the present acceptance of the term, is proba-
bly warranted by the facts in the case. He was successful beyond his expectations
in his subdivision operations, his sales amounting to about $100,000 for the equivalent
of one-third of the holdings. If Mr. Ogden lacked faith in Chicago on his arrival
18 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
here, he soon experienced a change of sentiment and, decided to make Chicago his
home.
An important sale of land was made in the fall of 1833. The school section,
lying between Madison and Twelfth Streets, and State and Halsted, was subdivided
into 144 blocks, and sold at public auction at the equivalent of 6.72 an acre. These
blocks, subdivided into lots with canal lots in Section 9, and early " additions," formed
a basis for a speculative fabric which collapsed in 1837. An early delinquent tax list
mentions as subdivisions the original town, Section 16, Wolcott's addition, North
Branch addition and Wabansia addition.
In 1836 John Kinzie and Hiram Pearson went East and formed a syndicate includ-
ing Messrs. Bard, Ward, Carow, Delafield, Nicoll, Butler, Robinson, Olcott and Blood-
good to invest in Chicago property. According to the contract entered into with
these parties title to property was to be in the name of Kinzie and Pearson, and they
were given authority to buy, sell, exchange and generally manage all properties for
the syndicate. That the syndicate was active in its operations is evidenced by the
fact that scarcely an abstract of property in the original town can be picked up which
does not show traces of it. It bought and sold a great deal of property in Canalport,
Kinzie's, Wolcott's and other early subdivisions and additions to the original town.
The first boom experienced by Chicago was now reaching its culmination. A
tide of emigration had set in, and everyone had money. Hundreds of houses of
various descriptions were built and the offices of the numerous land agents were
storm centers. Lots which had been bartered around in trade acquired dignity
with demand. The opening of the Government land office in 1835 added fuel to
the speculative blaze. Towns were laid out on paper and a thriving trade in lots at
points which never had a real existence was carried on. An early auctioneer mod-
estly stated through the medium of the daily paper that during ten months of 1835
he had sold Si, 800,000 worth of real and personal property and that he had fitted up
an office equal to any in New York or Philadelphia. To indicate the extent to which
the Chicago speculative flood developed a single advertisement which appeared in
1836 may be cited in which are offered lots in Chicago, Joliet, Peru, Dorchester,
Tremont, Pekin, Dearbornville, Constantine, Mottville Mills, St. Joseph and
Milwaukee.
Accounts of transfers of lots at this time at rapidly enhancing values may lack
authenticity in some instances, but they serve to furnish a tangible idea regarding the
speculative fever which led up to the panic of 1837. At the first sale of canal lots
Gurdon S. Hubbard bought the corner of Lake and La Salle Streets and the corner
of La Salle and South Water Streets, each 80x100 feet in dimensions, at $33.33 apiece.
In 1836 the lots could have been marketed readily at $50,000 apiece. They were sold
in part prior to and in part after the crash at something like S8o,OOO. In 1835 Mr.
Hubbard bought what was considered one of the poorest eighty-acre tracts inside the
s
Cj o >
I
*
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 19
limits, lying north of Kinzie Street and west of the river, for 85,000, and a few months
later sold half of it in New York from an unrecorded plat for S8o,OOO. A letter from
Charles Butler in the American during 1836 says that a one-quarter interest in Kin-
zie's addition, then estimated to be worth $100,000, had been offered to him in 1833
for 85,500. He adds that a forty-acre tract, worth 8400 in 1833, was worth $200,000
three years later, and that a piece of property bought early in 1835 ^ or 820,000, resold
for $100,000 during the year, was worth in 1836 $500,000.
The speculative bubble was pricked by the passage of the law putting an end to
wildcat banking, June 30, 1836, and the collapse came in the spring of the following
year. Land values shriveled up and actual as well as paper fortunes were wiped out
in a few weeks.
From 1837 to 1844 were the seven lean kine following the seven fat real estate
cattle. It was a reorganization period in which the real estate agent hibernated and
real estate history took to its bed. Foreclosures were the features of the day. Capi-
tal gave the limping city the cold shoulder. Properties which a few years before could
have been sold at fabulous prices on an active market, had no value whatever as quick
assets. Holdings were abandoned for taxes.
The boom prior to 1837 na< ^ f course swelled the list of real estate agents, and,
as in other periods of real estate activity, people in other lines of business took on the
selling of lands and lots as a side line. Among the pioneers in the business are
classed Gurdon S. Hubbard and John S. Wright, who, as early as 1833, advertised that
they rented houses and did a real estate business. Kinzie & Hunter and Dr. W. B. Egan
were in business as early as 1835. The early real estate men were scarcely agents as
the term is now applied, but in the main, speculators in land. Some of John S.
Wright's purchases in 1834 were as follows: 80x150 feet in Block 17 of the original
town for $3,500; Lot 5 in Block 19, original town, for $1,200; an acre tract on the north
branch, for $3,500; and forty-four acres south on Twelfth Street at $80 an acre.
The directory of 1839 gave as real estate agents, Hiram Baker, Francis G. Blan-
chard, James B. Campbell, Charles H. Chapman, George H. Chapman, Norman Clarke,
Stephen M. Edgel, Dr. William B. Egan, William B. French, Larned B. Harkness,
Leonard C. Hugunin, Gholson Kercheval, James Kinzie, Isaac Legg, John R. Living-
ston, James A. Marshall, Walter L. Newberry, John Noble, Mark Noble, William B.
Ogden, Hiram Pearsons, P. F. W. Peck, Dr. Peter Temple, J. B. Wetherell, George
Wheeler, Lot Whitcomb and John S. Wright. Between 1839 and 1848 the names
appear of R. C. Bristol, Theron Pardee, George Smith & Co., J. B. F. Russell, S. B.
Collins & Co., Augustus Garrett, J. T. Whitney, B. W. Raymond, James H. Rees, and
Stout & Sampson. In 1857 eighty-nine names were placed under the classified list
of real estate agents.
Early in the fifties considerable attention was paid to street improvements. The
early efforts to lay stone pavements were far from being successful, on account of the
20 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
character of the soil. Plank was then considered the proper material for Chicago
roadways and the principal streets were improved at a cost of something over $30,000.
The streets were numbered at about the same time. In 1855 the first pavement of
limestone blocks was laid on South Water Street, between Wabash Avenue and the
Illinois Central tracks, and the next year the first pine block pavement was begun.
In 1854 the pivot bridge at Clark Street was built, and the next year surveys were
made and plans drawn for a sewerage system. The plan adopted made it necessary
to raise the grade of the city nearly twelve feet and the first appearance of George
M. Pullman in Chicago was as a mover and raiser of brick buildings. It was then
considered a formidable undertaking to raise such buildings as the first Tremont
House and other three and four-story structures. When the Galena & Chicago
Union Railroad was being built under the management of W. B. Ogden and J. Y.
Scammon, the city refused to grant the road a right-of-way along Kinzie Street or an
entrance to the city. The first section of this road extending to the DesPlaines
River was built in 1848.
At a public land sale, early in 1843, 600,000 acres were offered, and but 70,000
were sold, bringing only $86,215. Improvement in financial conditions was estab-
lished in 1844. Over 600 buildings were built, the present school system was estab-
lished, and the Dearborn Street schoolhouse was erected. From that time on to the
period of business depression of 1857 to 1861 the improvement and development was
steady. To a great degree it was the improvement and enhancement of reorganization,
in which the extension of city limits and real estate speculation had but little part. The
financial conditions prevailing just after the panic of 1857, although by no means so
unfavorable as those which characterized the depression following the 1837 panic,
were such as naturally discouraged outside investment, and prevented an active mar-
ket. Aside from financial considerations, the political questions being discussed
all over the country took precedence in the minds of investors over questions of real
estate development. In 1862 a demand for Chicago property was experienced, and
this year and the following one may be considered as having ushered in a new era
of fair values and of suburban investment. During the next year it is estimated that
business property made an advance of about twenty per cent., while choice residence
property advanced fifteen per cent., and medium residence property, including sub-
urban holdings, advanced ten per cent. In this enhancement there was little suggestion
of the activity and wild speculative fever which was to culminate in another panic.
Lots on La Salle Street, south of the old Board of Trade, then in construction, were not
salable at $300 a front foot. In 1866 and 1867 there was great development in a section
bounded by State, Lake and Harrison Streets and the lake, now the business heart of
the city, but then considered rather out of the world, and also in the vicinity of Lincoln
Park. The site of the Palmer House was bought at this time for something like $1.50 a
square foot. A year later top price for down-town property was reached in a sale of
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 21
the southwest corner of State and Washington Streets to the First National Bank for
$25 a square foot. As a part of the site of the present skyscraping Reliance build-
ing, it is leased on a basis of something over $100 a square foot.
During the next few years residence property attracted 'speculative attention.
Park and boulevard frontage investments became the fashion. Speculation ran riot in
suburban properties. Subdivisions were laid out along the Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy Railroad as far as Hinsdale, and south along the Blue Island ridge, and away
north to Lake Forest, and lots were sold at prices which might cause buyers at some
of these points to hesitate twenty years later. The wonderful chain of boulevards,
with the parks connected by them, furnished an almost inexhaustible supply of lots
with park frontage as a basis for the wildest speculative activity. Holdings along
Michigan, Calumet, Prairie and Indiana Avenues were looked upon as choice invest-
ments. An idea of current values of South Side property may be gleaned from the
results of a sale held in 1869 by Clarke, Layton & Co., which was advertised all over
the country. Fifty-foot lots on Cottage Grove Avenue, between Forty-third and
Forty-fourth Streets, brought $40 to $60 a foot; between Fifty-first and Fifty-second
Streets, $60 to $71 a foot, and between Fifty-second and Fifty-third Streets, $54 to 855
a foot. A corner of South Park Avenue and Forty-fourth Street brought $68 a foot,
and South Park Avenue lots between Thirty-first and Thirty-second Streets sold at
893 to $98. Drexel Boulevard frontage near Fifty-second Street was considered worth
$41 to $45 a front foot. Lots on Thirty-first Street, between South Park and Calumet
Avenues, ranked higher, selling at $115 to $>i66 a foot. As the auction sale involved
about 83,000,000 worth of land, these prices may be taken as open market bottom
figures.
The commercial prosperity augmented the feverish speculative feeling, in which
prices were advanced beyond reason and all idea of intrinsic value lost sight of. Sales
of real estate for 1869 are placed at an aggregate of $30,000,000, with the sales of 1871
up to October 9, at $40,000,000. In the year of the fire Randolph Street frontage, east
of La Salle, brought $2,113 a front foot; State Street holdings, north of Monroe, sold
at $2,000; Madison Street property, west of Fifth Avenue, at $1,050; Clark Street
property, south of Monroe, at $800; State Street frontage, north of Jackson, at $700,
and Monroe Street, property east of Market, at from $490 to $565 a front foot.
The fire by no means checked real estate activity. It created an immediate
demand for buildings in the business district, and owners were forced to sell part of
their holdings to get funds with which to make improvements. A large amount of
insurance money was paid out here, and owners had no difficulty in borrowing from
eastern capitalists. A real estate office, that of W. D. Kerfoot & Co., was the first
building erected in the burnt district, and the agencies of W. D. Kerfoot, Baird &
Bradley, H. C. Morey, Ogden, Sheldon & Co., E. A. Cummings & Co., W. L. Pierce,
and others, were kept employed actively. There was no break in the speculative and
INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
investment interest until the panic of 1873 came like a paralytic stroke. The rebuild-
ing of the city did not at once change the business center. The northwest corner of
Clark and Lake Streets was considered the best corner in Chicago in 1865, when a Louis-
ville man purchased it for $2,000 a front foot. After the fire the corners of Lake and
Clark Streets still were considered about as good as could be selected.
The panic of 1873 was peculiar in many respects. It came unheralded and
left owners unable to sell at any concession or to borrow money on their holdings.
The usages regarding foreclosure proceedings then in vogue, aggravated the situation
and really tended to prolong real estate troubles. Between the years of 1873 and 1880,
about the only real estate business was in liquidation and reorganization. All sorts
of property suffered, outlying holdings especially. Defaulted mortgages at the time
of the fire could be foreclosed by notice through the newspapers and liquidation was
rapid. During the later part of 1873 the newspapers were literally filled with fore-
closure notices. The custom worked such hardship to owners that the Legislature
passed an act providing that all foreclosures should be made through chancery pro-
ceedings. A number of insurance companies which had large loans here foreclosed
and secured title to property, some of which have been held by them ever since. In
fact many ownerships by non-resident capitalists date back to the panic of 1873, the
properties which were then taken as an extreme measure having since, in many cases,
made their new owners wealthy.
The signs of improvement were not numerous until 1880. The business center
began to gradually work south and productive income holdings became again salable.
The wholesale district in the southwest portion of the city was established with the
buildings erected by Marshall Field and John V. Farwell & Co. as a nucleus. Early
sales in that section were made at as low figures as $200 to $300 per front foot. Hand-
some profits were made through the advance in this property and investment through-
out the business center was stimulated.
The trade in outside property, which was checked by the panic, was revived, but
took a little different turn. The early outside subdivider -selected high rolling sites
for towns without regard for accessibility to the business center, and gave the belt of
low land encircling the city a wide berth. The later cheap lot subdividers, of whom
John Johnston, Jr., is credited with being a leader, saw a field in the intermediate prop-
erty, which could be given transportation service at moderate outlay. E. A. Cum-
mings & Co. made large acre purchases in the west and southwest sections of the city
and made the sale of lots on easy terms a specialty. S. E. Gross was another promi-
nent cheap lot operator, doing an extensive business at various points on all sides of
the city.
Early in 1869 the Calumet and Chicago Canal and Dock Company came into
existence under a special charter granted by the Legislature. It was only one of a
number of similar corporations granted a wide range of privileges and peculiar powers,
THE COAfMERCTAL INTERESTS. 23
but is of especial interest as being closely identified with the development of the
Calumet River region. It original purpose was the construction of a canal to connect
the Calumet River with the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and to this end it was given
the right of eminent domain to condemn a right of way, and authority and right to
"purchase, possess and occupy real and personal estate and to sell, lease and employ
the same in such manner as it shall determine." The proposed canal was never built,
the corporation becoming a land investment company pure and simple. Several
thousand acres on and near the Calumet River were at once acquired. The company
discovered that it had projected improvements outside the lines of immediate develop-
ment. Sales for 1872 amounted to $130,000, and in 1874 to $240,500. They gradually
dwindled down until in 1879, the total of sales was $500. A reorganization was
effected in 1881, and since that time the company has been a factor in subdivision
operations in the vicinity of South Chicago. Sales for the years 1872 to 1893 inclu-
sive, aggregated $5,413,000. The banner year was 1890, when acres and lots valued at
$1,200,000 were disposed of.
To the development of the southern portion of Cook County and the Calumet
region generally, the operations of the Pullman Palace Car Company have contrib-
uted to a considerable extent. The company was organized in 1867, but the indus-
trial town as it now stands, the feature considered in connection with the real estate
advancement of the city, was not completed until along in the eighties. The plan
for a model town did not contemplate any particular development of surrounding
property, and in fact was arranged with the special aim of confining the improvement
within the limits of Pullman. It was an experiment in its way and differed in nearly
every particular from manufacturing town projects. In the first place the plan did not
provide for sales of houses on any terms to householders. It contemplated the con-
struction of a small city, with factories, residences, stores, and churches, all to be
rented by the owner corporation. The car company assumed many of the functions
usually held by a city corporation. It furnished the residences with water, gas, and
electric light. The streets of the town have never been dedicated to the public, and
no plat of the town has ever been filed for record with the county authorities. To all
intents and purposes the town of Pullman is still an acre tract. However much such
a model town might tend to develop property interests in a given section, from the
nature of things it is not particularly interesting to real estate agents. A wide belt
of vacant acres \vas left circling the town of Pullman with the avowed purpose of dis-
couraging outside subdivision operations. These precautions were not entirely suc-
cessful, as witnessed by the remarkable growth of Kensington, Roseland, and other
suburban towns directly tributary to the town of Pullman. Besides the direct develop-
ment of a large territory in the Calumet basin, the success of the Pullman Palace Car
Company has done much to advertise in manufacturing circles the advantages of Chi-
cago as asuccessful manufacturing center and to encourage the establishment of other
industrial towns on more liberal lines in the outskirts of the city.
24 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Of the various organizations formed from time to time among Chicago real estate
men the Chicago Real Estate Board has been by far the most important. In fact, it
has been about the only one meriting the title. It has been a power in real estate
interests. It was originally known as the Chicago Renting Agents' Association, and
as the name suggests was made up of agents having charge of improved property. A
call was issued early in 1883 for a meeting of real estate men favoring the organiza-
tion of an agent's association. The charter members of the association formed as a
result of this call were, F. A. Henshaw, C. W. Pierce, E. A. Cummings & Co., Samuel
Polkey, William L. Pierce, F. C. Gibbs, Barnes & Parish, Bryan Lathrop, Bogue
& Hoyt, Mead & Coe, Baird & Bradley, F. W. Elliott, D. W. Mitchell, Knight &
Marshall, F. Hatheway, Ogden, Sheldon & Co., James M. Gamble, Ishain & Pren-
tice, H. A. Goodrich, John S. Trumbull, Ernst Prussing, Turner & Bond, L. R.
Giddings, Griffin & Dwight, F. A. Bragg, J. C. Magill, W. D. Kerfoot & Co., E. S.
Dreyer & Co., H. C. Morey, William A. Merigold, F. C. Vierling, C. H. Mulliken,
Benjamin L. Pease, C.'P.Silva, William Hansbrough, A. D. Hyde, T. H. Traver. R. W.
Hyman, Jr., H. Rieke, A. J. Stone, E. Goodridge, E. W. Zander and Chandler & Co.
Ever since its inception the efforts of the board have been directed toward the
advancement of municipal reforms and public improvements and a maintenance of a
high standard of business integrity among real estate agents. There is a tacit under-
standing that in questions of public interest the board will array itself on the side of
property owners. During its first year the board went into the question of special
assessments. The ordinance prohibiting the erection of livery stables, blacksmith
shops or foundries in residence districts without consent of owners was secured
through the efforts of the board.
In 1886 the board co-operated with the Citizens' Association in opposing a propo-
sition to lease the Cook County abstract books to private parties. The same year the
board sent a strong committee to Springfield to work in the interests of a bill provid-
ing for a rest in title. The board at an early date interested itself in the world's fair
movement, and through its committee secured subscriptions to 100,000 worth of stock.
It made a determined but unsuccessful fight at Springfield for the passage of a bill
providing for registration of titles under the " Torrens System." At the same assem-
bly session, however, it was successful in its efforts to have the Alien Land law
amended and in its opposition to the occupancy of certain lands along the Lake
Front by the Illinois Central Railroad Company. It would be difficult to point to a
question of public interest on which the Real Estate Board has not expressed itself or
to an improvement in real estate methods not traceable directly to its efforts.
Somewhere between 1885 and 1890 lay Chicago's golden era of real estate activity
and development. No department of legitimate improvement and investment or phase
of speculation was neglected. The statement that every one had a little money for
investment in Chicago or Chicago property scarcely does more than justice to the
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 25
situation. The man who had a few hundred dollars bought a lot, too often with-
out due regard to location, and the capitalist who began to have an appreciation of
the city's possibilities, picked up central business corners at figures which would have
seemed ridiculous a few years before. All had paper profits and some had actual profits
to their credit. A speculative value was added to everything in Cook County, and
adjoining counties north and south were drawn into the current. Farms became
" acre property," every outlying railroad crossing became a proposed manufact-
uring town, and in a single year subdivisions were laid out representing, on a low
estimate, 65,000 lots. The elevated roads were projected, new suburban lines of rail-
road were surveyed and built and electricity was adopted on outlying street rail-
ways. Choice residence property enhanced in value, and top prices for Grand and
Drexel Boulevard corners were registered. Building received great impetus. A great
many houses in suburban towns were built, but the flat building became decidedly the
fashion. Splendid apartment houses and family hotels were erected and millions of
dollars were invested in structures of all kinds. From an average of not far from
$20, 000,000 represented in permits issued for buildings, an advance was made in a
single year to $48,000,000, the next year to $55,000,000 and the succeeding year to
865,000,000.
These were the conditions outside of the central portion of the city, and the
activity and interest which had gradually developed was intensified by the location of
the world's fair. A genuine boom was inaugurated and a serious collapse was only
averted by the remarkable legitimate growth of the city during the year or more over
which it extended and the financial strength of a large majority of investors. No date
can be fixed for the initiation of the boom of 1890 and 1891, and no date established
to mark its end.
The outside development of the city during this period was phenomenal. Real
estate operators found the subdivision field a profitable one ready to their hands.
Subdivisions were laid out along rapid transit lines contiguous to portions already
improved. This devolopment made electric lines a necessity, and the Cicero & Proviso
Road was built as the first of a number of roads on which electricity is used as a motive
power. Extensions of street car lines were made feasible. The subdivider became
more bold as he realized his success, and reached out into the country for property
which could be bought at prices warranting considerable outlay for rapid transit serv-
ice. An easy step was from this to the establishment of outside industrial centers
which would form centers for subdivision operations.
The movement of manufacturers <to Chicago, general business conditions, and the
completion of a number of belt lines around the city, made the establishment of man-
ufacturing towns practicable. Harvey, Chicago Heights, West Pullman. and South
Waukegan are fair examples of industrial towns belonging to this period where there
has been marked development. Other industrial towns never passed the "proposed"
26 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
state where an option on a large body of cheap land near some railroad, and in or
near Cook County, was the basis for the proposition. From 1888 to 1890 acres were
the fashion. Options on farms were worth money, and were quick assets. Farm land
in the townships of Worth, Thornton, Cicero and Lyons were sold over and over
again before the title was passed by deed from the original owner. The boom in
cheap acre tracts brought in an army of amateur real estate men, whose acquaintance
with original owners was considered of more value than any technical knowledge of
the business. Men in mercantile lines who, as a rule, do not favor investments outside
of their business, were fascinated by the possibility of doubling the capital risked on
a land speculation in a few days, and took side lines in acres miles from any railway
station, and a day's journey by team from the courthouse. The Calumet region was
the scene of great activity. A number of large vacant tracts held by eastern estates
were sold and opened as subdivisions by their new owners. Louis F. Menage, of
Minneapolis, was prominent among acre operators, buying, among other tracts, the
holdings of the Morgan estate, of New York, now forming the site of West Pullman.
The Calumet Electric Road was built primarily for the improvement and develop-
ment of the territory extending southeast from the city to South Chicago, in which
the Calumet and Chicago Canal and Dock Company had large holdings.
Point was given to the outside speculation by a series of operations of impor-
tance including the purchase of the famous Section 21 of Cicero for the Grant
Locomotive Works syndicate; the big Stickney purchase with the prospects ot revo-
lution in the railway terminal system of Chicago; the purchase of a site at Waukegan
by the Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Company of Massachusetts; the removal of
railway shops of a number'of roads to points further from the city; the purchase of a
few thousand acres of land near Tolleston by the packers for the alleged purpose of
establishing a new stock yards; the improvement of the South Chicago harbor
and the channel of the Calumet River; the extension of industries at South Chi-
cago, and the construction of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern or Outer Belt Railway by
Drexel, Morgan & Co.
The net results of this somewhat artificial development of outside property have
been fairly satisfactory. Suburban towns have made wonderful growth; great
advances have been made in securing rapid transit facilities; electric lines have been
built where, under other conditions, capital could not readily be secured; and the
attention of people has been directed to the acres outside the city. Railroads, such
as the Chicago Central and the Blue Island branch of the Illinois Central have been
built as adjuncts to real estate operations. The semi-independent industrial towns
built up within the last few years, while gaining prestige from their location, are all in
a sense tributary to Chicago. The promoters of these manufacturing town enter-
prises have been successful advertisers of the advantages of Chicago as a receiving
and distributing center, and have been the means of bringing many manufacturing
concerns here from the East.
GoodspeedBrothfirs.PuliHsliers. Chicago
tn
O
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 27"'
There is nothing very formidable on the other side of the account. Speculators
with options on farms have in most cases dropped them without causing original
owners any serious trouble. While the fact has become impressed on holders of farms
out in outlying portions of Cook County that land is only one of many elements
necessary to a successful suburban residence or industrial town there is not an acre
of land in Cook County which has not been enhanced in value by the real estate
operations of the last few years.
The intense interest shown in Chicago and the phenomenal activity of 1890 made
dealing in bogus subdivisions and lots in them possible, but as a rule such operations
were promptly checked. The same conditions made what was known as syndicate
operations popular. In these transactions the promoter, usually a real estate man,
too often occupied the anomalous position of agent both for the seller and buyer and
trusted to the confidence of the parties on one or both sides to allow him to get an
independent scalp between hands. The tendency was toward dishonest methods of
doing business and the amateur real estate man made all sorts of errors, which will
mean ultimate expense to owners and profit to abstract men. These irregularities and
errors of judgment with possibly an aftermath of law suits, however, are largely over-
balanced by the benefits which accrued from Chicago's latest real estate boom.
The location of the world's fair was the occasion of sustained activity in all lines
of real estate operation and this was intensified in the particular sections contiguous
to the exposition grounds. When the first proposition to locate the fair in Wash-
ington Park was made public the park became a speculative storm center. Cottage
Grove Avenue corners were put under contract at fabulous figures and sold two or
three times in succession before the decision to utilize Jackson Park as a site was
announced. The change gave a wider field for speculation, as it brought eligibility,
real or supposed, to the open tracts of land south and southwest of the park, in addi-
tion to that occupied in part by Woodlawn, to the west. Stony Island Avenue
occupied the same relation to Jackson Park as did Cottage Grove Avenue to the sup-
posed site in Washington Park. Every corner for some time was the proposed site of
a great projected hotel and every large open space was considered eligible for some
entertainment project. A majority of the pretentious hotel schemes finally appeared
as apartment houses or flats. Hundreds of flats and apartment houses were con-
structed to compete with each other for lodgers during the fair season, and to com-
pete with all parts of the city afterward for tenants. The world's fair district was
overbuilt to a great extent, and it will be some time before there is a proper ratio
between capital invested and income earned by it. The effect of the fair on the Jack-
son Park district has been remarkable. Rapid transit was secured in a few months,
which ordinarily would not have come through years of normal development and
improvement. The combination of good railroad service and cheap rentals following
the overactivity in flat building has induced an almost general movement of tenants
from all parts of the city to what is still known as the world's fair district.
28 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
The great activity of the years preceding 1890 in the outlying property by no
means militated against interest in down-town property. It was a period marked by
star transactions, involving the investment of outside and local capital. Phenomenal
advances in values were made in a few years, and records were made and broken
without, however, attracting the public attention which was paid to the more showy
acre operations. While the development of outlying property was checked as early
as 1891 and practically stopped by the financial stringency of 1893, the conditions in
the down-town district were entirely different. The Baring failure and subsequent
complications sounded a halt in acre speculation. On the other hand some of the
most brilliant transactions in which choice down-town building sites figured were
carried through just before and just after the period of sharpest depression in 1893.
In office building enterprises the projectors were able to avail themselves of the reduc-
tions in prices of material and cost of labor brought on by the lack of confidence in
financial circles.
No more striking illustration of the rapid increase in values can be given than
that furnished in many cases by these building operations. Structures which, on
account of the comparatively short period which had elapsed since the fire, could not
be considered old, and which were paying fair incomes, were torn down to be replaced
with ten to sixteen-story office buildings capable of earning an income on the cost
of buildings and ground. The building which originally occupied the southwest
corner of Madison and Dearborn Streets was, after the fire, considered the finest office
building of the city and was, for its day, of expensive construction. Its destruction
was considered good policy by the syndicate which leased the corner at $130 a square
foot and erected the Hartford building in its place. Scarcely a great down-town
building project has been carried through which did not involve the removal of
improvements which represented thousands of dollars.
The term "modern building" in Chicago is used in a narrower sense than in most
cities. Few down-town office structures built before the Rookery and Tacoma build-
ings were erected can lay claim to such a description without qualification.
A number of elements have contributed to the enhancement of values in the down-
town district. There is, of course, the underlying element of demand with reference
to supply. The development of Chicago as a great receiving and distributing point
has made it a great office center and created a sharp demand for office buildings. The
limits of the down-town district, however, have been circumscribed and the tendency
has been toward congestion and concentration. The introduction of new building
processes and the success of the Chicago Construction, as it is now termed, by which
twelve to twenty-story buildings are made possible and the popular favor accorded
such buildings have increased the income earning power of land.
Another element, the converse of this, is the reduction of interest rates on loans
secured by property in the heart of Chicago. It is not many years since a six per cent.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 29
rate was considered low for anything secured by realty here. In 1885 a five per cent,
loan was about the best which could be secured. With the last year or two loans at
four and one-half per cent, and even four per cent, on choice fees have been made. A
capitalized value of a holding on a four per cent, basis is materially greater than the
capitalized value of the same property on a six per cent, basis.
Still another potent factor in recent down-town development has been the growth
of the long-term lease system. John U. Jennings is credited with being the father of
the system in. Chicago, but long-term or ninety-nine-year leases as made at present
were not popular before 1885. Early leases of this character were made with a reval-
uation clause attachment, which in the increase of values has worked to the detriment
of leases. The Commercial Bank and Chicago Opera House buildings are among the
few structures laying claim to being modern which have underlying revaluation leases.
The introduction of the fixed rental lease gave building companies an opportunity.
With the rental absolutely established a market for leasehold bonds was found and
such bonds, formerly unsalable, can now be disposed of on a fair basis without diffi-
culty. The construction of fifteen-story buildings costing from 500,000 to Si, 500,000
was made more feasible where the investment of as much or more in land was not re-
quired. Under the new system the investment was distributed. The capitalist who
was content to take a small interest rate provided the e4ements of risk were eliminated
took the fee. The man who was willing to take more chances at a better income rate
took leasehold bonds, and in theory the speculator who banked on Chicago's future
took stock.
The mercantile and office buildings which belong to the period since 1885 repre-
sent in the aggregate millions of dollars and include, in fact, most of the important
structures of the city. Among them are the Tacoma, Rookery, Chamber of Com-
merce, Rialto, Ashland, Unity, Monadnock, Old Colony, Manhattan, Stock Exchange,
Columbus, Venetian, Isabella, Field wholesale and retail, Auditorium Hotel and
Annex, Northern Hotel, Schiller Theater, Title and Trust, Security, Woman's Temple,
Medinah Temple, Masonic Temple, Hartford, Reliance, Champlain, New York Life
Association, Marquettc, Leiter and many other structures of more or less importance,
all worthy representatives of Chicago's material greatness.
The construction of nearly every one of these buildings involved the purchase or
lease of a lot at fancy figures and in fact but few transfers of down-town interests
either by lease or sale have not been followed by important building operations.
A feature in the minor purchases of down-town property has been the supple-
menting of existing holdings, either by acquiring fees or leasehold interests. The
Reaper block corner, at the southeast corner of Clark and Washington Streets, was
supplemented by the purchase of the adjoining holding on Washington Street. The
Major block corner was supplemented by the purchase of the old Young Men's Chris-
tian Association property on Madison Street. At three of the corners formed by the
30 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
intersection of Dearborn and Randolph Streets, holdings have been combined by pur-
chases or long-term leases. The present Masonic Temple site includes the land on
which half a dozen buildings originally stood. The Peck corner, Washington and
La Salle Streets, 100 feet square, was not considered large enough for improvement
with the new Stock Exchange building, so the Fuller property adjoining was combined
with it under the terms of a ninety-nine year lease. The New York Life building
covers land on which three buildings stood and the same is true of the Monadnock
building, Marshall Field's new retail building, Leiter's State Street building and
other large modern structures.
In the active period prior to the world's fair many new real estate agents were
brought into the field. Boom operators from western towns were attached, and firms
which had as a stock in trade an acquaintance with owners of farm lands in outlying
towns, flourished like a green bay tree. The business in the aggregate was done by
firms which had previously established themselves with owners and clients. Among
the conspicuous agencies were those of William D. Kerfoot & Co., Turner & Bond,
Snow & Dickinson, William A. Merigold, E. A. Cummings & Co., Fessenden & High,
R. W. Hyman & Co., Dunlap, Smith & Co., J. H. Van Vlissengen & Co., Baird &
Bradley, D. S. Place & Co., Cremin & Brenan, B. F. Jacobs & Co., Dennis Netting &
Co. and Bogue & Hoyt. The business of the ante-world's fair period was widely
distributed among the different real estate agents of the city, and during 1889, 1890
and 1891 but few agents were not reporting sales.
The rapid advances in down-town values, and the sharp demand for business
locations in the period just prior to the world's fair, developed a new line of specu-
lative investment. The conditions encouraged the taking of speculative leaseholds
by people who had no intention of occupying any part of the premises rented, but
figured on subletting at a profit. Cases could be cited where the net income to the
holder of the first lease was much greater than that of the owner of the property.
The financial difficulties of 1893 put a new face on the situation, and the holders of
speculative leases found that their subtenants were not able to pay the fancy rents
agreed on, and saw not only their paper profits wiped out but found themselves with
a load of financial responsibility which seemed light when incurred. The period
between 1885 and 1894 was one of big transactions of all kinds.
Aside from the sales of down-town realty holdings referred to above, the period
of recent activity is marked by a number of star transactions. The Major block, at
the southeast corner of La Salle and Madison Streets, covering a lot 66x135 f ee * ' n
dimensions, was bought by L. J. McCormick for $625,000. Another transfer of
improved property was that of the Monon block, on Dearborn Street. It, with a
twenty-five foot building adjoining it, was sold to the Thayer estate, of Boston, for
8575,000. The Title and Trust Company paid Orrington Lunt and Horace F. Waite
8525,000, or a trifle over 848 a square foot, for the Washington Street lot on which
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 31
its building stands. A similar frontage in the same block sold as late as 1858 at Sioo
a front foot. The sale of the site of the present New York Life building to Henry
Phipps and others, by Granville Dodge and the Lancaster estate, was another of the
recent star sales. The big purchases by the Brooks estate, and other Boston estates,
were made in the main before the era of fancy prices for down-town property. They
included a number of prominent Van Buren Street and Dearborn Street corners, and
to their operations and those of C. C. Heisen are due in great measure the early
and rapid development and improvement of South Dearborn Street.
The property occupied by the Fair figured in an important ninety-nine-year lease.
The southwest corner of State and Washington Streets and the northwest corner of
State and Madison Streets, occupied by the Reliance and Champlain buildings, are
held under long-term leases determining valuations of Sioo a square foot or more. A
valuation of 8130 a square foot was determined for the southwest corner of Madison
and Dearborn Streets, now occupied by the Hartford building, while the correspond-
ing corner of Madison Street and Fifth Avenue was leased at a basis of 862.50 a
square foot.
Beginning at the river settlement has moved southward, westward, northward.
Business centers have changed, drawn from long settled points to others by growth
in new directions, and by reason of the opening up of new lines of communication.
Prices have risen and fallen, and yet through it all values have steadily appreciated.
And the growth and appreciation have not yet reached their limit. New eras of real
estate prosperity lie ahead of us, and in the greater Chicago of another century lie the
possibility of a multitude of new fortunes and the solidifying of present ones.
32 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
CHAPTER II.
SKETCHES OF REflL E,STf\TE MEN.
^amuel E. Gross. Before taking up the work of writing briefly of the life and
achievements of the man whose name appears above, it is unnecessary, by any
preliminary paragraphs, to introduce him to the people of Chicago. The
results of his marvelous operations are visible on every hand, and each one of thou-
sands of substantial homes in this city and its suburbs is a monument to his enterprise
and his liberality, speaking unmistakably of his public spirit anoj connecting his name
with the permanent development and improvement of Chicago. His success is due
primarily to his own natural qualities, and secondarily to his reliance on the desire of
every true American to own a home.
The family of Gross has a place in American history as early as 1726. At that
time Joseph Gross was a property holder in Montgomery County, Penn. His grand-
son, the great-grandfather of Samuel E. Gross, was an officer in the patriot army in
Revolutionary times, and his commission as captain, signed by John Hancock, as
.governor of Pennsylvania, and bearing the date November 25, 1776,13 still extant.
After the independence of the colonies was established, he located in Dauphin
County, Penn., and there became a land and mill owner of extensive interests. He
married a Miss Sahler, of Holland-French Huguenot descent; and on her mother's side,
from the old New York family of Du Bois, prominent at Kingston as early as the last,
half of the seventeenth century.
The father of Samuel E. Gross married Elizabeth Eberly, whose family, of Ger-
man origin, has been influential in Pennsylvania since its settlement there in 1725.
Their son was born on the old " Mansion Farm," upon the Susquehanna, in Dauphin
County, Penn., November 11, 1843, and was brought to Illinois by his parents in 1846.
The family tarried for a time in Bureau County, then located in Carroll County. Here,
in the district schools and at Mount Carroll Seminary, the boy received his primary
education. He was between seventeen and eighteen years old when the Civil
War began. In face of the opposition of his parents, he determined to risk his
life in defense of the Union, and enlisted in the Forty-first Illinois Volunteer Infantry,
and went with the regiment on the campaign in Missouri. It was not long, however,
before his parents brought influence to bear upon his case, which resulted in his being
mustered out of the service on account of his extreme youth and sent home.
r
, &-. Engraving ro.ClTicago.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 35
He was sent to Whitehall Academy, in Cumberland County, Penn., and was a
student there until June, 1863, when the Confederates invaded his native State. His
patriotic spirit now asserted itself again, and on the 2Qth of that month he was com-
missioned first lieutenant of Company D, Twentieth Pennsylvania Cavalry, one of the
youngest officers of that rank in the army. The battle of Gettysburg was fought and
Lee was pursued back into Virginia, making his retreat memorable by many spirited
contests. February 17, 1864, Lieut. Gross was promoted for meritorious service in
battle to the captaincy of Company K of the same regiment. He participated in the
battles of Piedmont, Lynchburg, Ashby's Gap and Winchester and in many other
engagements, and was mustered out of the service at Cloud's Hill, Va., July 13, 1865.
He was now twenty-one, and it must be admitted that for one of his years he
had much and varied experience. It must be remembered, too, that the war was a
great developer of boys into men. He had been for some time considering as to a
good field for business enterprise, and after carefully canvassing the advantages
offered by the leading cities of the country, he finally decided to come to Chicago.
Here he arrived in September, 1865, and took up the study of law, meanwhile invest-
ing some means in desirable lots, and thus began his wonderful career as a real estate
operator. After pursuing a course of study at the Union College of Law, he was
admitted to the bar in 1866, and at once entered upon the practice of his profession.
In 1867 he built upon his lots and began to dispose of them.
His investment proved so profitable that he gradually engaged in real estate
operations to the exclusion of other interests. In the winter of 1868-69 he interested
himself in the establishment of the park and boulevard system for beautifying the
city and was influential in pushing it to completion. At the time of the great fire of
1871 Mr. Gross secured as many of his valuable books and papers as he could, and
throwing himself into a rowboat pulled out from shore and stowed the documents
temporarily in a tug. After the subsidence of the conflagration he sought out the
place where his office had been, and, establishing himself as best he could among the
smoking debris, resumed business with a spirit and energy that marked him as one of
the coolest headed men of that time of ruin and excitement.
During the period of business depression, 1873-79, he devoted himself to literary
pursuits, to the study of politics and to scientific questions, meanwhile designing some
valuable mathematical instruments and patenting several inventions relating to street
paving and to maps.
When a revival of business came, Mr. Gross determined upon the operations in
realty which have since made him famous as the greatest subdivision man in the
world. In 1882 he began on the northern boundary of the city and laid out what
eventuated in the flourishing village of Gross Park, changing this locality in one
decade from a cabbage patch to a suburb of 5,000 inhabitants. In 1883 he entered
upon the work of building homes for people of moderate means, securing a small
86 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
cash payment and permitting the purchaser to pay him the balance in small monthly
installments, and when the payment was complete giving the purchaser a deed to the
property. The system was new to Chicago and at once met with such great favor
that Mr. Gross built and sold 300 houses the first year. As an indication of how the
business increased, it may be said that during the next two years he built and sold
3,000 houses.
His plan was to build up districts hitherto unimproved, which, if left to individual
building, would have remained undeveloped, and in this way he established a number
of villages which are now solidly built-up portions of the city itself. He purchases
the land, lays out streets and parks and makes useful and ornamental improvements,
erects railway stations and public buildings, as well as houses substantial and attract-
ive, sells lots at a moderate price to people who will build, and when necessary
advances them money with which to meet the expense of building. Notwithstanding
his transactions reach far into the millions and involve thousands of individuals of
almost every condition, it is claimed that his policy has been so lenient that he has
never in any case foreclosed a mortgage or otherwise distressed a client.
In 1886 he founded the town of Brookdale, on the Illinois Central Railway, and
opened Under-the-Linden, northwest of the city, one of the largest suburban ventures
ever undertaken. In 1887 he platted the villages of Calumet Heights and Dauphin
Park, improved a forty-acre subdivision at Ashland Avenue and Forty-seventh Street,
improved a large district near Humboldt Park and erected more than 300 houses
near Archer Avenue and Thirty-ninth Street. In 1889 the "Magnetic town" of Gross-
dale, one of his most successful ventures, was located on the Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy Railroad, a mile west of Riverside, where a prairie farm of 500 acres has been
transformed into a beautiful city with churches, theater and other public buildings
and fine residences.
Among Mr. Gross' later operations has been that on the line of the Chicago,
Burlington & Quincy Railroad, which resulted in Hollywood, a beautiful place of
homes, lying between the two branches of the Desplaines River, bounded immediately
upon the east by the magnificent suburban town of Riverside, and on the west by the
extensive improvements of Grossdale, above mentioned. From time immemorial
Hollywood had seen comparatively little change. The maize fields of the red man had
simply become the corn fields of the white man. In the autumn of 1893, however,
Mr. Gross visited the spot. Hardly had he done so before his surveyors were running
their lines across cornfield and stream. One-half the town was sold by him in the
first five months of its existence; depots, houses, stores, hotels and public buildings
have been erected, boulevards created and brilliantly lighted, and parks set blooming
with thousands of flowering plants. A beautiful city will soon cover the spot.
Argyle Park, Madison Street, Southwest, Highview, Monroe Street and other sub-
divisions, and Northwest, Oak Park, and other additions, all speak most eloquently
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 37
of Mr. Gross' enterprise and liberality to homeseekers. Many years of experience
enables him to select property that under his system meets with rapid sale. He
chooses property on or near important thoroughfares leading to the center of the city
and in localities that are being or may be rapidly improved. In deciding upon sites
for town building, he makes a special feature of transportation facilities to and from
the business and working centers of the city. Mr. Gross is now the owner of nearly
200 subdivisions in various parts of the city, containing some 30,000 lots, and his fort-
une is estimated at from $4,000,000 to 85,000,000.
Notwithstanding he is known as a multi-millionaire, Mr. Gross' dealings have
been of so liberal and considerate a character that he is regarded as the people's
friend, as was evidenced in 1889 when the United Workingmen's societies nominated
him to the mayoralty, an honor which the exacting demands of his private business
compelled him to decline. His social popularity is indicated by his membership of
the Chicago, Union, Athletic, Iroquois, Marquette and Washington Park Clubs. He
keeps fresh the experience of his boyish soldier life by membership of the Chicago
Union Veteran Club, U. S. Grant Post, No. 28, G. A. R., the Western Society of the
Army of the Potomac and the Illinois Society of the Sons of the American Revolu-
tion, and he has been elected the first captain of that organization's military company,
the Chicago Continental Guard.
Busy as has been his life, Mr. Gross is essentially a student, not alone of books,
but of men, of measures and of civilization. His travels have been extensive. In
1886 he made a four-months' tour of Europe, during which he inquired minutely into
methods of building and municipal development. In 1889 he visited Mexico and the
Pacific seaboard cities, and later in the year made a second visit to Europe, devoting
much attention to the Paris Exposition. In 1892 he again visited the principal Euro-
pean cities and extended his travels to the Orient. As an indication of how wide is
his reputation as a successful handler of extensive real estate interests, it may be
stated that, while he was in Mexico and also while he was in Europe, flattering offers
were made to him to undertake mammoth enterprises in the work of development in
these countries, which his devotion to Chicago and her development impelled him to
decline. His part in furthering the interests of the Columbian Exposition was an
important one.
Mr. Gross was married in January, 1874, to Miss Emily Brown, a descendant of
an old English family, and resides in a commodious home upon the beautiful Lake
Shore drive.
Col. Henry Lathrop Turner. Some men seem born to command, and multitudes
of others as naturally turn to them for direction and leadership. Call it personal
magnetism, if you will; explain it as great will power and self-control; describe it as
chivalrous and unselfish love of one's fellow-men; or ascribe it to that mental capacity
for organization and administration which sees and knows men as well collectively as
38 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
it does by individuals; but whatever it is, it is such a rare quality and so highly-
prized that men easily recognize it and exclaim: " Here is the man whom we delight
to honor!" Such a man is the distinguished Col. Henry L. Turner, the beloved and
admired commander of Chicago's proud First Regiment Illinois National Guard.
Not the least of the glories of the Puritan, the Abolitionist and all those earnest
souls, whose deep undertone of religious enthusiasm has accomplished so much in the
foundations of society, is the noble products they have made among the leaders of
commerce, science and war, statesmanship, arts and letters in the generation which
followed them. Allied to these movements, both in its deep earnestness and its
results in becoming the public conscience over large parts of New York and Ohio,
particularly, was the revival movement during the middle of this century, led by the
eminent evangelist, Charles Grandison Finney. Probably no outgrowth of this wide
movement was more permanent and far-reaching than its founding of the present
great Congregational school of Ohio, Oberlin College, which has long ranked with
Ann Arbor, Harvard and Yale, and was the first institution to put in practice the
Abolitionists' claim to equality of races by admitting freedmen to full matriculation.
Those were the days when the term Abolitionist was a despised one, and it took far
more moral heroism to stand as supporters of Oberlin College than appears at this
distance of time, and among those supporters and residents were the parents of Col.
Turner.
Born on August 26, 1845, ' n t na t: classic center, amidst a spirit as chivalrous as
ever prompted the Crusades, and as earnest as that of the Puritans or Huguenots,
Henry L. Turner grew into youth, sympathetic with its atmosphere and at an early
age entered upon the course of liberal arts in the college. It was but natural that the
on-coming Civil War should fan into a flame of intense heat the patriotic and chival-
rous fervor of the youth of such an institution and particularly such a high-spirited
one as the popular young college leader, Henry L. Turner. Not yet out of his teens
when he received his degree, he at once enlisted in the One Hundred and Fiftieth
Volunteer Infantry Regiment and became first lieutenant. Soon after, when it was
decided to form colored regiments, it was but natural that the able young commander
from Oberlin, fired with the spirit of her traditions, should be sought as an officer in
this branch of the service, and he became first lieutenant and adjutant in the Fifth
United States Colored Troops. Although Lieut. Turner escaped serious wounds
he was in many heavy engagements, such as Fort Stevens, the siege of Rich-
mond, the second battle of Fair Oaks, the attack on Fort Fisher under Gen.
Butler, the capture of Fort Fisher, under Gen. Terry, the capture of Wilmington, and
the surrender of Gen. Joseph E.Johnston. In all of these positions of responsibility
it must be remembered that the brilliant young lieutenant was not yet twenty years
old and had barely reached that age when the war closed.
The next eight years following 1865 were spent in both Chicago and Philadelphia.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 39
Young Turner had in him the qualities that make a vivid, forceful writer and the ex-
ecutive powers that make a publisher. He was given a position in the business office
of the well-known Congregational weekly of Chicago, The Adi'ance. Securing an ap-
pointment in the great Philadelphia house of Jay Cook & Co. he removed to that city,
remaining there until their failure in the panic of 1873.
Returning to Chicago he took his old position on The Advance, and after a time
purchased the paper, conducting it for the period of about two years with success as
both writer and publisher. Indeed, Col. Turner has always retained an interest in
publishing and writing in some form, and in recent years has been the president of a
large subscription book house, The Western Publishing Company.
His renewed citizenship in Chicago, in 1873, came, as it will be remembered, but
two years after the great fire, when interest in real estate was assuming remarkable
proportions. Col. Turner had already embarked in it before he disposed of The Ad-
vance. This was as an agent in 1874, but he soon joined his brother-in-law, Mr. Marsh,
in the firm of Turner & Marsh, a firm that was soon dissolved by Mr. Marsh's accept-
ance of an important mission to Europe. In May, 1875, however, a partnership was
formed with William A. Bond, and for the next nearly twenty years the firm
of Turner & Bond were among the first real estate houses in Chicago. The sale of
the 102 Washington Street property to the Cook County Title and Trust Company in
1892 was their largest down-town transfer of that year.
In recent years, however, Mr. Turner has withdrawn from this firm in order to
effect one for the conduct of banking, real estate and loans, under the title Henry L.
Turner & Co., the present well-known institution. His activity and ability in these
lines were recognized by the powerful Real Estate Board of Chicago in 1888 by his
election to its presidency.
Col. Turner is a versatile, many-sided man in his interests and tastes, but among
them all his enthusiasm for the movement that has crystallized in the formation of our
National Guard has been best known to the public. His genius for organization and
military management has long been a very considerable force in this movement in
Chicago. His long service as lieutenant-colonel of the First Regiment I. N. G.. of
Chicago, contributed in no small degree to its efficiency and growth, and this was
recognized by his election to the colonelcy, a position in which he has brought the
organization to the highest grade of efficiency ever known in its history, and carried
it through its struggles for the fine new armory in which it is now established. Not
less is he distinguished in the handling of his troops on occasions of serious emergen-
cies, such as he was called on to manage in the Pullman troubles of 1894, and the great
sympathetic strike of the railway union. At a time when a misstep would have
aroused and fanned into a destructive conflagration of treason the smoldering fires
of alien hate, anarchy and vengeful war at Pullman, the remarkable wisdom, tact and
patience of Col. Turner, combined with an equally keen caution and inflexible firm-
40 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
ness, served more than probably any one cause to contribute to the comparatively
peaceful solution of that problem. As is to be expected, the Colonel is also a
member of the Loyal Legion.
Among his many other talents is that of public speaking, and particularly is he
endowed with that happy combination of qualities that go to make up the sparkling
post-prandial orator. As a writer, too, he is warm, vivid and light in his touch, and
easily conveys through his facile pen the influence of those genial qualities which are so
well known in his personal presence. The reader will have opportunity to enjoy some
of his style by turning to the chapter on Real Estate, in the present volume, which is
a product of his pen. His interest in all public affairs, and those of social and club
life, includes a warm attachment for educational matters, in connection with which he
has served as a trustee of Oberlin College, his alma mater.
The little sprite of the bow and arrow did not capture the First Regiment's com-
mander until recently. October 17, 1894, was a gala day for the members of this
organization, for they joined in making the nuptials of Col. Turner and his bride, Miss
Jessamine Mabrey, one of the most notable weddings of the season, and the first mil-
itary ceremony in many years. Mrs. Turner is one of the fair daughters of North Car-
olina, her mother being Mrs. Harriet Mabrey, now of Chicago, but formerly of
Fayetteville, that State. The beautiful service was performed by the Rev. Percival
Mclntyre, of St. James Episcopal Church. Colonel and Mrs. Turner have their home
at the Majestic on Walton Place.
Albert Lyman Coe. Rev. David Lyman Coe, having been graduated from Will-
iams College (Massachusetts), came to Ohio in 1818, and located on the Western
Reserve. There he met and married Polly Hayes, on the paternal side of the same
ancestry as the late President Hayes. Their son, Albert L. Coe, of Chicago, was born
at Talmage, Ohio, some thirty-five miles southeast of Cleveland.
Polly Hayes was a daughter of Col. Richard Hayes, who led a colony out to Ohio,
from Hartland, Conn. This colony, which included about a dozen families, located at
Hartford, Trumbull County, which town, with others surrounding it, they named after
the various New England towns from which they came. Between 1804 (for it was in
the spring of that year that Col. Hayes first located in Ohio) and i8i2he witnessed
considerable development, yet at the latter date the country was but sparsely settled.
Yet Col. Hayes recruited a regiment of infantry in the region round about, and com-
manded it during that war.
His prominence gave him a good opportunity for advancement in the period of
development immediately following the war, and he became a wealthy merchant,
mill owner and stage proprietor with an interest in other important enterprises. At
his death, in 1840, he left a considerable fortune for that time. Rev. Mr. Coe died in
1836 and in 1838 his widow married Dr. Oresty K. Hawley, a noted Abolitionist and
warm personal friend of Joshua R. Giddings and Ben Wade.
cp
o
c?
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 43
The home of the family was a station on the Underground Railway, and at the
age of nine young Coe became a conductor on that historic line. He was a fear-
less lad, who cared little for the threats of pro-slavery men and was cool-headed
enough to make a success of a hazardous enterprise, and during the succeeding five
years he carried many a wagon load of runaway slaves to different points on Lake
Erie in the vicinity of Ashtabula, and secured for them passage to the Canadian shore.
These trips were most often made at night, and in many ways tested the youth's
resources and boldness.
At the age of seventeen Albert completed his education, which had been begun
in the district school and continued at the academy at Painesville and at Grand River
Institute at Austinburg, and was ready to engage in business. He came to Chicago
in 1853, seeking and finding here a wider field for enterprise than was afforded him in
Ohio. In February, 1854, he engaged in the coal and fuel business under the firm
name of T. R. Clarke & Co:, with Thomas R. Clarke and Benjamin Carpenter as part-
ners. Upon the retirement of Mr. Clarke, three years later, the style was changed to
Coe & Carpenter. Mr. Carpenter was largely interested in Chicago real estate and in
connection with its trade in coal the firm transacted considerable real estate business
during the period 1856-61.
The patriotic spirit which so early manifested itself in young Coe was again
aroused when the war of the States began, and in September, 1861 , as soon as he could
arrange his business to that end, he enlisted in the Fifty-first Illinois Volunteer
Infantry, which was recruited wholly in Chicago, and was speedily promoted to the
rank of second lieutenant of Company K, and later became first lieutenant of the
same company.
He was under Gens. Pope, Rosecrans, Sheridan, Thomas, Grant and Sherman,
and was detached for service at the headquarters of the First Brigade, Fourteenth
Army Corps, and of the Second Division of the same corps. He received a captain's
commission, but was never regularly mustered in that rank owing to the continued
operations in the field of the Fourteenth Corps. He participated in the capture of
Island No. 10, was at Pittsburg Landing, the siege of Corinth, was in the campaigns
from Nashville to Chattanooga, took part in the battle of Missionary Ridge, and was
in the Atlanta campaign. He was mustered out of the service at Springfield, 111., in
November, 1865.
Later he helped to organize the Illinois National Guard, and from 1875 to 1880
served as major and quartermaster on the staff of Gen. Arthur C. Ducat. He was on
duty during the riots in Chicago in 1877.
Mr. Coe's experience in real estate enterprise before the war, in which he executed
several commissions for eastern friends with much success, had led him to determine
that when he resumed business it should be in that line. On the 1st of January, 1867,
the firm of Mead & Coe began business. The partners were, and are, until recently,
44 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Aaron B. Mead and Albert L. Coe. During the more than twenty-seven years' career
of this firm, it has handled financial values running so far into the millions, that could
the aggregate be stated, it would be little short of startling. Its clientage is extensive
and the volume of its business is surpassed by that of few other firms in the city.
Mr. Coe's- interest in Chicago and its leading institutions is very comprehensive.
He has, since the year of its organization, been a director in the Auditorium Company,
was one of the incorporators and is president of the Royal Trust Company, was one
of the organizers and has been a director and vice-president of the Union League
Club, is an active member of the Citizens' League, is a director and was for five years
treasurer of the City Missionary Society, has been for a number of years a trustee and
is vice-president of the board of trustees of the Young Men's Christian Association of
Chicago, and is a member of the Loyal Legion, and of George H. Thomas Post,
G. A. R.
In politics Mr. Coe is a Republican. He has been identified with the New Eng-
land Congregational Church since the month of its organization in 1853, and has been
an attendant upon its services and a liberal supporter of its various interests since
July, 1853. In March, 1864, he married Miss Charlotte E. Woodward, daughter of
Joseph Woodward, a prominent merchant of Mansfield, Conn.
Aaron Benedict Mead, of Chicago, was born in the town of Franklinville, Cattarau-
gus County, N. Y., November 7, 1838, a son of Merlin and Polly (Clark) Mead. His
father, an enterprising farmer, was one of the pioneers in that part of the State, and
helped to organize the Presbyterian Church in his vicinity, of which he was an elder
for fifty years, and, being a true blue Abolitionist, made his house an important
station on the famous "Underground Railway," and as such it came to be known far
and wide. In such a home, devoted to religion and liberty, young Mead was reared,
assisting in the farm duties and attending the district schools and the local academy
until he was seventeen years of age, when by invitation of an uncle he went to Water-
bury, Conn., and entered the high school of that town, standing No. i in his class.
Upon leaving school he became a clerk in a dry goods store in Waterbury at the not
very munificent salary of $1/6 a year, out of which he managed to live decently, but
with such economy that at the end of the year he had saved $25.
The failure of the firm by which he had been employed threw him out of employ-
ment and he turned from the dry goods trade, left Waterbury and was employed in a
large crockery store in Hartford until the outbreak of the Civil War. On May 22,
1861, he enlisted in Company A, Fourth Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry,
which afterward was changed to the First Connecticut Heavy Artillery. The origi-
nal enlistment for three months was changed to three years' service, the Government
having all the three months' men it required, and this regiment was the first one filled,
equipped and accepted for three years' service. Mr. Mead was with the regiment
stationed in the forts around Washington when he contracted pneumonia and was dis-
charged from the service April 30, 1862, on account of disability.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 47
After he was sufficiently recovered from his illness to engage in any active busi-
ness, he entered the real estate office of his uncle, Abner L. Ely, who at that time
had probably the largest real estate agency in the city of New York, and there gained
a thorough knowledge of the various details connected with the transfer and sale of
real property. In January, 1867, he removed to Chicago, which, as he correctly
judged, even then gave unequivocal promise of a bright future in that line, and imme-
diately opened a real estate office. His first fee was $2, paid him for drawing up a
contract for the sale of a farm. The disposition he made of this first small fee may
be by some considered a little strange, yet it is easily explained in the light of events
with which this sketch has had to deal. Mr. Mead's father had given of his means
and had in every way used his influence to further the cause of abolition of human
bondage in America. Mr. Mead had himself risked his life in the same cause. Fisk
University, conceived and brought into existence at Nashville, in the very heart of
the old slave territory, to educate the negro, now that freedom was assured to him,
was struggling against odds for a foothold, and to this the young man donated the
first money received by him after beginning business on his own account.
In January, 1868, Mr. Mead formed a partnership with Albert L. Coe, which has
continued to the present day, being at this time, it is believed, the oldest real estate
concern in Chicago, and one of the most successful and flourishing, its advance hav-
ing kept pace with the growth of the city from the first, its clientele having been of
the most substantial character, including many of the wealthiest and most prominent
property owners in the city, among whom no real estate house has ever had a higher
reputation than that of Mead & Coe.
Following out his inherited proclivities, Mr. Mead is politically an ardent Repub-
lican, and he keeps in touch with others who were soldiers in the days of 1861-64 by
membership in the George H. Thomas Post No. 5, G. A. R. He is a member and a
deacon of the First Congregational Church, and treasurer of the Illinois Home Mis-
sionary Society, and a trustee of the Illinois College at Jacksonville. He was married
in September, 1868, to Miss Mary E. Packard, who has borne him five children, three
of whom are now living. Of medium height, dark complexioned, with full beard,
Mr. Mead is genial in manner and of a most generous disposition. An energetic and
enterprising business man, he is recognized not only as a public-spirited citizen, but as
one of those who have contributed largely to build up the reputation which to-day
Chicago so ably sustains in the eyes of all civilization.
William A. Bond, of the real estate firm of William A. Bond & Co., 115 Dearborn
Street, has for many years occupied a prominent position among the men who have
made Chicago the synonym for all that is enterprising and progressive, and it is a
source of pleasure and pride to him that he has been able to take an important place
in the upbuilding of the city and the advancement of its greatness.
Mr. Bond may be regarded as almost a native Chicagoan, as he has lived here
48 IND US TKIA L CHIC A C O i
since he was five years of age. He was born in Newark, N. J., November 15, 1849,
and hence is now in the prime of life. His early education was received in the pub-
lic schools of Chicago. After preparing for high school here, he went to Warrenvillc,
and subsequently to Lake Forest, 111., to take academic and collegiate courses. He
is a scholar and has devoted many years to the study of the French language. After
completing his education, he entered the employ of Hurlbut & Edsall, successors to
J. H. Reed & Co., at that time the largest wholesale drug house in the West, and at
the age of eighteen held the responsible position of head book-keeper. Mr. Bond
remained with this house about three years, but at the expiration of that period, and
just after attaining his majority, launched out into the real estate business, with his
office at No. 123 Dearborn Street, a few doors south of his present location. Here he
remained until the great fire of 1871, when his office was destroyed. Without delay,
however, here-established himself, and speedily became known as a prosperous and
rising real estate broker. Close attention to business during this period made a rest
desirable, and in 1874 he spent nearly a year in Europe in study and travel. America,
however, has been the favorite field of his travels, and he has made frequent trips to
Alaska, Vancouver, Yellowstone Park, the Dakotas, and other parts of the country.
During his stay in London Mr. Bond married Miss Sarah B. Fisher, daughter of Lucius
G. Fisher, a prominent business man of Chicago.
On his return to Chicago he formed a partnership with Col. Henry L. Turner,
under the style of Turner & Bond. The business ventures of the firm were very suc-
cessful, and it soon took a prominent place as oneof the conservative, and at the same
time most progressive and most favorably known representative of the real estate
fraternity. This partnership existed for seventeen years, when, in 1892, Mr. Bond
bought out Col. Turner's interest, since which time the style of the firm has been
William A. Bond & Co.
Mr. Bond has been closely identified with the growth and upbuilding of the city,
having erected and sold hundreds of residences, apartment houses and business blocks
in all parts of the city. He has made a specialty of the care and development of
estates, and for years has had the personal management of the large estate of the late
Hon. David Davis, building upon, renting and selling the property. This estate still
owns a quarter of a mile of frontage on Thirty-first Street, in the heart of the South
Side. Normal Park owes its name and early development to Mr. Bond. He has
negotiated some of the largest transactions in the history of Chicago real estate,
among which may be mentioned the sale of the building and ground where the Chicago
Title and Trust Company's building now stands, for $525,000, Mr. Bond was one of
the charter members of the Chicago Real Estate Board, and has always been most
active in the management of the board, having served on its most important commit
tees. As evidence of the esteem in which he is held by the best men in his chosen
profession, may be mentioned the fact that he was the unanimous choice of his
/**
f
i
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 51
fellow members for president of the board, and served as such for the world's
fair year. During his term of office he went to Springfield to take charge of the
promotion of the Torrens bill for the registration of land titles, before the Legis-
lature. Seven weeks of hard work were spent by him in the interest of the passage
of that measure. It was defeated for the time being, but only by seven votes.
While at Springfield he battled successfully against the repeal of the law requir-
ing the consent of the property owners to the laying of street railways, by which
the street car corporations sought to gain control of Chicago's streets. Through
his efforts in the board, an improved method of conducting judicial sales of
real estate has been introduced, so that much greater publicity is given to them than
heretofore. In the organization of ward improvement clubs, in securing the protec-
tion of bridge approaches and grade crossings, and in every other way in which the
interests of the public could be advanced through the action of the board, Mr. Bond
has contributed largely.
Mr. Bond is a member of the Union League Club, and for three years has been
one of its board of managers. He is a famous hunter and a member of the Hennepin
Shooting Club. He has been president of the Revenue Reform League, and is now
vice-president of the Western Publishing House. Mr. Bond resides at No. 4025 Urexel
Boulevard, and he and his family are regular attendants at the South Congregational
Church. Versatile, genial and whole-souled, he is popular in business or social
gatherings, and is in all respects a public-spirited and representative Chicago citizen.
Edgar M. Snow. A great master in any line of activity appears always to carry
about with him some quality that seems to infuse into those that associate with him in
that work something of his own greatness and power. Certain it is, that about every
prominent leader in any occupation there are always to be found younger men of great
ability who, if indeed they do not surpass him in later years, as is often the case, do
stand in the front rank. This infusion of his enthusiasm and methods is not the real
explanation, however. The true cause lies in the fact that it takes a man of large
calibre to understand one of great qualities, and in consequence the younger men of
this character are attracted to a great leader as steel is drawn to a magnet.
Such a leader was the late Henry C. Morey, the honored and superior member of
the Real Estate Board of Chicago, of which he was its first president, and such was
his young protege of those days, the present well-known head of the house of Edgar
M. Snow & Co.
The Snow family are old New England stock, dating back to 1620 on the paternal
line, and for an almost equally long period on the other side. The family comes
mainly from the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Rev. Porter Howard Snow, the
father of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Ware, Mass., born March 28, 1814.
His mother was Alice Alden, who was directly descended from John Alden, who is
said to have been the first man from the "Mayflower" to step upon Plymouth Rock,
52 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
and who has been immortalized by Longfellow in his "Courtship of Miles Standish."
Rev. Mr. Snow became a member of the Presbyterian Church, a denomination in which
he spent the greater portion of his life as a clergyman. He died at Hinsdale, 111.,
December n, 1889. His wife was born at Hatfield, Mass., on May 2, 1826, as Miss
Asenath F. Leonard.
It was while Rev. Snow's family was at Whately, in Franklin, a county of western
Massachusetts, that their son, Edgar Morton, was born, September 16, 1856. During
the following year they removed to Geneseo, 111., and later located in Madison, Wis.,
where the mother died December 5, 1863. In April, 1864, Edgar and an older brother
were placed in the seminary of the late Rev. R. K. Todd, at Woodstock, 111., and in
1865 two other sons were sent to the same school. Five years later Rev. Snow
removed to Chicago, and in 1872, after eight years in the Woodstock seminary, his
son Edgar followed him.
There is a prevailing opinion among the thoughtless part of the public that
financial operations do not have to be learned. Young Snow knew otherwise, and
determined to be thoroughly educated in that line. In December, 1873, he entered
the real estate orifice of James H. Keeler, and from that time until April, 1876, he
devoted himself thoroughly to what might be called his preliminary course. It was at
the latter date that he entered the employ of the late Henry C. Morey, and for five
years gave such vigorous attention to the mysteries of real estate, loans and renting
under Mr. Morey's able direction, that on the first day of the year 1881 he became a
member of the firm of H. C. Morey & Co.
This was rapid rising for a young man of but twenty-five years, but his successes
in active business for himself surpassed this. On May I, 1884, he formed the new firm
of Snow & Dickinson, with Theodore G. Dickinson, and their business made such
rapid strides that at the end of six years their sales for a single year had reached the
princely proportions of upward of $5,000,000 in real estate alone, and embraced sev-
eral choice and valuable central business properties, among them being the Major
block, southeast corner La Salle and Madison Streets, at $625,000; "The Times" prop-
erty, northwest corner Washington Street and Fifth Avenue, at $365,000; 212 and 214
Monroe Street, at $170,000; 207 and 209 Madison Street, at $110,000; southeast corner
Franklin Street and Charles Place, at $125,000; 216 and 218 Monroe Street, at $145,000;
84 and 86 Randolph Street, at $92,500, and 183 Washington Street at S6o,OOO. In addi-
tion the firm did a very large mortgage and renting business.
Meantime, Messrs. John T. Donlan and Robert C. Butzow had been associated
with Mr. Snow, and when, November I, 1892, Mr. Snow organized the firm of Edgar
M. Snow & Co., these young men were taken into the partnership. Among other
features, the new firm sought to give greater attention to placing high-class loans at
low rates of interest, as well as to do a large mortgage business at current rates of
interest. At their well-appointed offices on the main floor of 88 La Salle Street, these
ssceiSruflisrs, FiMdrars Ctocago .
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 56
plans have been carried out with their proverbial success. Mr. Snow's firm succeeded
in placing the first real estate loan ever made in Chicago at so low a rate as four and
one-half per cent.; this was for 875,000 on the realty at the northwest corner of Wash-
ington Street and Fifth Avenue. This they surpassed in June, 1894, by placing the
first loan upon Chicago real estate security at as low a rate as four and one-fourth per
cent., being the loan of $140,000 on the property of the Stewart heirs at the northwest
corner of State and Washington Streets. The latest effort of this firm is the lower-
ing, in September, 1894, for the first time, of the West Side record below five percent.
This was a $10,000 loan on the property No. 177 West Madison Street, at four and
three-fourths per cent. Quite different is this from the rate of ten per cent., with five
per cent, commission, which prevailed but little more than a decade ago. Mr. Snow
is regarded as one of the best experts in Chicago as to its real estate values, and his
services as an appraiser are much sought after by those wishing reliable and accurate
estimates of the value of their holdings. The firm has a very large real estate and
renting business, and is one of the first in the city in all its departments. A specialty
is made by them in the care and management of property for non-residents.
Mr. Snow has been a member of the Chicago Real Estate Board from its organi-
zation. He served as its secretary in 1886, and has at other times been chairman of
several of its important standing and special committees. Messrs. Donlan and But-
zovv are also members of the Real Estate Board. The firm is the Chicago correspond-
ent for the old mortgage house of John Jeffries & Sons, of Boston. They are also
members of the Chicago Underwriters' Association. Mr. Snow's success and his com-
manding position in the real estate world, have been due not more to his twenty-one
years of thorough familiarity with the principles and details of finance and realty, than
to his alert and aggressive spirit of enterprise, which has made him a master in his
department. This is said, too, of a comparatively young man, one who has not yet
passed his fourth decade, so that the bulk of his career still lies before him.
Mr. Snow is a Republican in his political inclinations, and he and Mrs. Snow are
members of the Leavitt Street Congregational Church on the West Side, a part of the
city in which they made their home until 1892, when they removed to the beautiful
north shore suburb of Highland Park. Mrs. Snow was Miss Florence L., the daughter
of Mary W. Weaver and the late John J. Weaver, old residents of Carlisle, Penn.
Mr. and Mrs. Snow have one daughter, Miss Aline Asenath Snow.
Chancellor L. Jenks. One of the most conspicuous names on the extensive
roll of Chicago's real estate operators is that of Chancellor L. Jenks. For forty years
he has been recognized as one of our shrewdest and most successful investors, and his
judgment upon values has always been accorded the highest consideration. He was
born in Warren, Bradford County, Penn., January 29, 1828, and is one of a large family
of children born to Livingston and Sarah (Buffmgton) Jenks, the former a native of
Rhode Island, and the latter of New York. Caleb Jenks, father of Livingston, also a
56 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
native of Rhode Island (which State was the cradle of the Jenks family in America)
was born in Providence in 1750, and was the grandson of Col. Joseph Jenckes, one of
most prominent men in the Rhode Island Colony and its governor for four successive
terms. Gov. Jenckes' father and grandfather were also conspicuous figures in early
American history, occupying high places among those who labored to lay the founda-
tion of the future republic. It is not within the scope of this sketch to recount the
important services rendered by these and other ancestors of Mr. Jenks. During the
earlier colonial period the family was prominent throughout New England, and
furnished many eminent citizens for responsible and official positions, and many dis-
tinguished soldiers for the colonial wars and for the Revolution. In recent years
descendants of the family have become widely known in various lines of thought and
industry. Caleb Jenks, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was one of the
ablest surveyors and mathematicians of his day, and ran the first Government line
over a large part of western New York and Pennsylvania during the administration
of George Washington. Livingston Jenks, the father of Chancellor L. Jenks, came
with his large family to La Salle County, 111., in 1836, and located in the village of
Vermillionville. Here he combined, for more than thirty years, the several vocations
of farmer, merchant and lawyer, until his death in 1863 closed a life of usefulness and
honor. His wife, a woman of more than ordinary force of character and integrity of
purpose, survived him but three years.
Chancellor L. Jenks was reared to manhood in La Salle County, assisting his
father in his varied occupations. He taught school at Ottawa in 1849 ar "d 1850, but
his active mind yearned for a larger field of labor, and in 1851 he came to Chicago,
and began the study of law in the office of Calvin UeWolf, at the southeast corner of
Clark and Randolph Streets. The following year he was admitted to the bar. His
success was instantaneous. His tremendous activity of mind, his fertility of resource,
and the power he possessed of instantly comprehending the salient features of a
case, aided by a reputation for " good luck " that he early acquired, attracted a large
clientage. In the conduct of his law business he displayed the same indomitable zeal
and determination and fearless self-reliance that afterward marked his operations in
the real estate market. He was an untiring worker, and a firm believer in the policy
of " keeping everlastingly at it."
On May 6, 1855, he was united in marriage to Miss Pamella M. Hoisington, a
lady of unusual refinement and intelligence, with whom he lived happily until her
death, April 5, 1890. She was the daughter of Jasper A. Hoisington, whom all early
residents of Chicago will recall with pleasure and who is still living at Oakland, Cal.,
enjoying, at the age of ninety-three, the fruits of a well-spent life.
Mr. Jenks became early impressed that Chicago was to have a great future, and
that careful investments in realty would prove remunerative. Acting upon that impres-
sion he devoted his spare earnings to the purchase of inside property, thus gradually
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 59
acquiring holdings in many parts of the city. He continued in the practice of his
profession for fifteen years, until in 1867 his realty interests had become so large and
valuable that he was compelled to relinquish his law practice, and devote his whole
time to their management. On the fateful gth of October, 1871, his career of pros-
perity suffered a violent but, happily, only a temporary check, thirty-three of his
buildings vanished in smoke. Again in 1874 twenty-one buildings owned by Mr.
Jenks were burned. But, like thousands of his energetic fellow-citizens, he weathered
the storm and is now able to see that what he considered at that time to be the great-
est financial disasters of his life merely cleared the ground for the solid foundation of
a more enduring and genuine success.
Since giving up the practice of law, Mr. Jenks has been engaged wholly in buy-
ing, selling, renting, exchanging and managing his own property and no other. His
most valuable Chicago holdings are on East Washington, East Madison, Clark and
State Streets. He has not confined his operations wholly to this city, but has from
time to time invested in property at Evanston, Glencoe, Englewood, Hyde Park and
San Diego, Cal.
His home was in Chicago until about 1869, when he removed to Glencoe, remain-
ing there five years; afterward he resided in Evanston for ten years, when he served
four years as a member of the board of trustees. Recently he has made his home in
Chicago, spending the winter months in San Diego.
In politics he is and always has been a stanch Republican. At an early age he
became an Abolitionist, while yet at his father's home in La Salle County, and fre-
quently assisted his father in transporting fugitive slaves from one underground
station to another. After removing to Chicago he took an active part in all anti-
slavery movements, and in August, 1860, was the main actor in one of the most excit-
ing incidents in the history of the iniquitous fugitive slave law. One day when on his
way to his office he saw at the corner of Clark and Van Buren Streets a runaway slave,
Eliza Grayson by name, struggling in the clutch of her master, Stephen F. Knuckles
(then a representative at Washington of Utah Territory) and Jack Newsome, a com-
missioner under the Fugitive Slave Law. Mr. Jenks' sympathies were at once aroused
and he flew to her assistance. He and Jack Newsome and the slave holder were soon
rolling over each other in the gutter. At this critical moment several police officers
appeared on the scene and took the entire party into custody. They were conveyed
at once to the old armory at the corner of Adams and Franklin Streets. Eliza Gray-
son alone was locked up, the others allowed to go on their own recognizance. Mr.
Jenks proceeded without delay to carry out his plan for the escape of the fugitive.
Although 10 o'clock in the evening he awakened Calvin DeWolf, justice of the peace,
and swore out a warrant charging Eliza Grayson with disorderly conduct. Immedi-
ately the warrant was placed in the hands of George Anderson, deputy sheriff, whom
many residents of Chicago will remember. Anderson proceeded at once to the jail
i
60 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
to serve the warrant and the girl was given into his custody. Meanwhile Mr. Jenks
had made known the conditions of affairs to a number of colored residents of the city
and their friends, and when George Anderson attempted to take his prisoner to the
office of Calvin De Wolf he found himself in the midst of a yelling, angry mob of sev-
eral hundred persons, who closed about him demanding the release of the fugitive.
Anderson, who was in the plot, did not make a very sturdy resistance, and when the
crowd dispersed Eliza Grayson had disappeared. Before morning she was far on her
way to Canada and freedom. The Federal grand jury was sitting at the time, and
immediately returned indictments against Mr. Jenks, Calvin De Wolf and George
Anderson charging them with violating the Fugitive Slave Law. In some way the
attention of the President of the United States was attracted to the affair, and when
he saw that one of the parties to the " crime " was Chancellor L. Jenks, he made the
somewhat natural mistake of supposing him to be a judge of one of the State
courts on the chancery side. So indignant was he at this instance of open violation
of a cherished United States statute, that he immediately dispatched to the acting
United States attorney at Chicago the following message: " Prosecute 'Chancellor '
Jenks to the full extent of the law. For a private citizen to be engaged in such
nefarious practices as he is charged with is bad enough; but a high officer of the
court who is concerned in them should be severely dealt with. James Buchanan,
President." The election of Abraham Lincoln and the outbreak of the war of the Rebel-
lion changed the political complexion of the Federal officers at Chicago, and in a few
months the indictments against Mr. Jenks and his associates were nolle pressed.
The children born to Mr. Jenks and wife arc eight in number, of whom but three
are now living, Charles L., Chancellor L., Jr., and Livingston. Charles was born in
Chicago in 1858, and received his education here and at Evanston. He married Miss
Addie L. Carter at San Francisco, Cal., and has two children, Elsie and Laura B. He
resides at 5739 Washington Avenue, Hyde Park. For several years he has been the
manager of his father's extensive realty interests, and is a promising business man and
a true friend and genial companion. Chancellor L. Jenks, Jr., was born in Chicago in
1863 and is a graduate of Dartmouth College of the class of 1886, and of the Union
College of Law of the class of 1888. Immediately after his admission to the bar he
removed to San Diego, Cal., where he practiced his profession for four years. In 1892
he returned to Chicago and became associated with Col. Richard S. Thompson, with
whom he had studied law, and is in the enjoyment of a lucrative practice. June 25,
1889, he was united in marriage to Miss Janet Lyons, at Oakland, Cal. His home is
at 560 Forty-second Street, in this city. Livingston Jenks, the youngest son, was born
in Chicago in 1869. He was graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1892,
and from the law department of that institution in 1894. He is just entering upon
the practice of his profession in this city.
Jacob Forsyth. This gentleman has been a resident of Chicago since 1857, and
since 1867 has devoted himself exclusively to the development of East Chicago,
x;
(^L^-<^^^Z^
CO
f
a. ^
* i
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 63
Whiting and Calumet property, and may be considered the pioneer operator in the
localities which, largely through his efforts, have been developed into great promi-
nence as residence and manufacturing suburbs.
Born in North of Ireland in 1821, Mr. Forsyth came with his parents to Amer-
ica in 1836, and located in Pittsburg, the then " Gateway of the West," and there
grew to manhood and began his business career by connecting himself with the trans-
portation business then in vogue. At that time freights were brought from the East
to Pittsburg via the Pennsylvania Canal in the summer and by means of the historic
Conestoga wagons in the winter, and shipped thence west by river and by means of
wagons. With the details of this peculiar and then important business, Mr. Forsyth
became familiar, and was so successful in it and advanced so rapidly that in time he
was made the agent at Pittsburg for the Adams Express Company. It was but nat-
ural that his manifest adaptability to this business should have attracted the attention
of Clarke & Co., the agents for the Pennsylvania Railroad, in its through freight
department, or that, securing his services, they should have sent him as one of their
representatives in Chicago. Freight came west from Pittsburgh via the Fort Wayne
Railroad to Plymouth, Ind., thence via a short railroad to La Porte, Ind., and from
that point via the Michigan Southern Railway to Chicago. Coming to this city in
1857, Mr. Forsyth was so markedly successful in his broader field that his efficiency
was recognized about 1860 by his appointment as general northwestern freight and
passenger agent for the old Erie Railway, which position he filled with credit to him-
self and greatly to the satisfaction of the Erie people until he resigned it about 1867,
to begin his since so successful career as a real estate operator.
Mr. Forsyth had married in 1846 Miss Caroline M. Clarke, a native of Fayette
County, Penn., and about twenty-six years ago she inherited through her brother,
George W. Clarke, an old Chicago real estate owner, who died in 1866, a tract of land
in the northern part of Lake County, Ind. Mr. Clarke came to Chicago in an early
day; he was a civil engineer, one of the engineers for the Michigan Canal. The loca-
tion of this acreage, and the probability of its some time being valuable suburban
Chicago property, at once impressed themselves on Mr. Forsyth 's mind, and he began
to acquire as much other property near this as he could buy to advantage. He pur-
chased tract after tract, until he had secured altogether about 15,000 acres.
To the acquisition of these lands and to their subdivision and sale he has devoted
himself entirely since 1867, and at this time he has about 1,600 acres, upon which he
is realizing at the rate of $7,000 to 9,000 per acre.
Anyone at all familiar with real estate conditions in Chicago a quarter of a century
ago, knows that there was no opportunity for rapid speculation in those Lake County,
Ind., lands, and this being true, the wise foresight of Mr. Forsyth in investing in them
so extensively and so systematically must be apparent, and as a pioneer in the develop-
ment of this property he is entitled to no small measure of credit, and to more still
64 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
for the unswerving perseverance with which he has all along worked for its develop-
ment to its present demand and market value. The land now occupied by the Stand-
ard Oil Company, at Whiting, Ind., where that corporation alone employs nearly 4,000
men, was sold by Mr. Forsyth, and valuable plants and subdivisions are being located
all over these lands, which will increase in value each year, as all property must of
necessity in and around Chicago.
Mr. Forsyth built the first house at East Chicago, in 1887, and at the same place
donated 1,000 acres of land to the Standard Steel and Iron Company for a town site,
which is now East Chicago, and which has a population of about 4,000.
Mr. Forsyth has already built some sixty odd houses at Whiting, and the building
and improvement still continue. He is, and always has been, favorably disposed
toward, and taken an active interest in, the location of manufacturing interests
in Lake County. One of the coming improvements, and one which will materi-
ally enhance the value of Lake County lands, will doubtless be the building of
a harbor on Lake Michigan at the outlet of Wolf Lake. Upon this improvement a
United States engineer has already made a favorable report. It is only a question of
time when this work will be accomplished. Concerning this matter Mr. Forsyth is
taking an active interest, as he does for alt other interests for the good of Lake
County.
In these transactions Mr. Forsyth has amassed a handsome fortune, which, in a
healthy and hearty old age, he is enjoying, along with the satisfaction that must come
to any man from the contemplation of a well-spent life. His family circle is a large
and most pleasant one. He has nine children living, all of them good and useful
men and women, honoring a worthy parentage by a strict observance of all that goes
to make true nobility of character.
Dunlap Smith. In the history of the late Perry H. Smith's connection with Chi-
cago, as well as in the chapter on railroads, the founder of this family, in this city, is
noticed at length. We now have much pleasure in placing before our readers a brief
sketch of that eminent old settler's son. Young in years, he has not attained the polysyn-
thetic genius of his father, but yet has made advances which, when we consider the
stern competition of our days, leave little room to doubt that his ability will win for
him an exalted place almost as high as that which his father held here.
Dunlap Smith was born in Chicago July 14, 1863, received the rudiments of his
education in our schools and here prepared for admission to Harvard University, from
which he graduated in 1884, "cum laude." During his school and college days his
industry was as remarkable as his ability. He was an enthusiastic student and a most
genial classmate, quiet, unobtrusive and kind. In recognition of his scholarship the
Harvard Philosophical Society elected him secretary and in other respects honored
this young western man, and still honor him as an alumnus of the university. Return-
ing to Chicago in 1884, he studied the philosophy of the city's business and, selecting
r
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 67
the financial and real estate branches as best suited to his tastes, entered on that busi-
ness career in which he has won repeated successes. As a member of the Real Estate
Board he has been identified with that body since its organization, and now holds the
position of chairman of its executive committee. As the principal in the real estate
and mortgage banking firm of Dunlap Smith & Co., his connection with Chicago dur-
ing the last decade has made his name a household word in all parts of the city; for
in the marvelous development of the city for that period he has taken a very impor-
tant part, not only in aiding building enterprises materially, but also in suggesting
and carrying through great real estate deals. He is a director of the syndicate known
as the Chicago Elevator Company (Limited), and of the Iowa Central Railroad, rep-
resenting the Russell Sage estate in these companies. The department of the busi-
ness devoted to mortgage banking is extensive in the number and value of its
transactions. To Mr. Smith the true value of city and county real estate properties
are known, so that loans on real estate or for building purposes are negotiated with-
out these ordinary delays and roundabout methods which borrowers often experience
in this city. It is conceded that in very few real estate offices do promptness,
straightforwardness and strict business principles obtain more thoroughly than in his.
These characteristics of the house exerted no small influence in raising it to its pres-
ent position. In 1886, owing to the multiplication of the name of William Smith in
Chicago, he petitioned the courts to authorize him to drop the name of William, leav-
ing his name Dunlap Smith. The court of course granted the petition, and all docu-
ments signed by him since the decree was issued bear the name Dunlap, though in the
annals of Harvard University he is still known as William Dunlap Smith. In Chi-
cago he has devoted his acquirements, honestly and inflexibly, to advance the best
interests of the city, without regard to East or West or South Side.
Hon. William C. Goudy. More than forty-five years of professional life brought
William C. Goudy so prominently before the public, his practice extended over so
wide a field, much of the litigation with which he was connected attracted so large
a share of attention, that it is scarcely necessary to say of him, so far as his standing
at the bar was concerned, that he ranked among the really eminent lawyers of the
country. Prominent lawyers long since became cognizant of his ability, and learned
to follow his arguments in the higher courts, with the certainty of finding important
principles of law clearly and succinctly enunciated therein. Some years since a very
eminent American jurist expressed the opinion that " if one familiar with the profes-
sion and competent to the task were called upon to single out from among the many
shining examples of legal greatness in this country the ideal lawyer, he could hardly
do better than to point to William C. Goudy of Chicago.
Mr. Goudy came of Scotch-Irish and English stock, his father having been born
in Ireland, and his mother having been of English descent, but a native of Pennsyl-
vania. Some members of his father's immediate family are yet living in Ireland, but
68 IND US TRIA L CHIC A G O :
collateral branches of the family have lived in Scotland, and the name in its original
form of "Goudie" is Scotch; and it is believed that Mr. Goudy's progenitors were
among the Scotch settlers in Ireland about the time of Cromwell. It was to one
of the members of the Scotch family, John Goudie of Kilmarnock, that Robert Burns,
during the famous McGill controversy, addressed his witty poem, beginning:
" O Goudie ! terror of the whigs,
Dread of black coats and rev'rend wigs,
Sour bigotry, on her last legs,
Gimin looks back,
Wishin' the ten Egyptian plagues
Wad seize you quick."
It has been suggested that the political mantle of this John Goudie, " terror
of the whigs," must have descended to the distinguished and lamented Chicago
lawyer, who, from the time he cast his first vote for Lewis Cass for president in 1848,
was conspicuous among the opponents of that party in America to whom the name
of Whigs was applied in the early history of the republic. Mr. Goudy was born in
Indiana, May 15, 1824, the son of a printer, who became a publisher of more than
local renown.
After following the business of printer and binder at Indianapolis for some years
the elder Goudy moved with his family to Vandalia, then the capital of Illinois, with
a view to bettering his worldly condition if possible. Later he lived at Jacksonville
and Springfield in turn, and died in the last named town in 1845. ^ n ^33 he entered
upon the publication of " Goudy's Farmer's Almanac," which he continued for several
years. This was the first publication of its kind in the West, and as it contained much
valuable information and matter of a kind calculated to make it popular among the
agricultural classes, it became famous as a hand-book and achieved a large circula-
tion, all things considered, and made the name of Goudy a household word in all
directions. Out of this publication grew a weekly newspaper, Democratic in politics,
which was started by Mr. Goudy and Samuel S. Brooks, at Jacksonville, in 1834, through
which Stephen A. Douglas was first introduced to public notice.
After acquiring a common-school education young Goudy worked in his father's
printing office in early life until he became quite expert as a compositor and press-
man, and there can be no doubt that here he acquired that habit of exact and precise
statement and of close logical reasoning which lay at the foundation of his success as
a lawyer. All in all his home life and associations were such as to develop his intel-
lectual faculties. But he was not inclined to literature or journalism, and having
reached the conclusion that it would more nearly gratify his ambition to be a lawyer
than anything else, he decided to enter that profession, but at first set about qualify-
ing himself for the study of law by obtaining a collegiate education. He was gradu-
ated from Illinois College, at Jacksonville, in 1845, tne X ear f n ' s father's death, and
in which he attained his majority, and recognizing the fact that his success in life
> x
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 71
would depend on his own efforts and that hard and continuous work, and that only,
would enable him to reach the goal of his ambition, he devised a system for econo-
mizing his time and making every moment of real service to him. To add to his
pecuniary resources he taught school for a year at Decatur, and employed his leisure
hours in reading elementary law books. In due time he became a student in the law
office of Judge Stephen L. Logan, who had at that time just dissolved a partnership
with Abraham Lincoln. His intimate friend and associate in the office was David
Logan, the son of Judge Logan, who later removed to Oregon, where he became one
of the most noted lawyers on the coast, and came within a few votes of being elected
to the United States Senate. Mr. Goudy was admitted to the bar in 1847, ar >d the
next year began the practice of his profession at Lewiston, the county seat of Fulton
County, as a partner with Hon. Hezekiah M. Wead, afterward circuit judge.
A peculiarity of Mr. Goudy's experience, which distinguishes it from that of most
young lawyers, was the tact that he never knew what it was to wait for clients, even
from the first. Some may attribute this happy experience to luck; the more thought-
ful will accredit it to the fact that the business community of Lewiston at once rec-
ognized his perfect adaptability to his calling. His success was so immediate, in fact,
that he found himself at once in the busy prosecution of an active practice. In 1853
he was elected district attorney for what was then the Tenth Judicial District of Illi-
nois, composed of the counties of Fulton, Warren, Knox, Henderson and Mercer.
He resigned this office two years later, and in the following year was elected a mem-
ber of the Illinois State Senate, and represented his district with signal ability four
years, participating in the memorable Douglas-Lincoln senatorial contest, which
resulted in the election of Stephen A. Douglas to the United States Senate in 1859.
During this period Mr. Goudy was associated with many of the ablest men in the
political history of Illinois, and, although young, he was universally considered to be
the peer of any of them in point of ability, and exerted an important influence upon
legislation and political action.
With his retirement from the State Senate, Mr. Goudy ceased to be an office
holder, and only twice since that event did he permit his name to be used in any
political contest. In 1862 he was an unsuccessful candidate for delegate to the State
Constitutional Convention, and when Mr. Douglas died Mr. Goudy was the choice
of a large portion of the Illinois Democracy for the seat left vacant by the " little
giant " in the United States Senate, but William A. Richardson was the successful
candidate. After that time the Democrats of the State had no opportunity to confer
this honor upon one of its favorites, and Mr. Goudy was not a prominent actor in
political affairs. Too reserved in his manner to be a popular politician, the respect
entertained for the soundness of his judgment gave him much influence in his party,
as was shown on many occasions, and during four years, at least, he was in a position
to "shape the whispers of a throne." He loved politics as a recreation and diversion,
72 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
and never sought an elective office for himself, and, as has been seen, never held but
one. He was an organizer of conventions, and was never known to go into one with
the majority at the outset. He usually came into the fight late in the day, with but a
handful of followers. Before he got through, however, he invariably made himself
felt. To him more than to anyone else is due the fact that in 1892 Mr. Cleveland
was the choice of the Illinois delegation, for he was the father of the unit rule which
was adopted by that body.
His interest in politics never had the effect of decreasing his application to his
profession. He took up his residence in Chicago in 1859, and here his professional
labors were crowned with distinction and rewarded by fortune. It is almost within
the realm of fact to state that in all litigations involving interests and property of
great magnitude which came before the Chicago courts during the more than thirty
years of his practice here, Mr. Goudy was a leading counsel. Since he argued his
first case in the Illinois Supreme Court in 1855, nearly 150 volumes of its reports have
been issued, and in every one of them his name appears as counsel; and a record of
his connection, during more than forty years, with the higher courts of other western
States and with the Supreme Court of the United States in cases involving questions
of commercial and constitutional law, is one which does him the greatest honor. No
less remarkable than the magnitude and importance of the causes in which he was
engaged was the almost uniform victory which attended his advocacy, which was due
in as great a measure to his clear and convincing logic as to the unquestionable sound-
ness of his position. In everything pertaining to litigation, he exercised the greatest
care, did his work with the greatest thoroughness and exhibited the greatest tenacity
of purpose. His devotion to his profession was of that chivalric kind which led him
to follow it with genuine ardor, not alone for the rewards it brought him, but because he
found in it employment perfectly congenial to his tastes. Always sedate, calm, placid
and imperturbable, he belonged to that class of lawyers who preserve their mental
equipoise under all circumstances, who never seem to be taken by surprise and who
are at all times prepared for any of the serious annoying and perplexing emergencies
which arise in the active practice of law. In January, 1886, he became the general
counsel for the Chicago & North-Western Railroad Company, but continued to be the
controlling spirit in the great legal practice of the firm of Goudy, Green & Goudy as
long as it existed. One high in the profession, speaking of him soon after his accept-
ance of that position, said that he was the only man who ever graduated from a
large legal practice to become the counselor of a great corporation and at the same
time retained his practice.
A seat on the bench of the United States Supreme Court was within Mr. Goudy's
honorable ambition, and when Chief Justice Waite died his chances for elevation to
the highest dignity in his profession were considered excellent; but on learning that
Melville W. Fuller, between whom and himself a warm friendship existed, was in the
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 73
field, he put his own claims aside and worked successfully for his friend. A lawyer
for judges rather than for juries, Mr. Goudy was seldom beaten before the former.
His knowledge of real estate and corporation law was very extensive and his opinion
was taken unhesitatingly by those who consulted him. The great railroad, whose
counsel he was, could not have had a more sagacious adviser. Not the least of his
qualifications was his ability to draft a bill or other document which would convey
clearly to the minds of the others the meaning he intended it should; and when it
became necessary for a court to construe anything he had written, the interpretation
was always what Mr. Goudy had designed it should be. He had great patience,
indomitable perseverance, and was singularly thorough in all which he undertook.
Had he gone on the bench he would have made an excellent, but most technical
judge. In court he was a most dangerous antagonist and his argument was always
practically unanswerable. No lawyer at the bar excelled him in the power of cold
analysis, close logic, clear and cogent methods of arraying facts and the power of
putting into a few words the most involved and intricate legal problem. One never
knew when he was beaten, for he turned more defeats into victories than any of his
contemporaries.
Among the numerous cases reported in the books which stand as monuments to
Mr. Goudy's professional fame, a few will be noticed as illustrative of his laborious,
successful and honorable career. One of these was the celebrated Munn case, which
was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States and forcibly argued there by
Mr. Goudy. In this case it was ultimately established that the State had power
through its Legislature to fix maximum rates to be charged by warehouses, railways
and other corporations, or persons whose business was of a character affecting the
public interest. Another notable case involving an important question of consti-
tutional law was the Bowman case, which arose out of the prohibitory statute of the
State of Iowa, regarding the importing of intoxicating liquors into that State.
The Supreme Court held that a statute which prohibited railways from bringing
intoxicating liquors into a State was in conflict with the commercial clause of the
Constitution of the United States. Probably the most interesting case in which
Mr. Goudy appeared as counsel was the litigation over the Kingsbury property
in Chicago, which included the Ashland block, on the northeast corner of Clark
and Randolph Streets. This suit was carried through the Illinois courts, and, after
a long, protracted litigation, was finally decided by the Supreme Court of the United
States in May, 1890, in favor of Mr. Goudy's client, Gov. Buckner of Kentucky.
This property had been bought in 1833 by Maj. Kingsbury, of the regular army,
for a few hundred dollars. The Major had two heirs, a son and a daughter, the
latter of whom became the wife of Gov. Buckner. Some time in 1861 Mrs.
Buckner conveyed by deed her share of the property to her brother, who had
entered the Union Army and was an officer of Gen. Burnside's staff. Having a presenti-
74 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
mcnt that he would never return North alive, Kingsbury made a will at Richmond
bequeathing the property she had deeded him back to his sister. The young officer
was killed at the battle of Antietam and a contest over the property ensued. The
birth of a posthumous child revoked the will by operation of law, but the Buckners
claimed that the deed executed by Mrs. Buckner was merely a deed of trust, whereby
her brother was to hold her share in trust for her, and that upon his death it should
revert to her. The deed, however, was absolute, and it was necessary for the claim-
ants to produce some writing signed by the brother in which the trust was acknowl-
edged. All search for such a paper had been ineffectual, but at last Mr. Goudy
learned that the officer had been in the habit of writing letters to his mother, then
living in Connecticut. He went there with Gov. Buckner and saw the old lady, and
succeeded in finding a letter from Henry W. Kingsbury in which he acknowledged
the trust. With this paper Mr. Goudy went into court and established Mrs. Buckner's
claim. The Ashland block was afterward sold by Gov. Buckner to Mr. Alexander;
of Kentucky, who built upon its site one of Chicago's " sky scrapers." Mr. Goudy's
fee for services in this case is said to have been the largest ever paid to any lawyer
in the West.
Scarcely less notable for the general interest it excited in the public mind was
the great Storey will case, in which Mr. Goudy was counsel for the heirs. Wilbur F.
Storey, editor and proprietor of the Chicago Times, left two wills, the last of which was
contested by his natural heirs, because by it the bulk of the estate was left to Mrs.
Storey. The heirs retained Mr. Goudy, and Lyman Trumbull was counsel for Mrs.
Storey. When the will in favor of the widow was presented for probate, the witnesses
to the signature testified that when he signed it Mr. Storey was insane. A long liti-
gation ensued, which was ended by the purchase of the whole estate by outside
parties, and an adjustment of interests by which Mr. Goudy's clients were fully satis-
fied. As counsel for railroad corporations, Mr. Goudy was long conspicuous in -the
courts, and added more largely to his fame and fortune than in any other branch of
litigation. He was associated with Chief Justice Fuller as counsel for F. H. Winston
in a railroad case involving some $3,000,000. In Mr. Winston's interest he fought the
Southwestern road, an Iowa corporation, and won his case. He also represented
important railroad interests in a series of cases involving the constitutionality of a
Minnesota statute, authorizing the fixing of rates absolutely by the State Railroad
Commission. The Supreme Court of the United States, at a recent session, announced
its decision in these cases, which further circumscribes the rate-making powers of
the States, the declaration of the court being that the question as to what consti-
tutes a reasonable rate to be charged and received by a railroad company is a judicial
question, and not one in which the action of a State Legislature, or of a commission
appointed by State authority, is conclusive; that the Minnesota statute was, there-
fore, in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, and, for that reason,
Gooaspeed Bramers Pub Chicago
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 77
invalid. Numerous clients had retained Mr. Goudy in suits against the Chicago &
North-Western Railroad, in which he had been generally victorious, and that corpora-
tion came to the conclusion that it was advisable rather to have him for them than
against them.
Mr. Goudy's activity in his profession precluded his figuring to any extent as a
man of society or participating actively in measures for the general improvement
of the city. He was, however, among the most prominent in securing the land and
having Lincoln Park laid out as it now is, and was long president of the Lincoln
Park Board of Commissioners. He was the owner of valuable real estate and was
largely interested in Argyle Park, a beautiful suburban village on the north shore
of Lake Michigan, the entire site of which was formerly his property. He was a
member of the Iroquois Club, the senior organization of the Democrats of Cook
County, and of the Union Club. In 1849 ne married Miss Helen Judd, sister of S.
Corning Judd, a distinguished Democratic lawyer and postmaster of Chicago under
Mr. Cleveland's first administration. They had born to them one child, William Judd
Goudy, formerly a partner in his father's law firm, now of the law firm of Goudy,
Shanklin & Co., and Clara, now Mrs. Ira J. Geer. The son is married to Carolyn
Walker, daughter of the late Samuel J. Walker. Mr. Goudy was a member of the
Fourth Presbyterian Church, with which Mrs. Goudy is identified, being very active
in church work and interested in various charitable organizations, among them the
Half Orphan Asylum, of whose board of managers she is president.
Personally Mr. Goudy was one of the most agreeable of men when with those
he knew and liked. He had warm friends among the leading members of the bar,
and the tribute they paid to his memory when informed of his untimely death,
which occurred April 27, 1893, is known to all readers of the newspaper press of
the country. On that fateful day the bar of the county and the State lost one of
its brightest ornaments, the United States one of its ablest and most famous lawyers,
and Chicago one of the few men whose loss will be always irreparable. But the
influence of such a man extends ever into the ages. It carries with it a power for
moral and intellectual advancement which proclaims that a strong personality which
has passed from direct contact with men has left the impress of its individuality
upon humanity for the good of all men who may live after him, even unto the
last day.
William Judd Goudy. In the last half of this century the influence of the busi-
ness man and of the lawyer, who is so closely identified with the business man in all
his great enterprises, has been preeminently powerful, and the man of affairs, as dis-
tinguished from the politician, has been a recognized power. Such men were they
who built up Chicago from a frontier village to a bustling town, from a bustling town
to a grand mart of trade, busy in supplying the half of a continent, and from such a
point of importance to a city, in many respects the most wonderful on the globe, and
at this time the Mecca of the intelligence of all civilization.
78 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Time has swept away most of the founders of Chicago and its builders have, many
of them, reached an age when they gladly lay the burdens they have so long borne
upon the shoulders of those who have succeeded some of them, and, ere many years,
will have succeeded all of them. It is not less upon men of affairs that Chicago must
depend than formerly; but it is above all upon the young men of affairs who are rapidly
becoming conspicuous in every line of industrial endeavor, in every department of com-
merce, and especially in connection with real estate and kindred interests. There is
no interest more nearly akin to real estate than that of the law; and both on the real
estate board and in the courts young men are making a record in Chicago, such as a
few generations ago was not achieved by any but the old established, the time-tried
and the gray-haired. But this is a time in which, often, results are considered before
the men who bring them about. Prominent among the young and influential real
estate firms in the city is that of Goudy, Shanklin & Co., mortgage bankers, dealers
in real property and negotiators of loans on approved security, in which William J.
Goudy and Robert F. Shanklin were partners, until the recent death of the former, and
of which Hon. William C. Goudy, one of the greatest real estate and corporation
lawyers in the United States, was counsel until his recent death.
William Judd Goudy, one of the founders of this firm, was a son of the lamented
great lawyer referred to, and was himself a lawyer of ability and reputation. He was
born in Chicago June 7, 1864, and received his primary education in private schools in
this city. He entered Princeton College in 1882, and was graduated from that insti-
tution in 1885. Immediately thereafter he entered the Union College of Law, Chicago,
and was graduated therefrom with distinction in June, 1887.
In January, 1888, Mr. Goudy began the practice of law as a member of the firm of
Goudy, Green & Goudy, consisting of William C. Goudy, Adolphus W. Green and Wil-
liam J. Goudy, and was thus connected until April, 1892, when he assisted to organize the
firm of Goudy, Shanklin & Co. Comparatively brief as is the history of this firm, it has
met with such a degree of success as to commend it most favorably to the good
opinion of the business public, and there is no real estate firm in Chicago which has
won, and holds more closely, the confidence of all interested in the development of the
city's great real estate interests.
Mr. Goudy was a thorough and typical Chicagoan, alert, active, ever ready to lend
his aid to any cause promising to benefit any large number of his fellow-citizens. He
was widely known as one of Chicago's most enterprising and progressive young busi-
ness men, one of the most conspicuous of the class of young men previously referred
to, upon whom the future welfare of the city and all its great interests rest most
safely. His interests all centered in Chicago, from the day of his birth to the time of
his death. There was no period of his life in which Chicago had not had a part; there
has been no important event in it, of which Chicago had not been the scene. He was
as popular socially as in business circles, as is attested by the fact that he was a mem-
LIBRARY
Of THE
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOtS.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 81
her of the University Club, the Union Club, the Washington Park Club, the Iroquois
Club and the Athletic Club. Politically, he was a stanch and progressive Democrat, and
was one of the organizers and the second president of the VVaubansee Club. He was mar-
ried December 4, 1887, to Miss Carolyn Walker, of this city, and to them a bright and
pretty little daughter, named Helen, was born. He died suddenly on May 26, 1894, of
pneumonia. He was cut off in his prime, just as life had really opened for him. The
future seemed so bright and hopeful, success so near, and life in all its aspects so
attractive, that this decree of Providence seems almost inexplicable. Following his
father to the grave, in less than a year, the name, so far as his immediate family is con-
cerned, dies with him. His business, however, firmly established and successful, will
go on under the old name, his interest therein being retained and conducted by
his surviving partner and legal representative.
B. F. Cronkrite. The business man who has pinned his faith to the development
of Chicago real estate and refused to listen to the predictions of pessimists that the
city had reached the summit of its growth and glory, can now look back with just
pride on the wisdom of his faith and judgment. The rapidity with which many of the
suburban towns have sprung into populous centers of wealth, industry and learning,
and been absorbed as part and parcel of the great city, kindles the liveliest pleasure
and astonishment. The lines of development of this growth have not been the result
of chance. The origin of outside centers of industry and population can be traced in
almost every instance to the enterprise of companies or individuals. It is this fact
which gives so much personal interest to the suburban growth of Chicago.
Since more than ten years ago, when B. F. Cronkrite opened a real estate office at
Cottage Grove Avenue and Forty-third Street, the entire southern end of Chicago has
leaped from sand hills, scrub oak openings and perennial swamps to one uninter-
rupted stretch of city far out beyond South Chicago. Oakland Square, then called
" The Limits," was an important business center, its trade extending as far south as
Hyde Park at Forty-third Street, there being no stores between the two points. In
1876 there were only 160 voters in the second precinct of Hyde Park, which was
bounded by Thirty-ninth Street, the lake, Forty-seventh Street and Grand Boulevard.
So rapid was the growth of this portion of the city, which was then considered a sub-
urb, that in 1880 the voters had increased to about 600, and in 1884 to about 1,100.
This extraordinary increase has steadily continued since annexation, until what was
but one precinct in 1881 is now divided into fifteen precincts with an average voting
population of 300, or 4,500 for the whole territory, a growth of over one hundred and
fifty per cent, per annum for eighteen years. The average yearly growth in value in
the Oakland district has been about forty per cent., while on business and other
important streets the increase has exceeded sixty per cent, annually for the past ten
years.
Something of the personal history of the man who, than all others, has been more
82 IND US TRIA L CHIC A G O :
instrumental in bringing about this great development, will be in order in this connec-
tion. Mr. Cronkrite is a native of Brooklyn, N. Y., and was born April 7, 1856. His
parents were Rufus and Mary A. (Seaman) Cronkrite. The Cronkrites are of Ger-
man, the Seamans of Holland Dutch stock, and both Mr. and Mrs. Cronkrite were
descended from associates in the historic " Nine Partners," to whom large tracts of
land in southeastern New York were granted by the Crown in the early history of the
colonies. Rufus Cronkrite, born in Dutchess County, N. Y., April 15, 1821, was for a
time a merchant in Brooklyn, but later returned to his native county and took up
the life of a farmer; his wife was born in Dutchess County in June, 1833.
Mr. Cronkrite received his primary education in the public schools of Pleasant
Valley, Dutchess County, and from the time he was fourteen years old until he was
seventeen assisted his father in his farm work. At seventeen he began his business
life in Brooklyn, as entry clerk in the clothing house of Hoyt & Teale. That same
year (1873) was one of financial disaster, and Hoyt & Teale failed; and after casting
about for other employment in Brooklyn and meeting with no success, young Cronk-
rite returned to Dutchess County, and, rather than be idle, worked for a short time as
a section hand on the line of the Poughkeepsie, Hartford & Boston Railway. It was
not long, however, before he was employed as clerk in a hotel at Pleasant Valley,
N. Y., a position which he filled about a year.
This was the beginning of a series of engagements which might have led Mr.
Cronkrite to develop into a hotel man, but which did not. For a year after leaving
Pleasant Valley, he was storekeeper at the Grand Union Hotel, opposite the Grand
Central depot, New York, and the next year he spent as chief clerk at the Morgan
House, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Yet this series of engagements resulted in Mr. Cronk-
rite's after career as truly as they might have resulted in his continuing a hotel man to the
end of his days. As a hotel clerk, he formed the acquaintance of the lady whom he
afterward married, who stimulated his ambition, and together they left the home of
their childhood to seek their fortune West, going first to Pulaski County, 111., from
there to St. Louis and thence to Sedalia, Mo., where Mr. Cronkrite was proffered a
position in the general offices of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad at that
point.
He entered upon the duties of this position in 1880, and when the M. K. & T.
was absorbed by the Gould southwest system, he returned to St. Louis, where he filled
every desk in the general office of the Missouri Pacific Railway up to that of chief
clerk. In the latter capacity he was paid 125 a month, but he resigned the position,
and, in order to gain a footing in Chicago, accepted a position at $75 per month in the
office of the secretary and treasurer of the Union Stock Yards, where he was employed
for three years.
During the last six months of this service, he had a real estate office at the north-
west corner of Cottage Grove Avenue and Forty-third Street. Here, in a small room
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 83
over a drug store, he worked evenings until he had gained such a start in business that
it was necessary for him to resign his position at the Stock Yards in order to attend
to the growing demands upon him of his real estate operations. His office was one
of only two real estate offices at that time located south of Thirty-ninth Street, and
within sixty days after it was opened Mr. Cronkrite sold the building in which it was
located for $75,000. That was the first large deal of this pioneer in real estate oper-
ations as far south as Forty-third Street. A year after he began business over the
drug store, the building at the northeast corner of Cottage Grove Avenue and Forty-
third Street was completed and he took possession of his present large and attractive
ground-floor offices.
From that time to the present Mr. Cronkrite has been such an extensive and suc-
cessful real estate operator in Chicago that some of the enterprises he has conceived,
organized and managed are worthy of special mention. In 1887 he organized the
popular and successful Drexel Building and Loan Association, of which he was the
secretary until 1891 and of which he has always been a director and a member of the
finance committee. About the same time he organized the Oakland syndicate for
the purpose of handling real estate for profit. Its members, to the number of sixty or
seventy, invested a few hundred dollars each on the syndicate plan and entrusted the
management of its affairs entirely to Mr. Cronkrite, who was so successful a conserva-
tor of their interests that, at the expiration of two years and a half, the enterprise was
closed out at a net profit to all investors of 333 y$ per cent.
In 1888 Mr. Cronkrite bought of John L. Dodge, of Great Barrington, Mass., five
acres of land lying between Forty-third and Forty-fourth Streets and Vincennes and
St. Lawrence Avenues. The purchase price was $95,000, of which amount he paid
$5,000 down, receiving a warranty deed to the property. This when platted was known
as the " B. F. Cronkrite & Co. Subdivision." Within two years and a half, Mr. Cronk-
rite had paid for the property and disposed of the entire subdivision at a net profit of
$45,000. Mr. Cronkrite's work has not been confined to subdividing and handling
vacant property. In 1888 he purchased the northwest corner of Cottage Grove Ave-
nue and Forty-fifth Street, 100x171 feet, at a cost of $20,000, and immediately improved
it with the handsome business block, still a landmark in that district, known as the
Forrestville block. This building cost $50,000, and was the principal one among a
dozen buildings erected by him since 1886. The firm's clientage and operations have
not been confined to Chicago. It has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in
Chicago real estate from different financial centers in Massachusetts and New York,
and has a large clientage in Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Illinois, Missouri and other
States, besides having extensive real estate operations of its own in Omaha, Neb.,
involving the building of the Omaha & Halcyon Heights Electric Street Railway to
the firm's Halcyon Heights subdivision in the northwestern part of the city. It has
also invested quite largely in St. Joseph, Mo., real estate.
84 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
In March, 1891, Mr. Cronkrite went to London, England, and there formed a
business connection with a syndicate of English capitalists who commissioned him
to purchase in the United States some extensive manufacturing plant in which he
believed a large investment would be well placed. He returned in June following,
and his negotiations here resulted in a contract for the purchase of the famous map
publishing plant of Rand, McNally & Co., for $2,750,000. This deal was never con-
summated, however, for the reason that Messrs. Rand & McNally were unable to
control and deliver the stock, and, in consequence of their failure to fulfill their con-
tract to do so, a suit for damages has been brought by representatives of the English
interest.
In 1894 Mr. Cronkrite went to the State of Washington to investigate the city of
Pasco, the county seat of Franklin County, at the junction of the Columbia and Snake
Rivers, and as a result of his visit there his firm accepted a contract for the develop-
ment of that city involving the sale of real estate and the construction of waterworks
and other improvements at that point.
The firm of B. F. Cronkrite & Co. (B. F. Cronkrite and Henry J. Page) is regarded
as a most reliable, enterprising and successful real estate concern, and a glance at a
map showing the extent of its operations in and about Chicago would suffice to con-
vince the most casual observer that its business, both in volume and importance, is
one of the greatest of a great city considered exceptionally great in real estate activity.
Mr. Page's official connection, for several years past, with western railways has pre-
vented his giving attention to this business, and its active and responsible management
has devolved upon Mr. Cronkrite, who has taken his place as a most conspicuous
figure in Chicago's real estate circles.
In politics Mr. Cronkrite is a Republican, but he is not, and has no inclination to
become, an active politician. He is a member of the Union League and of the Oak-
land Club, and represents Kings County, N. Y the county in which Brooklyn,
his native city, is included in the Chicago Association of the Sons of New York, of
which he -is vice-president. Made a Mason in Kenwood Lodge, No. 800, A. F. &
A. M., he is a member of Corinthian Chapter No. 69, and he is, and has been identified,
in one capacity and another, always influentially, with other important social and
beneficial organizations.
Mr. Cronkrite was married in 1880 to Miss Phcebe W. Colwell, of Verbank,
Dutchess County, N. Y., daughter of Archibald L. and Sarah S. (Seaman) Colwell, and
they have five children: Meda C., Cora B., Archibald C., B. Franklin, Jr., and Carlon
Van Wagner. The family are members and attendants upon the services of the South
Congregational Church, whose house of worship is at Drexel Boulevard and Fortieth
Street. Of this church Mr. Cronkrite has been treasurer for several years.
Valentine H. Surghnor. Chicago is large in more ways than one, and prides
itself on being the leader in a great many different lines of business. No one will
C-eodspeed Brothers. Biiliahers. Chicago .
THE COMiWERCIAL INTERESTS. 87
question the statement that its real estate agents lead the men of all other cities
engaged in the same line. They stand at the head, and Chicago is proud of them.
They, without doubt, have done as much to build up the city and secure for it its
reputation for greatness as any other class of people. It is said that " nothing suc-
ceeds like success," and this probably accounts for so many wide-awake, go-ahead
business men locating here. They enjoy the competition met with, and feel that they
want to be parties to the grand success that is being achieved. If a careful canvass
could be made of the city's successful, adopted sons, thousands of them would state
that they were attracted to the city by the remarkable advances in property announced
by the real estate men, knowing that these advanced could not have occurred but for
the fact that other lines of business were prosperous. Many of them on coming here
found in the real estate business field for the exercise of their best faculties, and
prominent among this class of people should be mentioned Valentine H. Surghnor,
the well known real estate .agent, who has an office at 85 Dearborn Street, and is
secretary of the Real Estate Board. He is a type of the men who have made Chicago
what it is, and the generations to come will read with a great deal of interest the
lives of these men. A history of the city without a mention of them would be incom-
plete. They are a part of the city, and the removing of them would be like pulling
the foundation from under a blockhouse everything would become badly mixed.
They have made from some of the lowlands in and about the city beautiful graded
tracts, and have been instrumental in building on them small cities that rival in
beauty the dwelling places of the ancient men of wealth. The accomplishments in this
direction have, in some instances, exceeded the most ardent expectations of the men
who conceived and carried out the enterprises. Who would not wish to feel that his
lot was cast with men such as these? Others will come to Chicago and join the ranks
of the real estate men, but among them will be found no one whose record will be
better than has been that of Mr. Surghnor. Those who have had dealings with him
know that his word can be depended on, and that his judgment on Chicago real
estate values is entirely safe to rely on. His dealings have principally been on com-
mission, but he has bought and sold on his own account to a considerable extent.
Mr. Surghnor was born in Taylor County, Va., and was educated in the district
schools. His ancestors came to the United States in the early part of the seventeenth
century and settled in Virginia. His father, after whom he was named, was born in
Loudon County, Va., and died at Hannibal, Mo., in the sixty-seventh year of his age.
His mother, Mary E. (Brashear) Surghnor, was born in Fauquier County, Va., and
was seventy years old when she died. Young Surghnor began his business career at
the age of fifteen, when he became a clerk in a store. In 1866 he went to St. Louis and
for three years was employed in a wholesale dry goods house, when he returned to Han-
nibal, Mo., and entered into the dry goods business for himself. At the end of five
years he sold out and engaged in the wholesale ice business. This business was almost
88 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
entirely swept away by the flood of 1881, when he came to Chicago. Mr. Surghnor
was married in November, 1878, to Miss Lizzie Moffett, at Quincy, 111. His wife died
at Harrisonburg, Va., August 20, 1890. He is public spirited and takes an active
interest in all matters that tend to advance the interests of the city, as is evidenced
by the fact that he was the first subscriber to the World's Fair stock. He is an old
member of the Real Estate Board and has frequently been a member of important
committees, and as such has proved an important factor in directing the affairs of
the board. At the annual meeting in January, 1894, he was elected secretary of the
board, and since that time has clearly demonstrated his ability to cope with the
arduous duties the proper administration of the office impose on him. In politics
Mr. Surghnor is a Democrat. He is a member of the Calumet and Chicago Athletic
Clubs and is a thirty-second degree Mason, as well as a member of the Independent
Order of Elks. He is also a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. He
has a large circle of friends and is very popular socially, as his congenial, whole-
souled nature binds those to him who are fortunate enough to gain his friendship.
Charles H. Mulliken. The State of Maine is fairly well represented in Chicago.
The roll is not large, but many of its sons have attained prominence in the social,
political and commercial life of this city. They are proud of their native State, and
equally so of the city of their adoption. By their energy and zeal they have con-
tributed to its fame and progress until its reputation is world-wide. They glory in its
triumph and will aid in its further development. Among its adopted sons is the
subject of this sketch.
Charles Henry Mulliken was born at Hallowell, Me., March 18, 1831, but in child-
hood the family moved to Augusta. John Mulliken, Esq., his father, was a well-known
merchant of the old town of Hallowell until his removal to Augusta, where he was
established in business for many years and where he resided until his death. He was
a quiet, unassuming man, a great reader, beloved by all who knew him, a Republican in
politics, liberal in his religious views and honest in all his dealings. Charles H. passed
his boyhood in Augusta, receiving his education there, and obtaining his first idea of
business in his father's office. In 1847 ne visited Boston, where he obtained a clerk-
ship in a merchandise broker's office, which he held for the three succeeding years.
In 1850 he returned to Augusta, and was married December 3, 1850, to Miss Sarah E.
Hallett, daughter of Watson F. Hallett, president of the Freeman's National Bank of
Augusta. At that time he established himself in business, with Francis Davis as
partner, under the firm style of Davis & Mulliken. For several years they did a satis-
factory trade, and the partnership might have continued longer had not the southern
commission trade opened up its possibilities to the young merchant and fascinated
him with its prospective profits. Dissolving his connection with Mr. Davis he entered
into a partnership with Wm. P. M. Means, of Augusta, under the firm name of
Means & Mulliken, making headquarters at Boston, and established a clipper or packet
arud
OS
o
I
I
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 91
line between Boston and the port of Indianola, Tex., founding a general store at San
Antonio, with Judge George S. Mulliken, an older brother of Charles H., in charge.
A large and profitable business was built up, when the rumble of Rebellion in the
South echoed over the land, and next the power of the Confederacy was felt. The
property of the United States in the South was seized, and with it that of every one
suspected of Union sentiments. Of course the property of this northern firm at San
Antonio was confiscated without even an explanation, and the 50,000 invested at that
point was lost to the firm. An attempt was made to save something from the wreck.
Mr. Means, on learning of the condition of affairs in Texas, proceeded to San Antonio,
with a view of effecting a settlement with the Southern Confederacy, which was
promised but never fulfilled.
Shortly after his arrival at San Antonio he was arrested and sent to the Mata-
moras prison under guard. His escape from that terrible place and his adventures
while en route to an asylum in Mexico, followed. After the capture of New
Orleans, he made his way thither, reported to Gen. Butler and was given a pass
through the lines, which he gladly accepted, and returned to Massachusetts. Mr.
Mulliken lost the results of years of labor and with it his health. Debt also preyed
upon his mind and no one expended more mental capital in and few lost more from
the emancipation of the slaves than he. After the payment of his indebtedness in
full, he determined to begin life anew, and set out for Chicago, where he arrived in
August, 1867. He readily found employment in the glass, paint and oil house of
Page & Sprague, on Dearborn Street, as their confidential man, and remained with
that firm until 1872. The fire of October, 1871, robbed him of the savings from his
second battle with the business world. In 1872 he was chosen cashier of a savings
bank, a position he filled until 1874, when his business instincts pointed to Chi-
cago real estate investments as the only safe channel through which he could retrieve
his fortunes. That year he established his real estate office, and twenty years have
shown the wisdom of his choice of vocation. His business is largely the care and
management of estates, the loaning of money and the valuation of property, and his
references are those for whom he has done business. For loans made by the State
Mutual Life Insurance Company of Worcester, Mass., his valuations are accepted.
In 1883, when the Real Estate Board was organized, he was .one of the first mem-
bers of that body, and has always taken an attive part in all its deliberations. He
has been an elder in the Fourth Presbyterian Church for twenty years, and was treas-
urer and trustee of that society for many years. The first Sunday he was in this city
he visited the Erie Street Mission and was a teacher there until the great fire of 1871,
which destroyed the building and library. In 1872 the school was removed to Howe
Street. His connection continued with the Howe Street Mission as teacher, treas-
urer and assistant superintendent until the new building was erected in 1887 at the
corner of Orchard and Center Streets at a cost of $45,000. It is called Christ Chapel
92 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
and is a branch of the Fourth Presbyterian Church. He occupied the same position
there down to 1891, when he resigned to go abroad to be absent several months; but
his interest in Sunday-school work continues and he is frequently at the chapel,
which has now a membership of 200, and a Sunday-school of 1,200 scholars.
In social affairs he is a member of the Chicago and Washington Park Clubs and
of the Presbyterian League, also a director in the McCormick Theological Seminary
and a member of the executive committee. In the objects of the Citizens' Associa-
tion, of which he is a member, he takes a deep interest, while every measure bearing
on the improvement of Chicago interests him. He is well versed in real estate values
and titles, and his opinion on the valuation of property is often sought. As he carried
his business troubles, brought upon him by the Civil War, and managed to pay every
dollar of indebtedness occasioned by such disasters, so his business life since has
brought him a competence sufficient to do business without indebtedness. Coming
from good New England stock, brought up and educated in the atmosphere of a
home such as his and in a city where honesty and good government prevailed, gives
character and sterling worth to him as a citizen of this great western metropolis.
Ferdinand Wythe Peck, son of Philip F. W. and May Kent (Wythe) Peck, was
born at his father's residence, which then stood on the site of the Grand Pacific Hotel,
July 15, 1848, the youngest in a family of seven sons, three of whom are living, and
are among the most enterprising and public-spirited of Chicago's citizens. Philip F.
W. Peck died in 1871. His widow still survives.
Mr. Peck was educated wholly in Chicago, beginning as a student in the Chicago
High School, from which he was graduated in due time. He was afterward graduated
from the literary department of the old University of Chicago, and later pursued a
course of study in the Chicago Union College of Law. He was yet in his minority
when he received his diploma and he was just twenty-one when he was admitted to
the "bar.
Though he has never entered actively upon the practice of law, Mr. Peck has
found his preparation for the profession of the greatest utility to him in the direction
and management of the extensive interests to which he has devoted himself. Besides
assisting his brothers in the management of the Peck estate, which is conceded by
lawyers and business men to be one of the best managed estates in Chicago, Mr. Peck
has 1 shown great activity in other directions and has developed an executive ability
that has made him sought in numerous great public enterprises.
In public education and in all kindred subjects Mr. Peck has long taken a most
earnest and helpful interest. Under two appointments by the mayor, he served four
years as a member of the Chicago Board of Education, of which he was elected vice-
president. He is one of the trustees of the new Chicago University;>:is president of
the Chicago Athenaum (organized after the great fire of 1871 and similar to the
Cooper University of New York) and the Chicago Auditorium Association; was first
TheCenr.:, ".. graving
Co
o
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 95
vice-president and chairman of the finance committee of the World's Columbian
Exposition; and is vice-president of the Illinois Humane Society, of which he was
one of the founders in 1870, and which has for its special object the prevention of
cruelty to children and animals.
The Auditorium is Mr. Peck's most important work to this time, but it was such
a daring project and Mr. Peck is yet so young a man that if it is to be taken as a
promise of future achievements, it would be safe to predict almost anything of and
for him. This enterprise had its inception in April, 1885, at the time of the great
Opera Festival, in which Mr. Peck was a prime mover and of the association promot-
ing which he was president, and his object in giving it to Chicago was not simply to
erect what would be in many ways the most remarkable building on the continent,
but to popularize music, of which he is an ardent lover, and give to the people the
benefit of its elevating and refining influence.
The success of the Opera Festival not only developed public sentiment and edu-
cated public taste for popular entertainments of that character, but revealed a neces-
sity for a great music hall where notable musical productions could be properly
presented. Having entertained this idea, Mr. Peck knew no rest until the Audito-
rium building, at a cost of $3, 500,000 was an accomplished fact, and had been
dedicated to the noble purpose for which he had intended it. The Auditorium
Hall is superior to any hall now in existence, and will be used for many more
purposes than were dreamed of when the undertaking was conceived. It will accom-
modate more people than the famous Albert Hall in London. The stage alone cost
$250,000. The organ, one of the grandest in the world, cost nearly $55,000. Recital
Hall, having a seating capacity of 500, and designed for amateur musical perform-
ances, was one of Mr. Peck's afterthoughts. The formal dedication of the Aditorhim,
which occurred in the presence of President Harrison, the governors of many States,
government officials of Canada, and the official representatives of the city of Chicago,
was one of the great events in the history of the city.
While he is generous in his acknowledgment of the aid of others of Chicago's
public-spirited men in the carrying out of his plans, all concede that Mr. Peck is
entitled to the chief honor for this great structure. Thoroughly believing in music as
a refiner of the masses and an educator of public taste, he has found much enjoyment
in this and other movements toward making it accessible to the people and popular
with all classes. It may be stated that Mr. Peck's interest in the development of the
human race is such that he has been accustomed to weigh all projects not in the scale
of profit and loss, but in that balance which shall show whether or not they will con-
duce to the public good; and as a consequence his name is inseparably associated with
many great enterprises which have made his native city known alike for her unparal-
leled business activity and as the home of higher education and art.
In his labors in behalf of the World's Columbian Exposition Mr. Peck was
96 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
unceasing, and he was prominent in its directorate from its organization. He was a
member of the Board of Reference and Control, member of the Executive Committee,
member of the Committee on Legislation, member of the Special Committee on
Ceremonies, and chairman of the Committee on Finance, besides being the first vice-
president of the corporation.
Mr. Peck was married in 1870 to Miss Tilla Spalding, a daughter of W. A.
Spalding, of Chicago, and a woman esteemed for her many graces of mind and of per-
son. They have four sons and two daughters. Their city home was for a long time at
Wabash Avenue and Twenty-third Street, but in 1889 they removed to a new and
handsome residence at 1826 Michigan Avenue. They have a summer villa at Ocono-
mowoc, Wis. There Mr. Peck has become known as commodore of the Wisconsin
Yacht Club.
Edward S. Dreyer. One of the most genial and popular business men of Chicago
is Edward Schoetteln Dreyer, president of the Bankers' Association of the State of
Illinois. No one can do business with him or converse with him without feeling the
glow of his personality and the sense of his worth as a man and a citizen. The
urbanity of his nature and the radiating warmth of his hearty expressions of fellow-
ship have contributed not a little to his popularity and success. He possesses the rare
capacity for forming lasting friendships, the gift which all men of generous nature
never fail to have. It is a pleasure to do business with such men and an honor to
stand in their presence, grasp their hands and call them friends. It softens the
asperities of life and lends a charm to the rough and hurried process of money-
getting. But the quality is a gift of nature, the stamp of the guinea, and is truly a
mark of genius, because it defies the boundaries of individuality and sets the stamp of
approval upon sociability and truth.
Mr. Dreyer is a native of Buckburg, Schaumburg Lippe, a province in the north-
ern part of Germany, where he was born on August 5, 1844. His father, August
Schoetteln Dreyer, who was born in Suelbeck, Germany, in 1813, and died July 30,
1855, was a man of liberal education, and for meritorious public service was granted
distinguished honors by the German Crown. He was educated at the famous uni-
versity at Goettingem, one of the best educational institutions in the land, noted for
the excellence of its schools and the learning of its scholars. At the age of twenty-
one years, after graduating with distinction, he entered the services of the German
Government, and after passing through various grades of promotion was finally made
government forester. This was a distinction, and indicated the performance of public
service of wide importance and benefit. This splendid appointment conferred upon
the family of Mr. Dreyer the hereditary right to the title of government forester, and
comprised the adoption of a coat of arms with an allegorical representation of the
public services he had performed, besides many immunities and emoluments incident
to so exalted a position; the duty of forester embracing the care of all the beautiful
parks and forests scattered throughout Germany.
GoQd3peeiBrotheTs.HifcIish6rs. Chicago .
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 99
The mother of Edward S. Dreyer was formerly Louise Pieper, a member of a
prominent German family, which also could boast of a coat of arms and valuable pub-
lic service far back under the old kingdom. She was born in 1817, and died in Ger-
many, January 16, 1850. It may be stated as a matter of history that many of the
proudest family names of England were made prominent years before by the perform-
ance in Germany of great military or civic service, and were made the recipients
therefor of exalted promotion of which a coat of arms was but the emblem of evidence
of hereditary right to the title of honor. In almost all instances, also, there was
adopted a family motto, usually in Latin, which tersely expressed the chief character-
istic of the family. It will therefore be seen that Edward S. Dreyer comes of the best
German stock, one that has become distinguished for meritorious public and private
conduct, and was honored by hereditary recognition.
He was liberally educated in his native city at Hameln, in Hanover, and when
near the end of his educational course was obliged, in obedience to the law of the
land, to learn a trade, whereupon he adopted and mastered that of a carriage trimmer.
Both parents having died when he was yet a child, he went to live with his nearest
relatives until he had attained the age of fifteen years. During this period he spent
the time hard at work in school, his expenses being defrayed by the goverment owing
to the prominence of the family and its claim to the observance and reward. After
finishing his schooling, and after learning his trade, he determined to change both his
location and his business, and accordingly, after due deliberation, cast aside the titu-
lar honors of the family name and crossed the ocean to America, landing in New York
in June, 1864, while this country was in the throes of a gigantic war of uncertain end-
ing and results. Upon landing he came directly to Chicago, where he has remained
to the present hour. He at once began to learn the language and customs of the
country by attending business schools and colleges, mingling with the residents and
acquiring an insight into the rights and duties of citizenship. Two years were suffi-
cient to fit him for an auspicious commencement in business, and, accordingly, in
1866 he entered the employ of Knauer Bros., real estate dealers, in whose service he
remained until January I, 1870, when, as a reward of merit, he became a member of
the firm. This was a rapid advancement for a young man without capital or experi-
ence, but it proves how quickly any person dealing with him or familiar with his
thoughts and habits will become convinced of his ability and unswerving honesty.
He remained pleasantly and profitably associated with Knauer Brothers until
February i, 1873, when he withdrew from the partnership and established a real
estate business of his own under the name of E. S. Dreyer & Co., which title has been
used continuously down to the present time. When he began an independent busi-
ness in 1873, his office was located at 72 Dearborn Street. The rapid growth of his
business soon made it necessary again to remove to more commodious quarters,
whereupon he located at 88 Washington Street, where he remained until 1885, when
100 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
he occupied his present spacious rooms at the northeast corner of Dearborn and
Washington Streets. These various removals were made necessary by the phenomenal
growth of his dealings, which required greater space for the transaction of his
enormous business.
From the moment he began a separate business on his own account in 1873 he
exhibited marked aptitude for predicting future trade conditions and for making
profitable investments and disposals. He studied thoroughly the realty markets;
nothing escaped his observant eye; the interest of investors were watched with extreme
care; he was rapid in closing a bargain and in all his business relations begat a confi-
dence and trust that aided him materially in successful ventures and rapid advance-
ment. He grew steadily and rapidly in wealth and in popular favor, for all knew he
could be trusted from the standpoints both of honor and judgment. Soon his popu-
larity was not exceeded by that of any other real estate dealer in the city. This
popularity and confidence alone were a fortune to him, for he took the greatest care
of investors, and only placed their money after a profound study of the existing con-
ditions of the realty market. From the time he began, back in 1873, down to the
present day he has invested over $100,000,000. The most remarkable fact about the
investments of this firm is that during the entire twenty years it has never allowed a
single investor to foreclose his mortgage and take the property. Thus the company
has stood like a wall between the avaricious mortgagors and the helpless or unfor-
tunate mortgagee, prudently protecting the best interest of both. It is safe to
assert that no other real estate firm in the city can exhibit such a splendid record of
just and honorable business methods.
As early as 1877, so rapidly had he amassed money, Mr. Dreyer founded his mort-
gage banking business and conducted it in connection with his real estate. From
1878 Robert Berger was admitted to the partnership, and is thus associated at the
present time. These dealings of the firm are not confined to Chicago, but have spread
out over the United States and crossed the ocean to Europe. In their banking depart-
ment they employ eleven clerks. Their real estate transactions in this city are very
large. They have handled large and valuable acre tracts and have subdivided and
thus sold many. Formerly they did an enormous commission business, but now
confine themselves mostly to the sale of their own property. Valuable tracts in all
portions of the city are at present held by them. They formerly owned the old
Chamber of Commerce and the property next south of it, for all of which they paid
$523,000, and a year later sold the Chamber of Commerce alone for $625,000. They
also took an active part in the organization of the Chicago Opera House Company
and in the erection of its present building. They were prominently identified with
the company which erected and prepared the panorama of the battle of Gettysburg,
the first exhibition of the kind in the West, and one of the first in the world. Since
the great fire of 1871 they have built fully 200 houses in all portions of the city. They
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 101
are one of the most reliable business firms and one of the safest banking institutions
in the United States.
In January, 1892, Mr. Dreyer was elected president of the real estate board, and
has taken the greatest interest in its advancement and success. He has also taken a
conspicuous part in the movement to establish a National Real Estate Association.
He took a most active share in the proceedings which resulted in the securing for
Chicago the World's Columbian Exposition. He is a strong Democrat, and in Decem-
ber, 1884, he was chosen tax collector of North Chicago out of thirty-two candidates
for the position, which fact attests his popularity and worth. The importance and
responsibility are shown by his having to give a bond for $2,180,000. In 1888 he was
elected school treasurer of Lake View, and occupied the position until the annexation
of that suburb to Chicago. He was one of the trustees of the Grant Monument Asso-
ciation and presided over the important occasion of the unveiling of the monument
when completed. He was a member of the County Board of Education from 1890 to
1893, and is president of the Public Library Board and a member of the building com-
mittee for the new city library.
During the spring of 1885, when Mr. Harrison was elected to the mayoralty, Mr.
Dreyer was president of the Democratic Campaign Committee, which campaign was
skillfully and successfully managed, and in the following July he was appointed by
Mayor Harrison a member of the City Board of Education, which responsible posi-
tion, however, he was forced to decline, owing to the pressure of his enormous busi-
ness. Other high offices have been tendered him which he has been forced to decline
for the same reason. In July, 1894, Mr. Dreyer was unanimously elected president of
the Bankers' Association, one of the strongest organizations in the West, comprising
all the banks in the State of Illinois. He is one of the founders of the German Old
People's Home, at Oak Park, and also one of the founders of the Schiller monument
at Lincoln Park, and of the Reuter monument erected at Humboldt Park. He was
one of the first subscribers to the project of building the Auditorium, the Schiller
Theater, the Germania Club building, and to many other public and private enterprises
in the city. He is director and treasurer for the Chicago Heights Land Association,
the Cook County Democracy, and the Civic Federation, and was treasurer from 1891
to 1894 of the State Private Bank Association, and was director and terminal commis-
sioner under Mayor Washburn, in 1892, and one of the first as such commissioners
who officially recommended to the City Council the elevation of railroad tracks within
the city limits of Chicago as the only remedy to do away with our murderous railroad
crossings at grade. For many years Mr. Dreyer has taken a deep interest in the pro-
motion of all projects for the amelioration of the poor of this great city, and has con-
tributed liberally to the local eleemosynary institutions. He is treasurer for the West
Park Commissioners of our city, treasurer for the Industrial Homes for the Blind
in the State of Illinois, and treasurer for the Germania. He is a popular member of
102 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
the North Shore, Germania, Waubansee, Union League, Iroquois Clubs, and Turn
Gemeinde, where his fraternal greetings and friendships are exhibited and enjoyed.
Mr. Dreyer came to this city poor and friendless, unacquainted with any one and
unfamiliar with the prevalent language. He was $60 in debt, but he had with
him an indomitable spirit and steadfast integrity and was not afraid of work; and where
is the German that is? He cast aside the favorable surroundings of an illustrious
name in the fatherland, because he admired the independence, the give and take of
life in the Great Republic. In less than a quarter of a century he has accumulated a
large fortune and a reputation for patriotism, benevolence and honesty second to that
of no other man in the city. He has many years of usefulness yet before him. His
wife was formerly Miss Augusta Billingham, a native of Keokuk, Iowa, who has pre-
sented him with four children: Addie, Lottie, Edward S., Jr., and Florence.
William W. Weare. One of the most notable features of the industrial growth of
Chicago is the readiness and sagacity with which young men grasp the business situ-
ation and become prominent, while yet little beyond the age of boyhood, in the com-
mercial circles of this great metropolis. It proves better than anything else can the
industrial character of our civilization. Boys enter the factories or offices of their
fathers and become familiar with the arts of business enterprises and adepts in the
science of commercial transactions before they reach their majorities; in fact, it is a
matter of local history and public pride that some of the greatest trade establish-
ments, and some of the most popular civic movements of this city were put in opera-
tion by young men. In a city like Chicago, which springs to immense proportions,
as if from the stroke of an enchanter's wand, which is essentially and fundamentally a
business center, even from the standpoint of pleasure, it will not excite surprise,
although it will kindle admiration, to learn that many young men are managing vast
industrial enterprises which apparently should be under the control of operators of
riper years and wider experience. The reason is not hard to find, for they have been
trained to the strictest business rules from boyhood and are amply equal, by descent
and training, to the task of founding successful ventures and of managing them profit-
ably afterward. However, it is rare to find in this wonderful city, where surprises in
industrial circles are common, even a young business man who, while yet at school,
conducted on the outside, business ventures involving the handling of thousands of
dollars and requiring a profound insight into the mysteries and perils of commercial
life. Such a young man is William W. Weare, the subject of this sketch.
He was born in this city July 16, 1867, and is the son of Portus B. Weare, who is
now manager of the Chicago terminal elevators, successors to the old Munger-Wheeler
line of elevators. The father was born in the State of New York, moved to Iowa in an
early day, and in 1862 came to Chicago, where he has since resided, and become one
of the leading business men. William W. received his early education at the Chicago
schools, and in youth entered Racine College, at Racine, Wis., and, taking a full
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 103
course, was graduated in 1886 at the unusual age of nineteen years. He immediately
thereafter entered Yale University, where he diligently pursued the severe literary
course there prescribed for the period of four years, graduating therefrom in 189x3 and
leaving that famous school with an excellent education in all the profound studies
likely to make life a success.
It was during his attendance at these two institutions that he began to display
and develop his unusual capacity for business, and, in fact, during the whole period of
his college days he was more or less engaged in important business ventures.
In 1884 he engaged in the cattle industry in Wyoming and continued the same
until 1889, owning a small herd and disposing of them with skill and profit.
While at Yale University, deeply immersed in his studies, as he had to be to suc-
ceed in that strict school, he engaged in buying potatoes in carload lots and
in selling them in New York and Jersey City. In these transactions he displayed
remarkable business gifts, a wonderful insight into the intricate laws of supply and
demand, and a marvelous power of anticipating future fluctuations of the markets.
These unusual and valuable gifts have since been so sharpened and strengthened by
experience in this city that now, as an all-round business man, he has few equals
among either the younger or the older business men of Chicago. He is full of tact
and fertile in resources, keen and comprehensive in observation, logical in his conclu-
sions of the conditions of commerce and skillful and sagacious in carrying his projects
into force and effect.
In 1890 he engaged in the commission business on South Water Street, under the
firm name of the Weare & Tyffe Produce Company, but after a short time this was
discontinued, and for one year thereafter Mr. Wcare occupied a position in the real estate
office of Dunlap Smith, where he gained a thorough insight into the subtle conditions
of local realty operations. The knowledge and experience thus gained under the eye
and hand of one of the ablest real estate operators ever in Chicago were really the
foundation of his present prosperity and success. Possessing by nature just the com-
bination of qualities to insure success in the business world, supplementing this natural
aptitude with close study, careful conclusions and immediate oversight, Mr. Weare is
now the safest and ablest young realty operator in Chicago.
In August, 1891, Mr. Weare began to handle realty and invest in the same on his
own account, cautiously at first, but steadily widening his field of operations and
multiplying his efforts until he is now one of the leading young real estate dealers of
the city. He makes a specialty of Morton Park property, and particularly of many
very desirable and valuable holdings on Sections 28 and 33 in the Town of Cicero.
His success in so short a time has been unusual and phenomenal, but proves the cor-
rectness of his judgment. So strong is the popular belief in his honesty and trust-
worthiness that he has been given the management of the B. F. Stauffer subdivision on
Section 28, Town of Cicero, which consists of 171 lots. As an example of his excep-
104 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
tional skill and ability in this, his chosen pursuit, it may be stated that on August I,
1893, the day of the great Chicago panic, Mr. Weare sold sixty-three lots in the Stauffer
subdivision for Si8,OOO, directly in the teeth of the panic and the hard times that were
sure to follow. He has also been given the management of the Cudahy & Weare
subdivision of Morton Park, consisting of 100 acres, and has adopted new, novel and
superior methods in placing this valuable tract before the attention of investors. Soon
after he began business on his own responsibility he was given the management of
the Hawthorne Land Improvement Company, which owned 120 acres, all of which
was divided into lots and half of which, except two lots, has since been sold by Mr.
Weare. This alone is an excellent illustration of the discriminating judgment and
tireless energy of Mr. Weare in advertising and selling his valuable holdings. The
first year he built ten brick houses and the second year forty-two, and nearly all have
been sold at satisfactory prices. Of the Morton Park property, consisting of 100
acres, only about twenty acres remain unsold.
Mr. Weare has shown rare and merited success in handling subdivision property.
This fact is well known to the realty fraternity, and to all who have made a study
of realty conditions and of the modern methods of operators. In the short space
of about three years, by sheer force of business expertncss, he has become one of the
most prominent and most successful real estate dealers of the city, despite the fact
that he started without either capital or credit. His honesty, dexterity, and ability
are absolutely unassailable. His office is Room 220, 218 La Salle Street. In 1892 he
became a member of the Real Estate Board, and early in 1893 a member of the Union
League Club. He is also a member of the Phi Gamma Delta Society, of the I. O. O. F.
and of the National Union. Although a nephew by marriage of J. Sterling Morton,
the present secretary of agriculture, he is an uncompromising Republican. He was
united in marriage in 1890, to Miss Martha A. Tucker, of New Rochelle, N. Y., who
died October 28, 1891. July 12, 1894, Mr. Weare was united in marriage to Miss Amy
Dinsmore Bushnell, who was born March 23, 1872. Mr. Weare has attained more than
a local reputation as an expert musical whistler, and is a charming companion and
a trusted friend.
William A. Merigold. If there is a citizen of Chicago who comprehends fully
the possibilities of the city, that one is William A. Merigold. A man of quick percep-
tions and a suggester of radical and important changes, when change is necessary, he
is truly Chicago-like in methods, and hence makes progress as the city progresses.
Born at St. Catherines, Lincoln County, Canada, May 19, 1850, or five years after it
was incorporated as a town, he accompanied his parents to St. Louis, Mo., in 1859, so
that since childhood his life has been identified with the United States. His father, a
native of Nova Scotia, was born in 1814, his mother, Ann Eliza (Chisholm) Merigold,
a native of New Jersey, was descended from the frontier family of that name. The
former was a splendid type of the Nova Scotian, being six feet and two inches in
/*/
.$ ^
7
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 107
height, well built and endowed with a sound constitution. In the village days of St.
Catherines, and for fourteen years after it was raised to the dignity of a town, he car-
ried on mercantile business there until 1859, when he established business at St. Louis,
and brought his family to reside there. Some time after he removed to Amboy, 111.,
and thence, in 1861, to Chicago, where he died. His widow died here also, having
attained the ripe age of seventy-three years.
William A. Merigold came to Chicago when little over eleven years old. His
school days were passed at St. Louis and at Amboy, and, as a boy's time was even
then valuable at Chicago, his parents decided to place him in a business office. Find-
ing a position as office boy with William M. Ross, he passed two years in his employ
and the following two years, ending in 1866, in the Tribune office. In 1866 he entered
the real estate offce of William D. Kerfoot and there laid the foundations of real
estate knowledge on which his successes have been built. He was clerk, book-keeper,
salesman and we might acid draughtsman, abstract-examiner and appraiser for Mr.
Kerfoot until 1871, when his ability won for him a partnership. The history of the
firm from October 10, 1871, to October 9, 1872, is related in every story of that extraor-
dinary year. From the building of the little frame office on the curb line of Wash-
ington Street, before the smoke ceased to rise from the ruins in rear and front and
5 ides, to that day of October 9, 1872, when the dedication of the new Chamber of
Commerce announced the survival of Chicago, the young real-estate man labored late
and early and took a full share in the work of the firm. In 1886 his long business
connection with Mr. Kerfoot ended, for, knowing himself, he determined to enter busi-
ness for himself and extend his usefulness as a citizen. Establishing an office at 183
La Salle Street, he widened the circle of his influence, suggested radical departures
from the old methods of transacting business, and connected his name with every
really good piece of property in Chicago and suburbs. Later he sought the spacious
office at 156-158 La Salle Street, where the work of forty salesmen and clerks is
directed.
From 1887 to 1890 the sales of building lots negotiated in his office exceeded in
number and aggregate value all effected by small dealers, and equaled the total of
the largest and oldest office in the city. In the matter of subdivisions, that phenom-
enally successful manner of making a city, he carried through the sale of several tracts
which are now built up with fine houses, and one of which bears his name. The busi-
ness from the office from 1886 to the close of 1892 has ranged from $35,000 to $75,000
per annum. The sale of down-town property, which is to the real-estate man what
" fat matter" is to the typesetter, has claimed much of his attention. Through him
the sale of the property on which Marshall Field's new store stands was negotiated
and many other large transfers, approaching the million-dollar mark, were carried
through by him. In addition to this he has superintended the construction of several
modern city houses and commercial buildings. In 1890 the sale of the eighty-acre
108 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
tract bounded by Woodlawn and Cottage Grove Avenues and Sixty-fifth and Sixty-
seventh Streets was negotiated by him as agent for Charles Counselman and other
owners. Directing three branch offices within the city limits, he controls, so to speak,
the regular patronage of owners, and his office is the rendezvous of buyers who gener-
ally find there the very piece of improved or unimproved property for which they are
searching.
The renting and real estate loan department of this office are well organized. A
large list of desirable flats, cottages and residences for rent is always a ready reference.
In the loan department money may be had on most equitable terms and in the shortest
possible time; for he has for clients such capitalists as Hon. James McMullan, of
Detroit, Mich., and F. O. Mattheison, of New York. When the Chicago Renting
Agents' Association was organized in the rooms of the Board of Underwriters, January
II, 1883, Mr. Merigold was looked upon as one of the organizers, and when the list of
forty-three members was presented, on February 15 of that year, the name appeared
thereon. In May following he was one of those who favored a change of name to
that of "The Real Estate Board," and in June, when the new title was adopted, he
was associated with Messrs. Pierce and Cummings in the preparation and publication
of the constitution and by-laws. From that time until the present he has been a
zealous advocate of the measures for protecting owners against the livery stable pest
and other blackmailing dodges. A friend of any system which will simplify the
transfer of real estate, he has espoused the Torrens' system as the most tangible. In
January, 1892, he was chosen a member of the board's committee. His knowledge of
city and county real estate, locations, values, prospects and owners, renders him an
invaluable member of the Real Estate Board.
His marriage with Miss Emma L. Smith took place in 1874. To them two sons and
two daughters were born, who reside with their parents. The brown-stone and brick
building at 3984 Lake Avenue, built for Mr. Merigold in 1885, is now the family resi-
dence. Mr. Merigold traveled extensively in Europe during the summer of 1892, and
on that trip, associated business with pleasure, for he studied the real estate system
of the countries he visited, as well as the manners and customs of the people. Always
liberal in sentiment, his travels made him doubly so; for in the great classic and gothic
buildings of Europe, he found lessons and arguments and, in their histories, learned
a thousand points unknown to the untraveled, who, unacquainted with a subject or
naturally opposed to it, leave it severely alone. Mr. Merigold has formed a reputation
for personal honor, which, with his clear, distinct, comprehension of business gives
him a position in his own circle earned through thirty-two years of life in Chicago.
S. M. Moore.* As I sit down at my library table to sum up this man's life, my
first thought is in line with the strong impression made upon me on meeting him for
the first time years ago. "Did God ever send to earth anything finer physically than
*By Henry L. Turner.
3codspBBd Brothers. Publishers. Chicago.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. Ill
this creation of His hands?" I remember to have thought that if I could know that
in the resurrection I should be clothed with such a body I should die content. Large
men seldom realize what a tremendous advantage in life a magnificent physique
assures. It is only to their less fortunate associates, who struggle to make good the
lack of a commanding presence by the abnormal cultivation of other attributes, that
the truth comes home. Often, as I have passed him on the street, the very cut and
movement of the man have sent my thoughts off dreaming of King Arthur Launce-
lot Sir Galahad,
"Whose strength was as the strength of ten."
What a perennial fountain of happiness it must have been all these years to have
lived in such a splendid temple of the soul !
Whether the man has been conscious of it or not, and certainly the pleasing
effect has never been marred by any appearance of self-conceit, it is a fact that the
massive head, square shoulders, towering height, supple loins, the strong and power-
fully molded arms and legs and graceful, erect carriage, have given a thrill of pleas-
ure to thousands on thousands who have met him day by day.
This is not said in fulsome compliment, but is the earnest feeling of one who
looks upon a superb man as the finest creation in the universe.
In America, where every one of 65,000,000 people expects some day to be an
uncrowned king or queen, we forget that figs do not grow of thistles. Though we
pay for breeding-in a horse or cow, we shut our eyes to the actual determinative
effect of breeding-in a human being. I do not know the facts, but I would warrant
much that this man is born of a race of brawny men and healthful women. Certain
it is that he is sprung from one of the oldest, one of the leading families of that land
of good blood New England.
Take the bold dash and recklessness of the north of Ireland, mix it with Scotch
resolution and love of freedom, harden, solidify and make it homogeneous through
Puritan descent, and you get the sort of mental and moral fiber which characterized
the clean, strong New Hampshire ancestry to which Mr. Moore owes his existence.
Up there in Windham, where the cold \vinters temper and the boulder-bearing
acres test every man's manhood year after year, Silas Moore, the father, and Hannah
Moore, the mother, wended their way to the old Presbyterian Church and taught
their children in the ways of Christianity.
We who live in the garden of the earth and have seen a New Hampshire farm
can well believe that summer work in the fields gave Mr. Moore a good start in the
way of brawn and muscle. I wonder how many of those who read this sketch look
back with a curious sensation, as if they were viewing themselves in some other life,
upon the time when they helped toward their own education by teaching in a " dis-
trict school." All who have been through this experience will agree with me that
there can have been in Mr. Moore's life no period of greater usefulness to others or
112 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
of more valuable formative effect upon his character than the four years which he
passed as the successful head of the Chester High School and Academy. One learns
to walk so much more surely and gracefully when teaching another how to step.
But a New England academy found itself, as New England boundary lines have done
so many times, too contracted for the enterprising spirit of the man who had climbed
to its head. The broad, free, vigorous West allured the breadth, freedom and vigor
of the man. He came, he saw, and the West kept him. Locating at Mendota, it was
not long ere the magnetism of a dashing young city drew him away and he settled
permanently in Chicago.
Of his business career all Chicago knows. Beginning with nothing, through
hardship, economy, enterprise, he built up and conducted for many years the largest
insurance business in the West.
I well remember meeting him on one of those terrible days succeeding the great
fire, when it seemed as if everything save honor and life was gone, and can recall how
greatly my own soul was lifted up and strengthened by his noble hope and undaunted
courage. Certainly the $6,500,000 paid out through his house to policy-holders, with
such splendid promptitude, did much to make possible the city's resurrection.
Gradually dropping out of insurance as his real estate interests grew, he has of later
years given all his business time and thought to the great firm of E. A. Cummings &
Co., of which he has been a member for a quarter of a century. When the time comes
when his tall figure stoops a little, and the strong legs weary a trifle in passing up and
down our streets, he can look back upon a busy career and enjoy a well-earned, well-
utilized competency.
His home life has been one of mingled joy and sorrow. But the sunlight has pre-
dominated. Out of his loins have blossomed some of the fairest, sweetest flowers of
womanhood that ever spread their fragrance to the world. It is one of the pleasures
of memory to recall these graceful children growing up into beautiful, worthy
womanhood.
In his relations to the public he has been a worthy citizen, a generous giver, a
staunch supporter of law and order. From personal association I can testify to his
devotion to his church. His Christianity has been genuine, but neither technical nor
narrow.
Beginning my own life in this city as an employe of the Chicago Advance, I knew
him as one of its founders and most hopeful, generous supporters. A member of
various clubs, his heart has gone out more fervently to the Congregational Club than
to any other.
As a friend of many years' standing, as a business acquaintance, as a citizen, it
gives me rare pleasure to say of Mr. Moore that which I hope, when I have gotten a
little farther on in life, some appreciative comrade may truthfully say of me: He has
lived his life before us all. It has been a true life, a busy life, full of hope and faith
/
Cs
(7
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 115
and charity. I trust the joy and the sunshine of it all may stay with him and flood
every year of life until its close.
Lewis Ellsworth Ingalls. Of all the business enterprises of Chicago none has
offered a better field for the purpose of money-making than that of real estate. So
phenomenal has been the territorial growth of the city, so marvelous its increase in
population, and so swift its advancement in wealth and the departments of art, that
prudence and persistence have usually been sufficient to bring their possessor a hand-
some fortune in a few years. But though the realty industry has expanded with giant
strides, the lumber industry has almost kept pace with it; in fact, the two have run
neck and neck over the entire course down to the present date. Mr. Ingalls has
really pursued both of these branches of business, though at different times, places,
and under different circumstances. He has been identified with the real estate
industry of the city during the most memorable period in her stupendous commercial
history. His business acuteness, searching observation, sound and reliable judgment
and steadfast principles of integrity have left their impress upon some of the greatest
realty transactions of the last decade, and upon some of the shrewdest financial oper-
ations of the same period. It is useless to ascribe continuous success in the financial
world, amid monetary and commercial convulsions and in the face of heartrending
domestic bereavement, to that most delusive of all chimeras luck. A man of genius
creates his own luck. He grapples with obstacles that affright the fainthearted and
shapes conditions to the crucible of his own will. He becomes the master of the
primary surroundings of his business, and like men upon a chess board, moves his fac-
totums of trade so as to win the game of industry and finance in the teeth of sharp
competition, and in spite of unfavorable environments. But one of the most striking facts
in connection with the real estate operations of Mr. Ingalls is the celerity with which he
has sprung into prominence in this promising field. He took the correct view at the
outset, saw with certainty the points and lines of suburban development, and placed
his available capital where it was sure to reap the greatest reward. It will be interest-
ing to note the previous business training and experience of a man who has shown
such unusual commercial capacity.
The father of our subject, Henry Ingalls, was born at Walpole, Vt., April 10, 1800.
His mother, Louise (Royce)Ingalls, was a native of Essex County, N. Y., and was born
in the year 1801. When Illinois was on the very borders of civilization and every-
thing was in its primitive state, he, with his family, emigrated to what was almost a
terra incognito, and settled in Will County, in Township of Dupage, where our subject
was born October 26, 1839. In 1856 his mother died in Dupage County. His
father died at Naperville, 111., April 10, 1875. Their union resulted in a family of
twelve children, of whom Lewis Ellsworth was the eighth. The early life of our sub-
ject was that of thousands of others who were born and reared on a farm in the first
half of the present century. The labor was severe and continuous for nine months of
116 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
the year, with an interval of about three months in winter, when he was expected to
learn reading, 'riling, and 'rithmetic in a country school; and the fact that with only
these advantages he has risen to his present position, speaks as nothing else can of his
native energy, perseverance, and ability. When he was sixteen years old he left
home and began his struggle of life alone. For the next three years he was employed
as a farm hand, but used all his spare moments and the short winter school months to
improve his deficient education. When he was nineteen years of age he went to Iowa
and began farming near Waterloo. During the winter he engaged in trapping, then in
that State a lucrative calling. This he continued for four years, when he returned to
Dupage County, 111., where for the next three years he engaged in farming. Tiring
of the continuously hard and unprofitable labor of farm life and the loss of all he had
made, he removed to Claybanks, Wis., where for a year he was engaged in getting
out lumber. Foreseeing the advantages of location and anticipating the phenomenal
growth of the upper Lake Michigan region, he returned to Illinois and opened a lum-
ber yard at Naperville, but in a few months sold out his interests there and removed
to Lemont.Jll., where he opened another yard under better and more promising circum-
stances. With the money he had acquired in these, his first few business ventures, he
purchased a farm, in 1869, of 300 acres within two miles of the courthouse at Joliet,
later purchasing an additional 400 acres near the same place, and these four farms
are without doubt equal to the best arranged farms in the State.
It has always been the ambition of Mr. Ingalls to ascertain by practical experi-
ence to what extent applied science and scientific methods could be made to super-
sede, in practical results, the methods in vogue among the average farmers. He
removed to this farm in 1870 and has resided on it ever since, and it is only necessary
to visit the place and witness its thriving condition to be able to decide what the
result is and to what the cause should be ascribed. It is impossible to witness the
present condition of his farms without admiring the genius and indomitable energy
and perseverance of the mind which conceived it and put it into execution. This
home farm adjoins the famous farm of Mr. H. N. Higinbotham (President of the
Columbian Exposition), and on it Mr. Ingalls has established a sod race track, which
is confessedly the best race course in the United States. At the present time there
are 126 horses in training at this track, while there is stable room for 300 in all. For
several years Mr. Ingalls has given special attention to the raising of good stock of
all kinds, and especially horses and cattle. Upon his removal to Joliet he established
a lumber yard there, but sold out about a year afterward and turned his attention to
carrying on his farm and to the real estate and loan business, which he conducted
successfully until 1887, when he opened an office at 175 Dearborn Street, where he
is still located. Upon his arrival here for the transaction of a realty business the
whole city was pulsating intensely with superabundant vitality, and the commercial
future seem filled with bright promises. The so-called down-town districts, almost in
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 119
a night, like Lord Byron, had awakened to fame, having doubled or tripled in value
ere the owners were aware of the marvel. In every direction realty advanced so rap-
idly in worth that as fast as possible old leases were canceled and increased to cor-
respond to the new valuation. It was not a boom, but a legitimate growth in full
accord with the interest-bearing importance of the property under the newly esti-
mated worth. Suburban property in every quarter felt the good effects and likewise
doubled in value. The realty business proved of so much importance that many of
the shrewdest business men of the West engaged in that occupation here, and the result
was one of the sharpest competitive eras ever known in the industrial enterprises of
the city. Mr. Ingalls entered the field and employed all his sagacity and ability, and
in a very short time was recognized as one of the keenest of the real estate operators
here. His business dealings increased rapidly and large profits were frequently
placed to his credit. From that date down to the present he has continued to enjoy
a large and lucrative trade, and has done a total business of $10,000,000, a sum whose
magnitude staggers the comprehension. Few new houses here can boast of so pro-
digious a business. It was simply due to the persistent energy, strict integrity, and
the thorough knowledge of real estate values of Mr. Ingalls.
In 1882 Mr. Ingalls established the first electric plant in Joliet from which has
grown the Economy Light and Power Company, of which he is treasurer and general
manager. This plant is one of the most complete plants in the State. In Chicago
Mr. Ingalls is president of the American Stone Company and treasurer and trustee of
the Harrison International Telephone Company, the main offices of which are at
44 and 46 Wall Street, New York City.
Mr. Ingalls is a member of the Real Estate Board, and the Union League. In
Masonry he is a Knight Templar, being a member of Commandery No. 4, at Joliet.
Mr. Ingalls is a man of prepossessing manners, affable and courteous, and to know
him is a pleasure. He intends to close out his business interests as fast as possible.
He has always been an earnest supporter of the Republican party and its principles;
but, although frequently and earnestly solicited, could never be induced to accept
office, being content to work in the ranks. It will be seen from the foregoing facts
that Mr. Ingalls owes his success in life wholly to his unaided efforts. Beginning busi-
ness life at the lowest round of the ladder, and at the early age of sixteen, his struggle
has been an earnest and conscientious one, having always an upward tendency. He
was married October 22, 1865, to Miss Millie Emerson, of Dore County, Wis., who
died at Lemont, 111., March 10, 1868. He was married the second time to Miss Esther
E. Bartholomew, of Marengo, 111., by whom he has had four children. Their names
are as follows: Millie R., born October 16, 18/0, and died at Dansville, N. Y., Sep-
tember 22, 1892; Royce K., born December i, 1872, and died in April 27, 1894. Myra
R., born January I, 1874, and Charles L., born December 19, 1874, and died in 1881.
William R. Kerr, and West Pullman, 111. The history of West Pullman up to
date shows what vast results may be achieved by one man who can accurately
120 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
measure the possibilities of expansion in and around Chicago, can forecast the
requirements of a community, and persuasively use as arguments the facts which lie
ready to his hand, but are not appreciated by those who lack the acumen to perceive
their force and bearing. When William R. Kerr turned his attention to the site,
in the latter part of 1891, it was destitute of railroad facilities and about as uninviting
a spot as any that could be found within several score miles of the business center.
But he recognized its fitness to become the seat of a busy hive of human industry,
secured the right of way for a branch line of the Illinois Central to run through the
tract, induced the railroad company to undertake to build the line, and then found
the rest comparatively easy. Boston and Chicago capitalists were ready to furnish
all the money needed for carrying out the comprehensive scheme when it was prop-
erly presented to them. And they and others will be equally ready and willing to
subscribe capital for other enterprises in and around the city. Each one that is
established there forms an additional reason and attraction for others to come on the
principle which once made all roads lead to Rome after that city had achieved an
undoubted position as a metropolis of the empire.
William R. Kerr, the originator and founder of West Pullman, and secretary and
manager of the West Pullman Land Association, known as one of the representative
business men of the United States, was born at Dayton, Ohio, September II, 1849, a
son of James Madison Kerr. The father, a native of Montgomery County, Ohio, born
in 1816, was a prominent business man in his day and was well known as the first
secretary of the Old Dayton (Ohio) Gas Company. During the Civil War he was a
Government contractor, and in the fulfillment of his contracts, was located at Leaven-
worth, Kan., where he was also for a time a banker. After the war he went to St.
Louis, where, as the head of the firm of Kerr, Howe & Co., he was in the commission
business, till he closed out his interests there to remove to Chicago, where, during the
past fifteen years he has lived retired from active participation in business. The Kerr
family were among the pioneers in Ohio, and in that State was born, also, in 1816, Mr.
Kerr's mother, who died in Chicago in 1890.
William R. Kerr was the younger of two sons of this worthy couple. He acquired
his primary education at the Canandaigua Academy, at Canandaigua, N. Y., and while
a student there occupied the same room that had formerly been the dormitory of Hon.
Stephen A. Douglas. Subsequently he was a student at the Northwestern University
at Evanston until some time after the beginning of the war. At this time, as will be
inferred, his parents were living at Leavenworth, Kan., and thither Mr. Kerr repaired
and enlisted in the ninety days' service during the last year of the struggle. In 1867 he
returned to Chicago, and, as a member of the firm of James M. Kerr & Son, engaged
in the real estate business, with an office at 123 Clark Street, and another in Evanston,
handling both Chicago and Evanston property. This was the beginning of his career
here, which has resulted in placing him in the very front rank of the extensive real
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 121
estate operators of the whole country, a career which, however, was broken into by his
connection with other important interests mentioned further on.
In 1868 Mr. Kerr became special agent and adjuster for the Hartford Fire Insur-
ance Company, with headquarters at Des Moines, Iowa. In 1870 he was made secre-
tary and general manager of the St. Joseph (Mo.) Fire and Marine Insurance Com-
pany, and was located at St. Joseph until the fall of 1873. At that time he removed
to New York City, where he formed a partnership with Charles M. Peck and engaged
in the general insurance business with offices at 69 Liberty Street. In 1875 he was
appointed general western manager for the Scottish Commercial Insurance Company,
of Glascow, Scotland, in charge of its entire business from Pennsylvania to the Rocky
Mountains, with headquarters at St. Louis until 1878 and later at Chicago. In 1880
the Scottish Commercial Insurance Company was consolidated with the Lancashire
Insurance Company, and Mr. Kerr declined to represent the latter and during the
ensuing year traveled extensively through Europe with his family. In 1882 he was
appointed general adjuster for the Fire Association of Philadelphia, which position he
filled for one year, relinquishing it to associate himself with W. H. Cunningham in alocal
insurance agency in Chicago, with headquarters at 175 La Salle Street. This enter-
prise he managed successfully for five years, when he retired from it to again engage
in the real estate business.
In June, 1891, Mr. Kerr secured an option on the land then called "the Morgan
tract," now famous in real estate circles and known everywhere as West Pullman, a
property that at that time was an almost unbroken cabbage patch, but which, as a
result of the labors of the West Pullman Land Company, which Mr. Kerr organized
and the affairs of which he has successfully managed, is a town which now contains
more than a hundred dwellings, numerous substantial blocks of brick and stone, and
seven or eight manufacturing plants, and has paved streets, cement sidewalks, sewers,
city water, city schools and other improvements. And it has only just begun to grow,
for additional plants are being constructed there, more houses are going up, and it has
become necessary to consider the way in which extensions of the residence improve-
ments shall be made so as to provide in a comprehensively economical manner for
the far greater wants of the near future. As stated by one of the men who. have
"joined the innumerable caravan" in locating at West Pullman, "Chicago is the great-
est shipping point in the United States, and no manufacturer can afford to avoid it."
The material is all around, the fuel needed for the cheap production of power is
near, and the facilities for collecting the material and distributing the product are unsur-
passed by any manufacturing center in the world. And the city constitutes the focus
of supply for a vast area of consumption, which is ever filling up with a denser popu-
lation, while its inhabitants are individually more able to buy and consume with an
increase of prosperity in each succeeding year. Already manufacturers at the East
are discovering that they cannot compete with those of Chicago in catering to the
122 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
needs of the great West, and they are deciding to locate here, sharing the advantages
of position which the place affords and becoming identified with its ever-growing
industries. These, and the men who are attracted from other areas, will find plenty of
space in the Calumet region, and doubtless it will be extensively resorted to, till the
whole of that important section is bristling and humming with industry, as Pullman
and West Pullman are to-day. The race is one in which the success of the contest-
ants is ever attracting fresh competitors for the honor and profit of the position, and
the close of the fair but made room for this more permanent expansion, which seems
destined to be a prominent factor in the growth of Chicago, till it is the greatest city
in the world.
The firm of Wm. R. Kerr & Co. has been recently organized, and it is composed
of Messrs. Wm. R. Kerr and Richard Kerr. The offices are centrally located in Suite
401, Title and Trust building, No. loo Washington Street. The specialty of the firm
is high-class residence property (vacant and improved) on the South Side, including
Hyde Park, also centrally located business property. The firm manages property for
resident and non-resident owners and attends to all business entrusted to it for invest-
ment, manufacturing, business sites, or the loaning of money on mortgages, taking
care of estates, collecting rents, placing insurance, making repairs, etc.
In politics Mr. Kerr is an intense Republican in State and National affairs, but in
local and municipal politics he is disposed to be to some extent independent. In 1889
he was elected town collector for the town of Hyde Park and served in that capacity
until 1890, when Hyde Park was annexed to Chicago. In 1890 Mr. Kerr was elected
to represent the Thirty-second Ward in the City Council, and three times has been
re-elected to the same position, and enjoys the distinction of being one of the few
Republicans saved from the wreck of the Democratic mayoralty landslide of April,
1893. He is a strong man in the City Council, and has been upon many of the most
important committees of this aldermanic body. In 1892 he was elected a delegate
from the First Congressional District of Illinois to the Republican National Conven-
tion held at Minneapolis in May of that year. In this convention he was the
leading Illinois Blaine representative in all the conferences held with a view to the
nomination of James G. Blaine to the presidency, and led the fight against the Cul-
lom-Cannon combination in the Illinois delegation which prevented a polling of said
delegation favorable to Mr. Harrison. He was a conscientious Blaine supporter and
believed with the majority of Republicans that Mr. Elaine's nomination meant success
in the following November as surely as it was proven that Harrison's nomination
meant defeat.
The residence of Mr. Kerr, which is one of the finest in the Hyde Park district,
is located at 5126 Washington Avenue, and was completed April 15, 1893. Mr. Kerr
was married October 6, 1868, to Miss Mintie Sue Miller, eldest daughter of Hon.
William E. Miller, of Des Moines, Iowa, ex-chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court,
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 125
To Mr. and Mrs. Kerr have been born these three children: Eugenia, Lulu and Ralph.
Mr. Kerr is a member of the Illinois Union League, and of the Hamilton and Hyde
Park Clubs, of the last of which he was the originator. In every relation he ranks as
one of the leading men of Chicago, successful beyond the hopes of his most sanguine
friends, helpful in all things tending to the city's advancement, and honored by a very
large circle in Chicago and throughout the country for his upright character and the
splendor of his fairly won achievements.
Horace A. Hurlbut. In the last two years of Chicago's triumph and world-wide
fame, just before the people of all the earth gathered to participate in its glory and
rejoice with Chicagoans in the world's progress, Death, with its proverbial partiality
for a shining mark, gathered from life some of the men who made Chicago what it is,
and deprived other men of the privilege of hearing them tell the story of her strug-
gles and successes during the years when the world knew little of her. But the evi-
dence that they lived and labored is everywhere visible, and they are honored none
the less by their fellow- citizens because they were called from participation in the
rejoicings of 1893 over tne prosperity of America, in whose cluster of municipal
brilliants Chicago is the central and brightest gem. A dozen names of such men
might be mentioned. In this connection one is significant and most prominent the
name of the late Horace A. Hurlbut, merchant and real estate dealer, pioneer, capi-
talist and promoter of the city's growth and prosperity.
Mr. Hurlbut was born in Morristown, St. Lawrence County, N. Y., February 23,
1831, a son of Horace and Elizabeth (Judson) Hurlbut. His father was a prominent
man in that part of New York State, and was recognized and honored as one of the
pioneers of his county and was made the recipient of numerous important offices
under the general Government, which he held under appointment by the old Demo-
cratic Presidents, for to that party the Hurlbuts, father and son, yielded their alle-
giance to the end of their lives. He gained his primary education in such public
schools as were in vogue in his native county in his youth, and later, until he attained
to the age of sixteen, was a student at the old Ogdensburg Academy, to which many
other men who have become prominent have ever owed in some measure their suc-
cess in life.
In the spring of 1850, after some little connection with the retail drug trade in
a country town, he carried out a well-defined determination to come to Chicago and
cast his lot with the sturdy men who had laid the foundations of the present great
World's Fair city. He was only nineteen years old, but he was self-reliant and
ambitious, and he felt within him a most potent faith in Chicago and its future, and
was determined to make a place for himself here and succeed, if success could be
achieved in any honorable and creditable way. It was a daring resolve for one so
young and so inexperienced in city ways, but it was daringly carried out to a trium-
phant issue.
126 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
His experience in a country drug store predisposed him to seek employment in
the same business, in which he could make available such knowledge of the trade as
he had been enabled to gain. It was in a very humble capacity that he entered the
service of J. H. Reed & Co., wholesale druggists at Lake and La Salle Streets, a stanch,
early firm well remembered by all old residents of Chicago, but so valuable did he
make himself to the house that, only three years later, he was admitted as a partner,
a relation which he sustained until 1867, when he purchased Mr. Reed's interest and
the style of the firm was changed to Hurlbut & Edsall. The concern was regarded
as one of the largest and most successful in its line in the West until 1871, when the
store and the entire business were swept away by the great fire. In this crisis, the
sterling character which had enabled the New York country boy to become a partner
in a great commercial house in three years did not desert Mr. Hurlbut, and he at
once set about the Herculean task of rehabilitation. The business was speedily
reestablished, and in 1875 the firm name became H. A. Hurlbut & Co., and so con-
tinued until 1882, when Mr. Hurlbut disposed of his interest in the drug business and
opened a real estate office in company with his former partner, Mr. J. H. Reed.
It was but natural that he should have decided on this course, for he had for some
years previously been successfully dealing in real property and making investments
and loans for eastern capitalists. At that time there was great prejudice against
Chicago investments, but, in consequence of Mr. Hurlbut's firm belief in the future of
the city and the unlimited confidence which certain capitalists reposed in him, several
millions of money were entrusted to him for investment and by him placed in some
of the largest business blocks in the city. This and similar efforts had caused him to
be recognized as one of the merchants most closely identified with the development
and enlargement of Chicago's trade and commerce during the struggle for the exten-
sion of business in that most trying period from 1850 to 1875, when Chicago became
unquestionably the leading city of the West.
As a real estate man, Mr. Hurlbut conducted a general loan business and was the
recipient of large trusts, including the settlement and management of numerous large
estates, among them the W. F. Storey estate, of which he was appointed receiver and
gave bonds in the sum of $250,000 for the faithful discharge of his trust. He was a
busy operator for years, standing shoulder to shoulder with those most influential in
the upbuilding of the city and all of its important interests, manfully performing his
part and never flagging in zeal and enterprise, until compelled by failing health two
years ago, partially, at least, to surrender the cares of business to his son, Horace E.
Hurlbut.
Mr. Hurlbut was married in 1858 to Miss Emma Edsall, of Waddington, St. Law-
rence County, N. Y., who bore him two sons, Josiah R. and Horace E. Hurlbut, and
who, with her two sons, survive him. Mr. Hurlbut was identified with the Fourth
Presbyterian Church of Chicago, of which he was elder for thirty years, and was most
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 127
liberal and helpful in the support of all its immediate and auxiliary interests. He
was also one of the early friends of the Theological Seminary of the Northwest, now
the McCormick Theological Seminary, of which he was one of the most generous
and influential promoters. At different periods of the history of the institution he
was its treasurer and one of its trustees under the old regime and title and the new.
In a general way his benefactions were numerous and liberal, and his interest in public
charities and institutions designed to aid any deserving class of his fellow mortals
was most beneficent. In business he was successful, because he deserved to be, and
in all the relations of life he was useful, because he always recognized an obligation
to mankind in general and to Chicagoans in particular; yet he did as much for the
world and Chicago as they did for him, and the splendid prosperity everywhere
visible in this great city is the most fitting monument to those whose faith and enter-
prise, like his, prepared the way for it.
William D. Kerfoot. We have now to review the life of a well-known citizen,
who came here at the beginning of old Chicago's progress, one who remained to wit-
ness her destruction and to be the first to answer the call for rebuilding a city: He
settled here in 1854, when the population was only 65,872, or about the twenty-second
part of its present population; when the 40 miles of railroad, opened in 1850, had grown
to 2,933 miles, and 58 passenger and 38 freight trains entered and left the town daily;
when only 16,000,000 bushels of grain were received in a year; when the Bull's Head
Tavern stood far away on the prairie; when water was first supplied to the homes and
stores of the town; before the Tribune was established, and while yet a remnant of
Ft. Dearborn stood near the river a reminder of the past. He is a pioneer of the
middle period, of the renaissance period; of the commercial period, and of the edu-
cational and art period of Chicago, the respective periods beginning in 1850, 1872,
1882, and 1892.
William D. Kerfoot was born April 16, 1837, at Lancaster, Pa. His father, Dr.
George B. Kerfoot, was a distinguished physician of that district from 1830 to 1851,
and honored as a writer on medical subjects. William D. received a fair education
in the schools of Lancaster, and from 1852 to 1854 applied himself to literary studies
at St. James' College, Maryland. On his arrival in Chicago in the year 1854 he found
employment in the real estate office of James H. Rees, but soon after entered Thomas
B. Bryan's office as clerk, where a wider field for the study of real estate and financial
transactions was presented. . His natural aptitude and keen perception showed him
the advantages this position held for him; for while attending faithfully to his duties
as clerk, he could prepare to take more than an employe's place in the future. His
ambition, acquired knowledge, and Chicago, brought him into prominence in the old
real estate circles of the city long before the time his first hopes pointed out, and,
at 89 Washington Street, where the United States Express Company's building was
erected in 1872, he established himself as a real estate and financial agent. His indus-
128 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
try, courage, and ability won for him a large number of customers at once and the list
of his friends increased annually until October, 1871, when the great fire swept away
his office and left him poor indeed.
At 10 o'clock on Monday morning, October 9, 1871, Lind's block stood alone
among the ruins of the South Side, like a spirit in a shroud of smoke. On Wednes-
day, the nth, a little frame office building suddenly sprung up on the curb line of
Washington Street, outside the old building line of No. 89, and the same day the sign
and bulletin boards were attached to the little building.
From that date to September 30, 1872, there were 7,140 real estate transfers
recorded, the total value being $42,007,286. At that time purchasers were compelled
to rely upon the statements of agents and owners, as the county abstracts were
destroyed and private abstract concerns charged prohibitory prices. The name of
W. D. Kerfoot was a magical one then, and the little frame structure became the ren-
dezvous of buyers and sellers. He collected all the plats, maps and documents possi-
ble to reinforce his personal knowledge of property, and became the medium through
whom millions worth of property changed hands. The history of the rebuilding of
the city is partly a history of Mr. Kerfoot; for his dealings with eastern investors,
who flocked hither, were coextensive with local patrons.
One of the first modern office buildings of the city, the Chicago Opera House,
was conceived by him and the syndicate organized by him. The lot on which this ten-
story brick structure stands is 107 feet on Washington Street by 180 feet on Clark
Street. The contract between the Chicago Opera House Company and the Pecks,
made in 1884, provided an annual rental of $30,000 on a valuation of $500,000, and a
proportionate rental on each revaluation of every five years. The completion of this
intricate deal and the demolition of the old pleasure resort, The Tivoli, to make way
for the new building, must be credited to Mr. Kerfoot. How far his ideas dominated
the councils of the Title Guarantee and Trust Company (of which body he is a member
and director) in building the magnificent house on Washington Street, is not known to
the writer. That they were expressed on the side of progress is a natural inference.
In the organization of the Real Estate Board he took a most active part. Signing
the call for a meeting of real estate men, he also signed the articles of association,
January 11, 1883, when the title was' Chicago Renting Agents' Association, and was
the first to acquiesce in the present title, adopted June 4, 1884. The same year he
urged that measures be taken to protect residence streets from the blackmailing
operations of saloon and livery-stable keepers. In 1886 he took a decided stand
against the policy of the Recorder of Deeds of Cook County in closing out abstract
men, and the same year went before the Legislature to promote the bill known as
"The Rest of Titles Bill." The drainage question won some attention from him early
in 1889; the Torrens system of real estate transfers claimed his study later; and later
the World's Columbian Exposition, in the affairs of which he was most interested,
monopolized the leisure hours which he took from home and real estate business.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 129
Thomas B. Bryan, in whose office he found employment shortly after coining to
Chicago, speaking of him in recent times, said: " I have no hesitation in pronounc-
ing W. D. Kerfoot one of the very best real estate agents it has ever been my good
fortune to know. He is possessed in an eminent degree of just those qualifications of
sterling probity, conscientious conservatism of judgment, zeal tempered with moder-
ation, methodical and tireless energy that specially adapt him to his chosen profes-
sion." A large holder of real estate and leading lawyer of Chicago made the
following statement: " I have no hesitation in saying that, in my opinion, William D.
Kerfoot stands at the head of the real estate business in Chicago. He is a man of
very large experience and information. Having come to Chicago when a young man
and being peculiarly fitted for this business, he has easily kept pace with the development
of the city. In fact, he is one of the most important factors in its growth and develop-
ment. He is a man of large acquaintance and has the confidence of the people, not
only in Chicago, but also in the great financial centers of the East and in London,
England, as is shown by the clintage he has built up there. Millions of dollars have
been invested in Chicago on Mr. Kerfoot's recommendation by people who have never
seen the properties, and in every instance they have been well pleased. His judg-
ment as to values, income, etc., is something remarkable in its accuracy. It is the
practice of the courts and of members of the Real Estate Board to accept him as an
authority on realty values and the soundness of titles." A prominent banker, refer-
ring to him, says: " I have known Mr. Kerfoot nearly thirty years, and regard him as
one of the most successful business men in the city. He is a man of the highest
moral character, and is possessed of a keen intellect and unusual business capacity.
Though a very busy man, he is always ready to devote his time to public affairs. He
is now chairman of one of the most important committees in the World's Fair Direct-
ory. As president of such business enterprises as the Chicago Opera House building,
his ability and tact have brought success. No one can make the acquaintance of
William D. Kerfoot without being convinced that he meets a broad-minded Christian
gentleman." Were the opinions of the army of his friends and acquaintances placed
in writing, thousands of testimonials of this character might be given.
Erom 1877 to the present day, Mr. George Birkoff, Jr., has been a partner of his.
Prior to that year he transacted business without a partner.
His connection with the Title Guarantee and Trust Company, the Chicago Opera
House Company, the Chicago Real Estate Board, and the World's Fair Directory
claimed a large share of his time. In World's Fair circles he was known as chairman of
the Agricultural Committee, and an active member of the committees on executive
work, ways and means, and dedication. The services of such a man to such an enter-
prise may be estimated from the point of view of his thorough knowledge of Chicago,
of men, and of affairs.
His marriage with Miss Susan B., daughter of Wm. B. Mooklar, of Mason County,
130 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Ky., took place in 1865. To them eight children four sons and four daughters-
were born, of whom one son and three daughters are living. Amid the increasing
demands of business he aims to enjoy the pleasures of home, and succeeds in his aim;
for, it is said, there is no happier or more lovable home in Chicago than his.
Friends, as numerous as his acquaintances, assemble there to learn happiness or to
converse on Chicago's past and speculate on Chicago's future. The head of that
household, while building up for himself reputation and fortune, has within forty
years directed thousands to investments which invariably brought the investors wealth,
thus making his clients partners in his own prosperity. In whatever light his Chicago
life may be reviewed, his excellence as a citizen and his integrity as a business man
must be acknowledged.
John A. Bartlett. We have now to speak of one who did more than any one of
his contemporaries to convert the prairie, once known as the " Town of Lake," into
one of the best improved sections of this city. Coming here when the population of
Chicago w,as less than 66,000, some time before streets were graded or the old build-
ings raised above the original marsh, he was here when fire swept over 125 acres,
and left in ashes all the monuments to progress raised between 1854 and 1871.
John A. Bartlett was born at Oxford in Worcester County, Mass., April 8, 1829.
The pioneers of the family in America had settled farther south in the seventeenth
century and their descendants were among the men of the Quinebaug Valley in the
ranks of the Connecticut line of the Continental Army from 1776 to 1781. His
father, Eleazer Bartlett, Jr., was born at East Killingly, Windham County, Conn., in
1800, and died at the ideal New England town of Webster, Mass., April 12, 1861, while
the echoes of the guns of Fort Sumter were carried over the land. His grandfather,
also named Eleazer, was born in Connecticut, in the Quinebaug country, where he
became a well-known farmer and miller, and where he resided until his death.
Eleazer Bartlett, Jr., was reared on the homestead farm, learned something of
machinery in his father's mill, and later, at the age of twenty-five years, extended
this knowledge in the machine shops which sprung up throughout New England after
the Revolutionary War. For seven years he manufactured woolen and cotton goods
machines, and for twenty-three years prior to April, 1861, was the agent for Samuel
Slater & Son, at Webster, Mass. Mrs. Harriet (Ashcraft) Bartlett, who married
Eleazer Bartlett about the year 1828, was born in Brooklyn, Windham County, Conn.
Shortly after, she accompanied her husband to Oxford, Mass., where she died early
in the twenty-seventh year of her age. The Bartletts of Connecticut are very well
represented to-day in Massachusetts, but the pioneer Ashcraft family of Windham
County, Conn., has not a living representative of the name. The youth of John A.
Bartlett was passed in the manner common to Massachusetts boys of that period. He
began his school life at Oxford and ended it at Webster in 1846 or 1847. He then entered
a machine shop as apprentice, and, according to the notions of the period, passed six
>
Goodspeei Brattara.PUbliahaM, Clocago
Oc
ft
(A
0.
UJ
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 133
years there learning the trade. A boy of his character could have learned six trades
in that time, but the law as it was then applied did not acquiesce in the boy's opinion
of himself and of course the old laws of Massachusetts, however dark and exacting,
had to be obeyed. That he emerged from the old shop a full-fledged, practical
machinist cannot be doubted. When he attained his majority the old Continental
Guard and a thousand Lafayettes could not induce him to continue work in the
machine shops of his native State, for he saw in the West a wide field where knowl-
edge and work could win without an apprenticeship.
On October 13, 1854, he visited Chicago; in 1855 became identified with its mer-
cantile life, and in 1870 with real estate affairs. In 1855 the firm of Rawson, Bartlett
& Co. was formed to carry on the wholesale boot and shoe business at 221-223 South
\Vater Street. The population had increased within a year from 65,872 in 1854 to 80,028
in 1855, so that a reasonable chance of business success in that line appeared. In 1859
the title was changed to Rawson & Bartlett, and the removal to more spacious quar-
ters at 24 Lake Street effected. There they lost nearly all the stock in the fire of
May, 1860, but with an enterprise characteristic of New Chicagoans, carried what was
saved to a vacant store at No. 30 Lake Street, supplemented it with new goods and
carried on their extensive business as if nothing extraordinary had happened. The
death of Mr. Rawson in 1862 led to a reorganization of the firm, with a brother of the
deceased merchant senior partner. In January, 1866, Messrs. Hoswell and Bush were
admitted. In 1867 Mr. Rawson retired, and the firm name Bartlett, Hoswell & Bush
was adopted. In 1869 Mr. Bartlett sold his interest to S. W. Rawson, the same who
retired in 1867, and his connection with the wholesale boot and shoe trade, of Chicago,
of which he was a pioneer, ended.
His travels in California during the year 1870 were purely in the interest of his
health, and incidentally in that of a knowledge of the great western country, to which
Chicago was then, as it is now, the gateway. Returning to this city in the summer of
1870 he entered into partnership with A. P. Downs in the real estate business, shared
in the immense volume of real estate trade after the fire, and continued with Mr.
Downs for seven years, when death deprived him of his last business partner. Since
1877 Mr. Bartlett has been alone in business, handling real property held by himself
and others. Since 1880 he has given much attention to Englewood property, and
particularly to that beautiful subdivision of Englewood formerly known as Normal
Park since 1882. The larger and newer divisions known as Eggleston and Auburn
Park, south of the region originally called Englewood, were not overlooked by him,
for he knew the advantages of the territory and fathomed its destiny.
Locating his residence on Perry Avenue, Normal Park, in 1883, he watched with
paternal solicitude the progress of that suburb. Improvement after improvement was
suggested by him and, in the face of opposition from the very men he tried to serve,
he carried those suggestions to materialization. He was elected assessor of the Town
134 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
of Lake in 1884, and chosen superintendent of public works. Re-elected in 1885, he
served the people with a zeal and enthusiasm which bear their reward today in hundreds
of miles of streets as perfect as boulevards, a substantial sewer system, and all these
improvements which go to render a city healthy and beautiful. When elected
superintendent of public works in 1885, he received 5,048 votes of the 6,OOO votes
cast, an extraordinary exemplification of what the people can do when the proved man
appeals to them. The history of the Town of Lake since 1882 is largely the history
of Mr. Bartlett. A friend of the pioneers of the town's first modern suburb Normal-
ville he has proven himself a friend to the town at large, and must be credited,
liberally and without hesitation, with the big share of directing a fine class of people
to homes there, and then directing the improvements which made the homes
valuable.
Mr. Bartlett was married at Boston, January 23, 1851, to Miss Sarah A. Went-
worth, a descendant of the pioneer family of that name in New England. Her par-
ents, Daniel S. and Rebecca J. Wentworth, were natives of Maine and there the lady
was born. Her father died at Effingham, N. H., when she was but eleven years old,
and the mother died at Mrs. Bartlett's home, where she resided for a quarter of a
century. Charles A. Bartlett, their son is financial manager and book-keeper for
Pettibone, Wells & Co. His marriage with Miss Carrie Kent, of Englewood, took
place in May, 1877, and to them three children were born: Mary F., Kent W., and
Helen S. Mr. Bartlett, Sr., has been a member of the Real Estate Board since
1883, when it was organized. This organization, together with the Home Club, and
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, which he joined in 1855, are the only busi-
ness, social or fraternal societies to which he belongs. He is a Republican by heredi-
tary right. He voted the first Republican ticket in 1856 and the last in 1892.
James P. Mallette. To be prominent in connection with Chicago's great real
estate interests is to be prominent in Chicago's general prosperity. To have aided in
their development is equivalent to having been foremost in a hundred others, for
activity in real estate goes with and supplements activity in every other department
of industry and commerce. Chicago has a bright and admirable galaxy of the
younger generation of real estate men. They are recognized as prime factors in the
city's wonderful development and extension. There are none among them more
widely and favorably known, none whose business acumen and judgment of real
estate values are more highly respected, than James P. Mallette, of the firm of Eggle-
ston, Mallette & Brownell. He was born in St. Louis, Mo., October 17, 1851, and was
educated in the common and high schools of that city, from the latter of which he
graduated with honors. St. Louis not offering sufficient scope for the development
of his active mind he naturally turned to Chicago, as many another man of native
force and enterprise has done and many more will do in the years of Chicago's future
development. At that time he had turned twenty-two, and he had pretty well defined
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 137
ambitions, but the wildest of them scarcely approached the truth of his great success.
He had had some experience as a commercial traveler, which had rendered him
familiar with business men and their ways. His first commercial connection here
was in the wholesale woodenware business, as head of the firm of Mallette & Walmly.
In 1877 he began the manufacture of furniture on Canal Street, under the style of the
Mallette & Raymond Manufacturing Company. While still so interested he began
operating successfully in real estate.
The firms of J. P. Mallette & Co. (James P. Mallette and Ralph E. Brownell) and
R. E. Brownell & Co. (Ralph E. Brownell and James P. Mallette) were formed in
1885. In 1889 they were merged into the firm of Eggleston, Mallette & Brownell,
Charles B. Eggleston, who had previously been a special partner, assuming a full
interest in the concern. Mr. Mallette and his associates, besides constituting one of
the leading real estate houses of the city, are also among the largest contractors of
public improvements. They own large stone quarries at Thornton, 111., which were
opened in 1885 and from which they had taken the material for many of the largest
cable railway lines in Chicago and the crushed stone for many miles of the beautiful
drives and streets for which the south part of the city is famous. The capacity of
their plant is 2,000 cubic yards of crushed stone per day. They own a most complete
outfit of steam and horse rollers and other machinery for making roads, and during
the season they give employment regularly to from 400 to 500 men. Their business
in this department may be summed up by the statement that they are contractors for
all kinds of public improvements, sewers, water mains, etc., and macadam streets,
drives and boulevards.
Mr. Mallette's firm also makes a specialty of subdividing and improving vacant
property and owns Eggleston and Auburn Park subdivisions, the finest improved
suburban property on the South Side. Recognizing the value of the location, Eggles-
ton, Mallette & Brownell bought the land upon which Eggleston now stands and
began improving it. Soon afterward George M. Pullman and C. M. Henderson, at
their suggestion, laid out Auburn Park. Well understanding that no locality can be
uniformly improved except it be entirely under one control, Eggleston, Mallette &
Brownell bought Auburn Park. Their property extends from Seventy-first Street to
Seventy-ninth Street and is bounded on the east by State Street and on the west by
Wallace Street, being a mile long by three-fourths of a mile wide. The accessibility
of this property is well known. Its main transit line is the Rock Island Railroad;
the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railway is close at hand and the Wentworth Avenue
street car line extends through the property to the southern limit. The firm has
recently subdivided the triangle of ground extending from Vincennes Road to Stewart
Boulevard and from Seventy-seventh Street to Seventy-ninth Street. This subdivis-
ion is within three minutes' walk of the depots of the Rock Island and Eastern Illi-
nois Railroads. In May, 1891, this company placed under contract the entire frontage,
133 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
aggregating 2,260 feet, of the famous good-luck, fourteen-corner, ten-acre strip,
extending from State Street to Stewart Avenue, at an average of $70 per foot, this
price including all street improvements, which are to be put in by the seller, the
same to be equal in character to those in Auburn Park and Eggleston. The transac-
tion involved a much larger-sum of money than simply the price of the ground, one
of the conditions of the sale being that the purchaser should improve each of the
seventy-one lots in the piece with a residence or business building, to be of brick or
stone and to cost from $7,500 to $10,000 each, the total amount involved being,
therefore, fully $750,000. The fronts are of different designs and are constructed of
the celebrated Bloomington-Be.dford stone, and with bays and attractive carvings
and ornamentation. The interiors are each divided into nine rooms, besides recep-
tion hall, bath and laundry rooms, and are finished in hardwood and bronze and
heated by furnace.
There have been constructed by Mr. Mallette's firm, or by actual purchasers from
it and upon its own property, more than 350 houses, ranging in cost from $3,500 to
$18,000 each. This is one of the few old-established Chicago real estate firms of
whom it can be truthfully said that not one of its customers has ever failed to make
money on property purchased through its instrumentality a striking tribute to the
sterling integrity, the good judgment and excellent knowledge of real estate values
which characterize its management. Of the great real estate department of the firm
Mr. Mallette is practically the manager, Messrs. Eggleston and Brownell giving their
attention more particularly to other interests. He is a conspicuous representative of
that large class of young, vigorous and practically self-made men who have done so
much to place Chicago in the proud position she occupies to-day. As a business man
he is accorded a very high rank in the community and his advice and co-operation
are sought in many movements of importance to the city and its various material
interests. Recently he has been recognized as a man of culture and broad sympathies
by his choice to a prominent position in connection with public education in Chicago.
He was married in 1877 an ^ has an interesting family of six children. He is a mem-
ber of the vestry of Trinity Reformed Episcopal Church and takes an active and
helpful part in the maintenance of all of its contingent interests.
Ralph E. Brownell, of the firm of Eggleston, Mallette & Brownell, is a practical
civil engineer, and there are few in Chicago more expert in laying out property and
supervising its drainage, sewerage, paving, macadamizing, etc., and none more skilled
in laying out suburban property, he having made a long and careful study of all the
details of the development and improvement of city and suburban real estate. He
was born in Fillmore County, Minn., in 1857, a son of C. S. and Laura J. (Haviland)
Brownell, and came in 1863 with his father, to Chicago, where the latter has since been
a successful merchant. He was educated in Chicago, and is a graduate of the high
school of Englewood. After leaving school, he entered the public works' depart-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 139
ment of the Town of Lake, in which he served nine years, three years of the time as
superintendent of public works. He also filled the office of assistant engineer in the
construction of the improvement of Washington Park and Michigan Boulevard. In
1885 he became associated with Messrs. Eggleston and Mallette, and since the firm of
Eggleston, Mallette & Brownell was formed in 1889, he has had charge of the con-
struction department, giving a large portion of his time, as has been intimated, to the
development and improvement of real estate. The improvement of all of the property
which has been developed and placed on the market by the firm has been realized
under his careful personal supervision. The career of Mr. Brownell demonstrates
what may be accomplished under favorable conditions, and with such opportunities
as Chicago presents, by an active, pushing, energetic and honorable man, far-seeing,
careful in planning, prompt and unswerving in execution. Mr. Brownell is a prominent
Mason, being a Knight Templar and having received the thirty-second degree. He
was married in 1878, to Miss Lucy Adams, of Chicago, daughter of Francis T. Adams,
and has three daughters, named Ora, Ethel and Irma.
Albert F. Dexter. A careful study of the different types of men who make a
business success in a city like Chicago is always interesting. All classes are met
with; the slow, plodding individual who saves a dime or a quarter each day and grows
rich in old age; the bright, energetic business man who advertises freely, keeps a
good stock of goods and forces his way to the front; the lucky speculator in whose
hands everything appears to turn to money; the quick, energetic, self-confident man
who conceives a big enterprise and at once takes steps to carry it out, and, even
though he meets with a failure, gets on his feet and makes another dash for the front,
continuing in this course till he finally wins; and a score of other classes of people.
Albert F. Dexter's experience has been a peculiar one, and failures were numerous
before he finally met with success. The failures were by no means a result of his care-
lessness or bad judgment, but appeared to have been arranged as a grand jina/c to what
looked as if it was going to be a phenomenal success. In one instance he organized a
company and was getting in good shape for business when the accidental drowning of
three men turned the tide against him, and the weather then took an active part in
spoiling all of his chances for recuperating. On another occasion a manufacturing com-
pany was organized and started out with the brightest of prospects. Business came
faster than it could be attended to, and increased facilities were required. A new
factory was built and new machinery put in. Finally, when everything was in readi-
ness to go to work, the whole thing burned down. A prominent and wealthy New
Yorker had promised financial aid when it was needed, and Mr. Dexter naturally
turned to him for help. He took the train for New York City, but before he got there
a banking house closed its doors and caused so much general distrust in financial cir-
cles that it was next to impossible for prominent financiers to get money enough to
engage in new enterprises, and the result was a failure. This did not dishearten him,
and he is now reaping the benefits of his subsequent sagacity and enterprise.
140 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Albert F. Dexter was born August 15, 1848, in Palmer, Mass., his parents being
Ferdinand and Rosetta (Kendall) Dexter, descendants of some of the early settlers
of the State. His father, who was a painter, moved to Fond du Lac, Wis., with him
in 1854. His early education was received in the schools of Madison, and he then
attended the Wisconsin State University. His first business venture was in 1869, when
he commenced traveling for the Beloit Reaper Works. In 1876 he was made a spe-
cial agent of the Travelers Life and Accident Company, of Hartford, Conn., with
which he remained till 1880, when he became a representative of the Northwestern
Life Insurance Company, of Milwaukee, with headquarters in Chicago, where he had
moved in 1879. In 1888 he was instrumental in organizing and became vice-president
of the Belding Motor and Manufacturing Company. During a period of three years
the business of the company grew to such an extent that increased capital and a
larger factory became necessary, and the sequel to the building of the same is told
above. The fire occurred on January 16, 1891, and the failure of May 8 of the same
year, when everything was placed in the hands of a receiver, and Mr. Dexter found
himself badly in debt. He was not idle a day, but with characteristic Chicago energy
began casting around for something to do. He learned finally that the property of 82
and 84 Adams Street was on the market, and could be leased for ninety-nine years on
very reasonable terms. This information would signify nothing to most men who were
practically out of money and in debt, but to Mr. Dexter, as matters turned out, it meant
much. His first move was to secure a lease of the property, and he then set about raising
money to erect a modern steel and terracotta structure. After several months of diligent
work he got the money. The old building was torn down and the new eight-story
modern structure that now occupies the site erected. It contains fifty-six suites of
offices, three stores and a basement, all light and air.y, and nearly every room in the
building is occupied. Mr. Dexter secured the money for erecting the building on
terms that will enable him to pay for it out of the rents in a few years, when he will
have a very desirable piece of property and will not be compelled to worry much
about business matters.
Mr. Dexter was married in 1883 to Miss Helen Forsythe, a daughter of John For-
sythe, one of Chicago's early settlers, who was years ago interested in business with
John Y. Scammon, and made a large fortune out of real estate, but which became
badly involved at the time of the Marine Bank failure. They have three children,
Elise, John Forsythe and Bessie Hoard. Mr. Dexter is possessed of typical Chi-
cago pluck, and is a man whom circumstances cannot down. He has that faith in
himself and ability to win that always means success. His experiences have been
varied, but even during his most discouraging times he did not lose heart and his
friends never lost faith in him. He has a pleasing personality, is a good conversa-
tionalist, and impresses those who have dealings with him with confidence.
Henry C. Morey. The late Henry C. Morey was one of the men who in early
years visited Chicago as a stranger, became incorporated with her people and grew
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 141
up with the city. The history of his youth varies but little from that of the children
of the western pioneers. Born in the State of New York, July 31, 1832, he was brought
to Michigan in infancy by his parents and passed his childhood and boyhood in that
State.
His parents settled at Flint, Mich., in 1836, when the city of the present day was
a swaddling hamlet, the home of those adventurous spirits from western New York,
who sought independence on the frontier. They were men who wished to settle on
the horizon, but failing to reach it, selected the last camping ground of the retreating
savages for a homestead. Such were the pioneers of Flint, and such was the village
itself in 1836, for when the family of James Morey located there, the Indian wigwams
could be seen beyond the river and the light of the Indian fires was not yet
extinguished.
The father established a general store at that point on his arrival, but succumbed
to the hardships, disappointments and location, for the Flint River Valley was then as
unhealthy as it was fertile. He died in 1838. The widow continued to make the vil-
lage her home until 1849. The youth attended school there until 1847, when he en-
tered the old trading house of J. B.Walker as a clerk. In 1849. when the reports from
Illinois won thousands to claim her prairies, young Morey and his mother made the
long and tedious journey from the Flint River to the Mackinaw River, of Illinois, via
Chicago, and halted in Tremont Township, Tazewell County. Young Morey found
himself in a district distinctively agricultural. Conforming to the necessities of place
and time, he sought employment as a farmer, found it and labored there for about
three years.
Early in 1852, realizing that agriculture would not bring the rewards which he was
capable of earning, he wrote to Col. Josiah L. James, of the lumber firm of James &
Hammond, asking for information respecting the opportunities which Chicago might
present to him. A reply peculiarly Chicagoan was received, saying that should he
make the venture Col. James would insure him board and lodging until he could
strike something better. Young Morey, then in his twentieth year, accepted the kind
offer, set out at once for Peoria and thence proceeded, by river and canal boats, to
Chicago. He earned more than his board and lodging the ensuing summer and fall.
He attended Bell's Commercial College during the winter of 1852-53, and in the spring
entered the employ of James & Springer, who established their real estate office in
that year in the old Metropolitan block. For twelve years he was their trusted
employe. In 1855 he was admitted to a partnership with George A. Springer, and
subsequently established an office for himself in 1857.
That terrible night in October, 1871, when the heart of Chicago disappeared in
flame and smoke, Henry C. Morey made his way to the office, in the old Metropolitan
block, to secure valuable documents. His success was astonishing. The flames were
already licking up the court house across the street, and had attacked the very build-
142 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
ing in which the searcher worked by the light of the great fire. He found the papers
and fled with them to his home on the West Side. He was the first to establish a
real estate office, on October 10, 1871, the room being at u6West Madison Street.
Shortly after this, when the Superior block on Clark Street was completed, he moved
his office thither and transacted a large and remunerative business there until the well-
known Morey office at 85 Washington Street was opened.
The reminiscences of the " hard cider campaign " developed in him a particular
desire to make the public temperate. The story of Father Matthew pointed out the
feasibility of the idea. Within three years from the day he settled at Chicago, his
name was found enrolled on the records of Houston Lodge, No. 32, I O. G. T. In
1856 or 1857 he was an organizer of Dashaway Lodge, No. 240, I. O. G. T., and sub-
sequently was identified with all the lodges of Good Templars in Chicago.
In the midst of the Civil War excitement, this idea of making men temperate was
a controlling one with him. There were so many intemperate men at that time, he
thought out a means of making them sober and suggested a soberium, which material-
ized in 1863 under the title Washingtonian Home. He was one of its founders, and
secretary of the institution for sixteen years. The old settlers remember the Bull's
Head Tavern, when it stood by the old stock-yards, unprotected from prairie winds.
That building and ground, 104x180 feet, Mr. Morey purchased from Matthew Laflin,
in 1863, for $9,000. In 1876 he suggested the building of the present Washingtonian
Home. To him, in a great measure, would have been due the aid which the Home
received from the city's purse, for by suggestion and logic he urged his fellow workers
to seek from the Legislature a mandatory act, compelling the city to provide a certain
amount annually toward sustaining this Home. Ten per centum of the amount
realized from saloon licenses in Cook County was the sum asked. C. J. Hull, who
was at one time president of the Home, in introducing Mr. Morey at an anniversary
meeting, said: "Mr. Morey is a man who works for you for nothing and boards him-
self, and I am sure that I am within bounds in saying that for ten years he has given
to this Home from fifteen minutes to a half day of his time every week day of the
year, when he was not out of the city." He may be truly called the father of that
institution.
The history of the Real Estate Board points him out as the first president, and
the only one, who was ever re-elected by that body. He was one of its organizers,
and undoubtedly the most popular member of all the genial members of that
important organization. As an appraiser of city real estate, he was looked upon as
authority, an appeal from whose valuation was useless. From 1884 to March, 1891,
when his death was recorded, he appraised property valued at over $30,000,000 for
insurance and other companies or syndicates. His death was a loss to the city, and
particularly to the real estate and temperance workers of Chicago, who on each anni-
versary of his death hold services commemorative of him.
ta
O
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 145
He was a Bohemian in some respects. The California letters written by him and
published here and his witticisms speak for themselves. His addresses and arguments
before the board were of a high order, always comprehensible and weighty. The
father of Mr. Morey died, as has been stated, in Michigan in 1838. His widow, Mrs.
Lucy (Frisbee) Morey, a native of Brockport, N. Y., died at Chicago in 1882, know-
ing the devotion of that son who accompanied her to the wilds of Michigan in 1836,
to the prairies of Illinois in 1849 an ^ who received her at Chicago a few years after.
In 1857 he married Miss Sarah F. Hoit, daughter of George W. and Sarah A.
Hoit, at one time residents of Plattsburg, N. Y., of which city Mrs. Morey was a
native. To them two children were born George J., who died April 16, 1891, in his
twenty-eighth year, and Ida, who died in 1881. Mr. Morey died March 14, 1889, at
his home in this city. He was undoubtedly the ablest debater and greatest wit of
contemporary real estate men.
Martin Van Allen. Chicago is the greatest center of real estate operations in the
world, and since the beginning of enterprise here real estate activity has led all other
departments of human endeavor and its rapid expansion has been an index to the
development of every other business interest. To have been a pioneer in this field
was to merit distinction in the city's after history, and to have lived through the
wonderful unfolding of that history, to be able to look back over its successive sur-
prises, its strange and momentous changes, to compare its former status with the
present, is a privilege enjoyed by few. One of these pioneers, still living, a connect-
ing link, as it were, between the old Chicago and the new, is Martin Van Allen, gen-
eral manager of the Fox River Land Association and real estate, loan and insurance
agent, who during the past fourteen years has been located at 69 Dearborn Street.
Mr. Van Allen is the second of the twelve children of Cornelius and Lora Ann
(Ackerman) Van Allen, and was born at Pillar Point, Jefferson County, N. Y., July 9,
1832. His parents were both natives of Jefferson County, his father born in 1803, his
mother in 1808; and they both died there, the former aged sixty-three, the latter aged
eighty-one. The families of Van Allen and Ackerman were among the early settlers
of northern New York, and the Van Aliens and Ackermans of the present day are
able to trace their ancestry back for many generations the Van Aliens to the Revo-
lutionary War, and the Ackermans to the landing of the pilgrims from the Mayflower.
Throughout their long history in this country these families have had little to regret
and much to commend in the conduct of their representatives, who have been always
prominent in the work of human advancement.
Until he was eighteen years of age, Mr. Van Allen was a member of his father's
household, and when old enough divided his time between such farm work as he was
able to do on the home place and attendance at the public school. He then became
a student at Falley Seminary, at Fulton, N. Y., where he remained for about three
years, taking the regular course of that institution, but giving special attention to the
146 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
study of mathematics and civil engineering with a view to becoming a civil engineer.
The work of the civil engineer was one of peculiar enterprise and opportunities for
more or less sight-seeing in those days, when the country was comparatively unsettled
and railroads and other public improvements were few, its demands constantly taking
those engaged in it into new and sometimes unexplored parts of the country. Many
a man who has attained prominence since, especially in connection with railway and
real estate enterprise, has traced his rise in the world to his engagement in one
capacity or another with some of the engineer corps of thirty to forty-five years ago.
Mr. Van Allen was scarcely twenty when he entered upon this work. He left
school in 1853 and found employment on the line of the Black River & Utica Rail-
way. He was put at work with a wheelbarrow, but his ability to do something better
soon manifested itself, and at the end of a week he was given a transit and made a
division engineer. He came to Chicago in June, 1854, and until January, 1855, was
Deputy United States surveyor. January 10, 1855, he entered the service of the Illi-
nois Central Railroad Company in its Land Department and was thus employed until
November, 1857. In March, 1858, he was employed by the Dubuque & Sioux City
(now Illinois Central) Railroad Company, in Iowa, in the same capacity. In 1860 he
went with the Burlington Railway in its Land Department, and in 1862 with the Alton
Railroad in its operative department.
The following year (1863) he became a clerk in the real estate office of S. H. Ker-
foot & Co., and was thus employed until the spring of 1864, when he entered the real
estate business for himself in this city. He has continued without interruption to the
present time, gaining and retaining the confidence of the business public in a manner
as noteworthy in this connection as creditable to himself. He has seen Chicago grow
from a small inland city to the center of the trade of a quarter of a continent. He
has seen it swept away almost in the twinkling of an eye, the work of years undone by
conflagration. He has witnessed the growth of the new Chicago, which is now the
observed of the civilized world, and has had a part in the real estate activity that has
led and encouraged all this marvelous development.
Since his first coming here he has never wavered in his faith in the great future
of the city, and no important step in the making of its great history has escaped his
notice or been forgotten by him, and he is as conversant with everything of import
connected with Chicago's advancement to her present proud position as any man here.
With real estate history and real estate values, past and present, he is as thoroughly
familiar as any real estate man in Chicago.
Mr. Van Allen, who has made numerous subdivisions and handled real estate of
every class, has, in his long experience, seen city properties sold for a song, as it were,
or thrown in with some trade that would now be thought insignificant, any one of
which is at this time worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. As an instance, it may
be stated that twenty-five feet on Michigan Avenue between Lake and Randolph
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 147
Streets, including a good frame house, was offered him for $2,500. It is now worth
nearly $5,000 per front foot. In 1854 he was offered twenty acres of land bounded by
State Street, Indiana Avenue, Twenty-ninth Street, and Thirty-first Street, at $37 per
acre, including a frame hotel building which was on the property ; an aggregate of
only $740 for property the value of which at this time, scarcely forty years later, is
almost incalculable.
There are few men in Chicago who have so long been continuously identified
prominently with Chicago's real estate history as Mr. Van Allen. Conservatism has
been the leading characteristic of his somewhat remarkable business career, and
while he has been profitably venturesome, he has always been so conservative that the
rapid and wonderful growth of the city has been in the nature of a surprise to him,
accurate as his knowledge has ever been of the causes which have produced it. In
addition to his regular real estate operations, he has at different times been director
and officer in three building and loan associations, and is now president of the Surety
Savings, Loan and Investment Society of Chicago.
Mr. Van Allen, whose cash capital when he arrived in Chicago was two cents,
no more, no less, has as truly as any man in the West been the architect of his own
fortune, and surely, as one of Chicago's substantial citizens, he has a right to be proud
of what he has achieved. In everything pertaining to the welfare of the city he has
ever taken a deep and abiding interest of such a thoroughly practical nature as to
mark him a citizen of more than ordinary public spirit. In politics, while having
the municipal, State and national welfare closely at heart, though a Republican who
cast his first presidential vote for Fremont, he is inclined to be patriotic rather than
partisan, and exercises his franchise as an elector in a manner to mark him as a most
independent voter.
In October, 1857, Mr. Van Allen was married to Miss Martha Bowen, of St. Law-
rence County, N. Y. This lady was born in Canada, in 1835, a granddaughter of
James and Jane Wilson. Her grandfather was for twenty-four years a leading mem-
ber of the Provincial Parliament of Canada. Mrs. Van Allen, on her paternal side,
traces her lineage back through the Warwicks to the first Plantagenet, the founder of
the house ,of Plantagenet, and back to the family of William the Conqueror to Drago
De Montecuto, the Conqueror's friend and confidential adviser, and through him to
one of the most ancient of Norse families. To Mr. and Mrs. Van Allen have been
born three children. Miss Jennie Van Allen, born in October, 1858, has been for
eight years actively engaged in newspaper and literary work and is a journalist of
reputation, being society editor of the Sunday Tempest, a reporter for the Chicago
Evening Post, a correspondent for the New York World, the New York Record, Woman-
Kind, the Woman's Tribune, of Washington, D. C., the Elite News, of Chicago, and other
leading journals, and corresponding secretary of the National Press League. Frank
Van Allen, M. D., born in 1860, is a graduate of the Yale Medical School and the
148 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. In 1889 he went to India, where he
is now one of the most celebrated surgeons. In the second year of his practice there
he treated no less than 28,000 cases of all kinds. Miss Martha Louise Van Allen,
born in 1866, is known as an accomplished musician. The family residence of the
Van Aliens is at Ravenswood, long one of Chicago's most charming suburbs and now
a part of the city, which extends six miles farther north. Mr. Van Allen was made
a Mason in 1867, and is a member of that order, having taken nine degrees.
H. G. Young & Co. Henry G. Young, of this firm, was born in the little old vil-
lage of Geneva, N. Y., May 16, 1833. He was there educated and there made his
home until he was eighteen years old, when he went to Detroit, Mich. After a year's
residence in that city he returned east as far as Rochester, N. Y., where he obtained
employment in the banking house of Bissell & Amsden, with whom he remained until
1853, when he removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, and for two years he was connected with
the Franklin bank of that city.
In 1855 he took up his residence in Peoria, 111., and, connecting himself with the
Central Bank of that city, remained there until 1858, when he came to Chicago and
opened a real estate office in the old Metropolitan block, thus early identifying him-
self with the real estate interests of this young and growing city, with which he has
since been prominently connected. For nine years he was a member of the firm of
Young & Springer, well remembered as leaders in the real estate business of that time.
He had offices in the Metropolitan block until the building was swept away in the
great fire of 1871. Since May, 1872, during a period of twenty-one years, he has had
offices in the Bryan block, 170 La Salle Street.
No man in Chicago has watched the rise of Chicago's wonderful real estate inter-
est more closely than has Mr. Young, and there are few in the city to-day who are
better posted on its history, its changing values, its visible extension, and its general
development. When in a reminiscent mood he likes to recall incidents of the past,
and to point out the facts in the development of certain streets and certain quarters
of the city. Scarcely thirty years ago he tried to sell property on Washington
Street fifty feet west of Dearborn, fronting north, for $100 per front foot, and could
not find a purchaser. The same, property is at this time worth $ 10,000 per front foot.
As an instance of the enormous increase in rental values, he refers to the fact that
about twenty-eight years ago he rented property at 157 State Street, having an area
of eighty-one by twenty feet, for $25 a month, while he now rents the same property
at $875 per month. This firm are the agents for the Lees building, which is located on
Fifth Avenue between Monroe and Madison. This building, which was completed in
1893, is a modern twelve-story structure, is fireproof, and is devoted to wholesalers,
jobbers, importers, and manufacturers' agents.
Many of the patrons of H. G. Young & Co. have been Mr. Young's patrons since
he first opened his office thirty-five years ago, and Mr. Young, during his long career,
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 149
had as patrons the sons aVid grandsons of his original patrons, and handles for them
the same properties that he took in hand for their predecessors in 1858 and succeed-
ing years, and he counts many such among his regular customers at this time. Dur-
ing his long connection with the real estate business of Chicago it has come to be
generally known that he will not, under any circumstances, conceal or misrepresent
any fact influencing the value of property to a proposed purchaser and will not in
any manner, directly or indirectly, take advantage of a man's inferior knowledge in
this line in which he has, during all his active life, been educating himself. In adver-
tising he will state nothing but the absolute fact. He has confined himself strictly to
legitimate operations, and his reputation has been so well established from the first
that such aids to business as have been thought necessary to and employed by many,
would have been superfluous to him.
The present junior member of the firm of H. G. Young & Co. is Mr. George S.
Eddy, who stands as high in the confidence of Chicago real estate owners and invest-
ors as does the honored founder of the house. During the past ten years they have
given attention to investment in, and management of, real estate in the down-town
business district rather than to making subdivisions and dealing in real estate in the
ordinary way. Mr. Eddy is the embodiment of business probity and, like Mr.
Young, conducts every transaction strictly on its merits, without over-representation
or concealment in any essential particular. These gentlemen are popularly regarded
as ideal real estate men, and their long and creditable record affords sufficient basis
for their enviable reputation.
George S. Eddy, junior member of the firm of H. G. Young & Co., was born at
Brighton, Iowa, June 16, 1844. His father, E. C. Eddy, was born in Warwick, Mass.,
November 9, 1810, and died in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1868. He removed from New
England to Iowa in 1838 or 1839, and was the first white man who made a wagon-track
across " Yankee Prairie," which became the site of the town of Brighton, Iowa. His
wife, the mother of George S. Eddy, was born in Shoreham, Vt., March 25, 1823, and
died at Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1886. Mr. Eddy was reared on his father's farm and
given a good English education and a moral training which has influenced his life to
the present time.
August 15, 1862, Mr. Eddy enlisted in Company E, 3Oth Iowa Infantry, and
remained until the close of the war. After his discharge he returned to Brighton,
Iowa, and remained there about a year. In December, 1867, he came to Chicago and
has since resided here except during four years, which he spent at Independence,
Iowa, and it is not necessary to say for the information of the many who know him
that he is in all things a devoted Chicagoan, of whom Chicago is proud for what he
has achieved.
In 1882, as a member of the firm of H. G. Young & Co., Mr. Eddy entered the
real estate business. He has been in charge of what may be termed the outside work
of the firm.
150 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Mr. Eddy was married October 5, 1869, to Miss Hattie L. Rigdon, of Chicago,
and has one son, Henry C. Eddy. In politics he is Republican, but is by far too busy
a man to spend any time in active political work. At the same time he takes an intel-
ligent interest in public affairs, and is especially solicitous for the purification of the
municipal government and the honor and credit of the city. He is a member of the
Grand Army of the Republic and the Englewood Veteran Club, organizations which
keep fresh in his mind the days when he followed the flag on southern battle-fields.
Jerome P. Bowes. In the chapter on real estate, written by Mr. Turner, the
philosophy of Chicago's progress is treated, and the part taken by real estate brokers
in the progress explained. The building of the Central Music Hall in 1878 may be
considered the initiatory move, not only toward the fourth rebuilding of the central
business districts, but also toward covering Cook County with homes, stores and
workshops, and converting the prairie into a city. In 1879 Jerome P. Bowes, then in
his eighteenth year, saw the new light breaking over Chicago and prepared to share
in her advancement. Entering the real estate business with D. W. Storrs that year he
conceived at once that this was the work designed for his hands and mind, and to
master its details he devoted that attention which won for him a place among the
more prominent of the great real estate dealers of this city.
Born at Waukegan, 111., October 8, 1861, he accompanied his parents to Chicago
in 1872. His father, Philip J. Bowes, was born in England in 1806; his mother, Mar-
garet Hall, is a native of Ireland. Both came to the United States in their youth.
Mr. Bowes settled at Erie, N. Y., where he became connected with the construction
of railroads, carrying to completion many large contracts in western New York and
adjoining States. About the year 1852 he came to Illinois, and locating on a farm at
Waukegan became a well-known agriculturalist and stock grower. In 1872 the family
made Chicago their home. He died here in 1890, having lived to see enough of
Chicago's greatness to satisfy him that his old faith in the city was not misplaced.
Jerome P. Bowes received his primary education in the Waukegan schools.
Entering the Englewood High School he completed the course of studies, and in
1879, as hitherto related, assumed the role of real estate broker, a role, by the way,
which he has sustained with ability for fourteen years. In 1880 he established his
own office at 94 Washington Street, and for the three succeeding years was one of the
most active men connected with the extraordinary activity in real estate business
during that period. The office was removed to 182 Dearborn Street in 1884, and
there a phenomenal business in suburban lots and acres and in inside property was
transacted until 1889, when he moved to the Adams Express building, 187-189 Dear-
born Street, where the present extensive office was opened last fall. The organiza-
tion of this office is as perfect as its furnishings and equipment are complete and ele-
gant. The real estate department is attended to by D. W. Tilford, T. B. Peacock, and
W. E. Kilpatrick; the loan department is presided over by John P. Magel; the renting
-'Dru'specd Sras Chuaju
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 153
department by G. A. Ingersoll, and the tax department by Howard Dodds, with F. E.
Young cashier. The business transactions are necessarily numerous and heavy. The
long established name of Mr. Bowes in connection with the real estate world insures
such a result.
Looking over the pages of the Real Estate Review, a notice which portrays the
character of some of these transactions is found and may be quoted in these pages:
"The recent sale by this firm of the Tawanda building at the southeast corner of
Wabash Avenue and Forty-fourth Street for $100,000, is an example of the transac-
tions negotiated by the house. The property in question has a frontage of eighty-five
feet on Wabash Avenue and 161 feet on Forty-fourth Street. The lot is entirely cov-
ered with a three-story flat building, which was erected last spring by Mr. Bowes.
Mr. Bowes has just sold the property to Frank A. Hecht for $100,000. The building
is first-class in every particular and is valued in this sale at about $70,000. It con-
tains twenty-seven apartments, supplied with steam heat, electric lights and all the
latest improvements. The rental is about $13,000 a year. The ground valuation in
this sale is about $30,000, which represents about $2.20 a square foot or $353 for the
Wabash Avenue frontage of eighty-five feet. This can not be considered as estab-
lishing a ground valuation for other property in this vicinity, as the property in ques-
tion is a corner and has unusual depth. The Windsor Beach Hotel is another enter-
prise by the firm of J. P. Bowes & Co. which bids fair to be a decided success.
The Windsor Beach Hotel Company has leased lOOxuo feet on the corner of
Coles Avenue and Seventy-fifth Street for twenty-four months at a rental of $1,000 per
year, with the privilege of eight more years at an annual rental of $800. On this
ground they will erect a three-story frame building to contain 150 rooms. The hotel
will be built in the most substantial manner, so that it maybe used for fifty years after
the Fair. It will cover the entire ground space of lOOxuo feet, and will be built in a
hollow square, with broad porches extending the entire length of both street front-
ages. The hotel is designed, as its name indicates, for a beach hotel. It is only a
block from one of the finest beaches on Lake Michigan, where boats and bathing-suits
are obtainable at any time. Windsor Park is only about a block from Jackson Park.
Transportation to and from the grounds can be had by electric cars, which pass the
hotel on Coles Avenue every two minutes, and also by the Illinois Central trains,
stopping at Windsor Park station every fifteen minutes. These trains run to the
center of the city in thirty minutes. The location is the center of the hotel district.
The Windsor Beach is a first-class European hotel, with meals and service at moderate
rates. The management do all in their power to deal only with the best people, in
order that the hotel may always sustain an established reputation. Prices of rooms
are $i, $1.50 and $2 per day. The hotel company is independent of the manage-
ment. The firm of Jerome P. Bowes & Co. are also the owners of the Grand Boulevard
Livery building on Forty-third Street near Grand Boulevard. This is probably one of
154 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
the finest livery buildings ever constructed in point of completeness and conveniences
for practical stable work. It was built in 1892 and covers an entire lot area of 50x140
feet; is a three-story and basement stone front structure, having a capacity of 150 head
of horses, with ample storage for carriages, etc., in the upper stories. The building
contains every modern appliance, such as elevators, etc., plate-glass front, and is a
commodious and imposing structure.
A sketch of this concern would not be complete without an allusion to the high
quality of the apartment buildings which are being constructed under the supervis-
ion of this firm. One of these buildings is located on Prairie Avenue, 100 feet
north of Foity-sixth Street, and covers a ground area of '50x65 feet. It is a three-
story stone front structure, containing six flats, forty-two rooms, all modern, with
steam, electric lights, etc., complete. Cost, $18,000. Another building is located on
the northeast corner of Garfield Boulevard and Prairie Avenue; is 50x72 feet, four
stories, with stone and marble front, elevator, etc. Cost, $26,000. This is an elegant
structure.
The large livery building on State Street, 50x161 feet, erected in 1889, is also the
property of Mr. Bowes, who receives a rental from it of $150 per month. Many
other buildings, resulting from his enterprise, might be referred to here, but the work
of fourteen years in active real estate life cannot be given in detail. Enough to say
that, from Madison Street south to Seventy-ninth Street, his name has been particu-
larly identified with the development of the South Town and the southern suburbs in
every section. Experienced in each branch of his business, such as the purchase and
sale of real estate, real estate and building loans, renting and even in building, nego-
tiations are made by his firm promptly. His personal knowledge of the territory
now included in Chicago is so close and practical that he is credited with knowing
the history of each subdivision, the value of the lots therein and the improvements.
Coming here when a boy of eleven years, he witnessed the rebuilding of the city in
all its extensions; he is proud of his own part in this work since 1879, of his con-
temporaries in the real estate circle and of the extraordinary city, which offered and
will continue to offer a wide field to men of ability for the exercise of the talents
on this particular work, which Mr. Bowes possesses. Mr. Bowes is also the owner
of realty within the city.
Harry W. Christian. Much of Chicago's phenomenal prosperity is due to her
younger class of business men, who have gained their right to prominence and dis-
tinction wholly through their own efforts, and such a man is Harry W. Christian, the
junior member of the well-known real estate firm of Bogue & Co.
He is a native of Mt. Carroll, Carroll County, 111., where he was born May
15, 1863. His father, Andrew J. Christian, a native of Norway, was born in the city of
Bergen in 1839, and is nowa resident of Chicago. By occupation he has been a brick
manufacturer. The mother of Mr. Christian is Mary J. Christian, whose maiden name
was Adams, and she was born in Indiana, near Elkhart.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 155
In the schools of Carroll and Cook Counties Mr. Christian gained the rudiments
of a common-school education, continuing until sixteen years of age, when he began
life for himself. The years 1879 and 1880 he was a clerk in the employ of Marshall
Field & Co. The year 1881 he was in the employ of George M. Pullman, at the then
new town of Pullman. Later, and for five years, he was connected with the hardware
firm of Keith, Benham & Dezendorf. In 1886 he became associated with the firm
with which he has since been connected. Until his admission to a membership in the
firm, in 1891, he acted in the capacity of confidential secretary and manager. He is a
member of the Chicago Real Estate Board, and one of the well-informed men on
Chicago realty.
He is a Republican on national questions, but in local affairs is disposed to be
independent. He is a member of the Chicago Athletic Association and the Oakland
and Sheridan Clubs.
His marriage with Miss Elizabeth Wilks was solemnized in 1885, and unto this
union are these children, viz.: Almira and Marietta.
Edward W. Zander. One of the most notable features of the industrial growth of
Chicago is the readiness and sagacity with which young men grasp the business situ-
ation and become prominent, while yet little beyond the age of boyhood, in the com-
mercial circles of this great metropolis. It proves better than anything else can the
industrial character of our civilization. Boys enter the factories or offices of their
fathers or some friend and become familiar with the arts of business enterprises and
adepts in the science of commercial transactions before they reach their majority; in
fact, it is a matter of local history and public pride that some of the greatest trade
establishments and some of the most popular civic movements of this city were put
in operation by young men. In a city like Chicago, which springs to immense pro-
portions as if by the stroke of an enchanter's wand, which is essentially and funda-
mentally a business center even from the standpoint of pleasure, it will not excite
surprise, although it will kindle admiration, to learn that many young men are man-
aging vast industrial enterprises which apparently should be under the control of
operators of riper years and wider experience. The reason is not hard to find, for
they have been trained to the strictest business rules from boyhood, and are amply
equal, by descent and training, to the task of founding successful ventures and of
managing them profitably afterward. However, it is rare to find in this wonderful
city, where surprises in industrial circles are common, even a young business man
who, only about one decade ago, worked at the real estate business for $3 per week,
and has now in the short space of ten or twelve years amassed a comfortable prop-
erty and acquired a high reputation as a reliable and honest realty dealer; yet such a
young man is Edward W. Zander.
He is of Germanic descent and a native of Germany, where he was born May I,
1859, and is the son of Carl and Maria (Wilkins) Zander, worthy people of humble
166 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
ambition, who crossed the Atlantic to America in 1862, coming directly to Chicago.
After a one year's residence in the city they removed to Lyons Township, Cook
County, where they located on a farm and there passed the industrious and success-
ful lives of farmers for the period of fifteen years. Being well advanced in years and
having acquired a sufficient amount of this world's goods to render themselves com-
fortable in their old age, they then came back to the city, where the father died in
1883, after a useful and honorable life. The mother is yet living with her son, the
subject of this sketch.
Edward W. Zander was educated in the common schools and finished with a
course at Bryant & Stratton's Business College. In 1879, at the. age of twenty years,
he began his real estate career as clerk in the office of George A. Searl, successor to
C. E. Holmes, where he continued for three years, or until 1882, receiving during the
first year only $3 per week for his services, and thus beginning at the lowest round of
the realty ladder. The other two years he did much better; so much so that he was
given an interest in the firm, and so well did he improve his opportunity, and so great
was his energy and excellent his judgment that three years later, or in 1885, he bought
his partner's interest, since which date he has conducted the business on his own
responsibility under the firm name of E. W. Zander & Co. He does a general real
estate and loan business, and has the thorough confidence of investors and the respect
of his associates in realty transactions. He has taken great interest and spent much
time and money in building up the suburban town of Ravenswood. In all of his trans-
actions he has displayed unusual business gifts, a wonderful insight into the laws of
realty fluctuations and a foresight little short of marvelous in anticipating where the
population is certain to collect. These unusual and valuable gifts have been so sharp-
ened and strengthened by hard study and practical experience that now, as an all-round
business man, he has few superiors among either the younger or older active men of
the city. He is full of tact and fertile in resources, keen and comprehensive in obser-
vation, logical in his conclusions of the conditions of the realty market and skillful
and sagacious in carrying his projects into force and effect.
Mr. Zander is a member of the Real Estate Board and is president of the Ravens-
wood Bank, which he founded in January, 1893, and has placed on a satisfactory and
profitable basis. He conducts an extensive renting agency and has many valuable trusts,
one of which is the new Association Building on La Salle Street. He is one of the most
successful real estate dealers ever a resident of this city, and the rapidity of his advance-
ment to wealth and prominence speak in the highest terms of his energy, ability and
honesty.
In 1885 he was united in marriage to Miss Mabel Rose Hart, a native of Wiscon-
sin, who has presented him with two daughters, Ethel and Florence. He and wife
are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Ravenswood, where they have
resided since 1886.
cr
o: >-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 159
Bernard Timmerman. The advancement from a position of $6 a week to the manage-
ment of great corporations, the direction of important affairs and the ownership of exten-
sive real estate interests in a city like Chicago, is a step of which any man might well be
proud. When a man of five-and-thirty can look back over the short pathway to such
advancement, he is still more to be congratulated than if it had led him through the
struggles which end in gray hairs and waning powers. Then again, a man so young
who has made for himself such a conspicuous place in the world of business without
inherited means, without the aid of any fortuitous circumstance and purely by his
own worthy efforts, is surely distinguished even above the majority of his successful
fellow-men. Such an experience has been that of Bernard Timmerman, real estate
operator and man of affairs who, by the erection of the Timmerman Opera Hourre, the
New Julian Hotel, and the introduction of numerous other improvements, as well as
by the exertion of his strong personal influence has done much to develop and advance
the interests of that portion of the city known as Engle\vood,and has at the same time
so closely identified himself with Chicago's growth and prosperity as to be considered
one of its most prominent and useful citizens.
Mr. Timmerman was born at La Porte, Sierra County, Cal., April 7, 1858, a son
of Charles H.and Ida Timmerman. His father was a native of Germany, born in 1818,
who came to the United States about 1829. After a short residence in the State of
New York he removed to Michigan City, Ind., and went thence in 1850 to California,
where he was engaged in mining. In 1867 he returned to New York City, making
the long and tedious trip by water, and in 1868 he came to Chicago. He did not again
engage in active business and died in this city October 10, 1875. Mr. Timmerman's
mother was born in New York State seventy-four years ago and is a member of her
son's household. Bernard was the second of three children born to his parents. His
sister Isabel, older than he, died at the age of five years. His brother, Christian H.
Timmerman, is living in Chicago and is aged about twenty-six years. Mr. Timmerman
was educated in the public schools of Chicago and Englewood, graduating from the
high school in that division of the city in the spring of 1876. He began his business
career as a cash and bill clerk in the wholesale grocery house of Zebulon M. Hall, by
whom he was employed about a year at $6 a week. Meantime, by studying at
night, he learned stenography and had been graduated from the Bryant & Stratton
Commercial College, after taking a thorough business course which included book-
keeping and commercial law. .
In 1877 he became a stenographer for D. M. Osborn & Co. at a salary of
$10 per week, and he was in the employ of that concern in different departments of
its business here and at Minneapolis until January, 1883, when he was made manager
of the Chicago office, which position he held until December, 1891. Meantime in
1877, in association with the treasurer of the company at Albany, N. Y., Mr. Gorton
W. Allen and Messrs. Stork, Stevens & Smith, of Auburn, N. Y., he purchased the
160 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
eighty acres now known as Stork's Subdivision, of Auburn Park. At that time this
property was used for farming purposes. Mr. Timmerman and his associates bought
and laid water and sewer pipes between the rows of cabbages growing on the land, and
within a year they had macadamized all the streets, laid stone curbs and tile sidewalks
and had introduced water and sewer pipes and electric lights as well as sodded park
ways. These improvements were all made before a lot was built upon. In 1888 Mr.
Timmerman erected the large brick block on the northwest corner of Seventy-ninth
and Sherman Streets, the first brick building on Seventy-ninth Street. The syndicate
spent $480,000 in improving this subdivision.
In this subdivision each and every residence lot is sold subject to the following
restrictions and conditions: Residences must be built upon stone foundations. In
their location the legally established building line must be respected. Each house
must cost $2,500 or more. The sale of malt or spirituous liquors is forever pro-
hibited.
In 1889 Mr. Timmerman built the new Julian Hotel and Timmerman Opera House
at the corner of Sixty-third Street and Stewart Avenue. These buildings (for there
are really two, although they have the appearance of a single structure) are of the
Romanesque style of architecture. The first story, Sixty-third Street, is almost entirely
of iron and glass, and presents several attractive and substantial store fronts. The four
stories above and the massive attics are made of pressed bricks, numerous bay win-
dows furnishing light and air for guest's rooms. The Stewart Avenue side on the
ground floor shows the hotel office and entrance to the theater. The hotel is in every
respect modern, and is furnished with hydraulic elevators, gas and incandescent lights
in every room.
The Timmerman Opera House is heated by steam and lighted by electricity and
is unique in having four outside walls, each supplied with numerous exits which render
it possible to empty the house without confusion in a very brief time. Its two galler-
ies are supplied with similar exits connected with the ground by outside iron stair-
ways. The house contains 1,250 chairs and has additional available seating capacity
not ordinarily in use. This opera house, which under a change of name has come to
be popularly known as the Marlow Theater, is located in the center of a population of
more than 50,000 and has grown into a constant and lucrative patronage.
From December, 1890, to December, 1891, Mr. Timmerman was the representa-
tive of the National Cordage Company in the sale of its binder twine. December
31, 1891, he became manager of the Chicago office of A. W. Stevens & Son, of Auburn,
N. Y., manufacturers of threshers, engines and other agricultural machinery. Pre-
viously, however, July 6, 1889, he was elected president of the Inter State Loan and
Investment Association, and has been re-elected to that office at each successive elec-
tion since that time. The general office of the company is at Room 624 Insurance
Exchange building, 218 La Salle Street, and has branch offices in all parts of the
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 161
country. In July, 1890, Mr. Timmerman was elected president of the Belt Line
Transfer and Storage Company, and has since been re-elected and is the pres-
ent incumbent of that office. The business of the company consists in receiving,
storing and reshipping merchandise at Chicago. Merchandise is received from fac-
tories throughout the country in not less than carload lots, and is stored in large
brick warehouses at Seventy-sixth and Sherman Streets, on the Inner Belt Railroad,
and is reshipped as the owner may direct, in carloads or in smaller quantities.
Mr. Timmerman may be regarded as having been one of the pioneers of Engle-
wood. His earliest recollections are of a dozen or more insignificant buildings at the
crossing of the Rock Island and Fort Wayne tracks at what is now Sixty-third Street,
popularly known as the "Junction." Later this locality was known as "Junction
Grove " until it was rechristened Englewood. Mr. Timmerman has built seven resi-
dences in this part of the city, and has all along done his part in the development of
Englewood from a hamlet of shanties to the magnificent section of Chicago that it is
to-day, from a population of 100 to a population of 100,000. He has become identified
as a charter member in every club ever organized in Englewood, and is a Knight
Templar Mason, being a member of Englewood Commandery No. 59.
Arthur C. Gehr. The name of Gehr has long been among the most honorable on
the list of those connected with the real estate interests of the Garden City and upon
the roll of members of the Chicago Real Estate Board. The two men bearing it have,
in the different periods in which they have operated, singly and jointly, and in the
long period they have covered as founders of partners in and successor to a great
business in this line, ranked among the most prominent real estate operators, not only
of Chicago, but of the entire West. The course of the house of Samuel Gehr, Samuel
Gehr & Son, and ArthurC. Gehr & Co., as it has been called successively, has been one
of uprightness combined with enterprise and business judgment of the highest order,
and the success it has won has been the satisfactory success that results only from
earnest endeavor worthily conceived and carried to fruition. The long time since
Samuel Gehr began business in Chicago has well nigh covered the period of the real
estate history of the city, and it may be truly said to have covered that of its most
wonderful and rapid development early and later.
Samuel Gehr was born at Smithsburg, Washington County, Md., in 1829, and
received his early education at the well-known school of George Pearson, and in 1851
was graduated from Marshall College, in Pennsylvania. He early developed a pen-
chant for the law, and for two years after completing his education read in the office
of Judge Weisel, a distinguished lawyer of Hagerstown, Md. In 1853 he came
to Chicago, then, as now, the objective point of many of the most enterprising
young men of the whole country, and here supplemented his forensic training by fur-
ther study, and in due time was admitted to practice in the several courts of Illinois.
He then entered the office of Rees & Kerfoot, a firm composed of those old real estate
8
162 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
men James H. Rees and Samuel H. Kerfoot, when his knowledge of the law was
found of much utility, and he was enabled to obtain a practical insight into the real
estate business as transacted on a large scale for that time. This connection was con-
tinued to the mutual advantage of Messrs. Rees & Kerfoot and Mr. Gehr until 1861,
when the latter established himself in business in conection with Hon. Luther Haven,
under the firm name of Luther Haven & Co., at Lake Street, opposite the Tremont
House. This partnership was terminated by the appointment of Mr. Haven, by Presi-
dent Lincoln, as collector of customs for the port of Chicago. From that time until
1884 Mr. Gehr conducted the business upon his own account and came to be recognized
as one of Chicago's most progressive and prosperous real estate men. In 1884 his
son, Arthur C. Gehr, now one of the leading real estate operators, became his partner,
and under the firm name of Samuel Gehr & Son the business was continued until
July 9, 1886, when, through the death of Samuel Gehr, Chicago lost one of its pioneer
real estate operators and one of its most enlightened, enterprising and honorable
business men. In his time Mr. Gehr was interested in some of the deals which years
ago made Chicago known the country over for its activity as a real estate center. All
through his career he found his knowledge of the law of invaluable service, and his
associates knew him as one of the best informed men in the West upon the law in its
relations to real estate and one of the oldest and most honorable in settling all ques-
tions of title, proprietorship or conveyance.
He became intimately acquainted with local values and conditions, and his good
judgment and integrity made those who came to him as casual patrons his most con-
fiding, steady customers. Until 1863 he conducted a business comprehending only
the purchase and sale of real estate, but in that year he added the making of loans for
eastern capitalists and the care and management of large estates. Mr. Gehr was a
useful citizen, liberal and helpful to all good interests. Long a member of the Real
Estate Board, he exerted upon that body an influence for its benefit and for its upbuild-
ing, the results of which will live through all time and have stamped their impress
upon the growth of the city and the development of all its interests. He was patriot-
ically, but not for personal benefit, interested in politics, and his influence was always
potent toward the choice of good men to places of high trust and responsibility and
the purification of municipal government in all its departments. He was a member
and long a warden, of the Church of Ascension, and in various ways contributed prac-
tically toward the establishment and maintenance of numerous charitable and benev-
olent institutions. One of his most prominent traits of character was steadfastness.
This was manifested not only in his persistent application to business, and in his
friendships, but in the more unimportant affairs of every-day life, as, for instance, in
his banking, solely with the one Merchants' Loan and Trust Company, during the
whole of his career in Chicago and in the occupancy of offices at 1 14-1 16 Dearborn
Street continuously from 1863 to his death, except during the short time when the
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 163
work of rebuilding was going on after the great fire, a trait which seems to have been
inherited by his son, who has since occupied the same offices (in the Boyce building)
until obliged to vacate on account of the work of demolition of the bed and erection
of the new Boyce building, and expects to make his building headquarters in that
structure for years to come. Indeed it may be said of Mr. Arthur C. Gehr that he
has proven in all things a worthy successor to a worthy sire.
Samuel Gehr was married in 1857 to Miss Phebe Bostock, who survives him, aged
about fifty-four. Of their seven children, of whom Arthur C. was the second born
(November 30, 1862), four others are living. Arthur C. was educated in private schools
and at the grammar and high schools of the city. His first business experience began
at the age of seventeen or thereabout, in the great wholesale establishment of Field,
Leiter & Co., where he remained about two and a half years, leaving to go to Salem,
Ore., where for nearly two years he was employed in the Capital Flour Mills. There he
became familiar, not only with the operation of large flour mills and the manufacture
of flour and kindred products in all their marketable grades, but with the mechanical
construction of such manufactories, and the connection and functions of all their
component parts. This information he has since found useful in its application to the
construction of other large buildings of a different character and therefore advanta-
geous to him in the transaction of real estate business in all its details. Returning to
Chicago in the fall of 1884, he became a member of the firm of Samuel Gehr & Son,
succeeding to the business at the death of his father in 1886. In that year he took a
membership in the Real Estate Board, in which body he may be said to have suc-
ceeded his father also, and his efficacy in which was recognized by his choice as its
secretary for the year 1889, and as a member of its call board committee for 1893.
Mr. Gehr has a place among the real estate men of Chicago of which few men of his
age have acquired, and it is something to his credit as the successor of his honored father
that he at this time controls many of the interests which were confided to the latter
thirty and thirty-five years ago, and does business for and with the children and heirs
of his father's old clients. There is probably not in all Chicago another instance of
such long continuity of one business in all its details, after having passed from
sire to son. During recent years Mr. Gehr has been connected with some notable
deals, leading to the erection of monumental structures. In 1891, in conjunction with
Cyrus Bentley, the owner of the twenty feet adjoining the old Boyce building on the
north, he leased the property, in behalf of Miss Sherman, to W. D. Boyce forthe term of
ninety-nine years at an annual rental of $11,500. In February, 1893, Mr. Boyce pur-
chased Mr. Bentley's fee simple for $122,500. Mr. Gehr still represents Miss Sher-
man, the other owner of the fee, and has the building in charge. He has taken especial
pride in his connection with this enterprise in view of the occupancy of offices in
what came to be known as the Boyce building by the Gehrs, father and son, for
nearly a third of a century, which has already been referred to.
164 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Not only does Mr. Gchr stand high commercially as one of those who, by the
management of Chicago's great real estate interests, has done much to give the city its
present eminence and world-wide fame, but he is deservedly popular socially among
his fellow-citizens. He is a member of the Iroquois Club and of other social, secret and
benevolent associations of different kinds, and is one of the most energetic and influ-
ential of the younger Democrats who have come to be known for their strength and
not as office seekers in Chicago within the past few years. In all things he is a liberal-
minded and useful citizen, who bids fair in the many years that are undoubtedly yet
before him to take the highest rank as a capitalist and manager of large interests not
only in Chicago, but in the whole country.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 166
CHAPTER III.
BflNKING IN GHIGfVGO.
BY CLINTON B. EVANS.
FIRST PERIOD.
xT - ',
I HE first period in the history of banking in Chicago properly extends from 1835 to
aj_ the time just antedating the war of the Rebellion. This period embraces the
era of wild-cat currency in the West and the various accompanying and collateral ills,
inconveniences and misfortunes resulting from a confusion of State laws and the
experimental attempts of financiers and legislators to provide a currency to accommo-
date the commercial, industrial and agricultural demands of a new country in the early
stages of extraordinary and exuberant development.
Conditions were chaotic, and the leaders of thought, as well as the masses of the
people, were groping feeling their way across uncertain ground toward a firm foot-
ing. Many false steps were taken in the progress of the country to a stable basis, and
the banking history of the times is a curious blending of honest effort, guided by
patriotic impulse, and of individual scheming, the results being, in the main, highly
unsatisfactory.
Chicago, by reason of her position on the frontier of trade and constructive
activity, reflected vividly many of the kaleidoscopic financial changes of the period,
and afforded a photographic picture of the vicissitudes through which the pioneers
and builders of the city and the great West were obliged to pass. From an end-of-
the-century view their struggles are enveloped in a glamor of heroism.
In the foreground of the first period of the banking chronicles of Chicago the
figure of George Smith stands out in almost isolated prominence. Although not the
first banker in Chicago, he was among the first, and was the leader of his class for
twenty years. The impress he made on those troublous times stamps him a man
of remarkable force, sagacity, and courage. He was a unique and picturesque char-
acter, and although he retired from active participation in business affairs in 1857
thirty-seven years ago the old times are still full of anecdotal reminiscences illus-
trative of his peculiarities of habit, speech, and action. George Smith is still living
at an advanced age, in one of the most quiet and exclusive clubs of London, England,
a bachelor of enormous fortune, without a relative in the world, it is said.
166 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Mr. Smith established himself in this city late in 1836, and engaged at once in
the banking business. He left in 1857, or thereabouts.
His first visit to the new West was in 1834, as a prospector, his purpose being to
invest in land on a large scale. Falling in with Messrs. Strachan and Scott, fellow
Scotchmen, his thoughts were turned into other channels, and on his return two years
later he became associated with Alexander Mitchell and the two other gentlemen
named, in real estate and banking. A year or two later they organized the Wisconsin
Marine and Fire Insurance Company of Milwaukee, Wis., of which Strachan & Scott,
and later George Smith & Co., were the Chicago agents. In reality the business of the
Milwaukee company was directed by George Smith, though Alexander Mitchell, a
man of almost equal force, took the reins upon the retirement of Mr. Smith. Under his
management it became one of the greatest banking institutions in the country, known
and recognized as such all over the world. Strachan & Scott were more or less intimately
associated with Smith and his enterprises until their removal to New York in 1840,
friendly relations not ceasing even then.
Chicago had no bank up to 1835, although previous to that year the merchants
and dealers of this section had availed themselves somewhat of the credit and
standing of Gurdon S. Hubbard, the merchant and fur-trader, in the facilitation of
business with New York. To Mr. Hubbard rightfully belongs the credit of being
Chicago's first banker. The population of the present western metropolis was only
3,265 in 1835, though within the next seven years it was more than doubled.
In the winter of 1835 the Illinois Legislature authorized the creation of a new
State bank with six branches. Enterprising citizens of Chicago at once set about
securing the location of one of the branches in their city. Success crowned their
efforts, and in June of that year "the Chicago Branch of the Illinois State Bank"
was organized, with John H. Kinzie, president; W. H. Brown, cashier, and the fol-
lowing directors: John H. Kinzie, Gurdon S. Hubbard, Peter Pruyne, E. K. Hubbard,
R. J. Hamilton, Walter Kimball, H. B. Clarke, G. W. Dole and E. D. Taylor. The
bank began business in December, 1835, Wl ^ a great flourish of trumpets, in Garrett,
Brown & Co.'s four-story brick block, on the corner of South Water and La Salle
Streets.
The Branch Bank did not long meet the demand that called it into existence
and was wound up in 1843, after an unsatisfactory career of seven years. The author-
ized capitalization of the parent bank was originally $1,500,000, which was subsequently
increased to $3,100,000, the capital of the Shawneetown Bank, another State bank of
earlier origin, being increased at the same time from 300,000 to Si, 700,000. This
enlargement of banking capital under State control was part and parcel of a scheme
of internal improvements, magnificent in conception and disastrous in results, under-
taken by the State in obedience to the demands of land speculators and the clamor
of settlers anxious for better means of inter-communication and the transportation of
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 167
produce. The improvements authorized by the Legislature called for an expenditure
of $9,650,000, which had to be raised by the sale of bonds.
In order to give the people the increased banking facilities they were asking for
and at the same time create a channel through which a portion of the bonds could be
floated in a convenient way, the State subscribed for $2,100,000 of the capital of the
Illinois State Bank, and $1,500,000 of the capital of the Shawneetown Bank. In part
payment for the State's subscription to this banking capital, the Legislature directed
the " Fund Commissioners " to turn over to the Illinois State Bank $1,765,000 improve-
ment bonds at par, and to the Shawneetown Bank $900,000 improvement bonds on the
same terms. These bonds were accepted by the banks as cash. The Shawneetown
Bank sold most of its $900,000 allotment, but it does not appear that the Illinois State
Bank found a satisfactory market for its $1,765,000.
The bonds were used as bank capital, however, and afforded a basis for perilous,
and, as events proved, a fatal expansion of its business. It was the original expecta-
tion that the State bonds would sell at a premium, but this hope was not realized and
they eventually became almost unmarketable at a ruinous discount. Thus the two
banks named, which, by the terms of legislative enactment, were the State's fiscal agents
for the scheme of internal improvement, became hopelessly involved in the fortunes
of the ill-starred enterprise, and were dragged into bankruptcy. The tail went
with the hide, and the Chicago Branch Bank went down with the parent institution.
Its failure was the more complete from the fact that in winding up the affairs of the
two principal banks the State turned back its stock for an equal amount of State
bonds, thereby reducing its indebtedness to just that extent, but leaving the private
stockholders and creditors to stand the losses consequent upon the natural shrinkage
of assets in the process of liquidation.
The foregoing reference to an eventful period in the history of State banking is
necessary in order to explain the reason for the failure of Chicago's first bank. That
institution had not been able to furnish the facilities required by the rapidly growing
community. Its ability to extend banking accommodation was limited. Its notes
were discredited and instead of serving a useful purpose it contributed to driving
silver out of circulation, compelling residents of Chicago and vicinity to resort to
anything and everything that could be utilized as a medium of exchange. During
these trying years the people had to use canal scrip, city scrip, plank road scrip, St.
Louis scrip and the wild-cat notes of Michigan State banks, as well as the tickets of
credit issued for change by local merchants, dealers and business houses in every line
of trade. Everything went at a discount ranging jfrom ten to eighty per cent. There
was no standard by which the value of any sort of paper money could be gauged for
longer than twenty- four hours at a stretch. The stuff burned everybody's hands and
the universal aim seemed to be to get rid of money before it should turn from a
heavy and varying discount into a condition of absolute worthlessness.
168 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
It was at this stage that George Smith, Alexander Mitchell and Strachan & Scott
came upon the scene with a banking scheme that, although in rank evasion of the
spirit and letter of the banking laws, met with popular favor and for a long series of
years grew in public esteem and confidence. In brief they turned the Wisconsin
Marine and Fire Insurance Company into a bank. Although ostensibly an insurance
company, and actually doing an insurance business, it was clear from the first that
insurance was not the chief aim and object of its existence. The Wisconsin Marine
and Fire Insurance Company had a capital of 225,000, half of which was held by
Smith, Mitchell, Strachan and Scott and the remainder in Scotland. From the
company's office in Milwaukee certificates of deposit were issued to customers in
denominations of $i, $2, $5 and $10. They were engraved like bank bills and read as
follows:
WISCONSIN MARINE AND FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY.
No.
This is to certify that E. I. Tinkham has deposited in this institution
dollar , which will be payable on demand to bearer.
MILWAUKEE, Wis., July , 18 .
GEORGE SMITH, President.
ALEXANDER MITCHELL, Secretary.
These certificates of deposit, issued in similitude to bank notes, were made
redeemable in gold at the home office in Milwaukee, at Strachan & Scott's, in
Chicago (for a short time), and afterward at George Smith & Co.'s. At a still later
date redemption agencies were established in Galena, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and
Detroit. During the first year of the bank's existence only $34,028 of the certificates
found their way into circulation. By 1845 the amount had increased to $250,000, and
in 1851 the outstanding circulation, based on the credit of the Wisconsin Marine
& Fire Insurance Company, or " George Smith's Bank," as it came to be known from
the Atlantic Ocean to the western frontier, was $1,470,000. That was the maximum
of its issue. In 1851 the Milwaukee company was given legal authority to do a bank-
ing business. Thereafter the policy of contracting circulation was adopted and rigidly
adhered to.
During the first thirteen years of its existence Smith's bank enjoyed the distinc-
tion of the concentrated opposition of the so-called "legal banks" of this and neigh-
boring cities. Large quantities of his bills would be accumulated and sudden descents
made upon the agencies of redemption with demands for gold in the hope of some time
catching the shrewd banker and his equally sagacious associate, Alexander Mitchell,
unprepared. Every successive failure to "break the bank" established the Scotch
combination a notch higher in public confidence. As Smith made it a practice to keep
on hand an assortment of the bills of other banks, it was an easy matter for him to
gather in the gold in short order that was drawn from his vaults on these raids. All
he had to do was to present their own notes for redemption to an amount sufficient to
THE COMMERCIAL IXTEKESTS. 169
restore the previous status. It is related of Smith that he never lost his temper under
the most trying circumstances, and, that although often urged to reprisal, he never
pressed another bank, however vindictive its attitude toward him may have been.
He would never retaliate, although his partners and friends frequently suggested that
he ought to teach his enemies a lesson by "fighting back." There was hardly a time
in nearly twenty years that he could not have literally broken every bank that had
attacked him. In one case he kept nearly the entire circulation of a rival banker in
his vaults for over a year.
The banker in question was especially vindictive toward the Scotchman and
headed a series of raids on his banks, yet during all that time there was not a day
that the person against whom he was directing his envenomed shafts could not have
reduced him to beggary. It was not until several years afterward that the story of
Smith's forbearance came to the belligerent banker's ears.
Early in the fifties George Smith extended his operations by establishing a chain
of what were called Georgia banks, under the state banking laws authorizing the issue
of notes based on state bonds. The signs of the times were threatening, and one day
he made up his mind that the irrepressible conflict between the North and South
could not be delayed for many years. He was one of the first to appreciate the
tremendous consequence of the impending struggle, and he determined to escape the
ordeal he saw ahead of him by withdrawing from business. It took him four years
to carry out his plans in this respect, but three years before the storm clouds burst
upon the country he had everything arranged to the minutest detail, and was on his
way to England.
Since his departure, in 1858, George Smith, has only visited the United States
twice, and then only briefly, though his American interests are said to be very heavy.
His foresight got him out of a dangerous branch of banking at just the right time,
as it might have cost him his entire fortune to make good his notes, which were
presumably based on the bonds of Southern States, they being the most popular
security for that purpose at the time, security that became worthless with the break-
ing out of the war. Very few people knew the true reason of his retirement from
active business. It was solely on account of his belief that the country was on the
eve of a mighty civil war, a belief that became a conviction nearly ten years before
the firing on Fort Sumter.
Considerable space has been given to George Smith because, in the telling of his
history, the reader may be best able to gain an insight into the spirit of the exciting
times in which he ran his career in Chicago. He was a great banker, the greatest
probably ever identified with the interests of the city. For nearly twenty years he
was the conspicuous figure that towered above all others in his line in the Northwest.
To him, more than any other one man or any dozen men, were the people of that
period indebted for whatever of stability there was to currency and banking. He
170 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
established a standard of 100 cents on the dollar, and in living up to it he compelled
his rivals and competitors to adopt the same standard, which, it may be stated here,
was vastly above the general standard prevailing through the West at that time.
Banks that could not stand the " stern Scotch test " fell by the wayside, as undeserv-
ing of public confidence.
The panic of 1837, precipitated by the withdrawal of Government favor and funds
from the United States Bank by President Jackson, was late affecting Chicago and
Illinois. The people were buoying themselves by self-deception, and trying to
demonstrate that the true way to secure exemption from the hardships visited upon
the rest of the country was to tax themselves for extravagant internal improvements.
The feverish " spree " was over in a year or two; the " headache " lasted three years.
A disastrous drouth was the culminating stroke, causing widespread distress and suf-
fering. The people put themselves on short rations, and there ensued a season of
genuine suffering among all classes. Chicago felt the woes and discomforts of hard
times as severely as her neighbors, but the town kept on growing, and in 1844 boasted
of a population of 8,OOO souls. By 1850 the number had increased to 28,960, and by
1857 to 93,000.
During the years 1836-40 the Chicago Branch of the State Bank, George Smith
& Co., and Strachan & Scott monopolized the banking business of the community.
In 1840 Strachan & Scott sold out to Murray & Brand, and removed to New York.
The same year the " Branch Bank " removed to Lockport, though an agency was kept
open in Chicago. It formally closed its doors two years later. By 1844 several
individuals and firms had established themselves as bankers, the list includ-
ing (in addition to those heretofore mentioned) Newberry & Burch (Walter L.
Newberry and I. H. Burch), Griffith & Vincent, R. K. and Elijah Swift, and H. W.
Wells, agent for an outside bank, the Farmers and Mechanics of Michigan.
During the next five years there were the following additions to the list, as shown
by the directory of 1851: Tucker, Bronson & Co., Jones & Patrick (William Jones
and Milton S. Patrick). The style of Murray & Brand had been changed to Alexan-
der Brand & Co., and I. H. Burch, besides doing a private banking business, owned
the Chicago Bank and the Chicago Savings Bank. No statement is extant showing
the amount of banking capital employed at any of these dates. There was no law
requiring the publication of statements of condition, and it was altogether a matter of
personal and partnership credit. It was an era of private banking, and also an era of
almost total irresponsibility. The country was plastered with wild cat currency of
doubtful value or no value at all, and this condition was not improved to any extent
after the passage of the Illinois State banking law in 1851, under the provisions of
which it was found possible for bankers to issue notes to an amount ridiculously out
of proportion to the actual original investment. The Wisconsin Marine and Fire
Insurance Company gave out statements occasionally when the fire against the con-
cern by other banks got particularly hot, but that was all.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 171
About 1845 the banking center of the city was definitely located at and near the
corner of Lake and Clark Streets, and that remained the fiscal heart of the commu-
nity for many years thereafter. The Hibernian was the last banking institution to
leave that quarter, not taking its departure until the completion of the Ashland block,
in 1891, when it removed one block south of its old home into fine new offices in the
" skyscraper."
The Chicago Marine and Fire Insurance Company was the first to incorporate as
a banking institution under the State law of 1851, under the style of the Chicago
Marine Bank. Its charter dated from January 13, 1852, and J. Young Scammon was its
first president, and E. I. Tinkham its first cashier. Tinkham had previously served as
cashier of George Smith's bank, and had gained national fame by reason of the fact
that his name appeared on over $i, 000,000 worth of Smith's bills as the individual
who had deposited the money with the institution represented by the face of the cer-
tificate. The Chicago Marine and Fire Insurance Company was in existence when
George Smith first came to Chicago. His Wisconsin company was modeled on the
same plan, and the idea of issuing the currency that afterward became famous seems
to have been suggested by the fact that the Chicago company had a few certificates
of deposit outstanding, though no effort was made to give them standing as a circu-
lating medium either then or afterward. The Chicago Marine Bank started in with a
capital of $50,000, which was increased the following spring to $500,000 ($150,000 being
paid) and stocks deposited with the State auditor to secure a circulation of $99,000.
During the year 1852 the following banks were established, several of them, as
will be noticed, being old banking firms reorganized and given new form:
The Southwestern Plankroad Company, which had a moderate outstanding circu-
lation, was reorganized as the Commercial Bank.
Stephen Bronson and Levi D. Boone organized the Merchants' and Mechanics'
Bank, Boone being its president, and Bronson cashier. Capital, $100,000; circulation
(in 1851), $54,700.
The Forest Bros. (Henry L. and Thomas L.) organized the Union Bank, with
Andrew J. Brown president, and the Forests joint cashiers. Capital, $20,000; paid in
$50,000; circulation, $49,995.
I. H. Burch & Co. formed the Chicago Bank, with a capital of $100,000; paid in,
$59,500; circulation $53,997. Thomas Burch, president; I. H. Howe, cashier.
Bradley & Curtis started in under the style of the Chicago City Bank, with a
nominal capital of $200,000, and a circulation of $59,994. .
Chase & Co. organized the Farmers' Bank with a secured circulation of $50,000.
Both the City Bank and the Farmers' Bank were short lived.
The Bank of Commerce, with A. W. Davisson president, and T. McCalla cashier,
began business with $200,000 nominal capital; paid in, $52,000; circulation, $50,000.
George Smith and Elisha W. Willard organized the Bank of America, with a paid-
in capital of $50,000, and a nominal capital of $1,000,000; circulation, $50,000.
172 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
H. A. Tucker & Co. started the Exchange Bank, of which the founder was first
president, and Hamilton B. Dox first cashier. Circulation, $49,995. Mr. Dox is still
actively engaged in the banking business, being cashier of the Hibernian Banking
Association.
Seth Paine & Co. gave being to the Bank of Chicago. Paine was an eccentric
character, with very peculiar ideas about banking, which he tried unsuccessfully to
carry into execution. His experiment only lasted a few months.
Gurley & Farlin organized and owned the Metropolitan Bank, and a bank was
also established on the North Side called the Butchers' and Drovers'.
R. K. Swift, Lyman P. Swift and J. S. Johnson, associated under the style of R.
K. Swift, Brother & Johnson, did not change their firm title, and continued to do a
large private banking business. This concern had extensive connections, and was the
first to do an exchange business with San Francisco, establishing a branch office in
that city during the gold-mining excitement.
There were also in existence in 1852 the Chicago Savings Bank, the Dollar Sav-
ings Bank, the Marine Savings Bank and the Dime Savings Bank. The Illinois Sav-
ings Institution was established in 1856 under the auspices of such men as John H.
Kinzie, Gurdon S. Hubbard, John C. Haines, William B. Ogden, George W. Dole and
Nathan B. Kidder, and for many years held high rank as a bank of exceptional
soundness.
The Merchants' Savings, Loan and Trust Company (still in existence and one of
the stanchest and strongest banks in the city) was organized in 1857, with a capital
of $500,000 (now $2,000,000), and J. W. Dunham for its first president. Walter L.
Newberry was first vice-president, and D. R. Holt its first permanent cashier.
The Western World Insurance and Trust Company, with an authorized capital of
$500,000, of which $250,000 was paid in, came into existence soon after the passage of
the state banking law. George W. Hazleton was first president, and Charles H.
Abbott its first cashier.
In 1852 the Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company was legalized as a bank-
ing institution by the legislature of Wisconsin, but it continued to issue its certificates
of deposits as of yore, thereby putting its competitors at a disadvantage and render-
ing their circulation unprofitable. In self-defence several of the city banks began call-
ing in their legal bills and issuing in lieu thereof an indefinite amount of certificates of
deposit, practically identical in phrase with " George Smith's bills," and engraved in
similitude to their own bills. In order to check what threatened to become a danger-
ous abuse, and likely to result in the issue of an immense volume of paper with noth-
ing back of it, the bank law was amended to prohibit the practice, under severe penal-
ties. In 1858 every Chicago banker against whom evidence of irregularity in this
particular could be found was indicted by the grand jury. Nothing ever came of the
cases in the way of criminal prosecution; but the evident determination of a strong
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 173
local element, headed by J. Young Scammon, president of the Chicago Marine and
Fire Insurance Company, and the Marine Bank, to relentlessly pursue violators of the
banking laws, led to the abandonment of that field of banking enterprise by nearly
everybody as too risky. George Smith stood out to the last, and under cover of sev-
eral outside banks, one located in Washington, D. C., two at interior points in Illinois
and two in Georgia, he managed to keep in circulation an unknown but large quantity
of his own bills, having practically nothing to back them but his own credit. His bills
forced the local bankers to greatly reduce the legal circulation., and ultimately Smith's
Georgia bank notes became almost as well known through the Northwest as the old
certificates of the Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company. What would have
been the end of the fight between Smith and the combined local bankers had the
Scotch financier not determined to retire from business and return to Great Britain, is
a matter over which those who are familiar with the history of ante-bellum banking in
Chicago still delight to speculate. His retirement from the arena at the very climax
of his fame had nothing of defeat in it, though, at the time, his enemies tried to give it
that color. George Smith & Co. went out of business in 1857, and he ceased to be a
troublesome factor about a year before he left Chicago.
The fight against Smith between 1851 and 1856 was rancorous in the extreme. The
legal bankers were led from first to last in their campaigns by J. Young Scammon,
who had been a growing force in local affairs for many years. On the departure
of the object of their hatred Scammon took rank as the leading banker of the city, a
position which he held until the great fire in 1871.
The panic of 1857 reduced the number of Chicago banks, but as a whole they
passed through that trying ordeal with great credit to themselves, and in 1858 the
banking interests of the city were strongly entrenched. There was enough capital
actively engaged in the business to supply pressing requirements and a spirit that
augured well for the future was dominating. The people were beginning to like the
State banking law and students of the situation were confident that under its opera-
tion an elastic and satisfactory circulation would be provided to meet every commer-
cial exigency.
Straggling, rushing, scrambling Chicago had grown into a city of 100,000 inhab-
itants. Wealth was accumulating and the city was feeling confident of its ability to
look after and take care of her own financial necessities. Her banks seemed to be
entering upon an era of great and unbroken prosperity.
Suddenly the war cloud burst. The secession of Southern States destroyed the
value of the security upon which the great mass of the circulation of State banks
rested. The country was once again filled with a mass of irredeemable currency and
the banks were called upon to go through another season of disaster. Very few were
strong enough to live through the experience. Banking, just before and about the
breaking out of the war of the Rebellion was perilous in the extreme. It is remem-
bered as the worst time for banks in the annals of Chicago.
174
INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
SECOND PERIOD.
From 1859 to 1861, inclusive, banking in Chicago was chaotic. The era of wild-
cat banking drew to a close and went out in ruin and disgrace. The great events
which led up to the war were casting their shadows over the country, and in the
mighty convulsions of that time details were not recorded with the fidelity which
is necessary to the correct writing of history. The secession of the Southern States
was foreshadowed in the decline in the market value of their bonds, which formed
the basis of a very large part of the circulation of the banks of Illinois and other
Western States. This decline was attended by increasing confusion in the mercantile
world, and the currency afloat at the time became entirely a matter of speculative
value. The good money of to-day might be utterly worthless to-morrow, and in this
period of uncertainty it was, as may be supposed, a paradise for unprincipled men in
every vocation of life; and a terror for the honest and well-meaning people. The
only thing that offered stable investments was real estate, and those who were fortu-
nate enough to convert their means into that class of property saw their investments
increase marvelously during the next few years. Very few of the banking institutions
of that day in the West passed through the ordeal safely, and at the present writing
there is only one bank in this city doing business under the name used before the
war, and that is the Merchants Loan and Trust Company Bank organized in 1857.
Others are alive to-day, which were founded on the ruins or reorganization of old
banks.
With the withdrawal of the Confederate States all hopes of the payment of the
bonds of the South were abandoned, and repudiation, suspension and liquidation were
the order of the day. In i860 there were no solvent banks doing business in Illinois
under the State laws. They had an aggregate circulation of $12,320,694, based on
securities to the face value of 13,979,973. The securities included bonds of Southern
States in the sums given below:
Missouri $3,026,000
Tennessee 3,321,000
Virginia 1,284,000
Louisiana 507,500
North Carolina 888,000
South Carolina $100,000
Georgia 335,000
Kentucky 66,000
Total $9,527,500
Illinois and Michigan Canal bonds to the amount of $531,619; Illinois internal
improvement stock to the amount of $323,238, Illinois 6's to the amount of $1,418,000,
and the bonds of Ohio, Michigan and other Northern States made up the balance.
Within the next two years eighty-eight out of the no banks were in a state of open
insolvency, and the circulation of the solvent banks had been reduced to $566,163.
The ruirjed banks paid an average of 60 cents on their circulation, but holders of Illi-
nois bank notes lost not less than $3,000,000 net, besides being obliged to suffer the
inconvenience of an insufficiency of money with which to do business. The practical
elimination of $i 1,650,000 in currency was a serious deprivation to the business inter-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 175
ests of the city and State. Commercial affairs were hopelessly out of joint during the
years 1860, 1861 and 1862. The Legislature tried to bolster up the State banking sys-
tem by amending the law so as to compel new banks to have circulation on Illinois
State bonds only. The people voted down a proposition to establish a State bank,
and thereafter until the enactment of a national banking law by Congress Chicago
had to get along as best she could on the small volume of home currency and a mod-
erate supply of the notes of banks of other States. It was a most lame and unsatis-
factory situation, and humiliating to local pride.
The Congress of the United States enacted the National Banking Law in the
spring of 1863 and from that year dates the establishment of a banking system which
at once gave the people the stability and assurance of safety in their financial affairs,
which they had long and vainly struggled for by means of State legislation. The
necessities of the government of the United States forced the prompt establishment
of a system which might not have been otherwise built up in twenty years, and per-
haps longer. The evolution of great reforms unless expedited by terrific political or
martial convulsions are almost invariably painfully slow and accompanied by tortur-
ing experiences. The National Banking Law as it stands to-day is, in its most essen-
tial provisions and principles, the same as that which went into effect during the
Rebellion, with the addition only of such minor requirements as were found necessary
to facilitate business, and to insure the safe administration of the institutions operat-
ing under it.
From 1863 to 1872 Chicago enjoyed, not its first great boom in population and
financial advancement, but the first that brought it prominently before the world
and gave it international reputation. The population increased during the decade of
1860-70 from 112,172 to 298,977 and its advancement in wealth, commercial and finan-
cial importance more than kept pace with its enlargement as a population center.
From 1863 until the great fire of 1871, which laid waste square miles of buildings and
their contents, estimated to have been worth over 200,000,000, banking in Chicago
was an uneventful calling. National banks and State banks also sprang into exist-
ence on every hand and enjoyed a period of exceptional prosperity. The city was
growing with unparalleled rapidity, its inhabitants were getting rich and strong.
Enterprise in every line prospered in a most extraordinary way, and the conduct of a
bank in those days was attended, seemingly, with very small risks. The great mass
of investments in every line were successful beyond the expectations of the most
sanguine. The banking capital of the city increased in full proportion to the growth
of the place in population and wealth, and the demands of the times led to the start-
ing of several savings banks, which after a while grew into popular favor and became
the depositories of the savings of many thousands of men and women. The savings
banks were under State banking laws and although these laws were framed for the
protection of depositors and creditors, results showed that the safeguards thrown
176 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
about them were inadequate. Several disastrous failures of savings banks occurred
in 1873-1877; those of the last year being especially important, and the events sur-
rounding the collapses being of sensational interest.
THIRD PERIOD.
With the events of 1877 tne second period in the banking history of Chicago
comes to a close. The third and last period fittingly extends from 1877 up to the
present time. From 1877 until the panic of 1893 not a single bank failure of impor-
tance occurred in this city; and that is the period of greatest and most substantial
development of the financial interest of the western metropolis.
The banks most widely known during the tempestuous period from 1857 to 1863
were the Marine Bank, reorganized in 1863 as the Marine Company of Chicago;
Bank of Montreal; Bank of America (founded by George Smith and Elisha Willard);
F. Granger Adams; Illinois Savings Institution; Prairie State Loan and Trust Com-
pany; Merchants Loan and Trust Company; Chicago Savings Institution and Trust
Company; Real Estate, Loan and Trust Company; .Rutter, Endicott & Co.; Union
Insurance and Trust Company, and the Merchants, Farmers and Mechanics' Savings
Bank (better known later as the "Bee Hive").
The first bank to organize under the Federal banking law was the First National.
That was in May, 1863. The Second National, Third National, Fourth National and
Fifth National were organized in the order named. The years 1864 and 1866 wit-
nessed the establishing of the Union National, Northwestern National, Merchants'
National, Commercial National, City National, Mechanics' National and Traders'
National. Following along during the course of years from 1 866 to 1871 these addi-
tional national banks were organized: Union Stock Yards National, Corn Exchange
National, National Bank of Commerce and the German National.
The more important private banks in existence during that period were Rutter,
Endicott & Co.; Producers Bank; Germania Bank; German Savings Bank; Merchants'
Association Savings Bank; Hibernian Banking Association Savings Bank; Chicago
Building and Loan Association; Leopold, Mayer & Co.; Scripps, Preston & Kean.
The total authorized capitalization of the incorporated banking institutions of
Chicago (Federal and State) was 86,820,000 at the end of 1865. There is no record of
the actual amount paid in, but the amount is believed to have approximated $4,000,-
ooo. Private capital to the amount of about $2,000,000 found employment in bank-
ing channels. Four years later, in 1869, the national banks numbered fourteen, with
a paid-up capital of $5,900,000 and a surplus of $2,300,000. Private bank capital was
estimated at $3,000,000. In 1871, six months before the great fire, the record
showed that sixteen national banks were doing business in Chicago, having an aggre-
gate capital of $6,500,000 and surplus and undivided profits footing up $3,041,000.
Private banking capital was estimated the same as in 1869. Deposits in the national
banks were $16,775,000, or about one-thirteenth the aggregate deposits in theChicago
banks at the beginning of 1894.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 177
The great fire of 1871 was of course the event of seeming greatest importance in
the second period of Chicago's banking history, and for a time it looked as though the
city was involved in total ruin. The smoke began to clear from the great conflagra-
tion within a very few days, however, and the world still recalls with amazement the sub-
lime courage with which the people of Chicago set about the task of recreating
upon the hot coals of the greatest fire of modern times the most wonderful city of the
western continent. The apparently well authenticated statement is made that $50,178,-
925 was paid by insurance companies upon fire losses sustained at that time, leav-
ing 135,000,000 unpaid on risks assumed. This $50,000,000 was poured into the city
in a flood, and with it came enormous sums advanced by capitalists from all parts of
the world, with which to aid the dauntless inhabitants of the city in the work of recon-
struction. Relief societies in all parts of the civilized world sent forward other mill-
ions and so it came to pass that the bank vaults during the six months immedi-
ately following the fire were full to overflowing. It was at that time that some of the
men in control of several banking institutions were carried away by the enthusiasm of
the hour and led into unsafe investments of the funds at their disposal. This
was especially true of the savings banks, undue proportions of their cash assets being
loaned on real estate which subsequently depreciated in value to such an extent as to
be practically a total loss, when it came to compulsory liquidation. The national
banks did not entirely escape, and the record of failures includes more than one doing
business under Federal jurisdiction.
In the spring of 1872, the year following the fire, there were twenty-one national
banks, eight State banks and eight savings banks in Chicago; of the latter several
were mere branches or department of banks included in the other enumeration. A
statement made at the close of 1872 gives the banking capital at $14,564,885, and the
deposits at $38,129,124. This was some time after the contraction had begun in Chi-
cago values and after vast amounts of money had been spent in rebuilding. A state-
ment taken in the spring of the same year would have shown much heavier deposits.
In 1880 the deposits aggregated $64,764,000, an increase of nearly $27,000,000 in eight
years, during which time there had occurred two disastrous panics, which had sapped
the financial vitality of the community and taxed its resources to the utmost.
Frequent repetition of the scenes and incidents immediately following the fire of
1871 has made the story familiar to the reading world. Thursday, October 13, four
days after the whirlwind of fire wiped out the city, and while the burned district was
still practically impassable in many parts, the bankers met and advertised that on the
1 5th they would pay fifteen per cent, to depositors. They considered that the extreme
limit to which they could with safety go. Meantime the work of excavating the ruins
of the bank buildings was progressing rapidly, new quarters were being secured and
every preparation made to resume in a moderate way. Almost before they were
ready to open their doors every banker in the city was overwhelmed with deposits.
178 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Money poured in faster than it could be paid out, and on Tuesday, October ij, the
banks resumed unconditionally the payment of all claims and all checks as presented.
That there should have been great confusion after such a terrific upheaval and
wholesale destruction of books, papers and business data was inevitable, but a spirit
of mutual concession and good nature prevailed. It was a period of compromise, and
the determination to make the best of everything and avoid quarreling was universal.
The banks experienced less inconvenience than might have been expected. They
did not lose as much as they feared they would, their vaults for the most part proving
safe receptacles for valuables. Still such a large proportion of the office records was
lost that great reliance had to be placed on the memories of book-keepers, officers of
the banks and customers. It is related of Mr. Charles Henrotin, then cashier of the
Merchants Loan and Trust Bank, that he restored the record of every account in the
bank from memory, so that the bank did not lose a dollar and no customer appealed
to the courts. The adjustment was satisfactory to everybody concerned. " -**
Now comes the most unpleasant passage in the chronicles. It relates to whole-
sale bank failures, general distress, and agonizing and long continued industrial and
mercantile depression. Chicago was breathing hard after the tremendous exertions
of rebuilding the city. The people were just beginning to realize at what expense of
vital energy the marvelous task had been accomplished. They were worn out with
the work and were suffering from the consequences of wild delirium and overexertion.
As evil fortune would have it, the whole country was struggling at the same time with
the reactionary effects of overproduction and extravagance in every possible direc-
tion. The country had been developed too fast and was suffering from headache.
Like a clap of thunder from a clear sky came the failure of Jay Cooke & Co. It pre-
cipitated a financial earthquake that shook the nation from center to circumference.
Bankers, like everybody else, were seized with a panic. Those of Chicago met
and many of them counseled general suspension until the fury of the storm should
blow over. B. P. Hutchinson of the Corn Exchange, Chauncey B. Blair of the Mer-
chants' National, W. F. Coolbaugh of the Union, George Sturges of the North-
western, and Solomon A. Smith of the Merchants' Loan and Trust, held out against
the proposition, and by their courage and example they carried the day. To their
everlasting credit be it said that the Chicago banks with solid front went out to meet
the severest ordeal they had ever confronted. Some of them went down, but they
were weak and could not have stood the test no matter what measures might have
been adopted at the outset.
Among the first to succumb was the Second National, which closed its doors in
September, 1873. The bank's capital was $100,000. Its affairs were wound up by J. A.
Kills, president of the institution. Settlements were made with most of the creditors
by turning collaterals over to them. The city's account of $115,000 was a total loss.
The Manufacturers' National, Ira Holmes, president, with a capital stock of $500,000,
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 179
went next, leaving a bad lot of assets, not a little being second and third mortgages
on real estate, to be divided among creditors representing claims for about $i, 000,000.
The Cook County National failed January 18, 1875, with liabilities aggregating
$1,800,000. B. F. Allen was president, having bought the controlling interest from
D. D. Spencer two years previously, a transaction in which the purchaser was egre-
giously swindled, as it turned out afterward. Among the assets turned over by Spen-
cer was $265,000 in paper, as near worthless as ever passes into the possession of a
bank. It brought less than two cents on the dollar in the final liquidation. A. H.
Burley was appointed receiver, a trust he could not surrender until 1883. The cred-
itors had to be satified with fifteen per cent, on their claims. The comptroller of the
currency officially described the failure as one of the worst that had occurred under
the national banking act.
On selling out the Cook County National, D. D. Spencer bought into the State
Savings Institution, of which he soon obtained absolute control, and then wrecked in
f8.J8j[. During his management of the State Savings Bank, Spencer, the individual,
borrowed enormous sums from Spencer the bank president, a large part of which he
is supposed to have lost in speculation and in injudicious real estate ventures. Sus-
picion was directed against him for two years before the failure, the facts in relation
to his unsavory connection with the management and sale of the Cook County
National having come to light, and the lines closed in upon him long before the
formal collapse, though his audacity carried him along in fine form until the very end.
Among the bank's assets was a twelve-month note signed by Spencer for $479,177.40
for money borrowed. The day of the failure a large crowd gathered about the bank
and as Spencer drew near with a satchel full of securities to turn over to the institu-
tion (so he claimed afterward), some one started the cry, " Hang him," " lynch him."
The mob took it up and so frightened Spencer that he fled from the scene, and making
his way to the depot took the next train for Canada. He took refuge soon afterward
in Belgium, where he was joined by his family and where he remained for many years.
He is said to have returned to the States half a dozen years ago and spent a brief
period on a farm near Mohawk, N. Y. In any event he was never seen publicly after-
ward in Chicago. There were many things about the crash of the State Savings
that stamp it as one of the most sensational in the banking history of the city. Under
the receivership of Lucius B. Otis the creditors were finally paid about 50 cents on
the dollar. That was in 1884.
J. Young Scammon's bank, the Marine Company, successor to the Marine Bank,
established by Scammon in 1852, closed its doors in May, 1875, with $450,000 liabili-
ties. The bank had really been in process of liquidation for two years, and when
George M. Bogue, receiver, took hold he found only 31 cents cash in the vault and a
mass of slow assets in the form of real estate mortgages. Creditors did not realize
much from the wreckage.
180 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
The Fourth National failed September 25, 1875, owing about $600,000. The
bank's capital was $200,000. The institution was in the hands of Receiver J. D.
Harvey eleven years and ultimately paid 51 cents on the dollar.
The Merchants, Farmers and Mechanics' Savings Bank, R. B. Westfall president,
and Sidney Myers cashier, was next to go. This bank was familiarly known as the
" Bee Hive." It toppled over in the fall of 1877 and passed under control of S. D.
Ward, receiver. The " Bee Hive " was a rotten institution, run for the personal
benefit of Westfall and Myers. The vaults were practically bare of cash or assets
when it closed its doors, though after three years' negotiations Myers turned over
enough property to give creditors a dividend of ten per cent. The "Bee Hive" was
organized in 1861, moving from Galesburg to Chicago in 1864.
The Fidelity Savings Bank, owned principally by John C. Haines, who had been
identified with the State Savings prior to its acquisition by Spencer, was closed Sep-
tember 24, 1877. It owed $1,500,000. Dr. V. A. Turpin, the receiver, succeeded in
working seventy per cent, out of the assets, though he was many years doing it. Like
the "Bee Hive," the Fidelity was operated under a Galesburg charter, and was estab-
lished in Chicago in 1872.
While under the influence of needless panic, the directors of the Third National
closed its doors in November, 1877. It was solvent at the time, and, under the masterly
management of receiver Huntington W. Jackson, it paid creditors to the extent of
about $1,700,000 in full, with interest, and left property which fifteen years after the
failure made the $750,000 stock worth $150 a share. The president and largest stock-
holder was J. Irving Pearce.
The Central National, organized in 1872 by William F. Endicott, with a capital of
$200,000, failed in December, 1877. The indebtedness was $300,000. O. R. Glover
was appointed receiver. Depositors got sixty per cent, on their claims.
Late in 1877 the Greenebaum banks went down. They were the German .
National, the German Savings, and Henry Greenebaum & Co. The liabilities of the
German National were only $200,000, which was paid off in full, with the aid of a
twenty-five per cent, assessment on stockholders. The Savings bank owed $450,000,
which after five years was also paid in full. J. M. Flower was receiver for the
National, and O. H. Horton for the Savings Bank. The failure of the German-
American Savings Bank marked the finish of the savings bank panic of 1877 and a
most disastrous and memorable year it was.
Despite the rough road that most of the banks had to travel during the panics of
1873-77, the record shows that several new banks were established in Chicago during
the decade of 1870-1880, several of them being born right in the midst of the storm,
one might almost say. The National Bank of Illinois began business in 1871, the
Dime Savings in 1870, the Home Savings in 1872, the Illinois Trust and Savings in
1873, the International in 18/2, the Union Trust Company in 1870, and the Hide and
Leather in 1880.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS, 181
The situation began to mend in 1878, and by 1880 the country was again in the
enjoyment of general prosperity. There was a reaction in 1883-84 that threatened to
be serious. For a time it looked as though the Grant-Ward failure might be the pre-
cursor of another panic akin to that of 1873-77, but the depression did not drag out
to undue length, fortunately. The effect on business was bad, however, and the dull
times were reflected in the bank clearings, which fell off ten per cent, in 1884 from
the totals of the preceding twelve months. The years 1880-81-82 were very "fat,"
though, and the banks could afford to take a streak of lean. Chicago's banking capi-
tal was increased $3,800,000 in 1881, not taking into account the large accumulations
of undivided earnings in some of the older concerns. The Chicago National was
organized that year, with $300,000 capital, which was increased to $500,000 in 1887, and
the Illinois Trust and Savings added $1,500,000 to its capital. Other banks also
enlarged their capital. In 1882 and 1883 the following new banks were organized:
The Continental National, capital $2,000,000; Drovers' National, capital $250,000;
Home National, capital $250,000; National Bank of America, capital $1,000,000.
Besides these new ventures, the First National went through a form of reorganization,
coming out with a capital of $3,000,000, to which has since been added a surplus of
53,000,000, making it the largest and strongest institution in the West. The Mer-
chants' National was also reorganized in 1883. In 1884 the Metropolitan National was
organized, with $500,000 capital, with E. G. Keith, president. It was during this
period that Chicago was made a central reserve city for the National banks.
There was a steady infusion of new banking capital during the half-dozen years fol-
lowing, and continual additions to the surplus accounts of the established institutions.
The growth of banking capital was healthy, and at no time did it crowd too fast. The
new banks that would " cut in " were not always welcome, as the times were not con-
sidered propitious for voluminous enterprise in that line, but there was room for all.
From 1884 to 1890 the following new banking institutions were established: American
Exchange National, capital, $1,000,000; Atlas National, capital, $700,000; Fort Dear-
born National, capital, $500,000; Lincoln National, capital, $200,000; National Live
Stock, capital, $750,000; Prairie State National, capital, $200,000; American Trust and
Savings, capital $1,000,000; and the Northern Trust Company, Si, 000,000.
An unpleasant incident occurred in 1888, in the failure of the Trader's Bank, a
concern controlled and largely owned by Joseph O. Rutter. The bank's capital was
$200,000. It owed 900 depositors $400,000, and its total indebtedness was $840,000.
The failure was complicated by the death of Mr. Rutter, the second day after the
bank collapsed. Investigation disclosed the fact that the bank had been a shell for
several years, and that the president owed it large sums of money, which had been
withdrawn and put into outside investments. Rutter had been very prominent in
local financial circles for many years, and was highly esteemed. His bank was
founded on a virtual consolidation of the Commercial and Savings and the Fifth
182 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
National, the former having been moved from Freeport in 1872. The Park National,
with a capital of 250,000, and deposits amounting to $500,000, closed its doors in 1890.
Stockholders had to stand an assessment when the bank's affairs were wound up.
The Chemical Trust, a new State bank, with $350,000 commenced business in May,
1890, and the autumn of the same year the Globe National, capital $1,000,000, was
established. The united capital and surplus of the National and State banks were
shown, by official reports that year, to approximate $40,000,000, to which must be
added $4,000,000 to $5,000,000 employed by the Bank of Montreal.
The year 1891 was eventful. The banking capital increased about $12,000,000,
and at the end of the year the grand total of capital and deposits approximated $225,-
000,000, against $189,000,000 at the end of 1890. The Metropolitan National was con-
verted from an institution having $500,000 capital and $580,000 surplus into a bank
with $2,000,000 capital and $ 1 ,000,000 surplus. The Northwestern National increased
its capital from $200,000 to $1,000,000 and its surplus from $50,000 to $500,000. The
Chemical Trust and Savings changed into the Chemical National, with $1,000,000 cap-
ital; and the Columbia, with $1,000,000 capital, sprung from the United States National,
which had $500,000. The Bank of the Republic also made its bow, with $i,OOO,OOO cap-
ital. Five new State banks were also formed, viz. : The Central Trust and Savings Bank,
capital, $500,000; Industrial, capital, $200,000; Milwaukee Avenue State Bank, capital,
$250,000; Garden City, capital, $500,000; Royal Trust Company, capital, $500,000. All
of the foregoing new State banks, but one, represent the conversion of private banks
into corporate form with increased capital and enlarged facilities. During the year the
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank increased its capital from $i, 000,000 to $2,000,000. The
only further additions to the list of banks between the end of 1892 and the middle of
1894 were the Bankers' National, with $1,000,000 capital, and the State Bank of Chi-
cago, capital $500,000.
Again in 1893 the banks of Chicago, in common with the banks of every other
city in the country, were called upon to do battle against adverse tides. Two of the
new national banks and three private banks went -down. They were the Columbia
National, the Chemical Natio'nal, Herman Shaffner & Co., Meadowcroft Bros., and
Lazarus Silverman. In the case of the national banks, the liability of each to depos-
itors approximated $1,500,000. Creditors of the Chemical received seventy per cent,
on their claims up to the 1st of June, 1894, with every prospect of a settlement in
full. With what they have received and what they stand a chance of getting, the
creditors of the Columbia expect 50 cents on the dollar ultimately. The Shaffner
failure was a bad one, with a bare possibility of ten to twelve per cent, for creditors.
Silverman settled at too cents on the dollar and resumed business. Meadowcroft
Bros, made a bad mess of it. Their affairs are in a jumble and hopelessly tied up in
the courts.
The banks made the turn into 1894 with vaults full of money, interest rates so
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS.
183
very low and business so slack that the indications point to a lean year with respect
to profits. They have their resources well in hand, however, and are strong in the
consciousness of their own invincibility and in the respect and confidence of the
world. They passed through the panic of 1893 with flying colors. They were at no
time obliged to resort to clearing house certificates in order to inflate their credit and
circulation, and they came out in far better credit than some of the fiscal centers
boastful of previous standing.
The statement of the condition of the national and State banks of Chicago Feb-
ruary 28, 1894, reveals the fact that there were twenty-four under the first classification
and twenty under the second, and that they represented a banking capital (capital
stock, surplus and undivided profits) amounting to $53,698,641. Of this amount
$34,661,112 was to the credit of the national, and $19,037.529 to the State banks. The
deposits aggregated $204,104,126. Some of the details from the official records on
the date named, together with the totals on previous dates, will prove of general
interest in this connection and at the same time enable the reader to note the effect
of the panic of the previous year on Chicago's fiscal institutions from the very begin-
ning of the period of restriction to the end.
NATIONAL BANKS.
BANKS.
Capital.
Surplus
and profits.
Loans and
discounts.
Total
deposits.
America
$ 1,000,000
$ 258,768
$ 2,447 343
$ 3,032 226
American Exchange
1000000
218 989
3 185 472
3 796 859
Atlas
700,000
196 641
2 270 241
3 128 198
Bankers
1 000000
91000
2 086 362
3 251 931
Chicago
500000
635361
4125246
9216 140
Commercial
1,000,000
1 215 541
6 185 402
8 580 865
Continental
? ooo ooo
517018
5783111
9 747 742
First
3,000000
3 182 168
14 946 935
31 064 887
Fort Dearborn
500,000
106 220
1 775 478
2 439 188
Globe . . ...
1000000
124997
2 786 794
3 193 512
Hide and Leather
300,000
101 607
660 987
1 437 818
Home
250000
291 146
750306
1 ^11 359
Illinois
1 000000
1 220 348
8 092 232
13 468 827
Lincoln
200,000
9 183
462 855
600718
Live Stock . ....
750000
796 521
2 746 557
3 814 683
Merchants
500000
1 891 479
5 398 487
10 440 503
Metropolitan
2,000 ono
1 127438
8 218 896
11 426 118
Northwestern ... . .
1 000000
532 953
2 962 341
5 342 670
Prairie State
200000
17376
31-? 685
874008
Republic
1 000000
72 167
2 231 635
2651 447
Union .
2000000
612 763
4 473 451
4466801
Drovers
250000
108^55
763 551
1 715 111
First (Englewood)
100,000
10137
254923
236,913
Oakland
50000
23024
274 790
278 470
Total February 28, 1894
$ 21 300 000
$ 13361 112
8 83 196 089
$135417005
Total December 19 1893
21 300 000
14 516 745
80876218
122354 131
Total October 3, 1893
Total July 22, 1893
21,300,000
21 300 000
14,019,546
13 886 506
74613,166
83 732 058
112,817,394
105,504,853
Total May 4, 1893
22300000
14 098 260
100114308
128,792,587
Total March 6, 1893
23,300,000
13,929 731
102,067,729
127.905,848
Total December 9, 1892
23300000
13 966 076
99 574 283
130 058,452
Total September 30, 1892
23,300,000
13,498,865
105,606,277
137,207,107
184
INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
STATE BANKS.
NAME.
Capital Stock
paid in.
Surplus and
Undivided
Profits.
Loans and
Discounts.
Total
Deposits.
American Trust & Savings Hank
81,000,000
$ 265,010
$3,048,518
$4,326,257
Hank of Commerce
500,000
25,773
1,226,399
815,692
Central Trust & Savings Hank
200,000
1X.076
289,854
196.488
Commercial Loan & Trust Company
500,000
92,935
1,221,532
1,121,117
Corn Exchange Bank
1,000,000
1,148,523
5,435,651
6,383,312
Dime Savings Hank
100,000
52,445
303,701
332,843
Garden City Banking & Trust Company.
500,000
53,741
707,839
825,776
Globe Savings Bank
200,000
2,373
449,856
421,629
Hibernian Banking Association
222,000
360,338
1,922,952
3,017,190
Home Savings Bank
5,000
35,604
230,912
317,294
I llinois Trust & Savings Bank
2,000,000
1,750,389
14,420,193
20,871,583
International Bank
500,000
186,548
983,096
962,648
Merchants' Loan & Trust Company
2,000,000
1,861,259
8,135,503
14,008,608
Milwaukee Avenue State Bank
250,000
49,577
497,550
374,032
Northern Trust Company .
1,000,000
400,902
3,322,635
7,466,767
Northwestern Bond & Trust Company
100,000
24479
710,371
620,245
Prairie State Savings & Trust Company
Royal Trust Company
200,000
500,000
26,026
83,759
679,570
853,947
1,405,420
719,322
State Hank of Chicago ...
500,000
112,069
1,770,626
1,975,768
Union Trust Company
500,000
710,693
1,676,948
2,525,122
Total February 28, 1894
$11,777,000
$7,260,629
847,886,664
$68 687,121
Total November 8, 1893
12,277,000
7,390,045
41,738,513
67,345,958
Total July 25, 1893.
12,277 000
6 976 713
49176342
57 655 933
Total June 5, 1893
Total April 10, 1893
12,477,000
12,477,000
7,206,476
7 096,166
59,537,979
63,482,783
66,978,573
72,901,449
Total January 2, 1893
12 477 000
6 635 983
62 310,163
71 623,065
It will be observed that the capital of the national banks (stock and surplus and
undivided profits) suffered a shrinkage of $2, 568,619 during the panic year 1893, an ^
the State banks, $645,947, making a total of 3,214,566. Previous to the panic the
capital employed was $56,913,207. After the storm had passed and the wreckage
cleared away the amount was $53,698,641. These statements bring out another thing,
namely, the extent to which interior points use the Chicago banks as a reserve center.
Early in 1893 country banks had on deposit in Chicago $61,500,000. This aggregate
balance was drawn down to $41,186,000 in July of the same year. February 28, 1894,
the country deposits had risen to $69,942,000, an increase of $28,756,000 in seven
months. The deposits increased materially during the following spring and summer,
though city bankers did nothing to encourage the centralization of currency. They
had more money in their vaults than they could find profitable employment for as it
was, and very low interest rates prevailed. Funds were available on sharp call at
two and one-half and three per cent during the period of excessive commercial
depression.
Another feature that is emphasized is the fact that Chicago has never achieved
distinction as a Savings bank city. It was making headway in that direction before
the fire, but the panicky period of 1873-77 caused heavy losses to depositors in this
class of institutions, and the people never again got into the habit of using banks to
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS.
185
hoard up their small savings. They favored the building and loan associations instead,
and a vast sum of money found its way into land through that medium. Before the
1893 panic the strictly savings accumulations in the Chicago banks footed up
$22,120,000. This total ran down to $15,447,000, and did not begin growing again
to any appreciable extent until well along into the next year. The February state-
ment showed only $16,834,000 savings deposits.
From information, official and otherwise, it is safe to state that at the middle of
1894 the deposits in the Chicago banks, together with their capital and surplus,
approximate $275,000,000, including the available capital at command of the Bank of
Montreal and the Bank of Nova Scotia. There is not much probability of new banks
starting for a year or two.
The history of the Chicago Clearing House is a story, in strong colors, of the
development and steady growth of the banks of the city. The Clearing House was
organized in 1865, with nineteen members; W. F. Coolbaugh was first president, and
L. J. Gage manager. The number grew to thirty-one, but was thinned by the panic
of 1873-77, and at tne present writing (1894) its membership numbers twenty. The
aggregate clearings of the Chicago banks in 1866 amounted to $453,798,648; in 1892
the total was $5,135,771,187, an increase of over 1,100 per cent, in twenty-six years.
But for the creation of the Board of Trade Clearing House, several years ago, the
increase would have been much larger. That is a wheel within a wheel, and by its
operations the totals of the Bank Clearing House are cut down several hundred million
dollars a year. In volume of bank clearings Chicago is the second city in the Union.
She passed Philadelphia in 1890 and Boston in 1892. The record of clearings, by years,
from and including 1866 to and including 1893, is as follows:
YEAR.
Dollars.
Per Cent.
Inc. +.
Dec..
YEAR.
Dollars.
Per Cent.
Inc. +.
Dec.-.
1866
453 798 648
1880
1,725,684,894
+37
1867
580,727,331
+28
1881
2,219329,924
+27
1868
723,293,444
+24
1882
2,393,437,874
+ G'A
1869
734 661 950
+ 1/4
1883 . .
2,517,371,581
f 5
1870
810,676,036
+10
1884...
2,259,680,391
10
1871
868,936,754
+ 7
1885
2,318,579,003
+ % l /2
1872 . .
993 060,503
+14
1886
2,604,762,912
+YIY-
1873
1,017,027,828
+ 5K
1887
2,969,216,210
+14
1874
1,101,347,918
+ 5
1888
3,163,774,462
+ 7
1875 ....
1,212,817,207
+10
1889
3,379,925,188
f 7
1876
1,110,093,624
S'/ 2
1890 ...
4,093,145,904
+21
1877..
1,044,678,475
6
1891
4,453,885,230
+ 9
1878
967,184,093
1'A
1892
5,135,771,187
+15
1879
1,257,756,124
+30
1893
4,676,960,968
9
In twenty-seven years there were only three periods in which a decrease in bank
clearings is shown. These were 1876-77-78, 1884, and 1893. Protracted business
depression occasioned the first recession, a spasm of "hard times" the second and a
very acute and violent panic the third.
186
INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
For the information of the curious, the following statement is given showing the
deposits in the national banks of the city of Chicago since 1879:
YEAR.
Individual.
Bonk.
Total.
1879
$34,124,000
1880 ....
44,634,000
1881
53,724,000
1882
$34,7'98,666
$21,203,000
66,001,000
1883
37,803,000
23,212,000
61,015,000
1884..
33,970.000
22,242,000
56,212,000
1886
40,426,000
26,425,000
66,851.000
1886
42,454,000
29,008,000
71,462,100
1887 . .
47,469,000
33,006,000
80.475,000
1888
60,358,000
34,330,000
84,688,000
1889
53,930,000
38,809.000
92.139,000
1890
64,467,800
40,003,000
94,470,800
1891
67,193,000
50.961,700
118,154.700
1892 ... . .
77,216,858
52,841,692
130,058,560
1893 .
70,176,048
52,178,083
122,354,131
Among the notable living bankers of this city maybe enumerated: Lyman J. Gage,
president of the First National; John J. Mitchell, president of the Illinois Trust and
Savings; John R. Walsh, president of the Chicago National; George Schneider, presi-
dent of the Illinois National; Henry F. Eames, president of the Commercial National;
John C. Black, president of the Continental; Orson Smith, vice-president of the Mer-
chants' Loan and Trust; Charles L. Hutchinson, president of the Corn Exchange
Bank; J. J. P. Odell, president of the Union National; Isaac G. Lombard, president
of the National Bank of America; and the Messrs. Blair of the Merchants' National.
The need of a State banking law was keenly felt many years before it was found
possible to secure the enactment of one. Soon after the organization of the Illinois
Trust and Savings Bank, in 1873, the leading stockholders of that institution moved to
have a law passed, on the same general lines as the National Banking law, with the
addition of a trust feature. A bill was introduced in the State Legislature in 1874,
and pushed actively. It met with the vigorous opposition of Haines and others of
the States Savings and the Fidelity Banks, who secured its defeat. Two years later
both of these institutions went to the wall, and then for the first time the real reasons for
the hostility of their owners became apparent. Under the operation of a sound banking
law, requiring official reports and examinations as to condition, etc., the States Savings
and Fidelity could not have kept open a day. Irresponsibility was necessary to their
existence.
In 1877 an enabling act was passed, authorizing the removal of banks doing busi-
ness under special charter from the place of original location. Nothing further was
done to secure desired legislation until 1888-89, when the general banking law, as it
now stands on the statute books, was enacted. Two years later the trust feature
was added, and State banks are now subjected to the same rigid inspection that
National banks are, and depositors are given the security of a knowledge that their
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 187
interests are jealously guarded by sworn officials of the commonwealth. "Wild-cat-
ting" has become an impossibility in banking. Popular sentiment demands that
banks must come either under State or Federal supervision, and strictly private banks,
under individual control, have ceased to be an important factor in local finance. It
is a noteworthy fact that not a single State bank succumbed to the panic of 1893 in
this city, or in the State, so far as can now be recalled.
The historical "runs" on Chicago banks after the "wild-cat" days of 1839-60
occurred in 1873, 1876-77, 1884, and 1893. The most disastrous of these was that of
1876-77, when banks went down like a row of bricks. Within a period of two years nine-
teen banking failures, great and small, took place in Chicago, of which mention has pre-
viously been made. The Grant-Ward failure of 1884, accompanied by the downfall
of the Marine and other New York banks, precipitated a run on Chicago banks,
which, though of promised severity, did not last long. The run on the banks in May,
1893, began and ended with the collapse of two National (Columbia and Chemical)
and three private concerns (Schaffner & Co., Meadowcroft Bros., and Lazarus Silver-
man). The run was directed against three or four other banks, but, being rock-rooted,
they withstood the pressure. One of the ludicrous incidents of this panicky period
(May, 1893,) was the run on the savings department of the Illinois Trust and Savings.
*The management broke the back of that assault by keeping a large force of men at
\>rk all one night paying depositors. The next day witnessed the end of the run.
Stockholders worth over $100,000,000 came forward at that time with volunteer
pledges to the extent of their fortunes.
188 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
CHAPTER IV.
BflNKS ND BfVNKERS.
| HE First National Bank of Chicago was established in 1863. If there is a confirm-
e!| ation of the Banking Law, approved February 25, that year, required, turn to
this institution. It proves the wisdom of the law-makers of that period, for it is, in
itself, an irrefutable argument against the " wild-cat " or irresponsible system of ear-
lier days. Though the eighth bank in order of charter under the National Banking
System, it has always been one of the first in the order of business. It witnessed the
death of State currency; within two years after the date of its organization, beheld the
entire currency of the nation under control of national officers, and the whole coun-
try, under the jgis of peace and good government, marching onward to power and
prosperity.
The capital of the bank at its beginning was $100,000. E. Aiken was then presi-
dent, and E. E. Braisted cashier. Soon after, the capital was increased to Si, 000,000,
and the business of the bank kept pace with that of the rapidly growing city. In 1867,
President Aiken died, Samuel M. Nickerson was elected to that responsible position,
Lyman J. Gage was elected cashier in 1868, and the bank continued to grow in impor-
tance and volume.
The erection of a new building on the southwest corner of State and Washington
Streets was undertaken during the first part of Mr. Nickerson's administration.
Athens marble, as Lemont limestone was then called, was used for facing the ex-
terior, while brick and iron were used in the interior walls. Wood was religiously
excluded, and every effort made to render the new building fire-proof. The archi-
tecture was Florentine, with balustraded portico in cut-off, and a pediment above the
cornice. It was designed to rank with the Tremont, the Palmer, and other great
buildings begun after the war, and the design was carried out at a cost of $220,000.
Then the great fire of October, 1871, came, twisting the iron pillars and girders, burn-
ing the stone and brick, leaving only the inner vault alone untouched. This fort-
ress withstood the avalanche of fire so thoroughly that even its wooden shelves and
the trunks and boxes ranged on them, appeared, when taken out, as if nothing un-
usual had occurred. In fact, all the safes and vaults passed in security through the
flames, so that the losses of the bank were confined to the gaps in the building
and one week's idleness. The work of restoration, begun before the smoke ceased
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 189
to rise above the debris, was completed by January I, 1872, at a cost of $75,000,
and the office was removed from temporary quarters to the restored banking house
on that day.
Referring to the history of that period, the name of Mr. Nickerson appears as
president; of F. D. Gray, as vice-president; of Lyman J. Gage, as cashier; and of
H. R. Symonds as assistant cashier. The capital was still $1,000,000, but the surplus
of $400,000 was also credited, while the deposits ranged from 3,000,000 to $4,000,000
and valuables in the safety deposit vaults aggregated several millions. A living faith
in the true destiny of Chicago marked the First National then as now; capital rushed
thither for investment, and as comparatively few citizens in the burned territory were
in debt for goods or property at the date of the fire, the policy of the bank was to aid,
as far as safety would permit, the men who lost the savings of years in that
catastrophe.
There were nineteen national banks and eight savings banks in operation here
January 10, 1872, in which were deposited $41,742,922, against $26,077,921 recorded on
deposit October 2, 1871, or six days before the fire. The loans by the national banks,
outstanding June 10, 1872, aggregated almost $25,500,000, against $21,423,503 out-
standing October 10, 1871. Of the latter sum all was collected, except a few thousand
dollars, a marvel of the times, for many of the customers of the banks lost everything
in the fire, yet protected their paper and credit. How far the First National was
interested in these immense discounts, and how well its officials aided customers in
holding their credit and reestablishing their business are matters of record, the details
of which would fill a volume of very dry but very useful information.
The action of the bank during the years of depression, 1873-78, won for its
officers a world-wide reputation. No man or enterprise here fell before the wave of
panic, that deserved aid and proved his claims at this bank. The men at the helm
knew the storm would pass over, and, determining to do all in their power to preserve
the prestige of the city, won in 1872, cast their fortunes into the scale, and by this act
kept the wheels of industry turning and gave hope to Chicago's trade and commerce.
Since Carroll of Carrollton signed the Declaration of Independence, there was no
such risk of financial wreck undertaken in the interest of the people, as on that dark
day, in 1873, when the president of the First National Bank declared that every
legitimate business in this city should be aided as long as the panic continued and the
bank endured. This was no idle boast. Ten thousand witnesses can speak to-day
and tell how many a business bark was steered to safety by the trusty pilots of the
old bank at the corner of Washington and State Streets.
The life of the original charter ended in 1882. Never before was a more stainless
charter surrendered. The bank went into liquidation, paying, in addition to the aver-
age annual dividend of ten per centum, the sum of $294 on every $100 share of stock.
More than this was accomplished. It weathered the storms of fire and panic, lived
through Chicago's most trying days, and made for its successors a most enviable name.
190 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
The new charter, No. 2670, was issued in 1882, and the banking company was
reorganized under the old title, with a paid up capital of $3,000,000. Lyman J. Gage
was elected vice-president and H. R. Symonds cashier. Additions were made to the
clerical force, but the system of business remained the same.
It was at this time that the idea of acquiring a larger building in the path of the
city's progress was entertained. The directors purchased the old postoffice, " The Hon-
est Building," which Jack Haverly restored and converted into a theater in 1876. It
was razed in 1882 to make way for progress and the Romanesque six-story and basement
structure, now known as the First National Bank building, was erected there. The
basement and first story of this large house show vermiculated stone in the exterior
and pressed brick in the upper stories. The Roman Doric portico, on Dearborn
Street, is formed by two polished granite columns on each side, corresponding with
pilasters, carrying a heavy entablature and balustrade. The horizontal prevails in the
recessed and the vertical in the corner pavilions. The portico, extending to the second
floor level, and the piers in pavilions present the agreeable feature of carrying a high
basement and first story as one story. Pilasters do the same for the second and third
stories, while the fourth, fifth and sixth stories are formed into one architectural
story the two windows of the sixth story in each corner pavilion and the three in
the central pavilion, showing the round arch, completing the section. The great
hall, devoted to banking, occupies the whole of the first floor. In the center,
on the second floor level, is an elaborate glass roof, and above the sixth story is the
glass roof of the court, which lights up the galleries and stairways. Next to the
Portland, farther north, its great neighbor, the Montauk, and the Calumet, over two
blocks away on LaSalle Street, this building must be considered the pioneer of mod-
ern commercial architecture in Chicago.
In 1883 the office was transferred to this new building. Once there, all former
progress seemed incomparably small. The force was increased, new departments
created and improvements in the system of work introduced. Though some of the
easy style of business of earlier years remained, the new office was, in itself, a notice
that time was valuable and must not be trifled with. There are 217 clerks employed
in this office, being thirty-eight more than any other bank in the United States
employs, and this large force has still to be increased. The dining hall of the bank
is especially reserved for the employes, who are the guests of the company at the
daily dinner, the president being generally present. This plan, borrowed from Europe,
goes far to render the discipline of the large force of clerks perfect. The daily trans-
actions range in value from $14,000,000 to $20,000,000; the daily mail averages 4,000
letters; twelve other national banks and several foreign banking houses deposit with
the First National. The statement of resources and liabilities, presented January I,
1892, tells, as only figures tell, of the place which this great financial institution holds:
Resources, $32,521,178.87; paid-up capital, $3,000,000; surplus fund, $2,000,000; undi-
vided profits, $1,023,059.31; unpaid dividends, $90,000, and deposits, $26,408,119.56.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 191
The statement made May 4, 1894, is more interesting, because it comes nearer
the present, and the figures certainly speak of progress. Here it is.
RESOURCES.
Loans and discounts $ 16,344,569.45
Over drafts 3,586.97
United States bonds, secure circulation 50,000.00
Premiums paid on bonds 8,100.21
United States bonds on hand 105,750.00
Other stocks, bonds and mortgages 1,753,342.90
Bank building and other real estate 675,000.00
Due from other national banks 3,260,027.2 1
Due from State banks and bankers '.39 1 . 359-47
Checks and other cash items 12,781.01
Exchange for clearing house 1,185,390.26
Bills of other banks 245,000.00
Fractional paper currency, nickels and pennies 12,907.26
Specie 7,191,000.00
Legal tender notes 4,160,000.00
United States certificates of deposit for legal tenders 1,360,000.00
Redemption fund with United States treasury , 5 per cent, circulation . . 2,250.00
Due from United States treasury other than 5 per cent, redemp. fund. . 31,000.00
Total $ 37,792,064.74
LIABILITIES.
Capital stock paid in $ 3,000,000.00
Surplus fund 3,000,000.00
Undivided profits 181,510.37
Individual deposits subject to check $ 12,785,023.24
Demand certificates of deposit 1,321,564.23
Certified checks 326,246.86
Cashier's check outstanding 338,959.20
Due to other national banks 1 1 ,050, 192.78
Due State banks and bankers 5,788,568.06
-$ 31,610,554.37
Total $ 37,792,064.74
The statement made July I, 1894, shows the deposits to be $30,806,854.65.
The statistics given deal only with one of the twenty-four national banks of Chi-
cago. They are not comparative until other statistics are brought forward. The latest
report of the banks of Chicago is dated May 4, 1894. It shows the resources and lia-
bilities of the twenty-four national banks, then in business here, to be $178,208,538.20.
This proves that the First National transacts over 21 per cent., or almost a fourth
part of the total business of the banks of this city, and carries with it, by impli-
cation, the fact that there are more transactions done over its counters than over
those of any bank in the United States.
192 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Lyman J. Gage, who was elected cashier in 1868, was chosen vice-president when
the banking company reorganized in 1882, and succeeded Mr. Nickerson as president
July 9, 1891, his election taking place June 30 of that year. On the same date Richard
J. Street was elected cashier and succeeded H. R. Symonds July 9, 1892. James B.
Forgan is vice-president; Holmes Hoge, assistant cashier, and Frank E. Brown, sec-
ond assistant cashier. The directors are the president, vice-president, Samuel M.
Nickerson, S. W. Allerton, Nelson Morris, Eugene Pike, E. F. Lawrence, F. D. Gray,
Norman B. Ream, R. C. Nickerson and A. A. Carpenter. The majority of the direct-
ory and officers are old citizens, who did more for Chicago than Chicago did for
them. Were it proper to speak here of Chicago's best citizen, the name of the presi-
dent of Chicago's greatest banking company could only be written. The institution
itself is the concrete and iron foundation of much of Chicago's greatness.
Fort Dearborn National Bank. A half-dozen years ago the commerce of Chicago
began to show evidence of that phenomenal growth and life which was destined to
make the decade of the eighties a conspicuous object of observation and thought on
both continents, and was certain to lead to the concentration here of larger moneyed
interests than had been dreamed of yet by the wisest local prophets of trade. With
sufficient foresight to anticipate the necessity here of greater banking strength, the
founders of Fort Dearborn National Bank on the 1st of May, 1887, opened the doors
of that institution to the public with a capital stock of 8500,000 and with the follow-
ing first officers: H. N. Hibbard, president; E. E. Crepin, vice-president; Seymour
Walton, cashier; and the following directors: W. L. Barnum, E. E. Crepin, H. N.
Hibbard, Thomas Kane, Van H. Higgins, George Keller, John McLaren, E. Mandel,
A. Plamondon, C. L. Willoughby and S. Parmelee.
But, although the founders were substantial men of business, it was soon discov-
ered that something more was wanted than a good reputation and previous exemplary
habits. The stockholders and directors, generally, were men of conservative business
habits; but they had not experienced yet in their industrial careers the vicissitudes to
be encountered in the life of a banker. Still, they entered upon their duties with a
determination to conduct a safe and legitimate banking business on well-known and
reputable lines; but severe reverses overtook them, and they were confronted with
the probability of heavy losses unless some effective and radical change could be
made in the management, whereby the value of the stock could be maintained at or
above par and the credit generally of the bank could be held fast.
On April 22, 1889, important changes were made in the official list. H. N. Hib-
bard, president, and E. E. Crepin, cashier, resigned, and John A. King was elected
president. No vice-president was chosen until January, 1890. Mr. King at once
assumed the presidential reins, and so well has he performed his duties that he has
occupied the important position of head of the concern by reelection ever since. He
had no sooner assumed the management than confidence was restored, injudicious
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 193
ventures were checked and a healthier tone was given to every transaction of the bank.
Not only were the mistakes of the former poor management corrected, but new and
profitable fields were entered with a skill and success that surprised the directory and
were a source of great pleasure to the stockholders. From the commencement, Mr.
King went to the bottom of the slip-shod affairs of the bank, removed all obstructions
to profit and success, and outlined a system of procedure so original, attractive and wise
*
that his plans were carried into effect, with the result that the bank took on a new
lease of life, and has become one of the safest moneyed concerns in the city.
On January I, 1890, W. L. Barnum was elected vice-president and Peter Dudley
cashier. The latter resigned August I, 1892, and was succeeded by L. A. Goddard,
who had previously been president of the First National Bank of Mt. Carmel, 111.
On January i, 1892, the officers chosen were as follows; John A. King, president;
W. L. Barnum, vice-president; Peter Dudley, cashier; Charles McGrath, assistant
cashier; and the directors: W. L. Barnum, manager of the Millers' National Insur-
ance Company; J. W. Plummer, president of the Morrison-Plummer Wholesale Drug
Company; A. Plamondon, president of the Plamondon Manufacturing Company;
John J. McGrath, capitalist; J. H. Witbeck, of the Witbeck Lumber Company;
D. K. Hill, of Willoughby, Hill & Co.; E. Mandel, of Mandel Bros.; Thomas Kane,
president of Thomas Kane & Co.; George Keller, of the George Keller Manufactur-
ing Company; John A. King, late wholesale druggist. The following official statement
was issued by the bank July 12, 1892:
RESOURCES.
Loans and discounts $1,775,862.98
Overdrafts 950.91
United States bonds to secure circulation 50,000.00
Other stocks, bonds and mortgages 160,331.25
Due from other national banks $i 15,783.99
Due from State banks and bankers 47,558.18
163,342.17
Real estate, furniture and fixtures 14,371.61
Checks, other cash items $ 760.96
Exchange for clearing house 132,174.47
Bills of other banks 4,960.00
Fractional paper currency, nickels and pennies S7 1 - 01
Specie 359.203.75
Legal tender notes 94,302.00
Redemption fund with United States treasurer, 5 per cent.
of circulation 2,250.00
594,222.19
Total 52,759,081.11
LIABILITIES.
Capital stock paid in 8500,000.00
Surplus fund 50,000.00
10
194 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Undivided profits $ 21,016.92
National bank notes outstanding 38,200.00
Individual deposits subject to check $1,172,291.01
Demand certificates of deposit 450,619.25
Certified checks 35,61 1 .52
Cashier's checks outstanding 5- 2 5
Due to other national banks 264,793.34
Due to State banks and bankers 226,543.82
- 2,149,864.16
Total $2,759,081.11
The success of the bank is due to the management of John A. King. He has
shown special fitness for the able, prudent and profitable guidance of the affairs of
this great institution, and is recognized as one of the wisest financiers of the city.
But much of his life has been spent in other pursuits than banking. He has passed
through a variety of experiences, which has sharpened his business instincts and
firmly grounded his high reputation. He was born at Dewitt, Onondaga County,
N. Y., June 2, 1834, and at the age of nine years was employed by Anson Murray, of
Syracuse, N. Y., to drive teams and attend fires kindled to char logs. Succeeding this,
he was hired to strip tobacco for Greene, Van Nette & Hiar, but one year later began
driving teams on the Erie Canal in summers, and attending the district schools in the
winters, and so continued until 1849. I n 1850 he accepted a position with the mer-
cantile firm of D. B. Bickford & Son, of Syracuse, with whom he remained for two
years, and was then offered a position in the Mechanics' Bank of Syracuse, where, for
a period of five years, he filled every position from messenger boy to cashier. Here
it was that he gained his first knowledge of the banking business, and showed by his
rapid promotion, his exceptional skill as a prudent and able financier.
, At the end of his five years' service with the bank he resigned his position of
cashier, and took a very important step in his career by coming to Chicago. Upon
his arrival here he first secured employment with Samuel M. Nickerson & Co., dis-
tillers, who were also connected with the North Branch Distilling Company, of which
last named concern Mr. King was elected treasurer, and continued to serve thus for
five years. He then engaged in the wholesale drug trade on South Water Street,
which he made a profitable business and conducted for twenty-one years, the firm
being known the latter part of the time as J. A. King & Co. During this period he
amassed a comfortable fortune and became one of the solid and most prominent busi-
ness men of the city, thoroughly alive to all public enterprises and improvements
and an active participant in all measures to advance the general welfare. At the
end of twenty-one years he retired from active business for one year, but in 1889 was
elected president of Fort Dearborn National Bank, and has thus officiated since, to the
satisfaction of the stockholders, the prosperity of the bank, and the credit of himself.
William M. King, the father of John A. King, was a native of Brattleboro, Vt, and
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 195
moved to Onondaga County, N. Y., when a young man, where he followed the occu-
pations of farming, milling, contracting, and practicing law, and became an influential
and respected citizen. He was twice married, having by the first wife two children,
and by the second wife four, his second wife having been formerly Miss Hannah Had-
ley, of Truxton, N. Y. His eldest son, William, lives in Michigan, his son Daniel at
Eldora, Iowa, and his three daughters, Mrs. Mary Harrower, Mrs. Rosella Reilay and
Mrs. Louisa Johnson, at Syracuse, N. Y. The father passed away in 1840, and the
mother in 1859.
In the month of August, 1857, John A. King was united in marriage with Miss
Julia L. Stevens, daughter of O. F. Stevens, a prosperous carriage manufacturer of
Syracuse, and by her he has had three children: Florence, born in 1858, died at the
age of five years; Nellie, born December 31, 1861, is now the wife of Frank H. Hayes,
and Agnes, born in 1877, died in 1891.
Globe Savings Baflk. The incorporation of this savings bank, December 24, 1890,
with a paid-up capital stock of $200,000, was one of the pleasing incidents of that busy
year in Chicago. The corporators were: C. VV. Spalding, Edward Hayes, John Hayes,
George F. Andrews, Jas. A. Weston, John P. Altgeld, now Governor of Illinois, and
John VV. Lanehart; of whom C. W. Spalding was elected president, and Edward Hayes
vice-president, the cashier being H. S. Derby. The office was first established at No.
225 Dearborn Street, but was moved, in 1892, to the modern Monadnock building.
To-day the depositors' guarantee is 400,000. The officers and directors include C.
W. Spalding, president; H. G. Cilley, vice-president; C. M. Jackson, cashier, with G.
F. Andrews, A. W. Harlan, John Hayes and Edward Hayes. Among the members of
former boards of directors were Governor Altgeld, John W. Lanehart, W. S. Loomis
and James A. Weston, the last named being an ex-governor of New Hampshire. Mr.
Camp filled the office of cashier, and Mr. Loomis that of assistant cashier for a short
period, a position now held by C. M. Jackson, who was appointed May ro, 1894. The
savings department receives deposits of $i and upward, and pays interest thereon at
the rate of four per cent, per annum, quarterly; while the banking department receives
deposits of Sioo and upward, and pays interest on average balances of 8500; issues
time, demand and special certificates of deposit, bearing interest at from two to four
per cent, per annum, according to terms. In the bond department a large line of
conservative investment securities, bearing interest at from five to six per cent., will
be kept constantly on hand, for sale in amounts to suit; and in the collection depart-
ment the bank acts as agent for the collection of notes, bonds, drafts, coupons or
other evidences of indebtedness; while residents or non-residents, who may desire an
agent to act for them, may leave the entire management of their estates, both real
and personal, in its hands, with the assurance that all matters will receive the most
careful attention. Rents and incomes are also collected and taxes paid, the charges
in every case being most reasonable.
196 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
The Globe Safety Deposit Vaults. This modern addition to banking facilities
may be said to be conducted by the Globe Savings Bank, the stockholders being
identical. John W. Lanehart succeeded Mr. Spalding as president, while W. M.
Ervin has been manager since March i, 1894. This vault has a capacity of 5,000
small, steel safes of assorted sizes, which are locked by combination, or double key
lock, at the option of the renter. The whole was built by the Herring-Hall-Marvin
Company, with all the latest improvements and appliances that mechanical skill can
devise to resist the assaults of burglars or mobs, and are believed to be absolutely
impregnable to the attacks of either. While the material used in their construction
is of such strength and solidity as to require no other safeguards, yet to make assur-
ance doubly sure, the vaults are further protected by an automatic electric protective
system in connection with the Central Police Station, causing instant alarm to be
given and police summoned in case of the slightest irregularity. The rates vary
from $3 per year, for small safes, to $25 per annum, for safes of over 2,000 cubical
inches' capacity.
Charles W. Spalding. The term "Old Settlers," is a comparative one in Chicago.
The Old Settlers' Association may only receive citizens who came to this city, or
were born in this city before the close of 1849; while men and women who located
prior to November g, 1872, and witnessed the rebuilding of the city after the great
fire, look upon themselves as old residents, and are considered as such. Of these who
settled here since the beginning of the revival in 1880, little is said; though to one
conversant with Chicago, they appear a most important class. Tens of thousands
have been, and are to-day, leaders in every department of our trade and industries,
and in our professions. All these modern men are not ordinary traders, like the great
majority of their seniors in residence. Many of them were educated in the best
colleges of the land and brought their education to aid in the modernization of Chi-
cago. Charles W. Spalding, president of the Globe Savings Bank, established him-
self here in 1882. Born at Nashua, N. H., June 1 1, 1843, he received a practical educa-
tion in the schools of that old town, and in 1860, entered Dartmouth College, graduat-
ing in the Scientific Department of that institution of learning in the class of 1863.
Without loss of time, he established himself as a civil engineer, and soon after was
appointed to the position of assistant engineer on the surveys of the Boston, Hart-
ford & Erie Railroad, over its Western Connecticut Division. In 1865 that work was
completed, and he sought a wider field in the Western States, where railroad building
was then carried on extensively and thousands of miles of new road projected. He
did not halt at Chicago, but hastened westward, and found employment readily in the
land department of the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad, afterward a part of the
Chicago, Burlington & Cjuincy Railroad system. For eleven years he remained in the
service of that road as land examiner and civil engineer, land sales agent, tax agent,
and lastly as secretary of its land department. For an active, trained mind such as
^- st i^r~c^y srsr~r~ts^*~ t/^t 6
I
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 199
his, these positions, while appreciated, were really courses in that great college known
as "Experience," from which he may be said to have graduated in 1876. That year
he purchased an interest in a coal concern at Burlington, Iowa, with a view to making
the business a wholesale one. He worked indefatigably, and succeeded in making the
trade so large that it outgrew the railroad facilities at that point. In consequence of
this, he removed the head office to Chicago in 1882, where the firm is now considered
to be among the largest shippers of anthracite coal in the Northwest. He organized
the Red Oak Investment Company, while in Iowa, in 1876, the business consisting of
loaning money on farm mortgages in Iowa. His successful management is signalized
by the fact that the corporation never missed a dividend since chartered in the Cen-
tennial Year. In the history of the Globe Savings Bank, given in this volume, his
connection with the organization of that strong financial house in 1890 is shown in his
repeated elections as president therein recorded.
Mr. Spaldingwas elected to the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College in 1891,
by the vote of the alumni, being the first and only resident of the western country to
receive that honor. He aided in securing the new athletic field for his alma mater,
and exerted his influence in the matter of the liberal bequests made thereto in 1893.
In June, 1893, he was elected treasurer of the University of Illinois, and since 1867 he
has been a member of the Masonic order, now in the thirty-second degree of that
work.
As he was a successful engineer, so is he a more successful business man. Under
all circumstances, he is a good representative of Dartmouth.
Horatio Gates Cilley. Not many years have gone by since the efforts of Chicago-
ans were directed toward inducing men of brain or muscle to locate among them and
aid in raising the young city to that place which they felt she would occupy. That time
is now gone forever, and Chicago has become metropolitan by her own prowess in trade,
manufactures, arts and sciences. She is the Mecca of the business man as well as of
the artist and journalist, always holding in reserve a place for the strong in mind and
body, who enter her extraordinary life with the determination to succeed. Every day,
the writer of her history sees new names and new institutions added, and looks for-
ward a century to behold the same conditions on a larger scale. Every day, men of
wealth and refinement, coupled with energy, come to cast their fortunes in this magic
place, to share in its labors and its profits, and to become more Chicagoan than the
Chicagoans themselves. The story of the life of Horatio Gates Cilley, vice-president of
the Globe Savings Bank, may be taken as an example of the absorbing power of Chi-
cago. Coming here in 1894, with well-matured plans, he entered an important banking
house, and at once took his place among its active officials. Born at Deerfield, N. H.,
November i, 1841, he received a practical education in the public school, then studied
in the high school of Lewiston, Me., and ultimately entered Dartmouth College.
The Cilley family of New Hampshire dates its American beginnings far back of Rev-
200 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
olutionary times. His father, Horatio G. Cilley, and mother, Deborah (Jenness) Cil-
ley, could each boast of an ancestry contemporary with the settlement of New Hamp-
shire. When the colonists found it necessary to cast off the chains with which the
British ruling class had bound them, Col. Joseph Cilley was among those gallant
soldiers of New Hampshire who were foremost in organizing the battle against
tyranny and in the battle itself.
Readers of our military history may understand the prenomen "Horatio Gates."
Col. Joseph Cilley commanded a regiment, that, when Gen. Horatio Gates was
appointed to the Northern Army, August 19, 1777, was assigned to his corps, and was
present at Saratoga, when the half-fed, half-clad Continentals defeated Burgoyne's
British division October 7, 1777, and drove them to surrender ten days later. A
strong friendship existed between the Colonel and Gen. Gates, so that when a son
was born, toward the close of the Revolution, the name of the old commander was
conferred on the infant. In time, this infant of the Revolution grew to manhood, and
named one of his sons " Horatio Gates," who became a lawyer, married Deborah
Jenness, and to whom, in 1841, the subject of this sketch was born, he being the third
of the family to bear that prenomen. His early life was passed at South Deerfield,
N. H., and Lewiston, Me., where he received his preparatory education, and, in 1859,
entered Dartmouth College, from which institution he was graduated in the class of
1863, Scientific Department, the president of the bank with which he is now con-
nected, being one of his classmates. That year he moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where
he began his business education in the wholesale lumber trade, and remained there
seven years. In 1871 he removed to western Iowa, and established a large retail
lumber business, making Glenwood his home, where he resided until 1888, when the
building enterprise of Clay County, Neb., suggested his removal to the pleasant town
of Fairfield. The establishment of a real estate and brokerage house at that point
followed, and, in the development of that little prairie city and its surroundings Mr.
Cilley was interested until June, 1894, when he removed to Chicago, to accept the
vice-presidency of the Globe Savings Bank. His marriage with Miss Julia A. Har-
rington of Cleveland, Ohio, took place, 1868. Their only child, like the father, grand-
father and great grandfather, bears the Revolutionary prenomen " Horatio Gates,"
being the fourth of the name in the history of the family.
Charles M. Jackson. In Chicago business circles, like in the army of the First
Napoleon, promotion comes quickly to him who merits it. Stranger and citizen start
even in the race for precedence, and the more competent win in the large majority of
cases. This point is pretty clearly shown in the life of Charles M. Jackson. Born at
Newport, N. H., in 1866, he received a practical education in the schools of that town,
and finished his school days at the Phillips Exeter Academy. Then going to Boston,
at the age of seventeen years he found a position in the office of the Old Colony Rail-
road Company, and remained for five years in the employ of that corporation. Toward
t?
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 203
the close of that term he conceived that the Western country offered better rewards for
labor and better chances of promotion to young men than staid New England, and in
1888 he came to Chicago to prove his conception of the West. That year he was
appointed assistant cashier of the Chicago & Erie Railroad, and filled that position
most acceptably for two years.
When the Globe Savings Bank was incorporated, in 1890, its directory looked
around for a man capable of filling the office of assistant cashier, and had little diffi-
culty in agreeing upon Mr. Jackson, for a few of the directors were acquainted with
his work in the railroad office, and knew of his sterling, business-like methods. So
far as himself was concerned, he saw that banking was better adapted to his tastes
and presented to him greater possibilities of advancement than railroading, and so
embraced it. Appointed general book-keeper in the new banking house, he found his
experiences in the railroad office to prove very beneficial, and, as he was promoted, these
experiences became of greater value, enabling him to master the details of the several
departments easily, and at length winning for him the position of assistant cashier, and,
on May 10 of this year that of cashier.
The fact of a young man twenty-four years old holding a position of this class in
an institution like the Globe Savings Bank is testimony to his natural and acquired
ability. Indeed, he has accomplished within a quarter of a century more than many
veterans in the banking houses of the East have in three-quarters of a century.
His marriage with Miss Elizabeth, daughter of O. W. Flanders, formerly con-
nected with the Chicago & North-Western Railroad, took place in 1890. They have
one child Earl S.
This brief record shows, indisputably, the true value of education and industry.
Without both, it would be well-nigh impossible for a man of his years to forge ahead
to the position he now holds.
Edward S. Lacey, president of the Bankers National Bank of Chicago, is a native
of Chili, Monroe County, N. Y.; was born on November 26, 1835, to Edward D. and
Martha C. Lacey. When he was seven years old his parents moved to Michigan, and in
the spring of 1843, settled in Eaton County, where he had his home until May I, 1889.
His father was a man of considerable prominence, and filled numerous offices of
trust. His grandfather, Samuel Lacey, was major of a Vermont regiment of infantry
in the War of 1812, and both his paternal and maternal great-grandfathers served in the
War of the Revolution.
Edward S. received his education in the public schools and at Olivet College, and
at the age of eighteen became a salesman in a general store at Kalamazoo, Mich.,
where he remained until he was twenty-one. In 1857 he returned to Charlotte, Mich.,
and in 1860 was elected register of deeds, which office he held for four years. In 1862
he, in partnership with Hon. Joseph Musgrave, formerly of Ashland, Ohio, established
a private bank, which was succeeded in 1871 by the First National Bank of Charlotte,
204 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
of which he was a director and cashier, and of which he subsequently, upon the death
of Mr. Musgrave, became president.
During his entire connection with this bank, he was its active manager. From
the commencement of his business career, Mr. Lacey has been an exceedingly busy
man, and has been closely identified with many important matters. He was a director
in the Grand River Valley Railroad Company from its organization, and for many
years was its treasurer. In 1874 he was appointed by Gov. Bagley a trustee of
the Michigan Asylum for the Insane, and held that office six years, when, having been
elected to Congress, he resigned. In 1876 he was a delegate to the Republican
National Convention, at Cincinnati, Ohio, and from 1882 to 1884 served as chairman
of the Republican State Committee, of Michigan. As the first mayor of the city of
Charlotte, he contributed largely to its system of public improvements.
In 1880 Mr. Lacey was elected to Congress from the Third District of Michigan,
and was reelected in 1882. He received the nomination each time by acclamation,
and in each instance ran far ahead of his ticket at the election. His desire to return
to private life led him to decline a third term in Congress; but in 1886 he yielded to
the solicitations of friends and became a candidate for the United States Senate; but,
while showing strength and popularity, was unsuccessful. In Congress he took
a prominent part. He was on the Committee on the Postoffice and Postroads, and
also on that of Coinage, Weights and Measures; but gave his attention chiefly to
questions of finance, and came into prominence among students of monetary matters
through a very able speech which he made on the silver question in the Forty-eighth
Congress. Among his numerous addresses on financial questions, that on the use
of silver as money, before the American Bankers' Association at Chicago, in 1885,
brought him into special prominence among the bankers of the country.
Recognizing his peculiar fitness for the position, on account of his many years
of banking experience and familiarity with public affairs, Mr. Lacey's friends, com-
prising prominent citizens and financiers of his own State, of New York, Boston, and
Chicago, urged his appointment as Comptroller of the Currency; and, upon their sug-
gestion, the office was tendered him, and he entered upon its duties May I, 1889. His
predecessors had, without exception, been men of high character and ability, and yet
it may be said, as a matter of simple justice, that none of them more thoroughly
mastered the details of the office than did Mr. Lacey. His administration covered
a very critical period within the history of national banking (the Barring failure and
its widespread and disastrous effect upon credits and securities being only the begin-
nings of a series of financial mistakes, which required study), and to his wise judgment,
prudent action, and undaunted courage in the management of the banks of this
country, business interests are largely indebted for the favorable outcome. It is
a matter of note that, in his official management, Mr. Lacey always made a per-
sonal supervision of every important detail a paramount duty. In relation to the
o
v.
<S
UJ
The Csntuiy Tublisiins fcEn^mg Co. Chicago.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 207
national banks of the country he pursued a policy both vigorous and conservative,
tending always toward the protection of the depositors and creditors, and it is a note-
worthy fact that his policy received very general endorsement.
He studied carefully the details of his office, and introduced many reforms. He
aimed to secure every possible safeguard, exercising always a sound discretion in
construing such restrictions as, owing to local conditions, would embarrass and annoy
bank officers and their customers, without corresponding benefits to the public.
Mr. Lacey is a man of decided convictions, to which he is faithfully and fearlessly
obedient. His intrepid integrity is universally recognized. While modest and unas-
suming in private life, he becomes aggressive in an emergency, never failing to have
perfect command of his best faculties. He is a man of attractive personality, and by
his courteous manner and manly bearing makes and retains friends readily. He is in
the prime of life, has a vigorous, active mind and sound physique, and dispatches
business without fatigue.
The office of comptroller of the currency is second only in importance to that of
the secretary of the treasury. This office was so ably and satisfactorily filled by Mr.
Lacey, coupled with the enviable national reputation as a financier previously acquired,
that his services were eagerly sought after in moneyed centers. Several large banks
thus located made him favorable offers to take the presidency. He was, however,
most attracted by Chicago and its wonderful possibilities; hence, on June 30, 1892, he
resigned to accept the presidency of the Bankers National Bank. His successful
achievements and conspicuous abilities, together with the pronounced success already
attained by this latest addition to the list of Chicago's national banks, give the fullest
assurance that those who were instrumental in placing him in control of its affairs and
interests made no mistake.
Charles L. Hutchinson. The name of Charles L. Hutchinson is as well known in
the art circles of the world as it is known in the commercial circles of Chicago. Born
in 1854, he has already accomplished much more than any of his contemporaries;
for within a period of thirty-nine years he has dignified trade and banking and
humanity itself by his works, leaving panting time toiling after him. Macaulay once
said that the Puritans hated bearbaiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but
because it gave pleasure to the spectators. How would the pleasure-haters regard the
moderns, many of them descendants of the Plymouth colonies, who abolished the
desolate faith of 1620 in themselves and gave to Chicago her great halls for music,
the drama, painting and sculpture? Charles L. Hutchinson is one of these one in
whom the increasing purpose of the ages to widen and beautify thought is very
manifest.
Born at Lynn, Mass., in the year above written, he accompanied his parents,
Benjamin P. and Sarah M. (Ingalls) Hutchinson, to Chicago in 1856, and has since
been identified with this city in his education as well as in his commercial, social and
208 - INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
philanthropic career. He graduated from the Chicago High School with the class of
1873, entered his father's employ as office boy at $3 per week, and there studied the
principles of the grain trade. In 1875 he engaged in the packing trade, and subse-
quently was connected with his father in the banking business. In 1877 his father
presented him with $25,000 as his twenty-first birthday present, this sum, with his
practical education received in the several departments of the business, being the
sum total of aid rendered to him; for B. P. Hutchinson, as is known, desired that his
son should carve out his own fortune. By 1880, having earned the reputation of being
an able business man, he was admitted to a partnership with his father, and for eight
years bought and shipped grain without ever being carried into the region of Board
of Trade speculation. In 1888 he was elected president of the Board of Trade, an
extraordinary honor for a man of thirty-four years. He also served as president of
the exclusive Commercial Club, his election being made unanimous, and when the
Corn Exchange Bank was reorganized, he was elected president, a position he still
holds. It includes among its stockholders many of Chicago's wealthiest citizens, and
is, undoubtedly, presided over by one of the most careful, yet liberal, men of this city.
Many other enterprises there are which also claim his attention. He is a director of
the Chicago Packing and Provision Company, a director of the Chicago Street Rail-
way Company, a director of the Auditorium Association, a director of the Columbian
Exposition, and president of the Chicago Art Institute. With all this he is superin-
tendent of St. Paul's Universalist Sunday School, treasurer of the Chicago University,
and a member of many associations and clubs. He is no silent partner of these cor-
porations or passive member of these institutions. His name is now seldom associ-
ated with these great corporations, for less material but greater enterprises won his
aid and monopolize the use of the name.
His connection with the Art Institute has been of incalculable benefit. Speaking
on this subject Director French, of the Institute, early in 1892, said: " Thirteen or four-
teen years ago I sought out Mr. Hutchinson on the Board of Trade and asked him to
give something to the Institute. He looked doubtful, and gave me 50. Soon after
he became interested, and was elected a trustee. One day the then president, Mr. L.
Z. Leiter, said that we ought to elect young Hutchinson president, as he would do
more for the institution than all the rest put together. Mr. Leiter was not mistaken.
From his example we can see what an enlightened and public-spirited man can do.
Mr. Hutchinson is the most valuable man we have, and is the prime mover in every
progressive step. When he bought the Demidoff collection of Dutch masters in Paris,
paying $170,000, some of us were mightily astonished. On his first trip to Europe he
bought a famous metal collection in London for the institute. Mr. Hutchinson has a
great knack of getting things for public good by inviting some rich men to give
half, while he gives the other half. He is very catholic in his art ideas and likes
everything of genuine merit, from an old Spanish nail to a Rembrandt."
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 209
The coup de main which made the Art Institute a part of the Fine Arts Department
of the World's Fair, and brought the palace on the lake front into life was his. As
chairman of the Committee of Fine Arts of the Exposition and as a director of the
World's Fair Association, he had the power to impress his idea upon the United States
and local directors, and exercising this power, with rare perseverance and logic, car-
ried his idea to materialization, won over the Columbian directory to appropriate
$200,000, the Art Institute to grant 300,000, and the friends of art throughout the
city to subscribe a vast sum. The part taken by him in building up, out of the old
Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, the present great Institute, and rearing up on Van
Buren Street, near Michigan Boulevard, the Norman-Elizabethan structure, which
was the home of western art for some years, is known and appreciated. In later
years, when the Romanesque-Flemish house on Michigan Boulevard and Van Buren
Street was undertaken, his was the spirit that was the motor of the directory, and
just now it was he who planned the sale of the last named building and the erec-
tion of the new classic art palace across the boulevard. His patronage of the fine
arts and his connection with the art buildings of the city are enough to entitle
him to the gratitude of the American people; for he has been the principal in gath-
ering the works of the masters on the shore of Lake Michigan, 900 miles west of the
old metropolis, and creating here an institute which is the rival of the older one on
Manhattan Island.
What shall be said of his share in giving to this city the Auditorium, with its
immense halls, hotel, offices and stores? The writer does not know the details from
records, but he is aware that no stronger arguments were put forth for the construc-
tion of that giant building than were those of Charles L. Hutchinson. In it new
architectural and structural features are shown, and in more than the proscenium arch
of the great theater the local masters of art found employment for their hands and
brains.
The new university again claimed his attention and merited his aid. When Presi-
dent Harper explained his plan for obtaining a great library, Mr. Hutchinson favored
it unconditionally, and, with a few others, guaranteed the payment of the large sum
demanded by the owner of the books.
The Chicago Athenaeum felt his influence as director while yet it was in the
infancy of its usefulness. The Chicago Orphan Asylum had the advantage of his
counsel and financial aid, and the Sunday-school of St. Paul's Universalist Association
may be considered a creation of his; for he has been its superintendent for over a
decade, and, associated with Mr. Higinbotham, built the pretty chapel near the
church for Sunday-school purposes.
As vice-president of the Northern Trust Company, director of the State Bank,
a member of the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, and of the Continental Bank, a
director in the National Street Railway Company of St. Louis, in the Western Stone
210 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Company, in the Traders' Insurance Company, in the Title Guarantee and Trust
Company, he has labored earnestly for his associate stockholders.
The Chicago Archaeological Society and the Chicago Athletic Association claim
him as president, and a number of other organizations as patron or friend. Amid all
this the clubs have his name on their lists of members. The Commercial Club, of
which he was president, still claims him as an active member; while the Union
League, the Bankers', the Chicago, the Literary, the Calumet, and the Washington
Driving Park welcome him as a visitor, though a member of each. His marriage
with Miss Frances, daughter of H. M. Kinsley, in 1881, militated against club life; for
Mr. Hutchinson loves to pass at home the leisure hours which he may steal from his
manifold commercial and semi-public duties.
Chicago presents many instances of the sons of old and wealthy residents fol-
lowing resolutely in the footsteps of their fathers. It would be unjust to state that
Charles L. Hutchinson was entirely the architect of his own fortunes, for his father
had made a success of life and placed within reach of the son all the opportunities
and advantages which wealth alone may offer. It can, however, be stated that he has
made the most of those opportunities and advantages, and eclipsed his father, as well
as contemporary young men, in the scope and success of business interests and in the
magnitude of the financial and mental aid he has given to many institutions of Chicago.
He is a citizen of whom we are proud one of the brightest and best of our sons; for,
notwithstanding his birth at Lynn, in the Old Colony, he came here in infancy, was
appropriated by Chicago, and now does honor and high service to the 1,900,000 souls
constituting the city.
Samuel M. Nickerson. Actions rather than years tell how long men live, and from
a recognition of this fact comes the proverb: " The good die young." On June 14. 1830,
there was born in the old town of Chatham, Mass., one who was to fill a most impor-
tant place in the development of the city of Chicago, one who was to be allotted by
nature to his proper sphere. Samuel M. Nickerson is a descendant of William Nick-
erson, of Norwalk, England, who came to the colony of Massachusetts in 1660, and
located his home at Chatham. He came with impressions formed during the reign
of Cromwell, and sought in Massachusetts the absence of a standing army and of
religious bigotry, for he saw dangers in each the same as convulsed England for one
hundred years before he left his native land. The year after his arrival in Columbia he
thanked the God of his fathers that he was so far away from the seat of the Long
Parliament and the immediate effects of its legislation. Since 1660 the name has
been connected with Chatham, and from that town the branches of the family spread
out, reaching Chicago as early as 1858, when the subject of this sketch made the city
his home. His parents, Ensign and Rebecca (Mayo) Nickerson, moved to Boston in
1837, and there he attended the public schools until 1847. His elder brother had
established a mercantile house at Apalachicola, Fla., prior to that time, so that when
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 211
Samuel M. determined to enter commercial life he selected his brother's store as the
starting point; made the journey from Boston to the primitive Florida town, and
remained there as clerk in his brother's store for four years. In 1851 he established a
business house for himself, built up a large trade and a reputation as one of the most
successful of business men. These he was enjoying in 1857, when his house and stock
were reduced to ashes by fire, and himself lowered to the condition of one who has
not only to re-begin life, but to pay for the accidents of an earlier life. His financial
loss was so heavy that the chance of compromising the claims of his creditors and
resuming business was the only hope. It was a cruel, stern alternative for the young
merchant, a crucial test in which he conquered the torture. Five years later the same
men who took with poor grace all that remained of a business man's fortune
received with surprise the balance due on their old claims, realized at once that old-
time honor was not altogether dead, and that, amid the troubles to which humanity is
heir, men may be found who aim and labor to do the right. This action of the young
merchant, being nothing less than a commercial solecism at that time and place,
heightened his reputation among the people, conferred an unpurchasable pleasure
upon himself, and convinced him of one great fact that he possessed the mental
power to succeed where success was possible. In 1858 he came to Chicago. The era
of improvement was already introduced here, and the city's name was heralded
throughout the country. A general knowledge of the Western town, obtained from
the newspapers and from travelers, led him to the conclusion that it offered a wider
field for enterprise than any of the old cities, and he resolved to share her fortunes.
The result is told in the history of almost a quarter century's life here.
Shortly after his arrival, in 1858, he established himself as a distiller. His capital
did not exceed a few hundred dollars, but his methods so conformed with the spirit
of old Chicago, they outweighed capital and won success where it might fail. Within
six years, or in 1864, he retired from the distilling business, having made a fortune,
and with it an enviable reputation. That same year he was elected president of the
Chicago City Horse Railroad, a position he filled for seven years with profit to the
stockholders and satisfaction to the citizens, a dual success difficult to accomplish,
particularly in the management of street -car service. He was a student of Chicago
life, one who avoided what appeared ephemeral and speculative, a man of pluck and
skill, who enriched himself and all who were associated with him.
He may be called the father of the First National Bank. From its conception,
May I, 1863, he has watched over it and guided its gigantic strides. A financial pilot,
he steered that great institution through more than one storm and anchored it safely in
the harbor. He was vice-president of this banking company from 1863 until 1867,
president from 1867 to July 8, 1891, and is now director. A thousand reminiscences
of his connection with the old bank on the southeast corner of Lake and Clark
Streets (occupied in later years by the Hibernian Bank) might be written. There,
212 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
his first successes as a banker were achieved and there graduated, so to speak, the
men who made the newer house of 1867-68, on the southwest corner of State and
Washington Streets, a synonym for progress. What his share was in the advances of
the great First National Bank of Chicago, prior to 1881, is well known. He was the
mainspring also after 1881, and the molder of that opinion among the directors, which
materialized in the present building on Dearborn and Monroe Streets. A reference
to the history of the bank will tell how much like Chicago its progress has been since
its organization, May i, 1863. It was destroyed, like the city, in 1871, rose like a
phoenix out of the fire, passed safely through the years of panic, helping all who
merited aid, staying the hand of financial ruin in very many cases, and coming out, as
if out of a crucible, brighter and stronger. S. M. Nickerson was one of its prompters
during years when courage required the aid of good counsel. His banking ideas
rested midway between the radical and conservative ideas of the business man of the
period, so that, steering a middle course, he won where the too-careful banker lost.
A humanitarian, he knew the men who deserved aid, and did not hesitate to give it at
the opportune time.
The Union Stock Yards National Bank was established by him in 1867 ar >d the
stockholders elected him president. Since the expiration of the charter, in 1887, this
institution has been known as the National Live Stock Bank.
He was elected a director of the Chamber of Commerce in 1864, and was appointed
a member of the first Board of Lincoln Park Commissioners in 1871, a position he
held for four years, during which the beginnings of the present beautiful park were
made. His membership in the Chicago Historical Society and in the Art Institute
has been of incalculable benefit to both, for Mr. Nickerson is a lover of books and
pictures. When his North Side residence, on the northeast corner of Cass and Erie
Streets, was erected after the fire, Chicagoans remember it well for its art gallery and
library. It was, in fact, the first refuge for the works of great painters in new Chi-
cago, and being such was the Mecca of art lovers who were fortunate, in obtaining a
permit to examine this private collection of ancient and modern masters. In the
restoration of the Historical Society library his labors were recognized, and in the
establishment and development of the Art Institute he was a potent factor. His
natural taste for beautiful works may be indulged to a great extent, for fortune and
Chicago have rewarded all his enterprises here with success. His travels in Europe,
and close study of all great works which centuries contributed, qualified him to select
for the Chicago Institute pictures now priceless, at a cost equal to its financial capacity.
His trip around the world in 1883-84 and his extensive American travels, brought to
light works hitherto unknown to him, many of which he brought to Chicago, proving
that he obtains whatever he seeks.
His marriage with Miss Matilda P. Crosby, of Brewster, Mass., took place in 1858.
Her family, like his own, is an old one in New England, dating back its beginnings in
the United States to the first half of the seventeenth century
V)
o
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 215
Orrin W. Potter. To come to the lake region as early as the fifties and attach
one's self to the embryo interests of iron manufacture and transportation, with an
ability to not only keep pace with, but lead their development, is a wisdom that is
almost genius. Given Chicago as a great manufacturing and distributing center at
one end of the lakes, the Lake Superior iron mines at the other, and the rise of
machinery and railways, the men who arise to grasp, unite, and develop them only
need time to become kings of industry.
The story of the rise of Orrin W. Potter to the chairmanship of the great Illinois
Steel Company is a tale of the greatest interest and instruction. To begin with, it has
a great deal to do with the plans and purposes of the late Capt. Eber B. Ward, who
was one of those who bridged the transition from water to railway transportation in
this region in early days. The terminus of that pioneer, the Michigan Central Rail-
way, was reaching out toward Chicago and had reached the town of Marshall, Mich.,
where Capt. Ward joined it to St. Joseph with stage and put on a line of steamers
to Chicago. He kept up this, joining the successive terminals to Chicago and other
lake cities until he originated what is now known as the great Goodrich line of lake
palaces, and which touch every port of any prominence on Lake Michigan and Green
Bay. In 1852, when the railway reached Chicago, Capt. Ward had the sagacity to
see that the iron track was now to rapidly outstrip the water route, and forthwith he
began to invest in the iron mines of the Lake Superior region and erect a rolling mill
at Wyandotte, a short distance from Detroit. This latter plant was finished in 1855,
and a clerkship in it was what attracted a young man of twenty years from western
New York, who was none other than Orrin W. Potter.
The American farms of the western part of the Empire State have produced
some of the strongest men of the West. Abel Potter was a farmer at Rochester, and
was married to Miss Cynthia Lathrop, a woman whose sterling character impressed
itself strongly upon their son, Orrin W., who was born to them on Christmas day of
1836. The days of childhood rapidly passed in the schools of Rochester, and in a
home training that was better than the schools. It was during these years that young
Orrin developed a marked taste and capacity for mathematics and civil engineering.
Indeed, he became so much interested in the latter that when he was but fifteen
years old he left school to join a surveying party which operated in New York and
Canada.
These experiences were occurring to him while Capt. Ward's enterprises were
developing in the West, and in 1856 the young man of twenty years was installed as
clerk in the Wyandotte works. For the next eight years young Potter's abilities so
impressed themselves on the business and on Capt. Ward that the enlargement of the
company led to his becoming secretary and superintendent. It must not be supposed
that these eight years were spent at the Wyandotte works, for Capt. Ward was a man
of wide vision and the very next year put in a rolling-mill plant at that metropolis
216 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
toward which the railway had been making, and young Potter was transferred to it as
bookkeeper and pay master.
By the year 1864, when Mr. Potter was but twenty-eight years of age, he became
secretary and manager to the newly organized Chicago Rolling Mill Company, a
stock organization into which the fast growing business was organized. During the
next seven years in which he held this position there had been many changes and
enlargements in the Chicago plant. With about 8250,000 invested in the original plant,
the daily capacity IOO tons of iron rails, and a force of 200 employes, another mill of
equal capacity was erected at the reorganization in 1864, and the new capitalization
placed at $500,000. Two years later the original plant was burned, but at once rebuilt
on such a scale that the whole business was reorganized in 1869 as the North Chicago
Rolling Mill Company, with a capital of $1,000,000. A year later blast furnaces were
added and the institution was one of Chicago's greatest industries.
Up to the year of the great fire, 1871, Capt. Stephen Clement had been the presi-
dent of the mills, but in this year he retired, and of all those who might be chosen to
take control over so great an establishment, the young secretary, Mr. Potter, then a
man of but thirty-five years, was the favored one. His keen insight into men, his
thorough grasp of the great operations of the company in all its details, his broad
executive ability, and his sagacity in regard to the developments of the future, com-
bined to make Mr. Potter's administration vigorous from the first. The second year
he added a Bessemer-steel plant at a cost of 8350,000, and at the works of this com-
pany the first steel rails ever made in America were rolled, a quality of rail which was
to supersede iron rails altogether on important lines. Six years later the plant of the
Milwaukee Iron Works at Bay View, Wis., was purchased, and in 1880 works were
erected at South Chicago. At the end of thirteen years of Mr. Potter's management,
the vastness of the company's operations were such that it may be suggested by the
facts that its 5,800 employes called for a monthly payroll of 8250,000, that it had a
capital of $5,000,000, that it had an annual capacity of 334,000 tons of pig iron, 320,000
tons of steel rails, 120,000 tons of iron rails, 40,000 tons of merchant iron, 20,000 tons
of fish plate, and a daily capacity of 1,000 kegs of nails, the annual gross earnings
of the company aggregating $15,000,000.
Six years later, when Mr. Potter had been its presiding genius for nearly twenty
years, the entire system was reorganized as the great Illinois Steel Company, whose
capital covered the vast proportions of $25,000,000, and whose army of employes num-
bered 1 1,000 men. Mr. Potter remained with the new company as chairman of the
board of directors until April, 1890, when, after thirty-three years in partial or full
administration of this great industry, he concluded to retire from its active manage-
ment and serve on its directory as a counselor only.
His retirement was not wholly due to inactivity, however, for, notwithstanding
the heavy responsibilities as head of the great Illinois Steel Company, he had long
f
o
K
>
i-'
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 219
been one of the leaders of various other important enterprises of great extent. Among
these latter are the Inter Ocean Transportation Company, of which he was one of the
original organizers and of which he has been in practical control since its organization
in 1878, when he was made its treasurer. Incorporated with a capital of $ 100,000, it
rapidly grew to 8850,000, for the purpose of carrying iron ore on the lakes. It is now
one of the greatest transportation companies on inland waters, their steamer " Mary-
land " being one of the largest steel steamers that traverses the fresh water seas.
Aside from this Mr. Potter was largely interested in the mines of the Gogebic
Range, and was one of the incorporators of the Metropolitan Iron and Land Company,
owner of the famous " Norrie '' and " Pabst " mines, the former of which is the largest
iron producer in the world. Besides being a director in this company, Mr. Potter
bears also a like relation to, and is vice-president of, the Commercial National Bank
of Chicago.
When some seven hundred English, French, and German capitalists and manu-
facturers visited this country recently to inspect the iron interests of the United
States, Mr. Potter was naturally the chairman of the receiving committee that enter-
tained them so much to their purpose that they returned convinced of Chicago's
importance as a great iron center as well as of her boundless hospitality.
Mr. Potter is a member of the Union League, Chicago and Commercial Clubs,
and was the third president of the one last mentioned. In the campaign of 1888 he
was chosen, with the late John Crerar, as an elector for Mr. Harrison, one of the very
few times he has consented to step aside to public office.
A family of four children have grown up during his thirty-six years of married
life. The eldest, Edward C. Potter, is a prominent citizen of Chicago; Agnes is the
wife of James C. Hutchins, formerly of the law department of the Rock Island Rail-
way, and two other daughters, Gertrude and Margaret. Mrs. Potter, to whom he was
married December 23, 1858, is a niece of his old friend Capt. E. B. Ward, and daughter
of Benjamin F. Owen, of Marine City, Mich. Mr. and Mrs. Potter now enjoy the
quiet of retired life, and have a summer home at Lake Geneva, Wis.
Lyman J. Gage was born at De Ruyter, Madison County, N. Y., June 28, 1836, a
son of Eli A. and Mary (Judson) Gage, both natives of New York State, but imme-
diately of New England, and more remotely of English ancestry. Eli A. Gage was a
hatter. In 1846 the family removed to Rome, N. Y., where Lyman was a student at the
Rome Academy, which was established about that time. At fourteen he became clerk
in the postoffice at Rome, and at fifteen was -detailed by the postmaster as mail route
agent on the Rome & Watertown Railroad, in which capacity he served until the post-
master-general appointed regular route agents for the road. At eighteen he became
junior clerk in the Oneida Central Bank, at Rome, and for a year and a half swept out
the bank, counted cash and made himself generally useful at Sioo per annum.
At the expiration of that time, in 1855, he asked for and was refused an increase
11
220 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
of salary, and determined to seek in Chicago a more remunerative field for his enter-
prise. For some years he was employed by a lumber and planing-mill firm. His
natural liking for the banking business impelled him in August, 1858, to accept a posi-
tion as bookkeeper for the Merchants' Savings Loan and Trust Company, at a salary
of 500 per annum. January i, 1859, he was made paying teller at a salary of $1,200.
In the spring of 1860 he was appointed assistant cashier at a salary of $2,000. A year
later he was made cashier.
In August, 1868, he accepted a similar position in the First National Bank, with
which great financial institution he has been identified ever since. The old charter of
the First National expired in 1882, and upon its reorganization Mr. Gage was made
vice-president. June 30, 1891, he was elected president.
Under his enterprising and careful management this bank has become the leading
financial institution of the Northwest, both in point of capital and in the volume of its
transactions. Mr. Gage's high standing as a banker and financier was recognized by
his election, in 1882, to the presidency of the American Bankers' Association, com-
posed of the leading bankers and financiers of the country. He was re-elected twice
in succession, an honor which has never been conferred by the association upon any
other member. It was due largely to Mr. Gage's able management that, after the
panic of 1873, when one national bank in Chicago fell after another, the First National
Bank stood firm and unshaken.
From the inception of the World's Columbian Exposition Mr. Gage was fore-
most among its promoters and untiring in his efforts in its behalf. In recognition of
his commanding position and eminent fitness for the position, he was, April 30, 1890,
elected president of the Chicago board of directors.
He accepted the honor with reluctance, because his duties as acting president of
the First National Bank absorbed so much of his attention that he felt unwilling to
jeopardize the interests of the Fair by assuming the position of executive head of the
board while unable to devote to it his undivided care. Before this, with three others,
he had guaranteed Chicago's pledge of $10,000,000 for the preparation of the Fair,
and, having accepted the position, he brought to the office the ripe fruitage of a rich
and varied experience in financial and business affairs and took the enterprise in hand
with all his characteristic energy and sagacity.
January 24, 1891, having been elected president of the First National Bank, he
resigned the presidency of this board, after having served the interests of the fair for
the greater part of a year in a manner which exhibited a surprising knowledge of its
details, a sound, clear judgment and a capacity to harmonize conflicting elements, a
full and comprehensive view of affairs and a rare executive ability. The entire press
of the city joined in praise of Mr. Gage and deprecation of his retirement.
The news of his action was received with regret, not only by the National
Commission, but by all concerned in the Fair, and his refusal to accept compensa-
Co
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 223
tion for his services was the subject of most complimentary comment throughout
the country. From that time until the close of the Fair, he continuously gave val-
uable services to the board. It has not been forgotten by Chicagoans that it was
while upon such service in the East that Mr. Gage was stricken down with an illness
which necessitated a very critical operation, and which it was at one time thought
would terminate fatally.
Alive to all the great public questions of the day, Mr. Gage, though a Repub-
lican, believes more in men, than in party. He has made his influence felt, especially
upon the labor problem, and was a prime mover in a series of Economic Conferences,
held in Chicago, in 1888 and 1889, the purpose of which was the fair and unreserved
discussion of economic questions from the point of view of the laboring man as well
as of that of the capitalist.
The primary object was to bring the representatives of capital and labor to a face-
to-face, frank, fair and free discussion of every question in dispute. Mr. Gage took
an active part in the movement and delivered at least two addresses before the con-
ferences, one of which was on the subject of banking. The discussions embraced the
tariff from all points of view, the single tax theories, and almost everything entering
into modern American political economy. Mr. Gage took part in many of them and
always encouraged the fullest concession to the fair claims of the laboring classes, for
the betterment of whose condition he offered many helpful suggestions.
Mr. Gage is a logical and forceful speaker, and his range of subjects is almost as
wide as politics, literature and the arts. Though not aggressive as the term is usually
applied, his conviction once settled, he will defend his views with vigor and earnest-
ness, and often succeeds in leading others to accept them. He is a diligent student
and a reader of about everything edifying. His private library is extensive, and well
selected with a view to utility. His devotion to art, as well as literature has expres-
sion in his directorship of the Art Institute of Chicago. A member of the Chicago
Club and the Union Club, he has been president of the Commercial Club, an organ-
ization limited to sixty members, representing the leading commercial, financial and
manufacturing interests of the city.
Mr. Gage married, in 1864, Miss Sarah Etheridge, daughter of Francis B. Ethe-
ridge, of Little Falls, N. Y. She died in 1874. In 1887 he married his present wife,
Cornelia Gage, of Denver, Colo.
David Brainard Dewey. Among the galaxy of men who may be aptly termed
the " Builders of Chicago " the man whose name appears above occupies a conspicu-
ous place; not that he was one of the pioneers and builders of the old Chicago, but
for his potent, always beneficent influence in the advancement of the new Chicago and
in guarding its great financial interests from all taint of weakness or dishonor. It is
not probable that there is in the city another banker who is more highly respected by
bankers as Mr. Dewey, and it may be as truthfully added that there are few business
224 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
men more admired by business men. To such his name means strength and safety,
security, everything that tends to commercial integrity. The general public knows
him as one who serves its interests in season and out of season, and the poor know
that he is their friend. There are few important public interests that have not been
benefited by his counsel, and there are few measures of good that he is not identified
with.
Descended from that sturdy and always reliable Puritan ancestry of Massa-
chusetts, Mr. Dewey was born in Pittsfield, Berkshire County, that State, May 28,
1839, a son of Mark and Sarah M. (Grinnell) Dewey. His father was a merchant of
prominence, everywhere respected for his consistent Christian life, and his sterling
honesty and fairness in every relation of life. His mother, who was a woman of cult-
ure and many virtues, came from one of the best families in that part of the State.
The common school and the town academy provided the youth his only educational
facilities, but he availed himself of them to the utmost. That he was a venturesome
boy, most enterprising, most independent and self-reliant, was manifested when, at
the age of fifteen, he left his childhood home and came to then distant and compara-
tively unknown West to cast his lot among strangers and take upon his young shoul-
ders the burdens and responsibilities of life.
He found employment first upon a farm, and by hard study at night and in the
intervals of work, he was enabled by the time he was seventeen to take up school
teaching as an occupation during the winter months. This he continued for three or
four years, his earnings enabling him to avail himself of a partial collegiate course at
Wheaton College. This was a period of difficulty, often of discouragement, but the
difficulties were overcome by a perseverance that never grew faint and the discour-
agements were given scant hospitality, and, all in all, the trials and vicissitudes of those
early years had a most beneficent influence in shaping his character and inculcating
upon him those qualities of nerve, activity and indomitable energy which caused
him to develop into a typical and successful western man.
From the schoolroom to the law office was his next step. After due study he was
admitted to the bar of his county and State, and entered upon the active practice of a
profession for which he was eminently fitted by natural endowment, education and
inclination. Gifted with logic, eloquence and aforceful and pleasing delivery, heexcelled
as a public speaker, and was able to maintain his side of any argument in which he
became involved, and he was in great demand wherever public addresses were
required, on all occasions of celebration and especially in the political field, but after
a severe hemorrhage caused by addressing a large assemblage upon the occasion of a
Fourth of July celebration, he was advised by his physician that he must abandon the
law or at least devote himself to some branch of legal practice in which he would not
be called upon to exercise his power of oratory. He had his heart set upon being a
lawyer, but he did not want to be an office lawyer. Nature had generously endowed
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 225
him intellectually with ability to gain renown as an advocate before juries, and
nature had at the same 'time made him physically unequal to the strain of frequent
and continuous public speaking. If he must be a business man instead of an advocate,
he would be a business man pure and simple, not simply a business lawyer.
When the war began he was scarcely twenty-two, but with a zeal and enthusiasm
that have always been characteristic of the man, he espoused the cause of the Union
of the States, and, not only by his eloquent speeches, but by his example, was influ-
ential in inducing many men to enlist to fight for the cause of freedom and the old
flag. He was one of the very first to respond to President Lincoln's call for troops,
and entered the service as a sergeant in Company A, Second Regiment, Illinois Cav-
alry. He threw himself with all his energy into the soldier life that now opened
before him, casting aside all consideration of delicate health, and inuring himself to
all the hardships of camp and field, but at the end of about a year he was compelled
to retire on account of a severe wound which prevented his re-entering the services
although he was tendered a commission as major.
Mr. Dewey's ambition for legal triumphs and his patriotic wish to fight for his
country so long as soldiers might be necessary had both been thwarted by physical
disability. He now devoted himself successfully to one business enterprise after
another until 1871, when he removed to Chicago, concentrating all his interests here
and taking up his residence at Evanston, where he bought and sold much real estate
and led in improvements of note, which have added immeasurably to the beauty of
that charming suburb, one of the most interesting of which is his tasteful and elegant
home on Maple Avenue. Immediately upon identifying himself with the interests of
the World's Fair City, he opened a mortgage loan office and at once entered upon a
large and prosperous business in that line. In 1876 he associated with himself Hon.
John L. Beveridge, ex-governor of Illinois, and opened the private banking house of
Beveridge & Dewey, which had a most successful career for ten years. In 1886 he
organized the American Exchange National Bank, which opened its doors May 10,
that year, and was at once accorded a large patronage by the most prominent busi-
ness men of Chicago in all departments of industrial, commercial and professional
endeavor. Of this institution Mr. Dewey was elected vice-president, and was virtu-
ally made financial manager. Later he succeeded to the presidency. His reputation
was so well established among financial men that applications came at the very outset
for nearly quadruple the amount of stock represented by the capital of the bank.
Quite early in the career of this strong and trusted institution occurred an inci-
dent which in its consequences most clearly demonstrated Mr. Dewey's caution and
conservatism, and, with equal force, the remarkable degree of public confidence with
which he was regarded by the business community of Chicago. June 9, 1887, during
the progress of the famous Harper wheat corner, Mr. Dewey was suddenly confined
to his bed by severe illness. Six days later, while he was still prostrated, his associ-
226 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
ate officers cashed the celebrated Fidelity National Bank fraudulent drafts to the
amount of $400,000, which, with other complications, threatened to bring on a suspen-
sion of the bank. An obstinate "run" was one of the developments, and June 20,
against the protest of his physician, and at the imminent risk of his life, Mr. Dewey
returned to his office, and it is believed that his presence saved the bank from utter
wreck. The withdrawal of deposits ceased, and money was freely offered from many
sources. The failure of C. J. Kershaw & Co., involving the bank in extensive and
complicated litigation, the famous suit agaist the Fidelity National Bank of Cincin-
nati, which was finally won by the American Exchange National Bank in the Supreme
Court of the United States, and other almost insurmountable difficulties, all incident
to, or complicated with, the original trouble, would have discouraged any man of
ordinary pluck and ability. The conception and execution of the plan which lifted
the bank from the wreck and disaster in which it was plunged are everywhere accred-
ited to Mr. Dewey.
After the American Exchange National Bank was fully relieved of the conse-
quences of its misfortunes of 1877, Mr. Dewey frequently asked to be relieved from
the active duties and responsibilities of the presidency, and finally retired August, i,
1891, after having been assured by his physician that the day was not far off when, if
not voluntarily, he would be compelled to relinquish the arduous labors of the posi-
tion. The board of directors passed a series of resolutions, acknowledging the great
service Mr. Dewey had rendered the institution, expressing regret at the severance of
relations so pleasant, so gratifying and so long continued, and hoping that he would
at least consent to remain on the board of directors; and the press of Chicago and
financial publications in New York, Boston and London commented upon his con-
spicuous and successful career as a banker in the midst of difficulties most perplexing
and most trying. The Bankers' National Bank was organized and opened its doors in
the Masonic Temple August II, 1892, and of this institution Mr. Dewey is vice-presi-
dent. While doing a general banking business, it gives special attention to the
accounts of banks and corporations, and already ranks among the strong financial
institutions of the city. Mr. Dewey's guiding hand is evident in its solid success.
Mr. Dewey has been for many years a prominent Mason, and on November
17, 1890, there was held at Evanston Masonic Temple a memorial service in com-
memoration of the services of Sir Knight Dewey in securing a charter for the Evan-
ston Commandery. There was placed in the walls of the asylum a tablet of marble
bearing the name of " Dewey," and in the library a fine crayon portrait of the man
thus honored. A memorial book giving an account of the proceedings was published,
and in its preface Hon. Charles J. Neely said: "In recognition of one who so pre-
eminently labored to secure our Masonic home, where we may meet in mystic associ-
ation the friends and companions of our youth, and in honor of him who does in his
life so highly exemplify the noble principles of character building and friendship
GooispeedlroftEraPjlilisliers . Chicago .
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 229
therein made, there has been placed in the walls of the asylum a marble memorial
tablet bearing the name ' Dewey,' and in our hearts most truly indeed are his work
and worth remembered." The volume contains other eloquent and most earnest
tributes from Eminent Sir Charles G. Haskin, Past Eminent Sir Robert Hill, Sir
H. H. C. Miller, Sir C. H. Remy, Sir E. S. Weeden, Sir Frank P. Crandon, Sir Volney
W. Foster, Sir George S. Baker, Sir L. W. Conkey, Sir S. B. lott, Sir James H.
Raymond, Sir W. S. Miller, Sylvester F. Jones, D. D., Rev. N. D. Hillis, and others
equally prominent as Masons and -citizens. These tributes from men who have known
Mr. Dewey long and well throw much light on a character always above reproach in
all the relations of life, whether in business or social circles. He has been described
as a man " energetic, persevering, faithful, loyal, true, bravely meeting discourage-
ments, overcoming all obstacles, with the windows of his life shut against despair,
never faltering, never failing, always brave, gallant, and chivalrous." Another refers
to him as having a heart as tender as a woman's, with a hand always open to aid
those in trouble and distress, and with a soul brave and true to every conviction
of right; * * a man far above the ordinary; positive in his convictions,
tender in his loves, loyal in his friendships. Mr. Dewey's devotion to every interest
committed to his care has led him to assume burdens from which weaker and less
steadfast men would shrink. To all people he is charitable at all times. The poor,
whose needs he has ever generously aided with his labors and his wealth, recognize
in him a firm friend and a gallant defender. The business community of Chicago,
that city of his adoption, whose commercial integrity he has sacrificed so much to
maintain, regard him as admirable and above reproach, a model man of affairs, and
a citizen whose eminence is great, and whose helpfulness to all worthy objects is com-
mensurate therewith. His patriotic course at the beginning of the war, when he had
just cast his first presidential vote for the Martyr Lincoln, could have led him in only
one political channel thereafter, that of Republicanism. Alive to every political
interest, he has yet never been a politican, but his political influence has been exerted
and recognized not once, but many times. Mr. Dewey was married, in 1862, to Miss
Nettie Springer, of Rockford, 111., a lady of excellent family, and delightful home and
social qualities. They have had five children, of whom two are living Nettie D.,
now Mrs. H. S. Farwell, and David B. Dewey, Jr., a child of five years.
John B. Kirk. The grandfather of John B. Kirk was a learned and well-esteemed
civil engineer of Glasgow, Scotland, whose son, James S. Kirk, came to America when
very young, was educated at Montreal, Canada, married Nancy Ann Dunning in 1839,
and during that year moved to Utica, N. Y. There John B. Kirk was born November
8, 1842, the second son in his father's family. He gained his education at Utica, and
began his business career in the enterprise of his father, which was established there
in 1839. That was a day of small things. The original soap factory of James S. Kirk
soon gave place to one of considerable dimensions, which was an important manu-
230 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
facturing interest of Utica until 1859, when the business was moved to Chicago. It is
now a veritable manufacturing giant, with an output larger than any plant of its kind,
not only in this country, but in the world, its product amounting to 70,000,000 pounds
of soap annually, besides various other articles manufactured.
From the time James S. Kirk's boys became old enough to assist him, this busi-
ness has been a distinctively family affair. Upon his elder sons Mr. Kirk early incul-
cated the principles necessary to a successful commercial career, and the practical
assistance which they rendered him in building up and expanding the enterprise was
invaluable.
The career of the house in Chicago has been one of almost unexampled success.
It has known only one disaster, that of the great fire of 1871, which entailed a loss to
the Kirks of 250,000. The firm reorganized immediately after the fire, and through
the hearty co-operation of all the members of the Kirk family, the business was soon
put in the way to the wonderful development it has since known. Through the
ingenuity of John B. Kirk and his brothers, the process of manufacturing soap has
been revolutionized by numerous labor-saving methods which they have devised.
John B. Kirk's acknowledged ability as a financier induced the directors of the
American Exchange National Bank to elect him its vice-president. In 1889 he was
elevated to the presidency, which position he filled with conspicuous ability until his
resignation early in 1894.
Thus briefly the business career of Mr. Kirk has been sketched, but there is
another side to his life that demands attention here, for the public is really not so
much concerned in how a man makes his money, provided he makes it legitimately,
as how he uses it. Much of Mr. Kirk's income is expended every year for objects
which have been organized and are maintained for the public good.
The Northwestern University, at Evanston, has always found in him not only a
sympathizer but a steadfast and helpful friend. He is a trustee and a member of the
executive committee of that institution, and has been ready at all times to render the
university any financial or other aid within his power to extend. Mr. Kirk has
donated an annual prize of Sioo to be awarded to the successful competitor in the
annual oratorical contest held by the senior students of the university, and it is not
impossible that the stimulus to excellence in oratory afforded by the " Kirk Prize"
may lead to the development of some modern oratorical wonder, some now
undreamed-of Webster or Phillips.
Not the Northwestern University alone receives Mr. Kirk's offerings to the cause
of education. All worthy objects that have the improvement of facilities for advanc-
ing public education in America acknowledge his ready and willing sympathy and
assistance. At Evanston, where he lives, he is esteemed for his many acts of true
charity. It has been remarked by a neighbor that "no deserving person ever applied
for help to John B. Kirk in vain." Among the people of Evanston and of Chicago
/
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 233
Mr. Kirk has many sincere and admiring friends, who speak in no uncertain way of
his public spirit, his genial helpfulness and his generous hospitality.
It has been suggested that a "first-rate doctor was spoiled when Mr. Kirk became
a manufacturer and financier." He has a particular fondness for medical investigation,
and, uninfluenced by his father and brother, would doubtless have chosen the medical
profession rather than a business career. His success in the latter is a demonstration
of the fact that ability will make itself manifest, no matter in what field of action it
may be placed. In the management of all business affairs Mr. Kirk has ever kept
before him the example of his father, who occupied a place in the commercial commu-
nity second to that of no other man in it, for all that indicates honesty and true nobil-
ity of character.
Mr. Kirk was married October 4, 1866, to Miss McVean, of this city, a woman of
unusual character and force, who, by her high appreciation of what is right, by her
sympathy for and assistance of all that is good, and by her kindly and always wise
counsel, has encouraged and in no small measure assisted him to reach and maintain
the high position which he has achieved. They have four children, named in the
order of their nativity: James M., Frederick I., Josephine and Susie.
George Schneider. The National Bank of Illinois was chartered in August, 1871,
with a paid-up capital of $300,000, but early in 1872 increased to $500,000. On Sep-
tember 30, 1892, or twenty-one years after, the paid-up capital was $1,000,000, the sur-
plus fund $1,000,000, the undivided profits $123,255.75, and the dividends unpaid
$24,950; while on October I, 1892, its total resources amounted to $15,343,689.95, or
about the one-eleventh part of the total resources of the twenty-three national banks
doing business in Chicago on that date, the total of all being $172,612,219. Its loans
and discounts amounted to $9,564,972, against a total for the twenty-three national
banks of $105,915,000. George Schneider was elected president; W. H. Bradley,
vice-president, and William M. Scudder, cashier. The two first named have held their
respective positions since 1871, while Mr. Scudder's place has been occupied by W. A.
Hammond for many years. Carl Moll is assistant cashier and Henry D. Field, sec-
ond assistant cashier. Mr. Bradley died in 1892 and was succeeded by Walter L.
Peck.
No contemporary banking house in the United States has a more satisfactory
record than the National Bank of Illinois. It was here when the first fire swept away
the city, here during the panic which carried off many strong houses, and here in 1880
when the beginnings of the Chicago of the present were made. Fire and panic appear
to have made the institution more prosperous, so that it is to-day one of the most
popular banks in the West and one of the most secure depositaries for money in the
United States. Foreign exchange is dealt in and letters of credit on German and
English banks are issued, the European correspondents being: Brown, Shipley &
Co., London; Hottinger & Co., Paris; Meyer & Co., Leipzig; Deutsche Bank, Berlin;
234 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
St. Lurman & Son, Bremen; Frederick Hunt & Co., London; Amsterdaische Bank,
Amsterdam; Herman Horwitz, banker, Vienna; Banque Centrale Anversoise, Ant-
werp; Scandinaviski K. A. B., Stockholm; Frank-further Filiaeder Deutschen Bank,
Frankfort-on-the-Main, and Filiale der Deutschen Bank, Hamburg. The directors
are: George Schneider, S. B. Cobb, Walter L. Peck, George E. Adams, Frederick
Mahla, Charles R. Corwith, William A. Hammond, William R. Page, R. E. Jenkins,
Albert A. Munger and William D. Kerfoot. An important historical fact in connec-
tion with this bank is that in 1873, when the panic descended upon the country and
was especially severe in the West and in this city, the National Bank of Illinois stood
solidly against the circulation of clearing house certificates and in favor of a strict
fulfillment of banking pledges.
George Schneider, presidentof the National Bank of Illinois, was born at Pirmasens,
in Rhenish Bavaria, or Rheinbavern, December 13, 1823. He attended the Latin
schools at Pirmasens, completed a literary education, and prior to 1848 entered the
ranks of the Bohemians as a journalist. Before his twenty-fifth year he was favorably
known to the National party of Bavaria and Germany for his pointed, logical
reviews of the conditions of the country were of such a character as to win him fame
among the friends and latter enemies of popular sentiment. The rebellion of
the Democrats of Bavaria followed the agitation for equal rights and German unity.
Young Schneider was among the leaders of the people, was elected commissioner of
the Provincial Republican Government of the Pfalz or Palatinate, and was, in fact
one of the principal organizers of the insurrection. How thoroughly the people were
organized for this revolt is seen in the fact that the royalists called on Prussia for aid.
This aid was willingly granted, and the royalist legions of Northern Germany poured
into Bavaria, carrying death to the patriots who were bearing arms or suspected, and
drowning liberty in the blood of its votaries. It is questionable, indeed, if the Russian
soldier in Poland or the English soldier in Ireland was ever so ruthless as the royal-
ist trooper of Bavaria, and his fellows of Prussia were in quelling this magnificent
attempt to establish liberty and German unity. The death penalty was pronounced
against Mr. Schneider, but Providence preserved him and offered him a refuge in the
United States. He arrived in this country in 1849, settled at St. Louis, Mo., and launched
the German daily newspaper known as Die Neue Zeit. The spirit of that journal was
opposed to slavery in any form. He was called to Chicago in 1851, and assumed
editorial charge of the Staats Zeitung August 25, that year. On January 29, 1854, the
first call for a meeting to protest against the Kansas and Nebraska bill was made by
him through his journal. In 1856 he was elected a member of the National Repub-
lican Convention that nominated John C. Fremont for president, and four years
later had the honor of being a delegate to the Chicago convention that nominated
Abraham Lincoln. His services to the country as a Republican were recognized, so
that in 1861 he was appointed consul at Copenhagen, with instruction to organize
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 237
and influence public opinion in favor of the Union, and prepare the way for selling
United States bonds, as England and France had almost closed their doors against
them. Through his influence the papers at Copenhagen espoused the cause of the
Federals of the Northern States. On his return he became an active member of the
Union Defense Committee, and in 1862 was commissioned collector of internal
revenue, the first in Illinois, a position he held with credit until 1866, when he was
elected president of the Old State Savings Institution. He presided over the savings
bank, giving signal satisfaction until 1871, when the National Bank of Illinois was
organized.
He has been president of the Bankers' Club and a director of the World's Colum-
bian Exposition, of which body he was an active member on the committee of ways
and means, press and printing, and agriculture, on the last named of which he
gave special attention to floriculture. His services on these committees were invalu-
able, while as a director his immense store of experience in Europe and America
proved of incalculable value. As a matter of fact he was one of the charter mem-
bers of the first organization of the World's Fair, which important item of history
should be borne in mind when the credits for securing the great Fair for Chicago are
finally awarded. In 1876 he was appointed minister to Switzerland by President
Hayes, but on account of pressing and important business engagements was unable
to accept.
His marriage to Miss Matilda Schloetzer took place in 1853. To them seven
daughters have been born, all natives of the city which their father has honored as
a citizen. His public, private and business life in Bavaria, as well as in the United
States, points him out as a man who has grouped a century's work into the one-half
century, 1825-1875. Germany lost much in losing him, for the mission of his life
there was only partly accomplished. Here he made journalism, politics and business
successful, and reflecting his own mind on his associates taught them their duties to
their families and country. The history of the Staats Zcitung, of the State Savings
Institute from 1863 to 1871, and of the National Bank of Illinois contain many of the
details relating to his career in Chicago. He is a member of the Union League, the
Calumet and the Press Clubs.
Chauncey B. Blair. The history of the Merchants' National Bank given in this
volume is, in fact, a review of the business life of its first president for twenty-seven
of the thirty years he made Chicago his home. It is part of the story of Chicago and,
as such, points, specifically, the nice distinction between the men who made this city
and the men who were made by the city boats brought in by fortune-- without steer-
ing, without labor, mental or physical.
Chauncey B. Blair was born at Blandford, Hampden County, Mass., June 18, 1810.
Of the same New England village his parents were natives. His father, Samuel Blair,
the son of Rufus, grandson of Robert, and great-grandson of Robert, was born there.
238 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
The last named left Scotland in 1718 for the colonies and settled near Worcester,
Mass. His son Robert established himself on the " Gore Tract" at Blandford some
years later, and cleared the wilderness for the first homestead of the Blairs in America.
In that home, Rufus, the grandfather, Samuel, the father, and Chauncey B. Blair, him-
self, were born. His mother, Hannah Frary, daughter of Jonathan Frary, could look
back to the first decade of the eighteenth century for the beginning of the family in
America.
In 1812 Samuel and Hannah Blair, with their two children, moved to Columbus,
Chenango County, N. Y. The Revolution with its memories of horrors perpetrated
by the British soldiery, the renewal of hostilities in 1812, and the fame of the Chenango
Valley urged this movement westward, for Columbus was then as much of a frontier
town as was Blandford a century before. In 1814 Samuel Blair removed to Cortland,
N. Y., then a frontier settlement, and made his home there until his death.
Chauncey B. passed his childhood in western New York. In 1821, in his eleventh
year, he returned to his native Blandford, attended school there for a short term each
year and worked on his uncle's farm. After a period of ten years, or in 1831, he
returned to Cortland, N. Y., proud in the possession of $200, saved from the sum paid
to him by his uncle for farm work and by a neighbor (who paid him$n a month) for
building a stone fence. His young life was one of stern industry. Late and early he
labored for a small reward; but, in addition, he learned all these industrial lessons on
the farm which were exemplified in his later and greater life.
During his stay of four years at Cortland, N. Y. (1831-1835), his character was
manifested in his work. No hours of idle luxury were his. He had an object in
life, and labored for the means to reach it. The reader of western history may be
conversant with the immigration movement, following the cession to the United
States of the Chickasaw and Pottawatomie country. This movement was entered upon
in 1831, and continued with increasing force until the summer of 1837. Young Blair
was carried westward with the tide of 1835. Landing at Detroit he set out on a tour
of observation; witnessed a sale of United States lands in La Porte County, Ind.; con-
sidered the possibilities of Michigan City. Chicago, Joliet, Ottawa, Dixon and Galena,,
in each of which villages he made a short stay and returned to Michigan City to for-
mulate plans for the future. Early in 1836 he executed these plans, selected lands in
northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, entered a tract near Beloit, Wis., at the
Green Bay Land office; proceeded to Milwaukee, where he sold this tract to waiting
purchasers, and began that series of wholesale land deals which connect his name
with the original entry of a large area of Illinois and Wisconsin.
His exploration of the country at that time was no ordinary task. A solitary
horseman on the prairies of Illinois or in the valleys of Wisconsin must have been
liberally endowed with courage and physical endurance; tor the aborigines were
scarcely reduced to obedience, and the wilderness was inhospitable. Again, the tact
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. . 239
necessary to insure the entry of a certain piece of land, after selecting it, was a point
of vantage which he exercised; while the all-important business of selling his first
entry and investing the proceeds promptly in other entries, was a natural faculty,
which many of his contemporary land speculators did not possess or understand. He
came to the West, and instantly was incorporated with the West. Within a year he
proved, to his own and his friends' satisfaction, that he had " a heart to resolve, a head
to contrive and a hand to execute." Success followed him everywhere, so signal in
its character that by 1837 he could defy panic. The depression destroyed the land
market for a time. Mr. Blair saw the storm coming and was prepared to meet it. His
small indebtedness he could easily carry, while the debts due to him could be easily
collected. Like a stout ship, he rode through the storm, escaped the rocks, and
was ready to set sail on a new ocean.
In partnership with his brother Lyman, he established a mercantile house at
Michigan City, Ind, in the fall of 1837. When old houses were falling out it was the
time for new ones to fall in, and the brothers came with the tide. The annals of
Northern Indiana and Southern Michigan speak of their successful venture. Their
general store was the Mecca of the settlers for many miles. As villages were estab-
lished, branches of the house at Michigan City were opened, the same class of goods
introduced, and the same business methods observed. Grain and other farm products
were received in pay for merchandise; grain warehouses were erected, a system of
shipping adopted, and even roads were improved. Michigan City, through their
enterprise, became an entrepot of trade. The storage and commission business was
established by them; the first pier or dock on the east shore was built by them,
and the first grain warehouses on that shore were constructed by them. It looked as
if Michigan City were to outdo Chicago and Galena in the race for precedence. The
Union Plank Road Company was chartered to build plank roads and transact a bank-
ing business. The Blairs were, of course, the principal actors and stockholders. The
roads were built and the bank established. Both were successful and fully in accord
with the time. Not a bill issued by that bank was ever repudiated. On presentation
it was honored in gold or silver or any currency which the holder desired; for C B.
Blair's principle was then, as it was afterward, to meet fully and promptly every just
demand upon him or his associates in business. He had undoubtedly passed from the
exciting life of dealing in public lands to " that dry drudgery at the desk's dead
wood."
When the bank at Michigan City had won a reputation for its founder, he pur-
chased stock in the old State Bank of Indiana; and when the La Porte branch of that
bank was reopened under the new charter he was the principal stockholder and pres-
ident. So far he filled a place in Northern Indiana which no man who went before
him ventured to fill.
In August, 1842, his brother William established a hardware store on the south-
240 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
east corner of Dearborn and South Water Streets. In April, 1844, Chauncey B. Blair
became a partner in this pioneer hardware store, an interest which he held until 1846,
when his Indiana business claimed all his attention. In 1861 Mr. Blair became a
resident of Chicago, where he established a private banking house. At that time
banking affairs were at zero in Illinois as in other States, so that the advent of this
successful Hoosier banker in Chicago was hailed as a blessing. In December, 1864,
he organized the Merchants' National Bank, of which he was elected president. His
intimate relations with Hugh McCulloch, then secretary of the treasury, no less than
his wide reputation as a financier, rendered the charter secure, and in 1865 a charter
was issued. How that charter was honored during the life of C. B. Blair, and is to-day
honored by his successor in the presidency, are facts well known. The matter-of-fact
history of the bank tells the story of repeated and incomparable success. In 1861 he
brought hope to banking circles; in 1871 he insisted that every dollar should be paid
\
depositors on demand; in 1873 he opposed the issue of bank certificates; in 1876 he
aided the bankrupt city of Chicago to creep out of the critical corner in which bad
government and unfortunate circumstances placed her, and from 1876 to 1891 he con-
tinued his faith in the city and people.
The midnight clearing, the first after the great fire, was made historic by C. B.
Blair, who addressed his fellow bankers thus: " In this dilemma, I am as uncertain as
anyone what and to what extent calls have been made on the bank; but I want to
know them, at once, that I may proceed to pay them if I can. All I have belongs to
my creditors, and if it takes the last dollar I have, I will pay it at once and begin life
again." It was the echo of the true banker's soul to which his fellow-men listened.
The echo was repeated throughout the city, bringing hope at a moment when credit and
honor were to be bartered for personal profit. His action on the question of suspend-
ing specie payments in 1873 was no less aggressive and beneficial. He rode on the
whirlwind and directed the storm. Doing exactly what was right, he robbed the panic
of half its terrors and did much to place the city beyond the shadow of depression.
His marriage with Miss Caroline O. De Groff took place in 1844. This lady was
the daughter of Amos T. De Groff of Michigan City. To this marriage five sons and
one daughter were born, namely: Chauncey J., the successor of his father as president
of the Merchants' National Bank, and Henry A., Watson F., directors of the bank;
George G., who died in 1870; William S., who died hi 1874, and Miss Harriet O., the
widow of John J. Borland, who died in 1881. From 1881 to 1891 Mrs. Borland pre-
sided over the Chicago home of her father.
The founder of the Blair family in Illinois passed to his reward January 30, 1891. A
famous financier was lost to Chicago a man who accumulated a splendid fortune by
doing good in the position to which Providence called him. In November, 1888, and in
February, 1890, he suffered paralytic strokes, but beyond the transitory alarms he
preserved his mental and physical powers and even subjected paralysis. His death
1 BrciKers.FuiJi8li.er8. C3iicc.ec-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 243
was due to rheumatism of the heart. The funeral, February i, 1891, from the resi-
dence at 1611 Michigan Boulevard, was a sincere demonstration of respect for the
man who made and enforced the strict banking rules which now obtain in Chicago.
Robert Stuart. In just the degree that Chicago is famous for its business enterprise
and success, and for its superiority in commercial transactions over other cities of the
United States, are the business men of the city famous for their intelligent and advent-
urous industrial methods and for their superiority over the plodding business men of
other sections of the country. Chicago is full of business men who have labored
for a season in other localities, and having proved their high ability by unusual success
in outstripping their associates in the race for commercial supremacy, have sought
this great metropolitan city, where their genius could have full play. They have come
from all portions of the country after their former surroundings had become too cir-
cumscribed for their capacities. Not only is this true, but it is a remarkable fact that
the adventurous spirit of the Scotch and English has led many of the brainiest and
boldest of them to the highest ranks of local industries. Many examples of the
ascendancy of the Scotch in industrial pursuits in Chicago can be pointed out. Their
most notable characteristics seem to be sound sense, breadth of mind, prudent and
economical methods, tireless energy and sterling honesty. These qualities continue
to cling to the descendants of the Scottish people for many generations after other
blood has been introduced by intermarriage with other nationalities.
Robert Stuart, recently elected president of the American Exchange National
Bank, is proud to trace his ancestry to Scotland. The blood of the ablest and bravest
of that country in old historic times flows in his veins and accounts for his high abil-
ity, persistent honesty and unusual success. In all his business transactions his Scot-
tish qualities have predominated, and this fact will readily be seen from a review of
his life.
He is a native of the county of Oxford, Ontario, Canada, where his birth occurred
in 1852. Both his parents were born in Scotland, but came to Canada at an early day
and enrolled their names among the pioneers. The father, before leaving Scotland,
had learned the trade of milling, and upon reaching manhood and upon his arrival in
Canada, engaged in that occupation. He was an intelligent and industrious man, and
soon gained a prominent and merited place among his business associates.
His son Robert, the subject of this memoir, entered the mill of his father at an
early period in life and learned thoroughly all the details of the milling industry,
which knowledge afterward made it possible for him to form such extensive business
combinations and achieve such substantial success. His education, like that of all
other Scotch and English boys, was thorough and practical and was supplemented
and rounded out by an attendance at a private college in Toronto. Therefore, when
in 1873 he came to the United States, he was fitted from the standpoints both of
education and of business experience to command prosperity and success. With him
244 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
came a friend, George Douglas (another name famous in Scottish history) and
together they organized the firm of Stuart & Douglas and began milling operations
in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Both men were able, adventurous and practical, and -their
enterprise continued to grow and prosper until iS/g.'when they decided to change the
scope and the field of their operations and accordingly established a branch in
Chicago. They established themselves under the old name at Sixteenth and Dear-
born Streets, and here that branch of their present large enterprise is yet located.
Mr. Douglas is now deceased, but his interests both at Cedar Rapids and in Chicago
are owned and controlled by his sons, George B., Walter D. and William W.
Soon after the establishment of his interests in this city Mr. Stuart began to seek
an expansion in his trade. Like many other sagacious men he saw that the gigantic
industrial enterprises of the future were, in almost all instances, certain to be con-
ducted in combinations of successful private ventures. He therefore began to formu-
late the plans which have placed him at the head of one of the largest industries this
progressive age has yet produced. In a short time he succeeded in organizing the
American Cereal Company, which took the form of a syndicate of all the leading oat
meal mills of America, an immense undertaking which only the highest business
sagacity could have carried to a successful conclusion. Into this great company the
following mills were merged: The Schumacher Milling Company, of Akron, Ohio;
the Quaker Milling Company, of Ravenna, Ohio; the Newell Milling Company, of
Cleveland; the Hower Milling Company, of Akron; the Rockford Oat Meal Company,
of Rockford, 111.; the Oat Meal Company, of Iowa City, Iowa, and the Douglas &
Stuart Company, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Chicago.
This gigantic combination or syndicate was capitalized for $5,000,000, and was
officered as follows: Ferdinand Schumacher, president; H. B. Crowell, vice-president,
and Robert Stuart, secretary and treasurer. It at once took a prominent place among
the great business ventures of the country. The trade of the company has grown and
expanded enormously and is now on a large and constantly increasing basis, assuring
large dividends to stockholders and placing the names of the founders of the com-
pany among the leaders of this remarkable era of commercial development.
Mr. Stuart has devoted himself to his business pursuits and has the proud satis-
faction of knowing that his splendid success is due wholly to his own ability and
capacity. He Uas seen his business undertakings steadily grow and succeed under
his observant eye and steadfast effort, and has forced them forward with all the
energy and sagacity characteristic of the man. He has made himself one of the
most prominent promoters and executives yet developed by the gigantic commercial
transactions of the West. He has become interested in other enterprises and is pros-
perous and contented. In 1891 he was elected a director of the American Exchange
National Bank, and on January 9, 1894, was elected its president, a position he is yet
holding, to the complete satisfaction of the stockholders. In his business relations he
C0
Msfafiy -A 'Kufnmag !'> tlH'aya.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 2tf
is most cordial and agreeable, possesses a pleasing personality, and enjoys, the utmost
respect and confidence of his business associates.
In 1876 Mr. Stuart was united in marriage with Miss Margaret Sharrar, of Dixon,
111., and they have three children: John, Margaret and Douglas. All are members of
the Presbyterian Church and reside in a beautiful home in Hyde Park. Mr. Stuart
has taken no active part in politics. His parents, now well advanced in years, are
living in retirement in this city. Mr. Stuart is so able and so young a man that the
future is sure to have rich gifts in store for him.
Franklin D. Gray. The life of Franklin D. Gray, president of the National Safe
Deposit Company is so interwoven with the industrial development of Chicago that
it is impossible to describe the active events of his career without giving an outline
of the causes and effects which have made the city one of the greatest commercial
centers of the world. The privilege has not been granted to many men to experience
in so striking and certain a way a working of the force of a civilization that has
entirely changed its character and apparent destiny in less than half a century. For
more than fifty years Mr. Gray has been a continuous resident of Chicago, and his
mind, yet active and retentive, is full of pleasant memories and interesting reminis-
cences of old faces and events. Blessed with unusual comprehensiveness of mind
and the power of assimilating passing events, he is to-day, one of the broadest-gauged
and substantial citizens of the city. But the days of trial were upon him as they were
upon the little village of Chicago back half a century ago, and a lesson of great value
can be learned by his patient industry, effective enterprise and rigid honesty while
yet struggling to win a competence.
He is a native of Connecticut, born at Sharon, May 19, 1818, and was reared upon
a farm, receiving, until he was ten years of age, a limited education at the district
schools. This was the termination of his educational opportunities, save one term
afterward spent in the high school. At the age of twelve years he secured a position
as clerk in a grocery store in Goshen Center, Conn., and was thus employed until he
had attained the age of twenty-one years. This period of about nine years was for-
mative, and established in his mind and character many of the principles which have
since made him so successful and prominent. At the age of twenty-one years, with two
companions, Messrs. Norton and Walter, his former employers, he came out to Chi-
cago, and these gentlemen, having opened a general store on South Water Street, con-
tinued Mr. Gray as clerk. This was in 1840, when Chicago was an insignificant and
straggling little village, resting in a swamp at the mouth of the Chicago River. No
one dreamed then of the future growth of Chicago. In fact, it was ten years later
that the first evidences of Chicago's becoming the great distributing point for the
States farther west and northwest were first manifested.
Mr. Gray continued to serve as clerk for this firm until 1845, when he was
admitted as a partner, the firm name becoming Norton, Walter & Co. By this time
12
248 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
the business began to assume larger proportions, and so continued until 1849, when
the partners dissolved, and Mr. Gray became associated with E. W. Densmore in the
same business, so continuing until 1853, when another partner was added, and the
firm became Gray, Densmore & Phelps. Five years later the interests of Mr. Densmore
was purchased by Mr. Gray, who admitted his brother, Moses W. Gray, and Frederick
Gaylord, whereupon the firm name became Gray, Phelps & Co. During the fifties a
very large business was done, and much interest was taken by Mr. Gray in the growth
of the city. During the war period and the hard times of reconstruction, the business
of the firm prospered under the experienced and conservative management of Mr.
Gray. But the old private and State bank issues were gone, and a new currency,
guaranteed by the Government, was serving the purposes of the people, and, although
depreciated, was-better than "wild cat" or "red dog."
In January, 1869, Mr. Gaylord severed his relations with the firm, when the name
of Gray Bros. & Phelps was assumed, Franklin D. Gray and George H. Phelps con-
ducting the business here, while Moses W. Gray resided in New York, where he was
purchasing agent and had control of the eastern affairs of the firm. Soon the com-
pany was enjoying one of the largest wholesale and retail trades of the West. But it
was not gained without careful estimates, profound study, critical inspection and the
exercise of a broad discretion. Trying times were encountered during periods of
intense depression, when values were wild and erratic, and when a misstep would
plunge the concern into the abyss of ruin. But the sound judgment and hopeful and
buoyant disposition of Mr. Gray were equal to any and every emergency/and through
all financial storms he piloted the concern in safety.
During the seventies and eighties many changes were made in the partnership,
William Burt and Charles H. Kingman were associated with Mr. Gray for a time and
others acquired interests in the properties and good-will of this well-known company.
On January i, 1880, Mr. Gray withdrew from active participation in the management
of the business of the company and assumed control of the affairs of the National
Safe Deposit Company, in which he had acquired an interest. As early as 1865 he
had become the owner of a block of shares in the First National Bank and was
elected a director, but two years later, when Mr. Nickerson was made president, Mr.
Gray was chosen vice-president and continued to serve as such until the organization
of the Deposit Company, of which he was elected president. His connection with
the bank and the exercise of his official duties therefore ripened his judgment and
widened the horizon of his knowledge of commercial transactions. But this does not
fully and satisfactorily account for his success in business. It was only after long
encounters with the problems of supply and demand an experience gained with the
ups and downs of actual transactions that he was enabled to forecast accurately
future gains and losses. He became the master of his business and knew how to
conduct all his ventures to a profitable finality. His success has been due to his own
sagacity, industry and honesty.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 249
One of the most striking characteristics of Mr. Gray is his kindly nature. One
can not but feel in his presence that his friendships are real and his cordiality the
expression of a warm heart and a broad humanitarianism. It is refreshing to feel the
impact of his generous nature upon your own. Old age is fast descending upon him,
but it has not obscured the sunshine he sheds upon all his associates and surround-
ings. His mind, is as clear and his memory as fresh as when, over half a century ago,
he first arrived and stood at old Fort Dearborn and looked over the ragged little
western town that was destined to be his future abiding place through life. His long,
active and generous life is nearing its sunset, leaving as a rich heritage to his
descendants a name of high renown.
He has been closely identified with all the movements to advance the welfare of
Chicago. In an early day he was one of the famous volunteer firemen, and treasures
to-day a certificate of ten years' faithful service as such, signed by Mayor Charles M.
Gray. He was a member of Engine Company No. i, and was its secretary and treas-
urer during the ten years mentioned. He assisted in organizing the Firemen's Insur-
ance Company, and was for many years a prominent official for the Chicago Home
for the Friendless. Many other charitable movements and institutions of the city
have appreciated his worth and services by assigning to him some important official
duty. He is a member of the Calumet Club, where the geniality of his nature is fully
enjoyed. July 4, 1843, he was united in marriage at Norfolk, Conn., to Miss Ann O.
Phelps, daughter of Jeremiah W. Phelps, of the same place, and they have one child,
Isabella C. Mr. Gray resides at his beautiful home, 2807 Prairie Avenue.
The first officers of the National Safe Deposit Company, which was organized in
1880, were as follows: Franklin D. Gray, president; Samuel M. Nickerson, vice-presi-
dent; Lyman J. Gage, treasurer. The company was incorporated with a capital of
300,000. They erected the present First National Bank building, in the basement of
which their commodious vaults are situated. Their present capital is 8500,000, and
present officers are: Franklin D. Gray, president; Lyman J. Gage, vice-president, and
E. F. Lawrence, secretary and treasurer. The vaults which are considered the safest
in the city, comprise 10,000 boxes in sizes to suit depositors.
Solomon Albert Smith. More than once in the past has the financial reputation
of Chicago business men been in a critical condition and been saved by the courage,
intelligence and honesty of the leading financiers. On occasions of monetary crises,
when any weakness or vacillation of capital would precipitate a devastating and wide-
spread panic, the calm, confident and courageous action of a few moneyed men or insti-
tutions, when they cast everything they had in the stream, determined to win all
or lose all, kindles the highest admiration and thankfulness. They become public
benefactors, by practicing a splendid charity which reacts with permanent beneficial
effects upon all departments of industry. Such a man and such a benefactor was
Solomon A. Smith, deceased.
250 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
He was born at Southwark, Mass., in 1815, and in youth received a fair education
at the public schools. He learned the trade of a powder manufacturer (which occu-
pation his father and grandfather had successfully pursued), and as a young man
traveled throughout the surrounding country disposing of cans and kegs of the explo-
sive and making collections therefor. Soon after reaching his majority, having become
convinced that the West offered better opportunities for making money than the East,
he determined to join the caravan of western home and fortune seekers, and accord-
ingly in 1840 came via the Erie Canal and the lakes to Chicago. It was just the time
to strike Chicago. The place was small and all was bustle and confusion. The
town was full of wagons ready to start on their cruise as "prairie schooners," over the
plains. It was just the time for men of brains and sagacity to take hold of the inhar-
monious forces gathered here and evolve settled principles and establish order. Upon
his arrival here Mr. Smith at once threw himself into the whirl of business. He was
ambitious, but at the same time was sensible and prudent, and at all times was ruled
by his judgment and not by his emotions or propensities. He became connected with
Luther & Matthew Laflin, then the largest powder manufacturers, it is said, in the
United States, and a year later secured an interest in the concern and the firm
name became Laflin & Smith. They did an extensive business, sending their powder
all over the country to the North, West and South, and continued without change
until 1849, when a Mr. Boies was admitted to the partnership, though the old name
was retained a few years longer, or until Matthew Laflin withdrew, when the firm was
recognized as the Laflin & Rand Powder Company. Thus they continued until 1860,
building up a large trade and gaining a high reputation. Their business was ever
conducted conservatively and on lines dictated by economy and safety.
In 1860 Mr. Smith became president of the Merchants' Loan and Trust Company,
which corporation he had previously helped to establish and place on a firm founda-
tion of public confidence. Its officers and members were substantial business men,
with extensive experience in the various commercial enterprises, whose wealth, prom-
inence and ability were a satisfactory guaranty that the concern would be conducted
with prudence and profit. The selection of Mr. Smith for the presidency of this
important institution was a tribute to his worth and an expression of the public confi-
dence in his integrity and ability, gained through twenty years of social and commer-
cial intercourse. From the moment of his ascent to the presidency new force and
strength were imparted to the business of the company. He made a study of meth-
ods and industrial and commercial principles, and introduced many reforms in the
management of affairs that wrought a revolution in banking and loaning conditions
and results. This was accomplished in spite of hard times and unsettled financial
affairs. The Southern States rebelled and many thought the Union was dissolved.
Southern bank bills were hurriedly collected to be sent South for redemption, and
here and there, with alarming frequency, banks, unable to live through the flood of
#**
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS, 253
shifting values, went down in chaos and ruin, carrying with them business houses of
all kinds. Mr. Smith adopted a sagacious course to protect his charge. He went to
Springfield, III., where were deposited with the auditor of state the stocks of southern
banks as a security for their circulation, and there he watched the ebb and flow of
credits and took every precaution to protect the interests of his company. The result
was that the concern came through the trying ordeal without loss and with credit
unimpaired. His management of affairs at this critical time firmly established his
reputation as one of the ablest, safest and best financiers of the city and gave him a
prestige that was of great value and the source of great pride to him until the day of
his death.
Mr. Smith continued to be re-elected president of the company at each annual
meeting until the great fire. The fact of his steady continuance in the office was
proof both of the confidence his associates had in him and of his own sterling quali-
ties. He had rapidly developed into one of the ablest financiers of the West and had
attained a success for the company which the stockholders had never expected to
reach. But the great fire was crushing. The company lost its books, though its treas-
ure came safely through and every creditor was paid in full and the bank, with
enough left to start on, began an era of unexpected and gratifying prosperity, not-
withstanding the panic of 1873 and the hard times resulting therefrom. Unquestion-
ably its prosperity was mainly due to the business sagacity of Mr. Smith. His long
experience and conservative methods were at this time worth a fortune to the bank
and continued to be a fund that could be drawn upon at sight and duly accepted and
honored. Through the era of depreciation previous to the resumption of specie pay-
ments he conducted the bank wisely, conservatively and profitably and was even thus
engaged up to the hour of his death, November 25, 1879. His loss to the bank was
almost irreparable.
Mr. Smith, though reticent and unostentatious, was a charming companion, a
witty and sparkling conversationalist, and a man who inspired the warmest friend-
ships. He was a man of methods, of deliberation, of fixed principles, of steadfast
objects and of the highest ideals. He courted no publicity and was self-contained
and devoted to his business. He came to the front at the proper moment at a time
of financial trial and perplexity, and it must be stated as a historical fact that no man
did more to sustain the commercial credit of the city than he. He left a void in
banking circles that time alone could fill.
He was twice married, first to a Miss Mills, who bore him three children, all
deceased, and second to Miss Marie L. Laflin, by whom he had two sons, only one of
whom is now living Byron L. Smith.
Hempstead Washburne. The name of Washburne is, to-day, as familiar in the West
as it was in New England when John Washburne was secretary of the colony of Ply-
mouth in the seventeenth century. In modern times the names of Cadwalader C.
254 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Washburn, an old settler of Wisconsin, who distinguished himself in the war of the
Rebellion as major-general of volunteers, served in Congress, and later was governor
of Wisconsin; Israel Washburn, also a member of Congress and subsequently gov-
ernor of Maine, and Elihu B. Washburne, the father of the subject of this sketch, are
all familiar to the American people. They were all natives of Livermore, Me., and
all endowed with that spirit of Puritanism, which showed them the way to success
and gave them the strength to follow it.
Elihu Benjamin Washburne was born September 23, 1816. His childhood was
passed at Livermore, Me., and there he received the rudiments of an education. When
school days were over, he entered a printing office as an apprentice; next he was
engaged as school teacher, then became assistant editor of the Kenncbec Journal, and
ultimately, in 1836, began the study of law at Kent's Hill Seminary, which he con-
tinued, in 1838, in Hon. John Otis' office, at Hollowell, and, in 1839, he graduated from
the Cambridge Law School. One year later he was admitted to the bar, migrated
westward, and settled at Galena, 111., then the rival of Chicago. Shortly after locating
at Galena he entered into a law partnership with Charles S. Hempstead, and, blend-
ing law and politics, became, in a little while, a recognized leader of the Galena Whigs
entering into the Harrison campaign with enthusiasm. He was a stern opponent of
railroad connection with Chicago, early in the fifties, in common with Judge Drum-
mond and Thomas Hoyne, men who, like himself, became the fastest friends of
Chicago after the iron way was extended between the rivals. In 1852 he was elected
a member of Congress, and repeatedly re-elected, serving until March 6, 1869. He it
was who introduced the bill providing for the establishment of national cemeteries.
For ten years he was chairman of the committee on commerce, and presided over the
committee on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Of course, being himself a
Galena man, it necessarily followed that a strong friendship should exist between Gen.
Grant and himself. Grant, as President, gave him the portfolio of secretary of state,
but this great office he resigned within a short time to accept that of minister to the
imperial court of France, then in the zenith of its grandeur. During the French-Ger-
man war the position was a delicate one, but Mr. Washburne was equal to every
emergency, winning the esteem of Frenchman and German, and later, the respect of
that terrible monster, the Communist of Paris. In his " Recollections of a Minister to
France," published in 1887, he tells very graphically of the circumvalation of Paris,
the capitulation and the subsequent arrest of the city, from the sanguinary demons,
forming the Commune. Returning to Chicago in 1880, he succeeded Isaac N. Arnold
as president of the Chicago Historical Society in 1884, and gave up his remaining
years to history and literature. His marriage with Adele Gratiot, of Gratiot Grove,
Wis., daughter of Col. Henry and Susan Hempstead Gratiot, took place at Gratiot's
Grove, Wis., near Galena, 111., in which towns Col. Gratiot was a pioneer.
Miss Hempstead was a daughter of a soldier of the Revolution. The family
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 255
moved from St. Louis, in which city the Gratiots located at an early day. Of their
sons, Gratiot died December 17, 1886; Hempstead lives in Chicago; William P. is a
resident of Maine and librarian of the Washburne Memorial Library at Norlands, and
Elihu B., Jr., the fourth son, is an attorney at law and a member of the Chicago bar.
Of the daughters, Susan is the wife of W. D. Bishop, Jr., of Bridgeport, Conn., and
resides there, while Marie L. is the wife of A. H. Fowler, of Denver, Colo. The
father of this family died at the Hempstead Washburne residence, 73 Maple Street,
Chicago, October 22, 1887.
Hempstead Washburne was born at Galena, 111., November 11,1852. There he
attended school until late in the sixties, when he was sent to Andover, Mass., and to
the Kent's Hill College, Me., to complete his education in the English branches.
Graduating from that old school in 1871, he determined to pursue higher studies, and
matriculated as a student of the University of Bonn, Germany, where he remained
for two years. During the long term of his father as minister to France, the son had
unusual opportunities of becoming acquainted with the Germans, their language and
their literature. Being yet a student he acquired easily a knowledge of German and
French, and prepared himself for citizenship in just such a cosmopolitan city as Chi-
cago is. His travels and education went still farther, for they banished from his
thoughts whatever was illiberal, narrow and intolerant in them, widened the range of
his sympathies and developed the finer feelings of his race. Returning from Europe
in 1873, he entered the law office of Gregory & Pinney, at Madison, Wis., and at the
same time became a student in the law department of the University of Wisconsin,
from which he graduated in 1874, and then took up a supplementary law course in the
Union College of Law at Chicago, which he completed in 1875. That year the firm
of Washburne & Robins was formed, Henry S. Robins being his partner. Later, Hon.
Lyman Trumbull entered the partnership, and the firm was reorganized under the
title Trumbull, Washburne & Robins, an association which continued down to 1885.
In 1880 Mr. Washburne was appointed master in chancery for the Superior Court of
Cook County, a position he filled most satisfactorily down to 1885, when he was
elected city attorney.
The same year he surrendered his partnership interests in the law firm, so that
his official life would not be hampered with private business interests or the calls of a
second office. In 1887 he was re-elected city attorney, but in 1889 declined a third
nomination for that office. Entering into partnership with the present Judge Bren-
tano, under the name Washburne & Brentano, he continued in the active practice of
his profession until April, 1891, when he was inaugurated mayor of Chicago to suc-
ceed the former Democratic incumbent. The campaign though brief, following the
nomination of March of that year, was a brilliant one. He was opposed by the late
Carter H. Harrison, on an independent Democratic ticket; by D. C. Cregier, on the
regular Democratic ticket; and Elmer Washburn on the Prohibition and Reform
256 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
ticket; but he won in those Democratic times and thanked the people in a practical
way by giving them an able Republican administration. During his term, which
extended from the beginning of actual work on the World's Fair almost to the com-
pletion of that work, he labored earnestly to improve the condition of Chicago's public
works and took a most active part in every meeting and public or semi-public enter-
prise which promised to exalt the city. When his successor, the late Carter H. Har-
rison, took the oath of office in April, 1893, every municipal department was well
organized and the finances of the city in excellent condition. His experience as city
attorney taught him much relating to municipal government, and that experience he
used as mayor in the interest of the people.
The city of Chicago will for years to come remain a debtor to Mayor Washburne,
for it was he and he only who, single-handed, attacked the railroad grade crossing
slaughter, and for two years, in the face of opposition and abuse, persisted in his
efforts for an elevation of the railroad tracks. He had the proud satisfaction before
retiring from office to see an ordinance, prepared at his instigation, introduced and
passed, thus laying the foundation for those steps which have since followed.
In June, 1891, Mayor Washburne compelled the gas companies to pay the city
three per cent, a year upon their gross receipts and to reduce the price of gas to the
consumer; something never before accomplished.
It was Mayor Washburne who first demanded and got from corporations using
streets on new charters a percentage on receipts in payment for a franchise, a prec-
edent followed by his successors which will soon result in a great revenue to the
city. Mayor Washburne personally established the milk inspection bureau, and the
sub-stations for the payment of water rates. A careful study of his official career
reveals the fact that he unostentatiously labored for the good of his city, and that all
his conduct was guided by charity, firmness and good judgment. In 1888 he sought
the nomination for Congress, but was defeated at the primaries, the vote being almost
a tie.
His marriage with Miss Annie M., daughter of the late J. V. Clarke, was solemnized
June 28, 1883. Her father was one of the old bankers of this city, having been one of
the organizers of the Hibernian Bank and president of that sterling institution from
its establishment down to the day of his death.
As mayor of this city, from 1891 to 1893, he was singularly happy in his social, as
well as practical, relations to that office. In presiding over great meetings, dedicating
public monuments, receiving distinguished visitors or guests of the municipality, he
was equally at home. His speech at the dedication of the Grant monument in 1891
is one instance of his ability as a public speaker, and his speech at the dedication of
the World's Fair has been by many able critics pronounced the most polished, scholarly
and ablest speech of that day, which included Watterson and Depew among the
orators. Luther Laflin Mills said of it: " It belongs with the masterpieces of Ameri-
v. ^5
/-
v - *.
a:..
t/ _,
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. i!59
can oratory." He is a member of the Chicago, Athletic, Union, Germania, Tolleston
and Huron Mountain Clubs, also the Union Club, New York City, and is one of the
founders of the popular Marquette Club, the quarters of which are in the old Wash-
burne mansion.
He is the legal adviser, as well as head of the firm, of Knott, Lewis & Co., mort-
gage bankers. This firm deals only in large estates, loaning immense sums annually
on Chicago property, and thus taking an active part in the true development of the
city, the progress of which rests mainly upon capital.
Mr. Washburne, though the inheritor of reputation and wealth, maybe called the
architect of his own fortune. With pleasant, yet decisive, manners and strong con-
victions, he has made his way to the highest places in the gift of Chicago. As a
lawyer, he won a high place at the bar of Illinois and now, as a banker, holds a most
important relation to Chicago. He is a man at once self-reliant and judicious, whose
word may be depended upon, and whose action is always influential.
Paul O. Stensland. The Milwaukee Avenue State Bank, with office on Milwaukee
Avenue and Carpenter Street, is the successor of the private banking house of Paul O.
Stensland & Co. It was chartered under the banking laws of Illinois, with a paid-in
capital of $250,000, and organized September 15, 1891, with Paul O. Stensland, presi-
dent; Andrew C. Lausten, vice-president; Charles E. Schlytern, cashier; Donald L.
Morrill, attorney; Joseph P. Hanson, F. H. Herhold, A. J. Johnson, Wm. Johnson,
M. A. LaBuy, A. C. Lausten, John McLaren, Thomas G. Morris, John F. Smulski,
Soren D. Thorson and the president, directors. The stockholders are named as fol-
lows: Franklin S. Anderson, of John Anderson Publishing Company; Victor Bard-
onski, druggist; Chas. S. Bartholf, school principal; John S. Cooper, capitalist; W. H.
Crosby, capitalist; Thomas F. Crosby, of American Book Company; Max A. Drezmal,
attorney at law; Anton Groenwaldt, liquor dealer; John P. Hanson, cigar manufact-
urer; F. Herhold & Sons, chair manufacturers; Albert Jendrzejek, grocer; A. J. John-
son & Sons Furniture Company; Elof Johnson, grocer; William Johnson, vessel
owner and capitalist; Chas. F. Kimball, banker; Peter Kiolbassa, city treasurer;
Marius Kirkeby, commission merchant; Joseph Kowalski, grocer; Mrs. A. LaBuy;
M. A. LaBuy, justice of the peace; Chas. E. Lane, of American Book Company;
Andrew C. Lausten, president N. W. Lead and Oil Company; John McLaren, capital-
ist; Swen J. Mellin, manufacturing tailor; Karsten Michelsen, manufacturing tailor;
I. P. Mikitynski, furniture dealer; Donald L. Morrill, attorney at law; Thomas G.
Morris, lumber dealer; Chas. E. Morrison, capitalist; P. P. Okoniewski, jeweler; Anton
Peterson, furniture manufacturer; Julian Pischke, contractor; Richard Prendergast,
attorney at law; Maurice Rosenfeld, capitalist; K. F. M. Sandberg, physician; John
Schermann, insurance agent; Otto F. Scheuneman, coal dealer; Chas. E. Schlytern;
Stanislaus Slominski, milliner; John F. Smullski, attorney at law; C. C. Soiberg, flour
and feed dealer; Jesse Spalding, president Spalding Lumber Company; Paul O. Stens-
260 IND US TRIA L CHIC A G O :
land; Peter Svanoe, Swedish-Norwegian consul; Soren D. Thorson, of Central Manu-
facturing Company; John R. Walsh, president Chicago National Bank; Jas. D.
Williams, of Effingham, Maynard & Co.; Frank Wleklinski, baker, and John H.
Xelowski, druggist.
A general banking business is transacted. Deposits left for a stated time bear
interest; certificates of deposit are issued, payable on demand or transferable by
endorsement; loans on approved commercial paper are made; collections are made in
all parts of the United States; exchange is bought and sold; exchange and money
orders on foreign countries are sold at the lowest rates, while foreign money is bought
and sold. The resources of this bank, May 10, 1893, amounted to $1,064,077, the loans
and discounts aggregating 783,500.44 of this sum. The deposits amounted to $718,-
370.33 on that date, and the undivided profits to $38,925.59. The savings depart-
ment is a convenient and secure refuge for the surplus of earnings over expenditures.
Sums of one dollar and upward received on deposit bear interest at the common rate.
The savings deposits on October i, 1892, amounted to $207,209.96.
The safe deposit vaults, which are entered from the bank, present as unique a
fortress for valuables as they do a secure one. The arrangement is in keeping with
the latest ideas on such vaults. The private boxes in this department are rented at
$5 per annum. It is doubtful if a cyclone of fire could injure a single box in these
extensive vaults.
The real estate department is well equipped with maps, atlas, and record. It is
distinct from the bank in location and management. Connected with it is the depart-
ment of real estate loans a department which for years has exercised a most bene-
ficial influence on the northwestern section of the city, and one which must be
credited in a large measure with the development of that part of Chicago.
Were the question asked, Who is the best representative of the Norwegian element
in Chicago to-day? the answer would be, Paul O. Stensland. The name is undeniably
Scandinavian. Paul O. Stensland was born in Norway, May 9, 1847. His parents, Ole
and Kari (Millie) Stensland, were natives of that country, and they, like their ancestors,
belonged to the sturdy agricultural class of Scandinavia. They died in 1871, in their
native land. When their son had completed his education in the national schools, at
the age of seventeen years, he went to India and entered the employ of a Bombay
cotton house as clerk and later as buyer of cotton, and was engaged in the cotton
trade there until his return to Norway some years after.
Leaving his native land again in 1871 for Chicago, he associated himself with
Mr. Berlizheimer, under the firm name of Berlizheimer & Stensland, and carried on a
successful retail dry goods trade for thirteen years. Retiring from the firm he established
himself in the insurance, real estate and banking business at 409 Milwaukee Avenue,
under the firm name of Paul O. Stensland & Co., and entered on that phenomenally
successful career which has made him the peer of any of Chicago's business men. He
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 261
who walks up Milwaukee Avenue can read. Since 1885, when he organized this busi-
ness, the avenue has been metamorphosed, and, by intuition, travelers credit the
change to this man above all others.
His marriage with Mrs. Karen Querk, which took place August 3, 1871, has
been blessed with one child, Theodore Stensland, born October 24, 18/5, who is
now attending the Phillips Exeter Academy, New Hampshire, preparing himself for
Harvard University. Mr. Stensland was a member of the Chicago school board
from 1879 to 1888, or for three terms. During that progressive period in the school
history of this city, his voice was never heard against a measure in the true interest
of public education. In 1891 he organized the Milwaukee Avenue State Bank and was
elected president of that financial institution. Later he was chosen a member of the
World's Fair Committee, and took a full share in winning for Chicago the honors of
the World's Fair City.
During the presidency of Mr. Cleveland he was given to understand that he could
have the appointment as United States consul to Calcutta, but declined the honor. In
October, 1891, he was elected a director of the World's Columbian Exposition to fill
the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of J. W. Scott, and in April, 1892, at the
regular meeting of the board was re-elected. He was one of five appointed by the
government of Norway to represent that country at the World's Fair. He is a
prominent and valued member of the Iroquois and of several of the Scandinavian
clubs. His travels in foreign lands have been extensive and have given him a pro-
found knowledge of civilization, and particularly is he well versed in the customs
of India and the Persian empire. He is one of the largest real estate owners in
the city and one of its most distinguished citizens.
Of the 173,041 Norwegians who came to the United States via New York between
the years 1855 and 1891, Mr. Stensland holds a leading place. His business educa-
tion in three continents conferred on him advantages of which few can boast, and the
utilization of these advantages of the knowledge gained by travel is a point in his
life worthy of study. He has become an American of Americans, a Chicagoan of
Chicagoans. Coming here a stranger, he built up a fortune and a reputation for
himself, and in accomplishing this necessarily became a part of the city which
grew up around him, contributing largely to its welfare by material and moral aid.
262 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
CHAPTER V.
THE, BOflRD OF TRflDE.
(Sj O one who has seen Chicago in 1847, or w h has read a good description of the
all town of that time and of its 16,859 inhabitants, the part played by the Board
of Trade in her development is known and the efficacy of that part acknowledged.
Few other merchants conceived anything heavier than a retail trade; the products of
the western grain fields were hauled over prairie trails, in " schooners," to this mar-
ket, often filling South Water Street and Lake Street with wagons, men and horses,
as thoroughly as the buyers, sellers and freighters fill the first named street to-day.
The buyer bargained with the seller and the seller with the buyer. Then the city
buyer bargained with the merchant and the merchant with the peddler, until the din
and confusion fatigued the eye and the ear, and made night welcome. In the grocery
and dry goods trades an equally roundabout way of business prevailed. There was
no enterprise in the council of the town; there was no high commercial ideal in the
mercantile circle; manufactures were few and the spirit to create them scarce; the
streets were infinitely worse than those of any of our new western towns of to-day; the
sanitary ideas of the people were sleeping; one in every thirty-two inhabitants died
of disease, and in every respect the Chicago of 1847, wl ^ ' ts large population, was
simply a trading post, uninviting to civilized men and only alluring to dealers and
traders.
The Board of Trade was organized in 1848; men of different trades met daily to
consider the status of trade and, incidentally, to discuss ways and means for the
advancement of the town. A decided improvement in personal appearances followed:
the Marine Hospital was established; the newspaper men began to assume city
methods; statistics of trade were compiled; the men who had made money began to
build higher and better; the Illinois and Michigan Canal was opened; a telegraph line
and a railroad were in process of construction. With all this, the present busy corner
of State and Madison Streets was out on the prairie; the Sunday hunters could have
an uninterrupted view of the tree-clothed ridge of Longwood from the corner of Lake
and La Salle Streets; the streets were execrable, such signs as "No bottom here"
being common, while the wag or badin would place a hat and coat on cross-sticks,
with the legend attached, "The shortest road to China;" the sidewalks, where such
existed, were inferior to the corduroys in the Hudson's Bay region, and the interiors
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 263
of the great majority of domestic and business buildings would bring a blush to
the Virginia City mining camp of later days. There were no sewers; the water supply
was poor in quality and quantity; a city marshal and nine policemen tried to keep the
peace, and everything connected with business was primitive. Before the Board of
Trade was nine months old, the railroad, on which work commenced in March, 1848,
was completed to Cottage Hill, ten miles away (November 20), and the members
were invited to ride on the little locomotive and six old freight-cars which formed the
train; the O'Rielly telegraph line was in operation, and the canal boats were hauling
the riches of the Illinois Valley to the Chicago market.
The population of the town when the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad Com-
pany invited the officials of the Board of Trade to ride with them to Cottage Hill
was only 20,023, and the value of its annual trade was not much over $12, 000,000.
Such was the city that the original Board of Trade found here one to the develop-
ment of which its members bent their best energies. For forty-six years this well
organized body of citizens has not allowed one year to pass without impressing its
ideas, in relation to city interests, on national, State and municipal councils. The
harbor had met its truest friend, the shipping interests a guardian, and the railroads
an ally in all their just demands. It is difficult to find any of our great enterprises,
from the opening of the pioneer railroad in 1848 to the opening of the World's
Columbian Exposition in 1893, in which it has not taken an active interest, contribut-
ing moneys and practical ideas lavishly, and lending its organized, consolidated power
and enthusiasm to the accomplishment of great undertakings. For almost five
decades it has exerted an extraordinary influence on trade ethics, and is itself
the apotheosis of trade and commerce.
It has become the common privilege of ignorant legislators, and hypocrites or
Pharisees outside the council chambers of Springfield and Washington, to heap abuse
on this trading body. Its vilifiers are portrayed in word painting in Chapter XXXVI
of " Barnaby Rudge," written by Dickens, after he was brought face to face with the
Pharisaical elements of his country. The ignorant, unwittingly associate the Board of
Trade with the " Bucket Shops," just as they do any pettifogging lawyer or quack
physician with the respective professions. The Pharisee does this wittingly and mali-
ciously, or otherwise from business motives, for he is always alive to self-interest and
trained to hectoring in that interest. Without reading the preamble of this influential
association, or attempting to study its history, he makes statements without founda-
tion in fact and, by innuendoes, blackens the character of great operators.
Now, the prime object of the board is to maintain a trade exchange, for the uni-
form and speedy transaction of business on equitable principles, and to supply all
information to its members necessary in carrying out its object. In addition to this,
it contributes more to the welfare of farmer and citizen than the combined work of
all the enemies of the system in the United States. This idea is shown in a clearer
264 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
light in the report of Secretary Stone for 1890, from which the following paragraph
is quoted:
" The system, with all its safeguards, by which the great crops are moved and
realized upon, and by which a ready market is secured, regardless of the volume
offered and without depreciation of values, must certainly call forth nothing less than
admiration. This system, which has created a constant demand from the great grain
markets of the world, prevents congested markets, enabling the West to send her
grain to market without its being subject to the limitations which the consumptive
demand would impose. It permits the agriculturalist to sell, whenever prompted to
do so, either by his interest or necessity, without compelling him to make immediate
shipment. This system was devised and is maintained in the interest of the farmer,
and has brought into existence the chief grain markets of the world; without it, the
great West would not have been developed, and the trans-Mississippi States would
not have been formed. It provides the farming communities with ready money,
which, in turn, finds its way through the country store, to merchants in great centers
of trade, and, more than any measure, keeps the complex machinery of business in
harmonious activity. To withdraw or destroy it would be fatal to the success of the
grain and cotton interests, check the circulation of money, lead to selling general
merchandise on long credit, increase business hazards, advance rates of interest,
cripple enterprise and prepare the way for financial disaster."
Let us consider for a moment what the agriculturalist would be without this
board. Nothing more than a serf, subject to the caprices of the local miller or the
whims of the great millers. The enterprise and system of the Board of Trade is a
check on syndicate greed. They create a demand and produce the money to buy,
when there is really no consumptive demand; the state of the market on the floor is
heralded throughout the country as quickly as the telegraph may carry the news, and
the wide-awake farmer ignores the decrease and observes the increase. To-day corn
may be down to zero, to-morrow competition on the board may place it at summer heat,
and the grower who is prepared to take advantage of changing conditions may make
a fortune by selling at the proper heat. Opposed to the advantages which it places
at the farmer's door is the farmer's proverbial perversity. He goes to the " bucket
shop " with his capital rather than to a legitimate commission house, and his ignor-
ance is generally rewarded by getting nothing on his investment save what the adver-
tising idea of the " bucket shop " may dictate.
These facts must be patent to every one who has given them serious study. Of
course the system of dealing in " futures" does not guarantee profits. The commis-
sion houses represented on the board do not attempt to conceal that point, but they
do say that they will exercise care in the investment of the moneys of their clientele
on fair commercial chances, and they carry out what they say. On the other hand,
the "bucket shop" coaxes trade, and seldom entertains an idea of returning a nickel
to their clientele, except on lottery principles, which will scatter a small sum here and
there for advertising purposes. Like the black sheep of a profession or family, the
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 265
"bucket shop" parades its wickedness, and, in the minds of unthinking men, injures
the fame of the greatest grain and provision trading body in the wide world.
In the following history of the organization and development of Chicago's Board
of Trade the writer has kept close to facts and figures, treating the subject materially
rather than ornamentally.
The beginnings of the Board of Trade were made in March, 1848, when a call for
a meeting was extended to all who considered the organization of such an associa-
tion necessary. That call was signed by John H. Kinzie,* Thomas Richmond,*
Thomas Hale,* H. H. Magie, Isaac H. Burch,* George Steel,* Charles Walker, VV. F.
De Wolf, E. S. Wadsworth,* B. W. Raymond, W. S. Gurnee,* George A. Gibbs, J. C.
Walters, John P. Chapin, Thomas Dyer,* John Hayden, W. A. Norton, M. A. Neef
and L. W. Church.
Three months prior to the date of that call Thomas Richmond and W. L. Whit-
ing discussed the subject and suggested the call. The meeting was held in the
latter's office on March 13, 1848, when a formal organization was effected, but not
until April were the articles of association adopted, the officers elected, or a meeting
place rented. Thomas Dyer was elected president, vice George Smith, who declined
to serve; W. L. Whiting, secretary; Charles Walker and John P. Chapin were chosen
vice-presidents; Gurdon S. Hubbard, John Rogers, H. G. Loomis, George F. Foster,
R. C. Bristol, J. H. Dunham, C. Beers, J. H. Reed, E. K. Rogers, J. Y. Read, W. B.
Ogden, A. H. Burley, O. Lunt, E. W. Hadduck, I. V. Germain, L. P. Milliard and the
callers marked*, directors.
All the signers of the call, except Messrs. Hayden, Norton, H. H. Magie, M. A.
Neef and L. W. Church, became members of the board. The men named as directors
also signed the roll of membership, together with Matthew Laflin, George Smith, Jr.,
B. F. Russell, Theron Pardee, D. Humphrey, H. J. Winslow, John King, Jr., James H.
Rochester, Isaac Hardy, Zenas Cobb, Jr., A. V. G. DeWolf, Almond Walker, H. H.
Harrison, John C. Haines, James Winn, Julian S. Rumsey, James H. Carpenter, J. P.
Hotchkiss, John Hugh, Jr., J. R. Case, C. L. Harmon, S. L. Brown, Joseph T. Ryerson,
Andrew Blaikie, I. Whitcomb, G. M. Higginson, Jared Gage, Sylvester Marsh, John
Rogers, James Peck, George C. Drew, T. V. G. Loomis, John W. Shoemaker, Albert
Neeley, Joseph R. Beals, A. G. Throop, J. L. Marsh, John C. Dodge, John Pearson,
Thomas Thompson, Alexander Brand, Allen Richmond, O. Sherman, M. C. Stearns,
G. A. Robb, W 7 . H. Clarke, J. A. Smith, T. S. Morgan, James L. Hare, John S. Reed,
Thomas B. Carter, T. L. Parker, F. A. Stockbridge and Jabez B. Foster. The mem-
bership embraced nearly the whole mercantile and manufacturing circle of the town;
but, as the mutual business idea was not very strong, and as the strange conditions of
the time and place opposed giving attention to meetings, the original Chicago Board
of Trade accomplished little toward reforming trade and commerce.
The corner of Madison and State Streets was then a suburban region; the side-
266 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
walks were little better than rafts in a mud lake dangerous and disagreeable at all
times; save when the winter snows covered sidewalks, ditches and roads. The man-
ners and customs of merchants, real estate men, bankers, tradesmen and the proletariat
were primitive, when not wild; trade was carried on, from dawn until long after sun-
down, in an easy, laissez faire style; meals, cards and checkers formed the daily
pastime of the merchants, and oftentimes customers would have to wait until a game
was won, and always until a meal was finished. Such business forms are, of course,
foreign to the modern conception of Board of Trade memberships; but there were
men among the eighty-two whose enthusiasm kept the organization alive and even
made it grow. In April, 1849, Thomas Dyer was re-elected president; John C. Dodge
was chosen secretary, and W. L. Whiting, treasurer. Such questions as obtaining
quotations by telegraph,* improving the river and harbor, lowering canal and freight
rates, and even going so far as to suggest cheap fares and rates for the little Galena
& Chicago Union Railroad, then struggling to reach Elgin, forty miles away were
considered. It was altogether a precocious body.
The act of February 8, 1849, presented an opportunity to the old board to
become, by a general law, a corporate body without special legislation; and, on April
13, 1850, the members took advantage of this opportunity to reorganize, re-elected the
officers chosen in 1849, ar >d adopted the title, "The Board of Trade of the City
of Chicago." Under their new by-laws, each new member was to pay an initiation
fee of $$, and such other sums as the board might from time to time decree. To
provide for an existing deficit of 146.20, the annual dues were increased from
$2 to $3. For some time after incorporation the members devoted much time to
the consideration of measures affecting Chicago; but, as days grew apace, the orators
of the body attempted to transform it, not only into a municipal council, but also into
a congress of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and' South America. The immedi-
ate objects of the organization were almost forgotten in the general desire to consider
continental affairs; and, by degrees, the members ceased attending meetings, until it
was a rare spectacle to see one of them in the old board room.
The merchants, commission men and members generally took a particular interest
in aiding the Illinois Central Railroad toward obtaining millions of acres of land in
the State and a most valuable right-of-way in the city. Not one of them ever
dreamed that the limits of Chicago would ever extend south of Twelfth Street,
north of Chicago Avenue, or west of Halsted Street. Believing, as they did, that
the outside territory would never be more valuable than farm land, they were
willing to see the prairie parceled out among railroads, and urged the council of
the city to be liberal in granting franchises. In 1848, when the old Board of Trade
was organized, the population of the city was estimated at 20,023; in June, 1850, a
*The Journal of April 6, 1848, states : " The first flash came through from Detroit this moraine at 9 A. M. By the
dispatches it will be seen that we have dates from New York of yesterday at '2:30 o'clock." This line was built by
J. J. Speed. The owner of the first Chicago-Milwaukee line, and also of the Chicago. Peru & St. Louis line, finished in
June, 1848. was B. O'Rielly. The Board of Trade were the first patrons of the O'Rielly telegraph lines, which were the first
in the western country, though Speed was a contemporary builder.
CO
o
Sg*
S-t
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS.
few months after the reorganization, there were 28,269 inhabitants, but these figures,
in the opinion of the board, were only an index to a large town which might
embrace in the future not more than four square miles. The logic of United States
Senators James Shields and Stephen A. Douglas opposed such a conception; for
each prophesied that Chicago would yet be the greatest city on the continent, and
warned the Board of Trade to keep that prophecy in view. In 1852 the assessed
value of real and personal property of the city was $10,463,414, the tax levy $76,962,
and the bonded debt $126,035. The old board, or even the old council, could not
conceive a time when the assessed value (which is about one-third of the true value)
would reach $245.790,351, the tax levy $11,810,969, and the bonded debt $18,476,450,
as in 1893, or within a little over forty years of the time in which they were acting.
In 1850-51 Charles Walker presided over the board, with John P. Chapin vice-
president, and John C. Dodge secretary. In 1852 George Steel, Thomas Hale and
James K. Dulliba (vice Dodge, resigned) held the respective offices; and in 1853
Thomas Hale, Charles H. Walker and Laurin P. Hilliard were the respective
incumbents, the place of meeting being at No. 8 Dearborn Street. During the year
delegates were sent to Washington to represent the wants of Chicago in the matter of
river and harbor improvement, and delegates were also sent to the St. Clair River
Improvement Convention, held at Detroit. In 1854 rooms over Purington &
Scranton's store, corner of Fifth Avenue and South Water Street, were rented, and
there George A. Gibbs was installed president, W. D. Houghteling, vice-president,
and James E. Dalliba, secretary.
A new order of business now obtained. The board inaugurated the system of
weighing grain, and asked the boards of other lake ports to take measures to make the
rule effective. In 1855 a free lunch system was inaugurated, but it proved an expen-
sive and offensive affair, until the doorkeeper was ordered to exclude the hungry
laymen who were not members. Gradually passing through apprentice stages, the
board realized its true relation to the city in 1856, cast aside its primitive habiliments
and appeared on the commercial stage as a body of earnest men who had the inter-
ests of their city at heart. The place of meeting was changed to Walker's building,
but later established in Steele's building, on the corner of La Salle and South Water
Streets, where the 229 members enrolled, at the close of that year, assembled to con-
sider trade conditions. The suggestion to buy the corner of Clark and Washington
Streets for $180,000, seriously entertained, tells how big the Board of Trade of 1856 felt.
The grading of wheat, as "white," "red" and "spring," was accomplished that year, and
in the year 1857 the commercial editor of The Daily Press, Mr. P. L. Wells, was employed
as superintendent and statistician. From 1854 to 1858 he compiled exhaustive com-
mercial statistics for the Press, and in 1859 issued the first annual trade report, as
superintendent of the Board of Trade, thus making the beginnings of the large octavo
volume which is now issued annually. The 461 members enrolled at the beginning
13
268 IND US TRIA L CHIC A G O .-
of 1858 increased to 520 before the close of the year, and to 625 before the close of
1859. The regrading of wheat into four classes "Club," "No. I spring," "No. 2
spring," and "rejected" was accomplished June 15, 1858. The system of grain inspec-
tion was extended to grain arriving by boat as well as by rail. The election of Hiram
Wheeler, president, Samuel B. Pomeroy, vice-president, and W. W. Mitchell, secre-
tary, in 1855; of Charles H. Walker, president, and George C. Morton, vice-president,
in 1856; the re-election of Mr. Walker in 1857, and the election of Julian S. Rumsey,
president, Thomas H. Beebe, vice-president, in 1858, and their re-election in 1859,
with Stephen Clary second vice-president, and Seth Catlin secretary, show that the
infusion of new blood was deemed necessary; while the work of the period is in evi-
dence to show that the officials and members played a full part in molding the board
into a great machine, which would produce a commercial power capable of controll-
ing the grain and produce markets of the world.
The special act of the Illinois Legislature chartering the Chicago Board of Trade,
approved February 18, 1859, authorized that body to hold $200,000 worth of property,
and in twelve sections conferred on it plenary powers over its members and the trans-
action of business " on 'Change." With this charter more pretentious quarters were
necessary, and in February, 1860, the secretary established his office in the Newhouse
block, on South Water Street, for which a lease for ten years was obtained at an
annual rental of Si, 250. The decorations of this new trading hall appealed to all vis-
itors. European travelers came to look in amazement on the wild, grotesque work of
western frescoers, while natives, who had not traveled, came ready to admire the bar-
baric pictures and glaring colors. The hall was a rude conception of grandeur, 5,112
square feet of wall and 4,465 square feet of ceiling being given up to rude landscape
frescoes in colors, such as a Michael Angelo or a Raphael never slept to dream of.
Ira Y. Munn was elected president in 1860, with Eli Bates and John V. Farwell vice-
presidents, Seth Catlin being still secretary. The same untamable idea which sug-
gested the Free Trade Congress of 1893 countenanced the wild Reciprocity Treaty
with Canada, and this board was a friend of that measure, in the face of the fact that
it was injurious to the United States, until Congress abrogated it.
The presidents of the board during the war period were Stephen Clary, 1861;
Calvin T. Wheeler, 1862; John L. Hancock, 1863-64, and Charles Randolph, 1865.
John F. Beatty succeeded Seth Catlin in 1862 as secretary, and held that position until
1868. On April 18 the United States flag was hung in the trading hall. On the i/th
of that month a proposition that the members subscribe 85,000 was answered promptly;
but one, that the board contribute $500, was opposed, until a member amended the
motion by making the sum 85,000. He who opposed the 8500 contribution as beyond
the charter of the corporation heard the amendment carried, and disappeared without
casting his dissenting vote. That evening the sum of 810,000 was offered as the first
gift to the Union Defense Association by the organized traders of Chicago. Later
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 269
it gave the subject of State and National currency thorough study and espoused the
national legislation which led to the approval of the National Bank act. This was a
set-off to its incomprehensible love for Canadian reciprocity a thing of course
beneficial to Chicago, but absolutely injurious to the agricultural interests of the
Northern States. The conversion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal into a ship canal
was urged on Congress by this body, but that congregation of enigmas took little or
no notice of Chicago's petitions in the matter, preferring to spend millions in opening
the Mississippi from the Gulf.
The capture of Fort Donelson, Tenn., and of 13,500 Confederates, on February
16, 1862, was proclaimed in the hall of the Board of Trade the following morning;
bulls and bears forgot their callings, and members, old and young, felt like the man
who fought and won the day before in Tennessee. Resolutions were adopted indica-
tive of the joy of the board for the victory, and of its pride in the part taken by the
Chicago Light Artillery. About that time a heavy consignment of prisoners arrived
in Chicago, and the liberal, diplomatic or hospitable people entertained the officers.
This just action toward fallen adversaries stung the illiberal element in the Board of
Trade and suggested a series of resolutions at once unworthy of Chicago, and particu-
larly so of her Board of Trade. The resolutions showed the excess of zeal, and it is
known that excess of zeal is never useful to any cause.
In 1861 and 1862 the board gave as much time to military affairs as to business.
By July 23, 1862, the members had not only subscribed $15,210 for bounties, but had
also gone far toward equipping the Board of Trade Battery 156 strong. James H.
Stokes was elected captain, and on August I, 1862, the command was mustered into
the United States service. On September 9, following, the battery was attached to
Buell's corps, at Louisville, Ky.,and served in actual war until the capture of Selma,
Ala., April 2, 1865. Mrs. S. H. Stevens was the nurse of the command for the whole
term. It lost II men killed in battle, 5 by disease, 13 hors de combat owing to wounds
or disease, 5 made prisoners, 4 transferred, and 17 discharged for promotion. In
another command the members of the board interested themselves. The Chicago
Mercantile Battery, organized between August 5 and 8, 1862, was mustered in on
August 29, 1862, and served until July 3, 1865. Like the Board of Trade Battery, the
expenses of organization were met by private subscription, but the expense of uni-
forms, arms and accouterments was borne by the United States. The sanitary com-
mission received large sums of money from the board, and other sums from its
members. Liberal aid was tendered to the Seventy-second, the Eighty-eighth and
the One Hundred and Thirteenth Illinois Regiments, which were known as the Board
of Trade Regiments, and all other war measures claimed attention.
Business was not forgotten in the mean time. The faults in grain inspection and
the warehouse frauds were investigated and corrected; a schedule of commission rates
was adopted; the board room increased in size, and the captain of the "Sleipner"
270 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
(a brig of 350 tons burden, which arrived from Bergen, Norway, August 2, 1862) was
received and complimented by the board as the master of the pioneer European vessel
to make this port. At the close of the year an attack on The Chicago Times was made
in the form of severe boycotting resolutions and the exclusion of its commercial
editor from the hall. This radical action, as unwise as that taken against members
who extended courtesies to Confederate officers then in prison or on parole here, led
to serious disagreements and, in fact, to the organization of a new and non-partisan
Board of Trade. From April, 1861, to April I, 1863, the receipts for war purposes
amounted to $51,365.99, and the disbursements to $36,566.12. At that time the neces-
sity of a larger building was so apparent that steps were taken to erect a temple to
trade. Under its charter the board could not accomplish it, an.d hence there was
organized out of it the Chamber of Commerce, to whom a charter was granted April
14, 1863, the articles of association varying in only two sections, one giving building
powers, the other prohibiting the rejection or expelling of applicants or members for
religious or political beliefs. The purchase of the southeast corner of Washington and
La Salle Streets followed in 1864, the consideration being $65,000. A sum of $500,-
OOO was subscribed as stock, a rental of $20,000 per annum, to be paid by the Board of
Trade, agreed upon, and on September II, 1864, the cornerstone of the original
Chamber of Commerce building was placed. On August 13, 1865, the Chamber was
completed and dedicated. Mean time the board established a recruiting agency,
offered liberal bounties, and succeeded in delaying the application of the draft until
Chicago's quota was contributed to the Union army.
The number of members reported on April 14, 1864, was 1,257. With but few
exceptions, all joined in the hard work of forcing the retirement of bank bills which
were unconvertible with the new United States currency, and on May 15, 1864, United
States Treasury notes or their equivalents were only recognized in the financial trans-
actions of the board. The banks offered technical objections, which were overcome
readily, and the United States Bill soon replaced all "wild-cat currency." Not only
were its members the prime movers in this salutary innovation, but they were also the
active agents in driving the Legislature to empower the expenditure of moneys by
Chicago in improving the Illinois and Michigan Canal. In 1865 the board resolved
itself into a law and order league for the nonce. The extraordinary ninety-nine-year
franchises to street railroads were opposed strongly, but the representatives of the
people passed the measures over vetoes of mayor and governor and laughed at their
1,462 opponents on the Chicago Board of Trade. The old time " puts " and " calls "
were abolished early in 1865 and dealings in " futures " established, so that when the
members assembled in their new hall, August 13, 1865, new rules and new practices
had to be observed. The Chicago Board of Trade had then earned a high reputation
and was classed with the greatest trading bodies of the world. The return of the
Board of Trade regiments took place before the new building was finished the
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 271
Seventy-second Regiment arriving August 12, 1865, a day before the dedication of
the Chamber of Commerce.
The transactions of the board from the beginning of 1866 to October, 1871, were
extensive, important, and in many instances interesting. The presidents elected
within that period are named as follows: John C. Dore, 1866; Wiley M. Egan, 1867;
Enos V. Robbins, 1868; Jesse M. Richards, 1869; Samuel H. McCrea, 1870, and Josiah
W. Preston, 1871. John F. Beatty was secretary down to the beginning of 1869, when
Charles Randolph succeeded him. In the fall of 1866 the project of cutting a canal
from the old canal to the Mississippi, at a point near Rock Island, was entertained,
and funds were appropriated to survey a route. The attempt to abolish the bushel
system and substitute therefor the cental system, on the part of this board, failed,
owing to the defection of the eastern Board of Trade men. The increase of the annual
assessment from $10 to $25, and the extraordinary subscriptions demanded for sundry
enterprises, led to a decrease in membership of 143, the number in April, 1867,
being 1,259. The "Warehouse Bill," one of the strange productions of the Illinois
Legislature, aimed at the destruction of trade in " futures." An opinion regarding
the constitutionality of this law was obtained, and, acting on that opinion, the mem-
bers continued to deal in " futures," disregarding the law while regarding the profits.
As a result a lawyer named Goodrich, who obtained admission to the trading hall
on a visitor's ticket, filed information against thirteen men; and on August 10, 1867,
eleven of them were arrested on the charge of gambling. Of course bonds were fur-
nished by the members, but the 83,000 required for the appearance of Goodrich,
as a witness, was not forthcoming, and the law and prosecutor fell into " innocuous
desuetude." The next Legislature repealed the useless sections of the act, and trade
in " futures" was carried on without the interference of informers or constables. In
May, 1867, the Supreme Court quieted the question of the power of the directory
to suspend members by sustaining that power; and, like the board itself, ignored the
" Warehouse Act," which the appellant's attorney introduced, with the hope of crush-
ing the board generally, if the specific cause should fail.
The increase of the annual assessment to 35, the character of the Warehouse
Act, and the growing cost of membership contributed equally to reduce the number
of names on the rolls to 1,224. After the April election of 1868 the assessment was
reduced to $30. The financial condition of the board showed a surplus of 815,285.58;
but the moral condition was not so favorable. "Corners," big and little, marked the
year, until at length the directors, by resolution of October 13, threatened members
engaging in such fraudulent transactions with expulsion. The resolution was not
enforced. The disastrous "corner" which raised the price of wheat to $2.20 a bushel
in June suggested it, but it had little or no effect, for corn, lard and pork corners fol-
lowed in quick succession, until the first reached $1.08 a bushel, the second 20%
cents a pound, and the third $33.25 a barrel. In one case, at least, the Circuit Court
272 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
was called upon to decide the validity of the resolution of October, but that court
found it valueless in face of existing rules. The board then adopted Rule 13, which
in a way offered a measure of hope to the victims of a "corner," but did not dis-
countenance the principle of "corners."
In 1869, a discrimination against No. 2 corn led to an appeal to Rule 13, and ulti-
mately to the courts, but the appellants were defeated on all sides and suspended as
members. The sympathy of the board was with the firm, however, and a majority
voted for reinstatement, but as that action was in direct opposition to the rules and
to the decisions of the directory, that body tendered resignation, and would have
resigned had not the members reconsidered their vote. A closer observance of
details marked the board's progress, and the membership of 1,287 m April, 1869,
increased to 1,342 during the year. The management of elevators was discussed in
18/0 and 1871, and in January of the latter year a bill providing for regulating pub-
lic warehouses was introduced in the State Legislature. This bill became a law, and
under it a registrar was appointed, the very nature of whose office made him abhorrent
in the eyes of elevator managers and owners. The opening of the office, in August,
1871, was the signal for hostilities. The registrar and inspectors accomplished little
for some months. A lucky discovery in the Munn & Scott elevator led to a complete
change in affairs, for then it was learned that false floors in bins and other tricks were
resorted to so as to deceive the board as to the quantity of grain in store. The
revelation made the officials welcome, and insured for them opportunities for
inspection.
The number of members enrolled April 3, 1871, was 1,272; the revenue for the
year then ended amounted to $106,804, and the expenditures (which included 1,931,
due on the soldiers' monument), $104, 347. The business of the board, as well as its
finances, was in good condition on October 8, 1871, when the great fire rolled on
from DeKoven Street, to engulf the Chamber of Commerce, which was seized
and destroyed by the flames between the hours of I and 2 o'clock on the morn-
ing of October 9. The Eve?ihig Journal of October 9, 1871, announced that the
Board of Trade had rooms at 51 and 53 Canal Street, and that a meeting of the
directors would be held there at 10 o'clock on Tuesday, the loth of October. There the
directors assembled, while the blaze was exhausting itself north of Fullerton Avenue.
From that meeting went forth the voice that promised death to incendiaries, and
warned the people to look out for them. The warning came not a moment too soon,
as during the day several attempts were made to burn what remained of the city. One
of the incendiaries, killed in the act that evening, attempted to set fire to the Holy
Family Church on Twelfth Street, but a policeman ended his enterprise forever.
Standard Hall was subsequently used as a place of meeting, until quarters were
obtained on the southwest corner of Washington and Franklin Streets, and from
Standard Hall went out the message to the Chamber of Commerce, asking that body
to rebuild at once.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 273
On October II, 1871, the Chamber of Commerce decided to rebuild, and three
days later workmen were engaged in removing the heavy, burning debris of the old
temple of trade. On November 6, 1871, the foundation stone was placed and masons
and carpenters worked assiduously until the second building was turned over to the
Chamber of Commerce, October 8, 1872, who dedicated it the day after, or within a
year of the date on which their first house was destroyed. A sum of about $100,000 of
the $225,000 insurance carried on the old building was recovered. This, with a sum
of $33,346.25 stock subscribed by the Board of Trade and the capital of the Chamber,
sufficed to build anew. The old temple varied from its successor of 1872 in the heavy
cut quoin stones, which were used in pilaster form for the corner and each side of the
central window, above the first band course; Norman windows marked the first and
hall floors; square windows the basement, and round windows the mansard roof,
two each side of the clock on the north front, and nine on each side of roof, to corre-
spond with the windows of the great hall. The general style was Byzantine, after the
Italian idea, or mixed with French roof and Venetian openings. The second building
forms eighty feet of the modern Chamber of Commerce, with a new foundation and
new superstructure, in all about 200 feet, remodeled in 1888-90 at a cost of $2,000,000.
The opening of the new building, within a year, was in itself a remarkable testi-
mony to the faith of Chicago's traders and the vitality of Chicago's trade. The
destruction of the city, by a hostile fleet and the levy of tribute by the victors, would
be only a small thing compared with the losses which that fire of thirty-eight hours'
duration entailed; yet the people resumed work before the flames had subsided, and
had actually entered on that era of progress which has placed Chicago among the
greatest cities in the world. Like the fire which destroyed ten of the fourteen regiones
of Rome in the year 64 A. D., and made way for the building of an imperial city by
one man, that of 1871 A. D., cleared away an equal area and opened a path for enter-
prise to a population of 350,000. The Board of Trade led the way, and for the last
twenty-three years has been the leader of trade and commerce, pointing out the way
to great conquests in trade, on the one hand and to the metropolitanizingof Chicago
on the other hand.
There were 1,495 members in April, 1872, many of whom suffered from the
" corners " perpetrated that year and were anxious to amend the rules, so as to pro-
vide against the ruin of the losing party in a trade. Indeed, a substitute for Sec-
tion 9 of Rule I was adopted, with this philanthropic view; but, in the nature of
things, losers continued to be losers, and the old proverb, " Nothing succeeds like
success," became the credo of the board. In April, 1872, Josiah W. Preston was
re-elected president, Charles E. Culver and William N. Brainard, vice-presidents,
and Charles Randolph, secretary. The annual meeting was changed from April to
January in 1873, the first vice-president of 1872 was elected president, and the second
vice-president of 1872 took his place, Howard Priestley succeeding Mr. Brainard.
274 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
The new rule also provided that, after 1874, the second vice-president should succeed
to the vice-presidency, that five directors should be elected annually to serve for
three years, the directory to comprise fifteen members, and that the committees on
arbitration and on appeals should comprise ten members each, five of whom should
be elected annually, to serve for five years, while the secretary and treasurer were to
be appointed annually. The number of members at the close of 1873 was 1,662, who
paid a yearly assessment of $25. The initiation fee was fixed at $250, being an
increase of $ 150 on the former entrance fee; a purchase of 400 shares of stock in the
Chamber of Commerce for $35,542 was authorized, and in every way the board empha-
sized faith in its organization, in the city and in the country. The meeting of the
National Board of Trade here, the increase in membership, and the progress of busi-
ness, as if there were no existing financial depression, were the striking events of the
year, if the organization of the Produce Exchange be excepted.
The purchase of 1,050 additional shares of stock in the Chamber of Commerce
for the sum of $96,919.63, the volume and value of trade, and the liberal co-operation
of the board with mercantile and banking associations in combating the panic,
marked the transactions of 1874. Early in 1875 the initiation fee was fixed at $1,000,
an increase of $750, but the annual assessment was lowered to $20. In the face of this
heavy fee, the number of members at the beginning of the centennial year was 1 ,842, and
at the beginning of 1877, 1,831. Notwithstanding the sturdy fight made by the board
against financial depression, and the fact that Chicago's trade for 1874 was valued at
$575,000,000, many of its members felt the effects of panic; so that the non-payment
of the small annual assessment became common in 1877 and 1878. Toward the close
of 1878, this board, with its allied trade and banking associations, determined to end
the struggle with "hard times," and, through its members, inaugurated building and
other enterprises, which soon scattered the clouds that hung over the city, and made
Chicago the Mecca for men of enterprise as well as tradesmen. The action of the
board was a new lesson in political economy, for it taught capital to be cour-
ageous and showed it how to win rewards for courage. The presidents of the board
during the panic were: Charles E. Culver, 1873; George M. Haw, 1874; George
Armour, 1875; John R. Bensley, 1876; David H. Lincoln, 1877, and N. K. Fairbank,
1878. Charles Randolph was secretary then, as he was from 1869 to 1873, and after-
ward until 1884.
The building of Central Music Hall marks the return of good times, as it does a
distinct period in local architectural ideas. Its completion, in 1879, was the decisive
signal to go forward with the arts and industries.
In 1875, when depression was first felt here, there were 249,653 barrels of flour
manufactured in Chicago; 2,625,883 barrels received; 24,206,370 bushels of wheat,
28,341,150 bushels of corn, 12,916,428 bushels of oats, 699,583 bushels of rye, and
3,107,297 bushels of barley received here; while the respective receipts for 1879 were,
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 275
285,904,3,369,958,34,106,109,64,339,321,16,660,428,2,497,340, and 4,936,562. In 1875
there were 920,843 head of cattle and 4,085,122 hogs received, while in 1879 there
were 1,215,732 head of cattle and 6,539,344 hogs received. The same ratio of increase
obtained in all other departments of trade and commerce, the buoyant spirit of the
Board of Trade became contagious, and before the people could fully comprehend
the change, they were in the midst of good times, sharing in a great trade revival,
the magnitude of which was not conceived by the most sanguine. How much of this
new condition is due to the unstringing of capital's money bags, at the bidding of
Chicago's congregation of traders, may not be estimated; but that the example of its
wealthier members and the spirit of all contributed largely to the revival of trade,
cannot be denied. They were the prompters and actors in a heavy drama which
ended well.
At the beginning of 1879 there were 1,797 members. In January, 1880, the num-
ber was 1,793; but at the beginning of 1881 there were 1,936, notwithstanding the fact
that the initiation fee was increased from $1,000 to $2,500 in February, and to $5,000
in October. The question, which should have been decided affirmatively in 1877, that
of erecting a modern temple of trade farther south, was delayed until 1881, when a
board of real estate managers was created within the Board of Trade, with power to
acquire lands and construct a building more in consonance with the ideas of members
than the old building. Title to the north half of the square (including the vacation
of La Salle Street) bounded by Jackson, Sherman and Van Buren Streets and Pacific
Avenue was obtained, and on December 13, 1882, the cornerstone of the present
American-Gothic building was placed. Asa Dow was elected president just at the
dawn of the revival; John H.'Dwight succeeded him in 1880, and Henry W. Rogers,
Jr., was elected in 1881, each having served as vice-president. The increase in mem-
bership, in itself, was an index to the times as well as to the board, then considered
a balance-wheel for trade and a check on national, State and municipal extravagance
and mistakes.
In 1882 Ransom W. Dunham was elected president, William E. McHenry, vice-
president, and J. Henry French, second vice-president. In the matter of trade the
year was not so satisfactory, but in the matter of law it was all the most interested
legal adviser of the board could desire. In 1882 and 1883 no. less than sixty suits
were entered against this corporation, including the petition to nullify the vacation of
La Salle Street; the claims of the " bucket shops" for telegraphic communication;
the claims of the Chamber of Commerce, and the question of dealing in " futures."
The board won at every point, but the expense entailed amounted to $17,587.80, apart
from incidental expenses, which amounted to $3,266.74, in addition to $27,978.91
reported for attorneys' fees and court expenses. Notwithstanding all these expendi-
tures, the number of members reported in 1881 was sustained in 1882 and 1883. The
McGeoch " lard deal " was one of the events of 1883, but smaller " corners " were
276 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
not wanting to supply surprises to the members and, indeed, to the farmers. James
B. Hobbs was elected president in 1883; the second vice-president of 1882, under the
rule of 1874, became vice-president, and Charles L. Hutchinson took his place. The
Board of Trade Clearing House was established, the rules amended to meet modern
conditions, and the rough edges of many of the traders polished. The fact that
thirty-eight grades of grain were recognized in 1880, ten being winter wheat, seven
spring wheat, nine corn, four oats, three rye, and five barley, necessitated a decisive
move on the part of the warehouse commissioners, who, on the suggestion of the
Board of Trade, adopted new rules for the inspection of grain, in September, 1883.
The election of 1884 resulted in the choice of E. Nelson Blake for president,
Charles L. Hutchinson, vice-president, and George T. Smith, second vice-president.
Secretary Randolph, who held office from 1869 to 1884, resigned March I, and on
July I, following, the present popular and able secretary was appointed, while Byron
L. Smith was reappointed treasurer. The number of members was 1,933, whose
annual dues, increased to 830 in 1883, were now further increased to $50. The abo-
lition of the Call Board, the establishment of an afternoon session of the regular
board, the organization of the Receivers' Association, and general preparations to
evacuate the Chamber of Commerce and take possession of the new temple of trade
marked the transactions of the year.
The re-election of Mr. Blake, with George T. Smith vice-president, and James H.
Milne, second vice-president; the appointment of Charles S. Fellows assistant to Sec-
retary Stone, and of Orson Smith, treasurer; the increase of the annual assessment to
75, and the record of a decrease in membership to 1,925, introduced the work of 1885.
The dedication of the present building to trade took place May I, though it was
formally opened on April 29. A demonstration by the anarchists was made in front
of the temple on the last date, while the members and their guests were feasting
within. This building shows a front of 173% feet on Jackson Street and extends
south 225 feet to a broad alley. The central tower, which stood until the summer of
1894, was 303 feet to the top of lantern, and the main building about 140 feet in height,
and the office division 160 feet. Fox Island granite is used throughout the exterior.
The main entrance shows two heavy square pillars of polished granite, resting on pon-
derous granite pedestals, and bearing an elaborate entabulature. This feature, with the
figures of Commerce and Agriculture, are introduced as part of the tower, with fine
effect. The ornamentation is not confined to the front, for on each side aegicrania,
caryatid and bucranium appear without marked intrusion on the American gothic ideas
of the architect. The windows of the great trading hall, the massive marble pillars,
and the adaptability of the whole to its uses, made this temple of trade the pride of
the city in the eighties. Like the old buildings, it became too small to entertain
its guests, and, unlike the old semi-classic structures ( which occupied the southeast
corner of Washington and La Salle Streets), too heavy to bear itself. Robbing it of
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 277
tower and lantern in 1894 gives it the appearance of a plucked peacock or ostrich,
destroys its symmetry, and presents an excuse for building farther south a grander
house more in keeping with the standing of its enterprising tenants.
The history of the board since the close of 1885 is almost identical with that of
the city. It had fought all its important battles, won them before the beginning of
1886, and followed up the victory. The presidents elected annually since January,
1886, are named as follows: A. M. Wright, 1886 and 1887; Charles L. Hutchinson,
1888; William S. Seaverns, 1889; William T. Baker, 1890 and 1891; Charles D. Hamil,
1892 and 1893, and Charles L. Raymond, 1894. The vice-presidents for the period
were James H. Milne, George D. Rumsey, William S. Seaverns, George G. Parker, E.
W. Bailey, J. G. Steever, J. T. Rawleigh, R. G. Chandler and Milton C. Lightner, each
of whom filled the second vice-president's chair, and John M. Fiske, elected in 1894.
Within the period the volume of Chicago's trade almost doubled, increasing from
$959,000,000 in 1885 to 1,538,000,000 in 1892, and to $1,434,700,000 in 1893. The trans-
actions of 1886, while large in volume and value, were unattended with excitable
incidents, such apparently being held in reserve for the following year, when the great
wheat "corner" and minor schemes furnished them in dramatic form. Membership
certificates sold from $1,950 to $3,300 each, and in one instance fell as low as $1,650;
speculation was very quiet, but trading, in general, was satisfactory.
The value of Chicago's trade in 1887 was estimated at $1,103,000,000, being the first
in a series of four years that the thousand-million-dollar mark was reached. The
wicked wheat corner, which brought ruin to many and ruin and disgrace to those
engaged in it, may be said to have begun in December, 1886, and to have burst on
June 14, 1887. By April 25, the " Harper corner " was credited with the possession of
45,000,000 bushels of May wheat. Then the operators sold 30,000,000 bushels of that
wheat, traded 15,000,000 bushels for June wheat and bought 30,000,000 bushels of June
wheat, which was carried at 94^ cents. Irwin, Green & Co., Rosenfeld & Co. and
Kershaw, purchased 1,000,000 bushels a day each for the syndicate, until the "corner"
owned 75,000,000 bushels. Then the Texan bulls dumped i ,800,000 bushels on the
Harper party and other interests came on to oppose them, the New York banks called
in their loans, June wheat fell to 73 cents, and July to 74 cents, and the Harper clique
found themselves in a cyclone, which twisted and retwisted them, until a bioken
skeleton was left. Several Chicago firms were carried down and the avaricious scheme
fell under its own weight and imperfections. On August 10, 1894, Irwin, Green & Co.
filed a bill in the Cincinnati court asking that the trustee of E. L. Harper pay them
$594,331, the claim being based on margins as purchasers for Harper in that deal.
At the close of 1888 there were 1,919 members enrolled, but the number was
increased to 1,923 before the close of January, 1889. The opinion of the Illinois
Supreme Court in the matter of official quotations made it obligatory on the board to
furnish quotations to all desiring them for lawful purposes on equal terms, but this
278 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
opinion did not touch the board's unfriendly relations with the owners of bucket
shops, or the status of the suit, " Murphy vs. the Board of Trade." The power of
adjournment was placed in two-thirds of the number of directors, but otherwise the
rules were not amended. The valuation of the city's business in 1888 was $1,125,000,-
OOO, while in 1889 it reached $i, 177,000,000, exclusive of the retail, hotel, railroad and
Sunday business not included in the produce trade, wholesale trade or manufactured
goods.
At the beginning of 1890 the annual assessment was $70 and the membership
1,913. The clearances through the Board of Trade Clearing House amounted to
86,627,157.25, being an increase of $31,164,076.50 over the former year. The receipts
from assessments, transfers of membership certificates, tickets of admission and
other sources of revenue, including $99,585.46, transferred from the real estate depart-
ment, amounted to $266,243.21, and the expenditures to $262,672.53, including inter-
est on bonds, $69,443.75, and taxes on real estate, $20,124. 14. The "bucket-shop" ques-
tion became so serious that the directors withheld quotations from all who were con-
sidered illegitimate dealers. Under a ruling of the Supreme Court, to accomplish
this, the market quotation department was suspended, if not dissolved, and the tele-
graph companies, their equipment and operators removed from the trading hall with-
out ceremony. The result, as shown by the revenue of the clearing-house department,
was satisfactory, but to the members, individually, something appeared wanting, and
that something was the click of telegraph instruments and the presence of their
operators on the floor of the hall. In national, State and municipal questions the
board, as usual, took an active interest.
The enormous trade of Chicago in 1891, which amounted to $1,459,000,000, speaks
at once of activity in Board of Trade circles and of general prosperity throughout the
city. The game of peek-a-boo, played by New York speculators over the wires, was
due to their control of the markets and their desire to lash their western rivals while
they had the opportunity. The battle against the " bucket shops " dwindled into skir-
mishing of a most trivial character. The telegraph companies were denied a place on
the floor of the trading hall, and quotations were held solely for the use of members.
The outside traders, however, had friends on 'Change who signaled the price secrets
to them through the windows of the hall. Of course the conspiracy was discovered,
and to combat its power the directors ordered the lower half of the windows to be
"soaped." This admission that there were traitors in camp and the inability of the
officers to fix the guilt on any one caused a revulsion of feeling; a consequent recall
of the Western Union, Postal, and Milwaukee Telegraph Companies to the floor and
the practical resumption of former methods. At the close of the year there were 1,909
members, the number of transfers being 199.
The year 1892 was one of the most interesting and important in the history of
the board. Not only were its members called upon to witness gigantic deals in
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 279
"ribs" and " grain," but also to take part in rearing the White City in Jackson Park.
The Hatch and Washburn bills were introduced in Congress early in the year, and
their friends had some hopes of passing them to the Senate, where they would be
favorably received. Before the plan could be carried through, the Chicago board
discovered that it was aimed to crush speculation and leave the grain growers at the
tender mercy of the great flour millers. Congress adjourned without agreeing to the
bills, but their introduction had the effect of stopping the trade in privileges, the
directors adopting extreme measures in the matter even going so far as to bring
three of its popular members to trial. The trio invoked the courts against the threats
of the directory and an injunction was granted, denying the right of the board to
discipline its members for such dealings. The fight against the " bucket shops " was
carried on in a laissez faire manner, as the manipulation of the corn market, in May, by
the Coster-Martin clique; of the October short-rib market, by Charles Wright et al.,
and of the wheat market, by John Lyon et al., interested the directory as well as the
members. Some heavy failures followed, not heavy enough, however, to deter other
daring operators.
The trade of Chicago for 1893, while showing an aggregate of 51,561,000 on
the returns was really $126,400,000 less, or $1,434,700,000, the first figures including
the factory value of production, and the wholesale trade of such factories. Were the
retail figures of the year and the extraordinary work of hotels, railroads and other
industries added, the first figures might be doubled. July and August were disastrous
months for many of the big firms on 'Change, there being over twenty failures
recorded, though a few " corners " were manipulated successfully in the spring. The
collapse of the Cudahy-Wright "corner" left John Cudahy a loser to the extent of
1,600,000 and " Charlie" Wright to the extent of $450,000. Pork fell from $18.75 to
$10.50 a barrel, and lard from $9.75 to $5.90. How far this magnificent attempt to
control the pork and lard trade of the United States would have been successful, had
Mr. Cudahy's brother or the banks stepped into the breach and aided the great
packer, is a matter for surmise now, as it was then. The absence of " shorts " was
something the operators did not calculate, but withal this, together with the shrewd
business enemies arrayed against them, it may be said that were funds attainable, the
great corner would have been carried through to a successful issue. A voluntary
insurance organization, known as the Mutual Benefit Association, formed within the
board, was recommended by the directory as safe and economical. The unusual con-
ditions of trade, the liability of fortunes made to wreck, and the general ups and
downs of members, suggested this safeguard, and recommended the association to
the thinking members of the board.
The transactions of the Board of Trade Clearing House show the relation of the
board to the trade of the city. The clearings for 1888 amounted to $105,758,106.32;
for 1889, $55,463,080.75; for 1890, $86,627,157.25; for 1891, $104,083,529.67; for 1892,
280 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO.-
$69,295,992.62, and for 1893, $68,707,668.13. The balances ranged from $24,793,928.86,
in 1892, to $32,430,827.57 in 1891.
The increase in Chicago's trade from $12,000,000 in 1848, or $20,000,000 in 1850,
to $1,538,000,000 in 1892, or over 128 times as much as in 1848, is a good measure for
the influence of the Board of Trade, a much heavier one than the increase in popula-
tion from 20,023 in 1848, to 1,900,000 in 1894, or 78.29 times as many warrants for
municipal influence. The trade of 1848, which was principally retail, showed an aver-
age of about $600 per capita ; while the trade of 1894, exclusive of everything outside
farm products, products of local manufactories and the wholesale trade, showed a
value of $981 per capita. Were the retail trade included in the total for 1894, it could
easily be shown that one atom of the present population is capable of doing the trade
of two atoms of forty-six years ago. For this progress no reasonable man can fail to
give justice where justice points. The Board of Trade, through its directors and its
members, has, undoubtedly, contributed the greater part of that commercial instinct
which raised up this city to its enviable position.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 281
CHAPTER VI.
TRflDE, flND COMMERCE,.
1778-1847.
N the first two volumes of this work the locations and descriptions of the pioneer
cabins as well as of the first and second forts are given, and something said of
the trades of their occupants and of the incidents of pioneer life. In this chap-
ter, Chicago's trade and commerce are particularly considered from their true begin-
nings in 1832-33, for, of all who were identified with Chicago's trade prior to 1831, one
only Gurdon S. Hubbard became connected with its mercantile and manufacturing
life after it ceased to be a place of mere Indian trade. The evolution of the little
trading post into a great commercial city, and the process of development are
explained on the same plan as applied in the chapters on manufactures, so that, by
history and statistics, the advances in trade and commerce are passed in review,
proofs given of the remarkable increase in volume of business, and reasons adduced
for greater progress than it has even yet experienced.
The Chicago River was the first, and for years the most important factor in the
development of the village. It led north and south to the historic portages, and on that
account was more favorable to settlement than the Calumet region. The Desplaines
being navigable from its mouth to Mud Lake, and thence to Lake Michigan, in the
rainy seasons, it was, necessarily, the route of the Indians, as it became that of the
explorers and, subsequently, of the traders. During the summer months the divide
between the Chicago and Desplaines was known as the " Portage," over which Indian
or Half-breed or courier would carry canoes or provisions en route to or from the
Illinois River. For these reasons the route was selected by almost every explorer and
traveler who came after Marquette and Joliet, such as Long and Schoolcraft and the
millions who followed them. Even the railroad and canal builders of the forties
adopted the same general line to Mississippi points and, following the precedent of
the majority, talked of and worked along the old highway to the West and Southwest,
though the great La Salle preferred the route from the St. Joseph to the Kankakee or
from the Calumet to the Desplaines via the Sag and portages. All these facts only
prove that the advantages of the river formed the attraction and that at all times and
under all circumstances, the locality would be the objective point of western travelers
and western traders.
It is said of the French trader that he always selected a natural trading point,
282 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
just as moderns say of the Indians, that their camping grounds were always chosen on
account of the advantages of location. The presence of men or company had also an
attraction for the pioneers, and as they came, one by one, cabins were built within
hailing distance of each other, and the nucleus of a city was formed.
It has been said, on the other hand, that the much-abused Chicagq River is the
primary cause of Chicago. There was another and greater river only a few miles
away, nearer to the western trail, and in the direct line of development, with a harbor
infinitely superior to that at Chicago. If a river alone were to make a city, the
Calumet would undoubtedly have been the victor, instead of its little rival, and the
center of Chicago's trade would now be ten miles south of where it is to-day. There
were other causes. The river played but a single part in the creation of a great city.
In 1798 an officer of United States engineers came here to select the site for a fort,
and passed -some days in examining the districts at the mouths of the rivers. As an
engineer, he was in favor of the lower stream, from his first observation, but, finding
near the mouth of the upper river the hospitable, authocton family of Le Mai, he
listened to the logic of its members and reported favorably for Chicago. This report
was accepted. At the close of the summer of 1803 a company of United States troops
arrived to build a fort on the south bank, near what is now Rush Street bridge, and a
question which at one time promised a war of interests, such as existed between New
Orleans and Natchez one hundred years before, was settled amicably, South Chicago
being left to wait until Chicago would grow down to her.
When Maj. Long, Mr. Keating and others, engaged in the exploratory expedition
to St. Peters River, arrived here in 1823, their impressions of the place were most unfa-
vorable. W. H. Keating, the literary man of the party, referring to his visit in the
narrative of the expedition, writes as follows:
"We were much disappointed in Chicago and its vicinity. We found nothing in
it to justify the eulogium lavished upon this place by a late traveler of 1820, the hus-
band of Waboojeeg's granddaughter, Schoolcraft, nee Calcraft. The village presents
no cheering prospect, as, notwithstanding its antiquity, it consists of but few huts,
inhabited by a miserable race of men, scarcely equal to Indians, from whom they are
descended. Their log houses are low and disgusting, displaying not the least comfort.
As a place of business it offers no inducement to the settler, for the whole amount of
trade on the lake did not exceed the cargoes of five or six schooners, even when the
garrison received its supplies from Mackinaw. Even when the banks of the Illinois
shall have been covered with a dense population, the intercourse that will be carried
on through Chicago will, we think, be at all times a limited one. The dangers attend-
ing the navigation of the lake and the scarcity of harbors along the shore must ever
prove serious obstacles to the commercial importance of Chicago."
This opinion was given by Maj. Long and expressed by Mr. Keating. What it is
worth Chicago, in itself, tells.
Thirty years after the first United States soldiers arrived the question of improv-
ing the harbor brought with it some trouble to Le Mai's successors in trade. Jeffer-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 283
son Davis, then a lieutenant of United States engineers, was detached to report upon
the claims of the Chicago and Calumet. He did not hesitate to recommend the last-
named river, pointing out that it was the only harbor on the whole chain of lakes
entitled to any serious consideration from the Government. Stephen A. Douglas was
then a friend of the Calumet, but Chicago influences were exercised against the
improvement of the lower river, and from 1833 to 1869 the Chicago may be said to
have been the sole beneficiary of Congress in this section of Illinois. From these
facts it may be deduced that the superior tactics of the men of Chicago influenced
Congress, won appropriations and made a river; that the new river, owing to the com-
mercial settlement at its mouth, attracted the commerce of the lakes and outwitted
Lewis Benton's enterprise in the ancient Ashkum, or South Chicago, and that, as Chi-
cago grew south to its old rival, the superior river and harbor of Calumet would stand
in proof that men made the parent city rather than its river. No one will deny, how-
ever, that enterprise made the river a cause, made it a necessity, and covered its
banks with stores, factories and grain warehouses. Thus, it was enterprise that made
Chicago and transformed a dismal swamp into one of the greatest of the world's cities
the existence of the river and the location of its mouth at the head of the great
lakes, where it is the gateway to the prairies and the mountains, recommending it to
thinking immigrants of 1775-1831 as they do to these of 1894.
These were the first causes of Chicago's giant interests, which, like the dunes of
Michigan, grew from a few grains to hillocks, and thence, into great sandhills. The
inhabitants in the summer of 1833 numbered 350, but their number cannot convey an
idea of their ambitions or activities after the Indian treaty of September, 1833, was
negotiated. One stated that Chicago would show a population of 10,000, in his life-
time; another, that it would reach 50,000, and still another, that 100,000 people would
find a home here. Even the prophet of small magnitude was laughed to scorn, and they
who had stated the larger and the largest figures were of course, unworthy of cre-
dence under any circumstances. Gen. Scott was laughed at, in 1833, for stating that
the village would become an important town. Many of that small band of advent-
urers, who had congregated here and witnessed the last act in the degradation of the
aboriginal inhabitants, did not desire immigration, and opposed the ideas of the few
who wished to see the village grow into a city. Men, however, came uninvited,
measured the possibilities of the place and remained. The very coolness of the
reception extended to them sharpened their determination to succeed, and they won
places and successes, until they were equal to the most favored authocton. It was a
community of varied characters and conditions, bound by one opinion- the value of
the dollar, and by one object possessing it. There were no social yearnings among
the new comers, for the commercial spirit was as strong as the necessity for work was
real, and each family lived within and for itself. It was an admixture of a trading
people, wanting in all the quiet and romance of the ordinary frontier settlement its
u
284 IND US TRIA L CHIC A G O :
spinning wheels, quilting bees, and happy meetings, though Mark Bcaubien's violin
or the first debating society loaned, at times, a spark of true pioneer life to the gather-
ings of the people.
In groups or in their homes the question was often asked: What brought us
here? One who had come from Vermont had set out from the Green Mountains to
settle on the horizon, but, after chasing the sun to Chicago, resolved to locate here;
others, learning of the river and the fort, gathered their worldly goods and came to
establish themselves in trade, while others, still, who set out for the great West, saw
enough of its wildness in their journey to this point, and, like the Vermonter, who
dreamed of a home on the horizon, halted and settled here.
What prompted them to settle on one of the most uninviting spots along the
shores of the great lakes? The simple facts that the French-Canadian traders had
been here before, built houses and established trade with the Indians; that the fort
was here and a company of soldiers to afford the settlers protection; that the loca-
tion, being on the trail of the Illinois and Wisconsin tribes at the Portage, and at the
south end of the ridge or bluff, between the upper Desplaines and the lake, gave to
the nomads a good camping-ground, where wood for fuel, and fish and game for food
were found in more abundance than in any other locality along the south shore of
Lake Michigan, and that an easy communication via the Desplaines and Illinois Rivers
promised to unload at Chicago's door the rich products of the interior after the same
should have been settled. At the close of the Seventeenth Century the French explor-
ers and missionaries located some miles south on the eastern trail, but when Guarie,
LeMai and Sable arrived they established themselves on the higher land on the north
and west banks of the river, where one, at least, resided until the English-speaking
pioneers appeared upon the scene. The latter were drawn hither for the reasons
given above and by precedent.
They came, generally, from the New England States and saw, at a glance, that
an empire, greater than all their conceptions of the country, lay west of Chicago, and
that this spot was the natural entrance to a garden which awaited the cultivator.
Cautious in the beginning, the manufacturer produced very little and the merchant
imported less. Each tried to corner the market in his specialty. The lumber dealer
kept not more than 10,000 feet of material and the merchant not more than ten
barrels of flour in view. The former sold his boards at from $60 to 70 per thousand,
the latter, his flour, at $28 a barrel. They sat down, so to speak, on the Chicago
River, and fished up riches before the close of 1833, necessity to deal with them
being the rod and bait and the purses of the immigrants, the fish.
Their policy and their success attracted others, and in 1834 many additions
were made to the mercantile and manufacturing circles. The arrivals of boats in the
river that year numbered 176 against four in the former year, while the tonnage
aggregated 5,000 against 700 recorded in 1833. Crowds filled the old Wentworth,
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 285
Wolf, Green Tree, Sauganash, Miller's, "The Exchange," and Mansion House Taverns;
the price of town lots jumped from $50 to $150; trade was brisk in every department
and the business outlook satisfactory. The arrivals of steam and sailing vessels in
1835 numbered 250, with a registered tonnage of 22,500, and before the close of the
year, the population showed a marked increase as well as the number of business
houses and dwellings. In the summer of that year the population was about 3,820.
The value of imported goods reached $325,203.90 or almost $100 per capita exclusive
of the liberal supplies and stocks carried hither by the immigrants and brought in
by prairie schooners. Everything was high priced. A quarter of Kinzie's addition,
which in 1833 was offered for $3,500, was valued in 1836 at $100,000; 202,315.96
acres of public land were sold, hotels and boarding houses sprung up like mush-
rooms, property changed hands with surprising rapidity, but with all this activity,
legitimate mercantile ideas slept, while wild speculation held possession of men's
minds.
The first trading post at Chicago was established prior to 1/78, by a French Cana-
dian named Guarie, on the west bank of the north branch, where a continuation of
Fulton Street would strike the river. The fort, if the stockaded cabin may be called
such, was erected shortly after the Pottawattomies selected the site of Chicago for
their town. It is supposed that he was a contemporary of Point de Saible, who moved
from Fort Chartres, Mo., to Peoria, 111., and thence to Chicago, built a cabin where is
now the corner of Pine and North Water Streets and carried on trade ther.e until 1796,
when he sold his interests to Le Mai, who occupied the place until 1804, when John
Kinzie purchased the property and brought his family from Michigan to occupy the
cabin. William Burnett, whose trading post was at St. Joseph, Mich, was, however,
the leading trader of the district from 1786 to 1803-04, and in 1798 had a cabin at Chi-
cago in which he intended to open business if a fort were established by the United
States. Kinzie continued Le Mai's trading house until the massacre, and again from
June, 1816, until 1825, as an independent trader. In the latter year he was appointed
agent of the American Fur Company, to succeed Crafts, a position he held down to
the day of his death, September 20, 1828. The establishment of the United States
agency in 1804 and its re-establishment in 1816 was no unimportant influence in
favor of the place. Late in 1816, Conant & Mack, of Detroit, opened a post here,
four miles up the south branch from the fort, placed John Crafts in charge and
carried it on until 1822, when the American Fur Company t purchased it and the
United States Agency store, appointed Crafts agent and reduced their first agent,
John B. Beaubien (who was appointed agent in 1818) to the position of sub-agent
under Crafts.
John Kinzie was an independent trader down to 1825, having branch houses at
Milwaukee, on Rock River, the Illinois and Kankakee, and in what is now Sanga-
mon County, then forming the territory known as La Large. The Southwest Fur
286 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Company, the Montreal Company, and later the American Fur Company were his
correspondents, supplying him with goods in return for furs and peltries sold to them.
In a letter from Ramsey Crooks, the manager at Mackinac Island, dated July 31,
1817, a letter written by Kinzie on July 4, and the receipt of seventy-three packs
are acknowledged. In that letter mention is made of J. B. Beaubien's presence on
the island and the purchase from him of skins and furs. Is appears that Kinzie
shipped a quantity of Indian corn which Crooks refused to sell (sacrifice) until
the price would increase above the $2 a bushel mark, then prevailing. In a letter
dated August 15, 1818, the purchase of skins from J. B. Chandonnait is mentioned.
This Chandonnait was a clerk in Kinzie's store before the massacre, and during
the tragedy rendered excellent service to the whites, saving Mrs. Helm and pointing
out the way to others to escape Indian vengeance. After the massacre, he became an
independent trader, and, on the recommendation of Kinzie, was outfitted by the Amer-
ican Fur Company. He sold the skins and peltries to Conant & Mack's agent, Crafts,
and delayed paying the fur company until it would suit his convenience, thus owing
that company in 1819 the sum of 4,000.
The schooner " Hercules," commanded by Capt. Church, was in the Chicago trade
in 1818, for on September 19 of that year there were shipped for Jean Baptiste Beau-
bien's order to John Kinzie, at Chicago, 8 barrels of flour and 6 barrels or 199^2
gallons of whisky; while to Chandonnait were consigned 4 barrels or 144 gallons of
whisky and 6 barrels of flour. To Kinzie on the same date and by the same
schooner a cask of Madeira was shipped in lieu of port, which was not to be had at
Mackinac. A bill of lading for 14 and 12 barrels, consigned as above, was enclosed to
Kinzie. In 1819 the schooner "Jackson" was in the lake trade, for in October of that
year Crooks asked Kinzie to send him by that boat " a few pieces of good hickory,
sufficient to make three or four dozen axe helves," so that with skins and peltries first,
flour and whisky second and hickory sticks third, a beginning in trade and com-
merce was made. It may be mentioned here that Dupin, who came in 1816, Alex-
ander Robinson, 1814, the four Lafromboise brothers, Daniel Bourassa, M. Buisson,
J. B. Ponsonneau, W. H. Wallace, John L. Davis, Peter Piche, Jeremy Clermont,
Louis Coutras, John K. Clark and Barney Lawton or Bernardus Laughton were well-
known traders from 1816 to 1827. It appears also that before the death of Crafts
J. B. Beaubien purchased the rights of the American Fur Company to deal with the
Indians of this vicinity and that he was practically an independent trader.
On May 4, 1831, George W. Dole landed in Chicago only to find that under the
law of Cook County six regularly licensed merchants were here the Indian traders
having been designated merchants March 8, that year.
The merchants then were John Baptiste Beaubien, Madore B. Beaubien, Alexan-
der Robinson, Samuel Miller and Robert A. Kinzie. R. E. Heacock had received a
license from the Peoria court in 183010 keep a tavern below what is now the Bridge-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 287
port country. Bernardus Laughton had a trading house three miles up the south
branch from the present Madison Street bridge; Elijah Wentworth kept tavern on
the West Side near the forks, almost on the site of old Fort Guarie; Mark Beaubien's
tavern, south of the river, near the forks; Samuel Miller's log tavern, on Wolf Point,
opposite Beaubien's. Leon Bourassa, whose trading post stood south of Beaubien's
tavern, retired from Chicago trade rather than take out a license in 1831, but the
arrival of George W. Dole and P. F. W. Peck more than compensated for this defec-
tion.
In June, 1831, Mark Beaubien, Oliver Newberry, of Detroit, represented by
George W. Dole, and Joseph Laframboise were licensed to sell merchandise, while
Brewster, Hogan & Co., Peck, Walker & Co., Joseph Naper and Nicholas Boilvin
were subsequently licensed. Peck built a little log house near the fort, to shelter the
small stock of goods which he brought with him (not the frame house built late in
1832), and the scene was changed. In 1830 the last voyageurs appeared herewith
the last Mackinac barge, and the romance of Indian trade gave place to the grim real-
ities of trade and commerce. The " Napoleon," on which the troops were carried hither
from Green Bay; the "Telegraph," which entered in July, and the " Marengo," which
followed in August, 1831, told Indian, half-breed and Caucasian that a new era was
inaugurated.
The prices prevailing here in 1831-33, as shown in the day-books of Newberry &
Dole, are quoted as follows: Postage 25 cents, whisky 40 to 50 cents a gallon, corn-
meal $i a bushel, dried apples $1.62% a bushel, apples $3.50 a barrel, Spanish cigars
25 cents a dozen, brogans $2 a pair, domestic plaid 18% cents a yard, linen cambric
$3.50 a yard, hard bread 12% cents for five pounds, raisins 25 cents, shot 12%, six-
penny nails I2J^, and black paint 50 cents a pound, brandy 50, wine 75, and sherry
56^ cents a quart, Russia duck pantaloons $1.25, percussion caps 25 cents a hundred,
cider 1 8 24 cents a gallon, colored kid gloves 59 cents a pair, set of cups and saucers
75 cents, barrel S. F. flour 89, socks 50 and 62'^ cents a pair, wolf skins 25, fox skins
75, coon skins 20 to 37^2, mink skins 25, muskrat skins 20, otter skins $4.50 to 85.50,
deer skins 50 cents each, pork $14 a barrel, blank-book $1.75, 90 feet of boards 81.80,
salt $3 a barrel, crackers $6.50 a barrel, ham \2% cents a pound, butter I2J^ cents a
pound, lard 10 cents a pound, meal 81.25 a bushel, umbrella $1.50, blue blanket $6,
cook stove $40 to 845, pants $4 to 86.50 a pair, a horse 830, 16% pounds of sole leather
84.95, a blanket coat 814, cord of dry wood 82, 754 feet of lumber at 24 cents, 814.68,
beef 82.75 a hundred pounds, hogs 83 a hundred pounds, eggs 14 cents a dozen, candles
19 centsa pound, cheese I2^J cents, loaf sugar 25 cents a pound, buttons 19 cents a dozen,
brooms 25 cents each, coffee 25 cents a pound, cloth from 81.25 to 85.50 a yard, bar
soap i2 l / 2 cents a pound, rice 6% cents, sugar I2J^ cents, moccasins 50 cents a pair,
champagne 81.50 a bottle, iron 8^ to 9 cents a pound, powder 88 a keg, lead i2 l / 2 cents
a pound, beans 81.50 a bushel, sperm candles 35 cents a pound, oats 40 to 75 cents a
bushel, city lots $41 to 855, barrels (sold by A. Clybourne), 87^ cents each, and 1,092
288 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
feet of lumber (from Stephen Downall on April i, 1833,) 43.68. The Newberry boats
then in the Chicago trade were the "Napoleon," " Austerlitz," "La Grange," "Marshal
Ney," "Marengo," " Prince Eugene," "Jena," "Detroit" and "A. V. Knickerbocker,"
all schooners; the brig " Manhattan " and the steamers " Michigan," " Illinois," " Nile,
" Michigan 2d " and " Illinois 2d."
In 1832 the Black Hawk War, the cholera, the return of Col. Whistler, the coming
of Gen. Scott, the construction of two frame mercantile buildings, and the advance of
the immigrants, reaffirmed the truth that the reign of the Indian trader was ended
and that of the merchant begun. In October George W. Dole slaughtered 150 head
of cattle, which he bought of Charles Reed, of Hickory Creek, at $2.75 a hundred
weight, exclusive of the hides and tallow, which were donated to the butchers. John
and Mark Noble were the butchers, and the abattoir was the prairie, where is now the
Michigan Boulevard and Madison Street corner. In December of the same year,
Dole bought from John Blackstone, a drover, 138 hogs (driven from the Wabash
country to Chicago, over the Hubbard trail) at $3 a hundred pounds. The hogs were
killed in rear of Dole's new store (built in October, 1832), which stood on the south-
east corner of Water and Dearborn Streets, and packed there for local demand. The
cattle formerly packed were shipped to Oliver Newberry, of Detroit. The bill of
lading is quoted as follows:
SHIPPED IN GOOD ORDER and well conditioned, by Newberry & Dole, on board
the schooner called " Napoleon," whereof is master for the present voyage John Stew-
art, now lying in the port of Chicago and bound for Detroit. To say: O. Newberry,
Detroit, 287 barrels of beef, 14 barrels tallow, 2 barrels bees' wax, n$%, 94% 2103^
and 152 dry hides weighing 4,659 pounds. Being marked and numbered as in the
margin and to be- delivered at the port of Detroit in like good order (the dangers of
the lakes and rivers to be excepted), unto consignees or to their assignees, he or they
paying freight at - - per barrel bulk. /;/ witness whereof, the master of said vessel
hath affirmed to two bills of lading, all of this tenor and date, one of which to be
accomplished, the other to stand void. JOHN STEWART.
Dated CHICAGO, April 17, 1833.
Eight years prior to the date of this shipment of meat, Col. W. S. Hamilton, a
son of Alexander Hamilton, brought cattle in the Wabash Valley, which he drove to
Chicago, slaughtered, and shipped to Fort Howard for use of the United States gar-
rison. In 1827 hogs were driven into the settlement for Gurdon S. Hubbard, but how
he disposed of them has never been related. There was nothing regular about the
transactions of Hamilton and Hubbard, no more than would attach to a farmer who
would buy and kill cattle for the use of a temporary garrison in his neighborhood,
or purchase and kill hogs for his own and neighbors' uses. Hubbard left the serv-
ice of the American Fur Company in 1827, established his trading post at Watseca,
introduced the caravan as an aid to the voyageur, established the Hubbard trail and
traded all kinds of goods for the produce of the chase and farm, until 1833, when he
adopted the modern commercial system.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 2s'J
The treaty of September 26, 1833, was the coup tic grace for Pottawattamie and
Indian trader. It was carried out with all the dignity of a stage coach robbery.
There were 5,000 Indians here the commissioners and their retinue, there the United
States troops here, the savages, there the vampires, or shylocks, waiting to seize the
flesh and blood which the treaty might leave to the poor savages. The foolishness of
Black Hawk in making war against the new barbarians made the path of the treaty
commissioners smooth. Aided by whisky they crushed the spirit of the aborigines,
and won a legal title to their hunting grounds.
Out of the nominal price paid for the Indian lands, the sum of 8175,000 was
distributed among many who filed claims against the savages. The early Chicagoans
who were beneficiaries are named as follows: Brewster, Hogan & Co., $343; John
S. C. Hogan, $50; R. E. Heacock, 8100; David McKee, 8180; John Mann, 200; James
Walker, $200; John Blackstone, 8100; Geo. W. Dole, 8133; Joseph Porthier, 8200;
Robert A. Kinzie, $i, 216; C. H. Chapman, 830; James Kinzie, 8300; GurdonS. Hubbard,
8125; B. B. Kercheval, 1,500; Mark Beaubien, 8500; Dr. VV. Brown, 840; John Wright,
$15; James Galloway, 8200; M. B. Beaubien, 8400; Tyler K. Blodgett, 850; David
Bailey, 850; Maria Kercheval, 83,000; John H. Kinzie, 85,000; Ellen M. Wolcott,
85,000; Maria Hunter, 85,000; Robert A. Kinzie, 85,000; Antoine Ouilmette, 8800;
John B. Chandonnait, 82,500; Nicholas Boilvin, 8350 ; Archibald Clybourne, 8200;
James Abbott, agent of American Fur Company, 82,300; Robert Stewart, agent
of same company, $17,000; Samuel Miller, 8100; Jean B. Beaubien, 8250; Laframboise
& Bourassa, 81,300; John K. Clark, 8400; Bernardus H. Laughton, 81,000, and Charles
Reed, 8200. From another fund, John and Mark Noble received 8180; James Kinzie,
85,000; Billy Caldwell (Shawwawnassee), 85,000; Alexander Robinson (Chechepingua),
85,000, and Rev. Jesse Walker, 81,500. When the treaty was presented to the United
States senators they reduced Robinson's and Caldwell's blood money to 85,000 each,
and were inclined to cast out the fur company's claims and other claims as fictitious.
In the distribution of the 8275,000, it may be said that 8200,000, which should be
secured for Indian uses, were squandered, with the connivance of the commissioners,
in this free-for-all scramble. This distribution of money had no small effect on the
business of the village. It made capital for many, and led to an extension of trade
and increase of merchants and tradesmen.
After the treaty, and before the close'of 1833, there were established here the fol-
lowing named dealers: George W. Dole, P. F. W. Peck, J. B. Beaubien, Madore W.
Beaubien, John Kinzie, Robert A. Kinzie, John S. C. Hogan (postmaster), and John
Wright, merchants; Peter Pruyne and Philo Carpenter, druggists; David Carver,
lumber merchant; E. H. Mulford, watchmaker; John Miller and Benjamin Hall,
tanners; John Bates, Jr., auctioneer and assistant postmaster; Augustin D. Taylor,
contractor; Tyler K. Blodgett, brick-maker; John Calhoun, Oscar Pratt and G.
Beckford, printers; Lemuel Brown, blacksmith; Archibald Clybourne, butcher;
290 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Nelson R. Norton, ship carpenter, and Alanson Sweet, carpenter, who built the
first Tremont House, in 1832-33; Major Handy, bricklayer; Ashbel Steele, plas-
terer; Samuel Miller, tavern-keeper; Gholson Kercheval, clerk and United States
agent; Henry S. Lampman, brickmaker; Joseph Meeker, carpenter; Dexter Graves,
landlord of the Mansion House; David Clock, of Kinzie's Green Tree Tavern;
Richard J. Hamilton, clerk; Mark Beaubien, of the Sauganash; Chester Ingersol, of
the Traveler's Home, formely Caldwell & Wentworth's Wolf Point Tavern; Dr. John
T. Temple, whose house was for school, church and boarding house purposes, and Mrs.
Rufus Brown's boarding-house. Dr. Temple was also mail carrier from Chicago to
Fort Howard; Jabez K. Botsford was known as a capitalist and speculator; Elston &
Woodruff, soap and candle makers; Mathias Mason, Rev. W. See, Asahel Pierce and
Clement Stose, blacksmiths, with visitors, such as William B. Ogden, who may be
classed as professional men and laborers, making up with their families, at Christmas
time, a population of 250 souls, exclusive of troops and Indians. It is unnecessary to
name the accessions to the business circle of the village in 1834 and 1835. A branch
of the State Bank was established herein December. On August 15, 1835, there were
50 business concerns or stores, 8 taverns, i brewery, i steam saw mill, i furnace
(nearly complete), 2 printing-offices, 2 bookstores, 4 forwarding or commission houses,
and 25 workshops in existence.
In 1836 the Steele block on Lake Street, the Harmon and Loomis buildings on
South Water Street, a steam flouring-mill, a dozen of four-story brick buildings,
about twenty large frame buildings and a large number of frame dwelling-houses, all
mentioned elsewhere in former volumes, were here ; while in 1837 the number of dry
goods stores was 29; of hardware stores, 5; of drugstores, 3; of general grocery and
provision stores, 19; of groceries, 26; of taverns, 10, and of warehouses, 4. With
this mercantile exhibit were 398 dwellings and a number of mechanics' shops.
During the year ending November 19, 1836, there were $i, 000,000 worth of mer-
chandise sold here, the prices of staple goods being as follows: Flour, $12 a bar-
rel\ pork, $25 to $28; butter, 38 to 50 cents a pound; beef, 8 cents a pound; potatoes,
50 to 75 cents a bushel, and hogs, 10 to \2% cents a pound. Dry goods, notions,
hardware, furniture, etc., had to be imported from New York via the Erie canal and
lakes, the time being about twenty-seven days, though in July of 1836 the brig
" Indiana" made the trip from New York in'seventeen and one-half days. From the
opening of navigation on April 18, to December i, that year, 49 steamboats, 10 ships,
26 brigs, 363 schooners and 8 sloops entered, the river. The imports of the year were
valued at $325,203.90, against Si, 000.64 worth of hides, the stated value of exports.
The exportation- of $10,000 worth of hides by Walker & Co. and $1,000 worth of beef
by Absalom Funk in 1837, as well as the receipt of $373,667.12 worth of eastern
goods, showed that the panic had not entirely stopped the wheels of progress, though
it threatened to undo the advances of the four previous years. The opening of the
Chicago Marine and Fire Insurance Company's Bank was a peculiarity of the year.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 291
The effects of the period of depression were made clear in 1838, when the popu-
lation decreased to about 4,000; but the volume of trade increased: Walker & Co.
exported hides valued at $25,000, together with 39 bags, or 78 bushels, of wheat, worth
844.75, shipped on Great Western to Buffalo; while Absalom Funk, the butcher of North
Water and State Streets, who shipped some meats the year before, repeated the vent-
ure, the value of his shipment being $1,000. Against this, goods valued at $579,174.61
were imported. The village trembled under the effects of the panic, but the sagacity
of its citizens pointed it out as the nucleus of the great central city of North America
and the spot where the " star of empire " focused its rays.
The village boasted of 4,200 inhabitants in the summer of 1839. The American,
the first daily paper, was issued in April of that year. No less than $630,980.26 worth
of goods were imported, while the goods said to be exported, amounting to $35,843,
included 43,695 bushels of wheat, with a small lot of corn and flour by Giles Williams
& Co.; $15,000 worth of hidessby Walker & Co.; $2,063 worth of flour by John Gage;
$10,000 worth of pork, lard and beef by Payne & Norton; $1,000 worth of meat by
Absalom Funk; 3,678 bushels of wheat by Newberry & Dole, and $l,ooo worth of gro-
ceries, hardware and dry goods by C. McDonnell. The hides and grain were really
the only articles shipped to eastern markets (Walker & Co. sending a consignment to
Otsego County, N. Y.), the other goods being sold to immigrants or to the new mer-
chants north and west of Chicago. '"'*
The growth of opinions favorable to the new town was very marked at that time.
Gen. H. A. S. Dearborn, who visited the post in 1839, wrote on "board the steamboat
" Constellation " a letter, from which the following is an extract, to the State secretary
of Massachusetts, under date of June 2, 1839:
" But Chicago is destined to be a mighty entrepot for an immense region of coun-
try; for when the steamboat canal shall be finished from that harbor to the foot of
the rapids of the Illinois, a water communication will be opened thence to New Orleans,
the Falls of St. Anthony, and by the Missouri and its numerous branches to the
banks of the Rocky Mountains, while the lakes and the Erie Canal, with the St. Law-
rence, unite the rising queen of the most western of the American Caspians with the
Atlantic ports. The extent of our interior commerce cannot be fully appreciated
without an actual examination of the vast region of country which it now does and
soon will include. Here I now am, 1,800 miles from the Massachusetts Bay, on board
of a steamship of 500 tons burden, out of sight of land, in one of the four magnificent
lakes that wash the northern boundary of the Republic. The " Illinois," in which I
went from Buffalo to Chicago, and the " Great Western," which we have just passed,
are each over 700 tons, and are real floating hotels of the Tremont or Astor House
character."
The letters of the immigrants were equally enthusiastic, and with those of visitors
exerted no small influence in attracting to this spot business men, and to the adjacent
country a good class of agriculturalists. The second shipment of grain was made in
1839, from Newberry & Dole's elevator at the foot of Rush Street. Delivered by
292 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
prairie schooners, the grain was hoisted by rope to the top floor, whence it was " buck-
eted " into a chute, leading to the deck of the steamer or schooner chartered to carry
it. Though primitive, this ancient grain elevator won renown for the town of 1839, and
had no small share in establishing Chicago's pre-eminence in the grain trade.
The publication of the Daily Chicago American by William Stewart, April 9, 1839,
gave to Illinois her first daily newspaper, and to Chicago an advertising medium of
inestimable value, as well as a proof of her vitality. On April 7, 1840, Charles N.
Holcomb, a printer, and Edward G. Ryan, later chief justice of Wisconsin, issued the
first Tribune in the United States. The two commercial ventures formed an index to
the times and were true signals of advance. When the Daily American was issued a
journey to St. Louis occupied about three days, i. e., twenty-four hours by stage from
Chicago to Peru, 96 miles, the fare being $8, and forty-eight hours by boat from Peru
to St. Louis, 300 miles, the fare being $8. An uninterrupted journey to New York
required five and one-third days, i. e., eighty hours Chicago to Buffalo, twenty-four
hours Buffalo to Albany, and twenty- four hours Albany to New York. The rates to
Buffalo for cabin passengers was $20, for steerage passengers $10, and for freight from
>2y 2 to 87 1 / 2 cents per 100 pounds, while the canal rates from Buffalo to New York were
of equal amount. In the face of such extraordinary exorbitant charges the people of
the eastern States flocked to Chicago; the merchants of Chicago imported and shipped
goods without much regard to freight charges, and on all sides men were thankful
that no longer were they compelled to travel over land.
The commercial transactions of 1840 were large, compared with former years.
The value of exports reached $228,635.74, or four times as much as the aggregate
value of exports for 1836, 1837, 1838 and 1839; while the value of imports fell about
$17,000 below 1838, and about $60,000 below that of 1839. The population increased
to 4,479, a market house was completed and opened, and in every corner of the vil-
lage big and little manufacturers and traders appeared to be vigorous and earnest.
.'The exporters and exports of the year are detailed as follows: C. Walker & Co.,
(hides and wheat, $185,000; Giles Williams & Co., wheat, corn, flour, pork, hams, beef
and tallow, $5,280; Church & Selden, white beans, $50; L. Lynd & Co., flour, salt and
pork, $180; C. McDonnell, dry goods, gi.ooo; B. W. Raymond, flour, wool, pork,
: wheat and beans, $3,000; S. B. Collins, lead, $130; John Gage, flour, $626; Crawford
& Harvey, wheat, $1,552; Bristol & Porter, wheat, $10,120; John Finnerts, hides and
furs, $2,000; Paine & Norton, pork, beef and lard, $6,700; H. C. Stone, wheat, flax-
I seed and beans, $2,271; Gurnee & Mathson, hides and furs, $9,454, and Absalom Funk,
beef and pork, $1,500.
Toward the middle of the summer of 1841 the population was estimated at 5,752.
The hope of finishing the Illinois and Michigan Canal within the ensuing year was
entertained, and citizens were filled with faith in the possibilities of their town. The
exports of the year amounted to $100,000 more than in 1840, while the imports only
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 293
exceeded in value those of the former year by little over $2,000. Orren Sherman and
Nathaniel Pitkin, as well as Eri Reynolds, entered the meat-packing arena. Stock-
growers and farmers were sending in their products to the packing houses, and the
millers and manufacturers realized that they could meet the local demand for flour
and meat products and still make a good showing as exporters; merchants were satis-
fied with the condition of trade, and all looked to 1842 as the year when exports
would equal imports.
The passage of the bankrupt law by Congress was hailed as a relief; the improve-
ment in banking methods was a boon, for which the people waited many years.
Altogether, the conditions of the new West were favorable to the growth of the
town, for men learned from the experiences of 1837 the dangers of expansion with
borrowed moneys, and now aimed to hold their enterprises in check, merely allowing
them to grow with the population. The number of inhabitants in the summer of 1842
was estimated at 6,248, the value of imports at $664,347.88, and of exports, according
to the Jourttat, $659,305.20. At the beginning of the year the lowest point of hope for
its future was reached, but toward the close of spring the people felt that Chicago's
star would ascend and show the way out of depression's ruts. The exports for 1842
were as follows:
Wheat, 586,907 bushels; corn, 35,358 bushels; oats, 53,486 bushels; peas, 484
bushels; barley, 1,090 bushels; flaxseed, 750 bushels; hides, 6,947; brooms, 5,587;
furs and peltries, 446 packs; flour, 2,920 barrels; beef, 762 barrels; pork and hams,
15,447 barrels; fish, 915 barrels; lard, 367,200 pounds; tallow, 151,300 pounds; soap,
2,400 pounds; candles, 500 pounds; tobacco, 3,000 pounds; butter, 24,200 pounds;
wool (first shipment), 1,500 pounds; maple sugar, 4,500 pounds; lead, 59,990 pounds;
feathers, 2,409 pounds.
The population jumped to 7,580 in 1843, ar| d the old fogies who were accustomed
to decry progress were compelled to acknowledge that the town was advancing a
little. Immigrants arrived and departed every day, leaving a few recruits for the local
industrial army. The merchants and manufacturers were unprepared for the troops
of homeseekers when the spring sun looked over the prairies, and so had to resort to
the system of importations, against which they had set their seals of disapproval a
short time before. Goods valued at $971,849.75 were received; but the true value,
estimated by the commercial editor of the Journal, amounted to $1,433,866, while the
exports were valued at $1,008,207. The year 1843 may be considered the beginning
of the end of primitiveness in trading and manufacturing methods. As a damp, misty
day robs the great dry goods stores of their fairer customers, so did the roads, in
unfair weather, rob Chicago of its supplies. This was evident, when it was customary
to see 700 teams or prairie schooners pass and repass a given point, going to and
returning from Chicago, in dry weather, and not one in wet weather. Other interest-
ing faults were reviewed and a disposition shown to remedy them, but nothing was
294 IND US TRIA L CHIC A C O :
accomplished that year beyond an attempt to construct a plank road on Lake Street,
from the river to Wabash Avenue.
The manufacturers and traders received a lesson on the effects of bad roads in
1843. They knew the cause already, and in 1844 began to apply remedies. Milwau-
kee was winning a good deal of wet weather trade, and Chicagoans determined to
build plank roads to divert it. At the same time the manufacturing idea was devel-
oped; several new industries were brought into existence, and the town assumed busi-
ness airs, which compared, in a manner, with those of New York, after the Astors
had ceased to scrape hides before the door of the ancestral cabin.
In the annals of this city shipments of 1,500 pounds of wool in 1842, of 22,050
pounds of wool in 1843, an d of 96,635 pounds in 1844, are recorded, but whether the
fleecy stuff was forwarded to Joliet or New York no one can now tell. The lake trade
was represented by 17 steamboats, 10 propellers, i barque, 35 brigs, 2 sloops and 115
schooners, or a total of 166, of which 42 were engaged solely in the Lake Michigan
trade, the arrivals from the opening of navigation to August 30 numbering 710 craft.
In August of 1844 the best winter wheat sold for 58 cents. On September 2, though
the market was bare of produce on account of roads making the town inaccessible to
farmers, wheat fell to 56 cents and oats to 20 cents. The merchants preferred to wait
for dry weather trade and the new crop which would come in as soon as the roads
would be passable. Pork was actually imported and was retailed at $10 a barrel; while
wheat fell to about 45 cents (on the authority of the Journal} a bushel.
The imports, reported in 1844, amounted to 1,686,416, and the exports to $785,-
504.20. The difference between 1843 ar >d 1844 in this latter item was occasioned not
so much by the extraordinary activity in the packing industry during 1843 as by the
lack of raw material in 1844. Again, the establishment of large hardware, grocery,
dry goods and miscellaneous businesses here in 1844 led to a marked increase in the
volume of imports and, in addition to this, the aim of eastern manufacturers and mer-
chants and the policy of the owners of the new lake fleet was to dump everything,
good as well as bad, at or near the mouth of the Chicago River. The population
jumped to 8,000, but the Journal credits 10,170, all commercial in ambition. The low
price of imported goods, particularly of smuggled goods, militated against the rise of
the manufacturing idea. The builders of the 600 houses erected here that year
had only to use very small quantities of material manufactured here, outside the meat
and flour for food. The smuggler supplied the building trades with whisky, nails,
tools and sundry other necessities; the East supplied them with groceries and clothes,
and thus they lived on, receiving very small pay and expending it for cheap imported
goods, to the detriment of local industries.
With high prices for meat products and low prices for grain, bad roads and uncer-
tainties of trade, the citizens appear to have been satisfied. The Journal, in its refer-
ences to the spring and summer trade of the year and to the general advances made,
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 295
\
said: " Let any one look back at what Chicago has done in the last ten years, without
facilities of any kind, and dare to predict what she will be ten years hence, when the
trade of hundreds of miles of navigation will pour into her lap to be put in direct
communication with Europe. Chicago has hitherto not been a port of entry, a fact
which has contributed to her growth, because Illinois has been supplied with smuggled
goods to a very great extent, in consequence of the laws protecting our manufactures."
It must not be taken for granted from this that a customs officer was not on the scene,
for Chicago was a port of delivery prior to July 16, 1846, when it was created a port
of entry; but it may be assumed that smuggling from Canada was a daily practice
during the months of navigation, and that English and Canadian goods were intro-
duced here in large quantities without a nickel being paid as duty. The ethics of the
buyers taught the principles of keeping mouths closed and eyes opened in trans-
actions with the smugglers, just as the old merchants of New Orleans used to deal
with Lafitte's pirates. They grew rich on the trade and used smuggled goods with as
much sang-froid as they would a postal stamp, which passed through the postoffice
uncanceled. The establishment of the wholesale hardware trade, by William Blair,
must be credited to 1844,35 also the transformation of the old City Hotel into the
Sherman House.
The population in 1845 was 12,088; the imports, $2,043,445.73, and the exports,
1,543,519.85. Twenty-two years had passed since Maj. Stephen H. Long spoke
slightingly of the location. He lived to see the libel set aside by every evidence that
man could demand, for in 1845 was n t * ne first permanent school building erected on
Dearborn Street, the first German newspaper printed here, and the first chair factory
established ? It was a very precocious town, indeed, when the people ceased importing
^
chairs and supported a chair factory. It made wonderful strides in eighteen years
enough to surprise the Major, who said such hard things, and enough to influence the
building of a canal and railroads. The exports for the year ate enumerated as
follows:
Wheat, 956,860 bushels; flour, 13,752 barrels; corn, 2,790 bushels; oats, 5,900
bushels; beef, 6,199 barrels; pork, 7,079 barrels; fish, 878 barrels; butter, 25,945
pounds; feathers, 7,332 pounds; corn meal, 178 pounds; raw hemp, 2,800 pounds;
potatoes, 500 bushels; buckwheat, i bushel: tallow, 1,000 pounds; lard, 66,220 pounds;
lard oil, 300 gallons; soap, 150 boxes; candles, 961 boxes; beeswax 5,174 pounds;
neatsfoot, 2 barrels; wool, 216,616 pounds; hides, 12,256 number; skins, 2,821 number;
pelts, 2,199 number; pelts, 75 bundles; furs, 200 packages; furs, 6 casks; tobacco,
52,425 pounds; buffalo robes, I bale; horns, 32 hogsheads; brooms, 666 dozen; prairie
birds stuffed, 25 boxes; rags, 7,446 pounds; onion seed, 104 pounds; grass seed, 591
bushels; mustard seed, 32 bushels; hempseed, I barrel; ginseng, 3,830 pounds; snake
root, 140 pounds; tongues, 4,400 pounds; hams, 22,926 pounds; black walnut, 500 feet;
leather, 2, 860 pounds; venison, 353 pounds; stearine, 8,839 pounds; shot, 600 pounds;
lead, 600 pounds; beans, 22 bushels; hay, 227 tons; cranberries, 125 bushels.
296 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
The year is noticeable for the beginning of the wholesale dry-goods business by
Hamilton & Day, and the first shipment of hardwood lumber.
The population, in 1846, was estimated at 14,169. It was a slab city. The inhabi-
tants lived principally south of Lake and north of Monroe Street, with odd dwellings
as far east as Michigan, as far west as Halstead, and as far south as Van Buren Street.
South Water and Lake Streets were the business thoroughfares. Vandercook's
Phenix Foundry was established, and stoves known as Queen of the Prairie produced.
There were not as many bricks used in buildings down to the close of that year, as are
in the old or northern part of the Monadnock block; there were no paved streets
nothing to show an advanced civilization. The almighty dollar appeared to be the
god which received the greatest homage; trade was rampant; imports fell to $2,027,-
150, and exports rose to $1,813,468; smuggling was ostracised, after it was made
impracticable (just as the Lousiana Lottery was condemned after the United States
declared it unworthy of postal facilities); the place was established as a port of entry,
but the small sum of $14.10 only, was received by the collector, as duty on foreign
goods; yet the total value of imports was $2,027,150 dry-goods being valued at
$767,305; groceries, $424,657; hardware, $320,850, and boots and shoes, $94,930. The
exports for the year 1846 are shown in the following list:
Wheat, 1,459,594 bushels; oats, 52,1 13 bushels; corn, 1 1,947 bushels; hemp, 4,517
pounds; tobacco, 28,287 pounds; wool, 281,222 pounds; ham and bacon, 238,216
pounds; dried beef, 1 1,000 pounds; beef and pork, 31,224 barrels; lard and tallow,
1,835 barrels; butter, 3,905 pounds; candles, 810 boxes; raw furs, 37,514 pounds; brooms
896 dozen; flour, 28,045 barrels; tongues, 100*4 barrels; oil, 3,600 gallons; hay, 130
tons; beeswax, 3,560 pounds; ginseng, 6,800 pounds; lead, 10,895 pounds; cranberries,
529 barrels; fish, 352 barrels; hides and leather, $24,685 value; furniture, $9,000 value.
During the year of navigation 1,393 vessels entered, and 1,386 left the port. The
tonnage was 44,945, and the number of men employed, 1,628.
The year 1847 ma Y De looked upon as the close of the primitive era in trade and
manufactures. The town had recovered entirely from the diseases of 1837 and sub-
sequent periods of depression, and was now a sturdy, vigorous, ambitious youngster,
struggling like a colt to go forward, but never balking like that uncertain animal. On
July 5, the great River and Harbor Convention assembled here; men from all parts of
the United States and Canada met to discuss the question of connecting the Gulf of
Mexico with the Gulf of St. Lawrence, by means of canals from the Mississippi to
Lake Michigan and from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The great majority of the
delegates saw Chicago for the first time, and measured its possibilities aright. The
population, at that time, was 16,859, but, after the convention adjourned and the
atoms of the community digested all the great prophecies, the townspeople felt that
they were 50,000 strong. They were entrenched in a spot to which no invader could
penetrate in rainy weather, save by sailboat or steamer; for the roads within and
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS.
297
without its boundaries, were yet unimproved, and were bottomless in times of rain.
The imports for the year were valued at $2,641,852.52, and the exports at $2,296,299;
1 1,469 hogs were packed, and a large number of cattle butchered. The manufacture
of the McCormick reaping machine was commenced here this year, 700 reapers being
produced; manufacturing ideas expanded; Wadsvvorth & Cooley established the second
wholesale dry goods house, and a new era for Chicago was about to begin. The
value of imports and exports at the port of Chicago from 183610 1847, inclusive; are
given as follows:
YEAR.
1836
Imports.
$ 32520390
Exports.
$ \ 000 64
YEAB.
1842
Imports.
$ 604,34788
Exports.
$ 65930520
1837
373,657.12
11,065.00
1843
971,849.75
682 210 85
1838
579 174 61
1604275
1844
1 686,416 00
785 504 23
1839
630 980 26
33 843 00
1845 ..
. . 2,043,44573
1,543,51985
1840
562,106.26
228,635.74
1846
2,027,150.00
1,813,468.00
1841
564 347 88
348 862.24
1847
2,641,852.52
2 296 299 00
To point out more clearly the trade relations of Chicago in 1847 to competing
cities, the following tables are made a part of this record:
Exports.
Cleveland $9,033,155
Detroit 3,383,318
Toledo 3,848,248
Sandusky 3.438,530
Chicago 2,296,299
Imports.
$4,505,093
4,020,509
4,033,985
7,147,261
2,641,852
Exports.
Huron .. . .$2,291,010
Monroe 1,139,476
St. Joseph 833,917
Milwaukee 750,000
Imports.
$.
817,012
517,056
1,500,000
WHEAT EXPORTED.
Cleveland 2,708,513
Chicago 1,974,304
Sandusky 1,818,574
Huron 1,585,800
Toledo 1,154,205
Milwaukee 598,011
Michigan City 520,647
Monroe 222,596
Detroit 202,055
St. Joseph 150,617
FLOUR (BARRELS) EXPORTED.
Cleveland . 734,745
Detroit 614,707
Toledo 164,219
Monroe 156,829
St. Joseph 125,843
Sandusky 133,000
Milwaukee 34,040
Chicago 32,598
CORN, RYE AND OATS (BUSHELS) EXPORTED.
Toledo 1,494,662
Cleveland 1,481,765
Sandusky 312,265
Huron 111,144
Michigan City 96,487
Chicago 67,315
Detroit 14,088
St. Joseph 5,918
Monroe 2,973
Milwaukee Not given
BEEF AND PORK (BARRELS) EXPORTED.
Chicago 48,920
Cleveland 32,793
Toledo 21,811
Sandusky 10,700
Michigan City 3,033
Huron 2,614
St. Joseph 2,088
Milwaukee. . 917
BACON AND HAMS (POUNDS) EXPORTED.
Toledo.. 3,411,132
Cleveland 819,900
Chicago 47,298
Sandusky 36,958
Detroit.. 23,916
POUNDS OF LARD EXPORTED.
Toledo 4,214,861
Cleveland 484,160
Sandusky 293,750
Chicago 139,069
INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
POUNDS OF TALLOW EXPORTED.
Sandusky 601,250 Toledo 95,317
Chicago 208,435 Huron 20,602
Cleveland 140,100 Monroe 2,630
POUNDS OF BUTTER EXPORTED.
Sandusky 946,400 Monroe 27,768
Cleveland 917,090 St. Joseph 6,600
Toledo 374,889 Huron 2,704
Chicago 47,339
The foreign goods received on which duty was paid, were 256^ cords of firewood,
2 barrels of peaches and I saddle, all valued at $i, 182.90, on which $768.13 duty was paid.
Such was the commercial standing of Chicago in the days before her first canal
and railroad were completed last among competing cities in everything save enter-
prise and the determination to become great.
A. "I
>
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 299
CHAPTER VII.
TRflDE fVND ENTERPRISE.
1848-1894.
x IT -
I HE arrival of the " General Fry" towed by the propeller" A. Rossiter," from Lock-
eJ|_ port, on April 10, 1848, and the dedication of the Illinois and Michigan Canal on
April 16, were evidences of great things accomplished and of greater moment to Chi-
cagoans of that day than the completion of a canal from Chicago to New York would
be to the people of the present time. Though the time to Peru was reduced only four
hours, the fare was reduced to $4, which included meals and berth. The stage coach
was compelled to quicken time and reduce fares, while travel to the Illinois Valley was
made agreeable and the transfer of farm products to Chicago practicable. It was
only one step in the evolution of commerce an expensive one, truly, but in keeping
with the advanced ideas of enterprise even then prevailing here. How far the rail-
road ventures of 1848-52 are indebted to the canal builders for their conception may
never be calculated, but it remains a fact, that the pioneer railroaders did not begin
work on the Galena & Chicago Union road until the canal was open, nor did the Illi-
nois Central, the Michigan Central, the Pennsylvania, the Michigan Southern and the
Rock Island venture into the prairie city until their builders witnessed the first successes
of the canal. It was the beacon light of enterprise and a factor in the making of Chi-
cago, the influence of which can never be overestimated.
On the evening of January 15, 1848, the first telegraph message between Chicago
and Milwaukee was sent and an answer received the message and reply being as
follows: "J. J. Speed's respects to the intelligent, liberal, hospitable people of Mil-
waukee. Long may their noble city be as now, the pride of the lakes and the home
of enterprise, prosperity and happiness." The answer came immediately: "The
people of Milwaukee thank Col. Speed for his friendly salutation and for the manner
in which he sends it. Milwaukee tenders to Chicago the right hand of friendship
once united may they never be divided." In April the line to Detroit was opened,
and in June the O'Rielly lines to the Southwest were declared ready for business. In
June, also, the first work on the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad was performed at
the corner of Kinzie and Halsted Streets. On October 10, the locomotive known as
* " The Pioneer," was received by Redmond Prindiville and others, and by November I,
At the World's Fair in 1K93 this locomotive, weiring H.072 pounds and with hut six wheels, was placed on exhibition
in the Transportation building by the North-Western Kailroad, where it excited mnch interest.
15
300 IND US TRIA L CHIC A G O :
this engine, with its train of six second-hand freight cars, was making regular trips
to Cottage Hill, ten miles westward. For some days prior to that the train was used
for construction purposes. On October 31 the crew relieved a "stuck" prairie
schooner of its wheat cargo and took the wheat into the city, being the first importa-
tion by rail. A week later thirty prairie schooners were moored on the bank of the
Desplaines, waiting railroad facilities for the shipment of grain and other farm prod-
ucts to the city. On November 21 freight traffic was regularly inaugurated; the
directors of the road were jubilant, and the citizens would leave their counters and
work-benches to see the little " Pioneer" leave and arrive. The Tribune was revived;
the first telegraph office (O'Rielly's line) was opened, and the first stockyards estab-
lished on Madison Street and Ashland Avenue. The receipts of 32,118,215 feet of
lumber, 12,000,000 shingles, 6,000,000 lath, with proportionate quantities of grain and
produce; the extraordinary increase in importations of hardware, dry goods and
groceries, and an equally extraordinary growth of the exportations, marked the
summer, fall and winter of 1848 and made it, indeed, a red-letter year.
The exports of Chicago for the year 1848 are named in the following table:
Wheat, 1,680,855 bushels; corn, 330,741 bushels; oats, 12,500 bushels; potatoes,
7,909 bushels; flour, 29,970 barrels; beans, 727 barrels; beef, 3,536 tierces; beef, 16,129
barrels; pork, 12,588 barrels; tallow, 5,228 barrels; tallow, 224 tierces; hams, 1,878
barrels; hams, 127 tierces; hams, 43 hogsheads; bacon, 44 hogsheads; bacon, 81
tierces; bacon, 167 barrels; sugar, 68 hogsheads; sugar, 2,535 barrels; molasses, 2
hogsheads; molasses, 42 barrels; fish, 1,090 barrels; salt, 892 barrels; whisky, 128
barrels; high wines, 195 barrels; flaxseed, 143 barrels; apples, 10 barrels; butter, 345
kegs; cheese, 25 boxes; oil, 44 barrels; water lime, 105 barrels; candles, 22 boxes;
soap, 602 boxes; bones, 107 hogsheads; wool, 2,531 bales; hogs' hair, 22 bales;
feathers, 97 bales; furs, 23 bales; buffalo robes, 24 bales; rags, 58 bales; hemp, 760
bales; deer skins, 270; horse hair, 22 bales; hay, 14 tons; horses, 75; fat cattle, 87;
tobacco, 12 hogsheads; hops, 50 bales; brick, 17,000; ashes, 10 casks; cigars, 2,500.
It may be noticed that in this year six tons of saleratus manufactured at Chicago
were shipped to St. Louis. A cargo of salt, the first direct shipment by water from
the Atlantic, was received from the brig "McBride" December 4. Capt. Huntoon began
the manufacture of starch; the dutiable goods imported were valued at 6,600.70, on
which an impost of 1,629.48 was levied. From the establishment of the port of
entry in 1846 to the close of 1848 the value of foreign dutiable goods received was
7,785.60 and the amount of duty collected thereon $2,411.71.
The echoes of the Mexican War had died away by the beginning of 1849. Chi-
cago and Cook County had contributed 790 men to the United States Army for that
war, of whom about 500 returned to seek a place in the industrial army. The popula-
tion was estimated at 23,047. Shipbuilding, meat-packing, the manufacture of iron
and wood into commercial articles, the making of farm implements, furniture and
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 301
clothing became immense industries, giving employment to at least one-sixth of the
population and opening the way to greater things. The pioneer railroad was almost
completed to Elgin, forty miles away, bringing that rich section of Illinois within five
hours' ride of Chicago. A $2,000 passenger coach, built by Walsh & Launder, was
introduced July 4, while the canal made the valley of the Illinois and Desplaines tribu-
tary to Chicago. From January I to December 31, 1849, tae pioneer railroad earned
$23,763.74, and the canal five times that sum, or $118,849.29; from every side the prod-
ucts of the new prairie farms poured into the lap of Chicago.
When the season of navigation opened in 1850, a town containing 28,269 inhab-
itants extended north and south of the main Chicago River and west of the forks.
The steam whistle of the factory became as familiar as the shrill notes of " The
Pioneer." The amount received in tolls from the canal that year amounted to $125, 504,
while the pioneer railroad earned $104,359.62. On January 22 that road was opened to
Elgin, 42.44 miles, for passenger as well as freight traffic; plank road companies were
organized, and the hum of 200 manufacturing houses told unmistakably that life in
the new city was real and earnest. The value of trade for the year was $20,000,000.
An incident of the year was the departure of the brigantine " Minnesota " John Princle-
ville, captain for Swansea, Wales, with a cargo of copper ore from the Bruce mines.
This was the first Chicago merchantman allowed to sail on the St. Lawrence.
As the appropriation of $30,000 for improving the Chicago River advertised the
village of 1833, the grant of 2,595,000 acres of land toward building the Illinois Cen-
tral Railroad advertised the city of 1850; for the liberal action of Congress made the
building of a southern road a certainty, and immigration poured into the Prairie State
in greater volume. Many manufacturing houses were established and many of the
old ones enlarged. The effect of the enterprises put in operation and projected in
1850 was visible in 1851, when the population was increased to 34,437. It was in
this year that the idea of bringing the pioneer railroad into the city was made prac-
ticable, the drawbridge over the north branch was constructed, and the ironway was
built along the new North Water Street. The shipment of flour, which exceeded
100,000 barrels in 1850, fell to 72,406, and an equal decrease was recorded for all grains
except oats. Notwithstanding this, railroad construction was carried on in the territory
tributary to Chicago, and the manufacturing industries which accompany railroads
multiplied. The beginnings of the wholesale boot and shoe trade were made this
year by C. N. Henderson, and merchants showed their own faith in their city.
The population in 1852 was 38,733, an increase of 4,296 within a year. The com-
pletion of the Michigan Central to a junction with the northern line of the Illinois
Central, and its entrance to the city, May 21, 1852; the completion of the Michigan
Southern to a point near Gurnee's tannery, on February 20, and that of the Rock
Island to Joliet on October 18; the building of the Illinois Central and the talk of
other roads, won many settlers for the town and factories again multiplied. The
302
INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO;
wholesale drug, chemical and dye-house of O. F. Fuller was opened, and in Novem-
ber of that year the jobbing trade in ready-made clothing was inaugurated by Henry
A. Huntingdon. The following table shows the shipments of flour and grain from the
incorporation of the city to the close of 1852:
YEAH.
Flour,
Barrels.
Wheat,
Bushels.
Corn,
Bushels.
Oats,
Bushels.
Bye,
Bushels.
Barley,
Bushels.
Totals.
Flour reduced to
Bushels.
1838..
78
78
1839
3,678
3,678
1840
10000
10000
1841
40000
40,000
1842
586,907
586,907
1843
688 967
688,967
1844 .
6320
891 894
923 494
1845
13 752
956 860
1 025 620
1846
28,045
1 459,594
1,599,819
1847
32538
1 974 304
67 135
38892
2 243 021
1848
45200
2 160 000
550460
65,280
3,001,740
1849
51 309
1 936 264
644848
26849
31452
2 895 958
1850 ...
100871
883 644
262 013
158084
22872
1,830 968
1851
72406
437 660
3,221 317
605,827
19,997
4,646,831
1852
61 196
635 996
2757011
2 030 317
17315
79818
5 826 437
The population in 1853 was 60,652. Bridges spanned the river at Clark, Wells,
Lake, Randolph, Madison, Van Buren, North Water (a railroad bridge), Kinzie and
Chicago Avenue. One hundred and fifty miles of sidewalk, twenty-seven miles of
plank streets, six miles of sewers, and four miles of docks marked municipal improve-
ments, and the commercial spirit of the people, though young, was vigorous. The
Chicago, Pacific & Rock Island Railroad, opened to Geneseo, 111., December 18, may
be said to have brought the farmers of western Illinois and eastern Iowa within trad-
ing distance of Chicago, as the other roads brought southern and central Michigan
and northern Indiana into direct communication with the growing town.
Chicago, in the summer of 1854, contained a population of 65,872; the second
system of waterworks was inaugurated, new and important manufacturing industries
established and new railroad systems practically opened for freight and passenger
traffic. There were received 15,01 1,540 bushels of grain and 158,575 barrels of flour,
of which 12,364,185 bushels of grain and 107,627 barrels of flour were shipped. It took
first place among the grain-exporting ports of the world, as shown in the following
table, which includes flour reduced to bushels:
Chicago 12,902,310 Odessa 7,040,000
Archangel (Russia) 9,528,000 St. Louis 5,081,468
New York 9,430,335 Dantzic 4,408,000
Galatz and Ibrelia 8,320,000 Riga 4,000,000
St. Petersburg 7,200,000 Milwaukee 3,787,161
In the midst of the richest agricultural region in the world, Chicago, forty years
ago, proved her right to be its capital, and the commercial people of the world realized
for the first time that what was a terra incognita to them before was now a factor in their
calculations; for it became a certain source of supply upon which they could count at
all times. Though the cholera plague took hold of the overgrown village in July of
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 303
that year, robbed her of 1,424 citizens, put to flight twice that number, and the news-
papers of rival cities spread the news in alarming paragraphs, Chicago conquered the
disease as well as the prejudices fostered by outside newspaper men. By September
she " was again in business at the old stand," the new alarm bell, cast here that year,
for the courthouse, ringing out in clear tones Chicago's defiance to plagues, fire and
commercial enemies. The Chicago Times, issued August 2O, 1854, was an index to the
activities in all branches of life here in that day.
In 1855 the local census enumerators credited the city with 80,028 inhabitants, the
increase over 1852 being about 150 per centum. Here was the center of 2,933 miles
of railroad, or ten trunk and eleven branch roads, which earned $13,298,201.09 that
year, or $13,258,201.09 more than the pioneer road earned in 1851. No less a sum than
$6,295,000 was invested in manufactures; the value of goods produced was no less
than $11,031,491. The Chicago railroads touched the Mississippi at eight points;
326,553,467 feet of lumber were received; 5,410 vessels entered the port with an aggre-
gate tonnage of 1,608,845, while the United States imposts on foreign goods received
amounted to $296,844.75. The receipts of all kinds of grain amounted to 20,487,953
bushels, while the receipts of live stock pointed to the growing popularity of this
market. The completion of the main line of the Illinois Central, the opening of the
railroad from Chicago to Burlington, la., and the consolidation of the roads forming
the Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac system, all tended to build up the trade
interests of the city and to create an interest in railroad and marine development
more intense than even the commercial spirit of the people warranted.
The Chicago of 1856 contained 84,113 inhabitants; the investments in manu-
factures amounted to $7,759,400; the value of goods produced to $15,515,063, and the
number of hands employed was 10,573. The 3,676 miles of railroads centering here
earned $17,343,242.83, and the total movement of passengers was estimated at 3,350,-
OOO, of whom 107,653 remained west of Chicago. The total receipts of grain were
24,674,824 bushels; the total shipment of grain, 21,583,221 bushels; the total number
of live and dressed hogs received, 308,539, valued at $3,585,880; the total number
shipped, 170,831; the number of barrels of beef packed, 33,058; the lumber received,
456,673,169 feet; the lead received, 9,527,506 pounds, and the number of steam and
sailing vessels entered, 7,328, with a tonnage of 1,545,379 tons. The year is memorable
in Chicago's commerce as that in which the steamer " Dean Richmond " cleared from
this port for Liverpool, England, with part of a cargo of wheat, the other and the
greater part being loaded at Milwaukee. The steamer sailed from Chicago on July
14, and arrived at Liverpool September 29. A year to a day after her departure the
" Maderia Pet," which left Liverpool April 24, 1857, sailed into the Chicago river,
being the first vessel from an English port to enter here.
The memorable year 1857 opened with bright prospects for this city, though the
outside world said its condition was beyond reclamation. The population was 93,000;
304 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
on all sides trade and commerce showed wonderful activity; the factories and mills
were busy, and no shadow of disappointment was visible. Chicago had established
herself as the leading grain market and one of the leading meat markets of the world,
and, in opposition to the slanders of newspapers heaped upon her, was still progress-
ing, when the financial earthquake, inaugurated by the failure of the Ohio Life and Trust
Company, shook her to the foundation; but her great grain and meat trade defied the
shocks packing houses were extended, new elevators constructed, and old elevators
enlarged. There were no less than twelve of these immense grain houses open, valued
at $3,087,000, with a capacity of 4,095,000 bushels, exclusive of five smaller elevators.
The daily capacity for shipping was 1,340,000 bushels. The export business of the
year included 9,485,052 bushels of wheat, 259,648 barrels of flour and 25,000 cattle,
each item exceeding that of 1856. Even in pork-packing Chicago took third place,
keeping the lead of St. Louis, which she won in 1856, and steadily advancing to excel
Cincinnati in this industry, the Queen City packing 446,677 hogs during the season of
1857-58, against Chicago's 99,262. In May of that year 7,053 buildings were supplied
with city water, steam heat was introduced, Nicholson pavements began to take the
place of plank and cobblestone, McVicker established a new theater in opposition to
Rice, bridges were built over the river at Polk, Indiana and Erie Streets, and the first
bridge constructed solely at the expense of the municipality was placed over the river
at Madison Street. The action of the city bankers and merchants during the months of
depression was most liberal, and laid down precedents which might be followed profit-
ably.
The beginnings of the present street railroad system were made November i,
1858, on State Street near Randolph. Eight or nine banks survived the panic of
1857; 9 local insurance companies were in business; a number of real estate agents
were engaged in the tedious work of restoring faith in Chicago lots; 77 hotels existed;
405 retail and 35 wholesale grocers; 18 wholesale hardware and cutlery houses; 28
retail hardware and cutlery houses; 54 retail and 10 wholesale drug stores; 46 retail
and 25 wholesale dry goods houses; 96 commission houses; 24 forwarding and trans-
portation houses; 53 retail and 19 wholesale fruit houses; 44 flour, feed and grain
dealers; 60 furniture dealers; 78 retail and II wholesale clothiers; 551 saloons; 69
wholesale wine and liquordealers; 107 lager beer saloons; 49 watch and jewelry stores;
28 provision dealers; 113 produce and commission merchants; 88 dressmakers; 53
millineries; 10 millinery, silk and straw goods houses; 129 lumber concerns; 17 hide,
leather and wool houses; 10 iron and steel warehouses; 16 coal merchants; 23 con-
fectioners; 37 tobacco and cigar dealers, with 19 cigar importers and manufacturers;
19 tobacco dealers; 13 cattle dealers; 129 butchers; 67 retail boot and shoe dealers;
10 wholesale boot and shoe dealers, and 40 stove and tinware dealers.
The inland postage was 3 cents; California postage 10 cents; newspapers I centjbooks
6 cents an ounce; letters to England or Ireland 24 to 27 cents, and to France 15 cents.
The city was improved in its streets and buildings, and the value of her trade approx-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS.
305
imated $85,000,000. The first summer meat-packing was accomplished by Tobey, Booth
& Co., and Van Brunt & Watrous. That there were dry men here then is certified to
by the number of saloons and the fact that 3,600,000 gallons of whisky were produced
in the Chicago district. The foundation of the wholesale millinery trade of the city
was made this year by Keith & Faxon, at 49 Lake Street.
The cattle and hog statistics are here given from 1865. The receipts and ship-
ments of cattle are shown as follows:
YEAR.
Received.
Shipped.
YEAR.
Received.
Shipped.
1865
330301
301 637
1880
1,382477
886614
1866
384,251
268 723
1881
1,498,550
938712
1867..
329,243
216,982
1882
1,582,530
921,009
1868
323 514
217 897
1883
1 878 944
966 758
1869
403 102
294,717
1884
1 ,817,697
791884
1870
532964
391 709
1885
1 905518
744 093
1871
543050
401927
1886
1,963,900
704,675
1872
684075
510,025
1887
2,382,008
971,483
1873
761,428
574,181
1888
2,611,543
968,385
1874
843.966
622 929
1889
3,023,281
1,259,971
1875
920,843
696,534
1890
3,484,280
1,260,3C9
1876
1,096 745
797 724
1891
3,250,359
1 066,264
1877
1,033,151
703402
1892
3,571,796
1,121,675
1878
1,083.068
699,108
1893 .
3,133,406
900,183
1879
1,215 732
726 903
The figures showing the receipts and shipments of hogs are more astonishing:
YEAR
RECEIVED.
SHIPPED.
Live.
Dressed.
Totals.
Live.
Dressed.
Totals.
1865
757 072
92239
849311
575511
69034
644545
1866
933,233
353093
1 286 326
484793
91,306
576,099
1867
1 696 689
260 431
1 987 120
760 547
156 091
916 608
1868
1,706 592
281 923
1 988515
1 020812
226901
1,247,713
1869
1,661,869
190513
1 852 382
1 086 305
199,650
1,285,955
1870
1,693,158
260 214
1,953,372
924,483
171,188
1,095,671
1871
2,380083
272 466
2 652 549
1 162 286
169,473
1,331,750
1872
3,252,623
235 905
3488528
1 835 594
145,701
1,981,295
1873
4 337 750
233156
4 570 906
2 197 557
200 906
2,398,463
1874
4,259 629
213038
4 472 667
23M0661
197,747
2,528,108
1875
3,912,110
173012
4 085,122
1,582643
153,523
1,736,166
1876
4 190006
148622
4338628
1 131 635
79654
1211,289
1877
4,025,970
164339
4190309
951 221
94,648
,045,869
1878
6 339 654
102512
6 442 166
1 266 906
26039
292 945
1879
6,448300
91 044
6 539 344
1 692 361
40024
732,385
1880
7,059,435
89 102
7 148457
1 394 990
33,194
,428,184
1881
6474844
52835
6 527 679
1 289 679
46849
,336,528
1882
5,817 504
36 778
5 854 28-'
1 747 722
40,196
,787,918
1883
5 640 625
56538
5 697 163
1 319 392
44367
363,759
1884
5,351 967
24538
5 376 565
1 392615
24447
,417,062
1885
6 937 535
3 700
6 970 235
1 797 446
56305
853,751
1886
6718761
24 846
6 743 607
2 090 784
100117
2,190,901
1887
5 470 852
12800
5 483 652
1 812001
138 989
,950,990
1888
4 921 712
16 702
4 938 414
1*75 1*829
111823
,863,652
1889
5 998 526
18481
6017007
1 786 659
129,241
1,915,900
1890
7 663 828
14267
7 678 095
1 985 700
148,858
2,134,558
1891
8600805
9901
8 610 706
2 962 514
122,185
3,084,699
1892
7,714 435
5272
7 719 707
2 926,145
53,281
2,979,426
1893
6 057 278
91 81(1
6 079 088
) 149410
36467
2,185,887
306
INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
The value of the produce and wholesale trade and manufactures of Chicago for
a series of years is given in the following table, the figures for 1871-72 telling of trade
from October 1 1 of the first to October 1 1 of the second named year.
1850 $ 20,000,000
1860 97,000,000
1868 310,000,000
1869 336,000,000
1870 377,000,000
1871-72 437,000,000
1873 514,000,000
1874 575,000,000
1875 566,000,000
1876 $ 587,000,000
1877 595,000,000
1878 650,000,000
1879 764,000,000
1880 900,000,000
1881 1,015,000,000
1882 1,045,000,000
1883 1.050,000,000
1884 933,000,000
1885 8 959,000,000
1886 997,000,000
1887 1,103,000,000
18S8 1,125,000,000
1889 1,177,000,000
1890 1,380,000,000
1891 1,459,000,000
1892 1,538,000,000
1893 1,435,000,000
The figures are based on the statistics given in the Tribune, which are considered
as nearly correct as it is possible to render them. Proper reductions are made for man-
ufactures sold by manufacturers at wholesale, so that there is no heaping Pelion on
Parnassus.
The business transactions of 1859 proved, beyond cavil, that Chicago was advanc-
ing at a gait which would give her a place among the great cities in 1860. The vol-
ume of trade as recorded in 1858 increased, hundreds of new business ventures were
made, citizens began to surround their homes with luxuries and merchants to bestow
attention on the appearance of their stores. In 1860 the advances were more decided.
The development of the manufacturing interests from 1848 to the close of 1860
has been shown, and the relation of the Board of Trade, the Illinois and Michigan
canal and the railroads to that period, referred to incidentally. At the beginning of
1861 there were 4,350 miles of railroad in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin, while in Kan-
sas, Nebraska and Minnesota not a mile was yet built. The six States were then
recognized as belonging to Chicago's trade territory; their aggregate population was
3,470,459 and their possibilities unmcasurable. The population of the city was 109,-
206, but local estimates made it 120,000, an increase of almost 8,000 over 1860; the
value of the produce and wholesale trade and of manufacturers amounted to $97,000,-
OOO in 1860 and bid fair to reach far above the hundred-million mark in 1861; the
political situation was treacherous, but Chicagoans looked on it with a peculiar sang-
froid, which said that, no matter what happened, this congregation of about 120,000
persons would meet the emergency.
In the face of the earnest threats of civil war by Southern statesmen, the people
of Chicago extended their manufactures as well as their trade, and, in April of that
year, when those threats were brought into execution, they followed their avocations
with an unexplainable diligence. During the first winter of the war Chicago passed
Cincinnati as a producer of hog meat, packing 505,691 hogs against the Queen City's
474,467, and taking first place for the first time in this particular line. At the same time
there were 209,655 cattle received, of which 112,745 were shipped, 59,687 packed and
36,223 slaughtered for local consumption. The prices, in 1862, ranged from $8.25 to
$11.50 a barrel for mess pork, and from $8.50 to $12 for mess beef. There were 291,-
THE COMMERCIAL IXTERESTS.
307
OOO barrels of flour manufactured and 1,739,849 shipped, at from $4 to $5. In these
important products, as well as in grain, Chicago proved herself to be able to supply
the whole army, if called upon, without sacrificing her civil customers. She became
known as the granary and abattoir of the New World, and showed herself a powerful
municipality in peace as well as in war. Down to the close of 1861 the United
States expended $267,601.01 on the river and harbor, while the city's expenditure on
the river was not inconsiderable. The improvements led to her popularity as a port,
her shipping multiplied and lake ports opened to the products of her factories and
contents of her warehouses.
By the close of 1861 Chicago's trade, commerce and manufactures were stern
facts, which her competitors were driven to consider. Through her Board of Trade,
municipal council and civic organizations she expressed her determination to make a
race for first place in the grain and produce market and, gradually, to equal her rivals
in manufacturing industry. She had already conquered many adversities, created a
city of 112,172 inhabitants within 30 years, hoped to quintuple the number within the
succeeding 30 years, as well as to increase her trade, then valued at 897,000,000, five fold.
To be more specific, the materials sold here in 1891, 1892 and 1893 are given as
follows:
WHOLESALE.
1893.
1892.
1891.
Dry goods and carpets.
$ 95000000
$106,300,000
$98 416 000
Groceries
63000000
62,370,000
56,700,000
Lumber
36,000,000
43,00' i.OOO
. 39,000,000
Manufactured iron
1.5,000,000
20,000,000
17,000,000
Clothing
19 500,000
26,000,000
23,600,000
Boots and shoes
''7,500,000
30,250,000
27,500,000
Drugs and chemicals
8000000
8,300000
7 600,000
Crockery and glassware
6 500,000
6,500,000
6,000,000
Hats and caps
8,000,000
8,800.000
8,000,000
Millinery
7,000,000
7,750,000
7,000,000
Tobacco and cigars
13300000
12,650,000
11,500,000
Fresh and salt fish and oy e ters
6 500 000
6,050 000
5500000
Oils
5 500 000
5,000,000
4.500 000
Dried fruits
5.250,000
4,700,000
4,300,000
Building material
4,750.000
5,175,000
4,500,000
Furs ...
2750000
2,180,000
1,750,000
Carriages
2,000,00"
2,300,000
2,000 090
Pianos, organs and musical instruments
7250000
8,970,000
7800000
Music books and sheet music
700000
720,000
625,000
Books, stationery, and wall paper
26,000,000
25,000,000
22,000,000
Paper
30,000,000
30,000,000
28,000.000
Paper stock
5 000,000
5,000,000
5,500,000
Pig iron
14,000,000
23,575,000
20,500,000
Coal .
23 000 000
30,000,000
26,000,000
Hardware and cutlery
20 500,000
22,000,000
19,225,000
Wooden and willow ware
3 850 000
3,850,000
3,500,000
Liquors .
18000000
16,500.000
15,000,000
lewelry, watches and diamonds
28,750.000
28,750,000
25,000,000
Leather and findings
3000000
3,000,000
2,750,000
Pig lead and copper
5700,000
6,350,000
6,000,000
I ron ore
2,500.000
5,175,000
4,500.000
Miscellaneous ... .
6 500 000
7,000,000
6,000,000
Totals
$519,350,000
$574,015,000
$517,166,000
308
INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
PRODUCE.
1898.
1892.
1891.
PRODUCE.
1898.
1892.
1891.
Flour
$ 13,300,000
23,200,000
36,500,000
24,600.000
770,000
5,760,000
1,000,000
$ 19,700,000
36,900,000
32,900,000
24,740,000
2,467,000
8,300,000
1,200,000
$ 19,800,000
36,000,000
39,700,000
24,240,000
7,300,000
7,400,000
1,600,000
Other vegeta-
bles
1,000,000
1,800,000
2,744,000
900,000
3,660.000
4,000,000
675,000
9,336,000
2,875,000
249,540,000
12,515,000
110,000
4,727,000
10,872,000
345,000
750,000
1,700,000
2,300,000
1,375,000
4,000,000
4,200,000
720,000
11,625,000
3,000,000
253,836,000
9,900,000
191,000
5,169,000
18,000,000
55,000
750,000
1,730,000
2,290,000
960,000
3,180,000
5,250,000
600,000
7,590,000
3,300,000
239,435,000
6,600,000
138,000
4,6*55,000
24,000,000
91,000
Wheat . . .
Corn
Tallow and
grease ....
Oats
Rye
Hay
Barley .
Apples
Millstuffs, etc.
Total bread-
stuffs .
California
$105,120,000
33,163,000
5,930,000
3,723.000
4,839,000
8,968,000
1,331,000
789,000
861,000
3,150,000
$126,207,000
30,825,000
5,800,000
6,100,000
6,000,000
9,685,1100
l,98n,000
850,000
1,200,000
1,560,000
$136,040,000
22,900,000
6,040,000
6,580,000
7,375,000
11,900,000
2,d85,000
790,000
1,270,000
1,450,000
Other fruits . .
Hops
Butter.
Cheese
Eggs
Hides and
pelts
Poultry and
game
Wool
Live stock . . .
Beef
^laxseed .
Other seed . . .
Broom corn . .
Salt .
Pork, barreled
Lard
Meats (hog) . .
Dressed hogs.
Totals
Potatoes . .
$472,973,000
$507,000,000
$499,600,000
MANUFACTURES.
1893.
1892.
1891.
MANUFACTURES.
1893.
1892.
1891.
Meat produc-
tion . . .
8107,000,000
62,825,000
78,100,000
44,900,000
40,650,000
11,745,000
45,500,000
$118.718,000
72,420,000
52,310,000
43,480,000
51,830,000
15,845,000
42,786,000
$133,860,000
70,700,000
45,542,000
41,100,000
46,050,000
10,726,000
45,576,000
Chemicals
Leather
26,910,000
24,700,000
48,a r >0,000
38,850,000
34,450,000
10,600,000
30.400,000
24,980,000
57,925,000
31,400,000
34,081,800
10,160,000
28,500,000
23,850,000
52,550,000
27,905,000
33,358,000
7,295,000
Iron and steel
Bras?, copper,
etc .
Textiles
Printing, etc. .
Aliments
Bicycles, pa-
per boxes,
sails, etc . . .
Totals....
Iron and wood
Wood mfrs. . .
Brick, stone,
Brewing, dis-
tilling and
tobacco
$574,580,000
$586,335,800
$567.012,000
At the beginning of 1894 there were 97 propellers, 6 sidewheel steamers, 82 tugs,
21 canal boats, 46 steam yachts, 149 schooners, 12 sloops and 17 sail yachts owned in
Chicago. In 1893 there were 27 vessels built here, of which the "Arthur Orr" cost
$200,000, and the " Manitou" 300,000. In 1894 the " Kearsarge" was produced here,
and evidences given that Chicago would become as important a ship-building port as
she has already become a maritime port. Her tonnage is equal to the combined ton-
nage of all ships entering and clearing at New York, Boston, and Baltimore, and infi-
nitely greater than that which passes through the Suez Canal. The tonnage of the
great lakes increased from 711,269 tons in 1882 to 1,261,067 tons m l %93- O n J une 3.
1893, there were 35 iron and steel vessels having a tonnage of 62,825 tons, while the
172 iron and steel vessels documented claimed 265,727 tons burden.
During the year 1892 33,860 vessels passed through the Detroit River, of 24,785,000
tons, while only 3,359 passed through the Suez Canal that year, aggregating 7,712,028
tons.
In 1862 the rate from Chicago for a bushel of wheat to New York, via lake and
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS.
309
rail, was 28^ cents, the same by lake, canal and rail, and 48^ cents all rail. In 1882
the charge by lake and rail was 12 cents; by lake, canal and rail, g cents; and all rail,
15 cents. The latter rate prevailed in 1893, while the lake and rail, and lake, canal
and rail fell to 7% and 7^ cents.
In the following table of arrivals and clearances from 1870 to 1893, inclusive, the
aggregate number of arrivals and clearances and the aggregate tonnage are given;
while in the former table the actual tonnage of all the boats in the Chicago trade,
rather than the aggregate tonnage of entries or clearances, is only considered.
YEAR.
ARRIVALS.
YEAB.
CLEARANCES.
Vessels.
Tonnage.
Vessels. | Tonnage.
1870
12,739
12,320
12,824
11,858
10,827
10,488
9,621
10,233
10,490
11,859
13,218
13.048
13 351
3,049,265
3,096,101
3.059,752
3,225,911
3,195,633
3,122,004
3,089,072
3.274,332
3,608,534
3,887,095
4,616,969
4,533,558
4,849,950
3,812,464
3,756,973
3.653,936
3,926,318
4,328,292
4,393,768
5,102,790
5,138,253
5,524,852
5,966,626
5,456,637
1870
12,433
12,312
12,531
11,876
10,720
10,607
9,628
10,284
10,494
12,014
13,302
12,957
13,626
12,015
11,472
10,798
11.215
12,023
11,106
10,984
10,547
10,294
10,567
8,789
2,983,942
3,082,235
3,017,790
3,338,803
3,134,078
3,157,051
3,078,264
3,311,083
3,631,139
3,870,300
4,537,382
4,228,689
4,904,999
3,980,873
3,751,723
3,652,286
3,950,762
4,421,560
4,496,898
5,155,041
5,150,665
5,506,700
5,968,337
5,449,470
1871
1871
1872
1872
1873
1873
1874
1874
1875
1875
1876
1876
1877
1877
1878
1878 . . .
1879
1879
1880
1880
1881
1881
1882
1882
1883
11,967
11,354
10,744
11,157
11,950
10,989
10,804
10,507
10,224
10,556
8,754
1883
1884
1884
1885
1885
1886
1886 .
1887
1887
1888
1888
1889
1889
1890
1890
1891
1891
1892
1892
1893
1893
The collections of duty on imported merchandise at Chicago in 1872 were $2,155,-
927.33, imports $4,880,370; and in 1893 the collections were $8,299,222.52, imports
$18,672,256.
In 1888 New York's collections amounted to $147,694,618; Philadelphia's, to
$22,407,350.77; Boston's, to $20,966,351.10; San Francisco's, to $9,786,957.42, while
Chicago's total was only $4,977,389.43. In 1893 New York's collections decreased to
$138,032,031.18; Boston's, to $15,792,601.19; Philadelphia's, to $11,559,979.78, and San
Francisco's, to $7,616,133.34. Chicago in that time increased her collections by almost
$3,500,000 and took the place formerly held by San Francisco. A decrease of almost
$10,000,000 in the receipts of New York, almost $11,000,000 in those of Philadelphia,
over $5,000,000 in those of Boston and over $2,000,000 in those of San Francisco
showed how the central city advanced. The Congressional act of June 10, 1880, creat-
ing Chicago a final port of entry abolished the system of giving bonds at the New
York custom house.
The collections in the internal revenue department of the Custom House in 1863
310 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
were 8865,254.98, and in 1893, $9,130,451.02. For the calendar year 1890 the receipts
from internal revenue amounted to 13,518,996.33. For the year ending December
31, 1892, the collections amounted to Si 1,006,999.74. Of that sum, $6, 126,746 were
derived from spirits, 2,628,053.35 from beer, 523,833.47 from tobacco, 17,765.55
from snuff, 607,979.77 from cigars, 2,239.49 from cigarettes, 669,666.38 from oleo-
margarine, 423,035.29 from special tax, and 7,689.44 from fines. There were 6,858,780
gallons of spirits and 3,100,000 barrels of beer, 33,716,564 pounds of oleomargarine
and 4,461,000 cigarettes, 8,730,557% pounds of tobacco and 296,092^ pounds of snuff
produced, on which duty was collected in the sums given.
The Chicago Clearing House Association, chartered in 1865, began business April
6, that year. The clearings to December 23 amounted to 314,577,543, and the bal-
ances to 47,413,014. In 1870 the clearings were 810,676,036, and the balances
80,910,416; in 1872 the clearings amounted to 993,060,503.47; in 1882, to 2,366,-
536,855; in 1883, to 2,525,622,994; in 1884, to 2,259,350,386; in 1885, to 2,318,579,-
003.07; in 1886, to 2,604,762,912.35; in 1887, to 2,969,216,210.60; in 1888, to
3,163,774,462; in 1889, to 3,379,925,188.67; in 1890, to 4,093,145,904; in 1891, to
4,456,885,230.49; in 1892, to 5,135,771,186.74; and in 1893, to 4,676,960,968.04. In
1892 New York was first, with clearings amounting to 36,662,469,201, Chicago second,
with the sum stated, Boston third, Philadelphia fourth, and St. Louis fifth, with
1,231,641,451.
The capital of incorporated banks on December 31, 1865, was 6,820,000, and of
private banks, 2,000,000. In January, 1870, the capital of sixteen national banks was
placed at 6,550,000, and the deposits at 16,774,514. On October 3, 1872, twenty-one
national banks reported a capital of 11,552,951; by December 6, 1873, the capital
reached 13,063,321, but declined to 12,981,960 at the close of the succeeding year.
In October, 1875, the sixteen banks reporting showed a smaller capital than in 1874, the
figures being 12,444,920. Ten years later, in 1885, the capital was 12,410,000, the
deposits, 71, 024,738, and the loans, 47,505,466; and in May, 1894, the combined capital
of the twenty-four nationals was 2 1,300,000; the individual deposits, 68,376,702.90; the
loans, 88,768,364.50, and the total deposits 141,591,344.68. In May, 1877, the capital
was 15,760,000; in July, 1891, 20,300,000; and on March 6, 1893, 23,300,000. At
that date, the capital of the 3,759 nationals in the United States was 686,874,375, or
about 29^ times that of the Chicago banks, and almost half of the 52,450,000 by the
fifty New York City banks of 1893. ^ n one day m 1892, forty-eight New York banks
received 130,976,963 and checked out 92.36 per centum of receipts; while twenty-one
Chicago banks received 25,078,1 14 and checked out 94.52 per centum of that amount.
In 1864 the Chicago post-office sold stamps and envelopes valued at 176,876.44.
By 1870 the trade in the stamp and stamped envelope department reached 1,071,-
842.75, and in the money order department 5,495,202.96. The railway mail service,
organized June 9, 1864, popularized the post-office department and increased its earn-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 311
ing power, so that by 1880, the sale of stamps and stamped envelopes increased to
1,446,014.07, and by 1885 to 1,923,158.24. The money order transactions, which
amounted to $3,923,354 in 1871, increased to 10,995,302.70 by 1885, and to 23,292,-
823.78 by 1893, when the total number of orders issued was 2,245,413, or 7,362 a day.
There were 404,549,429 pieces of first, second, third, and fourth class matter handled
in 1893, against 332,472,854 in 1892. There were 86,178 pieces for special delivery,
against 50,979 in 1892, and 3,701,447 pieces of registered matter. The advances made
in 1894 suggested the extraordinary improvements in the postal service which brought
letters to the doors of all the residents within Chicago's 190 square miles of territory.
The mail handled here may be said to be 9-30 of all handled in the United States in
1893, which was estimated at 3,800,000,000 pieces.
During the year 1871-2, or, as the Romans would have it, anno urbis cotidite
November, 1871, to November, 1872 the value of Chicago's trade was estimated at
$437,000,000, being an increase of 60,000,000 over 1870; of 101,000,000 over 1869, and
of 127,000,000 over 1868. The population in 1872 was 364,377, being an increase of
65,400 over the number reported by the United States Census enumerators in June,
1870, and of 255,171 over the number reported in 1860.
There were 598 permanent buildings erected in the south division of the "burned
district" prior to October I, 1872, exclusive of frame houses, at a cost of 27,384,000.
The number of buildings destroyed by fire was 15,768, including 175 factories. Within
a year, from the date of the fire, substantial brick and stone blocks could be seen on
every side. At least 4,500 brick houses were added before the close of Centennial
Year. From the beginning of 1877 to the close of 1890, there were 56,266 houses
built, and from the beginning of 1891 to the close of 1893, no less than 33,538 struct-
ures were brought into existence, one of a dozen of which cost as much and contains
as many rooms as some of the smaller American cities. From October 10, 1871, to
December 31, 1876, there were 49,239,000 expended on buildings; from January, 1877,
to December, 1890, 253,298,879; and from January, 1891, to December, 1893, no less
than 147,451,340, or 451,989,219, exclusive of the immense sums expended in build-
ing the suburbs; from 1880, to the dates of their annexation, which may bring the
total up to 500,000,000.
In the debate of 1894 in Congress, on the subject of removing the "Indian Ware-
house " from New York to the West, one of the representatives of Chicago, in pre-
senting Chicago's claims, cracked the following statistical nuts for his confreres in
the House:
"As an evidence of the enormous development of the section of which Chicago is
the commercial center, during the last few years, I want to call your attention to the
following comparison, based on absolutely reliable statistics, between the great West-
ern ten-State district having Chicago as its commercial center and the great Eastern
ten-State district having New York as its commercial center; the former comprising
the ten States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Mis-
312 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
souri, Kansas and Nebraska, and the latter comprising the ten States of New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachu-
setts, Rhode Island and Connecticut:
Chicago. New York.
Population, 1890 21,847,752 17,570,042
Miles of railway, Jan. 1, 1890 70,378 25,290
Tonnage movement by water, 1889 51,203,106 26,983,313
Tonnage movement by water, 1889, for all Lake Michigan ports 18,570,258
Tonnage movement by water, 1889, for New York, Philadelphia and
Boston 15,653,148
Average age of the district 53 years. 250 years.
Growth in thirty years
1860 9,094,878 10,706,484
1870 12,956,930 12,423,745
1880 17,228,934 14,654,015
1890 21,847,752 17,570,042
Gain in thirty years 12,755,873 6,863.558
Average gain every ten years 4,251,957 2,287,851
Thirty years hence population will be 34,603,625 24,433,600
Largest city Western and Eastern district population in 1890 1,099,850 1,513,501
Gam from 1880 to 1890 596,665 247,202
At this ratio will have in 1910 2,169,358 2,007,705
But at the ratio of the last three years will have in 1910 over 10,000,000
" New York has barely kept up the average gain in the decade prior to 1890.
When we take into consideration that the real estate transactions in Chicago annually
range from 150,000,000 to $200,000,000; that the building operations connected there-
with represent an annual investment of $25,000,000 to $65,000,000, and that the annual
combined business in these two lines aggregates from $150,000,000 to $263,000,000,
involving over 5,000 firms in these various transactions; and, coming down to the
immediate present, when we realize that the building permits in Chicago for the
month of March cover over six and one-half miles in length, and both in amount and
cost aggregate more than for the month of March in any previous year, it will be
seen that the future of Chicago is assured. If present operations can safely be
regarded as prophetic, Chicago is absolutely certain to lead the world, and that at a
much earlier date than the most optimistic among even Chicago's citizens are wont to
expect."
The building statistics of 1871-72 convey, of course, a good idea of Chicago's
advances, but to him, who has not seen what they represent, they must, at best, be
vague. Such figures, taken in connection with the statistics of manufactures and
annual trade, tell, unmistakably, of Chicago's phenomenal progress since 1871.
In 1890 the city stood low in the ranks of home occupiers, only 71.27 per centum
of her then 1,099,850 inhabitants being under their own roofs. To-day (1894), with
her 1,900,000 or 2,000,000 inhabitants, the percentage of home occupiers scarcely
exceeds 69. Outside Illinois, the railroads of her trade territory bear about the same
ratio to area that houses in the city do to tenants, so that in railroad construction as well
as in house building she is far behind her requirements capital holding enterprise in
check until it is assured of exorbitant profits in the two industries. Her iron age is
merely in infancy; her silk and cotton manufactures are not yet born, and in hundreds
of industries she has not yet made a beginning. With the exception of her packing
establishments and immense grain bins, she is simply the market town for eastern and
foreign manufacturers, and yet she is marvelous in everything.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 313
There are thousands of testimonials to Chicago's trade advances. The Field store on
Wabash Avenue and Washington Street is a monument in brick, and terra cotta and glass
to the retail dry goods trade, as the brownstone building on Adams Street is to the
wholesale trade. The one shows the old store, on State and Washington Streets so
long the leading store of the city a mere lilliputian establishment, while the other
shows the house, on Market and Madison Streets so long considered great- a mere
barn. As the new part of Lehman's " Fair " compares with the old, so does the trade
of the modern department house compare with the old. There has never been in
Chicago a concern so full of goods, interest and instruction as another store, a
gigantic house of nine floors, covering half a block and containing almost twelve
acres of floor space. Next to the Board of Trade building, it was the leader in the
van of trade moving southward, and to-day it stands in evidence of Chicago's busi-
ness growth and of the faith in that growth which animated its owner. The Chamber
of Commerce, abandoned by the Board of Trade a decade ago, is now 198 feet from
main floor to skylight; contains 900 rooms (distributed among 13 floors), exclusive
of the basement, and inhabited, during business hours, by five times as many business
men as frequented the former building from November 9, 1872, to 1885, when it was
the Mecca of traders in grain and meats. The Rookery, Masonic Temple, Woman's
Temple, and the other giant houses typify the growth of trade and commerce as
certainly as the Smyth store on Madison Street typifies the advance of the furniture
trade, or the Auditorium, Lexington and Great Northern the progress of the hotel
business. They are all creations of Chicago's giant commercial instincts, proving the
reality of her claims to second place among American cities and preparing her to take
first place among them.
31 4 IND US TRIA L CHIC A G O :
CHAPTER VIII.
THE, GOMM&RGE, OF CHICAGO.
BY FRANKLIN H. HEAD.
HE location of a great commercial metropolis is never an accident or the result
of simple human endeavor. Its position must be one entitling it to supreme
advantage in utilizing the forces and facilities of nature. The location of Chicago for
convenience in the transaction of commercial affairs was determined long before the
ships of Columbus sailed from the port of Palos. The commerce of the red men of
America was small; was transacted amid disadvantages which would now seem to be
overwhelming; but the commerce between the vast districts which may be described
as the valley of the St. Lawrence, which includes the whole territory tributary to the
great lakes, and the valley of the Mississippi, centered at Chicago long before Rich-
ard, the Lion-Hearted, fought for the possession of the Holy Sepulchre, or before
Bayard, the Knight without Fear and without Reproach, witnessed the expiring
glories of the order of knight-errantry. In those ancient days, pre-historic so far as
America is concerned, the red men of the east skirted the borders of the great lakes
in their frail canoes, voyaging toward the Mississippi Valley, and landed their light
cargoes at the Chicago River, preparatory to the brief portage to the Desplaines, the
nearest tributary of the Mississippi. Here they met and traded or fought with the
wild peoples from the great Mississippi Valley, who sought the Chicago River as the
entering point of the vast chain of inland lakes and the valley of the St. Lawrence.
Fifty years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers the first white men stood
upon the banks of the Chicago River, and in 1673 Indian guides led Marquette and
Joliet to this same point in their perilous journey toward the unknown regions of the
farther west. At this same point, in 1685, a primitive fortification was erected as a pro-
tection to the fur traders and missionaries, who sought from this center to establish a
commerce and to Christianize the roving Indian bands of the great interior. In 1795
Gen. Anthony Wayne, who thus early recognized the strategic importance of this
location by the terms of a treaty concluded with the Indians, secured to the United
States the Indian title to a tract of land six miles square at the mouth of the Chicago
River.
The causes of the growth of Chicago are not far to seek. They were the same
2-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 3l5
/
Causes which induced the Indians to make here the portage between the two great
valleys which to-day contain the bulk of the wealth, population and enterprise of the
North American continent. Here was the only available harbor for many miles, and
the natural halting place for travelers in either direction around the southern end of
Lake Michigan. When the earliest public work of magnitude was undertaken in the
State of Illinois (the canal connecting the waters of Lake Michigan with those of the
Mississippi), it followed the route which for ages had been the path of the Indians
and the fur traders. When the earliest railroads in the new Northwest were planned,
their objective point was still the mouth of the same river, which to them had been
the center of the modest commerce of the early days. When at a later period of
excessive railroad building in the surrounding States, scores of cities were nearly
bankrupted by their issuing of bonds as an aid to the building of such roads, no
inducement of such character was needed for Chicago. The promoters of such lines
realized that their earning capacity depended upon their facilities for delivering
freight and passe.ngers in this center of western commerce. During the season of
navigation, the chain of the great lakes has been an invaluable factor in the trans-
portation of the coarser grades of merchandise and of farm products between the
East and the West, and at Chicago has been the principal point of transfer of such
merchandise between the vessels and the railroads. Thus it is that the untutored
savages, ages before a white man had seen the mouth of the Chicago River, had
selected the route and marked the course of commerce and of empire.
The point having been thus settled by geographical position where the products
of the great Northwest should be shipped eastward, as well as where should be the
great distributing point, for the Mississippi Valley, of the merchandise from the East-
ern States, the rapid growth of the city was aided by other circumstances. Its favor-
able climate was a powerful factor. The breezes from the lakes and prairies were
alike pure and invigorating, and gave a summer climate where all classes of business
could go forward without delay from the excessive heat which afflicted St. Louis, for
a long period Chicago's most formidable rival.
After its favored geographical position, the cause which, above all other causes
combined, accounts for the rapid and continuous growth of Chicago, is the agricultural
excellence of the country tributary to the city. Nowhere else upon the face of the
earth can be found so large an area of land of equal fertility. A line drawn west,
northwest or southwest from Chicago 700 miles long would scarcely touch an acre of
worthless land. Chicago is the principal market for the States of Indiana, Illinois,
Missouri, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Michigan,
as well as competing on more than equal terms for the trade of all the region between
it and the Pacific Ocean. The greater portion of this vast region specially tributary
to Chicago was prairie land and, therefore, capable at once of yielding crops without
waiting for the tedious process of clearing up the timber land, required in most of the
16
316 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
country to the eastward. This aided doubly in the rapid growth of the city, by mak-
ing it at once the market for the vast grain crops of the Western prairies and the
lumber market for the heavily-wooded State of Michigan, whence the demands of a
timberless region were mainly supplied.
The foundation of the greatness of Chicago has been, first, its commerce, as
already roughly outlined; and, secondly, and later, its manufactures. The first require-
ment for supremacy in manufacturing is cheap power, and here Chicago is again for-
tunately located. Near at hand, and with the best facilities for transportation, are the
vast coal fields of Illinois and Indiana. The coal is not of the highest grade, and does
not for all purposes equal the richer coals of Pennsylvania or Ohio, but it answers
admirably for the chief uses for which fuel is required, the production of steam and
its endless applications. In the production of iron and steel, the cheap water trans-
portation of the incomparable ores of the Lake Superior region enables Chicago to
bring together the fuel and ore at a rate at least equally favorable with Pennsylvania
and Ohio, where coal is somewhat cheaper and ore more expensive.
In the early days of Western agriculture the scarcity of money among the farm-
ing population compelled them as a rule to market their grain of all kinds as soon
as possible after its harvest. Increasing prosperity, however, enabled them to use it
more profitably by condensing several pounds of grain into a pound of meat, and
thus laying the foundations of the vast beef and pork industries of_ the West. Here,
again, the location of Chicago was exceptionally fortunate. Indian corn is the prin-
cipal cereal used in the fattening of animals, and, considering its facilities for dis-
tributing meat products, no other location equals that of Chicago. Its contiguity to
the richest portion of the great corn belt enabled it at an early date to pass beyond
its earliest rival, Cincinnati, which first wore the title of Porkopolis from the fact of
the earlier settlement of its tributary country. The growth of the meat-packing
industry of Chicago is one of the marvels of modern commerce. It is, too, an illus-
tration of the value of the concentration of capital into large enterprises, whereby
great economies are effected, as compared with the same amount of business done in
numerous small enterprises, which characterized the earlier day.
Forty or fifty years ago every farmer usually killed and cured his own meat, and
sold his surplus animals to the butcher in the neighboring village. This butcher
packed a few barrels of pork or beef, and if he thus accumulated more than would
supply the local market during the summer months, he shipped the surplus to the
nearest large town. Such method, however, is very costly and wasteful as compared
with the system at present pursued at the great meat-packing centers. Here the,
animals to be slaughtered are collected in vast numbers, where, by aid of steam and
machinery, the slaughtering, packing and dressing is performed for a tithe of its cost
in a smaH establishment, where these facilities could not be afforded. This, however,
is the least of the economies rendered possible by the modern system. The greatest
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 317
advantage is in the utilization of what in a small industry would be known as the waste
products. It may be stated emphatically that in a large establishment there are no
waste products. Some use, and the best use, is found for every portion of the animal.
Every portion containing lard, tallow or oil is made to yield the whole of its fatty
product for the uses to which it is best adapted. The stomach of the hog furnishes
the pepsin of commerce, whereby the stomachs of the world's dyspeptics are rein-
forced. Glue is extracted from the hoofs. The bristles go to the brushmaker, the
hair to the plasterer. The bones are dried and ground to form the bonedust of com-
merce. The blood and every other portion of the animal which remains after all that is
of other value has been extracted, is mixed with the bonedust and sold as fertilizer, or,
more frequently, is deprived of its moisture by evaporation and the residue, known as
tankage, is sold to factories, where it forms the nitrogenous portion of the fertilizers
of commerce, which are used extensively in the parts of the country where the soils
are poor or partially exhausted, and especially throughout the greater portion of the
Southern States. In the earlier days of the packing industry in Chicago, much of what
was called refuse found its way into the Chicago River, polluting its waters and causing
an almost unendurable stench, which was driven by the winds to every part of the city.
Urged partly by public sentiment and partly by motives of policy, this refuse matter is
now almost entirely utilized, and the packing houses have nearly ceased to be an offense
to the nostrils of the people. Thus the value of what to the small country butcher, who
cannot utilize it, is worthless, gives a satisfactory profit to the packer in a large city, and
the value of this so-called refuse is so great as to render it possible for hogs or cattle to
be shipped several hundred miles to a great packing house, and the meat shipped back
to the consumer whence it started and sold at a lower price than it could be produced
at home. The farmer can make more money by selling his hogs and buying his pork,
hams and bacon, than by undertaking to be his own butcher. The result has been the
building up in Chicago, with branches at Omaha, Kansas City and other points, of beef
and pork merchants, whose trade today dwarfs all other commercial enterprises. Mr.
Philip D. Armour, who from an early day has been the leader of this great industry, orig-
inating many of its improved methods, and realizing as no one else can the benefit of
concentrated capital and energy, sells to his customers more than $100,000,000 per
year of his products, a business probably double that of any other merchant in the world,
either in the past or present time. Several other firms, as Swift & Co., Nelson Morris
& Co., Fowler Brothers, and others, have established business of vast magnitude, each
exceeding, probably, the business of any merchant in any other line in the world.
Chicago's Lumber Trade. It is of interest to consider the changes in the char-
acter of the business of Chicago brought about by the changing conditions of its
tributary territory. Michigan for a long period was theonly district from which lum-
ber could be drawn for the Chicago market. The Muskegon and Manistee Rivers
flowed through forests of pine, which for a generation seemed inexhaustible. The
318 IND US TRIA L CHIC A G O :
logs were floated to the mouths of these rivers and there manufactured into lumber,
which, at an insignificant cost, was transported across Lake Michigan to Chicago.
From no other point could the vast prairie district west of the city be supplied so
cheaply and conveniently, for here centered the earliest of the western railroads. For
a long period, therefore, the lumber business of Chicago was of great magnitude as
compared with its other leading enterprises. In time, however, the forests of the
lower peninsula of Michigan and tributary to its great rivers commenced to show signs
of exhaustion. Production diminished and prices advanced. Simultaneously with
this change the vast forests of the upper peninsula of Michigan, along the shore of
Lake Superior, of northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, were penetrated by railroads,
other roads were built southwesterly from these points through Iowa, Minnesota,
Nebraska, Kansas and the farther West, and the new pineries became active competi-
tors for the trade of vast regions formerly supplied entirely from Chicago. In Michi-
gan, too, the lumber manufacturers became wealthy and able to hold and assort their
lumber for the retail market. In the earlier days the Chicago dealer advanced the
lumberman money upon his logs, received the lumber as fast as cut from the mill and
made his profits by seasoning and assorting into the different grades the mill product.
As the capital of the mill man increased, he piled his lumber for seasoning about the
mill, separated the different lengths and grades and sold direct to the dealer in the
country towns, thus avoiding the. cost of yarding in Chicago and the middleman's
charges. The cargoes largely still passed through Chicago, but were unloaded from
the boats directly upon the cars for their destination. Within the last few years also
railroads have been built from Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, westerly and
northwesterly, into the territory formerly entirely covered from Chicago, and the pine
from the vast southern forests competes with that from the north in the markets of
Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. The results of these various changes have
been to materially curtail the lumber trade of the metropolis. The territory formerly
supplied for a generation entirely with its lumber from Chicago has been in a large
measure captured by her competitors. The railroads which built first from Chicago
throughout the neighboring western States and gave her the monopoly of this vast
trade, have, in turn, wrested it from her. Her territory beginning to be settled with
reasonable compactness, and using to-day many times the lumber required twenty
years ago, calls upon Chicago yearly for increasing quantities of this great staple of
civilization. Her trade is still extensive and large, but has cedscd to grow with the
increased consumption, is yearly becoming more local, and will, doubtless, decrease
still further through the coming years. The causes are simple and easily explained
partial exhaustion of Chicago's source of supply, and cheaper transportation to her
former territory from other points.
Chicago's Grain Trade. In the earlier years of Chicago's trade the handling
of grain was one of the leading industries. At the first settlements of the territory
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 319
west of Lake Michigan the surplus grain was hauled in wagons to the nearest lake
port, from whence it was shipped in vessels to the eastern market. Thus various ports
from Chicago to Green Bay shipped approximately equal amounts of grain, and in one
of the early years the port of Kenosha, from the greater number of farmers in its
neighborhood, shipped more grain than any other point on the western shore of Lake
Michigan. Dock property there advanced rapidly, as the citizens, considering that
this year indicated Kenosha to be the grain shipping port of the great Northwest, pre-
pared for the avalanche of business that awaited them. Kenosha, Racine, Milwaukee,
Port Washington, Sheboygan and Green Bay each aspired to the leadership of
western commerce, basing their claims upon the fact of their lesser distance from Buffalo
than Chicago. Green Bay was over 200 miles nearer Buffalo than Chicago and had a
good natural harbor, and because of this fact, so sagacious a man as the first John
Jacob Astor purchased largely of Green Bay real estate that he might have a share in
the prosperity of the coming metropolis of the Mississippi Valley. Soon, however,
the Illinois and Michigan Canal was constructed, and the Galena Railroad, thus bring-
ing a large district of the Mississippi Valley in direct connection with Chicago, and
rendering the amount of grain hauled by teams to any lake port comparatively insig-
nificant. Other ports, realizing the value of railroads in transporting grain, built lines
of road through the country west of Lake Michigan, and thus continued to compete
for the trade, but ultimately all these roads were compelled to make Chicago their
real terminal point. Milwaukee was the only port which, for any considerable time,
maintained a hold upon the grain trade, but she at length succumbed to the inevitable.
The principal reason why grain was handled more economically at Chicago than else-
where was from the vast quantities of eastern merchandise distributed from Chicago.
Green Bay was 200 miles nearer Buffalo, but the owner of a vessel would carry grain
from Chicago at a lower freight than from Green Bay or any other Lake Michigan
port, because he could get a cargo of merchandise to Chicago, thus earning two
freights for each round trip, while he could get comparatively little eastern freight to
any other port than Chicago. Matters having thus adjusted themselves, the future of
Chicago as the grain shipping port of the whole Northwest seemed secured; her vast
elevator capacity was further increased; her grain carriers built fleets of vessels of
large capacity to move to Buffalo for the eastern and foreign markets the constantly
increasing grain crop of the wheat and corn area. Soon, however, a new factor
appeared the cheap steel rail for railroads. Before the introduction of the Bessemer
process for making steel the average life of an iron rail on the great trunk lines was
not over eighteen months. The rails must then be taken up and rerolled at an expense
of about one-half their original cost. The saving in transportation by the use of
steel rails can scarcely be overestimated. It was not alone in the replacing of the
rails themselves, but in the wear and tear of the entire equipment of the road. Long
before the iron rail was condemned and taken up it became battered and uneven on
320 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
its surface, thus rapidly destroying the wheels, loosening and breaking the nails and
bolts of the car, and making constant trips of the cars to the repair shops inevitable.
In the days of iron rails the car wheel manufacturers gave a guaranty of 30,000 miles'
run for their wheels. Now they give a guaranty of 150,000 miles, and even this run
is often exceeded in practice by forty or fifty per cent. On the iron rail the largest
cars could be loaded with only ten tons of freight. Now thirty to forty tons are loaded
in a car without anything like a corresponding increase in the weight of the car itself.
The steel rail is considered to outwear ten iron rails, and the life of the equipment, by
reason of its even surface, is vastly augmented. Other reductions in the cost of trans-
portation have been made, so that the actual cost of carrying coarse freight over long
distances has been reduced at least three-fourths.
This reduced cost has entirely revolutionized the grain trade of Chicago. When
the railroads were laid with iron rails, the cost of carrying grain was so great that
almost none was sent East from Chicago by rail. The grain came to Chicago by canal
or rail and was stored in elevators. During the season of navigation it moved for-
ward substantially as fast as it arrived, but at the close of navigation the forwarding
of grain ceased until the following spring, and the grain accumulated in the elevators
until the opening of navigation assured comparatively cheap transportation to the sea-
board. But as compared with rail transportation, the water route had certain disad-
vantages. There was a charge for storage and handling at Chicago, another at Buffalo,
another at New York, insurance while en route, and from three to four weeks' time as
against one week by rail. On rail shipments no insurance nor rehandling was neces-
sary, two or three weeks' interest was saved and the chances of fluctuation in prices
were lessened. The result was that, with the era of an increase of east and west trunk
lines, the railroads began to compete with vessels for the carrying of grain. They
could charge the lake and canal freight and insurance, the cost of three handlings and
storages and something more for the shortened time and take the business from the
water route at the aggregate of such charges. The result has been that the railroads
have carried forward large amounts of grain, not so much for the foreign trade or for
New York, as for the use of the numberless small towns throughout the Eastern States,
towns requiring from one or two to a dozen carloads per week for local consumption.
This grain is largely shipped direct from where it is raised, in Illinois, Missouri or Iowa,
to the point of consumption, and while the trade is almost entirely in the hands of Chi-
cago grain operators, it does not appear in the footings of the grain trade of the city.
This particular trade has been largely increased by the making of special rates by the
railroads from points west of Chicago to the East, which are less than the two rates
to Chicago and from Chicago to the Eastern consignee. This amounts to an actual
discrimination against the city to an amount often sufficient to divert the business
around it. To meet this rail competition, all elevator charges and lake freights have
been largely reduced, and the lake shipments are still of colossal magnitude, but the
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 321
grain handling at Chicago has ceased to grow with the increased volume of grain
products. Not alone has the trade been affected by rail shipments, but the Lake
Superior ports, especially Duluth, are forwarding by lake much of the grain product
of the Dakotas and Manitoba.
During the season of navigation a large part of the grain received at Duluth can
be forwarded to Buffalo from that point nearly as cheaply as from Chicago, as Duluth
and the country to the westward requfre, in addition to considerable amounts of mis-
cellaneous Eastern merchandise, large amounts of Pennsylvania and Ohio coal, and
a large aggregate tonnage can be thus employed and furnished with freight in
both directions, which is one of the principal reasons for the advantage held by
Chicago as a grain-shipping point. An effort is being made, too, by the Canadian lines
to take grain from Duluth by rail to the seaboard after the close of navigation, but
the route via Chicago has great advantages, and it is not considered that the northern
route will have any considerable effect upon winter shipments. The length of rail
transportation by the northern route is fully as great, and over a route much more
expensive to operate. The great bulk of grain exported must always go via New
York for the same reason heretofore given as to Chicago, that it is the great shipping
port in and out of the nation, and vessels can thus get cargoes in both directions.
Shipments by rail from Duluth or Manitoba, must, therefore, at some point make the
southing necessary to reach New York, and this can be more advantageously made
i'ia Chicago than elsewhere, as is illustrated by the following diagram:
Duluth. Montreal.
X X
Chicago. New York.
The distance is not far from the same, and the southern route is much the better
and more cheaply operated.
The grain shipped by rail and by water from Duluth is very largely handled by
Chicago men and Chicago capital, but it does not appear in the records as shipped from
that city. The summing up of the whole matter is that, from causes indicated, the
grain trade credited to Chicago, while large, and showing no actual diminution, yet
appears to cover a gradually smaller proportion of all such business in the territory
west and northwest of Lake Michigan.
The Interstate Commerce Law. The effect of Federal legislation to regulate
interstate commerce has been largely detrimental to Chicago. The law contained
certain much- needed provisions for the protection of shippers, but in its endeavor to
place all shipping points on an equality, it ignored a fundamental law of transporta-
tion and the natural difference between a wholesale and a retail business. A great
322 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
commercial metropolis like Chicago can naturally demand and receive special
advantages over smaller towns doing an insignificant business. One provision of the
law now is that a railroad shall charge no more for a shorter than a longer haul in the
same direction over the same line. Take an example to illustrate the workings of
this law. The Lake Shore road will have at certain seasons an excels of west-bound
.freight, to Chicago and points beyond, with the consequence that presently the road
may accumulate 1,000 empty cars at Chicago, which are imperatively needed at New
York for Western freight. The grain rate to New York, being (say) 25 cents per
100 pounds, is prohibitive, in view of the Eastern market. Without the interstate
law, the railroad company would, rather than to run the 1,000 cars to New York
empty, accept for a few days a rate of perhaps half the usual and proper charge.
This reduction would instantly redound to the profit of the farmer in advancing the
price of his grain, and of the city at large in increasing the volume of its business,
and would do no harm to the shipper at points east of Chicago. But, inasmuch as
the rate from Chicago cannot be reduced without a corresponding reduction from all
other points east of Chicago, where no similar reason for a reduction exists, no
reduction at all is made; the railroad company hauls back its cars empty, and the
western producer and shipper fails to secure the increased profit on the grain which
might have been shipped except for the unwise law. Again, as to the volume of
shipments, when grain is moving freely by rail, a train of fifty cars at Chicago can
be loaded at an elevator in a few hours and go directly through to the seaboard,
thus being handled with the greatest possible economy. But a shipper calls for a
single car to be loaded at La Porte. The car must be hauled, as a rule, empty from
Chicago as soon as a train is made up which can stop at La Porte, and which can
take it. Two or three days will often elapse before the car is loaded, then as many
more before a train is passing to which it can be attached. The through trains being
made up in Chicago, the single car is necessarily attached to a way-train, is side-
tracked a dozen times en route in the remaking up of the train at various stations,
and in the matter of the labor of the train hands costs as much as the handling of the
entire through train from Chicago to New York. The railroad loses the use of the
car for a week or two more than if on a through train, but is by the law forbidden to
charge more than for each car on the through train. As the railroad business of the
whole country is done at a small advance above cost, the price paid for the through
business of the whole country west of Chicago and of Chicago herself, is necessarily
increased by the absurd provision known as the long and short haul. The Inter-State
Commerce Law, by inducing the two discriminations against Chicago herein named
through billing and the long and short haul has vastly crippled that trade to which
Chicago was legitimately entitled, by virtue of her commanding position and the mag-
nitude of her business, although such law was largely enacted through the instrumen-
tality of one of her own senators, whose sole qualification for legislating on so vast
TlIK COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 3i'i
a problem was the impartiality arising from an ignorance dense and profound, of the
whole subject of commerce and transportation.
Chicago's Manufacturing Interests. The manufacturing enterprises of Chicago,
by a natural growth and evolution, have come to far transcend in magnitude and
volume all her other business interests. At an early day very little could be done
in this line. Capital was scarce, rates of interest high, and labor scarce, and therefore
commanding higher wages than in the older settled portions of the country. For
these reasons manufacturing would be at first confined to articles where the disad-
vantages named could be overcome by a cheaper raw material, and the freight on
articles manufactured elsewhere. This would confine the business at first largely to
transforming the cheap lumber from Michigan into building material, sash, doors,
flooring, etc., and to repair work of various kinds. As the city grew, and the outlying
country became more settled, and as money and labor became more abundant, other
branches of manufacturing could be established, and compete successfully with the
older industrial centers. The most of the disadvantages enumerated are now removed
by time, and the development of the region known as the great Northwest. Banking
capital is ample to meet all legitimate demands at reasonable rates, and while labor
still receives somewhat higher wages than in the Eastern States the difference is
rapidly being equalized. Railroad transportation is now so rapid and cheap that
higher wages will draw workmen to the locality where the demand is greatest, and
thus tend to an equality in rates of this largest element in the cost of production.
The natural advantages of Chicago as a manufacturing center have already been
adverted to in the earlier pages of this article. The American people are fond of seeing
the wheels go round, and the tendency is at all times to overdo, rather than otherwise,
the production of all articles in which the use of machinery is a large factor. Lively
competition in nearly every line has given to consumers the benefit of reasonable
prices, and thus induced trade.
The cheapness and abundance of the coal supply of Chicago, securing to her
operators low-priced power and cheap water transportation of raw materials, are the
great factors in the growth of her leading industries. Iron and steel, everything con-
sidered, can probably be produced in Chicago as advantageously, quality being taken
into account, as in any part of the United States, for, while the raw materials can be
more cheaply assembled at some points in the South, the southern ores are greatly
inferior to those of Lake Superior, and the metal produced of a poor quality for the
best grade of iron work, and not available for steel making. The southern metal, too,
is produced where the local demand is and will be small, and it must be shipped at
large cost to the Northern States, while the unrivaled facilities of Chicago for distrib-
uting her products through the richest and most fertile country in the world enable
her to hold her own against all rivals. She is already the second city in the country
in the value of liter products, and will soon be first, from the facts of at least equal
324 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
advantages in production, and of her market, the future garden of the world. It would
be absurd, in a sketch of this character, to enter into details as to the various lines of
manufactures, which have gradually found a home in the western metropolis. The
largest single industry is the meat packing and shipping business. There is no
quarter of the civilized world where the products of this vast industry are not to be
found, and in every considerable village in our own country, Chicago dressed meat
has largely taken the place of that slaughtered by the local butchers. Next in volume
is probably the lumber trade, although not far behind, come the iron and steel products.
The sales of the Illinois Steel Company have exceeded 30,000,000 per year, and hun-
dreds of smaller plants turn out nearly everything made of iron or steel called for
by the country tributary to Chicago. Vast numbers of people find employment in
the manufacture of all varieties of wearing apparel.
Some of the leading national industries have not yet gained a footing among us,
notably the production of cotton and woolen goods, largely, because, as a rule, these
articles are manufactured at a small margin of profit, and in locations where skilled
labor in those lines is abundant, the natural facilities good, and the trade firmly
established.
Labor Troubles. From her very prosperity, Chicago has been a fruitful field for
the professional labor agitator, who works with his jaw, whose individual prosperity
and influence is based upon the misfortunes of his dupes, whose occupation is gone,
and whose income disappears unless he can stir up discord between the employer
and the employed. Few people would now question the value to the wage-earning
class of properly organized and managed labor associations. Such organizations are
much more efficient and valuable in England than with us, because, by a natural
evolution, they have passed in a great measure beyond the stage of strikes and vio-
lence, and confine themselves to the advancement of the welfare of their membership
by rational methods, by inducing habits of sobriety, economy and thrift, by aiding
the sick or unfortunate, by promoting efficient workmanship among their members,
and harmonious relations between employers and employes, with a fair regard for
the rights of each. There is no question but some of the causeless strikes, fomented
by anarchists and other public enemies have interfered with the growth of the indus-
trial interests of Chicago, have caused vast losses of wages to workmen, and kept
many enterprises from being established in the city; but time and a better under-
standing on both sides will ultimately reduce these troubles to a minimum, and place
Chicago at least on an equality with her competitors in this regard.
The Future of the Metropolis. No question possesses greater interest to citi-
zens of Chicago than the one whether the seemingly phenomenal growth and pros-
perity of the city are to continue through the coming years. The present (1893-94)
depression and shrinkage in volume in all lines of business are common to all the
country, and are no criterion as to the future of her commerce.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 325
To form an intelligent opinion on this subject, certain factors must be considered.
Only a certain proportion of the population of the world can live in cities, but this
proportion has been largely increased within the last thirty years. The great im-
provements in farm machinery, whereby one man can cultivate five acres of land with
the same amount of manual labor formerly bestowed on one acre, have enabled for
many years a constantly decreasing proportion of the farmers to produce the food of
the world. The building of this machinery is one of the reasons why increased
numbers of people can live in the cities, and find there a reasonably satisfactory
employment. A city originates no wealth. All wealth originates in the earth. Its
fields, its forests, its mines or its waters. The cities, the necessary homes of all com-
merce, give to the raw materials from the earth an added value by fashioning them
into articles for use for the human race, or by exchanging the surplus products of
one region for the surplus products of another, to the great advantage of both. For
this manufacturing of raw materials, and for the transportation and exchange of
commodities, the people of cities receive as a compensation, the added value thereby
given to such commodities. The cities, however, cannot prosper except the country
does also. The cities would be bankrupt except for customers to purchase the wares
to which they have given added value. The greatest factor, therefore, as to the
future growth of Chicago is the problem whether the country tributary to her can
purchase a constantly increasing volume of her manufactures or imports. Has the
country tributary to her capacity for increased production and thereby for increased
purchasing power?
This question can have no other than an affirmative answer. In the great States
of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas and Nebraska, the
bulk of whose trade centers in Chicago, not one-half the arable land has yet been
plowed or cultivated. Land has been so cheap and abundant that the part which has
been cultivated has been farmed in a superficial way. The State of Illinois alone,
were the land farmed as in Holland, Belgium or France, could easily feed the present
population of the entire nation. The eight States last named could easily sustain ten
times their present population, and this increase is ultimately to come. Chicago,
directly and indirectly handling the surplus of this territory, and supplying its com-
mercial wants, will grow and prosper with it. Nor is her commerce limited in any
regard to the territory specially named. The food products of her territory are dis-
tributed by her over the entire country between her and the Atlantic Ocean, as well
as to a lesser degree, over the entire South and farther West. She has this com-
merce now in hand and the capital and enterprise to retain it against all comers. Her
advantages in certain classes of raw materials enable her to manufacture these mate-
rials in easy competition with the older industrial centers of New England. The
wonderful fertility of the grain fields, and the vast mineral deposits of the Lake
Superior and Rocky Mountain regions of the great Northwest, have stimulated the
"* -fcj
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 327
CHAPTER IX.
THB WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.
BY THOMAS B. BRYAN.
CN you
tries,
| AN you who have lived in some romantic region, in rolling or mountainous coun-
or amidst the wonders of art and architecture in centers of older civiliza-
tion7"conceive contentment in some plantation of our plains? And yet, a generation
of men and women has grown to middle age in the dreary surroundings of such com-
munities. These towns, thrown up over night, present a tedious monotony of right
angles, business blocks, churches, dwellings and even occasional mansions, all built of
boards of a Noah's Ark style. The only picture most of their inhabitants have looked
on has been a treeless stretch of flat land, traversed by muddy highways. And
amidst such surroundings millions of people have reached maturity without a glimpse
of anything to inspire them, unless the firmament by night, and an occasional angry
outbreak of the heavens by day. Bring a denizen of one of those settlements, where
materialism has culminated in a stupid and hopeless stagnation, to the shores of an
inland sea, beautiful in its ever-changing moods; place him on one of the floating
palaces of Lake Michigan's white fleet; carry him to those white gates of a stately
colonnade, surmounted by noble groups of statuary, first pausing that he may read
the inscription:
"Ye shall know the truth,
And the truth shall make you free."
and then let him enter. Give that being whose imagination has been warped even
but a second to contemplate that scene of enchantment, that sublimest architectural
combination ever created. Send him back then, if you please, to his humble abode
in the unpainted wilderness, and you will have wrought in him a change. You will
have kindled in him a spark of inspiration, stirring the latent love of the beautiful and
noble that exists somewhere in every soul. You will have awakened in him a realiza-
tion of what the combined wisdom and taste of his fellow-man can accomplish and
stir some dormant ambition to emulate, however humbly, those higher attainments.
This is what Chicago and her enterprising citizens attempted for their fellow-country-
men. A rich fruition is looked for with confidence.
The organization of the World's Fair movement in Chicago had the educational
end first in view. Theirs was the philanthropy that begins near home. They played
328 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
upon every string to effect their high aim. They appealed to the greed of the grasp-
ing money-maker; they showed him a good investment. The sinews of enterprise
were thus procured. In others were sowed the seeds of ambition, easily gratified by
exertion made at no great sacrifice of business interests. Thus spirits that had sur-
mounted the highest obstacles in creating vast and varied industries were tempted
into the undertaking. Above all, the marvelous civic pride of the phcenix metropolis
was appealed to, responding in tens of thousands of subscriptions. Well nigh 30,000
individuals contributed in sums varying from 100 cents to $100,000 to the glory and
improvement of the region. In the same spirit 750,000 western people flocked to
the White City on a day dedicated to the honor of the metropolis which created this
modern wonder.
And what a struggle it was to gain the site for Chicago, and once gained to settle
on a suitable place in the city. As far back as August I, 1889, the first steps were
taken toward securing the Fair for Chicago. A memorable meeting, called by Mayor
Cregier, assembled in the council chamber. Resolutions emphatic in their demand
for the Fair's location in Chicago were adopted with much earnest enthusiasm. Sub-
scriptions followed promptly. A bureau was opened, committees appointed and the
campaign vigorously begun. New York, St. Louis and Washington made a similar
start. Their modus operandi differed mainly in this: They directed all the shafts of
their united venom against Chicago. William Waldorf Astor made himself especially
ridiculous by a snobbish screed written for the Cosmopolitan Magazine. Herein they
betrayed their jealous weakness. The advocates of Chicago, on the contrary, con-
centrated their efforts in advertising the merits of their position, its transportation
facilities, its centrality as to population, the cooler summer climate and its admirable
sites. One committee flooded the country with literature enlightening the people
concerning Chicago's exhaustless resources. Another sent out the best speakers that
could be secured. And still another watched and promoted legislation in assemblies,
State and national, while the business end was looked after by men of established
sagacity and success in affairs. So impressed were the prime movers favoring New
York with the methods of their competitors in Chicago that they repeatedly appealed
to their western rivals, through the ingenious and untiring secretary, Mr. E. F.
Cragin, for suggestions concerning their mode of procedure. This information was
magnanimously granted, as the whole western campaign was conducted on a high
plane, though with vigor and persistency. War was carried into the enemies' country
battles were fought and won against St. Louis in the West and Southwest, against
Washington in the Southern States and closely contested struggles with Gotham for
New England. But it was reserved for Washington to witness the battle royal. A
most efficient committee had prepared the way by conciliatory work among senators
and representatives. At its head was an ex-congressman of long public experience.
And yet the odds seemed to be largely against Chicago. New York had the advantage
THE COMAfERCIAL INTERESTS. 329
of proximity to the capital, of unlimited wealth which it was ready to lavish in the
attainment of the goal, that is, in obtaining, if not in perfecting, the exposition. Its
confidence was supreme. A hundred New York representatives, mostly millionaires
and actually representing in personal ownership several hundred millions of dollars,
invaded Washington. They besieged the capitol and with serene confidence marched
in solid phalanx into the hall where the discussion was to be heard. The scene was
a notable one. Senators and representatives, attracted chiefly by the fame of Depew
and of Cockran and the wit of Maj. Jones, St. Louis' champion, packed the hall. Some
of the auditors, while inclined to favor Chicago, still felt pity for the western city
when they contemplated the array of influence and money presented there by New
York, contrasted with the comparatively meager and unknown representation from
Chicago. The latter, however, were armed with facts, more potent than rhetoric,
and being so fortified to present Chicago's superior advantages, they relied upon
such data at command with which to combat the eloquent champions of the compet-
ing cities.
After Chicago had so encountered the imposing array of wealth and influence and
oratory before the committee the fight was pushed to a speedy winning in the House
of Representatives itself. St. Louis and Washington took their defeat good-
naturedly. They recognized the patriotic fitness of giving the American people a
chance to reach their own exposition most easily and inexpensively. They knew that
few foreigners would be deterred by an extra twenty-four hours from visiting our
World's Fair, and that the absence of that handful would be many times offset by the
benefit resulting from the knowledge of the interior of our country, which those vis-
iting Chicago would gain by going right into the heart of America. New York, how-
ever, sulked. But that is all in the past; there let it rest.
Chicago went right ahead with its work. An Illinois company was incorporated
with forty-five directors, comprising some of the first citizens of Chicago. The first
officers elected were: President, Lyman J. Gage; first vice-president, Thomas B.
Bryan; second vice-president, Potter Palmer; secretary, Benjamin Butterworth; treas-
urer, A. F. Seeberger; auditor, W. K. Ackerman. Congress had changed the date of
the opening of the exposition from 1892 to 1893. This gave three years to accomplish
more than was perfected in Paris in six. From three or four available sites one had
to be chosen, and thereupon arose another contest and consequent delay. Most of
the directors, and probably a majority of the citizens at first preferred the open space
called the Lake Front, a vacant plat of some sixty acres at the very hub of the city's
semi-arch and lacing the lake. It was argued that the shallows between the break-
water and the shore could easily be filled in to supply the additional three hundred
acres, then deemed by some enough to meet all requirements. A few of those who
had studied the subject carefully from the inception of the movement, earnestly coin-
batted this plan, advocating a northern or a southern location, more nearly ready for
330 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
occupancy. One plan proposed was the purchase of fifty to sixty acres of ground
adjoining one of the parks, permanent buildings to be erected on the former and tem-
porary structures on the latter. This plan would have secured a lasting and magnifi-
cent memorial of the great Fair, and indeed a perpetual or annual exposition that
would have brought tens of millions of people and of dollars to Chicago in years to
come. Jackson Park, a partially improved pleasure ground bordering the lake at
about seven miles from the center of the city, was at last selected. It consisted of
some 600 acres, improved and unimproved, the latter in a chaotic state of sand
mounds covered with a scraggly growth of brushes and stunted oaks a hercu-
lean task that confronted the architects and landscape gardeners who undertook in so
short a time to transform this apparent waste into a paradise. Root, in whose brill-
iant imagination the magnificent picture of the White City, bordering the Venetian-
like grand canals was first formed, did not live to see that vision realized, but millions
of his countrymen cherish gratitude to him as well as to his surviving partner and the
associate architects and landscape gardeners, for the magnificent conception and
splendid execution of plans that brought honor to themselves and to the whole
country.
Further legislation was needed to enable the city to issue bonds. That public
spirited executive, Gov. Fifer, convened the General Assembly of Illinois in extra
session in the summer of 1890. Sweltering in the hot days of an oppressive summer,
the patriotic representatives of Illinois, and several officials of the exposition, con-
sulted together until they framed and passed a satisfactory measure, not however,
without some pronounced opposition. Thus the city was authorized to pledge
5,000,000. By active canvassing more than a like amount was raised from individual
subscriptions. A national commission was created by Congressional action, consisting
of two representatives and two alternates from each State, besides eight commissioners
at large.
In the spring of 1890, commissioners, then mainly honorary volunteers, began to
depart for foreign countries. One of these visited England, Paris, northern Ger-
many and the Scandinavian countries, the first to do missionary work in Europe.
Said the Pall Mall Gazette in introducing an interview with him:
"That the Americans, when they have a big thing in hand, are not accustomed to
let the grass grow under their feet and rely on their power of rapid organization at
the last is clearly proved by the fact that they are already devising every means for
securing success to the World's Fair, which is to be held in Chicago 1892-93, and to
'lick creation,' by presenting to the world one of the most marvelous exhibitions of
the world's wealth and greatness that has yet been set before the eyes of men. The
Paris Exhibition of last year will pale before it, and, if the latest reports from Amer-
ica be true, the engineering feat of the Eiffel Tower will find more than its equal in
the filling up of half of Lake Michigan by the Chicago engineers, in order to provide
standing ground for the exhibition and all its world."
In view of the events that have transpired since, it may be interesting to present
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 331
the substance of that first presentation to the British public of the plans of the
Exposition promoters, indicating how thoroughly they had outlined a policy which
was subsequently carried out. Said the American commissioner:
"The World's Fair is to be held in 1892-93, to commemorate the finding of
America by Columbus four hundred years ago in 1492. It seems to us, therefore,
that it will be entirely distinct in its scope from the exhibition of 1876 at Philadelphia,
which was intended to celebrate the Declaration of our Independence. That was a
peculiarly United States celebration; this is not only Pan-American but cosmopolitan.
The discovery of America was a matter which affected the whole world, and from
which the whole world has since profited. Hence we shall call it ' The World's Fair,'
because we hope that the whole world will join in celebrating the quarter centenary
of Columbus' discovery.
" Does the whole of the United States join in the celebration? The World's
Fair National Commission consists of two deputies from each State with two proxies.
Mr. Chauncey Depew is a New York representative. One of these representatives in
each case is a Republican and the other a Democrat, so that both big parties will join
in the Fair. A bill was passed through Congress last May fixing the locality at
Chicago, and a local directorate has since been formed of forty-five citizens of Chicago,
all men of substance and satisfied ambition, who have nothing to gain from the com-
mercial side of the Fair, and a site has been chosen on the shores of Lake Michigan.
We are now engaged in obtaining support from every country in Europe. We can
spare none you least of all. We have two representatives even in Japan. We hope
to make a specialty of our British section by way of contrast to the Paris show.
" But suppose you boycott us? We are both Republicans and Protectionists:
the Tories hate the former and the Liberals the latter with all their hearts.
" But, for this occasion only, we shall, of course, let in all goods free of duty.
No exhibits will pay a penny to the State. And surely here is a chance for free-
traders to show that their products are finer. Besides, though we are Republicans, we
have never had a reign of terror, and we have always treated aristocrats with the
greatest lenity a policy which we still pursue, especially the feminine part of us.
In fact, as we stand in a sense outside European politics, we hope to find all forms of
Government friendly to us. We hope to get exhibits from every European country.
But the exhibition will be primarily national.
" In short, we will be fair to the svorld but partial to ourselves? Precisely.
We shall attempt to give faithful representations of the history of America from the
time of the caveman down to the modern New Yorker. In this we hope to receive
assistance from all parts of America, south as well as north and we shall not omit
either the Aztec or the Red Indian. We also look to having a very fine show of art.
Perhaps we shall convince the world that there is more in American art than they
suppose.
" But why is the Fair to be at Chicago, and not at New York or Washington?
Ah, that is a very sore point with the inhabitants of the three competing cities,
New York, Washington and St. Louis, but Congress decided definitely that Chicago
was the best and most central spot for the World's Fair to be held at, and I think
that they were perfectly right. New York is on an island, and the Fair would have
to be held on the mainland away from the city. Washington is merely a village in
332 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
comparison with the big modern cities. Its sole purpose is to house the Government,
and every American who believes in the isolation of the Government, agrees with us
in deprecating the collection of an immense mass of people at this spot. Chicago,
on the other hand, is at the very central point of population, is in the center of huge
plains, which will afford excellent ground for hotels wherein to house the people,
is a large, accessible, and beautiful city, and inhabited with as characteristic an
American population as any city in the States."
From Scandinavia and northern Germany had come such a large and influential
element of our population, the liveliest interest was manifested in the proposed exhi-
bition. The reciprocal benefit of establishing closer commercial relations with their
kin beyond the seas was easily made manifest to- the thrifty Northmen.
In the winter of 1890-91, while the work in Jackson Park was being pushed with
masterful vigor, a band of naval officers was detailed to visit the Central and South
American countries in quest of exhibitors. They were under the general direction
of that enlightened and indefatigable Pan-American propagandist, William Elroy
Curtis. Their labors resulted in superb fruition. Probably more closely, and with
more practical benefits even than the Pan-American Congress, the Columbian Expo-
sition bound this nation to the Latin republics of the Western Hemisphere.
The mission of Messrs. Butterworth, Handy, Peck, and Lindsay to England,
Northern and Central Europe, was a triumph of accomplished good. First in England,
where they were royally received and effectually assisted by Mr. Robert McCormick,
they enlisted instant support. The crowning service which they rendered the. Expo-
sition was in Russia and Germany. The magnificent exhibits of those countries were
testimonials to the labors of our commissioners, and of those whom they enlisted in
the work. The Emperor of Germany himself gave a helping hand to glorify Germany
in Chicago. Russia, which had hesitated and then declined to accept the invitation
to participate, reconsidered when the Commission made clear the advantages to be
derived from a fine exhibit of the resources of the mighty empire.
So did Italy. When, in the winter of 1891-92, another commission, headed by the
vice-president of the directory, visited Rome, there was a disinclination on the part
of the Italian authorities, because of lack of money and of a precedent of never officially
taking part in expositions, to participate governmentally in ours. The Premier Rudini
and King Humbert, through the efficient offices of the charge d'affaires, Mr. Remson
Whitehouse, gave audiences to the commissioners, which resulted in a reconsideration
of their adverse decision. A distinguished commission was named, and a creditable
presentation of the artistic manufactories made. The ideal queen, Margherita, at the
request of one of the ladies of this party, in a private audience accorded her, entrusted
her priceless collection of laces to the Countess di Brazza, and several leaders of Roman
society added theirs. Through this commission also, Pope Leo XIII. heard for the
first time of the Chicago World's Fair. This lively interest in America the aged
statesman expressed to the commissioners in the most enthusiastic manner, empha-
o
BE ^
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 333
sizing his friendly co-operation by a cordial letter, said to be unique " because addressed
to a non-Roman layman, in behalf of a public enterprise, and signed by the Pope in
person." This interest was further supplemented by generous contributions from
the Vatican.
Through Austro- Hungary, the Balkan peninsula, the Ottoman empire, even
into Asia Minor, in Greece and the Northern African countries, and in Spain par-
ticularly, like efforts were made by the commissioners to Southern Europe to gain
the more original character of exhibits and concessions. Success exceeded expecta-
tion. Increased demand for space resulted. Although covering twice the territory
of any previous exposition, this even was inadequate to satisfy the quest for space
of home and foreign exhibitors.
With the first commission sent to Europe, representatives from England, Ger-
many and Denmark returned. Previously the diplomatic corps from Washington had
visited Chicago. All these foreign emissaries were entertained with lavishness little
short of royal. They must have taken away the impression that, in addition to their
business ability, the promoters of the World's Fair and their leading townsmen were
possessed of a spirit of hospitality which guaranteed for all credentialed comers the
warmest sort of welcome. When invited to visit the Fair, the president of the Mili-
tary Club of Paris regretted that his age obliged him to forego the pleasure of accept-
ing the proffered enjoyment, but said: "Do for the first Frenchman what you would
have done for me." (Faites pour le premier Francois ce que vous auriez fait pour mot.)
In the same patriotic spirit the rank and file of Chicago people extended even to their
friends all the bounty that their means could command.
The season of preparation passed quickly. From the Lake and its shores one
could see, miles away, the mighty mastodon-like structure of the Manufactures build-
ing first resembling a huge iron-ribbed antediluvian monster quickly being trans-
formed into a marvel of classical symmetry. In deference to New York's desire to
celebrate the I2th of October, the dedication of the World's Fair buildings was post-
poned till the 2ist. A great ball inaugurated the ceremonies. This was in some
respects the most brilliant ceremony ever witnessed in America. As a ball room the
Auditorium has no equal: with the orchestra stalls floored over to a level with the
stage, making an oval large enough to accommodate a thousand dancers. From
thirty-two boxes hung the banners of as many States, in honor of their governors, who
came accompanied by their staffs in full uniform. Gens. Schofield and Miles, with a
host of army and naval officers, did honor to our United States. A cardinal, with the
papal nuncio and several archbishops, glorified one box with their gorgeous robes.
From Washington, plumed, gold-laced and be-diamoned, came the diplomatic corps,
representing every land, as did a host of foreign commissioners, likewise in brilliant
and varied uniforms. The vice-president of the United States, in the absence of the
president, who watched by his wife's death-bed, was the center of respect. Every city
334 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
of the Union, and many from beyond oceans, sent the pick of their beautiful women,
so that nothing was lacking to give brilliancy to this international function.
The following day a civic parade, with its unending variety of organizations, daz-
zled the multitudes from abroad. The national favorites among the governors of
states, as they rode by, handsomely mounted, with brilliant suites McKinley and
Flower, Russell and Fifer divided the wild enthusiasm of the mass of humanity which
packed the streets, filling every window, blackening the housetops and cornices, and
hanging to trees and telegraph poles. Chicago was a mass of bunting, the Columbus
colors, red and yellow, prevailing. Most beautiful and unique of all the lavish deco-
rations at the celebration was the parterre of several hundred school children placed
on an incline of seats in front of the Government building, and clad in red, white and
blue, forming a prodigious flag of our country. Perhaps never was there a more stir-
ring vision than this living copy of the stars and stripes, when they rose together to
cheer some passing hero.
The consummation of this celebration was the dedication day itself as bright
an autumn memory as could be imagined. Through Michigan Avenue and Grand
Boulevard a long line of carriages conveyed the dignitaries, with appropriate escort
of cavalry, to a spot in Washington Park. Then a halt was had to review the fifteen
thousand troops encamped near by, which included infantry, artillery and cavalry,
white, negro and Indian, of the United States, and some twelve thousand picked state
troops. These preceded the carriages over a high viaduct into the Fair grounds, and
marched, men, horses and cannon, into the colossal Liberal Arts building. Even to
those who had dreamed of the sublimest consummation of man's taste and energy that
had ever been attained, the first sight of that Exposition panorama was an entire grat-
ification. It was a dream realized. The superb colonnades of purest classical and
renaissance conception, silhouetted against the blue lake, with lagoons as near mir-
rors on all sides, and a verdant island in their midst, made up a picture never equaled
by Claude Lorrain or Turner. Five thousand voices raised in jubilee seemed but as
the melodious echoes of some distant chorus. The oratory of the famous speakers
died like a whisper in that greatest auditorium, four times larger than St. Peter's, and
containing that day a hundred and fifty thousand souls. Have you ever seen a flight
of wild pigeons or a migration of sea gulls, when to the very horizon there was a flut-
tering of white wings? Similar was the effect of the myriad handkerchiefs waved in
welcome of celebrities as they appeared upon the platform during the dedication cere-
monies. An army of ten thousand men can, it is said, be lost in St. Peter's at Rome.
This was realized to be no exaggeration, for 15,000 troops, including cavalry and
artillery, were hardly noticed in the vast assemblage gathered in the Manufactures
building at this inaugural celebration.
The winter preceding the opening of the World's Fair was the coldest for many
years, and the spring months were marked by continuous rain and bleakness. Not-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 335
withstanding these drawbacks, the Exposition was farther advanced toward comple-
tion by May I, than had been any previous international fair.
In taking a broad view of our great World's Fair, a birdseye view, so to speak,
after the mind has had time to recover from the shock of admiration at the surpassing
artistic effect of the grouping, the facades, the architecture, the whole tout ensemble, one
begins to think of causes and to ask how this and that is done. At least, an American
is very apt to do so. I mean the causes from an engineering point of view. We saw
everywhere manifestations of power, light and heat in abundance, but the impulse
seemed to come from some unseen hand. Those who remember the Philadelphia
Centennial Exposition may recall the fact that the life and movement of the fair was
confined to one building, Machinery, and that all else was dumb and still. Furnaces
fed with coal produced steam which moved the great Corliss engine, and from this
center of vitality, through a maze of shafting and belting, power was communicated
to the other machines. Light came from the gas mains, and heat, where required, was
furnished by coal stoves and ranges. Not so at Chicago. Machinery moved in the
various buildings, but there was no shafting, nor fire, nor steam. Lights flashed every-
where with meteor-like brilliancy, but there was neither flame nor wire suspended from
pole to pole. Stoves baked or roasted without flame or fuel. Boats shot noiselessly
and swiftly about the lagoons, impelled by some unseen power. No wonder it was
called the " Magic City." Let us search out the arcanum of these mysteries, the
central seat and workshop of the magician of modern science.
The Palace of Mechanic Arts, although devoted to a ponderous and unornamental
class of exhibits, was indeed a palace in its exterior appearance. The architects, Pea-
body & Stearns, of Boston, were given the problem of constructing a building upon the
Court of Honor, directly facing the grand Administration dome, which should be not
only architecturally in keeping with its magnificent surroundings, but should be suitable
to the practical needs of a hall for the exhibit of the heaviest machinery. The prob-
lem was admirably met. The design chosen was based upon the Spanish renaissance, in
which were incorporated features from the fifteenth century cathedrals and palaces in
Seville and Cordova. It would be needless to tell how much it cost and how many
million feet of lumber and thousands of tons of iron were employed in its construction.
We shall forget these details, but we shall never forget those magnificent Corinthian
porticoes, with richly gilded capitals; the classic colonnades; the towers and spires of
most delicate tracery, an angel poised on each; nor, above all, that almost celestial
music, the joyous chimes which pealed forth from the high belfry every day at set of
sun. Passing through the portal, beneath the grated Spanish windows, how wonder-
ful was the change! For a moment we were in Old Spain, now we were in Young
America. Passing by many a ponderous machine, French, German or English, we
followed our intelligent guide to the very back of the building, to the Annex where
the boiler plant was established. Here two score and nine of leviathans of the largest
a36 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
size and latest pattern were roaring and trembling under the pressure of confined
steam of thirty thousand horse power. But there were no stokers, no dust nor ashes,
and the granitoid floor was as clean as a Dutch kitchen. These were indeed the fur-
nace fires of the gnomes, the seat of power of the Wonder City, but whence came the
fuel? There was not a pound of coal nearer than the Mining building, nor a gas tank
on the grounds. The fuel used under these immense boilers was pressed ages ago
from the carboniferous strata and stored in subterranean reservoirs beneath green
pastures in Ohio. From thence it was pumped to Jackson Park, in Chicago, and fed
to the furnaces through valves automatically controlled. The southern range of the
Machinery building was occupied by the power plant which has been aptly described
as the heart of the great Fair, taking the artery blood of steam and transforming it
into the light-giving, power-awakening blood of electricity.
Let us examine it somewhat in detail; it is surely as worthy of cataloguing as
were the ships which sailed against Troy. First, seven Worthington circulating
pumps of 5,000,000 to 15,000,000 gallons per day capacity, these to supply the boilers
with water from Lake Michigan; four air compressers used in operating the extensive
sewerage system by which the difficult sanitary problem of this populous locality was
operated to perfection; and forty giants of shining steel connected with electric
dynamos for furnishing power and light to all parts of the fair. At the head of these,
in stately grandeur, stood the mammoth Reynolds-Corliss Engine of 2,000 horse
power capacity and half as much again maximum load (half the size and twice the
strength of the Philadelphia giant). Its large cylinders were high enough for a tall
man to walk through, the dividing pulley, thirty feet in height with seventy-six inch
face, turning at the moderate pace of sixty revolutions per minute. Two immense
belts -six feet wide, one over the other, formed the connecting link between steam and
electricity, and turned the armatures of two Westinghouse iO,OOO-lamp dynamos built
especially for this service. These twin genii of the lamp furnished the current for
the galaxies of suns that shone in the firmament of the Manufactures building upon
the other side of the Grand Basin. But still more remarkable were the lesser giants
who threw off the belts which ancient custom had given them, and grappled with the
monster dynamos like naked gladiators, and made them do their bidding. The
"direct coupling " marked a great advance in engineering. Of the exhibits them-
selves in the Machinery building, I must leave to experts to talk. We well know to
what perfection Americans have brought machinery for all purposes, until it takes
the place of hands and brain, backed by the power of the steam engine or the dynamo;
yet it will not do to believe that we have reached perfection in all the various branches
of mechanism, nor that we could find nothing to learn of the many specimens of their
work exhibited by Germany, France, England and the other nations. One display
which attracted me repeatedly, as it did thousands of others, was the long array of
printing presses, type-setting machines and other appurtenances of the art which is the
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 337
preserver of all arts. The type-setting machines, worked by a keyboard with the
speed of a typewriter, picking out and setting up the type, casting it from the metal
and again automatically distributing the type, was perhaps the most marvelous of this
class of machinery, and showed to what perfection we have brought a work which
for four centuries has been entirely manual.
To supervise the installation and conduct the operations of a department that
consisted in part of a working power plant as large as a fleet of ocean steamers re-
quired a practical engineer, and the Director General was fortunate in securing the
services of Chief Engineer L. W. Robinson, U. S. N., who was granted a two years'
leave of absence (?) for this purpose. Lieut. -Commander Robinson personally in-
spected the construction of the building and the installation and setting up of the vast
and complicated machinery and the great boiler plant, beside supervising the negoti-
ations for securing the most important exhibitions from this and other countries. So
successful was he that, from the moment President Cleveland touched the button
which set the great Allis engine in motion, on May I, until the machinery stopped, in
November, not a hitch or break in all that vast and complicated plant occurred.
The Machinery building and the Electricity building were bound together, iso-
lated, as they seemed, by ligaments as vital as those which connected the Siamese
twins. There were two avenues of communication between them, one known to the
general public, lying across the Court of Honor at either side of the Administration
building, and another known only to those connected with the operating service of
the Fair, the constructors and engineers. This avenue was subterranean, a gallery
extending from a point beneath the floor of the Machinery building, within a ball's
throw of the great Allis engine, in a straight line to the southeast corner of the Elec-
tricity building. Along either side of the gallery, which was about seven feet wide
by six high, and lighted by a long row of incandescent lights, were strung upon brack-
ets wires and cables, heavily insulated, carrying currents of various powers and inten-
sities for electric light, heat and power. It was not a reassuring thought to a timid
person to be informed by an electrician that one of these cables carrying the deadly
alternating current of several thousand volts or ohms or watts was capable, if there
should be an imperfection in the insulation, of cutting curious capers with the light-
ning current committed to its charge. However, there were no accidents, thanks to
good workmanship, and the. visitor who was so fortunate as to gain this introduction
to the hidden mysteries of the Fair emerged through a trap door into the Electricity
building thankful for his life and richer by a novel experience.
In its outward manifestations of that subtle power which we have been at pains
to trace to its source, the Electricity building not Electrical, good friend was the
most interesting of all. And there is something about the building, too, not gener-
ally known, which is very characteristic of the builders of the Fair. I was criticising
its pepper-box turrets one day, when the following explanation was given: When the
338 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
plans of the buildings upon the Court of Honor were distributed among the architects
it was with a perfect and loyal understanding that each design must be in sympathy
with the grand design of the whole court, as it had been arrived at after much study
and consultation. The drafts of the buildings were brought in and discussed with this
end in view, and never before was there a company of artists who were more thor-
oughly unselfish and more wholly devoted to their art than these. When Messrs. Van
Brunt & Howe showed the completed sketch of the Electricity building (as it will be
remembered in the earlier pictures) it was suggested that the tall two-story turrets
would be out of harmony with the Manufactures building, upon the one side, and the
Mining building, upon the other. Mr. Van Brunt saw the force of the objection, and,
though recognizing that it deprived the building of individuality, without a word, drew
a heavy mark across the offending towers. That picture, more eloquent than words,
should be preserved among the archives of the Columbian Exposition, a lesson of self-
sacrifice to art.
The Philadelphia Exposition will always be remembered as making the first great
stride in electrical science. The first dynamos of the practical modern type were
shown there, and attracted much attention from electricians, although rude affairs
compared to the beautifully-made and powerful machines of to-day; and there were
the Bell telephones and the beginning of the electric arc light. Important as they
were, they were but beginnings, and all together occupied less space than some of
the smallest individual exhibits at Chicago. To attempt to recount, however briefly,
the technical advances made in this science since the Philadelphia Exposition, would
require a scientist, and one, too, at the head of his profession. I can only speak of
the broad results, the features that impress themselves clearest upon the mind after a
year has elapsed since the close of the Fair. First, there was the abundance of light,
a prodigality in its use which surprised even visitors from Paris, noted as the most
brilliantly-lighted city of Europe. Night was literally turned into day, nqt in the
Electricity building alone, but in all the exhibition buildings and throughout the 550
acres of Jackson Park. Paris was thrown into the shade, and all other cities were
abodes of darkness by comparison. In the Electricity building we found splendid
towers of light and other displays of lamps, in connection with ingenious circuiting
apparatus, Tesla's lightning, the electric light in its application to scenic effects a
blaze of glory dazzling in intensity and infinite in variety. The historic exhibits
marked the important advances of electrical science. Early telegraphing and cable
instruments were shown, and the rude dynamos, telephones and arc lights which were
exhibited at Philadelphia in 1876 were shown side by side with dynamos of 1,000
horse power, the phonograph, and lamps that rivaled the sun in brilliancy. The
exhibits of great novelty seemed to promise as great results for the future as did the
Gramme machine and the Bell telephone at Philadelphia. These were the Gray tel-
autograph, by which an autograph letter was sent by telegraph, and the other was the
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 339
electric stove, by which power brought by wire from the Machinery building was
re-transformed into heat and utilized for all the purposes of cooking and for laundry
work. In a little while, therefore, it will be common to recognize the handwriting of
our friends upon the yellow sheets handed us by the messenger boys, and to abolish
coal, oil and gas entirely from our homes, depending upon the little wire for all our
needs. Think of it men now living who are scarce past the meridian of their lives,
look back upon the day when poor gas marked the perfection of lighting, when our
important messages went by slow post, and when even the steam locomotive and the
steamship were novelties which had scarce reached practical realization. The time is
coming, and coming soon we read the message upon the wall by that magic light in
the Electricity building when we shall be able to telegraph without wires and to
draw power from the earth without the medium of destructive fire.
Chief John P. Barrett was the city electrician of Chicago, and brought to the
administration of his department thorough practical knowledge of its requirements.
Summing up his views of the operation of his department during the Fair, he said
that, while it did not show that this had been a period of electrical invention, it was
very markedly one of application, especially of the employment of electric power in
large units for innumerable purposes of utility.
If there is one special field of activity in which America excels, it is in her
methods of transportation, of "getting over the ground" and water. With a popula-
tion of 65,000,000 of active and restless people, spread out over a territory exclusive
of Alaska, of over 3,000,000 of square miles, and a coast line of some 5,000 miles, it is
quite natural that Americans should learn to "get there." When the classification of
exhibits was made, it became necessary to separate locomotive mechanism from the
department of machinery, and it was then decided to add to the new department all
manner of carrying devices whatever, and group them under the head of transporta-
tion. The building covered nine and a half acres, and had an annex of equal area.
It was designed by Adler & Sullivan, of Chicago, and enjoyed the peculiar distinction
of being the only one of the World's Fair buildings which depended upon color for
its chief attraction, apart, of course, from the exhibits. Therefore it was a discordant
note in the symphony of the White City. Yet it was beautiful, and it will be long
before the world forgets its gorgeous "golden doorway," and the peaceful angels
upon the spandrels between the windows, bearing a coupon railway ticket in their
hands. Chief Williard A. Smith was an enthusiast in the advocacy of the claims of
his department, and used frequently to quote these lines of Macaulay: "Of all inven-
tions, the alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those inventions which
abridge distance have done most for the civilization of our species," and he had them
emblazoned in letters of gold with the companion words of Bacon upon the "golden
doorway." The range of exhibits was wide: From the model of a naked Indian
mother carrying her child upon her back (the first carrier) to the daintiest perambu-
340 IND US TRIA L CHIC A G O :
lator; from rafts, dugouts and coracles to models of modern ocean greyhounds and
ships of war; from the dog sledge and ox cart, two poles upon which the Indian pony
draws the tent equipage of his nomad master, the dog sledge of the Eskimo and the
ox cart of the South African, to the luxurious coach and sleigh of King Ludwig of
Bavaria; from the earliest efforts of Cugnot, Reed and Trevithick to apply steam to
propulsion on land, to the most improved locomotives of the modern railways. It is
curious to note that foreign governments were at first reluctant to ask for space, and it
was owing to the personal efforts of Chief Smith in a trip to England and the conti-
nent that an active interest was aroused in this department abroad. Fears that Amer-
ican carriage, bicycle, boat and locomotive builders would reap the benefits of the
foreign trade at the expense of their backwardness, the rivalry of some and the pride
of other foreign manufacturers were aroused until by the beginning of 1893 they were
eagerly clamoring for space, and then the Fair was opened, and there were immense
locomotives and coaches from England, France, Germany and Belgium; locomotive
wheels and pleasure carriages from Austria, specimens of railway track from Germany;
carriages, armor plate and models of ships from England; carriages from France, New
South Wales, and models from a score of countries in all quarters of the globe,
including Japan, Siam, Ceylon, Turkey, Egypt and various countries of South America.
What seemed to me especially striking in these exhibits, notwithstanding the remark-
able completeness of the railway section, were the various applications of electricity
to transportation. There was an electric carriage with a storage battery, which was
often seen upon the smooth roadways of the park; there was the Intramural elevated
electric railway, the first experiment of its kind, and carrying hundreds of thousands
of people without an accident. ( It will be recollected that the intramural road of Phila-
delphia was a surface steam narrow-gauge.) There were models of other elevated
electric roads, promising a speed of upwards of one hundred miles an hour, and there
was the big thirty-ton electric locomotive, the pioneer of its class, designed for stand-
ard railway work; there were electric mine railways and electric perpendicular rail-
ways, beside the moving sidewalk and the electric launches; all tending to show the
direction in which invention and engineers in this country are working and pointing
if I mistake not, to the superseding of steam by electricity upon our railroads at no
distant day.
The great architectural triumph of the World's Fair was, very appropriately, the
architectural triumph of the century and of all time. Never before had so Cyclopean
a feat been attempted. Thirty acres of dunes upon the water's edge were to be
marked off and upon this broad tract a building erected in less than twelve months
which should cover as much ground as the three pyramids of Ghizeh put together. I
have seen a curious calculation of how many Coliseums or St. Peters could be put
into its great central hall, how many Vaticans or British Museums could be grouped
around them within the limits of those endless arcades, and how many arks, like that
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 341
of Father Noah, could be constructed out of the wood and how many Brooklyn
bridges out of the iron. But to me it was all like the calculation of some of those
simple Midway folk whose highest number was ten hands. It was all ten hands big.
But it was not the bigness of it. I am willing to believe that the tower which once
arose from Shinar's plain was larger than this. Brute force can pile stone upon stone
and brick upon brick and make a pyramid or a tower. It is so many men, so many
years, so many feet broad and high. But it took the accumulated science of centuries
to blossom into that magnificent flower of architecture upon Lake Michigan. Its
portals were triumphal arches, its roof was a mountain and its vast interior was a city
of fifty thousand inhabitants. And those arches of iron, with a spread of 354 feet
and a height of 213 feet, how gracefully and delicately were they poised. Not built
into heavy masonry nor joined by keystone or plate, they rested each upon an axle
and touched at the top like the meeting of the finger tips when one is deep in thought.
The architect, George B. Post, was a New Yorker, but only under Chicago's sky was
such a building possible, and nowhere again, it is probable, will it ever be excelled or
even repeated.
The exhibits? What were they not, indeed, of the manufactures of the world?
Who ever saw half of them or the tenth part? It was natural for Americans, especially
those who attended for sight-seeing merely, to spend the greater part of their time
viewing the elegant fabrics, the costly jewels, the rich metal work, the fine furs, deli-
cate laces and splendid artistic work that were sent to us from countries over the sea,
for such another opportunity to see the " Wealth of Ormus and of Ind " will come to
few of us again. The exhibits of Germany, France, Russia or England alone would
be sufficient to absorb the visitor's attention for days and days. But still, what pleased
me most was to compare our American manufactures with those from abroad, and to
note that we were not so much behind as some would have us believe. The jewelry
of France was magnificent indeed, but I saw nothing that seemed more beautiful in
my eyes than those in the pavilion which represented the American section, and their
silver and gold work seemed quite as artistic as the work of the goldsmith and sil-
versmith companies in the British section. The fabrics of France were rich, and of
undeniable taste in design and beauty of color, but those shown by the American tex-
tile industries were of surpassing excellence. The watches of Switzerland were works
of art, but those of America were works of science and kept as accurate time as those
of Geneva. The furs of Russia seemed matchless, until one examined the furs in the
American section. The furniture of England was heavy, that of Germany lacked
taste, and of France had perhaps too much, compared to the artistic and well-made
productions of our American manufactories. I had recently been told by a dealer that
America had no porcelain worthy of notice, and was somewhat surprised to observe
that the exhibits of our American pottery companies made a creditable appearance,
even beside the famous products of English, French and German kilns. It was the
342 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
same with stained glass, with photographs, instruments and books. Perhaps my ears
were attuned especially to American airs, but I found nothing among the foreign
musical instruments at all comparable to those exhibited by American makers. These
latter exhibits bring us into the realm of the department of Liberal Arts, which occupied
the greater part of the broad galleries of the Manufactures building, and from the
fact of being in the galleries attracted far too little attention. When I examined the
remarkable educational display there assembled, I regretted exceedingly that the
United States of America, whose civilization is founded upon her free schools, should
not have had a special building devoted to education. And here I found much of
value, which I cannot pause to dwell upon, in the exhibits of other countries, espe-
cially France (a portion of this was in the Government building), Germany, England (?),
Russia and Japan.
I leave the subject of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts building with that same
feeling of sad regret that always came over me upon leaving the building. It was an
exhilaration to be in it. The air was charged with the activity and magnetism of the
best minds of all races. It was a congress of intellect and peace, and no one could be
there an hour without feeling that in spite of warships and armies the time was
coming when
" Man to man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be, for a' that."
Chief James Allison, of the Manufactures department, and Professor Peabody, of
Liberal Arts, were especially well fitted for their work. Mr. Allison united energy,
exposition experience and executive ability of a high order with indefatigable indus-
try. He had a task to perform which nearly destroyed his health, but he carried it
forward to a triumphant conclusion. Prof. Selim H. Peabody, of the University of
Illinois, was a gentleman of learning and an educator of experience, and the depart-
ment committed to his care grew from small beginnings to one of the most important
of the Fair.
The Fisheries building was unique architecturally, as the department was sub-
jectively. Built by Henry Ives Cobb, of Chicago, it had a certain resemblance to the
Spanish Romanesque style of architecture, treated, however, with a boldness that made
it, as a distinguished French critic has observed, the one distinctly original American
building of the Fair. Its roof of Spanish tile, its picturesque towers and turrets, its
broken outline as it hugged the shore of the lagoon, and above all the wonderful
ingenuity exhibited in arraying innumerable forms of fish and marine life in the capi-
tals, brackets, friezes, cornices and other ornamental details, charmed the visitors as
did no other building upon the ground. Built like the others, of iron and wood and
staff, there seemed to be nothing
" But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange."
The central portion of the building was devoted to fishery appurtenances and fish
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 343
products, the two polygonal pavilions at each end being devoted to angling and the
aquarium, respectively. It was the latter, however, that proved the great attraction,
with its glass-faced tanks of 140,000 gallons of fresh and salt water, stocked by the
United States Fish Commission with many varieties of fish from the rivers, lakes and
sea. It was not by any means a very complete collection, nor were the varieties
remarkable for their rarity, but they were alive, and, of all things, people enjoy look-
ing at living beings. No building in Jackson Park was more popular with all classes
of people during the Fair. From morning till night it was crowded with visitors, the
grave as well as gay, for, as Isaak Walton observed, " Fishes be fit for contemplation
of the most prudent and pious and peaceable men." Therefore, and for more weighty
reasons, it is a matter of the deepest regret that the building, aquarium and all, was
not preserved and conducted as a marine adjunct to the Field Columbian Museum.
Capt. Joseph Collins, who was chief of the Fisheries department, was an old New Eng-
land fisherman and the designer of the new model of fishing boat of the " Grampus "
class which has been the means of saving many lives among the toilers of the sea
on the New England coast. To his practical experience and ardor as a fisherman,
together with the patience and industry which mark him as a successful member of
his guild, the great success of the Fisheries exhibit, though held a thousand miles
from the coast, was due.
The department of Mining furnished further evidence of the progress of the
country since 1876. Then there was no independent exhibit of this great industry.
Vast mineral regions in the South, the Southwest and the Northwest had not even
been opened up. New methods of mining and metallurgy had been introduced, and
machinery had been vastly improved, all of which tended to greatly increase the value
and extent of the output of the mines, and in both these directions electricity was
already an important factor. The wealth of the mines, from the mystery and danger
which attend their workings, as well as from the beauty and intrinsic value of their
products, has always a peculiar charm, while iron and coal form the basis of the
world's material welfare. It was wisely ordered that the Mining department of the
World's Fair should be given a position next to that of Electricity, and its halls were
constantly filled by interested visitors. The building, too, contained a novel feature
in the use of the cantilever construction, like the famous Niagara bridge, in the sup-
port of the roof. The architect. Mr. S. S. Beman, of Chicago, presented a plain,
straightforward design, embodying great symmetry in its parts, and of pleasing out-
line. The exhibits may be divided into four general classes: Resources, processes,
instruction, products. Of the first, such were the variety and profusion that the pop-
ular astonishment may be expressed in the words of the little New Yorker (for all
ignorance is not rustic) who exclaimed that she never knew before that so many
things came out of the ground. States like New York herself, not generally known
for their mineral wealth, made extensive exhibits, and although foreign nations, as a
344 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
rule, did little or nothing, there were notable exceptions in the cases of Germany,
Russia, Japan, and the Argentine Republic. Our next neighbors at the north, the Can-
adian provinces, and particularly Ontario, as well as Mexico at the south, made cred-
itable exhibits, but the palm of honor must be awarded to our Anglo-Saxon cousins
at the antipodes, New South Wales, whose exhibit of mineral resources was as rich
and extensive as it was striking and beautiful in arrangement and design. Under the
head of " instruction " two fine exhibits, which have fortunately been preserved in the
Field Columbian Museum, deserve mention. These were the ingenious obelisk pre-
pared by Dr. Day, showing the amount and value 'of the mineral products of the
United States in each second of time (in 1891 ), and the extensive display of the Stand-
ard Oil Company, which was a complete cyclopaedia and museum of petroleum and its
industries in the United States. Under the head of " products " a few will long be
remembered for their beauty, such as the exquisite iron castings of Russia, Stumm's
pyramids of iron and steel, the Mannesman steel tubes (a metallurgical marvel), the
American aluminum goods, the Cape of Good Hope diamonds, and the Kunz collec-
tion of crystals (also in the Columbian Museum). The mining engineer and the met-
allurgist were attracted by the great array of mining and milling machinery, the result
of which will be felt in increased orders by our manufacturers. Great credit is due to
Chief Fred J. V. Skiff, of Northern birth, recently a Colorado journalist, but now a
full-fledged Chicagoan, for his indefatigable industry and zeal in the organization and
installation of the new department and for investing it with peculiar attractiveness
upon a scientific foundation. It was in detail and entirety a credit to the World's Fair
and a splendid exhibit of the mineral resources of our great country.
As they were most attractive in extreme purity of architecture, so in their con-
tents the Art and the Agriculture buildings vie with each other in beauty. The effects
produced by the finest specimens of cereals in the vast aisles of the Agriculture build-
ing were as exquisite as any color blending on the myriad canvases gathered from
every art center of the world. The shoe and leather exhibits in their fine airy build-
ing, of forestry in an adjoining structure, and of dairy products and methods near by,
together, would have constituted by themselves a fair worthy of coming far to see.
Krupp's stupendous creations, the Rabida, with its priceless collections from the
Vatican and from Spanish treasuries of history, the Caravels, Columbus' fleet, fitly
anchored in sight of the ancient convent, all these were features that no exposition
before could present. The ethnological collections, gathered by Prof. Putnam in the
Anthropological building, were worthy of a life's study.
From the White Horse Inn and the Cliff-dwellers' rocks on the extreme south to
the north where there was a city of villas representing the architecture of nearly every
country and every person, was a ride in the Elevated Intramural railway, never to be
forgotten. Then at the northern terminus the traveler from most of the States of
this Union and from Sweden, or India, from Turkey, France, Germany or England, or
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 345
from many another country, could find a resting place in the fine club houses erected
by his home Government.
Not since the tower of Babel fell, through the wrath of the Almighty, has such a
confusion of tongues been heard as chattered by day and night around the Ferris
wheel. It would be as vain to do justice to a tour of the world in a few chapters as to
attempt in the limits of these pages a description of the life, habitations, costumes and
customs of the heterogeneous population of the Midway Plaisance. Between the
Esquimaux Village and Old Vienna, and between quiet existence on the bamboo set-
tlement of the Javanese to the hurly-burly of the Wild East and Wild West shows,
were such contrasts as only volumes would suffice to properly present. I remember
one night taking Remenyi into the theater of the Javanese Village. When the per-
formance was over the manager kept the orchestra, and as they played their weird,
quaint melodies, the Hungarian interpreted them on his violin into music intelligible
to us, occidentals. The tears rolled down the cheeks of the Hollanders present, for
they were moved by this presentation of the difference between the music of their
native and of their adopted country, This was but one of a thousand daily illustra-
tions of the infinite variety that was conspicuous in that annex to the Fair, where
dwellers from the antipodes lived side by side for six months in enforced harmony of
life, though in a perpetual dissonance of shouting.
If the Exposition was finer by day than anything heretofore seen, by night it
realized in enchantment the brightest imaginings of the poet. From the moment that
the lights began to encircle the dome of the Administration building, and creep
around the cornices of the Court of Honor till the illuminations culminated in sky and
sea, palaces and lagoons, fountains and airships, aglow with the glories of electricity,
there was nightly a succession of indescribable color symphonies. And yet, all this
splendor taught a lesson of contentment. It reminded those who live in sight of per-
petual snows, or on ocean shores, where they can contemplate the wonders of electric
manifestations, and contrast them with the silent pathway of the stars, how sublime is
nature in its infinite majesty, compared with the most brilliant creations of man's
genius.
346 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
CHAPTER X.
PROMINENT BOflRD OF TRflDB MEN.
^amuel W. Allerton. This gentleman, one of the most enterprising and success-
ful in business in this city and one who has left the imprint of his resolute
will and character upon our greatest local municipal and business affairs, is of Puritan
descent and numbers among his ancestors, Isaac Allerton, one of the colonists who
came over in the " Mayflower." From that day to this the family has multiplied and
spread out over the land and become identified with the development of the various
States and municipalities, and contributed their share toward the elevation of American
citizenship. Unquestionably the early members of the family were participants in the
colonial wars, and otherwise assisted in the stern duty of defensive action against
hostile Indians as well as hostile white men. Isaac Allerton was a man of considera-
ble force among the colonists was in fact a leader among them, as shown by his
having been commissioned to return to England in the capacity of an envoy. Mr.
Allerton's grandfather, Reuben Allerton, was a man of more than local distinction,
and during the Revolutionary War served as a surgeon in the Continental army. The
father of Samuel W. was also Samuel W., who, during a portion of his active life, fol-
lowed mercantile pursuits, and in 1830, at Armenia, Dutchess County, N. Y., erected
a comb factory and a woolen factory which himself and younger brother operated for
about three years when they were forced to close out the business by reason of the
financial crisis occasioned by a reduction of the tariff on manufactures. The loss and
disaster were widespread, and the Allertons suffered with many others who needed
the protection afforded by a national tariff on imports. After his business had thus
been wrecked Mr. Allerton, Sr., resided at Armenia until 1837, when he went to
Dubuque, Iowa, and engaged in the novel occupation of mining lead. He was thus
engaged but a short time, however, for the great national panic of 1837 involved all
branches of business and in all directions financial disasters swept away the accumu-
lations and fortunes of years. Having lost everything, Mr. Allerton returned to
Armenia, N. Y., where he resumed his old occupation of merchandising. He was an
intelligent, upright man, possessed of the courage of his convictions, but was unfortu-
nate in having lived at a time when the business he followed was hampered and
harassed by the meddlesome interference of the national law makers with conditions
which had been previously profitable to manufacturing and mercantile enterprises.
His wife, and the mother of the subject of this sketch, was formerly Hannah Hurd.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 349
The name Waters which was bestowed upon both father and son was given in honor
of a distinguished relative, who participated in the resistance of the colonies to the
British Stamp Act, and was personally concerned in pitching overboard the tea in
Boston harbor.
Samuel Waters Allerton, subject of this sketch, was born May 26, 1829, in New
York State. When thirteen years old he was taken by his parents to Yates County,
N. Y., where, upon the banks of the beautiful Seneca lake, a farm was rented. The
family had saved up $500 which was used to place themselves in a comfortable situa-
tion in the new home. Here Mr. Allerton worked until he had reached the age of
nineteen years. The family had practiced economy and worked hard to again get
ahead and had achieved success, for at this time they were able to purchase a farm of
eighty acres in Wayne County. It was at this time of life that the strong elements of
character of Mr. Allerton began to manifest themselves. His adventurous and -inde-
pendent spirit, sustained by a resolute purpose and a thoughtful observation, bravely
assumed the responsibilities of manhood. On the farm was a collection of valuable
farming implements and heads of stock, and of these about $600 worth were turned
over to him, with which he began operations on his own account on a farm which
he rented in Yates County. He applied himself actively and at the end of about four
years had increased his capital to $3,300.
Perhaps the most noticeable circumstance connected with him at this time was
the fact that he had so well conducted all his business operations, and had thus built
up such an excellent reputation for industry and honesty, that he could, at the banks
of Wayne County, upon his individual note, borrow $5,000. He now began business
on a more extensive scale. Backed by his own money and his own excellent credit,
he began dealing extensively in live stock from Newark, Wayne County, extend-
ing his operations over many of the counties of central New York, gradually work-
ing westward.
In 1856 he came out to Chicago, and in Illinois resumed his dealings in live stock,
which he shipped to New York City, but after an active and varied experience of two
years on the western prairies, he was prostrated with sickness which had such a serious
effect upon him that, fearing for his health, he returned to Newark, N. Y., and
engaged in merchandising. After one year of this experience he determined to again
brave the somewhat different climate of the West, because he knew that there was the
place for the accumulation of wealth and the acquirement of an honorable name. He
therefore came West and located in Fulton County, where he bought stock for a year,
making that locality the basis of his dealings, but extending over a large scope of the
surrounding country. Here it was that he met the lady who was destined to wield a
strong influence over his future life and happiness. He married her and immediately
removed to Chicago, two very important steps to both his life and his purse.
At that date Chicago had begun to feel the throb of that activity which has since
18
350 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
made her famous throughout the world. The population was rapidly increasing, and,
owing to the immense advance in commercial transaction, all prudent business men
were getting rich. Upon his arrival here Mr. Allerton, so far as he knew, was
acquainted with but one man. He located temporarily at the Orient House, corner
of State and Van Buren Streets, and while there became acquainted with several men
who later achieved great prominence in local affairs. They were B. P. Hutchinson,
J. M. Richards, Charles Toby, John Black and Ezra Wheeler. These men all, includ-
ing Mr. Allerton, made great successes of life and accumulated handsome fortunes,
and left a strong impress upon the local affairs of their times.
Upon his arrival here Mr. Allerton began to purchase live stock at what was then
known as Merrick's yards, on Cottage Grove Avenue, shipping the same to the mar-
kets of the East. Here it was that qualities which have since made him famous reso-
lution, daring, sagacity, intelligence and integrity found an opportunity of manifesting
themselves. Even in a city like Chicago at that date he had not the means to con-
duct any extensive business; therefore, like many others who possess the genius to
develop methods, he began to formulate those sagacious plans utterly beyond the
reach of men of less calibre, which have given him his great reputation as a business
man, and to follow those lines of professional conduct which have led him to a posi-
tion of great strength in the confidence of his fellow-citizens.
His first great operation in Chicago proved the correctness of his judgment and
the daring of his methods. In the month of May, 1860, the local hog market declined
about $1.50. Instantly Mr. Allerton saw this was his opportunity. But where was the
money to come from to make a great purchase? He had no bank account here, hav-
ing relied wholly upon his sales in New York where what little he had uninvested
was deposited. Various plans of procedure presented themselves to him; he accepted
the boldest, which, if successful, would be also the most profitable. Through a mutual
friend he secured an introduction to Mr. Willard, who was then cashier of the bank-
ing establishment of George A. Smith, and to him made the following proposition:
" If I secure a satisfactory answer to three telegrams which I shall send to my com-
mission house and to your correspondent in New York, and to my banker in Newark,
New York, will you cash a sight draft for me to-morrow?" Mr. Willard answered
"yes." Determined to take a bold step and to force his credit to the highest point, Mr.
Allerton then bought all the hogs he could secure in Chicago. The next morning he
presented himself at Smith's bank and requested Mr. Willard to cash a sight draft
for S8o,OOO. The latter was astonished and so expressed himself, declaring that he
had no idea that Mr. Allerton would require more than $5,000. He therefore refused
to make the loan, which was not to be wondered at. But Mr. Allerton had not yet
exhausted his resources, so, upon receiving the refusal of Mr. Willard, which he had
partly anticipated, though it nonplussed him somewhat, he sought a friend who intro-
duced him to the bankers, Aiken & Morton, to whom he exhibited his telegrams and
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 351
stated his proposition of securing $80,000 on a sight draft. After deliberation these
bankers determined to let him have the amount, charging him therefor an exchange
of one per cent. He secured the money, carried through his first great enterprise and
made a large sum of money; in short laid the foundation of his fortune. This intro-
duction lead to the warm personal friendship which existed so long between Mr.
Allerton and the banker, Mr. Aiken. It has been one of the rules of his life never to
violate a confidence or break a friendship, and to this fact, as much as to anything else,
is due his popularity and high standing.
Another strong quality possessed by him is his unusual ability of forecasting
events and their consequence. When the system of national banks was first proposed,
unlike the majority of bankers who hesitated and temporized, he immediately saw the
advantages of the new policy and came out strongly in its favor. For many months
before it was accomplished he had urged upon the bankers of this city the organiza-
tion of a bank under the new system, and when at last the First National Bank came
into existence he was one of its chief organizers and one of its first board of directors.
He anticipated the necessity of the Union Stock Yards and was largely instrumental
in establishing that great market, by inducing western shippers to send their stock to
Chicago instead of to New York and Philadelphia, as they had been accustomed to
do for years. To Mr. Allerton and to Nelson Morris must be given the credit of this
great addition to the commercial advantages of Chicago. In 1865 the blending of the
three great live-stock markets then here was effected by Mr. Allerton and John B.
Sherman and the foundation for the present Union Yards was laid. But this was not
accomplished without persistent effort. The newspapers were enlisted to call the
attention of the shippers farther west to the importance to them of having at Chicago
a, general live-stock market. In 1866 the Union Yards thus became an accomplished
fact. It is impossible to estimate its advantages to Chicago. Perhaps no other ele-
ment of development has contributed so materially to the prosperity by all branches
of business as the concentration here of the live-stock market of this great central
portion of the country. His large stock interests and his large shipments finally led
him to establish yards at Pittsburg, Philadelphia and Baltimore and later, in conjunc-
tion with Hon. John R. McPherson, of New Jersey, at Jersey City, where now are located
the principal cattle markets of New York.
In Chicago he has been prominently connected with many of the most important
public enterprises, and has done as much as any other man -to promote municipal
development and establish the soundness of commercial credit. He was the first to
recommend the cable railway and has been connected with the various systems for
twenty years.
His observation of the cable system in San Francisco and recommendation of the
same to C. B. Holmes, led the latter to visit the coast on a tour of inspection, and
upon his return the South Side -Cable Railway was soon projected. The adoption of
352 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
this system, as all will admit, has been one of the most powerful factors in solving
the problem of the safe and rapid communication of urban and suburban districts,
and thus adding to the possibilities of city growth by expanding its limits.
Mr. Allerton is the owner of immense tracts of land in Illinois, Nebraska and
Wyoming, the most of which is under cultivation, and is rented or worked upon the
co-operative plan. He owns a total of 40,000 acres, of which about 19,000 are in Piatt
and Vermillion Counties of this State. Upon these broad tracts are raised immense
herds of cattle, hogs and sheep, and all agricultural products of this latitude. Three
railway stations are located on his Illinois land: Galesville, on the Wabash; Allerton,
on the Eastern Illinois, and Allerton Switch, on the Illinois Central. He owns an
interest in the Stock Yards at Omaha and in the Omaha Land Syndicate, an organiza-
tion controlling large and valuable properties in that city. Under the name of the
Allerton Packing Company he conducts packing houses in St. Joseph, Mo., and Chi-
cago, whence large shipments are made to the East and to Europe. Aside from his
views on all business questions, he takes a broad and comprehensive position on
political poficies and governmental relations. A recent open letter of his in the Inter
Ocean to Senator John Sherman on the anti-option problem attracted widespread
attention by reason of its masterly presentation of the logical outcome of the passage
of the bill. He is a sound Republican, and takes great interest in questions of tariff
and finance and has on all economic problems strong and accurate views.
He possesses excellent social proclivities, and greatly enjoys his home and his
clubs, of which he belongs to the Union League, Chicago and Calumet. His first
wife, to whom he was married in 1860, was Miss Pamilla W. Thompson, daughter of
A. C. Thompson, of Canton, 111., who presented him with two children, Robert H. and
Kate R., the latter becoming the wife of the late Dr. F. S. Papin, of Keokuk, Iowa.
His first wife having died, he was married for the second time in 1880 to Miss Agnes
C. Thompson, his present companion.
Hugh Adams, the son of James and Sarah (McCroskey) Adams, and grandson of
John Adams, was born in Rockbridge County, Va., February 10, 1820; married
Amanda J. McCormick, daughter of Robert and Mary Ann Hall McCormick, of
Rockbridge County, Va., May 8, 1845, and died March 10, 1880, in Chicago, 111. While
a resident of Virginia he was a successful merchant and one of the most highly
respected and popular business men of that State. No man ever removed from the
State who carried with him more of public confidence and good will. Believing that
the growing Northwest offered him a larger field and better opportunities to start his
children in the battle of life, he removed with his family to Chicago in 1857. In 1859,
with Cyrus H. McCormick, his brother-in-law, he established the grain and provision
commission firm of Cyrus H. McCormick & Co., and became a member of the Board
of Trade. Under his management this house rapidly grew into prominence, and soon
became one of the leading concerns in the great produce trade of the Northwest. For
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 365
upward of twenty years .he was prominently identified with the commercial pros-
perity of Chicago. His reputation in commercial circles was of the very highest
order, and his name was looked upon as the synonym of all that was honorable and
upright in business transactions. He was one of the oldest and most highly respected
members of the Chicago Board of Trade, which body at his death unanimously
adopted the following resolutions:
" WHEREAS, it has pleased Divine Providence to remove suddenly from our midst,
by death, Mr. Hugh Adams, for over twenty years a member and formerly a director
of the board, therefore be it Resolved, That in the decease of Mr. Adams we recog-
nize the loss of one of the oldest and most valued members of our association, and one
who, by his unswerving integrity as a merchant, and by his genial disposition and
pleasant demeanor endeared his memory to us in no ordinary measure."
He was a consistent member of the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago and
an ardent lover of its meetings and of all its work for the Master at the time of his
death; a man of simple, unostentatious tastes and habits, and of tender sympathy
for the poor. After the great fire of October, 1871, Cyrus H. Adams, the second son
of Hugh Adams, was admitted to partnership in the business, and the firm name was
changed to McCormick, Adams & Co. After the death of Hugh Adams this firm was
continued by Cyrus H. McCormick and Cyrus H. Adams, until the death of Cyrus H.
McCormick in 1884, when it was succeeded to by the firm of Cyrus H. Adams & Co.
This firm was composed of Cyrus H. Adams and his two younger brothers, Hugh L.
and Edward S. Adams. The failure of the health of Cyrus H. Adams resulted in a
dissolution of this firm in 1889, and the business was and is continued by Edward S.
Adams and Edward M. Samuel, under the firm name of Adams & Samuel. For
upward of thirty-three years this old house and its successors has continued one of
the leading concerns in the great grain trade of the Northwest, and has justly been
regarded as one of the strongest bulwarks of the business.
Amanda (McCormick) Adams, wife of Hugh Adams, and the youngest sister of
the late Cyrus H. and William S. McCormick and of Leander J. McCormick, of reaper
fame, was a woman remarkable for her beautiful Christian character and unselfish
devotion to her family. Her rare qualities and influence were felt by all who sur-
rounded her. Her death occurred October 12, 1891, at Watkins, N. Y.
The children of Hugh Adams and Amanda McCormick Adams were: Mary
Caroline, Robert McCormick, Cyrus Hall, James William; Ella Sarah, Hugh Leander,
Edward Shields and Amanda Virginia Adams.
Cyrus H. Adams, the second son of Hugh and Amanda (McCormick) Adams,
was born in the village of Kerr's Creek, Rockbridge County, Va., February 21, 1849,
and moved to Chicago with his father's family in 1857.
He was educated at one of the public schools of Chicago and the old Chicago
University, and entered the office of Cyrus H. McCormick & Co., commission mer-
chants, as a bookkeeper, in the eighteenth year of his age.
556 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
This house was founded by Cyrus H. McCormick and Hugh Adams in 1859, and,
under the management of Hugh Adams, had grown to be one of the leading commis-
sion houses in the great grain trade of Chicago.
The subject of this sketch became a member of the Chicago Board of Trade in 1870'
and was admitted to partnership in the firm in 1871, when the firm name was changed
to McCormick, Adams & Co.
Until 1871 their business was principally that of receiving and selling grain and
other produce, but when Cyrus H. Adams was admitted to partnership he added a
new department, devoted to buying and selling grain and provisions for future delivery;
built up a large and profitable business in this line, and, from this time, including the
two branches, the house assumed a position second to none in the trade.
After the death of Hugh Adams (1880), this firm was continued by Cyrus H.
McCormick and Cyrus H. Adams until the death of Cyrus H. McCormick (1884),
when it was succeeded by the firm of Cyrus H. Adams & Co., into which Hugh L.
and Edward S. Adams were admitted as partners. The partial failure of the health
of Cyrus H. Adams resulted in a dissolution of this firm in 1889, and the business is
continued now by Edward S. Adams and Edward M. Samuel under the firm name of
Adams & Samuel.
In addition to his business, Mr. Adams, from the first, took an active part in the
general affairs of the Board of Trade, and became one of its most prominent and influ-
ential members. He was elected a member of the arbitration committee in 1875, and,
after a two-years' term of service, was immediately chosen to fill a three-years' term
in the directory of the board. At the expiration of this term he was promoted to the
committee on appeals, where he served for two years.
On retiring from the committee on appeals, in 1882, he was urged to accept the
office of president of the board, and has been repeatedly urged to do so since, but press-
ure of private business and failing health have compelled him to forego this high honor.
It is generally conceded by his associate members that, during his active and
official connection with the board, Mr. Adams did as much as, if not more than, any
other member to reform and improve its business methods. Largely through his
efforts the Board of Trade Clearing House was established, with its valuable system
of offsetting contracts. He was mainly the author and founder of the system of
delivering property by notice or order, which is one of the greatest safeguards of the
business, and with him also originated the invaluable system of confirming contracts
daily by notices sent through the mail department of the board, established for that
purpose. These reforms and radical changes almost revolutionized the business
methods of the board, and established a security in its transactions which has not only
been of incalculable value, but an admitted means of progress and extension of the
trade that would scarcely have been possible under its old methods. During his
active connection with the board he also served frequently on temporary committees,
<r -e
>
^C-^^ww^-t^ U C/f-^^^^^
I
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 359
and was especially engaged in formulating the rules which govern its intricate and
widely extended business transactions.
He is a director of the National Bank of America of Chicago, and a trustee and
treasurer of the McCormick Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian church, besides
holding other positions of trust and responsibility. In religion he is a Presbyterian
and a member of the Fourth Presbyterian church of Chicago.
In politics he is an independent Democrat and an ardent believer in civil service
and tariff reform, but holds that party slavery, next to human slavery, is one of the
greatest evils which can curse this country a menace to the republican form of
government.
He is a member of the Union, Union League and Athletic Clubs of Chicago, but is
of a quiet and retiring disposition, and spends the most of his leisure hours at home
with his family.
September 26th, 1878, he married Miss Emma J. Blair, eldest daughter of the late
lamented Lyman Blair, of Chicago, and they have one son, Cyrus H. Adams, Jr., born
in Chicago July 31, 1881.
Lyman Blair, the son of Samuel and Hannah (Frary) Blair, was born in Cortland,
N. Y., November 15, 1815, and died in Chicago, 111., September 25, 1883.
He received a common-school education, and began his unusually successful
business career as a clerk in a store at his native place, receiving only $60 for his first
year's labor. At the age of twenty-one years he had, by strict economy, saved $250 out
of the small but increasing salary which he received, and with this as his capital he left
home to make a fortune in the great West.
At this early period the facilities for Western travel were mainly confined to the
Erie Canal and the Great Lakes, and our future successful merchant traveled by a
" line boat " to Buffalo, whence he took passage on a steamer to Detroit. From this
point, with six fellow travelers, he crossed the State of Michigan in a lumber wagon,
and, not finding a steamboat at St. Joseph, our sturdy young traveler sent his trunk
to Chicago by a small trading vessel and started on foot along the wild and lonely
beach for this city, which was to be the field of his future great success.
Shortly after leaving St. Joseph he overtook a company of young men bound for
Michigan City, and with them, part of the time wading in water and subsisting chiefly
on crackers, he arrived at this promising town in Northern Indiana, weary and foot-
sore. Here young Blair expected to find his older brother, Chauncey B. Blair, who
had come West the previous year, but the latter had gone to Wisconsin to "enter"
government lands, and Lyman, nothing daunted, set out to follow him. J.ust as he was
leaving on his journey he met an old friend from the East, Mr. Orren North, who per-
suaded him to accompany him to Milwaukee. When they reached Chicago young
Blair endeavored to find employment, but in this he was disappointed. Water Street
was then the principal business street of Chicago, and the Tremont the only hotel
360 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
of importance. So great was the Western travel at this time, that patrons had fre-
quently to wait for a full half hour before they could get into the dining room of the
hotel for their meals.
Steamboats were then few and uncertain and young Blair proposed to Mr. North
that they "foot it" to Milwaukee. To this Mr. North consented, but he soon became
weary and wanted to return by wagon to Chicago, and proposed to pay Blair's pas-
sage by steamer to Milwaukee if he would return with him. But Blair's persistence
would not allow him to turn back and together they made fifteen miles the first day,
stopping at night at a tavern kept by a half-breed Indian. Reaching Milwaukee the
third day and again missing his brother Chauncey, young Blair returned, by sailing
vessel, to Michigan City, and soon found employment in a hardware store, receiving
at first only his board for compensation.
Shortly afterward he accepted a situation in a dry goods store owned by a Mr.
Clark, agreeing to work for whatever wages the business would warrant Mr. Clark in
paying him. In six weeks' time Mr. Clark went to New York to replenish his stock
of goods, and left Blair in entire charge of the business. On his return Mr. Clark was
so well pleased with the manner in which the business had been managed during his
absence, that he employed Blair for a year at a salary of $250 and his board. The
following year his salary was raised to $400, and from this time Blair's success seemed
to be assured.
In 1837 Chauncey B. Blair bought the stock of goods of one of the merchants of
Michigan City for about $12,000, and entered into a partnership with Lyman, who
took charge of the store.
The firm name was C. B. & L.Blair, and in a few years the business grew into
large proportions. They supplied a considerable portion of the Wabash Valley with
goods and engaged extensively in the grain and produce shipping business. C. B.
devoted his time and attention principally to the storage and commission business
and built large warehouses for the handling and shipping of produce, and left the
store and home trade almost entirely in Lyman's hands.
The firm continued and prospered for many years, and as C. B. later became
largely engaged in public improvements and banking, he sold out his interest in the
firm to Lyman, who continued a very prosperous business there until the war broke
out. In 1863 Lyman Blair sold out the Michigan City business, moved to Chicago,
joined the Chicago Board of Trade, and soon became one of its most influential mem-
bers and most successful grain merchants. He also became interested in the pork
packing business of Jones & Culbertson, and in 1865 bought out Jones' interest, when
a new firm was organized under the name of Culbertson, Blair & Co.
This firm was composed of C. M. Culbertson, Lyman Blair and Chauncey J. Blair
(son of C. B. Blair), and for nearly twenty years this was one of the great pork pack-
ing concerns of Chicago. In connection with his large operations in grain Lyman
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 361
Blair also established the commission house of Blair & Blair, associating with himself,
as junior partner, Watson F. Blair, another son of C. B. Blair. This firm did a very
large shipping and commission business in grain and provisions, and was continued
until the death of Lyman Blair, which was caused by the accidental discharge of his
gun when preparing for a shooting expedition.
Thus, from a small beginning, Lyman Blair won his way upward to wealth and
influence in the business world, and by persistent toil, unerring judgment, honest
enterprise and scrupulous integrity reached an enviable position among men.
He was one of the incorporators of the Union Stock Yards and Transit Company,
of Chicago, one of the first directors of the Chamber of Commerce, and president of
the same at the time of his death. He was also vice-president of the Board of Trade
in 1866-68, and was a director and one of the largest stockholders in the Merchants
National Bank, besides holding many other positions of trust and responsibility.
While Mr. Blair was pre-eminently a business man he was always devoted to the
best interests of his family, and during the later years of his life he spent much time
in travel with them, both in this country and in Europe. In this way he acquired a
large fund of general intelligence. He was noted throughout life for his public spirit
and liberality and was always a most genial companion and true friend.
He was a life-long Republican, and, while in no sense a politician, he always took
an active interest in the success of his party.
A man of purest private life and kindliest motives, but of indomitable energy
and great force of character, a self-made man in every respect, it was inevitable that
he should gain the respect and confidence of the commercial world and be held in
the highest esteem by all who knew him in the varied relations of life.
In 1851 he married Miss Mary F. DeGroff, daughter of Amos T. and Harriet
(Sleight) DeGroff, of Michigan City, Ind., by whom he had five children, of whom
two daughters, Emma J., wife of Cyrus H. Adams; Mary H., wife of Chauncey Keep;
one son, Lyman Blair, Jr., who married Cornelia Seymour Macfarlane, besides his
widow, survive him.
The funeral, which took place September 27, at his late residence, No. 274
Michigan Avenue, was largely attended by members of the Board of Trade and other
prominent citizens. Bishop Cheney, of the Reformed Episcopal Church, conducted
the services and spoke with much feeling of the life and character of Mr. Blair, say-
ing: "He had a tender heart, a gentle character and all the other attributes that make
his memory so dear." His remains were laid at rest in the family lot at Graceland.
Nathaniel K. Fairbank. Not only is Nathaniel K. Fairbank one of the most con-
spicuous of the many successful men New York has given to Chicago, but he is one of
the most eminent of Chicago's self-made men, who have been successful in the build-
ing of a great city because they first mastered the secret of building good character
and applying it to the creation of their own fortunes. His ancestry of ruggedest New
362 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
England stock conferred upon him a mentality and a physique that gave him the
strong individuality which characterizes the leader among men; but it was in the little
town of Sodus, Wayne County, N. Y., that Mr. Fairbank was born, in the year 1829.
He attended the common schools of his native town, and there, at a suitable age,
became a bricklayer's apprentice, but a year later, when he was sixteen, went to
Rochester, N. Y., where, after completing the term of his apprenticeship, he became
book-keeper in a flouring mill, and never after worked at the trade he had acquired
with so much labor and so much pains.
How well his services were appreciated in his new capacity is evidenced by the
fact that within six months after entering upon them he was made a partner in the
concern. This advance in his fortunes was a tribute also to his natural aptitude
for business, for to the business man one kind of business is, under like favorable con-
ditions, about as susceptible of being developed into a success as another. The then
little city of Rochester did not present to Mr. Fairbank the broad field he craved for,
the development of his abilities and the achievement of the success his ambition had
pictured. In the almost limitless arena of this great country (and he scanned it oft
and critically) Chicago seemed to his judgment to possess the greatest possibilities
and to hold out the most alluring probabilities. Hither he came in 1855, at the age of
twenty-six, as the Western representative of the firm of David Dows & Co., grain com-
mission merchants, of New York, with whose business he was connected for about ten
years, resigning to become a member of the firm of Smeedly, Peck &Co., lard and oil
refiners, for the erection of whose refinery buildings his industry and his prudence had
enabled him to supply the capital. The firm then organized did a successful business
for four years, when its plant was destroyed by fire, inflicting upon the company a loss
of $50,000. In 1870, only a year after this disaster, the manufacturing plant, since a
familiar landmark at the corner of Blackwell and Eighteenth Streets, was constructed
at a cost of $80,000. Sometime in 1872, Mr. Smeedly sold his interest in the business,
and later Mr. Peck drew out of the firm. Their places in the enterprise were taken
by W. H. Burnett and Joseph Sears. In the period that followed, as before, the pros-
perity of the house of N. K. Fairbank & Co. was so great and so uninterrupted as to
mark it as one of Chicago's most noteworthy and most permanent manufacturing and
commercial successes.
To such men as Mr. Fairbank Chicago presented the opportunities they sought,
and it is such who have been most generous in their recognition of Chicago's claim
upon their gratitude. What Chicago and its institutions, its great manufacturing
industry, its wonderful commercial opportunities enabled them to do, they have repaid
by the helpful manner in which they have identified themselves with all her great inter-
ests business, religious, charitable and general. Without Chicago they would have been
less than they are; without them Chicago would have been less than it is. If there is one
man who, above most others, has been useful to Chicago, and who above all others
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 363
recognizes his indebtedness to her, it is Mr. Fairbank, whose less than forty years' resi-
dence here has embraced the period of his own aggrandizement and Chicago's. When he
came he was a poor young man with a good record and a bright future; Chicago was a
small city with a past likewise creditable and a promise the realization of which has come
to be known of all men, and scarcely less conspicuous is Mr. Fairbank's success. The
energy of character and the ability which Mr. Fairbank has displayed in his private
business, and which have won him wealth and high commercial standing, have marked
his career as a public-spirited citizen, and have had much potency in the advancement
of Chicago's prosperity. His sympathies have been with any movement which prom-
ised to result in beautifying Chicago, adding to the pleasures of her citizens or serving
their interests in any direction. His purse has ever been as free as his sympathy, and
the enterprises for the upbuilding of the city which he has encouraged and sustained
are too numerous and too diversified in character to be mentioned here. The splen-
did structure on Monroe Street, opposite the Palmer House, which is to-day the home
of the Chicago Club, came into existence as the child of his public spirit. This ele-
gant building, which was completed in 1876, at a cost of $135,000, Mr. Fairbank
offered to erect at his own expense, and he still retains 850,000 of its stock, the balance
having been subscribed by other members while the club house was in process of
erection. The appreciation of the club of this magnificent act was shown by its elec-
tion of Mr. Fairbank to its presidency thirteen consecutive years. Central Music Hall,
at the corner of State and Randolph Streets, is another monument to Mr. Fairbank's
enterprising devotion to the general good. Such a building had been conceived and
its plans had been completed by the late George B. Carpenter, but money and influ-
ence were requisite, and the latter was necessary to secure the first. To Mr. Fairbank,
as the man in all Chicago most likely to give practical aid to a project promising so
much good to the public, Mr. Carpenter explained the enterprise and submitted the
plans for the edifice, and Mr. Fairbank offered to present the matter to the consider-
ation of the capitalists of the city whenever,in his opinion, a favorable opportunity
should present itself. It came in 1879, the year after Mapleson's first coming to Chi-
cago, when the city was under the influence of an opera furore. Mr. Fairbank pressed
the claims of the Central Music Hall scheme, and, under the influence of his endorse-
ment and a recognized need of such a building, the stock was quickly subscribed
and in due time the structure was an established fact.
But Mr. Fairbank has not confined his good offices to the service of the wealthy
and middle classes. The very poor have in him a steadfast and generous friend.
Chicagoans know full well how he raised the heavy mortgage that rested like an incu-
bus on the Chicago Newsboys' Home, and how he subscribed $25,000 and solicited
subscriptions for the balance necessary to build the new St. Luke's Hospital, whose
strong friend, liberal patron and faithful officer he has been for years. Reared a
Presbyterian, he became an attendant at the South Church, and his benefactions to
364 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
that and to the independent church of which Prof. Swing became pastor were many.
The first which came to public notice was his gift of $1,000 toward payment for an
organ for the South Church. When Prof. Swing left that church, Mr. Fairbank was
one of the fifty men who volunteered to supply any deficiency in the funds necessary
to sustain for three years the independent church at Central Music Hall of which
the noted Chicago divine became pastor. It is probable that Mr. Fairbank's care, in
a business way, for all of the interests of this organization, as a member of the board
of trustees, has done much to insure its continued prosperity. As a member of its
musical committee (and his love of music is a real passion), it has been his constant
aim to provide music of a very high order for its Sabbath services, and in the discharge
of his duties in this capacity he has taken special interest and pleasure. Of the sev-
eral musical societies that he has helped to success, the Festival Association is an
example, and the great service he rendered to those famous festivals conducted by
Theodore Thomas will not be soon forgotten by music-loving Chicagoans.
In person Mr. Fairbank is tall and well-proportioned, with a fine head evenly
poised on broad shoulders, a benignant face and an erect and vigorous carriage, and
his air impresses one with the idea of an individuality commanding yet kindly. Of
the broadest and most tender sympathies, the enjoyment of all of his friends is essen-
tial to his own happiness, and his solicitude for their well-doing and prosperity is
admirable. The sudden and unexpected death of his long faithful friend, Wirt Dex-
ter, who in an hour, on one of the best and happiest days of his splendid career, joined
the "silent and innumerable host," brought to Mr. Fairbank such grief as few men
have ever felt at such a loss. His fondness for such a man as Dexter, reflects his
regard for the highest type of intellectual culture. In 1866 Mr. Fairbank was mar-
ried to Miss Helen L. Graham, of New York, and has four sons and three daughters.
His domestic qualities, his love of wife, children and home, are developed in his most
generous provision for their comfort and happiness. He has a splendid residence in
the city and a handsome country house and fine farm at Lake Geneva, Wis. A work
in which he has taken a deep interest and been of much benefit to the public is that
of pisciculture in the Northwest. It is probable that there is not in Chicago another
citizen who has greater contempt for mere inert wealth, or who in the active pursuit of
legitimate gain has so often paused to distribute in generous gratuities so many sums
of money which aggregate so great an amount. Nor are his charities confined to his
own environments; reaching out into remote circles, he lifts up quietly and without
ostentation, many who would otherwise sink under the burdens of trouble, and only
those who know him most intimately know what unalloyed satisfaction he finds in
being a friend to those who have no other friend. The brief story of Mr. Fairbank's
life, proves that in America it is not necessary that a man should be born rich, or get
wealth through trickery or speculation. There is a sure road to success to all who
possess ability, ambition and energy, perhaps not so great a measure of success as
he has attained, but success according to the seeker's talents and merits.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 365
Harris Ansel Wheeler, the only son of John Douglas and Sarah Jones Wheeler,
was born at Orrington, Me., July 30, 1850. He attended the public schools until his
seventeenth year, when he entered the employment of F. M. Sabine, of Bangor, Me.,
in the wholesale and retail dry goods business, as book-keeper. In 1869 he went to
Detroit, Mich., and was employed by Allan Shelden & Co., wholesale dry goods, until
1871, when he returned to Maine, having especially in view a desire to obtain an
appointment in the United States army, and feeling that it could be accomplished
more readily from his native State.
He received an appointment as second lieutenant March 4, 1872. During the
interval after his return from Detroit he was employed as clerk in the First National
Bank, of Bangor. He resigned from the army January I, 1874, and returned to his
former position in the bank at Bangor, where he remained until January of 1878, at
which time he assumed the financial management of the Michigan Military Academy,
at Orchard Lake, Mich., representing the interests of Gov. John J. Bagley, of
Detroit.
In 1880, when Gov. Bagley retired from his connection with the school, Mr.
Wheeler came to Chicago and became the private secretary to Mr. N. K. Fairbank, a
position which he now holds. During the period of his service with Mr. Fairbank he
found opportunity to interest himself in outside business, and did so by associating
himself with several manufacturing concerns, and is at the present time president of
the Northwestern Expanded Metal Company, which has a large factory at Twenty-
sixth Street and Stewart Avenue, The Abbott Machine Company, factory on South
Canal Street, also of the Gilfillan Scale and Hardware Company, and the Todd Cot-
ton Harvester Company, and manufacturers, besides the well-known "Wheeler" rail-
road reclining coach and car seats, factory at Dayton, Ohio.
In July, 1881, Mr. Wheeler was appointed aid-de-camp on the staff of Gov.
Cullom, of Illinois, with the rank of colonel, subsequently aid-de-camp, with
the same rank, on the staff of Gov. Hamilton, who succeeded Gov. Cullom, and on
July I, 1884, was elected colonel of the Second Infantry, Illinois National Guard,
which position he held until February I, 1890, declining a re-election. In June, 1893,
he was appointed brigadier-general and assigned to the command of the" First Brigade,
composed of the First, Second and Seventh Regiments of infantry, a battery and
troop of cavalry, all located in Chicago.
Of his Masonic connections, he was made a Master Mason at Bangor, in 1876, and
took the degrees of the " Chapter " and " Commandery of Knights Templar" during
that and the following year. In 1880 he dimitted from St. John's Commandery,
Bangor, to Detroit Commandery, No. I, of Michigan, and in 1881 to Apollo Com-
mandery, No. I, of Chicago, of which he was elected captain-general in 1884, general-
issimo in 1885 and eminent commander in 1886 and 1887, and was made a thirty-
second degree Mason in Oriental Consistory, S. P. R. S., in Chicago, July, 1882.
366 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Mr. Wheeler was reared in the Protestant religion, his parents being members of
the Congregational Church, which church he has always regarded as more especially
his home. He has always been a Republican, and has entered more or less actively
into various political campaigns. He was married June 3, 1884, to Miss Anna M.
Ayer, of Chicago, formerly of Bangor, Me., only daughter of Capt. John and Lydia
B. Ayer. Her father was wounded in the battle of Fredericksburg, taken prisoner
and died shortly after of his wounds in Libby Prison, when she was but an infant.
Their only child, a son, Malcolm Locke Wheeler, was born July 2, 1885.
Gen. Wheeler is a member of the following clubs: The Chicago, the Union
League, Washington Park, Fellowship, Argo, Illinois, Sunset, Forty and the Lincoln.
Norman B. Ream. Enterprise, courage and perseverance have been the distin-
guishing characteristics of the business career of Norman B. Ream. He has dared,
but he has first considered wisely. He has ventured, but only with a conservative
discretion that has marked him as a cool-headed, always calculating man of affairs
rather than a plunging speculator. Transactions into which some other men have
gone blindly, trusting to fate for the outcome, have been entered by him with eyes
wide open, with an expectation of success which has been realized because it has been
based on sound business judgment. During his, not as yet very long life, he has
been a teacher, a portrait artist, a soldier, a clerk, a merchant, a farmer, a dealer in
grain and agricultural implements, a live stock commissioner dealer, and a live stock
dealer direct, and an operator in railroad and other valuable stocks and real estate,
and a large investor in the stock of various city railway companies, and almost invari-
ably, if allowance is made for the vicissitudes of every-day business, he has been
successful even beyond his own expectations, attracting to himself the attention of
his associates as a man of rarely failing good judgment, if not of phenomenal luck. Born
in Somerset County, Penn., November 5, 1844, of that sturdy Pennsylvania stock of
German descent that has carried the elements of careful thought and plodding industry
into the various branches of business throughout our country, and always to the
advantage of the enterprise thus influenced, with a strain of Scotch blood, always
strengthening whenever present, he inherits characteristics that in the fair field that
business men find in America are pretty certain to bring to prominence those who
possess and use them aright. His father, Levi Ream, who was a life-long resident of
Somerset County, Penn., until quite recently, when he located in Sacramento, Cal.,
was a farmer and a farmer's son, who could trace his lineage through quite a number
of successive generations in the old Keystone Commonwealth. Highly (King) Ream,
mother of our subject, was of mingled Scotch and German descent. Such ancestry
almost necessarily confers admirable strength of character and a capacity for almost
limitless intellectual development, and in this way Mr. Ream's inheritance was not
stinted. Educated at the home and normal schools of Pennsylvania, it is not strange
to one who is informed as to the regulations governing institutions of the latter class
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 369
and the admission to them of students, that he naturally developed into a pedagogue
or, at least, tested his ability and liking for that occupation. He taught a "tough"
school of the old fashioned kind, in which the teacher and the big boys struggled for
supremacy, and the big girls stood ready to bestow their smiles on the victor with
prompt impartiality? and was a success both in imparting knowledge and in governing
the rough element with a hand of iron, but his salary was only Si 7 a month. Mr.
Ream was not one to be satisfied with such a pitiful stipend and he cast about him for
something new and more remunerative. Daguerre had discovered and applied the
principle of portrait making by means of a dark box, lenses and an exposed sensitive
plate; A. C. Ross, of Ohio, had made the first camera in America from descriptions of
Daguerre's in the newspapers; others had improved processes and methods; the ambro-
type had been introduced and picture taking was coming to the front as a profitable
business. Then the taker of the ambrotype was to some extent a man of mystery to
his fellow-citizens. He was to some a scientist and to all an artist, for were not his
portraits truer to life than those of the painters in oil? His work was popular because
it was in a pecuniary way within reach of the masses. All these facts young Ream
was not slow to recognize, and having given them due consideration he invested part
of his savings in needful apparatus, made himself thoroughly conversant with the
chemical and scientific elements of ambrotype productions and embarked as one of
the leading local portrait artists of the time, devoting idle hours and days to farming,
and altogether achieving quite satisfactory business success. This much had he
accomplished before his arrival at the age of seventeen.
The memorable year of 1861 had come and it had brought civil war to America.
Who that lived then can ever forget the tidal wave of patriotism that rolled over the
land, carrying with it the youth and the man of gray hairs? Young Ream could not
be a civilian when he saw others becoming soldiers. He could not remain quietly at
home to enjoy the benefits his neighbors were going to risk their lives to preserve.
Boy as he was, he enlisted in the Eighty-fifth Pennsylvania Volunteers, which regi-
ment was a part of Key's corps, and served with it through McClellan's peninsular
campaign of 1862. During the winter of 1862-63 he participated in the movement of
Gen. Foster against Goldsboro, N. C. The merited advancement which has crowned
his whole career was exemplified in his soldier life. Not long after his enlistment he
was made sergeant. For gallant service at the battle of Kingston, N. C., he was
promoted to a second lieutenantcy. During the siege of Charleston he was advanced
to a first lieutenantcy, for he had joined the command of Gen. Q. A. Gilmore in South
Carolina about the time of his second promotion. While acting as adjutant of his
regiment, in an engagement near Savannah, Ga., February 22, 1864, he was so severely
wounded as to be incapaciated for further service until June following, when he
rejoined his command, which meantime had been transferred to the Army of Virginia
under Gen. Butler, only to be again wounded almost immediately. With a pluck that
SttO INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
may be deemed noteworthy in a soldier so young, he again joined his regiment in
August following, but he had not yet fully recovered from his first wound and his
second had tended to still more deplete his vitality, and he found himself unable to
longer bear the strain of active service. Bearing an honorable discharge and scars
that only too plainly attested his devotion to his country, he returned to his Pennsyl-
vania home. Business now claimed his attention. The war had developed possibili-
ties that had hitherto not existed or had lain dormant. He determined upon a
commercial career, and with the sound forethought that has paved the way to every
success he has attained, he decided to fit himself thoroughly for it, and in furtherance
of that idea took a course at a Pittsburg commercial college, which he supplemented
by a brief but studious engagement as clerk in a general store. In 1866 he realized
a long-felt desire to test the opportunities presented in the rapidly advancing Central
Western States, and took up his residence in Princeton, 111., where he resumed his
labors as clerk in a dry goods store in which his address and experience and the flat-
tering letters of introduction which he bore, readily procured him an engagement.
It was not long before he was enabled to enter business on his own account as a mem-
ber of the firm of Mosshart & Ream, in which Mr. Charles Mosshart was his partner.
In about a year, however, he withdrew, disposing of his interest to Mr. Mosshart, and,
removing to Osceola, Iowa, engaged in farming and in a trade in grain, live stock and
agricultural implements. For three years he was very successful, but at the end of
that time a crop failure brought him his first and about his only considerable reverse,
and he was compelled to relinquish his business at a heavy loss, though at no impair-
ment to his credit and no diminution of the esteem of his fellow-citizens. He had long
been thinking of Chicago as a fruitful field for operations, and at this juncture in his
affairs he resolved to take up his residence in the future World's Fair City, where he
arrived in 1871, just prior to the great fire, and locating at the Union Stock Yards,
engaged in the live stock commission business, later becoming a dealer on his own
account. Those conversant with Mr. Ream's career since that time do not need to be
informed that it has been one of flattering and uninterrupted success. He soon began
to deal in railroad stocks, and for a time was a member of the New York Stock
Exchange.
In 1881, however, he relinquished operations upon the exchanges, but retained
his membership in the Board of Trade. As an investor on an extensive scale in real
estate in Chicago and elsewhere he has been successful even beyond the most pros-
perous of some of his associates, and it is worthy of note that his investments in that
direction have resulted in the erection of several of the finest structures in the country,
among them such representative buildings as the imposing Rookery, Chicago, and the
famous white marble interiored Midland Hotel, Kansas City. His pre-eminent ability
for affairs has been recognized by his election as a director in the First National
Bank of Chicago, the Illinois Central Railroad Company, and in several other impor-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 373
tant corporations with headquarters in this and other large cities, and he is a heavy
stockholder in street railways in Chicago and elsewhere, and has large interests in
western cattle ranches and in fine farms and timber lands. Whatever reverses Mr.
Ream has met with seem to have influenced him only to augment his unyielding
determination to succeed, and putting behind him all that was obstructive in its tend-
encies he has pressed steadily forward, battling honorably and manfully, and con-
quering nobly and almost constantly. He is of the 'type of business man that has
rehabilitated Chicago and made it at this time the most important city on the face of
the globe in the eyes of all of the men on the civilized earth. Through all his life he
has been wont to think for himself, and if he has employed others it has been to exe-
cute, and not to suggest plans. In politics he is as independent as in business. Sub-
mitting to the domination of no faction, though acknowledging the claims of the
Republican party, he accords his support to the most worthy candidate without con-
cerning himself greatly as to what ticket may bear his name. Taking a deep and
abiding interest in public affairs and in everything having for its object the advance-
ment of Chicago's material prosperity, he despises politics as a profession, while
acknowledging the benefits of organization in the development of political principles
and their application to the needs of the general public. Socially he is genial and
friendly, in business suave and approachable, but decisive and unyielding when he
believes he is right, and justice is perhaps his governing characteristic. To him an
honorable name is of greater value than money, not because "honesty is the best
policy," but because right is right. He was married in 1876 to Miss Carrie Putnam,
daughter of Dr. John Putnam, of Madison, N. Y., who has borne him four sons and
two daughters. He is a member of the Chicago, Calumet, Washington Park, Ath-
letic and Commercial Clubs of Chicago, and the Union and New York Clubs of New
York City.
Lyman Everingham. Among the public-spirited men of Chicago who are widely
known for their integrity and honor, and who have the confidence and respect of busi-
ness men, is Mr. Lyman Everingham, the principal of the house of L. Everingham &
Co., commission merchants. He is the son of Rev. J. S. Everingham, a Baptist cler-
gyman, who, for half a century, was the pastor of several churches in central and
western New York, and who was widely known as one of the most progressive and
strong-minded preachers of the day. He was born at Geneva, N. Y., September 9,
1831, and his early life was passed in that picturesque village upon the shore of Sen-
eca Lake, whose rare beauty is scarcely equaled either in the Empire State or else-
where. Having graduated from Mexico Academy, Oswego County, N. Y., he, at the
age of twenty, accepted a clerkship in the office of the Buffalo, Corning & New York
Railroad at Corning, N. Y., the junctional point of connection with the New York &
Erie Railway. Feeling conscious of possessing ability, and having an unbounded
ambition to attain a high position, he performed his duties with the same enthusiasm
19
374 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO;
which has characterized his whole life. His unflinching perseverance and industry,
together with iron-clad principle and sterling worth, was very soon recognized, and
within two years he was promoted to the position of paymaster and auditor, which posi-
tion he filled with great credit to himself for three years. Being anxious to come
West and grow up with it, he resigned his position in 1856 and accepted the position
of freight agent at Milwaukee, Wis., of the LaCrosse & Milwaukee Railway, in which
position he remained for nine years, this railroad, in the meantime, being embraced
in the organization which gave birth to the great Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul sys-
tem. He was known as the " Model Agent," being courteous and gentlemanly under
all circumstances to the patrons of. the road. He was exceedingly popular with the
public, and when he resigned, in 1865, he was urged by the directors to remain, a
higher position being offered him. and with the request to name his own salary. Mr.
E. P. Bacon, the general freight agent of the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien division
of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad, resigned at the same time, both
resigning to enter into partnership to engage in a general commission business at
Milwaukee, under the style of Bacon & Everingham. Great success characterized
their business from the first. In 1874 Mr. Bacon retired from the firm, Mr. Evering-
ham continuing the business under the name of L. Everingham & Co., and moving to
Chicago in 1880 to take charge of their rapidly increasing business in that city.
During all of this period, notwithstanding disastrous panics, ruinous corners and fail-
ures without number, this house has never had a cloud upon its record, but has steadily
advanced in the confidence of the business world. For solid worth and integrity, it
has a reputation second to none in the country.
In February, 1891, Mr. Everingham was unanimously elected president of the
Columbia National Bank of Chicago, resigning this position, however, in October,
1892, his increasing business requiring his attention and time. He is a member of the
First Baptist Church of Chicago, of which he has been a deacon for many years. His
sympathy and interest in educational enterprises early led to his election as a trustee
of the Chicago University, and as a member of the executive board. He evinced
marked ability in Sunday-school work, and was the superintendent of the Sunday-
school of the First Baptist Church of Chicago until its responsibilities, added to large
business interests, compelled him to retire on account of failing health. He is very
active in all Christian and benevolent work, and takes an earnest interest therein, which
extends not alone to personal effort, but also to financial aid, as he has, on several
occasions, by prompt and generous impulse, been instrumental in saving church prop-
erty when seriously embarrassed financially.
He is a man of cheerful countenance and benignant appearance, having a friendly
word, a kindly smile, and a sympathetic heart for all. He is highly respected by the
community at large, honored by his business associates, and admired for his innate
honor and true Christian spirit.
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 375
John Russell Bensley. The subject of this sketch is one of the senior members
of the Board of Trade, and for thirty years has been one of its ablest counselors and
stanchest friends. Like many other active citizens of this ever-growing, pushing
Chicago, he is a native of the Empire State. His parents, Eaton and Sophia Bensley
(nee Russell) were residents of Erie County, N. Y., and in Springville, in that county,
he was born May I, 1833. His school days ended in 1851, when he commenced his
business education as a clerk in a general store at Springville. He was then only
eighteen years of age, but had inherited and cultivated those habits of industry and
self-reliance so necessary to success in life. So diligent was he in business and so
well adapted to the life he had chosen, that no one was surprised when, in 1854, at
the age of twenty-one, young Bensley purchased the interests of his employers, and
himself became the proprietor. Not content with the prospect offered in a country
village, he soon sought a wider field for his activities, and in 1857 removed to
Du Page County, 111., preparatory to casting his lot in Chicago. In May of 1858 he
settled here, and established a commission house at 247 Kinzie Street. He became a
member of the Board of Trade in the same year, and plunged boldly into Chicago
business life.
There were at that time ninety-six recognized commission houses in the city,
exclusive of forwarding and small produce houses, so that he was by no means
without competitors. He fought his way to the front, and for thirty years the firms
in which he was the controlling, partner were among the leading ones on 'Change.
As early as 1862 he associated with him in business his brother, George E. Bensley,
and that relation continued until 1888. The Board of Trade, in which Mr. Bensley
holds certificate of membership No. I, has repeatedly shown appreciation of his
character and business ability.
In 1868 he was elected a member of the committee of arbitration; in 1872 a
member of the board of directors; in 1874 second vice-president, and in 1876 (the
Centennial year) president; in 1877 he was elected a member of the committee of
appeals; in 1881 he was elected president of the grain, provision and stock (call)
board, and re-elected in 1882. In 1873 the governor of Illinois appointed him a
member of the State Committee of Appeals on grain inspection, and at various times
took cognizance of his wide knowledge of trade affairs. Devotion to the growth,
improvement and aggrandizement of the Board of Trade was Mr. Bensley's special
characteristic.
As a means necessary to the accomplishment of such results, he was constant in
his demand that the Board of Trade should own its home and control it for its own
purposes. In 1880 it became apparent that the quarters then occupied, at the corner
of La Salle and Washington Streets, were not sufficient for its uses, and a committee,
of which he was chairman, was created and clothed with the necessary power to pro-
cure a site on which the association might erect a structure suitable and sufficient for
376 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
all its purposes. It would be impossible in this article to give an adequate idea of the
difficulties lying in the way of the execution of this commission. It is sufficient to
say that after more than a year of uninterrupted effort, the present site on which the
magnificent temple of commerce stands, was procured at a mere nominal cost to the
Board of Trade. When Mr. Bensley deeded the property to the association for the
consideration of $40,000, its actual value was more than $700,000.
This done, a board of real estate managers was created by the Board of Trade, of
which Mr. Bensley was the recognized head. They were charged with the duty of
raising the necessary funds and erecting a building, such, as in their judgment, would
best conserve the interests of the Association. They borrowed $1,500,000 for the pur-
pose and commenced the work. For nearly four years Mr. Bensley devoted the
greater part of his time and energy to the completion of .the work. It was finished
in the early spring of 1885, and turned over to the Board of Trade by the real estate
managers the finest commercial building on the continent. With it was a rent roll
of the portions not needed for the use of the Association, in the princely sum of
$126,000 per annum. Thus was developed the great new business center of Chicago.
Mr. Bensley is said to regard this as the greatest achievement of his life.
In June, 1883, occurred the culmination of that stupendous and abnormal deal in
provisions on the Board of Trade commonly known as the " McGeoch lard corner."
The firm of McGeoch, Everingham & Co., had, by enormous purchases of lard, under-
taken to control the entire product of the country. As is usual in such cases, the coun-
try proved to be greater and stronger than any one firm, and a disastrous failure fol-
lowed, which staggered and benumbed the entire markets of the land.
In this connection Mr. Bensley is credited with one of the most remarkable feats
of commercial management known to this generation. Two days after the failure he
was appointed receiver by the court. He found the affairs of the concern in almost
inextricable confusion, with liabilities aggregating $6,000,000. Suits had been com-
menced in five different States. There were over 20O creditors. There had been a
frightful drop in prices of provisions, and the trade was in a state of collapse. Many
firms had failed on the board, and others were trembling in the balance. Mr. Bensley,
grasping the situation, and knowing that what was to be done must be done quickly,
threw his whole energies into the work of clearing the wreck and staying the panic.
In the incredibly short space of thirty-two days he had disposed of the suits,
realized on the mixed assets, paid $4,500,000 on the secured indebtedness, paid $750,-
OOO in settlement, at 50 per cent, on the unsecured liabilities of $1,500,000, and was
ready to close his receivership. The prompt distribution of the money among the
suffering creditors furnished a much needed relief, and was hailed with delight by all
parties interested. The entire expense of this settlement and distribution, including
clerk hire, rent, attorneys' fees, and the receiver's compensation was less than one-
third of one per cent, on the amount involved. It raised a murmur of wonder in finan-
to
o
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 379
cial circles, and elicited favorable comment from the press of this country and that of
Great Britain.
In 1868 Mr. Bensley removed his residence to Hyde Park. Soon after this, village
government was established there. In 1875 he was elected a trustee of that munici-
pality, and re-elected in 1876 and 1877, and made president of the board in the cen-
tennial and following year. He then declined further office, but has always interested
himself in National, State, and local politics, never failing to go out to work when
the interests of good government were at stake. He is an uncompromising temper-
ance man, a staunch Republican, and has been a member of the Union League ever
since its organization.
He was married in 1854 to Miss Mary A. White, of his native village, who died
in 1862. In 1863 he was again married to Miss Augusta F. Fuller, daughter of
Elijah Fuller of Castile, N. Y. By the second marriage he has two children.
Martha S. and John R., Jr. Mr. Bensley freely ascribes much of his success to the
powerful auxiliaries of home influences, where he has always been seconded by
intelligent, courageous, self-sacrificing support.
Portus Baxter Weare. There are in Chicago a few men remaining who serve as
living links between the old Chicago and the new. One of these, Mr. Portus Baxter
Weare, in his own experience was an emissary in the trade that was carried on in a
somewhat personal way between Chicago and the wilds of the far West and North-
west. It was as a buyer of bison skins that he made long and lonely journeys out
into almost unknown regions to return and, as buffalo robes, sell them to a large and
increasing trade in that line throughout the ever widening agricultural and lumbering
country tributary to the growing city. His was a business which he transacted partly
in the metropolis of the new West and partly in the far distant frontier trading posts,
and no man had a better opportunity than he had to study the characteristics of the
sections of country and their people, upon whose development and increase the city
by the lake would have to depend for its trade demands and for at least a portion of
its supply of raw materials.
He early identified himself with the city's commercial institutions and was,
directly and indirectly, a factor in its rapid growth in commercial importance. It
must be borne in mind that Chicago is a young city. Mr. Weare is certainly not an
old man, for he was born as late as 1842, at Otsego, Allegan county, Mich. Had he
been a day older he would have been a year older, as years are counted, for he came
into the world on January 1st. When he was three years old, his father, John Weare,
moved with his family to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. There the senior W'eare became
closely and prominently identified with the banking and railroad interests of the State.
Young Weare was educated in the best schools in Cedar Rapids. At the death
of his mother, in 1858, he went to Sioux City, Iowa, and there, during the ensuing
three years, received a valuable business training in the banking house of Weare &
380 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Allison. He came to Chicago in 1862 and became a member of the firm of H. W.
Rogers & Co., grain merchants, with which he was identified until 1865, when he con-
cluded to engage in business by himself.
At that time his largest trade was in buffalo robes, of which he handled often as
many as 25,000 a year. His trips to Montana, Wyoming, Dakota and Idaho in con-
nection with that business made him thoroughly conversant with that country and its
resources, and such knowledge thus gained he made use of in later years by engaging
in the i%nge cattle industry. He organized two important joint stock corporations, the
Weare Eand^ and Live Stock Company and the Hulburt Land and Cattle Company,
with a CQ^vfei'fed capital of $i, 200,000, of which companies he is still at the head,
personally tltrec'ting their important interests. Thus, in another way, he contributed
largely to reiser an important portion of the great Northwest tributary to Chicago
and her trade/i.
After carrying on, for many years, a large and successful grain and produce
business, he ceased to deal in produce and turned his attention to grain exclusively,
and, in the interest of the Chicago & North-Western Railway Company, devotes much
of his time and conspicuous business ability to the supervision of that company's
eight great terminal elevators in this city, of which he has for some years been sole
responsible manager. Mr. Weare, Andrew J. Sawyer of Duluth, and F. H. Peavey
of Minneapolis, built three elevators with a capacity of 5,000,000 bushels at Duluth,
believed to be the largest grain storage plant in the world, and are yet operating the
same.
Mr. Weare was one of the organizers, and a member of the first Board of Trustees,
of the Illinois Club in 18/8. He has been prominent in the Board of Trade and
othewise helpfully identified with the city's most important and significant interests.
His success has been won by foresight, originality, energy and perseverence, and he
is as truly a " Slf made man " as any whose lives are interwoven with the history of
Chicago.
James Camburn Bohart. Could the influence of the German element of Chicago's
population upon her marvelous growth and prosperity be correctly set forth it would
cause astonishment. There can be no doubt that it has been as potent as that of any other
nationality other than the purely Anglo-American. In every walk of life, industrial,
manufacturing, commercial, professional and official, the German and his son and
grandson have been conspicuous by their works and the influence they have exerted
on the processes of enlightenment and development in all parts of the city.
The sturdy, industrious, thrifty German character insures good citizenship, for it
is undeniable that, within legitimate limits, that man best serves his country who best
cares for himself and insures his own prosperity. One of the leading German-Ameri-
can citizens of Chicago is the gentleman whose name appears above. Mr. Bohart was
born in Clark County, Ind., December 12, 1848, a son of Peter and Nancy (Clegg)
1 /? -j-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 383
Bohart. His father was born in Germany in 1800, and at six years of age came with
his parents to the United States and located in Maryland. There he lived until he had
attained his majority, then came West and settled in Clark County, Ind., where he
was one of the pioneers. He was a cooper by trade, and his first success in the Indi-
ana wilderness was gained by manufacturing barrels and hauling them to Jefferson-
ville and selling them.
In time he was enabled to invest in land, and, becoming a farmer and land owner,
gained a position among the wealthiest farmers and land owners in that part of the
county. Before his death, which occurred in 1861, he gave to each of his thirteen
children fifty acres of Clark County land, and still owned the large farm upon which
he had lived for forty years, and upon which he died. He cleared hundreds of acres
of that wild region and made them to bloom like the rose. He left a reputation
untarnished by any unworthy act, and a good name that has been his children's dear-
est heritage.
The Cleggs are an old American family, as the antiquity of American families is
estimated, and it has had numerous representatives in places of honor and- responsi-
bility, and many of the name are among our leading business men north, south, east
and west. Nancy Clegg, Mr. Bohart's mother, was born in Ohio in 1808, and died in
Missouri when in her seventy-third year. She was a woman of many virtues, a devoted
wife, an affectionate mother, who made the world better for her having lived in it.
Mr. and Mrs. Bohart were lifelong members of the Presbyterian Church, and worked
zealously to implant it amid the primitive condition of the new country, in which the
years of their prime were passed.
James C. Bohart, the twelfth in sequence of birth of the thirteen children of this
worthy couple, was brought up as a farmer's boy, and was blessed with only the
limited educational advantages afforded by the midwinter terms of the district school
near his home. In the spring of 1864, three years after his father's death, when he
was sixteen years old, he went to Nodaway County, Mo., there to begin active life
on his oyvn responsibility as a stockraiser and dealer.
This plan was not relinquished permanently, but its execution was deferred for
a time, in consequence of his enlistment, in August of that year, in Company -I,
Forty-eighth Missouri Volunteer Infantry. No man could live long in that border
country, with its population partly Unionist and partly secession in adherence, with-
out declaring himself. He must be one thing or another for the Union or against
it. This Hoosier youth did not pause at all to consider as to which cause he would
espouse.
He was one of the youngest soldiers in the war one of those boy-heroes, whose
history, could it be written as it deserves to be would make a more interesting,
a more inspiring book than many of the thousands of books on the war that have
been scattered over the country since the days of 1861 and 1865. He served
384 IND US TRIA L CHIC A G O :
until the end of the struggle, but he forbears to furnish any details concerning his
experience, as he followed the old flag over those southern hills and prairies; though it
is doubtful if any offer of money would tempt him, if it could be done, to blot from
his mind the memory of those troublous and adventurous months.
After the war he again took up his old plan of engaging in the live stock busi-
ness, and returning to Nodaway County. Since 1875 he has purchased, in Nodaway
County, 920 acres of land, divided into two farms, each supplied with every conven-
ience for housing, feeding, and caring for stock. He has fed as many as 3,000 head
of cattle on these farms in a single year (1892), and the people of that part of the
country testify that he has been an important factor in the development of the agri-
cultural interests of the county, by providing an always reliable market for large
quantities of corn.
There are, on these two farms, two large fish ponds, one of which was constructed
at a cost of $3,500, and is 600 feet long, 200 feet wide and 30 feet deep, and the other
pond is also very fine, but not so large. These ponds have been stocked for Mr. Bohart
by the United States Fish Commission, and arethe largest and finest in that part of the
country.
Mr. Bohart lived in Missouri until 1875, when he took up his residence in Chi-
cago, where the great success of his life has been made. He was married in 1866,
soon after his permanent establishment in Nodaway County, to Miss Cinda J. McRob-
erts, who has borne him six children. Of these, three Dr. William H., James Edwin
and Richard Clegg Bohart survive. Mary Ellen died in 1873 at the age of two and
a half years, Eliza J. and John C. Bohart, Jr., died in 1893, the first mentioned in Feb-
ruary, the last in December.
Immediately after coming to Chicago, Mr. Bohart established the nucleus of the
present large enterprise of the J. C. Bohart Commission Company, live stock commis-
sion merchants. The business was carried on from 1875 to 1894, a period of nineteen
years, under the name and sole management of J. C. Bohart, whose aim has always
been and will continue to be to conduct a strictly legitimate live stock commission
business. During the nearly two decades mentioned his operations at the yards were
more extensive than those of any other man in his line in the city.
The J. C. Bohart Commission Company was incorporated under the laws of Illi-
nois in May, 1894, with a capital stock of $60,000, of which Mr. Bohart holds one-half.
Its officers are J. C. Bohart, president and general manager; Porter A. Thompson,
vice-president; John J. McRoberts, second vice-president; Field Bohart, treasurer, and
George Bohart, secretary. Its offices are at 23 Exchange building, Union Stock
Yards. It solicits the consignment of stock direct, and advises patrons by tele-
graph as to action taken, guaranteeing good pens and ready assistance in the disposal
of stock, and promising the most prompt attention to all business entrusted to it.
The enterprise, already important, is growing rapidly, and bids fair to rank with the
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 385
most extensive of its kind. It is an example of what may be accomplished in this
country by the well-directed effort and conservative management of an energetic and
far-seeing business man, giving to it his best thought and labor.
Mr. Bohart is in all things a public-spirited and helpful citizen, who has the
advancement of Chicago at heart, and is ever ready to assist its useful interests. In
politics he is an enthusiastic Republican and his influence in local and State politics
has been most significant for many years. He preserves war memories and retains
war associations by membership in Lincoln Post, No. 91, G. A. R., of which he is, per-
haps, the youngest member.
Mr. and Mrs. Bohart are communicants of the Methodist Episcopal Church, ever
alive to its growth and prosperity and liberal in their aid of all its material interests.
Melville Schuyler Nichols. The men who have lived for the last three-quarters
of a century in various parts of the Middle West and taken part in winning it to civ-
ilization have had an enviable experience. They are like the men who lived in the
time of Columbus and witnessed the discoveries and explorations of a new conti-
nent; like the founders of Australia; or, to go back in European history, the men
who witnessed the rise of the early empires that bordered the Mediterranean. They
have witnessed a migration of races such as the world has never seen, and beside
which that of the Goths and Vandals were small affairs. Besides this, the conscious-
ness of taking part in the building of the greatest republic of ancient or of modern
times is a source of satisfaction as great as it is an honor. Such has been the experi-
ence of the venerable Melville Schuyler Nichols, the well-known grain commission
merchant and member of the Board of Trade of Chicago, who has now retired from
active life.
The Nichols family are New York people for generations back. Philip Nichols,
Sr., the grandfather, lived from 1754 (October 21) to 1822 (December 13), dying
. when the subject of this sketch was but four years of age, and when Philip Nichols,
Jr., was a woolen cloth manufacturer at Sandy Hill, on the Hudson, about thirty
miles north of Albany, the capital. As Philip Nichols, Jr., was born on November 7,
1787, he was about forty-three years of age, near the year 1830, when he disposed of
his manufacturing plant at Sandy Hill and took his family into the interior of the
wilds of primitive New York. Locating at Albion in Orleans County for a time and
later at Medina, near there, he again engaged in woolen manufactures with success.
In the year 1818, on the 5th day of November, twelve years before Mr. Nichols sold
his Sandy Hill plant, a boy was born to them, to whom they gave the name Melville
Schuyler, the subject of this sketch. So when the Medina works were in full opera-
tion young Melville was put at work in the factory. He had not been there very long,
however, when he decided that he was cut out for something more wide-reaching than
a factory hand, and forthwith began to ply his father with arguments intended to per-
suade him to let the boy go forth for himself at the early age of fourteen or fifteen
386 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
years. Philip Nichols, no doubt, realized the strong stuff that was in the boy's inde-
pendent nature and had confidence in him, although he withheld his consent for a
long time, thinking the boy was scarcely in earnest and intimating that it was a case
of youthful rashness that would end up in a week or so by his return to the paternal
fold for something to eat. Young Melville's persistence, however, and his stout insist-
ence that he never would apply to his father, if he would only let him pick out his
own course, led Mr. Nichols to reluctantly consent.
Meanwhile young Mellville had answered a Rochester advertisement fora young
merchant's clerk, and, on receiving his father's consent, took the canal boat, said
good-bye to home and was soon in Rochester presenting himself to the firm of Hall
& Roberts. They found themselves mutually attracted, and young Nichols liked the
business of commerce. His success was at once assured, and it soon became evident
that his father would not be called upon for assistance. By industry and economy
he had saved some money by the time he was eighteen, and, as his very limited edu-
cation received before he left home did not satisfy his ambition, he went to Lima
Seminary, about twenty miles south of Rochester, where he took some advanced
studies.
About 1836 or 1837 young Nichols determined to go to Michigan by way of the
lakes, for there were no railways, and, after leaving Detroit, went sixty miles inland
to the village of Flint, which was situated among the Indians near the Chippewa
reservation. Securing a position in a general store that had a large trade with the
Indians, he was profitably engaged until 1839, and became very familiar with the
Indian language and customs.
At the latter date, however, he concluded to return to New York and embark in
salt manufacture at Syracuse. Although this was successful during the next six years,
Mr. Nichols, in 1845, returned to the West. Trying Detroit as a merchant during the
next four years, he was attracted to the rising cities on Lake Michigan, and thought
he saw larger opportunities in that direction. So in 1849 ne went around to Chicago
on his way to Milwaukee, for in those days it was uncertain which of the many
western ports of the lake was to be the metropolis. Stopping at Brown & Tuttle's
City Hotel in Chicago, Mr. Nichols recalls seeing crowds of " forty-niners " purchasing
their camp equipages for the long tour across the plains and mountains to the gold-
fields of the Pacific Coast. Arriving in Milwaukee, he engaged two years as manager
of the South Pier Company, and after a time in Alex. Mitchell's Fire and Marine Insur-
ance Company's Bank, engaged in the grain and commission business for himself.
This was the field in which he was destined to win his greatest successes, and he
remained there until the opening of the war, in i86i,when he removed to the strongest
city, Chicago, and there entered upon a most successful career as a grain and com-
mission merchant. He was now forty-three years of age, and his genius for commer-
cial operations led him to embark in enterprises of various kinds. Among them
7
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 389
was a cotton plantation down near Natchez, Miss., in which he had a considerable
interest. As might be supposed, the on-coming war meant a serious menace to much
of his accumulated property, and the menace finally became almost total destruction
through the action of the various armies that were so numerous and active in that
region. He soon recovered from all these misfortunes, however, and was better situ-
ated than before, when the great catastrophe of 1871 laid the city in ruins. His losses
were large, chiefly from stored grain in the elevators, which was all destroyed, but his
masterly ability in handling grain, with a keen knowledge of the markets and all that
controls them, soon raised him to higher successes than before. Indeed, by the early
part of the last decade, the volume of his business was surpassing every house of that
kind on the Chicago Board of Trade.
Mr. Nichols is now a venerable man of seventy-six years, still well preserved and
vigorous. He looks back upon an active and successful life of independence, cover-
ing a period of over sixty years, in which he has depended only on Melville
Schuyler Nichols. Thirty-three of these years have been spent amid the thriving scenes
of the growing metropolitan giantess of the West Chicago, the queen of the vastest
grain fields of the world. His ability and the sagacity with which Mr. Nichols
attached himself to this city's grain trade are among the chief sources of his success.
In recent years he has returned to the enjoyments of private life, leaving the more
active operations to the management of younger hands. Mr. Nichols is a firm believer
in and an advocate of the principles of the Republican party.
William Lewis Pierce. Probably no word has become a more characteristic and
familiar expression in the last two or three decades than the term organization, espe-
cially as it is applied to combination of men or women to effect any given purpose
which they may hold in common. Undoubtedly this is not only the highest and most
intricately differentiated form of human action, but is also the most powerful. It is to
human action what the various engines are to mechanical operation, and, like the en-
gines, it is, under the names corporation, association, union, society and board, trans-
forming multitudes of our human relations, and making new customs, laws, and prin-
ciples of action necessary. Indeed, these are "the giants of these days," beside,
which " the giants of those days " are mere pigmies.
The oldest form of this combination into a social organization is the army, whose
commanding general is both its heart and brain. In consequence, since there has
been such a wide and increasing use of organization in all the various commercial and
other activities of life, the term general has come to be used to indicate a like
function in these, while such new terms as organizer, promoter, manager and the like,
are earning such a significance for themselves. The comprehensive qualities of mind
which fit one for organization were once so rare as to invest them with the mystery
on which hero-worship is based. They are rare still, but in no country in the world
are so many generals raised in all the walks of life as in America, where every man is
390 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
also a king. An organizer, or general, like the poet, is born, not made, and among the
strongest illustrations of it in Chicago is the genial and well-known real estate man,
William L. Pierce, one of the fathers of the now powerful Real Estate Board of
this city.
Although a son of New York, born in that metropolis in 1843, Mr. Pierce spent
only the first seven years of childhood there, and the next seven were spent in Cin-
cinnati; so that in 1857, when his father removed to the vigorous but crude metropolis
on Lake Michigan, young Pierce was but fourteen years of age, and, in consequence,
the child of New York became the youth of Chicago.
The father of Mr. Pierce, a retired attorney, placed his son in the old University
of Chicago, whose turreted towers once rose from a greensward on the South Side,
and the young man at once became one of the popular leaders of college life. He
was but eighteen and nearing the close of his sophomore year when the Civil War
came on, and he was with difficulty held to his course a while longer. It succeeded
for but one more year, however, for in 1862 he enlisted in the One-Hundred-and
Thirty-fourth Illinois Volunteers, and spent two years in the service as a private,
declining to accept either detail or promotion during his entire term. It is sig-
nificant, however, of the esteem in which he was held by his comrades then and since,
that he is now president of his regimental organization, while it is also a recognition
of his skill as an executive and organizer. After these two years of military life, he
returned from his long vacation to the halls of the old university and finished his
senior year, graduating at the commencement of 186;. Unlike many college men, who
allow themselves to lose the youthful spirit of university life in the mazes of a
business career, Mr. Pierce has kept in close touch with his old-time fellowships, par-
ticularly in the associations of the Greek-letter fraternity of Zeta Psi. Even in his
college days he put into its operation so much enthusiasm and energy that its con-
tinuance through the succeeding years of a busy life led to its recognition in the
great general convention of the fraternity at New York, in 1889, in his election to the
highest office within their gift, the presidency of it. " His efficient service, limited to
one year by a regulation of the society," says a writer in The University Magazine,
" won him hosts of friends from Maine to California, and proved him the most
popular member of the fraternity who had ever held that office."
Scarcely a year beyond his majority when he left college, he began his business
career by purchasing a half interest in the commercial agencies of Tappan, McKillop
& Co., of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg and Washington, making his home in the
first mentioned city.
His residence in the East lasted but five years, however, and he returned to his
old home, the City on the Lake. Here he entered upon the career in which he has
shown himself a constructive organizer and leader. Probably no city in the world has
had a more remarkable real estate history than has the city of Chicago, particularly
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 391
since the year of the great fire, 1871, the year following Mr. Pierce's location. The
latter part of that year of the great conflagration saw the city composed of little else
than real estate, and the prospects for a complete reorganization of local values, due
to a probable change of business centers, as well as to the removal of objectionable
buildings that affected prices, caused an enormous transfer of land, reaching, between
the months of March and October of 1872, the princely sum of over $45,000,000.
This continued until the panic of 1873, when the remaining years of that decade fell
to very trying proportions before an improvement began. The decade beginning
with 1880 started in almost as heavily as the previous one, with 1881 and 1882 as par-
ticularly strong. The leaders in real estate dealings had already felt the advisability
and advantage of a union for certain purposes, particularly to correct abuses and
secure greater uniformity in the management of the trade. Efforts had not been very
successful until early in 1883, when about forty of the leading real estate men met
and through a committee on organization, of which Mr. Pierce was chairman, the
Real Estate and Renting Agents' Association of Chicago was formed, and on Febru-
ary 18, 1883, was incorporated in the names of William L. Pierce, William A. Meri-
gold and Edmund A. Cummings. Mr. Henry C. Morey was made its first president,
and Mr. Pierce its vice-president. Very soon, however, Mr. Pierce joined a movement
for reorganization, and the present Real Estate Board was the result. Since the year
of organization one of the events of the year in Chicago has been the annual banquet
of this board, which, while doing so much for its members, has also done so much for
Chicago itself. In most of these sumptuous affairs, Mr. Pierce has been chairman of
the executive committee, and his success has been happily recognized, as for example
in the presentation, in 1888, of a magnificent silver service costing $250. Probably none
of these banquets were more successful than the tenth, in which Mr. Pierce secured
the attendance of vice-president-elect of the United States, Adlai E. Stevenson, as
the guest of the evening. The board has, however, had far more serious business than
banquets, and has been, as has been said, one of the greatest powers in the promo-
tion of the city's welfare in a multitude of ways too numerous to even indicate here.
For many years the firm of which Mr. Pierce was senior member, was Pierce &
Ware, but since 1894, through the retirement of his partner, the firm has been William
L. Pierce & Co., at 145 La Salle Street, and now at 405 and 406 Chamber of Commerce
building.
Mr. Pierce has never been an office-seeker, but, being an uncompromising Repub-
lican, he was asked to make the fight for the assessorship in Hyde Park, in the well-
known citizens' movement, and was nominated by no less a personage than Dr. Ander-
son of Chicago University. As a member of the Hyde Park Council of the Royal
Arcanum, he had evinced so much of his characteristic energy and enthusiasm that
in 1890 he was made grand regent of the Grand Council of the State, in honor of
which his local council tendered him a banquet. Mr. Pierce is fond of the hook and
gun and was long president of the Grand Calumet Fishing and Shooting Club.
392 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
The ancestral and home relations of Mr. Pierce are both interesting. In 1878 he
was married to Miss Carrie L. Lyman, the daughter of C. H. P. Lyman, Esq., manager
of the old house of A. T. Stewart & Co., of New York, by the Rev. Edward Sullivan,
S. T. D., rector of Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church. Mrs. Pierce is a direct
descendant of the famous officer of the Revolution, Gen. Greene. Their children
areas follows: Bessie Lyman Pierce, born September 28, 1879; William Blake Pierce
and Florence Dennis Pierce (twins), born February 18, 1882, and John Green Pierce,
born May 12, 1884. It is a remarkable coincidence that the first ancestors of both
Mr. and Mrs. Pierce came over to this country in the same ocean vessel, "The Mary
and John." Mr. Pierce, himself, is a direct descendant of Mary Franklin, the sister
of our great scientist and statesman, Benjamin Franklin. His mother was the
daughter of Capt. Henry Peck, of an old Albany family, and who, with Isaac New-
ton, was a large ship owner in the first half of this century, historically known as the
owners of the first line of steamboats in this country, a line which operated on the
Hudson River. Mr. Pierce's father, W. B. Pierce, spent much of his later years in
travel, and died in Chicago on October 10, 1888, at the ripe age of seventy-three. The
grandfather of Mr. Pierce, the Rev. Dr. John Pierce, of Boston, was a Unitarian
clergyman, who, for many years was both State Historian of Massachusetts, and sec-
retary of Harvard College.
Orrington Lunt, who became a resident of Chicago in November, 1842, was born
in Bowdoinham, Me., on Christmas eve, December 24, 1815. He came of old New
England stock, for his first American ancestor Henry Lunt was a grantee in the
original allotment of land in Newburyport, Mass., in 1635, an d m '638 was made a
freeman of the colony. His grandmother was a daughter of Gen. Joseph Vose of
Revolutionary fame, who was one of the founders of the society of the Cincinnati.
William Lunt, his father, represented at one time his county in the Maine Legislat-
ure. He was a merchant in the little town of Bowdoinham, Me., and enjoyed the
esteem and the confidence of the whole community. The mother of Orrington was a
Sumner, of the same lineage as Gov. Sumner, of Massachusetts.
The vigorous and intelligent lad acquired what education he could obtain at the
village school and then entered his father's store. Arrived at his majority he was
taken into partnership and when, a few years afterward, his father retired from the
business he continued to conduct it in partnership with his brother.
But Bowdoinham was too small and too slow a place for his active and enterpris-
ing nature. So when he married, on January 16, 1842, Miss Cornelia A. Gray, a
daughter of the Hon. Samuel Gray, of Bowdoinham, he and his young wife deter-
mined to try their fortune in the then distant and unknown West. He sold out his
interests in Maine and in November of the same year the young couple arrived in
Chicago. The town according to the census of 1840 had a population of less than
5,000. Immigrants were arriving frequently but times were dull and the surrounding
I*. >-
<s>
ar
Uj
THE COMMERCIAL JXTERESTS. 395
country was only sparsely settled. Yet the men he found in the new city by the lake
were full of strength and eager hope. He determined to cast in his lot with theirs,
for he too was strong and sanguine, self-reliant and enterprising. He opened a com-
mission business in grain, shipping it in small quantities to the East. In those days
it had to be hauled by the farmers in their wagons to Chicago, sometimes coming
from distant fields in Indiana and from the prairies of central Illinois. At Chicago
it was transferred to boats and thence transported eastward by way of the lakes. The
business gradually increased and in 1845 Mr Lunt leased a lot fronting on the river
and erected there a warehouse having a storage capacity of 100,000 bushels, no mean
capacity for that ''day of small things." These years of comparative prosperity made
him the possessor of several thousand dollars. He ventured and he lost them in a
promising speculation in grain. He was now compelled to begin again without capi-
tal, not without experience though, for he never speculated again. And he was noted
ever afterward for his cautious and conservative sagacity. In the year 1853 Mr. Lunt
leased his warehouse on the river and retired temporarily from the handling of grain.
But he kept himself familiar with the transactions of the Board of Trade to which he
belonged from its organization and of which he had been a director. In 1859 he
re-entered the commission business, this time with his brother, Stephen P. Lunt, as
partner. The operations of the new firm soon became extensive, the city and the
surrounding country were filling up with great rapidity, their careful and energetic
management attracted confidence and custom, and they handled annually 3,500,000
bushels of grain.
From this partnership Mr. Lunt retired in 1862, and the elevator on the river front
perished in the great fire of 1871. He now engaged in other forms of commercial
activity. Like most Chicago men of the early period, he made investments in real
estate. He became interested, also, in fire and life insurance, being a director of the
Chicago Fireman's and the Chicago Mutual Companies. He devoted much attention
to railroad enterprises, particularly to the Galena & Chicago Railway, of which he was
a director from 1855 until the road was absorbed into the Chicago & North-Western
system, the last two years its vice-president. But Mr. Lunt, notwithstanding this
business activity, found time and thought and energy for the public welfare also. In
1853 he was appointed a member of the committee of the Board of Trade to visit
Washington and urge upon Congress the improvement of the harbor. In 1855 he was
elected a water commissioner of the south division of the city, which honorable posi-
tion he held for six years, when the various city departments were consolidated in the
Board of Public Works. During the last three years he served as treasurer, and then
as president of the board. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the
Board of Trade, and when the war broke out in 1861 he was appointed on the " War
Finance Committee." When the great fire desolated the city and reduced multitudes
to want, he became at once a member of the " Relief and Aid Society " and served
396 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
devotedly upon the special relief committee until the emergency was over. In 1877
he was elected president of the trustees of the Care Fund for the lot owners of Rose
Hill Cemetery and is now their treasurer. Under the skillful and faithful management
of these trustees, $100,000 have been collected for the lot owners and invested for
them in city and Cook County bonds.
Orrington Lunt is not only one of the pioneer citizens, but he is also one of the
pioneer Christians of Chicago. In his twentieth year, while still a resident of Maine,
he became a member of the Methodist Church, and throughout his long career he has
given it most generous, though always unostentatious, service; never obtrusive of his
opinions or of his feelings, of his faith or of his works, yet he has borne, on all days
and in all places, a faithful and a fruitful witness to the power of his Master. His
membership he held at the Clark Street Methodist Church in Chicago, but his energy
and sympathy and sagacity were felt in every forward movement of his denomination
and in every important inter-denominational enterprise. A liberal man at the begin-
ning of his Christian life, when his means were very slender, his benefactions increased
in variety and magnitude with his enlarging fortune.
Quinn Chapel was built in 1847 to shelter a little congregation that endured much
persecution for their anti-slavery convictions. Mr. Lunt bought for them the lot at
the corner of Jackson and Buffalo Streets, on which the chapel was erected, and when
the people found it difficult to meet the stipulated payment ($600) he contributed
largely toward the amount. In 1848, realizing the necessity of a church edifice farther
south, he bought a lot for $1,600, which he offered to the Clark Street Church at the
purchase price, less his own contribution of Sioo. This offer he held open for five
years and the Wabash Avenue Methodist Church was the result of his foresight and
his generosity. To its erection he contributed liberally; he is still a trustee and
treasurer of the board which owns the large and valuable corner of Wabash Avenue
and Fourteenth Street.
These are but instances of his readiness to help feeble congregations and his
energetic eagerness to further the progress of the church he loves. But his chief
interest was in Christian education. He was, and is now, a trustee of the Young
Men's Christian Association; he was an early benefactor of the Chicago Orphan
Asylum, and in 1854 he became a trustee of the Dearborn Seminary, which, after a
trying struggle, succeeded in erecting its building in 1857.
The institution, however, that is most indebted to Orrington Lunt, and with which
his name will be enduringly associated, is the Northwestern University.
When the wiser and more generous Methodists of the Northwest organized to
establish a university he was one of the charter trustees. He was among the first to
make liberal subscriptions for the daring enterprise, and he discovered the beautiful
grove along the lake shore on which the buildings of the university now stand, and
about which the city of Evanston has grown. In addition to his original contributions
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 397
Mr. Lunt has given the university a tract of land now valued at more than $100,000,
which the trustees have set aside as an endowment fund for the Orrington Lunt
Library. And desiring to render possible the erection of a suitable library building,
he gave them also the sum of $50,000, half the estimated cost of the building now in
process of completion. This splendid building is of Bedford stone, exquisitely simple
but beautiful in style; strong, graceful, and enduring, it is at once the finest structure
on the campus and a fitting memorial of the man whose name it perpetuates in the
letters carved upon its noble entrance.
The Garret Biblical Institute, established at Evanston in 1855, i s another favorite
object of Mr. Lunt's solicitude and generosity. He was one of its charter trustees;
he has been its secretary, treasurer and business manager from its beginning until
now. Mr. Lunt has three children, Miss Cornelia G. Lunt, a lady of fine culture and
of philanthropic purposes, of quick and large intelligence and of great energy; Mr.
Horace Lunt, an alumnus of Harvard University, and a lawyer of distinguished ability,
now residing in Colorado, and Mr. George Lunt, a business man of high character,
living in Chicago.
January 16, 1892, Mr. and Mrs. Lunt celebrated, at their residence in Evanston,
their golden wedding. Nearly fifty years had elapsed since the newly wedded pair
had turned their hopeful eyes toward Chicago; nearly fifty years since with youthful
courage, they had made their venture to the unknown West. What wonders they had
seen! Of what marvelous achievements they had been themselves a part! It was
indeed a notable company that assembled to greet this pioneer citizen; to bring to
him and his honored wife the congratulations of the community and the gratitude of
thousands. Relatives and associates, merchants and lawyers and clergymen and phy-
sicians from the great city, officers and professors of the University, neighbors and
friends from near and far, came together in his beautiful home, glad to do homage to
a life so simply noble and so quietly beneficent. The kind words of those who were
present and the frequent and hearty messages of the absent, all united to proclaim:
" This is the man that his friends delight to honor." This unstinted appreciation,
these expressions of love and admiration and reverence, were the fitting coronation
of a life so rich in helpfulness, so radiant with intelligent benevolence, so thoroughly
alive with kindly energy; a life at once so human and so Christian, so gracious, so
manly, and so true.
20
INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
CHAPTER XI.
PROMINENT WHOLESALE, MBRGHfVNTS.
[dson Keith, Sr. For a couple of years past the press of all parts of the world
has devoted much space to analyses and estimates of the character of the
new metropolitan giant, whose unprecedented career has compelled their consider-
ation and admiration. They have attributed its greatness to the lakes, to the rail-
ways, to the greatest and most productive of the world's valleys which it dominates,
and to the burning out of its dross in one of the greatest conflagrations of history.
Some have sought the secret in the personnel of her great leaders, and others have
found it in her wonderful unity of action, by which she has gained the famous motto,
" I Will." But probably nothing has eluded the explanations of the entire press so
much as the secret by which a great commercial metropolis suddenly becomes the
creator of the most wonderful vision of art of modern times. There are men in Chi-
cago who are in themselves the explanation of it, and no better type of this class can
be chosen than Edson Keith, Sr., who has long been the active head of the several
great commercial houses of the Keith Brothers.
The Keith family is an old and prominent one of Scotland, where they gave their
name to the town that now bears it in that country. The founder of the American
branch of the family, Rev. James Keith, came to this country about 1630, and located
at Bridgewater, Massachusetts colony, and among others of his descendants was
Martin Keith, who was born at Uxbridge, Mass., although he spent nearly all his life
in Vermont. In due time he married Miss Betsy, the daughter of a well-known farmer,
Bartholomew French, of Windsor County, that State, and the young couple made
a home in Washington County, at the town of Barre, where they spent a life of that
high and earnest religious character that has been the glory of the American farmer
of the Green Mountain State, and indeed of all New England. Here, too, was born
and reared a family of six children, among whom the sons, Osborn Rensselaer, born
in 1831, Edson, born in 1833, an< ^ Elbridge Gerry, born in 1840, were to become lead-
ers in the great metropolis of the West, which was just incorporated as a village the
year Edson was borrt.
As Osborn and Edson were so nearly of an age, and Elbridge several years
younger, it was natural that the first two should become settled in life before the
younger joined them; for they were all born with a genius for commerce and finance, and
were inclined to cast their lots together. Osborn, born on September 24, 1831, and
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 401
Edson, on January 28, 1833, attended the local public schools and academies, the
former attending Bakersfield Academy, and both, having a local clerkship and school
life, respectively, in 1850, went to their neighboring State capital, Montpelier, to win
their way in commercial affairs. Osborn was now nineteen and Edson about seven-
teen, and their experience as clerks soon gave them the confidence which prompted
them to embark in larger fields, with a view to beginning a business of their own as
soon as possible.
Chicago was then attracting great attention as a distributing center, and in 1854
these brothers removed to that point, where Osborn became traveling salesman for
the wholesale millinery house of D. B. Fisk & Co., and Edson became a clerk for the
wholesale hat, cap and fur house of Benedict, Mallory & Farnum. Four years later
the elder brother organized a wholesale millinery house of his own with A. E. Faxon,
and two years later Edson joined them, with hats, caps and fur, and the firm of Keith,
Faxon & Co. entered upon that prosperous career of the war period.
During this time, the younger brother, Elbridge, whose birth, on July 16, 1840,
made him a young man of twenty-five when the war closed, had been educated as had
his brothers, had begun a clerkship at fifteen and come to Chicago in 1857, spent
six months as clerk in the wholesale millinery store of W. W. Secombe, and now after
several years as clerk in his brothers' firm, was in 1865 a full partner in place of Mr.
Faxon, retired, with the firm title changed to Keith Brothers. This wholesale house
of the Keiths was in 1865 already one of the four largest institutions of this marvel-
ously growing West and its equally wonderful commercial capital, Chicago, and for
the next fourteen years they gained a reputation as one of the first leaders in the job-
bing, manufacturing and importing trade which they represented. This was done, too,
in the face of the large losses of the great fire, after which they were among the first
to rebuild one of those palaces of trade that rose from the ashes of the Phcenix City.
The growth of their trade in the remaining years of the decade was as phenomenal as
that of the city itself.
For five years, from 1879 to 1884, Osborn Keith retired to form a new firm of
O. R. Keith & Co., but the two companies were consolidated under the present firm
title of Edson Keith & Co., and in 1887, after twenty-three years of activity in Chicago
commerce, Osborn Keith retired to private life and the management of his accumu-
lated wealth, leaving Edson Keith as the senior manager of the great firm's opera-
tions again.
Osborn Keith was married in 1871,10 Miss Mary W., the daughter of Ralph Wood-
ruff, of Ottawa, 111., and has a son and daughter. The family has spent much time in
foreign travel before and since Mr. Keith's retirement. He was appointed in 1878,
with Dr. John M. Gregory, of Champaign, to represent Illinois at the Paris Exposi-
tion of that date. He is a member of the Union League and Calumet Clubs, of which
latter he was vice-president in 1892.
The year preceding the consolidation of 1884, the younger brother, Elbridge G.
402 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Keith, had retired also to establish the firm of Keith, Benham & Dezendorf, and his
talents as a financier, led him, in 1884, to be chosen president of the newly-organized
Metropolitan National Bank of Chicago, to whose duties, since its second year, he has
given his entire attention. A chairman of the finance and art committees of the great
Exposition, a leader in the convention that nominated Garfield, Mr. Keith has been
active in benevolent and religious life as a member of Christ's Reformed Episcopal
Church, and so prominent in the service of education that the Keith School was raised
in his honor. He was married in December, 1860, to Miss Harriet S., a daughter of
Joseph Hall, of Dayton, 111., and has four sons and one daughter. Elbridge Keith's
retirement in 1883, and that of Osborn in 1887, left the real management of the great
wholesale house in the hands of Edson Keith, to whose skill the vast operations of
their trade is so largely due. The fur and men's hat department has been reorganized
and separated into the firm known as Keith Brothers, on Adams Street, of which
Edson Keith is also president. With that versatile capacity for organizing and admin-
istrative ability, for which he is so well known, Edson Keith constitutes in himself the
firm of Keith & Co., which controls a large terminal grain elevator, and is a director in
both the Metropolitan National Bank and the Edison Electric Light Company.
These are purely business affairs, however, and constitute only a part of his wonder-
fully resourceful activities as a type of the men who are the final explanation of Chi-
cago's greatness.
He was one of the founders of the Calumet Club, and for three years served as its
president. In the Commercial, the Chicago, and the Union League Clubs he is an
active leader, and is a member of the New York Club known as the Union League.
With others of the Commercial Club, which supports it, he is interested in the school
of Manual Training, and is on its directory. Mr. Keith has been one of the most vig-
orous and efficient promoters of art, in all its forms, in Chicago, and has been one of
those who have fostered its cultivation in such an unostentatious way for many years
that the fruitage of recent days awakens surprise. He has spent much time in Europe
in the study of art and has used his knowledge at home like a constructive statesman.
One of the leading promoters of the Art Institution, he has long served as its vice-
president, while in municipal life he has represented the highest ideals, as is indi-
cated by the fact that he was one of the organizers of the Citizens' Association of
Chicago.
Mr. Keith was married in 1860 to Miss Sue Woodruff, a daughter of one of Chi-
cago's oldest pioneers. They have two sons. The elder, Edson Keith, Jr., is a
graduate of the Yale class of 1884 and of the Columbia College of Law; the younger,
Walter W. Keith, received his diploma in Yale College in 1892.
Mr. Keith is in his fullest prime, a man of cultured tastes and refinement, a most
interesting conversationalist, and, above all, one of those characters whose long career
in the midst of commercial operations of the greatest moment is one of stainless and
unimpeachable integrity.
O a sDCGil Brothers. Hillisliers. Chicago .
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 405
Henry W. King first came to Chicago in February, 1854, and immediately engaged
in the ready-made clothing business, which was then in its infancy in the United
States. The industry was undergoing a transformation. The old-time tailoring busi-
ness was fast disappearing, and the new one of ready-made clothing was supplanting
it in accordance with the progressive spirit of the new era. The possibilities at that
time for the development of the business in Chicago were practically unlimited, and
this fact was largely foreseen by Mr. King.
At first the partnership here was known as Barrett, King & Co., and the place of
business was on South Water Street near Fifth Avenue, in the vicinity of which nearly
all the wholesale interests of the city were then concentrated. It must be remem-
bered that in 1854 Chicago, while very active, was still a comparatively small town
(having then only 60,000), and had done, up to that date, very little wholesaling in
clothing, groceries, etc. In fact, at the time of the establishment of the house of
Barrett, King & Co., there was but one other wholesale clothing house in the city.
The firm began active operations at once. The first year their sales amounted to
$154,000, which, at that time, was considered, and was, a trade of great magnitude.
Their business continued to expand throughout the West, and the number of salesmen
and employes increased until at the time of the war the firm was enjoying a very large
and profitable business.
In 1864, after a successful career of ten years, the firm of Barrett, King & Co. was
dissolved," and that of King, Kellogg & Co. was formed, and the new house took up
its quarters at the east end of Lake Street, where the wholesale trade was centering.
The old business was continued by the new firm, and carried on until 1868, when the
style of the firm became Henry W. King & Co., and thus it has since been known. In
1871, when the great fire reduced Chicago to ashes, it looked, at first, as if the city
was dead. Whittier, the poet, wrote of it:
" On three-score spires had sunset shone,
Where ghastly sunrise looked on none;
Men clasped each other's hands and said:
The City of the West is dead."
But the fire was only the crucial test of the greatness and grandeur of the " City
of the West." Every interest sprang into fresh, active life. Trade was resumed every-
where, in temporary sheds, or even in the open air. The firm of Henry W. King &
Co. suffered a loss of $550,000; but through the favor of Wirt Dexter, attorney of the
Michigan Central Railroad, who placed freight cars at their disposal, they were enabled
to save $100,000 worth of stock. The depot caught fire while they were engaged in
loading the cars, and they were forced to suspend their operations, or more could have
been saved. The goods were removed to Michigan City, where they were stored for
two weeks, at the end of which time the firm had secured temporary quarters at the corner
of Canal and West Washington Streets. Here they promptly resumed business with
the stock that had been saved and with new goods sent on from their factory in the
East.
406 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
In 1872 they removed to the Farwell block, on Market Street; three years later to
the corner of Franklin and Madison Streets, and two years ago to their present quar-
ters, at the corner of Adams and Market Streets. Their business has rapidly increased
until it has assumed gigantic proportions. Mr. King has been, from the start, the gen-
eral manager and guiding spirit of the house. Two members of the firm are residents
of New York, where all the manufacturing is done. In addition to their extraordinary
wholesale trade, they have a very large and lucrative retail trade, with stores at New
York, Boston, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Omaha, St. Louis, Minneapolis, St. Paul,
Cincinnati, Milwaukee and Chicago. All the great retail business, in order that it may
be kept distinct from the wholesale, is done under the name of Browning, King &
Co., though the two houses are one and the same. This consolidation of wholesale
and retail business, each itself an interest of great extent, constitutes the firm the
greatest of its kind in the United States and probably in the world. The trade of 1891
reached the extraordinary figure of nearly $6,000,000. No one but an experienced
business man can comprehend that sum when applied to the clothing trade. It is one
of the marvels of this remarkable city. The firm employs 5,000 persons, and that
figure excites as much astonishment as the other. But the people of Chicago have
become so familiar with long rows of figures that they fail any longer to arouse
comment or surprise. We expect such things as a matter of course. But let us
learn more of the man whose intelligence, integrity and energy have built up so colos-
sal a trade.
Henry W. King was born in the great Empire State, in the County of Lewis,
and was there reared and educated. He was surrounded with good influence, blessed
with good parents, who appreciated life and were fully aware of its responsibili-
ties. When he was yet in his early twenties he came to Chicago, and here his lot
has since been cast. It dwarfs the spirit to be confined too closely to business.
Life has many rosy sides, and the largest sum of happiness is conferred upon those
who vary their accomplishments and expand their views. Some look aside from
business to glance at philosophy, science, religion, art or philanthropy. It makes
them sympathetic, whole-souled, in love with life, enraptured with the joy that fills
the soul when liberty, love, charity, and faith are cherished. Mr. King's nature was
too artistic to be confined to the plodding details of mercenary pursuits. He began
to look aside and enjoy the promptings of his emotional nature. His interests and
talents in philanthropy were soon manifested and appreciated. The demands upon
him brought him out. He was one of the founders of the Chicago Relief and Aid
Society, which has relieved so much distress and done so much good among the
poor of this city. From 1871 to 1874, when so much depended upon the society,
and when so much money was expended, the contributions of the whole world to
the burned-out city ($5,000,000), he was its president and directing spirit. He is to
this day actively connected with this benevolent institution, having been its treas-
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 409
urer since 1873. He has served as an official of the Chicago Nursery and Half-
orphan Asylum and of the Old People's Home. He is very useful and prominent
in religious circles, is a member and an elder of the Fourth Presbyterian Church, and
is also chairman of the board of trustees of the McCormick Theological Seminary, an
institution which is the pride of the city. Everywhere he has built up a splendid rep-
utation for integrity and humanity. Such implicit faith and unswerving confidence
have the public in the magnificent business ability and uncompromising integrity of
Mr. King, that, while acting in the capacity of executor for large estates, where many
thousands of dollars have been involved, he has never been required to give bond. It
is in such citizens that Chicago takes its greatest pride.
He has engaged in other branches of business besides ready-made clothing. For
twenty-five years he has been one of the directors of the Commercial National
Bank. He is one of the trustees of the Chicago Real Estate Trust, and one of the
directors for the United States for the London and Liverpool and Globe Insurance
Company. He is well preserved, and stands among the leaders of all movements
which have for their object the development of this city, the relief of distress, and the
education and moral training of youth. Mr. King is a Republican and a member of
the Chicago Club.
In 1858 he was united in marriage with Aurelia, only daughter of John R. Case,
one of the old settlers of Chicago.
William Blair. Among the various branches of trade which have assisted, and at
the same time been fostered by, the phenomenal growth of Chicago, there are few
which, in all periods of the history of the city, have been more important than that of
hardware, which in some manner enters into about all of the visible enterprises in
every community. A list of those conspicuous here in this trade would reveal many
names which have come to be honored wherever they are known, and at the very
head of such a list should appear the name of William Blair, who may be regarded as
having been in every correct sense the founder of the wholesale hardware trade in this
city, as is demonstrated by the following briefly-stated facts inseparable from the his-
tory of that interest. In August, 1842, more than half a century ago, Mr. Blair came
to Chicago and opened a small store at Dearborn and South Water Streets. In this
concern his brother, Chauncey B. Blair, a resident of Michigan City, Ind., purchased
an interest about two years later, though the business remained under the sole man-
agement of William Blair, Chauncey B. being a non-resident partner. With capital
thuS increased, Mr. Blair built up the wholesale trade and enlarged the capacity of the
house to meet it, introducing iron as a prominent feature. A warehouse, quite
extensive for that time, was opened at 75 Lake Street. In 1846 Mr. Blair acquired
the interest of his brother, and admitted his brother-in-law, William E. Stimson, to a
partnership in the enterprise. The firm of Blair & Stimson soon ceased to exist, how-
ever, on account of the ill-health of Mr. Stimson. A more commodious plant at 103
410 IND US TRIA L CHIC A G O .
Lake Street was obtained in 1847, an d ' n 1848 a building for the further convenience
of the business was erected by Mr. Blair on a lot, which he purchased, at 176 Lake
Street. After the withdrawal of Mr. Stimson, and until 1853, Mr. Blair conducted the
business alone, with marked ability and success. In the year last mentioned C. B.
Nelson, who for some years had been in charge of the books of the house, became
Mr. Blair's partner, the firm name at that time becoming William Blair & Co. It was
in the year 1853 also that the firm of E. G. Hall & Co. was organized by Mr. Blair
and E. G. Hall, a former salesman in the Lake Street store. This house was located
on South Water Street, and did a large business until Mr. Blair's withdrawal from his
connection with it in 1860.
Meantime, in 1856, the firm of William Blair & Co. had been changed in its com-
position by the admission of O. W. Belden, who had been another trusted helper in
the enterprise. By 1865 the business had outgrown its enlarged quarters, and Mr. Blair
was compelled to erect a large building at 179 and 181 Randolph Street. This was
doomed to destruction in the great fire six years later, but while the smoke yet
ascended from its site the firm was installed, at least temporarily, at 30 and 32 South
Canal Street, and the manner in which they supplied the unprecedented demand upon
it for builders' hardware which followed the great conflagration excited the admi-
ration of the retail hardware trade. On the first day of October, 1872, a little less than
one year after the destruction of the old quarters on Randolph Street, Mr. Blair built
and had ready for occupancy a new five-story building at 172 to 176 Lake Street and
not long thereafter the structure at 179 and 181 Randolph Street was replaced by
another larger and in every way more suitable to the increasing demands of general
trade. James M. Horton was admitted to the firm in January, 1871, Augustus O.
Hall, in 1873, and Edward Tyler Blair, a son of the senior partner, in 1880. In Janu-
ary, 1888, at the expiration of forty-six busy years, during which he had built up
this pioneer enterprise until he was at the head of the most profitable hardware trade
in the West, Mr. Blair and his son retired, and the firm of William Blair & Co., was
succeeded by Horton, Gilmore, McWilliams & Co.
This is the all-too-curtly-expressed history of the first exclusively wholesale
hardware house in Chicago. From its very beginning until his well-earned retirement,
without an interruption, Mr. Blair continued at its head. It was the oldest hardware
house in the city, the firm name of William Blair & Co. .having been among the old-
est of any kind in any line of business. When its retail department was discontinued
it was the only wholesale hardware house in the West outside of St. Louis.
Mr. Blair's retirement from the hardware trade was in itself an event, and as such
it was commented on reminiscently by the Iron Age and other leading journals devoted
to this and kindred interests. The important facts in the life of the founder of this
historic enterprise could not well be omitted in any work purporting to depict the
rise and development of Chicago's commercial and manufacturing interests. William
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 411
Blair was born in Homer, Cortland County, N. Y., May 20, 1818, a son of Samuel and
Hannah (Frary) Blair, both of whom were natives of Blandford, Mass. For five gen-
erations the family of Blair has lived in New England. The first of the name who
came was Robert Blair, whose ancestors had removed, some generations before, from
their native Scotland to the province of Ulster, in Ireland. He set up his domicile at
Worcester, Mass., in 1718. The ancestors of Jonathan Frary came from England, and
Jonathan Frary's youngest daughter, Hannah Frary, married Samuel Blair, and
became the mother of the subject of this sketch. Samuel Blair located at Homer,
Cortland County, N. Y., and not long after the birth of this son removed to a farm in
the adjacent town of Cortland in the same county. From early youth young Blair
manifested a predilection for a mercantile career, and it is not strange that, in 1832, at
the boyish age of fourteen, he gladly accepted a position offered him in the stove and
hardware store of Oren North, at Cortland. The zeal with which he entered upon the
performance of the duties devolving upon him is attested by the fact that, four years
later, in 1836, he had so far mastered the business in all its essential principles and details
that he was chosen by Mr. North to go to Joliet, 1 11., there to take entire charge of a branch
store which it was intended should in time supersede the business at Cortland, whence all
of Mr. North's interests were to be transferred from New York State. He took canal boat
at Syracuse for Buffalo, and came from the latter place by one of the steamboats that
made monthly trips around the lakes, and arrived at Chicago the first of August of
that year, the journey requiring three weeks' time. This business young Blair estab-
lished and managed with success until the panic of 1837 rendered the ultimate profits
of the venture doubtful, and Mr. North cautiously determined to close out the Joliet
business and continue operations at Cortland. But the young manager was more dar-
ing, and fortune had favored him to such a degree that he was enabled to purchase
the stock and continue the business on his own account. Mr. North believed that
real estate inflation and other wild speculation would paralyze enterprise in the West
for all time, but Mr. Blair was on the ground, he liked Western people and Western
ways, had faith in a Western future, and took this most practical method of showing
his old employer how diametrically he dissented from this idea. It was with the
utmost difficulty that old and experienced men with larger capital were enabled to
weather the storm of financial adversity that at the time swept over the country,
strewing the land with the wrecks of fortunes, and it was especially hard for the mer-
chants located as far west as Joliet to obtain credit, the then location of all the whole-
sale houses in the faraway East rendering it quite impossible for the dealers, in the
absence of the mail, telegraph and banking facilities of to-day, to keep reliably
informed as to the financial ability of their customers.
Notwithstanding this conditions of affairs, young Blair established trade rela-
tions with the East that proved to be entirely satisfactory to all concerned, and for
five years conducted a growing and profitable business in a town that was popularly
412 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
thought to be financially ruined. But he had his thoughts on Chicago, which was com-
ing to the front as a business center of great promise, and in August, 1842, removed his
stock to this city, and, at Dearborn and South Water Streets, instituted in a small way
the enterprise which developed into the pioneer wholesale hardware trade, a brief his-
tory of which has been given. He was one of the earliest to recognize the gradual
but influential change in methods of sale in the West of the products of cutlery and
hardware manufactories, through the concentration of goods for distribution in the
hands of jobbers in the more important interior cities, and perhaps the first to enter
into large and profitable contracts with leading English manufacturers. In the man-
agement of this large trade, Mr. Blair was pre-eminently distinguished for his exact-
ness, carefulness and conscientiousness. As a merchant, he passed during his long
career, through ordeals calculated to try the soul of any business man, but never failed
in integrity and manly independence. In the financial crises of 1857 and 1873, when
many prominent merchants all over the country were obliged to compromise with
their creditors, the same rare good sense and judgment served him that had been
developed in the earlier panic of 1837, an ^ ne emerged from each with credit the best,
owing no man a dollar. Ever through his long and gratifying commercial history, he
remembered with gratitude his first and only employer, his early friend and adviser, his
in every way admirable pattern, Oren North, in whose little store, in Cortland, New
York, he received his first lesson in business ways and principles, and whose example
of honesty and upright dealing won his admiration as a boy and his emulation as
a man.
In 1865, when that institution was organized, Mr. Blair was chosen a director in
the Merchants' National Bank, and he has served in that capacity continuously to the
present time; he was a director in the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company of
New York and in the Chicago Gas Light and Coke Company for several years follow-
ing their organization, and he has from time to time been prominently connected with
other leading business and corporate interests.
He has been for many years a trustee of Lake Forest University, and since its
organization he has been one of the managers of the Presbyterian Hospital; he was a
manager of that early Chicago institution, the Young Men's Library Association; is
a member of the Chicago Historical Society; was manager and for some years the
acting president of the Home of the Friendless; was a manager of the Protestant
Orphan Asylum, and, in different ways, always helpful, he has been and is identified
with numerous other similar movements of a charitable and beneficial character.
Until 1855 he was an attendant at Trinity Episcopal Church and for some years was
one of its vestrymen. In 1859 he united with the Second Presbyterian Church and
has ever since been a liberal contributor toward the support of all its auxiliary inter-
ests. Politically he is a Republican and is a member of the Union League Club.
His earliest affiliations were with the Whigs.'and he naturally grew into his later
^ <?
\
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 415
political connection. In his younger days he was, much against his desire, influenced
to act as delegate to Whig conventions, and as such had a seat in the Harrison and
Tyler ratification convention at Springfield, in 1840, as a representative from Will
County. This delegation traveled 150 miles from Joliet to Springfield by wagon,
camping out by night and consuming two weeks in a journey that may now be accom-
plished in about six hours ! Aside from such service as has been indicated, he has
never in any public capacity devoted himself to the interests of his fellow citizens,
having at all times refused to become a candidate for any office on any ticket, his
tastes being decidedly for a business rather than a political career. During the last
thirty years Mr. Blair has shown himself to be something of a traveler, though he has
sought to profit intellectually by his journeyings, rather than to set an example of
rapid flight from place to place, his inclination having impelled him to observe
thoroughly and systematically as he went, not to see as much as possible in a given
time. At times alone, at others accompanied by his wife and son, he has traveled
through England, France and Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Greece and Turkey and the
Highland regions of Scotland. His first European tour was made in 1865. In 1889
he made a close study of the Paris Exposition and treated himself to an itinerary
through the cathedral towns of England. An unusually close and critical observer,
he has thus and by judicious reading stored his mind with an extensive fund of
useful and interesting general information.
Mr. Blair married Miss Sarah M. Seymour, daughter of John Seymour, of Lyme,
Ohio, June 21, 1854, and two sons, William Seymour and Edward Tyler Blair, have
been born to them, the first mentioned of whom died at the age of six in December,
1861. The younger son, who is married and a resident of Chicago, graduated from
Yale in 1879, and was, as has been stated, a member of the firm of William Blair & Co.
until its dissolution about five years ago.
Morrisson, Plummer & Co. The wholesale drug house of Morrisson, Plummer
& Co. bears the same relation to the drug trade that the houses of Field and
Farwell bear to the dry goods trade, or those of McVeigh & Co. and Reid &
Murdoch, to the grocery business of the country. The origin of the house antedates
the organization of the city government here, when the population was only 3,820,
and Madison Street was out of town, away south in the Chicago marsh. The drug
store of L. M. Boyce, established in 1836, was the acorn out of which grew the great
drug house of to-day. Sawyer & Paige succeeded Boyce; they sold the business to
Sears & Paige, who were succeeded by Burnham & Smith. Later the names of
Burnham & Van Schaack appear as proprietors; subsequently the firm was known
as E. Burnham & Son, and toward the close of the old proprietary, in 1874, as E.
Burnham, Son & Co., J. W. Plummer becoming a partner at that time. In 1875-
Robert Morrisson was admitted a member. They carried the house safely through
the panic, and transferred it in 1876 to the firm of Morrisson, Plummer & Co.,
416 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
comprising Robert Morrisson, Jonathan W. Plummer and Leonard A. Lange, the
last named being a new member. From that year to the present time, a period of
the most remarkable progress in Chicago, this house has kept pace with the city.
Widening its field of trade and extending the boundaries of its influence, it com-
petes with the older houses of older cities in the East and South, while throughout
the Northwest its prestige, established long ago, is well protected. The firm was
incorporated in 1886, with Robert Morrisson, president; Jonathan W. Plummer, first
vice-president, and Leonard A. Lange, second vice-president and secretary. On the
death of Mr. Morrisson, in 1888, Jonathan W. Plummer was elected president;
James L. Morrisson, first vice-president; Leonard A. Lange, second vice-president
and secretary, and John T. Plummer, treasurer. They, with Miss Bertha L. Morrisson,
Edgar G. Hibberd, T. A. Cobb and James W. Morrisson, constitute the directory. An
intelligent contact with the interests of Chicago and tributary country, gives the
members of the firm a knowledge of everything relating to the material well-being
of the city and country, and this knowledge they exercise in many ways, as
individuals, aiding institutions which appear to them to merit aid, suggesting the
establishment of other institutions, and always foremost in helping Chicago to perfect
her great undertakings. The present offices and store of this company, at 200-206
Randolph Street, have been occupied since 1891, when the demands of trade called
for more commodious quarters.
Jonathan W. Plummer was born at Richmond, Wayne County, Ind., March 25,
1835. Hi s father, Dr. John T. Plummer, born in Montgomery County, Md., March
12, 1807, moved with his parents to Cincinnati in 1819 and to Richmond, Ind., in 1823.
Joseph Pemberton Plummer, the grandfather of Jonathan W., was born in Anne
Arundel County, Md., October 4, 1783, and died September 20, 1868. Dr. John T.
Plummer entered Yale College in 1825, graduated with the class of 1827 and began
the practice of medicine at Richmond, Ind., that year. He was a student of uncom-
mon attainments, possessing a knowledge of Greek, Latin, French and German. A
personal friend of the lexicographer, Noah Webster, he assisted him in the prepara-
tion of his diciionary, supplying the new words which sprung up with the settlement
of the West. He edited " The School-master" in 1839 for Holloway & Davis, and
compiled one or more readers for use in the schools of the Society of Friends. In
1857 he wrote the history of Richmond City, was a contributor to the Journal of
Pharmacy, Sillimatis Journal and other periodicals, and was an authority on many
scientific points. In his death, which occurred April 10, 1865, Indiana lost an eminent
man and a good citizen.
Jonathan W. Plummer was educated under his father's care, with a brief attend-
ance at Greenmount College, near Richmond, Ind. After about eighteen months as
a student of medicine, his health failing, he, at the age of nineteen years, established
a drug store in his native town and for many years carried on a prosperous business
Gaudspsel brothers. I'lilishers.
CO
5
I
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 419
there. In 1868 he formed a partnership with Robert Morrisson in the wholesale drug
business at Richmond, which continued until 1874, when Mr. Plummer came to Chi-
cago. His advent here in the dark days of 1874, when reputed wise men deserted the
city, was the result of his faith in our city and belief that it would give ample room
for enlarged business. He at once entered the firm of E. Burnham & Sons, and in
1875 his former partner at Richmond, Robert Morrisson, became a member of the firm
of E. Burnham, Son & Co., and in 1876 the firm was changed to Morrisson, Plummer
& Co.
Mr. Plummer was married in 1855, at Richmond, Ind., to Miss Hannah A., daugh-
ter of Thomas and Sarah Ballard, who was a native of Ohio, but came with her par-
ents to Richmond, Ind., while a child. They have had six children, namely, Mary W.,
Elizabeth B., Joseph P., John T., Frances R. and Addison W., all of whom are living.
In the family circle, as well as in public affairs and business circles, Mr. Plummer's
moral character, cautious foresight and wide experience are appreciated. His exam-
ple as a business man exerts a most beneficial influence on the employes of the com-
pany and goes beyond his office to other large employers of labor. He was a director
of the Fort Dearborn National Bank from 1888 to 1891 and a charter member of the
Illinois Industrial Training School for Boys, at Norwood Park, 111., now known as the
Illinois School of Agricultural and Manual Training for Boys, at Glenwood, 111. He
was an organizer of the Illinois Prisoners' Aid Society of Chicago and a director of
the Onarga Home, at Onarga, 111., for the wives and children of convicts, and a
commissioner of the organizing board for the Working Women's Home in Chicago.
In religious affairs he is a member of the Society of Friends, and one of the organiz-
ers of the Friends Union for Philanthropic Labor, which now has seven constituent
branches in the country and is celebrated for its beneficent work. In 1890 he was
appointed a director of the World's Congress Auxiliary of the Columbian Exposition,
a position for which his faith in humanity and human capacity fitted him. As a mer-
chant of Chicago, the confidence of his associates in a great business and the respect
of the employes of his house are, after all, the highest testimonials, for no man want-
ing in commercial integrity and high mercantile ability could win such confidence
and respect.
The Morrissons in the United States are said to be descendants of the pioneers
of Lancaster, Chester, Adams and York Counties, Penn., men who fled here in the
first half of the eighteenth century, to escape oppression and who, in the latter half
of that century opened the Revolution at Mecklenburg, S. C. Robert Morrisson, the
pioneer of the family in Indiana, was born in North Carolina, October 19, 1786, and
married Miss Jane Price. When he died, September 12, 1865, of the three children
born to them, James L. Morrisson inherited his estate and succeeded him as partner in
the Citizens' Bank. James L. Morrisson, though a resident of Richmond, Ind., was
vice-president of the Morrisson & Plummer Company of Chicago, until his death
420 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
in August, 1893. Robert, of the firm, who died March 6, 1888, was his son and
Elizabeth J., his daughter. Robert Morrisson, just named, was born at Richmond,
Ind., December 27, 1842. After completing a thorough education, he entered the
Bank of the Ohio Valley, at Cincinnati, but immediately after the war selected St.
Paul, Minn., as his home and established a wholesale grocery house there. Three
years of life in that high altitude satisfied him that a point nearer the center of popu-
lation offered greater advantages, so, in 1868, he returned to Richmond, formed a
partnership with Jonathan W. Plummer and established a wholesale drug house there.
In 1874 his partner became interested in the Chicago drug house of E. Burnham &
Son, and in 1875 he himself acquired an interest. From that period to his death,
March 6, 1888, he was de facto head of the firm and its president from 1885 to 1888.
In 1864 he married Miss Fayetta C., daughter of William and Charlotte Lord, of
Brownville, N. Y. Their children are Bertha L. and James W. Mr. Morrisson was a
member of the National Wholesale Druggists' Association, a director of the Fort
Dearborn National Bank, and a member of the Union League Club. His character
was well portrayed in the Richmond paper which announced his death: "Loving his
home, fond of music and literature, he drew around him those of like tastes with whom
warm and enduring friendships were formed. His wisdom and pleasure in guid-
ing the education and developing the tastes and abilities of his son were unusual an* 1
admirable. In his social relations as neighbor and friend, he was marked for his
courtesy, modest bearing and dislike of all shams or hypocrisy. Su '* idmitting
any too intimate relations, when once admitted, he gave to such warm conndi_ ce and
friendship. His death, in the prime of his manhood, brings sorrow not only to a loving
wife, daughter and son, and to parents who had hoped in late years to lean with pride
upon a beloved son, but to a large group of friends from the social and business
circles in the city of his adoption." To-day, in greater measure, all this and more may
be written, for during his career at Chicago he was a part of the city and a sharer in
movements for bettering its moral and material condition.
Leonard A. Lange, now the secretary of this company, has been one of the most
indefatigable workers since the days of Burnham & Van Schaack, in 1868, well liked
throughout the house, and one who is popular with its customers, a genial gentleman,
thoroughly posted in the workings of his department.
William M. Hoyt Company. The house of William M. Hoyt Company is one
of the oldest, largest and most successful of the great wholesale grocery houses in the
West and, indeed, in the country. Established at a time when Chicago was a straggling
prairie village, it has kept pace with her growth and is to-day, like its prototype,
increasing in influence, extending territory, always successful. How like Chicago !
Little and unpretentious at its birth, it reached manhood in youth and jumped, as it
were, from the ranks to a commanding position in the army of the mercantile world.
Thirty-seven years ago (1857) William M. Hoyt cast aside the restraints which
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS, 421
surrounded his position as clerk in Talcott's fruit store, and embarked in business for
himself at No. 51 Lake Street. His knowledge of fruits and fancy groceries and a
purse of less than $100 formed his only capital, but in addition to these, a thorough
faith in the destiny of Chicago, a strong heart, willing hands, and a commercial acu-
men were his possessions. The business established in 1857 expanded rapidly, and in
1862 the larger house at 15 Dearborn Street became the headquarters of the trade.
In 1863 Mr. Hoyt was joined by Daniel Sherman and the firm of Willam M. Hoyt&Co.
was formed, but the partnership was of short duration, so that Mr. Hoyt may be said
to have carried on the business alone until 1865, when two of his principal employes
purchased interests, leaving the founder a small share in the house. His object in
retiring from the firm he established was not to seek rest, for then as now the Chica-
goan was restless, a man whom rest would kill. In February, 1865, he organized the
firm of William M. Hoyt & Co., comprising himself, S. M. Case, W. T. Sherer, and
Christopher Watrous, and re-established a large wholesale grocery house at 101 South
Water Street, formerly carried on by James A. Whittaker. Some years later they
were located at 36 South Water Street, whence they moved to 48-50 South Water Street
early in 1871. In 1867 Mr. Case retired, and four years later the retirement of Mr.
Sherer vvas recorded, so that in 1871 Messrs. Hoyt and Watrous constituted the firm.
The great fire of October 8-9, 1871, destroyed their large stock, entailing heavy loss,
hut like the city, they rose above misfortune and resumed business a few days after
the fire, n. ten-.poidry quarters on South Canal Street.
Meantime the firm sought an eligible site fora building and found it on a portion
of the site of Fort Dearborn, the last structure of which disappeared in the great fire.
There a five-story brick building, fronting 112 feet on Michigan Avenue and too feet
on River Street, was erected to meet the requirements of a Chicago of the future, for
the destruction of the old town had the strange effect of building up higher hopes for
the new city. It is historic ground, and the owners, realizing this fact, stole an hour
from trade and commerce to devote it to history; for on a white marble tablet,
inserted in the River Street front of their wholesale house is a bas-relief representa-
tion of the old block-house and the following inscription:
"This building occupies the site of old Fort Dearborn, which extended a little
across Michigan Avenue and somewhat into the river as it now is. The fort was built
in 1803-04, forming our utmost defense. By order of Gen. Hull it was evacuated Aug.
15, 1812, after its stores and provisions had been distributed among the Indians.
Very soon after, the Indians attacked and massacred about fifty of the troops and a
number of citizens, including women and children, and next day burned the fort. In
1816 it was rebuilt, but after the Black Hawk War it went into gradual disuse, and in
May, 1837, was abandoned by the army, but was occupied by various government
officers till 1857, when it was torn down, excepting a single building which stood upon
the site until the great fire of Oct. 9, 1871. At the suggestion of the Chicago His-
torical Society this tablet was erected, November, 1880, by W. M. Hoyt."
The history of the two forts is the romance of Chicago, often and often related,
422 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
and given fully in other pages of this work. The site is as interesting to the historian
as it is valuable to the merchant.
The old house, of which Mr. Hoyt was a silent partner since 1865, prospered
exceedingly, and on August I, 1873, it was consolidated with the newer and larger
house on River Street, R. J. Bennett and A. M. Fuller becoming members of the
firm. At this time the policy of selling goods through the medium of traveling sales-
men was discontinued, and that of winning customers through the medium of printed
price lists adopted. The Grocers' Criterion was issued and distributed by this firm in
their own interests, but soon after it was recognized as a great trade journal and had
a wide circulation. So important did it become that a special department had to be
reserved for it until sold to D. O. Lantz & Co. In later years Eugene J. Hall, the
junior member of the publishing company, obtained control, and is now the success-
ful publisher and editor.
The value of goods sold during the year, after this plan was adopted, amounted
to $850,000, and year by year the totals show an increase, until now it amounts to or
approximates $5,000,000 per annum. This remarkable departure from old time meth-
ods is primarily due to the untiring industry of the members of the firm and to the
reputation they have won for honorable dealings throughout the entire territory
tributary to Chicago.
The incorporation of the firm was recorded in the fall of 1882 under the title
William M. Hoyt Company, the capital stock being placed at $500,000, sixty percent,
of which was paid up at that date. The officers were William M. Hoyt, president;
A. M. Fuller, vice-president; R. J. Bennett, secretary and treasurer. The officers
named, with A. C. Buttolph and Graeme Stewart, who were admitted partners, formed
the board of directors, and have served in the respective positions for the last twelve
years. To-day the capital is entirely paid up and a surplus fund of over $100,000 is
recorded.
William M. Hoyt, the founder of the house of William M. Hoyt Company, was
born at New Haven, Vt., July 27, 1837, f which State his parents, Carlos M. and
Charlotte (Buttolph) Hoyt, were natives. His mother died when he was a youth,
leaving the father to take care of the family. In 1855, when Illinois claimed the
attention of the Eastern peoples for her rich prairies and for her railroad, river and
canal communication, Mr. Hoyt, Sr., looked westward, and that year came to this State
with his family, locating on a farm at Deerfield in Lake County. William M. was
then in his eighteenth year, and with true Vermont decision, concluded that the town
at the mouth of Chicago Creek presented more advantages than the farm near the
prairie village of Lake County. He came hither and got a position as clerk in the
pioneer fruit store of L. A. Talcott.
For over a year he labored industriously in this position, fitting himself for the
higher one which was soon to come. In 1857 he placed the foundations of that great
vV
X
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 425
commercial house, the history of which has been already given, and on this founda-
tion built up a name, not only in commercial and real estate circles, but also in the
social and benevolent circles of the country. His faith in Chicago was never low-
ered by panic or fire, and as a result he is to-day the owner of most valuable business
and residence property north of the Chicago River, while his tenement and apartment
houses number over 150.
Mr. Hoyt's marriage with Miss Emily, daughter of Nelson Landon, of Lake
County, 111., took place in 1860. Like his own family, the Landons left Vermont at
an early day and settled in Illinois. Of the three children of this marriage, Emily J.
Hoyt married F. M. Fox, of Philadelphia; Landon J. Hoyt is an employe of the
William M. Hoyt Company, and Phelps Hoyt is a schoolboy. Mr. Hoyt is many times
a millionaire, a true friend of Chicago and her institutions, and always prominent
among the workers for her advancement.
Robert J. Bennett, of the firm of Wm. M. Hoyt Company, is descended from
pioneers of Illinois, his parents having settled in Lake County as early as 1844. He
was born at Pulaski, Oswego County, N. Y., February 9, 1839, being the fourth in a
family of eight children, five of whom are now living. His father, Reuben J. Bennett,
was an old settler of Oswego County, the first of his name coming from Ireland in
early colonial days, while his mother, Alta Haskins, is the eighth in descent from
Miles Standish, "a pilgrim but not a puritan." In 1844 the Bennett family left their
Oswego County home for Illinois, where Mr. Bennett, Sr., purchased a tract of
United States land, and settled near Diamond Lake, where he resided up to the time
of his death in 1883. His widow, eighty-five years of age, died in 1893. Robert J.
Bennett passed his youth and early manhood there and, like all intellectual young men
of his day, was qualified to teach, and did enjoy the experiences of teaching, district
school. A new life opened to him in 1863, when he came to Chicago. Engaged at
once as cashier and general book-keeper for Wm. M. Hoyt & Co., he held that position
for two years, and in 1865 joined A. M. Fuller in the purchase of Mr. Hoyt's interests
in the store and business. On the consolidation of the two houses in 1873, Mr. Bennett
assumed financial direction of the new company's affairs, a position which has claimed
his constant attention since. His share in shaping the policy of the house has had a
marked influence in winning phenomenal success and, in other directions outside
mercantile life, his faculty for making every undertaking successful has been felt.
Whether as director of the Atlas National Bank or developer of his real estate at
Ravenswood, he has always shown an aptness for precise conclusions, the adoption of
which proved their correctness.
It is not alone in the business world that Mr. Bennett is best known. He has per-
formed a prominent part in all public matters of advancement that he deemed worthy
of his friendship, and has always been foremost in the moral development of the city
and community. For years he has taken a deep interest in educational affairs, and is
21
426 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
one of the most generous givers in the Congregational Church and its interests. He
was the principal donor toward the building fund for the Congregational Church at
Ravenswood, of which he and his wife are active members. For years he has been
prominent in Sunday-school work and has taken an important part in advancing that
magnificent order, the Y. M. C. A. Mr. Bennett built and equipped the gymnasium for
the Ravenswood branch of the Y. M. C. A. at a cost of $15,000, which he has donated
to the society free of charge for five years.
His marriage with Miss Electa M. Hoyt, sister of Wm. M. Hoyt, was celebrated
in 1862. To them three children were born: Arthur G., an employe of the Wm. M.
Hoyt Company, Maude E., who married Architect Charles M. Vail, and William H.,
attending school.
Mr. Bennett inherits a splendid constitution from his ancestors, and this, leading
naturally to a genial personality, enables him to accomplish the greatest amount of
work in the shortest time, and in the most agreeable manner. Politically he is a
Republican, having a clear conception of what the party has accomplished and is
accomplishing for the country and for the republics south of us, in the welfare of
whose peoples Americans of the United States are sincerely interested.
Alonzo Munson Fuller, vice-president of the Wm. M. Hoyt Company, was born
at Lowell, Oneida County, N. Y., October 4, 1844. His parents, George W. and Mary
(Munson) Fuller, moved to Illinois a few years later, settling in Lake County, where
A. M. Fuller received his education. In 1860 or 1861 Chicago was selected by the
youth as his future home, and leaving the farm for the young city, he found employ-
ment in the fruit and fancy grocery store of Wm. M. Hoyt, in whose employ he
remained about three years, when he became a partner of Robert J. Bennett, and pur-
chased Mr. Hoyt's interests in that store. In 1873 he and Mr. Bennett agreed to
consolidate their business with that of Wm. M. Hoyt & Co., since which time he has
filled the position of general purchaser and manager of the sales department. He has
been prudent and has accumulated a fair fortune.
He married Miss Lotta J. Hoyt, a sister of William M. Hoyt, the president and
founder of the business. Their only son, Frank H., is an employe of the firm.
In addition to their wholesale grocery, the firm control the celebrated brands of
spices and coffees, known as "Fort Dearborn Mills," prepared in their commodious
building, Nos. 6 and 8 River Street. The individual members of this firm are self-
made men in the best and truest sense of that term, neither of them inheriting aught
except sturdy health and good moral principle, which they have wisely applied in
rearing a splendid commercial house, which has never known dishonor, and whose
fame, as one of the leaders in the commercial development of the Northwest, is worthy
to be fully recorded.
Henry Abiram Spaulding. If there is any art in which all the dross is worn away
and by refining process the full beauty of every truth of the material world is made
0?
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 429
to stand before the eyes of men, it is the art of the jeweler. Beauty is God's trade-
mark, proving His handiwork, and the craft of the jeweler, utilizing all the resources
of fine stones and ores for the adornment of common life, is in line with divine meth-
ods. While the ancients reserved beauty for picture, or statue or temple, the art of
the jeweler has helped to distribute it upon the articles of common life, sprinkling it
o'er the table, altar or mantelpiece, making all utensils of food and drink become
ministers of the highest forms of beauty. In the museums of Europe and this country
jewels of various nations are among the most interesting and instructive collections.
They afford the data for the study of the customs of races long since passed away,
leaving behind them frequently no fuller record of their existence than such as is con-
tained in these collections of their appliances for personal decoration. From the
polished and engraved bones of the lake dwellers up to the quaint but exquisitely
worked jewelry of the Etruscans, the Romans and the Byzantians, the gradual growth
of the art can be traced step by step, and the different national characteristics of the
various peoples can be studied as accurately as in their architecture or any other records
of their culture which have come down to us. While the business of the honest
jeweler preaches a sermon of truth in its very elements, there are spurious jewelers,
who by dealing in spurious jewels, teach a lesson of deceit and false pretense. The
jeweler should be a gem in himself, resplendent among his fellow-men for his innate
probity and the honesty of his representations. He should, above all, know his art
to perfection, lest he deceive through being himself deceived. The profession, for
such it truly is, demands a large share of the taste of the artist, the breadth and
knowledge of the man of science, and the activity and acuteness of the man of affairs;
indeed, it is doubtful if there is any other calling demanding so much technical infor-
mation, such strict familiarity with a wide realm of objects or so much refined and
experienced taste as must be possessed by the head of such a business. There are
many experts in gems and jewels, both in this country and throughout the Old World,
but in Henry Abiram Spaulding, head of the celebrated house of Spaulding & Co.,
Chicago possesses one whose opportunities to inform himself almost infallibly in all
departments of the lore of the jeweler's art have not been surpassed by those of any
other connoisseur in the Old World or the New; and, as few men have had more to do
with the extension of the American jewelry trade in foreign lands than Mr. Spauld-
ing, his career has attracted the widest notice and comment, and is one which must
prove exceptionally interesting, not only to the student of international commerce,
but especially to citizens of Chicago who desire to know something of their most
successful contemporary.
Mr. Spaulding is not only a jeweler, but the son of a jeweler. His father, however,
abandoned the jewelry trade, and, following the bent of a mind naturally scientific,
took up the profession of medicine, and became a physician of skill and promi-
nence. New York City was the place of Mr. Spaulding's nativity, and he was born
430 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
November 11,1837, to Dr. Abiram and Julia A. (Thornton) Spaulding. Dr. Spauld-
ing was of the sixth generation of Spauldings in America, counting from Edward,
the founder of the branch of the family to which Henry Abiram Spaulding belongs.
The name Spaulding appears quite early in English history, and the name, as a
patronymic, is on the Continent as well as in Great Britain. The Spauldings of Amer-
ica, except a few who have recently emigrated to this country, are all descendants
from three ancient families, one of which, with whom this sketch has most to do, set-
tled in Massachusetts, a second in Maryland and a third in Georgia.
Edward Spaulding, the first of the name of whom we have any knowledge, came
to America in the earliest years of the Massachusetts colony, probably between 1630
and 1633. He was made a freeman in 1640. In 1652-55 he was prominent in con-
nection with the laying out and incorporation of Chelmsford, Mass. He was one of
the proprietors of the "New Field," which was included in an addition made to the
town plat in 1656, but which was not fenced and so named until 1669. Others of the
family were conspicuous in connection with the primitive history of this old town.
He was twice married, and died in 1670. His youngest child, Andrew, was born in
1652, and under his father's will succeeded to the paternal estate. He was chosen dea-
con of the church and held that office at the time of his death, which occurred in
1713. Andrew, his eldest son and second child, was born in 1678. He lived in Chelms-
ford, and was a deacon in the church, and otherwise prominent. He died in 1753.
James, his ninth child and seventh son, was born in Chelmsford in 1714, and settled at
Westford. He removed to New Ipswich, N. H., but after a few years returned to
Westford, where he died about 1790. Silas, the sixth son, and eleventh child of James,
was born at Westford, Mass., in 1757, and died at Fort Ann, N. Y., in 1812. He was
a soldier of the Revolution, and was at the battle of Bennington, Vt., and at the sur-
render of Burgoyne, and in the engagements which preceeded it. After the war he
married Hannah Brown and settled at Granville, N. Y., whence he removed to Fort
Ann. His youngest child, Dr. Abiram Spaulding, father of Henry Abiram Spaulding,
was born at Fort Ann, N. Y., May 9, 1807. He had two sons and four daughters, of
whom the immediate subject of this sketch was the fourth in order of birth. He died
December, 1887, at Aurora, 111.
Henry Abiram Spaulding first saw Chicago in 1848, when he came West with his
father's family, journeying by water from New York, and consuming on the trip fully
a month. The family located in Aurora, 111., where the elder Spaulding engaged in
the jewelry trade. Six years later, when he was seventeen, and had acquired consid-
erable education and no little knowledge of the jewelry and general business, young
Spaulding accepted a position offered him in the old-time dry goods store of Olm-
stead & Co., on Lake Street, opposite the little old store of Potter Palmer, where the
afterward merchant prince conducted a smajl business somewhat on the plan of the
country village storekeeper of to-day. That was in 1854, the year of the opening of
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 431
the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, and Mr. Spaulding made the journey
from Aurora to Chicago as a passenger on the first locomotive that ever ran over that
line between the two cities. It was vastly different from the improved engines of
to-day, but it fulfilled its mission and was a wonder to all who beheld it for the first
time; and, indeed, the railroad itself was a rude affair, consisting of" stringers " laid on
sleepers, and surmounted by " strap " rail, and the experiences on the old "Q" road with
" strap " rail were no less dangerous and amusing than those on other lines of similar
construction. Mr. Spaulding's next employment was with the dry goods house of Wil-
liams, Case & Rhodes, which was swept away in the panic of 1857. This disaster did
not seriously inconvenience him, however, and it may have been a blessing in disguise,
for he was offered and accepted a place in the great New York establishment of Ball,
Black & Co., at that time one of the world's famous jewelry houses. There he was
afforded exceptional opportunity to acquire a knowledge of gems and jewels, which
he perfected in his subsequent exerience. His connection with this house continued
until 1864, when he engaged in the jewelry trade for himself, in New York, as a mem-
ber of the firm of Browne & Spaulding, which was in existence until 1871.
Attracted by his success, the celebrated house of Tiffany & Co. made him a most
flattering proposition to become its general representative in Europe; and in 1871 he
entered upon a memorably successful career with this establishment, which resulted
in the bestowal upon it of prestige such as no other American house ever had, and
ended only when Mr. Spaulding engaged in his present enterprise in Chicago. During
the whole period of his connection with Tiffany & Co. Mr. Spaulding had headquarters
in Paris, France. Probably no other man, certainly no other American, has had such
an opportunity as was his to examine the world's famous gems. He went to Europe
with letters of the highest commendation from Gen. Grant, Vice-President Schuyler
Colfax, Chief Justice Waite, and others no less distinguished; and an acquaintance
with the Prince of Wales, formed during the visit of the heir-apparent to this country
in 1860, enabled him to visit all the royal families of Europe, with the heads and prin-
cipal members of which he had personal interviews. His acquaintance with these
distinguished personages, thus auspiciously formed, enabled him to inspect all the
priceless crown jewels of the Old World, as well as all the rare gems and jewels owned
by different members of the several royal households. Among the large and costly
jewels submitted to him were some with most interesting histories, notably the follow-
ing: " The Regent," the largest of the crown jewels of France, required two years
in cutting. It was found at Parteal, and weighs 410 carats. It was bought by the
Regent of France, in 1717, for 12,000,000 francs. A slave is said to have stolen it, and
hidden it in an incision made for the purpose in his thigh. It was afterward found
and returned, and adorned the crown of Louis XV. " The Orloff," belonging to the
Russian crown, weighs 194^ carats, and cost 450,000, and a life pension of $4,000
annually. "The Florentine," the richest jewel of the crown collection of Austria,
432 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
weighing 139^ carats, is valued at $105,000. "The Hassac," owned by the Duke
of Westminster, weighs 79^ carats, and is valued at 830,000. "The Pigott," owned
by a London jeweler, weighs 825^ carats, and is worth 150,000. " The Tiffany Stone,"
belonging to Tiffany & Co., weighs 125^ carats. He was shown a sapphire and
diamond brooch belonging to Czar of Russia, and valued at $800,000. The richest
sapphire was 2% inches in diameter, and was surrounded by diamonds each as large
as a hazel nut.
It is doubtful if any other American ever made so extensive a tour of the Old
World and met so many of its dignitaries and so many representatives of its royalty,
and no man traveling in the Old World without official prestige ever had conferre.d
upon him so much honor by men and women who rarely condescend to meet repre-
sentatives of commercial interests under any circumstances. At Sandringham Hall,
Mr. Spaulding had the honor, after an interview with the Prince and Princess of
Wales, during which he consented to supply certain costly jewelry, of being presented
with game shot by the Prince and other valuable mementoes of the occasion which were
dispatched to London for him. He also was specially invited to afternoon tea to Lady
Paget's house, where he met some most notable members of the peerage and attaches
of the Court, as well as the embassadors from the principal foreign powers, among
whom were the Due de Repulo, Comte Zeweske, the Baron Tefferbrieck and Prince
Biron de Courlude. His visit to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle was also most
memorable. Sir Henry Ponsonby, the Queen's Equerry, presented Mr. Spaulding with
admission to the dais on the occasion of the general ceremonial opening of court, in
appreciation of the satisfaction Mr. Spaulding had given the royal family in the mat-
ter of the finest jewelry. He was treated with equal distinction at other European
courts. During his residence in Paris, he was frequently dined by Vice-President
Morton, then minister to France. Upon all the important occasions during that
period, he was one of the distinguished guests, notably at the inauguration ceremony
of Bartholdi's statue of " Liberty Enlightening the World." Thereafter in New York
a special place was reserved to all those who were present at the Paris inauguration
to witness the re-inauguration in America. As a proof of the confidence reposed in
him by our embassadors to foreign parts, with whom his relations were always most
cordial, he was entrusted on nearly every one of his return voyages from the different
capitals of Europe, with special dispatches to the government. The handsome cer-
tificates of the " Bearer of Dispatches " form a very interesting feature of the large
correspondence incident to that remarkable period of activity and diligence. Among
his most constant correspondents at that time were Chief Justice Waite, Vice-Presi-
dent Colfax, Secretary Babcock, Hon. Samuel S. ("Sunset") Cox, and others equally
eminent. Mr. Spaulding was successful in making arrangements which resulted in
the appointment of Tiffany & Co. as gold and silversmiths to Her Most Gracious
Majesty the Queen of England, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Her Royal
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 483
Highness the Princess of Wales, His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, Their
Imperial Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Russia, His Imperial Highness the
Grand Duke Valdimir, His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Alexis, His Imperial
Highness the Grand Duke Paul, His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Sergius, His
Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Austria, His Majesty the King of Prussia, His
Majesty the King of the Belgians, His Majesty the King of Italy, His Majesty the
King of Denmark, His Majesty the King of Spain, His Majesty the King of Portugal,
the Khedive of Egypt, and His Imperial Majesty the Shah of Persia, as well as to the
Emperor of Brazil; and the house had conferred upon it the gold medal " Proemia
Digno," from the Emperor of Russia, in 1883, and the Grand Prix and Legion of
Honor, Paris, in 1879.
Having a full appreciation of the artistic side of his calling, Mr. Spaulding's idea
was and is to promote the taste for the beautiful and refined in the precious metals
and the costly stones in that city in which he had his first noteworthy business expe-
rience, and in whose great future he always had the most unbounded faith, and in
1888 he determined, after quite extensive correspondence with prominent Chicagoans
who favored the idea most enthusiastically, among them Levi Z. Leiter and George
M. Pullman, to embark in his present enterprise in this city, but not until his loyalty
to the house Tiffany & Co. had led him to exhaust every argument and device of
persuasion in an attempt to induce that company to open a branch here. Many were
the regrets of Mr. Tiffany, who fully appreciated Mr. Spaulding's great achievements
in behalf of his house, but Mr. Spaulding felt that he had a most important mission,
and finally telegraphed from Paris his determination to relinquish his connection with
the New York firm and enter upon the great field in the West. The house of Spauld-
ing & Co., at State and Jackson Streets, Chicago, and 36 Avenue de 1'Opera, Paris,
France, was established and incorporated that year. It has a paid-up capital of
$500,000, and its officers are Henry A. Spaulding, president; Edward Forman, secre-
tary, and Lloyd Milner, treasurer. It does a general business as gold and silver-
smiths, and manufactures extensively, occupying four floors, each 147x40 feet in area,
as salesrooms, and a third for its manufacturing department, and employs in all its
branches from eighty to one hundred persons. The associates of Mr. Spaulding are
men of business ability and experience, and each is thoroughly informed in the special
departments of the important business of the house to which, by a natural division of
labor, he devotes his attention.
In less than five years "Spaulding's" has been made to Chicago what "Tiffany's"
is to New York, and it is doubtful if any other business establishment in the city
attracts so many visitors who come, not especially to buy, but to see the unique and
magnificent display of beautiful things there silently but surely doing their part in
the great work of human refinement, for which the age in which we live is wonderful
above all that have preceded it. Every day adds to this rich treasure house, and vis-
434 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
itors to Chicago will find here a display of rare gems, ornaments and jewelry second
only to that of Tiffany & Co. The Parisian branch of Spaulding & Co. is the most
conspicuous American addition to that city in the way of adornment and trade. The
show-rooms beneath the chambers of the American Consulate are handsomely dec-
orated in white and gold. The enthusiasm of the Parisians is especially awakened by
the " Evening Room," draped in black velvet, and in other respects very like the
"Gem Boudoir" of the Chicago house. Chicago is benefited by the Paris branch in
that it enables Spaulding & Co. to secure for the Chicago establishment every Parisian
novelty directly it appears, and very many such novelties and precious objects of
art, are received by every steamer. It is a fact of much significance in this connection
that within four to six days' journey from Chicago are to be found quite plentifully
not only gold and silver and the richest and most beautifully colored marbles, but
sapphires, spinel rubies, topaz, smoked topaz, and other gems, while such stones as
must necessarily be imported are as easily accessible to Chicagoans as to jewelers on
either coast. This, taken in consideration with the city's great and growing trade in
gems and jewels and all their kindred articles, must indicate that the day is rapidly
approaching when Chicago will be the center of this trade for the American conti-
nent.
Mr. Spaulding was married December 17, 1874, to Miss Cornelia Russell, of New
York City, daughter of J. G. Russell, who was one of the pioneers in commercial navi-
gation and was one of the proprietors of the Black Ball line of boats, in use long
before the introduction of steamers. To Mr. and Mrs. Spaulding have been born two
children named Russell and Marguerite. In social life Mr. Spaulding has been prom-
inent, but he really cares little for society, in the ordinary sense, and the attrac-
tions of his own fireside are too strong to admit of his becoming a man of the world,
as the term is usually understood. He is a member of the Stanley Club, of Paris, and
has long been identified with the Chicago Club, of this city, but he often says,
when speaking of this fact, that to him " home is the best club of all." He is recog-
nized as a typical American and as a fit representative of the great State of Illinois,
as was demonstrated when he was appointed commissioner for Illinois at the
World's Exposition, at Paris, in 1889. His report, when his duties were terminated by
the close of the exposition, embraced facts of the greatest importance to the gen-
eral public, and for that reason it was given to the press by Gov. Fifer, who wrote Mr.
Spaulding, commending it in the highest terms. In all things Mr. Spaulding is an enthu-
siastic Chicagoan, proud of the city, and doing it honor, not alone in the high charac-
ter he gives to his branch of trade, but in every other way possible to a progres-
sive and patriotic citizen. He has watched its growth almost from a country village,
and during all the years since he first saw it, his faith in its future has never wavered.
He believed years ago, as he believes now, in a destiny that proclaimed it the
future metropolis of a continent, and in the full vigor of his business life, he beholds
it, in many respects, the greatest city in the world.
7
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 437
Marcus Augustus Farwell. The death of an old and honored citizen of Chicago,
at Waukesha, Wis., June 12, 1894, robbed the city of a conspicuous figure among her
early and well-known business men, who, for more than forty years, held an honor-
able place in our commercial economy.
Marcus A. Farwell was born in Coshocton County, Ohio, July 8, 1827, and there
grew to manhood. His parents, Zophar and Betsy (Knight) Farwell, were descended
from early settlers of New Hampshire, who on the paternal side could boast of
furnishing soldiers to the Revolutionary army from 1776 to 1781, and again during
the War of 1812. Though the educational advantages afforded in the vicinity of the
home farm were not of the best, he obtained during his boyhood a very fair educa-
tion in the ordinary English branches. At the age of nineteen he secured a position
in a country store at Eaton Rapids, Mich., and was there employed for four years,
or until 1851. Then he went to Iowa, but the opportunities for advancement offered
there did not meet his ambitious requirements, and he determined to select Chicago
for his home, as the town was then becoming a place of importance, of which young
Farwell heard much, which he did in 1851, making the journey from Elgin on the
pioneer Galena & Chicago Union Railroad.
He found employment, as clerk, in the wholesale grocery house of M. D. Oilman,
then at 153 South Water Street. During the succeeding three years he managed, by
economy, to save a small capital with which he secured an interest in the firm of M.
D. Gilman & Co., and on January I, 1856, he was admitted to a full partnership in the
concern with W. C. D. Grannis, now president of the Atlas National Bank. He was
prominent in that and its succeeding firms of Gilman, Grannis & Farwell, Gilman &
Farwell, Grannis & Farwell, and Farwell, Miller & Co. from 1867, when Mr. Gilman
retired, until 1883. As a member of the stanch old house of Grannis & Farwell, at
the time of the great fire, he was the first of Chicago's business men to telegraph to
New York that, although its establishment was wholly destroyed, the house would
pay a hundred cents on the dollar. After leaving the temporary quarters on Michi-
gan Avenue and Twenty-first Street, business was carried on in various places until
the rebuilding of the house on Michigan Avenue, near Randolph Street, in 1874. The
firm as Farwell, Miller & Co., as reorganized in 1880, when Mr. Grannis disposed of
his interests, was one of the leading wholesale establishments in the city, until Mr.
Farwell disposed of his interest entirely and withdrew from active mercantile life, to
manage the affairs of the Oakwoods Cemetery Association.
Thirty years ago Mr. Farwell was the owner of 160 acres of land where Oak-
woods Cemetery is now situated. The Oakwoods Cemetery Association was incor-
porated in 1864 and from that date to the time of his death Mr. Farwell was most
actively engaged in its management, holding the position of secretary and treasurer
until 18/9, and subsequently that of president. The cemetery is one of the most
beautiful of the many attractive burial places for which Chicago is noted, and to Mr.
438 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
Farvvell is due more credit than to any one else for the excellent management which
has made it what it is.
In political affairs he was always more or less interested, but he was not a poli-
tician in the common acceptation of the word. In 1879 he was a candidate for city
treasurer of Chicago on the Republican ticket, which was not that year successful,
though he received 20,662 votes, against 26,176 cast for his Democratic opponent. In
1880 and 1881 he served in the capacity of collector for the South Town, and the fact
that a bond for $6,000,000 was tendered him by prominent merchants and capitalists,
without any solicitation on his part, speaks volumes for the public opinion entertained
of his high ability and integrity. He was several times tendered aldermanic honors
in his ward, but declined serving on account of the pressing demands of his business
interests.
In i860 Mr. Farwell was married to Miss Lucia D. Cross, of Montpelier, Vt.
To them four children were born, namely: Cora E., now Mrs. E. H. Hicks, of Monti-
cello, Iowa, Frederick M., Luther C. and Ralph S. Farwell. Mr. Farwell was an
affable and courteous gentleman and most popular socially, as is attested by the fact
that, on the organization of the Fox Lake Club he was elected its president and
served as such for three years, while for many years he was a prominent member of
the Union League Club and was also identified with Oriental Lodge, No. 33, A. F.
& A. M. The Inter Ocean of June 14, 1894, says: " He was generous and unostenta-
tious. He was always a Republican and took an abiding interest in the success of
his party. He never sought office and often declined the use of his name, but three
times he was nominated and accepted and was once elected. The one office he ever
filled was that of collector of the South Town. The next spring he was nominated
for city treasurer, and although he ran far ahead of his ticket, he was defeated. That
was in 1879. There has not been a campaign since that he has not taken an active part
in, and to the expenses of which he did not contribute liberally. He had nothing of
the ward boss in his disposition, but he was public-spirited and consistent." For
some twenty years he suffered from the effects of an attack of spinal meningitis.
Last spring, he went South to seek health, but on the approach of summer removed
to Waukesha, Wis., where pneumonia attacked him and death ensued.
Fred M. Farwell. In these pages much has been written on the old business
men of Chicago and well deserved tributes paid to them for the parts they played in
the drama of the city's progress. Now, in a work of this class, which aims to deal
with the leaders in mercantile and manufacturing life, it becomes necessary to say
something of the sons of those who built up our great commercial houses and gave
their aid to other enterprises.
Fred M. Farvvell born in Chicago, September 2, 1866, is the son of Marcus A.
and Lucia D. Farwell, of whom mention has been made. Like contemporary Chicago
boys, he received a practical education in the public schools of this city, which was
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 439
supplemented by a two-years' course at the Michigan Military Academy. In 1884 he
was appointed collector for the Oakwoods Cemetery Association, of which his father
was the originator, and for two years filled that position. In 1886 he was appointed
business manager of the Oakwoods greenhouses, an office he continues to hold in con-
nection with that of director in the corporation. He was, on June 26, 1894, elected to
the presidency of the Oakwoods Cemetery Association, the office so long and favorably
filled by his father. He was married in 1888, and has one child, Arthur F. Like his
father was, he is a Republican who fully understands the mission of his party's policy.
In society affairs he is an Odd Fellow who is already well and favorably known by
the lodges of that order in this city.
Christopher Strassheim, senior member of the wholesale grocery house of Strass-
heim & Jaeger, and one of the most active of the city's business men and most promi-
nent of her young politicians, is a native of Buffalo, N. Y., where his birth occurred
March 22, 1854. His parents, Christopher and Marie (Mardeirn) Strassheim, were
natives of Germany, the land of great universities, eminent musicians, and the illus-
trious Bismarck the iron chancellor, the man of " blood and iron." In that land,
whence came so many of the citizens of the great republic, the father and mother were
born in 1807 and 1809, respectively. The father was a carpenter by trade, a worthy,
industrious man, who came to Chicago in 1867 and engaged in the produce business,
which he conducted successfully until his death, from yellow fever, at Natchez, Miss.,
in 1871, where he had gone on a business trip. His widow followed him in 1876, dying
in this city. The family came to the United States in 1852, locating first in Buffalo,
N. Y., but six years later came to Chicago.
Of the eight children born to these parents, Christopher Strassheim, of the weM-
known firm of Strassheim & Jaeger, is the next to the youngest. He was educated in
the schools of this city, and upon reaching the age of seventeen years (1871) began
the commission business here, under the firm name of Strassheim Brothers, but five
years later (1876) sold his interest to his brother, to become a member of the firm
of Jacobs & Strassheim, dealers in wooden and willow ware. This business was car-
ried on profitably and agreeably until 1887, at which time they added wholesale
groceries, and the following year Mr. Strassheim bought out his partner's interest, and
six months later formed a partnership with Phillip Jaeger, under the above name, and
thus they have continued until the present time. They occupy a seven-story building
at the corner of South Water and La Salle Streets. Their business is one of the most
active and successful in the city.
Mr. Strassheim was united in marriage, in 1876, to Miss Eva Merkel, a native of
this city. He is a member of Washington Lodge, No. 665, I. O. O. F., and of Wel-
come Lodge, No. I, K. of P. Mr. Strassheim is one of the most active and prominent
of the young political leaders of Chicago. He is a clean, straight Republican, and for
the last four years has used his abilities with telling effect in all the political cam-
440 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
paigns, and during that short period has become recognized as one of the most prom-
ising of the young Republican leaders. His exceptional fitness in the uncertain game
of politics and his clean personal record insure him a bright and successful future.
In the fall of 1891 he was chosen one of the committee of seven to report on the
Republican municipal candidates, and the candidates thus reported were triumphantly
elected. He was very active in securing the election of Hempstead Washburne for
mayor of the city, and soon afterward, upon the recommendation of his many friends,
was appointed by Gov. Fifer one of the Lincoln Park Commissioners. His record is
clean and his future auspicious.
Anthony F. Seeberger. In this work on the mercantile interests of Chicago, it
has been the good fortune of the writer to form from notes and documents many inte-
resting biographies of our leading men. Seldom, however, has he been given a sub-
ject which appeals more sensibly to his conceptions of a citizen than that of Anthony
F. Seeberger. Born in Wetzlar, Prussia, August 24, 1829, he passed his days of boy-
hood there, and in the schools of the town received a primary education. His parents,
John David and Dorothea (Goethe) Seeberger, belonged to the manufacturing classes
of the old kingdom (as known in the latter part of the reign of Frederick William III.),
who, growing weary of paying to the privileged classes a rent for permission to live,
sought homes far away from the fatherland, and came to the United States in 1836, or
two years before the first railroad in Prussia was graded and railed. The family set-
tled in New York City, but in 1837 moved to Newark, N. J., and thence to Holmes
County, Ohio, where the father assumed the role of farmer and cast aside that of hat
manufacturer. It may be unnecessary to state that this now pleasant Ohio county
was then but little removed from its wilderness condition. American or native and
foreign pioneers opened its expanse of woodland to settlement, but the labor of such
men as John D. Seeberger reduced it to cultivation and made the foundation of its
fruitful fields. The common school system was in operation when the family located
in the beautiful wilderness, and to the school of the district the youthful pioneer was
sent regularly every winter. During the greater part of the year he was engaged on
the farm in all those petty works so suitable to boys, and yet so repugnant to their
views; but, whether in school, in the barn or on the farm, this youth was obedient
and industrious, characteristics which appear to belong to him to-day. In 1844,
being then about fifteen years of age, he resolved to leave the farm and enter mercan-
tile life. He carried out this resolution, so that we find him clerk in the dry-goods
store of E. S. Johnson, of Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio, before the close of the year.
Two years later, when that firm dissolved, he entered the dry goods house of N. & J.
B. Power, of the same city, where he was employed for four years, being a partner in the
house for the last two yearsof the term. In 1854, when the era of railroad building and
State development was really introduced in the West, the young merchant cast his eyes
toward the setting sun and followed it to that horizon, or the place where it appeared to
THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 441
touch mother earth, now known as Oskaloosa, Iowa, and established there the first ex-
clusive hardware store west of the large towns along the Mississippi river. His venture
was fairly profitable and increasing, and to extend his business he decided to locate in
Chicago, where the advantages of better commercial extension could be obtained.
That was in 1864. The same year he entered into a partnership with Benjamin A.
Breakey and opened a wholesale hardware house at 143 Lake Street, under the style
and title of Seeberger & Breakey, which transacted a trade valued at $225,000 for the
first year. In 1866 they removed the wares to the southeast corner of Lake and State
Streets, where they were doing a large business in 1871, when fire swept away the
building and stock, their gross losses being estimated at $200,000. Mr. Seeberger
himself saved the books, important salvage indeed, and fled with them to safety, or to
his residence on Michigan Avenue. Before the flames exhausted themselves in the
burnt district, this firm re-established their house at 10-12 West Randolph Street,
where they transacted business from October, 1871, to August, 1872, the date of re-
moval to the present quarters, 38 and 40 Lake Street. In 1880, Charles D., eldest son
of Mr. Seeberger, was admitted a partner, and the firm title was changed to Seeberger,
Breakey & Co. Within twenty years, from their coming to Chicago, they built up a
trade valued at $1,500,000 annually, and were undoubtedly among the great mer-
chants of the West. In 1885 Mr. Breakey disposed of his interests to the Messrs. See-
berger, who continued the house under the title of A. F. Seeberger & Co. until 1891,
when they sold out their interests to the Woodrough & Hanchet Company. This,
though a plain story of his commercial life in Chicago, speaks by facts of his part in
building up our hardware trade.
On October I, 1885, he was appointed by President Cleveland collector of the
port of Chicago. At that time the collections amounted to $4,164,154.29, on imports
valued at $10,372,146, and the number of men employed was ninety-five. In adminis-
tering this very important appointment, from October, 1885, to February, 1890, he left
the office with the most flattering expressions from papers of both parties and that
the office had been most economically and faithfully conducted. He was one of the
incorporators and was elected a director of the World's Columbian Exposition, and,
when the permanent organization of that celebrated body was effected, he was elected
treasurer, an office to which he was re-elected annually, and one which he tendered
his resignation July 13, to take effect July 31. On October 9, 1893, a check for $1,565,-
310.76 was signed and issued by him to the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank, in liquidation
of the indebtedness of the Exposition corporation. He has been a member of the Com-
mercial Club from an early day in its organization, and was its treasurer in 1884 and
1885. The year 1884, when it was determined to support a second May Festival,
he was a liberal subscriber to the guarantee fund. He may be called a founder of
the Inter-State Industrial Exposition, which occupied the site of the Art Palace, on the
lake front, until 1892, and was president of the corporation for many years. One of
442 INDUSTRIAL CHICAGO:
the committee who co-operated in securing the passage of the Citizens' Election Bill,
in 1886, by urging its consideration on the Legislature of Illinois, he loaned to that
important measure all his influence. As a member of the Chicago, Calumet, Iroquois
and other clubs he is a particular favorite, and may be credited with the friendship of
all his associates in these socio-politico organizations. Since 1872 he has been a
member of Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church, and for the greater part of this time
one of its vestrymen. For a number of years he was a director in the Chicago
Orphan Asylum, and its president for several terms. He was one of the founders of
the Charity Organization Society, of Chicago, which was subsequently merged into
the Relief and Aid Society. He is associated in material ways with other charitable
and benevolent organizations. A member of the directory of the Chicago Edison
Company, he was at one time its president. His marriage with Miss Jennie L. Cooper,
daughter of Charles Cooper (a manufacturer of Mt. Vernon, Ohio), took place August
26, 1856. To them three children were given, namely: Charles D., Louis A., and
Dora A.
Charles Mather Henderson. Many of Chicago's manufacturing and commercial
houses are known throughout the civilized world, and their trade-marks are familiar
almost everywhere, but it is safe to assert that no trade-mark of any shoe manufactur-
ing concern in the world is more widely known than the " Old Red School House,"
which, artistically and with legend in type, calls attention to one of the many kinds
of shoes made by C. M. Henderson & Co. The directing spirit of this great concern
for many years has been Charles Mather Henderson, one of Chicago's best known,
most useful and most highly esteemed citizens.
Mr. Henderson was born in New Hartford, Litchfield County, Conn., March 21,
1834, a son of James F, and Sabrina (Marsh) Henderson. His father's mother was of
a branch of the celebrated Cotton Mather family. On his mother's side he is
descended from Roswell Marsh, a soldier of Revolutionary fame, who was present at
the execution of Maj. John Andre. Mr. Henderson attended the public schools
until he was sixteen and then became a teacher, and had charge of a school for four
months, for which service he was paid $16 per month. An uncle of his, C. N.
Henderson, the well-remembered shoe merchant, had established himself in Chicago,
and at the age of nineteen Charles M. joined him and was employed in his establish-
ment. That was in 1853. During the succeeding six years the young man, as sales-
man, buyer, clerk, etc., served through all departments of the business and became
proficient in each.
In 1859 he succeeded to the business and organized the firm of C. M. Henderson
& Co. In 1863 Wilbur S. Henderson became a partner in the concern. The business
was then quartered at 32 Lake Street. In 1868 the concern was burned out and found
a new 
