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Henry Bradley Plant. 



THE LIFE OF 



HENRY BRADLEY PLANT 



FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF THE PLANT SYSTEM 

OF RAILROADS AND STEAMSHIPS AND ALSO 

OF THE SOUTHERN EXPRESS COMPANY 



BY 

G. HUTCHINSON SMYTH, D.D. 













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G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

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1898 



Copyright, 1898 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
Entered at Sutionen* Hall, London 



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PREFACE. 

IF it be asked why another biography is added to 
the almost endless number now in our book- 
stores and libraries, an answer is found in the count- 
less distinctions of individual character, and in the 
varied experiences which come to men in different 
walks of life. The botanist says that of all leaves 
in the forests of the world, no two can be found 
alike in every particular. The phrenologist says 
the same of the various forms of the human head, 
and the psychologist affirms it of the intellects and 
dispositions of men and women. Hence each life 
has its own peculiar experience to record for the 
pleasure or profit of others. 

Biography is the most universally interesting 
and instructive branch of literature; hence the 
power of the novel and drama, which are merely 
biographies pictured and acted before us. A study 
of history shows that the nations' great movements 
are the work of individual men and women. In il- 
lostratioQ of this fact it is needful to mention such 



6 'd&^'S 



iv Preface 

names only as Abraham, Joseph, Esther, Joan of 
Arc, Napoleon, and Washington. 

The commercial and industrial occupations from 
which a nation now derives its strength should be 
honored as truly as the military exploit, or the sci- 
entific achievement. The record of a noble life 
which, in its sphere of quiet duty, has accomplished 
much for the good of others, is a lesson in patriot- 
ism and a legacy to posterity. The best period of 
the history of the Cotton States could only be writ- 
ten by taking into account the share which the sub- 
ject of this biography has had in their development. 

It is rare to find a man who has had dealings with 
BO many of his fellows, and who, at the same time, 
has won the esteem and affection of his associates 
and employes, as has Heniy Bradley Plant in every 
department of his great railroad system. 

The writing of this biography is undertaken in 
the belief that there are many general readers to 
whom the record of such a life will be as welcome 
as it must be to those to whom, in his manifold ac- 
tivities, he has proved a benefactor and a friend. 

G. H. S. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Plant Fvnilr— Birth of Henry Brsdlej' Plant— Hr. FlaDf s 
Parents — Ancestors Came from England in 1039 — David 
Plant Occupied Hanj Positions of Honor and Trust — A. 
P. Plmnt'B Succeeaful Busiuess Career— H. B. Plant on hia 
Uotber's Side is Descended from Joseph Frisbee, a Major 
in Washington's Army — Reverend Levi Friabee, Father of 
Ptofeffior Levi Frisbee of Harvard College — Connection 
witli Sir William Pepperell, Bart.— The Historian of the 
E^bee Family — Richard of the Second Generation Went 
from Virginia to Connecticut, and Settled at Branford, 1644 
— Sketch of Oliver Libby Frisbee, Historian of his Family — 
Senator Hoar's Gelations to the Frisbee Family — Frisbee 
Patriotism and Services to their Country— They Were Oood, 
Church-going People, mostly of the Puritan Behef — Prob»- 
bilitf that the Frisbeee Came from Wales . . . 1-U 

CHAPTER II. 

Btanford, Connecticut, Purchased by the New Haven ColonietB 
from the Totokett Indians in 1688— First Settlements Were 
Hade in 1614— First Church of Logs Surrounded by Stockade 
to Protect from Indians — Guards at the Gate during Service 
— Chnrx>h and Town Becords Preserved at Branford— John 
Plum, the FiiBt Town Clerk— Style of the Second Church 
Building and Character of its Services — Rev. Timothy Oillett 
Its Pastor— He Taught an Academy in Addition to hia 
Pastoral Work — Prominent Families of Branford — Intelli- 
gent Character of the People — De Tocquevllle's High Esti- 
mate of this " Leetle State "—Branford in 1779 . . 16-SS 



vi Contents 



CHAPTER III. 



PAGB 



The Blackstone Family— The Ancestor Came from England be- 
fore 1630— His Name Was William Blaxton— Settled first 
in Massachusetts, afterwards Went to Rhode Island — His 
Beautiful Character and Numerous Descendants— Origin 
of Yale College of Branford— The Blackstone Memorial 
library f»-U 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Plants Came from EIngland to Branford, between Two 
Hundred and Three Hundred Years ago— Still Own the 
Lands first Acquired — Henry's Father Died of Typhus 
Fever when Henry Was about Six Years Old — His Tender 
Recollection of his Mother — Henry's First Day at School — 
His Natural Diffidence — Mr. Plant's After-dinner Speeches 
— ^His Mother's Second Marriage — Stepfather Kind to Henry 
— ^Thrown by a Plough Horse and nearly Killed — Attended 
School at Branford — ^Engaged on Steamboat Line Running 
between New Haven and New York — On Leaving, Promised 
a Captaincy — Marriage— Express Business — Leaves New 
Haven and Ooes to New York — Romantic Elxperienoe in 
Florida 85-60 

CHAPTER V. 

Mr. Plant Goes from New Haven to New York— Captain Stone's 
Friendship— Mrs. Plant's Health Fails again — Returns to the 
South — Is Appointed Superintendent of Adams Express 
Company — ^His Great Executive Ability— The Civil War — 
Mrs. Pluit's Death — Mr. Plant Buys out the Adams Express 
Company 61-55 

CHAPTER VI. 

Relations to the Confederate Government — Jefferson Davis 
Gives him Charge of Confederate Funds — Mr. Plant Buys a 
Slave, who afterward Nursed him through a Severe Siclmess 
— ^Impaired Health— Goes to Bermuda, New York, Canada, 
and Europe — Second Marriage 66-67 



Contents vii 



CHAPTER VII. 



FA6B 



Education from Books and from Experience — ^Keen Intuitions 
—Abreast of the Progress— Mr. Plant*8 After-dinner Speech 
at Tampa Banquet Given him by Tampa Board of Trade, 
March 18, 1886— Location of Tampa— In Territorial Days 
Had a Military Reservation- In 1884 Population about Seven 
Hundred — Its Cosmopolitan Population now — ^Many Cubans 
and Spaniards in Tampsr— Tobacco Industry — Phosphate 
Abounds in this Part of the State — Much of it Shipped to 
the North and to Europe— Plant System Gives Impetus to 
the Prosperity of the Place— Its F^gress the Last Five or 
Six Years 08-M 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Florida Mr. Plant's Hobby— Banquet at Ocala— Mr. Flanfs 
Speech— Sail on Lakes Harrison and Griffin— Banquet at 
Leesburg— Visit to Eustis— Cheering Words to a Young 
Editor— Make the Best of the Frost — It may be a Blessing 
in Disg^uise — ^Must Cultivate Other Fruits (and Cereals) be- 
sides Oranges— Importance of Honesty — Sense of Justice — 
Consideration for the Workmen — Unconscious Moulding- 
Power over Associates and Elmployeefr— Letter of Honorable 
Bofns B. Bullock 87-101 

CHAPTER IX. 

Mr. Plant's Industry and Power to Endure Continuous Strain — 
Labor of Examining and Answering his Enormous Mail — 
Letter from Japan — Mail Delivered Regularly to him at 
Home and Abroad — His Private Car, its Style, Structure, 
Hospitality, and Cheering Presence — Numerous Calls — ^The 
Secret of his Endurance — ^The Esteem and Love of the 
Southern Express Company for its President— Mr. Plant 
Enjoys Social life — He is a Great Lover of almost all Kinds 
of Music — Mr. Plant a Medical Benefactor— Some of the 
Progress liade in the Healing Art — Bishop of Winchester's 
High Estimate of the Value of Health — Dr. Long's Opinion 
of the Ghilf Coast as a Health Restorer — Unrecognized Medi- 



viii Contents 



FAGB 

cines in Restoring Lost Health— Nervousness among the 
American People — The Soothing and Strengthening £2ffect 
of Florida Climate — Mr. Plant's Part in Facilitating Travel 
and Providing Comfortable Accommodations for the In- 
vaUd 103-116 



CHAPTER X. 

Season for Submitting Press Sketches of Mr. Plant— Descrtp- 
tive America^ December, 1886— CtYy Items, December, 1886 
— RaUroad Topics— Home Journal, New York, March, 1896 
— F. G. De Fontain in same Journal— Ocala Evening Tim>es, 
June, 1896— £:rpre«8 Gazette 117-140 



CHAPTER XL 

Mr. Plant*s Close and Constant Contact with the Great System 
as Seen in the Following Letters — Letter Written on Board 
the Steamer Comal — Letters on Trip to Jamaica, West 
Indies, March 15, 1893, and Published in the Home Jour- 
nal 141-149 



CHAPTER XII. 

MANAGEMENT OF THE GREAT PLANT SYSTEM 

WORTHY OF ADMIRATION AND IMITATION . 150-156 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Plant Day at the Cotton States and International Exposition of 
1895 at Atlanta, Georgia — Preparations for its Celebration 
— Impressive Observances of Mr. Plant's Birthday at the 
Aragon Hotel — Mr. Plant's Remarks in Acknowledging 
Presentation of Gifts 157-182 



Contents « 



CHAPTER XIV. 



PAGE 



Tampa Bay Hotel, One of the Modem Wonders of the World 
— Its Architecture, Furniture, Works of Art, Decorations, 
Tapestries, Paintings, Inlaid Table and Three Ebony and 
Gk>ld Cabinets from the Tuileries, a Sofa and Two Chairs 
once Owned by Marie Antoinette — The Dream of De Soto 
Realized— A Palace of Art for the Delight and Joy of Those 
who are in Health, and an Elysium for the Sad and Sor- 
rowful ......•••• 183-308 

CHAPTER XV. 

Programme of Plant Day Ceremonies— Ringing of the Liberty 
Bell— Presentation of Addresses to Mr. Plant in the Great 
Auditorium — His Reply — Resolutions from the Different 
Departments of the System, from the Savannah Board of 
Trade, etc.— Mr. Morton F. Plant's Acknowledgments . 204-226 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Banquet at the Aragon Hotel Ends the Festirities of the Day — 
Sketch of the Southern Express Company — Distinguished 
Callers on President Plant during the Day — Many Tele- 
grams and Letters of Congratulation Received — ^Many 
Press Notices of the Day, and many Tributes of Respect and 
Esteem for him who Called it forth .... 227-263 

CHAPTER XVn. 

Some Changes that have Taken Place in the Configuration of 
the Globe — Islands Bom and Buried — French Revolution — 
Napoleon's Influence on Europe — England's Long Wars 
— ^Barbarous Treatment of Prisoners — Slavery Abolished — 
English Profanity and Intemperance — ^Temperance Move- 
ments — Duelling — ^Penny Postage — Expansion of the Press 
— Canals, Erie and Suez — ^Railroads in England and the 
United States— First Steamer to Cross the Atlantic — First 
Steamship Line 264r-278 



X Contents 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

PACK 

Railroads Established — Engineering Progress — Steel, Iron Steam- 
ships — Horse Railroad — ^Kerosene Oil in Use 1880 — Sewing 
Machines — Agricultural Implements 1831-51 — Sanitary 
Progress — Philanthropic and Christian Progress — Higher 
Education — Medical Progress — Humane Care of the Insane 
— Sailors* and Seamen's Home — World's Fairs — Religious 
Reciprocity — Arbitration — Numerous Inventions and Dis- 
coveries — Henry B. Plant in War and in Peace— Testimo- 
nial Presented to Mr. and Birs. Plant on the Twenty-fifth 
Anniversary of their Wedding 279-806 

Plant Geneaix)OT 807-887 

Index 889-844 




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 

The author takes pleasure in acknowledging his indebted- 
ness to many of the Southern Express and *^ Plant System" 
officials for their prompt and valuable assistance in the 
preparation of a biography of their able and esteemed 
President. Chief among those to whom thanks are due 
may be mentioned Messrs. A. P. C. Ryan, M. J. O' Brien, 
D. F. Jack, B. W. Wrenn, and G. H. TiUey. The last 
named furnished not only much material in manuscript and 
print, but many valuable suggestions as to their use. The 
letter of Ex-Governor Bullock of Georgia, published in the 
volume reveals the noble nature which penned it, far more 
eloquently than any words which can be written here, and is 
alike honorable to its distinguished subject and its eminent 
author. 

Acknowledgment is due also to the papers from which 
extracts have been taken. 



XI 



THE LIFE OF 
HENRY BRADLEY PLANT. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Pl&nt Fsmilr— Birth of Heniy Bradler PUnt— Mr. Flant'i 
Paranta— Anoeeton Came from England In 1039— David Plant 
Occupied Uaaj PodtionB of Honor and Tnut — A. P. Plantfs 
Successful Busineas Career— H. B. Plant on his Hother'a Side b 
Descended from Joseph Friebee, a Major in Waahington'a Annf 
— Reverend Levi Frisbee, Father of Professor Levi Frisbee of 
Harvard College — Connection with Sir William Pepperell, Bart. — 
The Historian of the Frisbee Family '-Richard of the Second 
G^ieration Went from Virginia to Connecticut, and Settled at 
Branford, 1S44— Sketch of Oliver Libt^ Frisbee, Historian of his 
^mily— Beitator Hoar's Relations to the Frisbee Family— Fris- 
bee Patriotism and Berricea to their Country- They Were Qood 
Chorch-Ooing People, Mostly of the Puritan Belief— Probability 
that the Frisbeee Came bx>m Wales. 

HENRY BRADLEY PLANT was born October 
27, 1819, at Branford, Connecticut. His pa- 
ternal great-grandfather was attached to Waahing- 
ton'a army as a private, when Washington was at 
Newbui^, and he was one of the guard of the un- 
fortunate Major Andr^ at the time of hia execution. 



2 The Life of 

His great-grandfather on his grandmother Plant's 
side was a major in General Washington's army at 
the same time. 

Mr. Plant's father was Anderson Plant and his 
mother was Betsey Bradley. They were married 
December 23, 1818, and were of good old Puritan 
ancestry who came from England about two hundred 
and sixty years ago. According to a genealogical 
table at the end of this volume, it will be seen that 
John Plant was in Hartford, Connecticut, in the 
year 1639, — some give the date three years earlier, — 
and his son, John Plant, is granted a tract of land 
at Branford in 1667. These people possessed the 
characteristics that distinguished their race. They 
loved freedom, were thrifty, energetic, self-reliant, 
patriotic, and devoutly religious. Many of them 
were officers, and most of them members in the 
Congregational Church, which was the only church 
in the town for the first hundred years of its history. 

Some of them occupied positions of honor and re- 
sponsibility in the State and country. 

David Plant was born at Stratford, prepared for 
college at the Cheshire Academy, graduated at Yale 
College in 1804, studied law at the Litchfield Law 
School, and was a classmate of John C. Calhoun. In 
1819 and 1820, he was Speaker of the House of Rep- 
resentatives, and in 1821 was elected to the State 
Senate and twice re-elected. He was Lieutenant- 



Henry Bradley Plant 8 

Governor of the State from 1823 to 1827, and from 
1827 to 1829 lie was a member of the United States 
Gongresa In politics he was a staunch Whig. He 
was an influential man in the political circles of his 
day in the State of Connecticut, and Calhoun, when 
Secretary of State, offered him any position within 
his gift ; but he refused to hold office under the 
dominant party. 

Another successful man of the Plant family was 
A. P. Plant, son of Ebenezer and Lydia (Neal) Plant, 
bom at Southington in the year 1816. 

Early in life he began to earn liis own living, and 
by industry, economy, and business tact he became 
in time the head of a large manufacturing establish- 
ment. He settled in that part of the town known 
as the " Comer," a part which rapidly increased in 
population and soon grew into a prosperous village. 
It bears the name of Plantsville in honor of A. P. 
Plant and his brother E. H. Plant. His biographer 
says: "He made a profession of religion in 1833; 
and from that time was an influential member of the 
Baptist Church. In 1850, he was elected a deacon 
of the church in Southington, and held the office 
until 1872, when he transferred his relations to the 
new enterprise started in his own village. To this 
church he gave liberally, and left it a legacy in his 
will." He is described as a most faithful and con- 
sistent Christian, an esteemed officer in the church. 



4 The Life of 

and a firm beUever in the presence of the Holy Spirit 
in the heart of the Christian. 

Henry Bradley Plant, on his grandmother's side^ 
is a direct descendant of Joseph Frisbee, a major in 
Washington's army. The Frisbees were a numer- 
ous family, and many of them occupied positions of 
honor and influence in the history of the country. 
One of them writing to Mr. Plant says : 

"I suppose you have often wondered what has 
become of my history of the Frisbee family. I have 
been diligently at work on it since you heard from 
me. It has grown from a very small beginning to 
be quite an afEair, namely, from looking up my an- 
cestors so that I could join the hereditary societies 
of the United States, to writing a history of over one 
thousand of the lineal descendants of Edward Fris- 
bee, the first settler. I find them a noble race, worthy 
of history. I have also looked up my maternal an- 
cestors and can trace them back to 1497, thirteen 
generations, among them Sir William PepperelL" 

The fitness of the writer, Oliver L. Frisbee, for his 
task of searching the records of his long line of pro- 
genitors may be gathered from another paragraph 
in the same letter where he says : " My Alma Mater, 
Bates College, gave me the degree of Master of Arts, 
last Commencement, for eminent success in business 
and proficiency in the studies of genealogy, heraldry^ 
and colonial history." 



Henry Bradley Plant 5 

The following sketch, with some slight corrections, 
is taken from a carefully prepared account, by the 
same writer, of the descendants of Richard Frisbee, 
the first-named ancestor of this family. 

" Richard Frisbee came from England to Virginia, 
in 1619, when he was twenty-four years old. In 
1642, the Governor of Virginia ordered all those 
who would not join the Church of England to leave 
the Colony, and hundreds went to Eastern Virginia, 
now the State of Maryland. Among these refugees 
were Richard Frisbee and his two sons, James and 
William. They purchased plantations in Cecil County 
and resided on Kent Island, the northern part of 
Chesapeake Bay. 

"At first the Governor of Virginia claimed this 
island ; later. Lord Baltimore and afterwards, Wil- 
liam Penn. The latter wrote to James Frisbee, from 
London, in 1681, instructing him to pay no tax to 
Lord Baltimore. James Frisbee was a member of 
the House of Representatives of Maryland, and 
held other important positions in the State. In 
addressing a petition to His Majesty, in 1688, he, 
with others, began their petition thus: ^We the 
imdersigned Englishmen though bom in America,' 
etc. James went back to England, the land of his 
birth, in his old age. 

" Richard, son of Richard the emigrant, came from 
Virginia to Connecticut, and settled at Branford in 



6 The Life of 

1644, when his brothers went to Maryland. His son 
John had several children, among them Edward and 
Joseph. The former was the ancestor of Major Philip 
Frisbee, of Albany County, New York. He was in 
the War of the Revolution, and his grandsons be- 
longed to the Sons of the American Revolution, of 
the State of New York. President Edward S. Fris- 
bee of Wells College, in New York State, is his de- 
scendant. The latter, Joseph, your ancestor [referring 
to Mr. Plant], married September 14, 1712, had a son 
Joseph who married Sarah Bishop, August 25, 1742. 
Their son Joseph married Sarah Rogers, March 11, 
1773. Their eldest child, Sarah, born May 15, 1774, 
was your grandmother. 

" The name Joseph has been in our branch of the 
family a long time. My father's name was Joseph. 
I had a brother Joseph, and my son bom this sum- 
mer is also named Joseph. 

" The youngest child of the first Edward was Ebe- 
nezer, my ancestor, brother to John, your ancestor. 
He had two sons, Ebenezer and Elisha. The latter 
was the father of the Rev. Levi Frisbee who set- 
tled at Ipswich, Massachusetts, and was the father 
of Professor Levi Frisbee of Harvard College, who 
died in 1820, one of the most talented men that ever 
passed through that institution. Senator Hoar was 
named for him, George Prisbie Hoar. Ebenezer's 
son James, bom in 1722, was lieutenant with Cap- 



Henry Bradley Plant 7 

tain Paul Jones, and was killed one hundred and 
fifteen years ago to-day, September 23d, in the en- 
gagement between the Bonne Hormne Richard and 
Sera/pis in the English Channel. This was my great- 
grandfather and by right of descent from him I 
joined the Sons of the American Revolution. His 
son Darius (bom in 1769), my grandfather, settled 
in Kittery, Maine, and married Dorothy Gerrish, a 
great-granddaughter of Colonel William Pepperell, 
a well-known merchant and the father of Sir William 
Pepperell, Bart, the hero of Louisburg. Dorothy 
Gerrish was also related to some of the most distin- 
goished colonial familieB in New England." 

The subjoined letters from John B. Frisbee and 
Senator Hoar will be of interest in this connection. 

" Lakswood, N. J., December 16, 1894. 

" My beab Mb. Plant : 

"This tai'dy reply to your favor of the 6th inst. is 
occasioned by illness since its receipt, and which 
prompted my coming to this place to recruit. I am 
now rapidly recoveiing from quite a severe attack 
of grippe, and hope to be able to leave for Mexico 
this week. 

" Referring to the subject of your letter, I can only 
give you meagre information. My great-grandfather, 
Philip Frisbie, was a major in the New York Militia 
and served under Washington, and I have no doubt 



8 The Life of 

was closely related to the Joseph Frisbie you men- 
tion. 

" I have a first cousin, Mrs. Farman, the wife of 
Judge Farman, fonnerly United States Consul-Gen- 
eral in Egypt, who has devoted much time and re- 
search in obtaining an accurate history of our family. 
Recently, she went to Europe for the purpose of 
educating her children in the French and German 
languages. 

" I have written to her, requesting her to advise 
you directly in regard to the information you desire, 
hence I feel assured that you will in due time re- 
ceive a letter from her upon the subject. 

*' Since we last met I have visited New York sev- 
eral times, and upon each occasion you have been 
absent from the city, thus depriving me of the 
coveted pleasure of paying my respects to Mrs. 
Plant and your good self; with best regards to 
both, I remain, 

" Yours very sincerely, 

" John B. Feisbde." 

" United States Senate, 
" Washington, D. C, January 26, 1805. 

** My dear Sm : 

*^ I know very little about the Frisbie family in this 
country. I have no relatives of that name. I was 
myself named for a very intimate friend of my father, 
Prof. Levi Frisbie, who was an eminent scholar in 



Henry Bradley Plant 9 

his time, a graduate at Harvard in 1802, and after- 
wards filled two professorships there. His writings, 
as I dare say you know, were collected with a brief 
memoir and are occasionaUy to be found in book- 
stores. He was son of the Rev. Levi Frisbie, of 
Ipswich, who delivered several addresses that have 
been published. Prof. Frisbie wrote some articles 
for the Nm'tk American Heview which you will 
find referred to in Cushing's lists of the articles. 
Dr. Holmes wrote me some years ago an account of 
Pro! Frisbie's personal appearance, which I suppose 
I can find when I am at home in Worcester, if you 
desire. Prof. Frisbie was nearly blind and instructed 
his classes and pursued his studies without being 
able to read. 

" I am faithfully yours, 

" Geo. F. Hoar.* 

«ToO. L. Frisbie, 

" Portsmouth, N. H." 

The Frisbee family was patriotic and promptly 
responded to the call of freedom and independence. 
There were thirty-five of them from Connecticut in 
the War of the Revolution. Eleven of them spelled 
their names Frisbee ; seventeen, Frisbie ; and seven, 
Frisby. They continued in the service of their 
country from the Lexington alarm, April 19, 1776, 

* George Frisbie Hoar. 



10 The Life of 

until the disbanding of the army, by Washington, 
on the Hudson in 1783. A regiment marched from 
Connecticut towns, in 1775, to the relief of Boston. 
John Fiisbee, son of Titus Ebenezer, represented 
Branford in the Legislature from 1690 to 1692. O. 
L. Frisbee writes to Mr. Plant: "Your ancestor 
was a good churchman. From him, there is a long 
list of Frisbees in the records of the church of Bran- 
ford. In 1700, the annals of Branford say that 
among the families prominently identified with the 
church, town, and business from 1700 to 1800, the 
Frisbees, Bands, and Plants head a long list in the 
order in which I have written their names. This 
religious element seems to have been with the Fris- 
bees. Rev. Levi Frisbee, father of Professor Levi 
of Harvard College, was a very pious man. 

" He was invited to deliver an oration on Washing- 
ton at his death. My grandfather was a very pious 
man ; he founded a church at Kittery, Maine. My 
father, Joseph Frisbee, was a deacon in the church. 
He and Caleb Frisbee were in the regiment from 
Branford. I found Noah and Edward Frisbee were 
members of the company that marched to the relief 
of Fort William Henry, August, 1757, from Con- 
necticut. I found your ancestor Joseph Foote Fris- 
bee was in the Revolutionary War. He lived to be 
ninety-eight years of age. About 1700, Samuel 
Baker and Samuel Frisbee, Jr., bought land for a 



Henry Bradley Plant H 

wharf at Dutch House Point, from Joseph Foote at 
Branf ord. Joseph Foote Frisbee might have been 
named for this man. 

" In the church records of Branford there is a great 
deal about Joseph Frisbee, in connection with the 
church from 1743 to 1746. I find all the Frisbees 
good church (Congregational) people, from the first 
Edward who settled at Branford, July 7, 1644. He 
and his wife Abigail joined the Congregational 
church soon after settling in Branford. I should say 
the Frisbees were good fighters in war, and good 
church and law-abiding people, with Puritanic prin- 
ciples that helped to build the nation.^' 

In a history of the Wolcotts of Connecticut, it is 
stated that John Frisbee and Abigail Culpepper, 
his wife, came from Wales. This may be correct, 
although in the genealogical sketch already given it is 
stated that the first of the family, Richard Frisbee, 
came from England to Virginia in 1619, but the 
same sketch says that in 1642 the Governor of Vir- 
ginia ordered all who would not join the Church 
of England to leave the Colony, and that hundreds 
went to Eastern Virginia, now called Maryland, and 
that among them was Richard Frisbee, who with his 
sons settled in Cecil County, living on Kent Island, 
the northern part of Chesapeake Bay. Now it is quite 
common, in the early accounts of immigration to 
America^ to describe the people as English, or as 



12 The Life of 

coming from England, when in fact they were Scotch 
or Irish. But coming from any of the British Islands 
they were often called English. This would be 
more Hkely to be the case with those coming from 
Wales, which is, geographically speaking, a part of 
the island of Great Britain. Be this as it may, it is 
not of great unportance. The spirit of dissent from 
the Established Church was just as strong in Eng- 
land as in Wales. The name Frisbee or Frisby, as 
it8 tenninal denotes, is of English origin, but il is 
quite possible that the family came from one of the 
border countries. 

Whether this family came from Wales or England 
may be only a matter of historic accuracy and per- 
sonal interest ; certain it is the Frisbees are a people 
who have done honor to their country both in war 
and in peace. They bore a prominent part in the 
victorious struggle for the freedom and independ- 
ence of the American Colonies. They have been 
the promoters of education, peace, piety, and " the 
righteousness that exalteth a nation." We have 
given this account of this people, for four reasons. 
First, because the historian of the family, with a 
commendable pride, has collected and preserved the 
family record of his people, from which the material 
for this brief notice was placed at our disposal 
Secondly, because the family histories of the people 
who have combined to form the American nation 



Henry Bradley Plant 13 

are only beginning to receive a slight part of the 
attention which they justly merit. Thirdly, because 
a knowledge of the numerous and varied races that 
have formed the nation is essential to a correct un- 
derstanding of the American people. Fourthly, be- 
cause in the present case, owing to the early death 
of Mr. Plant's father, the widowed mother was 
especially dear to him, and is still cherished in his 
memory with the most tender and affectionate 
regard. 

Mr. Plant's connection with Washington's army 
during the Revolutionary War was one of the fam- 
ily traditions, but he was not the man to accept 
honors imless he knew they rightly belonged to him. 
So after an extensive correspondence, and a thorough 
investigation of the military register in several States, 
and at the national capital, he received the follow- 
ing conmiunication, which I have carefully copied 
from the original. 

"Records and Pension Office, War Department, 
Washington, November 15, 1895. Respectfully 
returned to Mr. Oliver L. Frisbee, A.M., Portsmouth, 
New Hampshire. It appears from the records of this 
office, that Joseph Frisbee was enlisted September 
3, 1 780, and served as a private in Lieutenant-Colo- 
nel Sherman's Company (also designated as Captain 
Sylvanus Brown's and Lieutenant Joseph Halt's 
Company), Eighth Connecticut Regiment, Revolu- 



14 Henry Bradley Plant 

tionary War, and was also discharged October 29, 
1780." On transmitting the above to Mr. Plant, Mr. 
O. Frisbee writes from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 
December 24, 1 895 : " Enclosed please find the record 
from Washington of the service of your grandmother's 
father, Joseph Frisbee, in the Revolutionary War. 
He was bom August 17, 1746; married, March 11, 
1773, Sarah Rogers; had a daughter Sarah, bom 
May 16, 1774, married Samuel Plant, February 11, 
1795. These records will enable you and your sons 
to join in ' The Sons of the American Revolution.* 
" O. L. Fbisbeb.'* 




CHAPTER n. 



— Fint Chnich of Logs Surrounded b^ Stockade to Protect from 
Indians — GuordB at the Oate during Service — Church and Town 
Records Preaerred st Bnuiford— John Phun the First Town 
Gtok — Style of the Second Church Building and Character of 
ita Serricee— Bev. Timothy QiUett its Pastoi^He Taught an 
Academy in Addition to hia Pastoral Work — Prominent Fam* 
iliea of Branford— Intelligent Character of the People— De 
Tocqueville's High Estimate of this " Leetle State" — Braafoni 

SOON after New Haven was settled, the people 
negotiated with the Indians for an additional 
tract of land, some ten miles in length from north 
to south. It extended eight or ten miles east of the 
Quinnipiac River. The purchase of this land oc> 
curred in December, 1638. It was bought from an 
Indian sachem named Sorsheog of Mattabeseck. 
The territory included the land on which the town 
of Branford was built, and its Indian name was To- 
tokett It was several years before the purchasers 
went to live at Totokett. It was early in the year 
1644 when the first settlers located upon their lands 



16 The Life of 

at Branf ord. By the first of October of that year, the 
society was so far organized that their minister could 
gather them for regular service. The people soon 
built him a house and a meeting-house, or church. 
This latter stood in the front of the old burying- 
ground ; it was built of logs and had a thatched roof, 
and was surrounded by a cedar- wood stockade twelve 
feet high. A cedar-wood vase made from the wood 
of this stockade is still in the possession of Mrs. 
Samuel O. Plant. 

During the hours of worship, one or more of the 
men stood guard near the entrance of the stockade. 
AU carried firearms to church, or when going any 
distance from home. They were not afraid of the 
Totokett Indians, but of raiding bands of other 
Indian tribes who attacked both the whites and 
Indians. The fierce Mohawks from the neighbor- 
hood of the Hudson were often the assailants. The 
first thing that appears on the ancient records of 
Branford is the division of lands among the first 
settlers in the month of June, 1645. It has been 
said, and often repeated, that in 1666, when so many 
people went from Branford to settle at Newark, 
New Jersey, they took the records of Branford with 
them. These in some way were burned, and thus 
much valuable history was lost. But such was not 
the fact. 

The town and church records have always re- 



Old Homestead of the Plant Family. 

Bran ford, Connecticui, 
Hirtkphcf of Henry Brndlfy Piant. 



Henry Bradley Plant 17 

mained at Branford. They are quite full and in a 
reasonably good state of preservation. In a manu- 
script history of Branford from which the above 
account is taken, the name of the first town clerk, 
John Plum, in 1645, and a list of his successors, are 
given with the date of their service. It is interest- 
ing to note how much alike are the ways and cus- 
toms of this old Puritan town to those of the town 
of Harlem, built by the Dutch a little later and now 
part of New York City. In both places the history 
of the town and the history of the church are one. 
They are so interwoven that they can hardly be 
separated. The division of the meadow-lands is the 
same ; mutual protection from the Indians, and the 
manner of defence are also alike. The official ap- 
pointment, by the town, of a man to gather in all 
the cows of the settlers, take them out to graze in 
the morning, and bring them back at the proper 
time to be milked, and many other such customs, are 
very much alike in both settlements. 

The second church, or meeting-house, was built on 
the conunon, of wood, and was succeeded by the 
present house of worship, which is built of brick. 
Mr. Plant remembers the high galleries in the old 
church where the seats were arranged in slips, the 
boys on one side, and the girls on the other ; neither 
could see the minister, and it is very doubtful 
whether any of them heard him. There were no 



18 The Life of 

cliildren^s sermons in those days. The babes, of 
whom Paul writes, were not fed on milk, but on 
strong meat, which even the rigorous doctrin^ appe- 
tites of the fathers sometimes found hard to digest. 
Some of the modem church movements, such as wo- 
men preaching, and Salvation Army barracks, would 
have sufficiently alarmed those good orthodox people 
to make them call for a day of fasting and prayer. 
Nevertheless they were a noble race, among whom 
misappropriation and embezzlement of funds, trust 
swindling and corporation stealing and political 
corruption were unknown. 

The pulpit was the old-fashioned barrel-shaped 
structure, and, like some of the sermons, was high 
above the heads of the people. There was a great 
sounding-board over the head of the preacher, and 
it used to be a subject of calculation with the boys, 
whether this board would not some day fall on the 
devoted head of the speaker and stop the sound 
altogether. This church had the old family square 
pew, and in front of the pulpit was a bench for the 
deacons. The people were classified in their pews 
according to age, and the oldest, perhaps on account of 
their difficulty in hearing, occupied the seats nearest 
the pulpit. The church building was not warmed, 
save by the fervid sermons of those grand old Puri- 
tan divines. That, however, reached only the head 
and heart, hence, for the feet, they made stoves of 



Henry Bradley Plant 19 

sheet iron, over which was a perforated tin casing, 
and over this a hardwood casing. Coals from corn- 
cobs, or seasoned hickory, as being the most durable, 
were placed in this stove, which was carried in the 
bottom of carriage or sleigh to church, where its 
heat would last all forenoon. At the close of the 
forenoon service, the people went to the neighboring 
church house, which was warmed by a log fire. Here 
they ate their limcheon, and then returned to the 
church for another two hours' devotion. 

The Rev. Timothy P. Gillett was pastor of this 
church in Mr. Plant's boyhood. He taught an acad- 
emy — Mr. Plant being a scholar for several terms — 
in addition to his ministerial duties of preaching, 
visiting, and catechising the church people. He 
was a sober, solemn, orthodox clergyman of the old 
school, scholarly and dignified both in and out of 
the pulpit. It is only a hint of the changes that 
time brings, and no refiection on this good man's 
charity to say that, had he seen one of the modem 
ministers visiting his flock on a bicycle, he would 
have had him deposed from the sacred office. Some 
imfortunate misunderstanding came between him 
and his congregation in the latter part of his minis- 
try, so that his wife refused to have his remains 
interred in the church burying-ground. She after- 
wards relented, was herself buried in the church 
cemetery, and left in her will two thousand dollars 



20 The Life of 

to defray the cost of removing her husband's remains 
thither, and for erecting a suitable monument to his 
memory. The sacred dust of both pastor and wife 
rests, as it should, among the people to whom they 
ministered for some fifty years or more. The town 
of Branford was composed of an intelligent, indus- 
trious, and religious people, mostly farmers and 
well-to-do citizens. The academy presided over by 
the Rev. Timothy P. Gillett constituted a centre of 
intellectual, moral, and spiritual development that 
inspired the life and elevated the character of the 
people. 

The following account from the Brcmford Anncda 
is only one of the many testimonies that might 
be recorded of the patriotism and courage of this 
people : 

" No town in New Haven County was more im- 
portant during the war of independence than old 
Branford. Her citizens proved very patriotic. She 
had a few royalists who were somewhat troublesome. 
But most of her people were self-sacrificing in a 
special degree in sustaining the federal cause. No 
town surpassed her in furnishing men and means. 
Most all of her able-bodied men were in the army, 
responding promptly at every call. Col. William 
Douglass' regiment, which did most effective service, 
was largely recruited from Branford. The coasts 
and harbors of Branford exposed her to visits from 



Henry Bradley Plant 21 

the vessels of the enemy. Coast-guards were needed, 
and were kept night and day at Stony Creek, Indian 
Neck, Town Neck, and at Branford Point. At the 
approach of the enemy, two reports of a cannon 
were to call out all the people to repel invasion. 
Expresses were kept in readiness to hasten to the 
remote parts of the town with the alarming news. 
When New Haven was invaded, patriots from Bran- 
ford were quickly on hand to help. A company of 
her men were in the battle at Milford Hill. Two 
Branford men, Goodrich and Baldwin, were killed, 
and several others wounded at that battle. The at- 
tack of the British on the east side of New Haven 
harbor was repelled by the Branford home guard 
mostly. Those from Branford were supported by 
men from Guilford, who hastened to the rescue. 

" At that time a new vessel, a brig named the New 
Defenc€j was at Branford wharf almost ready to sail 
against the enemy. She had been built and manned 
at Branford. Her future history was tragical. At 
the first alarm of the landing at New Haven the guns 
of this vessel were taken out and hurried over the 
hills to East Haven. There mounted and vigorously 
used and well supported by the brave minute-men 
with their muskets, the invaders were compelled to 
hasten a retreat. One of the reports made by the 
British officers speaks of the strong force and * great 
guns' encountered in that direction. There is an 



22 Henry Bradley Plant 

old record at Branf ord showing that Mason Hobart, 
of that place, was paid £5 for carting two cannon 
to East Haven from the brig New Defencej July 5, 
1779;' 

Connecticut, though one of the smaller States of 
the Union, has ever maintained a high standard of 
patriotism, education, and moral power in the prog- 
ress of the country. De Tocqueville was in the 
habit of saying, "All de great men in Amerique 
comed from dat leetle State dey call Connecti-coot.^' 
Branford is an old seaport town. Its ship-building, 
fisheries. West India trade, two hundred years ago, 
were quite extensive for that day. It is also a sea- 
side resort in summer, being half-way between Bos^ 
ton and New York. 

Branford was for many years the Governor's seat 
of the colonial government of Connecticut. The 
house of Governor Saltonstall is still standing. 
Many of the useful and prominent men of the coun- 
try were bom and reared in this quiet yet enter- 
prising little town, founded more than two and a 
half centuries ago by the Puritans of old England. 
Among its noted and worthy families were those of 
the Plants and Blackstones, of whom we shall speak 
in the following chapter, as the two families became 
connected by marriage, and are still warmly at- 
tached to their native town. 



CHAPTER m. 

The BlackBtone Family— The Ancestor Came from England before 
1630— His Name was William Blaxton— Settled First in Haaaa- 
chnaetta, af terwardfi Went to Rhode Island — His Beautiful Char- 
acter and Numerous DeacendantB— Origin of Yale College of 
Branford — The Blackstone Memorial library. 

FROM a pamphlet history of the Blackstone fam- 
ily, in which the name is spelled Blaxton, we 
gather the following interesting account : 

"For several years before Winthrop came, in 
1630, William Blaxton constituted the entire popu- 
lation of this peninsula [Massachusetts, of which 
the present Boston Common was then a part], at 
that time an unbroken wilderness of woods trav- 
ersed by savages, by wolves, and other wild beasts 
almost as dangeroua Here he dwelt alone, exposed 
to dangers, many and great. He was a man of 
culture, refinement, and gentlemanly bearing, ami- 
able and hospitable, liked by Indians, and indeed 
by everybody. These noble traits, this love of na- 
ture, his sacred calling, his trusting futh, invested 
whatever belonged to him with a romantic interest. 
He was a clergyman of the Church of England, bom 



24 The Life of 

in 1695, graduated from Cambridge, England, in 
1617, and died 1675, aged eighty years. Blaxton 
took orders in the Episcopal Church, but it seems 
that he never had a cure, though he still wore his 
canonical coat, which would indicate his attachment 
to the English Church, yet some have represented 
him as a non -conformist, ^ detesting Prelacy.' He 
had in his library ten large volumes of manuscript 
books, presumably sermons, all of which were 
burned in his house during King Philip's War. 
Blaxton came to America in 1623 with Robert 
Gorges." 

The father of Mr. Plant's first wife was Captain 
James Blackstone. He lived to the ripe old age of 
ninety-seven. His son, Timothy B. Blackstone, is 
building a public library in Branford to the mem- 
ory of his revered father. The following extract of 
a letter to the donor from one of the trustees of this 
library, Mr. Addison Van Name, will be of interest 
in this connection, showing, as it does, the origin of 
Yale College. The letter is dated from Yale Uni- 
versity Library, and runs as follows : 

" My fellow-trustees asked me to procure a design 
for a book-plate, and one is herewith submitted for 
your approval. It seemed to us that a memorable in- 
cident in the earlier library history of Branford might 
appropriately be conmiemorated here, and this has 
been attempted in the vignette, in the upper right- 



Henry Bradley Plant 25 

hand comer of the plate. You are no doubt familiar 
with the story, but President Clap's Annals of Yale 
College is not a very common book, and I may be ex- 
cused for quoting his exact language. 

" In the year 1700, ^The Ministers so nominated 
met at New Haven, and formed themselves into a 
body, or society, to consist of eleven ministers, in- 
cluding a rector, and agreed to found a college in 
the colony of Connecticut, which they did at their 
next meeting at Branford, in the following manner, 
viz. : Each member brought a number of books and 
presented them to the body, and laying them on the 
table said these words, or to this effect, " I give these 
books for the founding a college in this Colony." 
Then the trustees, as a body, took possession of 
them, and appointed the Rev. Mr. Russel, of Bran- 
ford, to be the Keeper of the Library, which then 
consisted of about forty volumes in folio.' " 

The story is so good that, if there were not the 
best of reasons for believing it true, one might easily 
suspect it to have been invented. But in his preface 
President Clap says : " Several circumstances [and 
among them we may well suppose the incident in 
question] I received from sundry gentlemen who 
were contemporary with the facts related, among 
whom were some of the founders of the college 
with whom I was personally acquainted in the year 
1726." 



26 The Life of 

The following account of Mr. Timothy B. Black- 
stone is taken from the New York Herald of April 
12, 1896 : 

" Mr. Blackstone was bom in a part of Branf ord 
known as Blackstoneville, on March 28, 1829. His 
father, Captain James Blackstone, in whose memory- 
he erected this building, was a well-to-do farmer and 
stock-raiser. He derived his title of captain from 
being elected to that position in a company of local 
militia. He was elected to the Legislature in the 
sessions of 1825, 1826, and 1830, and was elected 
State Senator in 1840. 

" Timothy attended the public schools here until 
he was eighteen years old, when he left, and ob- 
tained employment as assistant to a civil engineer, 
who was at that time surveying on the construction 
of the New York and New Haven, now the Consoli- 
dated, Railroad. After finishing this piece of work 
he became an engineer, and was appointed assistant 
engineer of the Stockbridge and Pittsfield Railroad, 
a short line constructed in 1849, and now a part of 
the Housatonic road. After this road was com- 
pleted, Mr. Blackstone went west in 1851, and took 
charge of the construction of a portion of the Illinois 
Central Railroad. He settled at this time in La 
Salle, HI., and was Mayor of the city for one year. 
Li 1856, he became civil engineer of the Joliet and 
Chicago Railroad, which ran from Joliet via Lock- 



Henry Bradley Plant 27 

port to Chicago. After this he was employed in 
surveying the land over which the Chicago and 
Alton RaUroad now runs. 

" Mr. Blackstone first began accumulating wealth 
while this road was being built. He purchased 
land ahead^ and then sold it at a profit. He then 
invested in stock, and held several responsible offices 
imtil he attained his present position — president of 
the great system." 

On June 17, 1896, the magnificent library was 
dedicated with appropriate ceremonies, and called 
forth much enthusiasm from the townspeople. 

In the course of his speech on this occasion, as 
reported in the Daily PaUadium of New Haven, 
Judge Harrison said : 

"While the primary purpose of the generous 
donor of this building, and its endowment fund, is 
to benefit the people of the town of Branford, it 
will never be forgotten that it serves also as a me- 
morial to Hon. James Blackstone, who spent his 
long life of ninety-three years in this town, where 
he was bom, and to the welfare of which he devoted 
so much time during the years of his young and ma- 
ture manhood. For nearly two centuries the Black- 
stone family has occupied a conspicuous place in this 
conmiunity, and for the same length of time repre- 
sentatives of the family have been tillers of the soil, 
the title to which has always been in a Blackstone. 



28 The Life of 

"We cannot properly dedicate this building to 
the purpose for which it is intended without calling 
your attention briefly to James Blackstone, his life, 
his family, and his ancestora He was bom in Bran- 
ford in 1793, in a house located nearly opposite that 
home which was during nearly his whole life his 
residence, and where he died on the 4th of Febru- 
ary, 1886. His first ancestor in this country was 
the Rev. William Blackstone, a graduate, in 1617, 
of Emanuel College, Cambridge. He received Epis- 
copal ordination in England after gi'aduation, but, 
like John Davenport of New Haven, he soon be- 
came of the Puritan persuasion, left his native coun- 
try on account of his non-conformity, and became 
the first white settler upon that famous neck of land 
opposite Charlestown, which is now the city of Bos- 
ton. When the Massachusetts colony came to New 
England they found William Blackstone settled on 
that peninsula. He had been there long enough to 
have planted an orchard of apple trees. Upon his 
invitation, the principal part of the Massachusetts 
colony removed from Charlestown and founded the 
town of Boston, on land which Mr. Blackstone de- 
sired them to occupy. He was the first inhabitant 
of the town, and the colony records of May 18, 1631, 
show that he was the first person admitted a free- 
man of Boston. His house and orchard were located 
upon a spot about half-way between Boston Common 



Henry Bradley Plant 29 

and the Charles River. A few years passed by, and 
the peculiar notions of the Puritans of Boston on the 
subject of church organization and government, had 
satisfied William Blackstone that while he could not 
conform to the church of Archbishop Laud, neither 
could he conform to the Puritan Church of Boston, 
and when they invited him to join them he constantly 
declined, using this language: ^I came from Eng- 
land because I did not like the lord-bishops ; but I 
cannot join with you because I would not be under 
the lord-brethren.' 

"In 1633, an agreement was entered into between 
himself and the other old settlers, in the division of 
the lands, that he should have fifty acres allotted to 
him near his house forever. In 1635, he sold forty- 
four of those acres to the company for £30, retain- 
ing the six acres upon which was his orchard, and 
soon afterwards he removed to Rhode Island, living 
near Providence until the time of his death, which 
occurred on the 26th of May, 1675. A few years 
after leaving Boston he sold the orchard of six acres 
to a man named Pepys. He was not in any manner 
driven away from Boston by the Puritan Fathers, 
but holding certain ideas which did not agree with 
those of his neighbors, he concluded to move to a 
new location, from similar motives to those which 
led John Davenport to leave New Haven and go to 
Boston after the union of the New Haven colony 



32 The Life of 

people, not only of his own town, but of neighboring 
towns, when occasions arose concerning the settle- 
ment of estates or other matters, where the opinion 
and advice of a man of marked good judgment were 
needed. The first time I ever saw Captain James 
Blackstone, he was pointed out to me by a resident 
of the town, as he was driving past the old public 
square, with the remark: ^That is Captain James 
Blackstone. When he rises in a town meeting and 
says, " Mr. Moderator, in my humble opinion it is 
better for this town that a certain course be taken," 
the expression of his opinion always prevails with 
the majority of the votera in the meeting, so great is 
the confidence the people of the town have in his 
judgment.' His character and remarkable ability 
can be easily read by any student of physiognomy 
who will look at the admirable life-size portrait of 
him now placed in this building. If his tastes had 
led him to a larger place for the exercise of his 
ability, no field would have been so large that he 
would not have been a leader among men. 

" Yet here he chose to dwell, performing his part 
well through the whole of his long life. . . . 

" The donor of this library was the youngest son of 
James Blackstone. To many of you his history and 
life are well known. He left the east more than 
forty years ago to pursue his chosen profession. He 
married, in 1868, Miss Isabella Norton of Norwich, 



Henry Bradley Plant 33 

and since that time his home has been upon Michi- 
gan Avenue, in that great metropolis of the west, 
Chicago. There, for over thirty years he has man- 
aged with consummate skill the affairs of the most 
successful of all the great railroads of the west. Of 
him, his character, his generosity, and his remarkable 
modesty, but great ability, I am not at liberty to 
speak . . . but this is not complete as a memorial of 
James Blackstone unless I mention briefly the other 
descendants. The eldest son of James Blackstone, 
George, died in 1861, never having been married. 
The eldest daughter, Mary, married Samuel O. Plant 
One of her daughters, Ellen Plant, is with us to-day. 
Three grandchildren of Mra Mary Blackstone Plant, 
being the children of her daughter Sarah, are Wil- 
liam L., Paul W., and Gertrude P. Harrison. 

^^ The second son of James Blackstone, Lorenzo 
Blackstone, who lived for many years in Norwich, 
and died there in 1888, had five children. The eld- 
est, De Trafford Blackstone, has one son, Lorenzo. 
The second child of Lorenzo is Mrs. Harriet Black- 
stone Camp of Norwich, who has three children, 
Walter Trumbull, Talcott Hale, and Elizabeth Nor- 
ton Camp. The second daughter of Lorenzo is Mrs. 
Frances Ella Huntington of Norwich. The fourth 
child of Lorenzo Blackstone is William Norton Black- 
stone of Norwich ; and his youngest son, Louis Lo- 
renzo Blackstone, died in 1893. 



86 The Life of 

amusement. He died when Henry was six years of 
age, and, consequently, Mr. Plant does not remember 
much about his father. He can recall, how his father 
once came in, with a friend, from a morning's duck 
shooting, and threw down half a dozen ducks on the 
floor. At another time, his father took him by the 
hand to see something that was happening in the 
town which had drawn out the people, but he does 
not remember what it was. His father died of ty- 
phus fever, and he himself also had the fever, and 
was so ill that he knew nothing of his loss until he 
was partially recovered from the dreadful disease. 

One week after the father's death, the father's 
youngest sister died, and Henry's sister also died a 
few days following, when she was about a year old. 
He was then left alone with his mother. 

She was the only daughter of the Honorable Levi 
Bradley. He was a member of the Legislature and 
also a musician who taught a singing school. Mr. 
Plant remembers that his mother sat with the choir 
in front of the pulpit and led the singing in the Con- 
gregational Church. She had been brought up in 
the Episcopal Church, and though her father did not 
approve of it, she deemed it her duty to go with her 
husband to his church. 

" One of the first recollections I have of my mother,'* 
says Mr. Plant, " was on a Christmas Eve, when she 
dressed me up neatly, took me on her knees, talked 



Henry Bradley Plant 37 

affectionately to me, and sang that beautiful vesper 
hymn, * Adeste Fideles ' ; even now, whenever I hear 
it^ it brings tears to my eyes." This explains tears 
the author has seen in his eyes while listening to the 
orchestra in the music-room, but knew not then what 
were their tender and sacred association. Little did 
that mother realize the mighty power, the subduing 
influence, the enduring benediction to her child of 
that simple act, the outgoing of the maternal heart 
The hallowed influence of that sacred hour has never 
been effaced through long years, in the whirl of busi- 
ness, in the varied conflicts incident to a public life, 
in close contact with civil war, within sound of the 
booming cannon, and the groans of the dying, away 
in far distant lands, and on stormy seas. Yet amid 
all, the hallowed influence of that sacred hour, when 
a mere child on a mother's knee, has never been 
effaced. How well it accords with what the poet 
wrote: 

^* I had a mother once like yon, 
Who o'er my pillow hung, 
Kissed from my cheek the briny dew. 
And taught my infant tongue. 

" She, when the nightly couch was spread, 
Would bow my infant knee, 
And place her hand upon my head. 
And kneeling, pray for me. 



38 The Life of 

** Youth came; the props of virtue ruled; 
But oft at day's decline, 
A marble touch my brow could feel. 
Dear mother was it thine ? 

** And still that hand so soft and fair, 
Has kept its magic sway, 
As when amid my curling hair 
With gentle force it lay. 

" That hallowed touch was ne'er forgot. 
And now though time hath set 
Stem manhood's seal upon my brows. 
These temples feel it yet. 

" And if I e'er in Heaven appear, 

A mother's holy prayer, 
A mother's hand and gentle tear. 
That pointed to a Saviour dear. 

Will lead the wanderer there." 

Mr. Plant^s fii'st day at school is another tender 
memory connected with his mother. She had dressed 
him up in new clothes and talked to him about go- 
ing to school and learning to read, and becoming a 
good scholar, and doubtless much more that her 
kindly mother-heart would suggest to awaken inter- 
est and stimulate ambition in the boy. Then she 
took him outside the gate, pointed out the school- 
house, kissed him, and told him to go thither and 
give his name to the teacher as a scholar. His mother 
intuitively knew her child's sensitive disposition, and 



Henry Bradley Plant 39 

Lad her misgivings about his being able to carry out 
her instructions ; so she concealed herself and watched 
him till he reached the school door. Here poor lit- 
tle Henry's courage failed him, and he came running 
back to his mother, not to be scolded, but to be en* 
couraged and helped over his childish timidity. His 
mother this time went with him to the schoolhouse, 
took him in, and made him acquainted with the lady 
teacher. Thus began, more than seventy years ago, 
the first lesson of this most successful man. The 
scene is as vivid in his mind to-day as it was on the 
day when it was enacted. How little that teacher 
knew of the man that was enfolded in this timid 
child, and of the great privilege, as well as great re- 
sponsibQity, that was hers, thus early preparing him, 
in part, for his great career. ^^ ? ^ ^ 

Henry was a very diffident child, nor did his diffi- 
dence quite cease with childhood, for even in man- 
hood at public dinners when he suspected that he 
might be called on for a speech, it took away his 
appetite if not the enjoyment of the otherwise 
pleasant occasion. 

This will surprise many of Mr. Plant's friends who 
have listened to him with pleasure and profit on 
many occasions. He rarely prepared his speeches, 
but drew his ideas from that knowledge and experi- 
ence which he possessed on so many different sub- 
jects, and always spoke intelligently in plain, clear. 



40 The Life of 

well-chosen words, without any attempt at oratorical 
display. Of this we shall speak in another place. 

" Some time after my father's death, perhaps three 
or four years," says Mr. Plant, " my mother married 
again, a man by the name of Philemon Hoadley. 
He was a very religious man, and was exceedingly 
kind to me ; he said I was the best boy he had ever 
seen. He lived in New York State, and mother left 
Branford and we moved to his home at Martensburg, 
New York I lived part of the time with her there 
and part of the time with my grandmother Plant at 
Branford. She always attended church on the Sab- 
bath, and took me with her, never failing to carry a 
good luncheon, which we ate in the church house at 
the close of the morning service." 

An incident of Mr. Plant's boyhood was sent to 
the writer by one who has known him long, and 
esteems the President of the Southern Express Com- 
pany, (of which he has been a faithful and efficient 
agent in North Carolina for many years) very highly, 
and loves him with a genuine, manly affection. He 
writes thus : 

"The following incident which occurred in Bran- 
ford during Mr. Plant's boyhood may be of interest 
to you, in showing how near the country came to 
being deprived of his great usefulness and noble 
life. When a boy of about eight or ten years of 
age, he was one day riding a plow horse at work 



Henry Bradley Plant 41 

in the field. The horse became frightened and ran 
away, carrying plow, boy, and all with him. Bare- 
footed and bareheaded, the brave lad clung to the 
horse until entirely exhausted, when he fell and was 
severely injured. He was found in the woods by 
friends who carried him into their house. After 
several hours' hard work by the doctor and others, 
he revived sufficiently to be taken to his home. The 
fight for life was severe and protracted, but he bore 
it heroically. 

" I vdsh I could express all I feel towards Mr. 
Plant. I have been in his employ thirty-eight years 
— ^with the Southern Express Company. During all 
these years he has been a friend to me in all that 
that word implies. I am sure I voice the sentiments 
of thousands of his employees when I say that he is 
one of the noblest and best of men. A. P. B." 

After his mother married and had lived for some 
time at her husband's home in New York State, they 
went to live at New Haven and Henry made his 
home with them, often visiting his grandmother 
Plant at Branford. The grandmother wanted him 
to go to Yale College, doubtless in the hope that he 
might enter the ministry, for few took a college 
course in those days unless they intended to enter 
the ministry. But Henry was not particularly fond 
of study. He had attended the district school at 



42 The Life of 

Branfordy and had studied for a time at the Gillett 
Academy, and at Lowville, New York State. He 
had also studied under John E. Lovell, a famous 
teacher in New Haven, whose birthday was cele- 
brated in New Haven, long after his death. He was 
the founder of the Lancastrian System of instruction 
in America. Henry did not accept his grandmother's 
offer of a college course at Yale. He was anxious 
to try his hand at some active occupation. He 
attempted several things, none of which seemed to 
suit him. At last, in 1837, he engaged himself to a 
steamboat line running boats between New York 
and New Haven. 

The boats of the line were named respectively. 
New Yot\ New H(wen^ The S^lendidj The SwperioTy 
and The Bunh&r EM. 

Henry began as captain's boy and worked his way 
up, filling various positions for some five years, to the 
entire satisfaction of the company, so that on leaving 
it he was promised a captaincy of the next new boat 
if he would remain with the line. The following 
account, taken from a recent issue of The Ma/rine 
Jov/malj shows how young Plant would pocket his 
fastidiousness, and stand up to manly duty like a true 
American. This recalls the story of a man in a Phila- 
delphia market who tendered his services to an Irish 
coachman, who was troubled to find a man to carry 
home some fish which he had bought for his master. 



Henry Bradley Plant 43 

Arriving at the fine mansion on Chestnut Street the 
Irishman offered to pay his porter, who respectfully 
declined saying : " Oh, no, I only just carried the fish 
to oblige you. I do not need pay. I am a United 
States Senator. Good morning." 

" There are few men who can call to mind more in- 
teresting reminiscences of *Auld Lang Syne,' and 
tell them in a more agreeable manner than Heniy B. 
Plant. Refemng to his early manhood, Mr. Plant 
said recently: * I got my first experience in the ex- 
press business when performing the service of a deck- 
hand on a steamboat running between New Haven 
and New York in the latter part of the " thirties." 
At the time referred to I was employed on the side- 
wheel steamer New York^ which had for companion 
steamers the New Haven^ S^lendidy and Bunker HUly 
on each one of which I served at one time or another. 
It was on the New Yot\ however, that I spent the 
most of my apprenticeship. The deck-hands slept 
below in the forecastle, an uncomfortably small space 
in the " eyes " of the boat, and took our meals in the 
kitchen, standing up. Take it all in all it was rather 
rough on a fellow that had just left a good home, 
and when some of my towns-people would come 
aboard and catch me with swab or broom in hand I 
didn't feel altogether happy, but had too much pluck 
to quit. One winter the New Ywk had been laid 
up for new boilers, and I was transferred to the Splen- 



44 The Life of 

did till the New York was ready for service, and 
when she came out in the spring it was quite an 
event. She had two new copper boilers, one on 
each guard, the first to be placed on the guard& 

^^ ^ Up to this time a considerable lot of package 
freight, express matter, began to be sent back and 
forth. This was stowed in different places about the 
boat and not properly cared for, until one day the 
captain conceived the idea that a big double state- 
room forward of the wheel could be used in which to 
store it, and I was given the duty of looking after it, 
and a berth was put up there for me to sleep in. As 
I look back upon my career in those days, the one on 
which I was transferred from the dingy forecastle to 
the express room was by far the happiest, and it was 
there that I took my first lessons in the express busi- 
ness.' " Those who are familiar with the extensive 
business of the Southern Express Company, of which 
Mr. Plant was the founder, and which begins at 
Washington and extends throughout the railroads 
south of Washington and the Ohio, excepting the 
Illinois Central, and to Cuba by the Plant Steam- 
ship Lines, can undei*stand why it has taken nearly 
a lifetime of earnest toil to get it up to its present 
magnitude. It is a monument to the enterprise of 
the youngster from Connecticut, who got his first idea 
of the express business on a steamer between New 
Haven and New York nearly sixty years ago. The 



Henry Bradley Plant 45 

other large nndertakiugs of Mr. Plant in railroads, 
steamships, hotels, etc, that have helped make the 
State of Florida the garden spot of the United States 
in winter, were easy as their necessities developed, in 
comparison to the Southern Express business which 
was the foundation of this enterprising citizen^s fame 
and fortune." 

Captain Stone was very fond of young Plant, and 
deeply regretted his loss to the service. It was dur- 
ing Mr. Plant's engagement with this company, in 
1842, that he married Miss Ellen Elizabeth Black- 
stone, daughter of Hon. James Blackstone, one of the 
Blackstone family already referred to in this biogra- 
phy One son was bom to him, a promising child, 
who lived only eighteen months. His second and 
only living child is his son, Morton Freeman, now 
associated with his father as his assistant, and Vice- 
President of all the interests of the " Plant System," 
over which his father presides. Mr. Plant's position 
on the steamboat line plying between New York 
and New Haven, entailed a frequent absence from 
his home in New Haven, and he therefore decided to 
be more at home. At this time he went into the 
express business of the line conducted by Beecher 
and Company. At first he had charge of the busi- 
ness at New Haven, but afterwards went to New 
York City, still keeping up his connection with the 
boats. When the Beecher Company was consolidated 



46 The Life of 

with the Hartford and New Haven line, owned by 
Daniel Philipps and C. Spooner of Hartford, Mr. 
Plant was placed in charge of all the express business 
of the New Haven line in New York Subsequently 
the business was acquired by the Adams Express 
Company, and was transferred from the steamboat line 
to the railroad, and Mr. Plant was transferred with it. 
While thus employed, young Plant was economical 
and saving. He received his pay monthly, and in- 
stead of wasting it in folly and dissipation he gave his 
earnings to his mother, and she banked it for him. He 
then bought some stock in a New Haven bank which 
he still retains. His stepfather, being a religious 
man, advised Henry to buy a pew in a new church 
which the Congregational Society was building at 
New Haven. This he did, and in after years, on the 
failure of the church, when the property was sold, he 
got back his money. His stepfather died at New 
Haven about 1862 or 1863. 

It was in 1853 that Mrs. Plant was seized with con- 
gestion of the lungs, and Doctors Delafield and Marco 
advised that she be at once taken to Florida. On 
March 25, 1853, Mr. Plant started with his sick wife 
from New York City to Charleston, South Carolina, 
by the steamer Mainon. Prom Charleston he sailed 
on the steamer Calhoun to Savannah, Georgia. And 
from Savannah he went by the steamer WeUiha to 
Jacksonville, Florida. It took over eight days to 



Henry Bradley Plant 47 

make the journey which is now a delightful trip of 
one day, for he left New York on the Sabbath morn- 
ing and the next Sabbath evening he arrived at Jack- 
sonville, which was a small village then with only 
one poor wharf and not a vehicle of any kind to 
carry passengers or baggage. He succeeded in get- 
ting some negro boys to caiTy his trunk to a poor 
hotel where he remained only one day. Through 
some persuasion he found a man to take him into his 
private house at Strawberry Mills, seven miles in the 
country from Jacksonville, across the St. John's 
River. Here Mrs. Plant's health greatly improved, 
her cough disappeared and she was so much better 
that by the first of May, Mr. Plant was able to 
leave her and return to New York. Early in July, 
Mrs. Plant came back to the city apparently in good 
health. The following almost romantic story is told 
in the New York limes of their first experience in 
Florida. 

"In the winter of 1853, a Northern man with an 
invalid wife brought her down to Jacksonville to 
benefit her health. The present metropolis of Florida 
was then a settlement of five or six houses, one of 
which was called a hotel, but the hotel was so badly 
kept that the gentleman was cautioned against go- 
ing to it, and he found accommodations in a private 
house. He had letters of introduction to a Florida 
settler, whose home was six or eight miles out of 



48 The Life of 

Jacksonvilley and as soon as he could communicate 
with him through a stray traveller, the settler sent 
his boat after the Northerner and took him to his 
house. The boat was an immense ^ dug-out,' made 
from a single manmioth log, manned by a crew of 
uniformed blacks, who handled their oars in man-of- 
war style. At this settler's house a hospitable and 
comfortable stopping-place was found. 

" In the course of the winter the lady's health im- 
proved to such an extent that her husband decided 
upon taking her to St. Augustine for a pleasure trip. 
There was in the household a beautiful Indian girl^ 
the daughter of one of the Seminole chiefe, who af- 
terward became the wife of the settler I have men- 
tioned, and she volunteered to accompany the lady 
on what was then the long and difficult journey. 
The only road between Jacksonville and St Augus- 
tine was the old Spanish highway known as Hhe 
king's highroad,' and this was so grown up with trees 
and bushes that it was barely passable. But even 
this road lay five or six miles from the settler's house, 
and to reach it it was necessary to drive through 
the trackless woods. The gentleman and his w^e 
and the Indian girl set out in a buggy, their host 
going before them on horseback to select the road 
and blaze the trees between his place and the king's 
highway, to enable the strangers to find their way 
back. 



Henry Bradley Plant 49 

^ The journey was made in safety ; but the return 
trip took a little longer than was intended, and the 
party found themselves at the point where they must 
leave the old highway and turn into the forest just 
as the deep shades of a Florida night were about to 
fall. They found the blazed trees, but were unable 
to follow them. The gentleman, however, managed 
for some time to pick his way by finding the indis- 
tinct wheel tracks in the sand and the broken twigs ; 
but as the darkness increased this became impracti- 
cable, and there was every prospect that the invalid 
lady and her husband and the Indian girl would be 
compelled to spend the night under the pine trees. 
But their host was better acquainted with blazed 
trees, and, as they did not arrive when expected, he 
set out on horseback to hunt them up, and his shouts 
soon gave them welcome assurance of succor. The 
lady's health was so much improved before the winter 
ended that she returned home comparatively well, 
and during the remainder of her life every winter 
was passed in Florida. Her husband has not since 
that time missed his annual winter trip to Flonda, 
and he is now spending his thirty-ninth winter in the 
State. 

" The gentleman who found Jacksonville a settle- 
ment of a few shanties, and who came so near pass- 
ing a romantic but uncomfortable night in the woods 
with his wife and the Seminole girl, told me the 



60 Henry Bradley Plant 

stoiy of his adventure a few days ago, while I sat 
with him in his goi^eous private car, so far down in 
the State of Florida that, in 1853, few white men had 
reached it The Florida climate never did a better 
winter's work than when it restored the health of 
this gentleman's wife, and thus interested him in the 
new conntry, for the gentleman was Mr. H. B. Plant, 
who no longer does his Florida travelling in a dug- 
out, but sends his own ears over his own tracks to 
the farthermost comers of the State." 




CHAPTER V. 

Mr. Plant Ooea from New Haven to NewTork — Oaptain Stona'B 
Friendship— Mtb. Plant's Health Fails again— Returns to the South- 
Is Appointed Superintendent of Adams Express Company — His Oreat 
Executive AbiUty— The GvU War- Mrs. Plant's Death— Mr, Plant 
Buys out the Adams Express Company. 

WHEN Mr. Plant firat went to New York City 
he boai-ded at the Judson Hotel, then kept 
by a Mr. Judson of Hartford, Connecticut A little 
incident of that period shows the high estimation in 
which he was held by Captain Stone, Superintend- 
ent of the New York and New Haven steamship 
line. Captain S. Bartlett Stone brought his son 
George to board at the Hudson Hotel, saying, 
"Henry, when you were a boy I took charge of 
you ; now do you the same for my son." Mr. Plant 
remained in New York until October, when the fall 
weather of the North began to affect the health of 
his wife unfavorably. He then started South by 
the steamship KnacvUle, which ran to Savannah. 
When he reached Savannah he commenced to exercise 
his appointment as superintendent of the Hamden 
Express, which forwarded express matter from New 



52 The Life of 

York by steamer to Savannaby and thence to Augasta^ 
Macon, and Atlanta, by the Central, Macon, and 
Western Railroads; and also in Charleston, of the 
Hoey Express, by which goods were forwarded by 
steamer from New York to Charleston and were 
then distributed through the interior by the South 
Carolina Railroad. 

About this time, Adams & Company had organ- 
ized under the corporate title of the Adams Express 
Company, and had acquired all these express inter- 
ests above mentioned. This was in March, 1853, 
and April, 1854. The chief shareholders of the 
company were Alvan Adams, of Boston; William 
B. Dinsmore, of New York ; Edward S. Sanford, 
of Philadelphia ; Samuel S. Shoemaker, of Balti- 
more ; James M. Thompson, of Springfield, Massa- 
chusetts ; Johnstone Livingstone, of New York ; and 
R. B. Kinsley, of Newport, Rhode Island. When 
it was found necessary for Mr. Plant to go south 
again on account of his wife's health he was appointed 
superintendent of the Adams Express Company. 
This was in 1854, and he was placed in charge of 
all the interests then controlled by that company, 
and all that might be acquired by the company in 
the South under his management or through his 
efforts. 

During Mr. Plant's administration of the Adams 
Express Company, the lines were extended over all 



Henry Bradley Plant 63 

the railroads south of the Potomac River, namely, 
Norfolk, Kichmond, and Lynchburg, Virginia ; Louis- 
ville, Kentucky; Cairo, Illinois, and over all the 
railroad lines constructed in the South, and over 
all the navigable rivers on which at that time there 
was steamboat connection. The expanding and 
establishing of this great express business at Nash- 
ville, Memphis, Vicksburg, Louisville, and New 
Orleans, and many other cities and towns, proved to 
be a herculean task requiring much arduous travel, 
often in stage-coaches by day and night, over rough 
roads, through swamp and forest, in summer's heat 
and winter's cold. It goes without saying that in 
securing efficient service, properly locating offices, 
appointing qualified agents, and earning the confi- 
dence and patronage of an exacting public, there was 
demanded a discriminating judgment, prompt de- 
cision, skill, and tact of the highest order. It was a 
tremendous strain on mind and body, and that too 
upon one not yet used to a Southern climate. It 
must be remembered also that the express business 
of the South forty years ago was in its infancy ; the 
great Adams Express Company was still in its 
twaddling clothes, and required the greatest care 
and skill to nui*se it into maturity, strength, and 
power, especially in the peculiar condition of the 
<;ountry at the time when a dreadful civil war raged 
throughout the land. 



54 The Life of 

Few men would have ventured on such a hazard- 
ous undertakings and fewer still would have con- 
ducted it to such a successful completion. 

To the cool, clear head, the calm, quiet spirit, the 
persistent energy and dominant will of Henry B. 
Plant, is due the success of this great achievement. 
The Southern Express Company and the Texas Ex- 
press together do a business now extending over 
twenty-four thousand four hundred and twelve miles 
of railway, have lines in fifteen States, employ six 
thousand eight hundred and eight men, use one thou- 
sand four hundred and sixty-three horses and eight 
hundred and eighty-six wagons. Of both these com- 
panies, Mr. Plant is the honored and efficient presi- 
dent, and were we to attempt to estimate the amount 
and value of the goods handled by these great oi^ni- 
zations we feel sure the figures would be beyond the 
credulity of our readers. 

This comes down to the year 1861, the beginning 
of the civil war, when the Adams Express Company, 
believing that it would be hazardous for Northern 
citizens to hold property in the South, decided to 
dispose of their interests there. After unsuccessful 
negotiations with other parties resident in the South, 
the company sold and transferred their entire inter- 
est in the express line to Henry B. Plant. He formed 
a corporation under the laws of the State of Georgia, 
taking in all the shareholders of the Adams Express 



Henry Bradley Plant 55 

Company who were then residents of the States 
south of the Potomac and Ohio rivers. 

The company thus formed, known now as the 
Southern Express Company, at once elected Mr. 
Plant as its president, and this honorable and re- 
sponsible position he still holds. A central office 
was established at Augusta, Georgia. 

Mrs. Plant's health now began to give way. Their 
little boy Morton was with relatives in the North. 
She saw that troubles many and great were coming 
upon the country. Her disease returned, consump- 
tion laid its cold hand upon her, and on February 
28, 1861, this faithful wife and loving mother was 
taken from a world of strife, with its tumults of war 
and fratricidal conflicts, to the home of rest, peace, 
and eternal blessedness. The remains were interred 
in Augusta, but afterwards were removed to the 
family plot in the cemetery at Branf ord, the place of 
her birth and where her early years had been spent. 



CHAPTEK VL 

SelatioiiB to the Confederate Qov«rament— Jeffenon DttvisC^VM 
him Charge of Confederate Fimda — Mr. Plant BufsaSlaTe, who after- 
ward Nuieed him tluough a Severe Sickneee — Impaired Health — Ooes 
to Bermuda, New York, Canada, and Europe— Second Haiiiage. 

THE seat of the Confederate G}«vernment at this 
time was Montgomery, Alabama, and the 
express company, just organized by Mr. Plant, was 
appointed by that government collector of tariff 
upon all goods consigned by the express company, 
and was also given the custody of all funds of the 
Confederacy that were to be transferred from one 
place to another. The express company filled this 
latter office until the dissolution of the Confederacy. 

In consequence of this responsibility, officers and 
^ents of the company were either relieved from 
military service, or detailed for the service of the 
express company. Its officers and agents were 
also for the same reason exempted from jury daty 
in Southern States. 

Shortly before the removal of the capital of the 
Confederacy from Montgomery to Richmond, it was 



Henry Bradley Plant 57 

deemed necessary by government officials to define 
citizenship, and consequently a proclamation was 
issued by President Davis, that specified a time in 
which all citizens of States not in the Confederacy 
should leave it, or failing to do so within the time 
specified, would become citizens of the Confederacy, 
and would be subject to all duties and requirements 
of citizenship in the said Confederacy. 

"At that time I thought it was incumbent on 
me," said Mr. Plant, " that my duties and opinions 
should be understood by President Davis and his 
advisers. To that end I caused myself to be repre- 
sented by counsel to Mr. Davis and his Cabinet, in 
order that my opinions and position might be clearly 
defined and known to the government, so that its 
wish might be expressed, as to whether I should 
continue to have charge of the express company 
without interference, or avail myself of the procla- 
mation, and take my departure with other citizens 
of the State of New York. 

" I wished to know whether by remaining I would 
be required to abandon the express and its obliga- 
tions. It was a great satisfaction to me to learn 
from my counsel that the Cabinet were unanimous 
in this decision expressed by the President, that 
I should remain and continue to conduct the business 
of my company, he having full confidence in what- 
ever I might do." 



58 The Life of 

The substance of this interesting episode has been 
published before with some slight variations, but 
the above is from the most authoritative source, and 
may therefore be received as correct. 

While living at Augusta, Georgia, a curious inci- 
dent occurred which resulted in the purchase of a 
slave by Mr. Plant. When the express office was 
opened at this place, help was needed, a sort of 
man-of-all-work for the many requirements of the 
office. Dennis Dorsey, a colored man, was hired 
from his owner to act as porter, and in whatever 
capacity he might be required. One summer when 
Mr. Plant was about to go noi-th, Dennis came to 
him and said that his master was going to sell him, 
and that he wanted Mr. Plant to buy him. " What 
does your master want for you ? " asked Mr. Plant. 
" Fifteen hundred dollars," Dennis replied, " but it 
is too much, I am not worth so much. You can 
buy me when you come back, as there is little 
danger of my being sold at that price." But Dennis 
was sold in Mr. Plant's absence. When Mr. Plant 
returned, Dennis besought him to buy him from the 
trader at Mobile who then owned him. Mr. Plant 
bought him for eighteen hundred dollars, and 
brought him back to Augusta. In a short time 
after this Mr. Plant was stricken down with gastric 
fever, and Dennis proved a good and faithful nurse 
to him. Mrs. Plant was in her grave, and Mr. Plant 



Henry Bradley Plant 59 

lived alone at the hotel, so Dennis was gratified by 
the opportunity to return the kindness rendered to 
him by his generous purchaser. 

Early in August, 1863, Mr. Plant returned from 
the mountains, whither he had gone during his con- 
valescence. His health had been improved by the 
change, but he was still far from strong. Mr. 
Thomas H. Watts, attorney-general for the Southern 
Confederacy, had seen Mr. Plant's physician, who 
had advised a change of climate. Mr. Watts sent 
Mr. Plant a passport, with an order from President 
Davis authorizing him to pass through the Con- 
federate lines at any point. In about a month after 
this he went to Wilmington, North Carolina, and 
embarked on the steamer Hcmsa^ for the Bermudas. 
He remained there about a month, when he went 
by the steamer Alpha to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and 
thence to Montreal. There some friends from New 
York came to see him, and brought his son Morton 
from school to him. Mr. Plant then went to New 
Haven, Connecticut, to visit his mother, and in the 
fall took passage on the steamship OiUj of JEdin- 
hwrgh for Liverpool. 

He was now a stranger in a strange land ; the 
weather was cold, and with impaired health his ex- 
perience was rather depressing. 

However, Mr. Plant has never been the man to 
despond, still less to despair, but to make the best 



60 The Life of 

even of discouraging circumstances. So he went to 
Paris, whose mercurial people seldom cry, and always 
laugh when they can. Here he heard of some friends 
who were staying in Rome, and whom he would 
like to meet, so he determined to go there. By the 
French Commissioner of Passports he was informed 
that his passport from the Confederacy could not be 
recognized, and he was summoned to appear at the 
commissioner's office. He at once presented him- 
self to this official, answered many questions, and 
was informed that there was no way by which his 
passport could be accepted at present, but as he 
wished to visit Rome, then occupied by French 
troops, his case would be considered. 

A few days afterwards he had the satisfaction of 
receiving a document which served as a passport^ 
given in the name of the Empire of France, and in 
which he was described as a citizen of the United 
States of America, resident at Augusta, Georgia, and 
all officers, civil, military, and naval, were com- 
manded to protect this stranger. He went to 
Rome via the Mediterranean Sea, and was received 
everywhere with great respect. He was about two 
weeks in France, several weeks in Rome, and from 
thence he went to Naples, Leghorn, Genoa, Milan, 
and Venice, which latter place was occupied by an 
Austnan army. 

From Venice he went to Switzerland, visiting many 



Henry Bradley Plant 61 

places in that picturesque land, and returned to Paris 
by way of the Rhine. He then passed his time be- 
tween London and Paris until the autumn, when he 
returned to America by way of Canada. He after- 
wards went to New York, where he was staying 
when President Lincoln was assassinated. By the 
end of April he was back in Augusta, Georgia. 

Mr. Plant's second tour in Europe was in 1873, on 
the occasion of his second marriage. He was then ac- 
companied by his mother and his son, Morton Free- 
man, and on this occasion he made quite an extensive 
tour of the continent. 

His third visit was in the year 1889, when he went 
to the Paris Exposition with an exhibit of Southern 
products. Soon after his arrival in Paris he was 
asked by General Franklin, representative and Com- 
missioner-General of the United States, to accept the 
position of juror in Class Six, representing the United 
States. To this responsible position he was duly ap- 
pointed by the proper authorities, and served with 
entire satisfaction to all concerned. He was the only 
English-speaking juror in that class, as Sir Doug- 
las Galton was absent until near the close of the Ex- 
position. From this Exposition the " Plant System " 
was awarded a large number of medals, which may 
be seen framed in that palace of art, wrongly named 
an hotel, at Tampa Bay. A diploma was given to 
Mr. Plant, in addition, and many other marks of 



62 The Life of 

esteem and courteous attention were freely tendered 
him. 

Mr. Plant led a very busy life in Augusta. He 
lived with his wife at the hotel^ and, when she was 
travelling in the North in the summer, he had his 
office, for convenience, on the same floor as his bed- 
room. It had been his habit to keep pad and pencil 
by his bedside, so that when there came to his mind 
a matter that called for attention he at once put it 
down on his memoranda. He was constantly receiv- 
ing reports from his express offices all over the South. 
There came to him, for adjustment, many questions 
of management that were perplexing and urgent, so 
that he was often on the road, called away at short 
notice, north, south, or southwest. Complications, 
great, varied, and numerous, were superinduced by 
the civil war. The railroads were often seized by the 
contending armies, offices were raided, and confusion 
worse confounded heaped troubles thick and fast 
upon the president of the company, sufficient to have 
crushed a man of ordinary brain and nerve. But 
Mr. Plant was not the man to give way to difficul- 
ties,— only coolly to plan, determine, execute, and 
conquer. 

The following communication in memorandum 
form, from one intimately acquainted with Mr. and 
Mrs. Plant while in Augusta, Georgia, will be found 
suggestive of the busy life he led, and will prove 



Henry Bradley Plant 63 

valuable in furnishing the dates when he lived in 
that city^ and the location of his various residences 
while there. Moreover, its sequel sounds like the 
plot of a good novel. 

^^Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Plant became residents of 
Augusta, Georgia, in 1854. Captain W. and his 
wife moved to that city in 1855. Both families 
boarded at the Eagle and Phoenix Hotel, and thus 
became acquainted. The Eagle and Phoenix was on 
Broad Street, and is now believed to be the property 
of Mr. Plant. Mr. Plant was busy organizing and 
developing the express business, was continually on 
the road, and made frequent visits to the North. He 
moved to the Globe Hotel about the summer of 1856. 
Captain W. and his wife moved to the Trout House, 
in Atlanta, Georgia, early in 1858, and Mr. and Mrs. 
Plant joined them there and spent the summer 
months with them, while Mr. Plant still made Au- 
gusta his headquarters and was constantly on the 
road. 

" On Mr. and Mrs. Plant's return to Augusta in the 
fall of 1858, they took residence at the Planter's Hotel, 
then kept by Mr. Bobbins. In the spring of 1859, 
Mr. and Mrs. Plant, leaving their young son Morton, 
with Captain W. and his wife in Atlanta, visited 
New Orleans and remained there during Mardi Gras. 
Their stay, however, was much shortened by the 
demands made upon Mr. Plant's time and attention 



64 The Life of 

by the celebrated Maroney robbery. Mrs. Plant's 
health, which had been failing for some time, was 
rapidly growing worse. Mr. Plant's movements were 
thus handicapped, and his trips necessarily became 
shorter and more frequent. Captain W. and wife 
moved to Athens in April, 1861. Mrs. Plant intended 
to spend the spring and summer of 1862 with them, 
but their plans were broken up by her death, at 
the Planter's Hotel, Augusta, February 28, 1862. 

" Mr. Plant visited Athens shortly after the funeral^ 
and remained several weeks ; from thence important 
business called him back to Augusta. Health began 
to fail him and he visited Athens again in the fol* 
lowing year. It was at this time that his friends 
prevailed upon him to pay a visit to Europe in the 
hope that his strength would be restored to him. 

" In illustration of the good memory which Mr* 
Plant possessed for a past kindness, the following in- 
teresting story is told. The narrator was sitting in his 
office talking with Mr. Plant, when the latter suddenly 
turned from him to a clerk to instinct him in the 
following words. * While I remember it, I want 
you to write to Mrs. W. to say that her request that 
we take charge of her money is granted. We will 
take it and give her six per cent., this will give her 

dollars to pay for her board, and we will add 

to it dollars, which will keep her comfortably 

among her friends.' 



Henry Bradley Plant 65 

"The amount added was very nearly one and a half 
times as large as the interest on the moderate amount 
of insurance which her deceased husband had placed 
on his life before he died. 

"Then when all arrangements for this poor widow's 
comfort had been made with the treasurer, Mr. Plant, 
not supposing that I had ever heard of the woman, 
explained that long years ago, when his first wife 
was sick in Augusta, this now widowed woman was 
very kind to her and also to his son Morton who was 
then a very little child. This was thirty-six years 
ago, but it was as fresh in Mr. Plant's memory, and 
as near to his heart as if it had occurred only a few 
weeks ago. Little did this good woman think at the 
time she rendered this kindly service to a delicate 
wife, that thirty-six years hence it would be paid 
back to her with compound interest. It may be 
truly said that ^ bread cast upon the waters shall re- 
turn after many days.' " 

The Southern Express Company rendered very 
valuable services to the men engaged on both sides 
during the Civil War, by carrying packages, boxes, 
and parcels of all descriptions free of charge, — medi- 
cines, and comforts of various character, that made the 
hard life of the soldier a little easier, and gladdened 
his heart with the evidences that he was remembered 
tenderly in his far-away home. This service was 
especially acceptable on the occasions of exchange 



66 The Life of 

of prisonerSy when clothing and money were the 
special needs of the men. 

The benediction of many a brave hearty now still 
in death, rests upon the kindly services of the South- 
ern Express Company so generously given during 
the four years of the bloody struggle. 

In evidence of Mr. Plant's popularity and the es- 
teem in which he was held by his associates in busi- 
ness as early as 1861, it may be mentioned that on 
January 1st of that year, at Augusta, 6a., he was 
made the recipient of a magnificent testimonial in 
the form of a service of solid silver bearing the fol- 
lowing inscription : 

PBESENTED TO 

H. B. PLANT 

BY HIS A8800IATES IN THB ADAMS 

SOUTHEBN EXPBESS 

AS A TESTIMONIAL OF THEIB 

RESPECT AND ESTEEM 

AUOUSTA, OA., 

JANUABY 1, 1861 

In 1873, eleven years after the death of his first 
wife, Mr. Plant married Miss Margaret Josephine 
Loughman, the only daughter of Martin Loughman, 
of New York City. She is descended from an an- 
cient and noble family, whose ancestral estate, eight 
miles long, in the Land of the Shamrock, is now oc- 
cupied by Lord Dundrum. Mrs. Plant's great grand- 



Henry Bradley Plant 67 

mother on her mother's side was Lady Mary Murphy, 
of Ballymore Castle, Ballymore. Her own mother 
was Miss Ellen O'Duyer, said to have been a woman 
of great beauty and to have been descended from the 
Kings of Munster. 

The finest train of Pullman palace cars we ever 
saw was prominent among the beautiful exhibits at 
the Atlanta Exposition of last year (1896). Their 
exquisite upholstering and decoration owed their 
superlative finish to the refined taste of Mrs. Plant. 
The Tampa Bay Hotel, more like a palace of art, is 
indebted to this same lady for much of its elaborate 
furnishing and artistic adornment. The two hand- 
carved mantelpieces in the salon, the admiration of 
all visitors, as well as some of the fine cabinet-work 
in the gentlemen's reading-room, evinced her busi- 
ness capacity and fine sense of the fitness of beautiful 
furnishing that costs no more than the plain and 
commonplace. She has given much time and earnest 
eflEort to the selection, purchase, and direction of the 
upholstering and decorations of that finest of Ameri- 
can-built steamships. La Ghrande Duche&aey just com- 
pleted at Newport News. 

The impress of her forcible character and refined 
taste can be detected in many places throughout the 
great system over which her husband so ably pre- 
sides, but is known only to those who are admitted 
to the inner circles of its operations. 



CHAPTER Vn. 

Education from Books, and from Experienoe— Kem IntnitioDB — 
Abreast of the Progivee — Mr. PUnt'a After-Dinner Speech at 
Tampa Banquet Qiren him by Tampa Board of Trade, March, 
18, 1886— Location of Tampa— In Territorial Days Had a Military 
BeserratioD — In 1884 Population about Seven Hundred — Its Coe- 
mopoUtan Population now— Many Cubans and Spaniards in 
Tampa — Tobacco Industry — Phosphate Abounds in this Part of 
the State— Much of it Shipped to the North and to Europe— Plant 
SyBl«m Oivee Impetus to the Proeperity of the Place— Its Pro- 
gress the Last Five or Six Years. 

TEXT-BOOKS are neceesary iDstrumeata in a sys- 
tematic course of ioBtructioD, especially in tfae 
period of school and college days, but their chief 
value lies, not so much io the actual kuowledge 
which they impart as in the intellectual training 
TPhich they give for the acquisition of know- 
ledge in the future. Hence, as civilization advances 
and the schools of higher education increase, less 
dependence is placed on text-books, and more em- 
phasis is laid upon lectui^s and laboratories by which 
the student is stimulated to original investigation and 
independent thought. The knowledge of current 
events which we derive from observation of human 



Henry Bradley Plant 69 

nature, and which gives us great opportunities to do 
good to ourselves and to others, is not acquired from 
books. 

The books may have done good service in the 
previous mental discipline, but the actual knowledge, 
the practical experience in a professional or business 
career, has come to us in the course of solution of 
the problems of life. Mr. Plant is a striking illus- 
tration of this fact. He was never a bookish man, 
and lays no claim to classical erudition or scientific 
knowledge ; yet he is fully alive to the progress of 
the human race. Few events of importance in the 
world escape his keen observation. 

It was his quick insight and keen penetration 
which led him to see the opportunities and possibili- 
ties oflEered in the South, when others had passed 
them by unseen. 

Mr. Plant has an intuitive knowledge, possessed 
by few men, of many things outside his immediate 
sphere of action. He spent several days going over 
the plans of La Ghrande Duchease in minute detail be- 
fore the contract for building her was signed, noting 
scores of corrections which the architect was more 
than gratified to make. His after-dinner speeches at 
Southern banquets have no spread-eagleism in them; 
no declamation, but calm, quiet, easy suggestion, as 
if talking to a few friends whom he loved and wanted 
to help, and better still, wanted them to help them- 



70 The Life of 

selves. There is no alarm^ but friendly admonition, 
wise counsel^ valuable instruction, most kindly ad- 
ministered. 

In March, 1886, the Tampa Board of Trade 
honored Mr. Plant with a splendid banquet, and 
warmly welcomed him and his friends to this once 
sleepy old hamlet, now kept awake by the steam 
whistles of the South Florida Railroad and those of 
the steamships sailing to the West Indies. In reply 
to a toast by General John B. Wall, Mr. Plant said : 

*^Some two years and a half ago I was escorted 
here by some of the gentlemen present, upon a 
wagon-line across the peninsula of Florida from 
Kissimmee City, with Mr. Haines, Mr. Ingraham, 
Mr. Elliott, and Mr. Allen. We had a day's journey 
to reach over the gap in the railway that was then 
being constructed, connecting Tampa with the St 
John's River. It was an interesting trip. I think to 
the best of my recollection we passed not more than 
seven habitations on that journey, certainly not 
more than that while daylight lasted, and now we 
can make the trip from Kissimmee to Tampa in 
three or four hours and find cities on the way, — cities 
of enterprise, with a frugal and industrious popular 
tion. Business has grown, and great progress has 
been made in this part of Florida, but no place 
has improved more than this town of Tampa. 
Tampa, it seems to us, had a chill, although the 



Henry Bradley Plant 71 

climate was good. A citizen told me on that visit 
that they did not value the land at anything, but 
that the air was worth one thousand dollars an acre. 
That gave the value of Tampa land at that time. 
All are nware what is the value of Tampa land at 
present. Very little I am told is for sale. 

" That is what the railroad has done for Tampa. 
The gentlemen who are associated with me look 
with pleasure upon the progress that has been made 
in Tampa. We go back and look upon the progress 
that has been made by what is known as the Plant 
System, which commences at Charleston, reaches out 
to Chattahoochee, and terminates at Tampa. This 
system, which you probably know, we call under 
various names ; it is part railway, part express com- 
pany, part steamboat company, part steamship com- 
pany, but it all has one object and is known as the 
Plant System. It has been successful in what it 
has undertaken so far. I think that success may 
be attributed to the harmony that prevails in the 
councils on the part of the officers of the railroads, of 
the steamships, of the steamboats, and express, that 
go to make up that system. There is no jealousy, 
but rather a rivalry to know which will do the most. 
And to that spirit, in every one connected with the 
system, to do all that is possible to advance its prog- 
ress, is due the success of the Plant System. 

^This is, I think, all that can now be said in 



72 The Life of 

direct response to the toast, but I would like to say 
a few words of Tampa, of its possibilities and its 
opportunities. You are all aware that Tampa is 
but one port on the Gulf of Mexico from which a 
railroad extends to the interior. There are ports 
north of it and ports south of it ; ports where rail- 
ways extend to deep water. Some of them have 
the advantage of Tampa. It is useless to mention 
the names, for you all know them ; you are familiar 
with the advantages of all these ports. I will not 
give the reason why they have not advanced. It 
may be because they have not all had the railway 
backing that Tampa has had ; they have not had a 
united line of railways leading to them and ex- 
tending from them. Tampa has just started, it 
seems to me, in its progress towards prosperity, 
and the prosperity that it must receive if it receives 
the backing that commerce would dictate to it. The 
wants of commerce are large; they are eicacting, 
and Tampa has many rivals. There are many cities 
that aspire to it and to grow as these cities see that 
Tampa is growing at the present time. They will 
do it, if it is possible, by putting on steamship lines, 
by putting on railway lines, by extending them to 
get some of the business at least, that is now draw- 
ing towards Tampa, and it is for the people of 
Tampa to determine for themselves to what extent 
they shall share it. 



Henry Bradley Plant 73 

^^As I have stated, it is important to Tampa's 
interests to see that all obstructions to commerce 
are removed ; in other words, that commerce and 
trade shall be unimpeded both to and through 
Tampa. You all recollect that last year there was 
a great Exposition in a neighboring city of the 
Gulf — New Orleans, — where millions of money were 
expended to draw the attention of the countries 
south of us, notably the West Indies and South 
America. This, that their attention might be drawn 
to the United States, and especially the southern 
part of the United States, for trade, and, as I said, 
millions of money were expended on making that 
Exposition and maintaining it all the winter for 
the purpose of showing the people of the West 
India Islands what could be done. That Exposition 
was gotten up not for benevolence, but for the 
purpose of inviting trade. Now we are doing all 
we can to encourage that trade by opening up mail 
communication between the United States and those 
very countries that so much money was spent to 
encourage the trade from. 

" We are running steamships three times each 
week, and I think that every gentleman in this hall 
should raise his voice to the authorities at Washing- 
ton and endeavor to persuade them to send the mails of 
the entire United States (I mean the mails of the entire 
United States, the South and West as well as the 



74 The Life of 

East), by the quickest route whereby they can 
reach those countries of which I have spoken. By 
that route the mails can reach the whole of the 
West India Islands, the whole of the west coast of 
South America, in better time and more frequently, 
with the present source of communication than by 
any other line. And notwithstanding that line was 
put on on the 1st of January, our postal authorities 
at Washington hardly seem alive to that fact, and, 
as I said before, I think that the gentlemen of 
Tampa should raise a united voice that the Post- 
Office Department may be waked up to know there 
is a route via Tampa that is the quickest for the en* 
tire countries south of us. I do not know that I 
can say any more. I have responded to the toast 
*Our Honored Guests,' and said veiy little about 
them. I feel somewhat in the position that Mr. 
Ward probably felt when he was advertised to de- 
liver a lecture on * Twins.' He occupied his entire 
evening on the introduction, and left the speech on 
the ' Twins ' out altogether.'* 

The following account of the growth of Tampa 
is taken from the New York Daily Tribune of 
November 17, 1891. It illustrates the large share 
which Mr. Plant has had in this growth, and the 
way in which he has closely identified himself with 
its history. 

" Over on the west coast of Florida in Hillsborough 



Henry Bradley Plant 75 

County, or less than two hundred miles north of 
the southern end of the State, is an old, old town, 
which, in the territorial days of Florida, when the 
Government first established a military reservation 
here, was a small settlement that grew into a village 
and was called Tampa. Owing to its extreme isola- 
tion, its growth was slow, and, in 1884, there were 
not more than one or two shops, and a population of 
a little less than seven hundred. A year later the 
southern terminus of the Plant System of railroads 
was established at Tampa, and since then the 
growth of the place has been phenomenal. As 
Postmaster Cooper, one of Tampa's wide-awake 
citizens and a newspaper editor, says: * Henry B. 
Plant may be said to have been the founder of 
Tampa, and people of enterprise, industry, and capi- 
tal from every State in the Union, and Cuba, have 
flocked here and built upon the foundation, until 
to-day Tampa rivals the best cities in the State. 
The South Florida Kailroad is one of the best 
equipped railways in the South, extending from 
Port Tampa to Sanford, a distance of 124 miles.' 

" The South Florida Road runs through the most 
fertile and most prosperous part of the State and has 
done more than any other agency to develop South 
Florida. And while it is true that the railroad gave 
to Tampa her first onward impetus, and has done, 
and is yet doing, much toward the development of 



76 The Life of 

the place, yet there are other agencies which have 
done much to help along the great work. The most 
prominent of these is the cigar-making industry, 
which was first established here three years ago. 
It is second to none as an important factor in Tam- 
pa's substantial prosperity and commercial success. 
Tampa has also profited by the immense deposits of 
phosphate, which is shipped from here, not only by 
rail all over the country, but by water direct to 
Europe. There is a large grinding mill here, and a 
meeting of representatives of phosphate interests was 
held recently, and a movement started to put up the 
necessary tanks and machinery for making the acids 
and other materials for the manufacture of super* 
phosphate. When factories of this sort are put up 
it will no longer be necessary to send the phosphate 
to Europe to be acidulated. 

" I went over to the palatial Tampa Bay Hotel, an 
enterprise of Mr. Plant, and the completion and fur- 
nishing of which, preparatory to its opening in two 
or three weeks, Mr. Plant has been personally super- 
vising. I found him and a portion of his family at 
breakfast in his private car, in which he was to start 
north in the afternoon for a brief stay before com- 
ing down here for the winter. Mr. Plant is always 
approachable, genial in his manner, ready to talk 
about people and their prosperity, but not of him- 
self or his. No one can accuse him of egotism. He 



Henry Bradley Plant 77 

said nothing of his massive hotel until I drew him 
out. I said : ' Mr. Plant, I leam that no one knows 
better than you of the beginning and the progi'ess 
of Tampa and its probable future. In fact, they say 
that you are the father of Tampa ; tell me about it, 
please.' 

" ' Well,' said the genial railroad president, * when 
I first drove across the country from Sanford, for we 
are nearly west of that point, and there was no other 
way of getting here by land, I found Tampa slum- 
bering as it had been for years. This was eight 
years ago. It seemed to me that all South Florida 
needed for a successful future was a little spirit and 
energy, which could be fostered by transportation 
facilities. There were one or two small shops and 
a population of about seven hundred in Tampa. I 
made a careful survey of the situation, calculated 
upon its prospects and concluded to take advantage 
of the opportunity, and we who made early invest- 
ments have proved the faith in our own judgment 
Tampa was really unknown to the commercial world 
until the South Florida Railroad introduced her 
there. This was in 1885, and it brought to the town 
a new life, and breathed into it all the elements of 
push, progress, and success. Tampa at once began 
to spread itself, and ever since has been fairly bound- 
ing along the road to greatness. It has now a popu- 
lation of about ten thousand, and is rapidly increasing. 



78 The Life of 

Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars 
have been invested in business, and instead of a few 
scattered and unpainted storehouses, there are now 
many magnificent brick blocks, handsome private 
residences, cosey cottages, large warehouses, mam- 
moth wholesale establishments, busy workshops, 
comfortable hotels, two newspapers, a phosphate 
mill, cigar factories, first-class banking facilities, tele- 
graph and telephone communications, two electric- 
light establishments, ice factories, a complete system 
of waterworks, eight lines of steamships and steam- 
boats giving communication to Key West and Ha- 
vana, Mobile, places on the Manatee River, etc.' 

" Mr. Plant's hotel, upon which he has spent about 
$2,000,000 on the building and grounds and $500,000 
for the furnishing, and which is nearly ready for the 
opening, is in the centre of a sixteen-acre plot of 
ground just north of the city bridge. The architec- 
ture is Moorish, patterned after the palaces in Spain, 
and minarets and domes tower above the great five- 
story building, each one of which is surmounted with 
a crescent, which is lighted by electricity at night 
The main building is 511 feet in length, and varies 
in width from 50 to 150 feet. A wide hall, on either 
side of which are bedrooms, single and in suites, 
runs the entire length of the building to the dining- 
room at the southern end. The exterior walls are 
of darkened brick, with buff and red brick arches 



Henry Bradley Plant 79 

and stone dressings. The cornices are of stone and 
iron ; the piazza columns are of steel, supported on 
pieces of cut stone. 

** The main entrances are through three pairs of 
double doors, flanked by sixteen polished granite 
columns, supporting Moorish arches, over which 
balconies open from the gallery around the rotunda 
to the second floor. The principal staircase is of 
stone, and the horseshoe arch and the crescent and 
the star meet the eye at every turn — the electric 
lights in the dining-hall, the music-hall, the drawing- 
room, the reception-room, the reading-room, and the 
office being arranged after these patterns. The 
drawing-room is a casket of beautiful and antique 
things, embracing fine contrasts. There are a sofa 
and two chairs which were once the property of 
Marie Antoinette ; a set of four superb gilt chairs 
which once belonged to Louis Philippe ; two antique 
Spanish cabinets, and between ten high, wide win- 
dows appear Spanish, French, and Japanese cabinets, 
both old and quaint. Old carved Dutch chairs, 
rare onyx chairs, and queer seats of other kinds are 
scattered along the hall. Among the large collection 
of oil paintings, water - colors, and engravings, are 
portraits and old pictures of Spanish castles and 
fortresses. 

"A large rustic gate for carriages and two for 
pedestrians lead into the grounds on the northern 



80 The Life of 

side. These gates are made of cabbage-palmetto 
trunks, the mid-ribs being of the leaves worked into 
a quaint and rustic design. On either side of the 
great gate stand giant cabbage-palmettoes, thirty and 
forty feet high, set in groups of five and seven, the 
Moorish numbers. A number of large live-oaks^ 
one a tree of great breadth and beauty, remain on 
the grounds. Near the centre of the lawn a fort 
has been built of white stone, having two embra- 
sures. In it are mounted two old cannon that were 
spiked on the reservation of Tampa during the Civil 
War. The grounds front on the Hillsborough River 
and overlook the city. Fort Brooke and Tampa Bay^ 
and are filled with fruit-trees, roses and flowers. 

" The streets of Tampa are not what they will be, 
but a great improvement has been going on in the 
last year ; and when all the thoroughfares are paved, 
macadamized or otherwise hardened, they will be 
attractive drives. The roads on the west side of the 
river are naturally hard and smooth, giving fine 
drives in various directions. The water supply is 
obtained from one of the largest springs of water in 
the State, and is abundant for all purposes, and 
ample factories provide ice from distilled water. 
Until the session of Congress of 1889, Tampa was 
in the Key West customs district, and the custom- 
house business was looked after by a deputy ap- 
pointed by the Collector of Customs at Key West. 



Henry Bradley Plant 81 

But when Congress passed a bill making Tampa a 
regular port of entry, a collector and a full corps of 
assistants were appointed. To give an idea of the 
growth of Tampa, it is only necessary to compare the 
customs returns for 1885, when, under a deputy-col- 
lector, the receipts were only $75, with the report of 
last year, which showed receipts considerably above 
$100,000. 

" For a long time builders had suffered great incon- 
venience and delay because there were no brickmak* 
ing works. It was not believed that good brick 
could be made in Tampa, and all orders for this 
necessary building material had to be sent away 
from home. But in 1888, one of the enterprising 
citizens, who had found a bed of good clay just 
north of the city, began to manufacture bricks. 
The result is that builders are now furnished 
vnth home-made bricks almost as fast as they need 
them. It was stated to me that as much as $300,- 
000 had been expended in the erection of brick 
buildings during the last year. One of the new 
public buildings is the City Hall and Court House. 
It is 50 by 100 feet on the sides and is two and a 
half stories high. 

" Tampa's population may certainly be called cos- 
mopolitan, comprising people from every quarter of 
the globe ; but three classes preponderate so largely 
as to warrant distinction, — the American, the Cuban 



82 The Life of 

white people, and the African or colored people. 
There is no diflEerence worthy of note between the 
first mentioned in Tampa and those of other sections 
of the United States. They have all the push and 
enterprise characteristic of the American people, and 
are the peer of any in social life. 

" There are between three and four thousand Cu- 
bans in Tampa, and some Spaniards, too, but there 
is an intense prejudice on the part of the Spaniards 
against the Cubans, and as the latter feel the same 
dislike for the Spaniards, conflicts between the two 
sometimes occur, and if it were not for the good 
police administration might prove serious in some 
instances. The Cubans are many of them property- 
holders and are identified closely with the city's 
growth. They are reported as moral, temperate, 
energetic and quite desirable citizens ; and, are al- 
most without exception, engaged in cigar-making 
and kindred industries. They are also an amuse- 
ment-loving people, have several clubs and societies, 
an opera-house, a band and a newspaper. The 
Cuban settlement is in the Fourth Ward, called 
Ybor City, after Martinez Ybor, the pioneer cigar 
manufacturer in Tampa. Only four years ago this 
part of the city was an unimproved and uncultivated 
forest; now it is an active, bustling, wealthy town 
within itself, and, to add to its interest. Postmaster 
Cooper recently established a branch station, as he 



Henry Bradley Plant 83 

has also in the settlement of the colored people, for 
the accommodation of those who live far from the 
general post-office. 

"Twelve cigar factories are located in Ybor City, 
and there nearly all of the cigar-makers live. The 
largest factories are those of Ybor & Co., Sanchez, 
Haya & Co., Lozano, Pendas & Co., R Monne & 
Bro., and E. Pons & Co. These five factories manu- 
factured 33,950,575 cigars last year, the output of 
the Ybors alone being 15,030,700. The total number 
manufactured in the thirty factories in Key West 
was 77,251,374. More than $30,000 is paid out to 
the 1500 or 2000 cigar-makers in Ybor City every 
Saturday night, one-fourth of which is paid out at 
Ybor's factory; and about $150,000 has been ex- 
pended here in the past six years upon improve- 
ments. This cigar-making industry has contributed 
materially to the development and growth of Tampa 
during the last five years, and it promises much 
greater benefit in the future. It was in October, 
1885, that Martinez Ybor & Co., who began manu- 
facturing in Havana in 1854, and afterward put up 
a large factory in Key West, came to Tampa to 
investigate the resources and advantages offered for 
cigar-making. They soon afterward purchased forty 
acres of land in the Fourth Ward, cleared it of the 
pines, wild-oats and gophers, and built a factory, a 
large boarding-house or hotel, and several small cot- 



84 The Life of 

tages for the workmen whom they brought from 
Key West and Havana. The venture proved a suc- 
cess from the start and improvements were added. 
The original factory, a wooden structure, is now the 
opera house, and a large brick factory has succeeded 
the first one, where the daily output of the 450 cigar- 
makers employed is 40,000 to 50,000 cigars. Then 
came Sanchez &, Haya, Emilio Pons, and others, and 
all declare that they are doing an excellent business. 

" 'The required condition of the climate of Tampa 
for good cigars is said to be fully equal to that of 
Key West or Havana,' said one of the manufacturers 
who has had factories in both places. 'This has 
been proven by an actual and thorough test. An- 
other advantage comes from the superior transport- 
ation facilities of the South Florida Railroad, which 
gets freight quickly to New York.' 

" The colored people of Tampa are declared to be 
in a better general condition than they are in any 
other part of the South. They are also represented 
to be a generous, quiet and inoffensive class of citi- 
zens. They are also far more industrious than 
those in some other sections of the South, working 
almost every day, and the 2000 negro population 
have a settlement of their own, midway between 
Tampa proper and Ybor City, which would be a 
credit to any community. Many of the houses, 
like the streets, run in irregular lines, but the homes 



Henry Bradley Plant 85 

and the shops have a tidy and orderly appearance as 
though not neglected, and at night everything about 
them is quiet and peaceful, only the songs and the 
moderate conversations and the musical laughter 
being heard. Very few of these people live in rented 
Apartments, but nearly all own their little cottage 
homes. They have many excellent churches, schools 
taught by colored teachers, and nearly eveiy home 
has a small library. Then, too, or with very few 
exceptions, the colored people command the respect 
of the whites. 

" Port Tampa, which is the port from which the 
Plant Steamship Line sails for Havana and other 
places, is about ten miles below here. One of its 
attractions is 'The Inn,' a great hotel built in colo- 
nial style, beside the South Florida Railroad, over 
the water and about 2000 feet from the shore. It is 
both a summer and winter resort for tourists and 
Floridians. Another attraction is the fishing, either 
for bass from the wharf or boats, or for the tarpon, 
or, * Silver King,' at Pine Island. The third at- 
traction is Picnic Island, the name itself telling its 
purpose." 

Notwithstanding the general depression of the 
country during the last five years, the growth of 
Tampa has gone forward with a rapidity unsurpassed 
in any five year^ of ite history. The entire cityZ 
increased in population from seven thousand to 



86 



Henry Bradley Plant 



twenty-eight thousand daring the past decade and is 
still growing steadily. Property is as valu&ble on 
the main business street of Tampa as it is in New 
York City above Central Park. The city has a 
Board of Trade, a Board of Health, schools, academy 
and churches of all Christian denominations. Few, 
if any, cities in Florida have a more promising fatoie 
before them than Tampa. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

Florida Hr. FUmt'e Hobby— Banquet at Ocala— Hr. Flanf s Speech— 
8ul on I^kes Harrieoti and Griffin — Banquet at Leeeburg — Visit 
to Eiutis— Cheering Words to a Toung Editor — Uoke the beet 
of the Frost— ^t may be a Bleedng in DiBguise— Must CuItiTate 
other Fruits, (and Cereals) beeides Oranges — Importance of Hod- 
eeby — Sense of Justice — ConsideratioD tor the Workmen — Un- 
conadoua Moulding-Power over Associates and EtnploTeee— 
Letter of Honorable Rufus B. Bullock. 

MR. PLANT'S associates say of him : " Oh, Flor- 
ida is one of the President's peta" Anything 
touching the prosperity of Florida is sure to get a 
sympathetic bearing from him at all times. He 
loves the Land of Flowers and has spent many 
pleasant days in it at all seasons of the year. Nor 
does it fall to the lot of every man to receive such 
high appreciation for the good be has done and such 
esteem and affection as Mr. Plant receives from these 
warm-hearted, whole-souled Southern people. Mr. 
Plant having recently included Ocala in his railroad 
and hotel system, a fact which promises much for 
the future progress of this enterprising town and 
section of Western Florida, the people wished to 
87 



88 The Life of 

express their grateful appreciation of the man whom 
all the South delights to honor. So, in the winter 
of 1896, they tendered to him a grand banquet to 
which he and his friends and associates in office were 
welcomed. Nothing was left undone by these good 
people to make the occasion pleasant. 

The feast was held in the Ocala Hotel which 
came into the possession of Mr. Plant during 1896, 
and was opened that season as one of the Plant Sys- 
tem Hotels. The house was elaborately decorated 
with Southern ferns and flowers. A reception 
was first held in the parlor, then about seventy 
ladies and gentlemen sat down to a sumptuous 
dinner, enlivened by sweet music, and good cheer. 
Many beautiful tributes of esteem and friendship 
were eloquently presented to the guest of the even- 
ing, who had been requested by the committee of 
arrangements to speak to the toast, ^^The Plant 
System." The following account taken from the 
Atlanta Qmstitutioriy is a fairly good report of his 
speech, which held the audience spellbound from 
beginning to end. He said: ^'I am gratified and 
pleased beyond measure to be with you to-night on 
an occasion of social enjoyment to exchange compli- 
ments and greetings with the undaunted citizens of 
Ocala and revel in the bounteous hospitality of this 
proud and prosperous little city. Words count for 
but little in the effort to express my sincere appreci- 



Henry Bradley Plant 89 

ation of such evidences of cordiality as have been 
shown this night to me and to my friends and asso- 
ciates in business. Surely the very presence of so 
many of your community's worthy citizens, your 
city's leading business and professional men, who 
have rendered the further compliment of bringing 
with them their charming wives and daughters, 
would of itself inspire any man, who is not insensible 
to the impulse of gratitude, with a feeling of gratifi- 
cation and deep appreciation for the compliment it 
conveys. It pleases me to see so many of the ladies 
of Ocala here to-night, for their charming presence 
lends beauty to the brilliant scene and makes 
all the more enchanting this hour of pleasure and 
promise. 

" I feel that it is good to be here. I am always 
glad to mingle in social intercourse with my good 
fiiends of Florida, for I warrant you that nothing 
is more comforting than to know that in all my 
endeavors to aid them in the upbuilding of their 
favored section I have their hearty good-will and 
unstinted co-operation. In congratulation upon the 
continued prosperity of Ocala, despite the recent 
chilling frosts, which seemed well-nigh to sweep 
away your beautiful orange groves and blight the 
interests of your agricultural community, I wish to 
say that it is pleasing to me to observe the un- 
daunted pluck and courage of your irrepressible and 



90 The Life of 

invincible people, who, never swerving from the 
duties of citizenship, have set about the arduous 
task of buUding up again the agricultural and indus- 
trial interests of this region of Florida, with a new- 
ness of life and a heartier zest. Such detennined 
eflEort will surely be crowned with unbounded sue- 
cess and prosperity in the end. There is no reason 
why Ocala should not be a prosperous city. Your 
climate is excellent ; your water is pure and whole- 
some ; your lands are fertile and prolific, and your 
people are joined with a unity of ambition and a unity 
of aim for the upbuilding of every interest alike. 

" I have been asked to speak to you of what is 
known as the * Plant System.' Not this mere physi- 
cal system of the man — ^for that speaks for itself. 
But the system of railways and steamships and other 
interests which have been built up as all other indus- 
tries are built up in the great march of American 
progress and industrial development. In touching 
upon the plans and scope of the Plant System, I be- 
lieve I will be credited with perfect sincerity when 
I say in the very outset, that if some of the condi- 
tions of which we now have knowledge had been 
known in the beginning, much of this system would 
not exist to-day. I have reference to such condi- 
tions as have in late years arisen and confronted 
corporations in the nature of an obstacle and an 
obstruction. As you all perhaps know, thei'e has 



Henry Bradley Plant 91 

been a great change in the plans and methods of 
railroad construction during the last decade or two. 
In the old days railroads were built for the most 
part by the people of means along the proposed 
route, and they were for the most part short lines. 
People did not set out in the earlier days to build 
long lines of railways. As years rolled by, however, 
there sprang up among the people of some sections 
an unexplained feeling of hostility to corporations — 
a sort of antagonism to capital — which has worked 
its way like a devouring worm into the politics of 
the nation, and which, in recent yeai*s, has well nigh 
sapped the lifeblood from many of the leading ridl- 
way systems of the country, by plunging them into 
such a complicated pool of injurious legislation as 
to land them on the dangerous shores of bank- 
ruptcy. Just at the time when such a spirit of 
antagonism was at its zenith there came a change in 
the methods of operating railway lines. Instead of 
the short lines, several of the roads began to be 
joined together for a longer line, thus reducing the 
expenses of operation and at the same time giving 
better facilities of travel and of shipment. It was 
found that the railroads could not live if operated 
on the short-line basis, for competition grew so great 
it became necessary to link this road and that to 
form a through line binding the commerce of one 
section to that of another in rapid transit at reduced 



92 The Life of 

expenditure. This came as a necessity born of 
the situation, for the railroads were being bank- 
rupted on the old plan and were sold out by receivers 
for their original ownera to the men of capital, and 
they saw the absolute necessity of a more economical 
basis of operation. Taxes were high, competition 
was great and everything served evidence that the 
old plan would no longer prove feasible. 

" Just why there should be any hostility to such a 
plan of railway management among the people who 
are, after all, the ones benefited most by the increased 
facilities that are given them, is not made clear to 
me, but such a spirit did prevail, and does prevail 
to-day in some sections to such an extent that men, 
blinded to the interests of the people of their sec- 
tions, are continually stabbing at the very heart 
of the railway corporations and crying out that 
they need to be watched by legislative censors, and 
of this notion the railway commission was born. 
My friends, I know but little of the motives that 
prompt such legislation against railroads, but I 
do know that some very serious mistakes have been 
made. It has been said that the king can do no 
wrong, but it has with equal truth been said that 
the king can make mistakes. In the State of Georgia, 
this persistent spirit of hostility to railroads, this 
organized effort of legislative restriction, has within 
the past few years thrown neariy every railroad in 



Henry Bradley Plant 93 

the State into the hands of a receiver. The result 
has been a gradual reorganization of these properties 
by the men of capital in the East, and a new plan of 
operation at reduced expenditure through consolida- 
tion. What else could have resulted ? 

" The interests of the people and the railroads are 
certainly not conflicting interests. They are com- 
mon interests and should go hand in hand and heart 
to heart in the great work of building up this coun- 
try. The one should not be made an obstacle for 
the other. I cannot see how the Plant System of 
railways and steamships could be other than a pillar 
in the structure of the industrial world of this Re- 
publiCy interested in all that tends to the promotion 
of the general interests of the people. Of what 
avail would railroad construction be to the owner if 
it were intended to be run in hostility to the busi- 
ness interests of the people of the country it trav- 
ersed? What would a railroad be worth if not 
supported by a healthful business community in per- 
fect harmony ? On the contrary, what would any 
country be without the railroads ? 

" It is true that the people of this section have suf- 
fered heavy loss lately through some unexplained 
stroke of Providence, by which the orange groves 
of Florida were laid low by the withering touch 
of the hand of dread winter, and it is furthermore 
true that the phosphate interests have been injured 



94 The Life of 

by an over-production, but that is a matter that rests 
with the fates, to be worked out in their own good 
season. Misfortunes sometimes prove to be but 
blessings in disguise, and it rests not with mortals 
to gainsay the wisdom of that edict which comes 
from an Omniscient Providence. In all your losses 
on the farms and in the phosphate mines, bear in 
mind that the railroads are suffering a kindred loss, 
for the blow was as keenly felt by them as by you. 

" Let us move together while the hand of adver- 
sity weighs heavily upon us, just as we have always 
tried to do when we were more prosperous. Let 
us take no part in the systematic effort that some 
are making, to persecute the railway enterprises of 
Florida at such a time as this, for such persecutors 
are blinded to their country's interests. If there 
was ever a time when the people and the railroads 
ought to work in perfect harmony that time is at 
hand. I believe labor ought to be protected in 
a reasonable and rightful degree, but I also believe 
that capital ought to be protected against the un- 
righteous onslaughts of those who know not what 
they do. 

" In conclusion, my good friends of Ocala, I b^ 
to thank you again for your generous reception to- 
night. I believe there is much in the spirit that 
rules here that bespeaks the dawn of brighter and 
better days for the people of this region." 



Henry Bradley Plant 95 

The following day a special train took Mr. Plant 
and his party to Leesburg, where arrangements had 
been made by the people of that beautiful little 
town to give Mr. Plant and his friends another ova- 
tion of most healthful pleasure and exquisite enjoy- 
ment. The Mayor and leading citizens of the place 
met the party at the railroad station and welcomed 
them with marked cordiality to their best hospitality 
and friendship. At the close of a day's most delight- 
ful sailing up Lakes Harrison and Griffin, and many 
carriage rides on the shores of those beautiful lakes, 
situated as they are in some of Florida's most pic- 
turesque scenery, the party sat down to a banquet 
in the hotel given by the Leesburg Board of Trade. 
** It was truly a feast of reason and flow of soul," for 
nothing could have been in better taste or evinced 
more genuine esteem and friendship for the guest of 
the occasion than was shown there. 

On the next day a special train took Mr. Plant 
and his party to Eustis. At the station all the 
prominent people in town were gathered to welcome 
him. Carriages were in waiting to take him and his 
friends through the beautiful little town. It was 
with visible emotion that he looked upon the with- 
ered, lifeless orange trees bared by the terrible frost 
of the preceding winter, a drear and desolate scene 
as compared with the bloom and beauty of other 
days. Mr. Plant, however, was never given to fruit- 



96 The Life of 

less marmuring. To a young editor in the carriage 
with him he said : ^* No, we must make the best of 
even the adverse situation. It might be worse. 
You must publish words of cheer and hope to your 
people, and do all that you can to help them over this 
trying time. Suggest to them the planting of other 
crops, the rearing of other fruits. It will not do to be 
altogether dependent on oranges. The soil is cap- 
able of raising many other things besides oranges, 
and it may be that this calamity will become a bless- 
ing in disguise.^' So he ministered good cheer and 
practical instruction to the people, who felt that he 
loved them, and who were very responsive to his 
encouraging words. 

I doubt not these people uttered the true senti- 
ments of their deep feeling when they said as they 
bade him good-bye : " Mr. Plant, you have done 
us all a great deal of good, we shall never forget you 
for this visit you have made us. It will be a pleas- 
ant memoiy to us always, and if you and your friends 
have enjoyed your visit half as much as we have en- 
joyed having you, then is our happiness increased a 
hundred fold." Never have we witnessed anything 
more beautiful and tenderly impressive than the 
kindly interest which Mr. Plant's visit called out 
among these people. His every want was anticipated, 
luncheons, rare and delicious, were carefully stored 
away on boat and train and brought out at the right 



Henry Bradley Plant 97 

time. After sail or ride in train and carriage in this 
most appetizing atmosphere had made the party 
hungry as prairie wolves, then a sumptuous repast 
was served and enjoyed to the full. Rooms, and 
rest and care in hotel, cars, or boats were provided 
with a skill and tact that made one think of the 
Plant System. 

Honesty is the foundation and keystone of every 
noble character. It is the quality that must pervade 
the whole nature. Nothing can take its place or 
atone for its absence, nor can there be a perfect man- 
hood where it is not the warp and woof of the whole 
man. " Honesty is the best policy " says the policy 
man, but he who is honest only from policy and not 
from principle, is not an honest man, but a knave, if 
not a fool as well. Genius, scholarship, wit, humor, 
brilliancy are worse than worthless when they do 
not rest on a foundation of honesty. Never was a 
greater tribute paid to man than when President 
Lincoln's neighbors dubbed him ** Honest Abe.'' 
Nor did poet ever rise to higher flights of truth than 
when Scotia's Bard wrote "An honest man's the 
noblest work of God." " To be honest, as this worid 
goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand," 
says Shakespeare. In the history of the human 
race men of all ranks have ever paid the highest 
tributes to honesty and accorded to it the first place 
in human character. It is this quality, combined 



98 The Life of 

with his great energy, which has enabled Mr. Plant 
to carry his undei'takings to so successful an end. 

One of his associates in business for long years 
said : ** Mr. Plant does not rashly promise but when 
he does, performance is sure, cost what it may. 
Were I having a business transaction with Mr. Plant 
for any amount, and knew that he would live to ful- 
fil his engagement I would ask neither bond nor 
written contract. His word would be just as good 
to me as any security that could be drawn by the 
best legal authority in the land.'^ ^' I should name 
honesty as the dominant principle of Mr. Plant's 
character," said another. 

It has been naively said that no '^ man is a gentle- 
man to his valet," but the testimonies here quoted 
are from men of long and most intimate acquain- 
tance, and might be multiplied by hundreds of those 
who were once in his employ as well as by those still 
connected with the great System over which Mr. 
Plant presides. Careful scrutiny and good judg- 
ment have characterized all Mr. Plant's dealings with 
his fellow-men, but crooked ways and mean advantage 
never. He has rendered to his generation an invalu- 
able service in that he has demonstrated to it that 
honesty is the best principle and the surest way to 
the greatest success. And he has done this in de- 
partments of commerce proverbial for their unjust and 
unfair methods of dealing. 



Henry Bradley Plant 99 

He has a wonderful amount of unconscious power 
which moulds those who come within its influence. 
Hence his associates have remained long with him 
even when tempted by other positions. The follow- 
ing extracts from a letter of ex-Governor R. B. Bul- 
lock will be found of interest in this connection. 
^* Rev. Dr. Geo. H. Smyth. 

" Reverend and Dear Sir : — 

"Replying now to your esteemed favor of March 
17th, would say that Mr. Henry B. Plant came to 
this city in 1854, representing the Adams and other 
express interests, which were then being extended 
through this section of the country; and he con- 
tinued to make this city his headquarters in that 
connection until '69 or '70, when he made his home 
in New York. There are no 'incidents' within 
my knowledge connected with Mr. Plant's life here, 
which would be of special interest to incorporate 
in a biography. He developed then the same per- 
sistent, conservative and industrious perseverance 
in planning for and directing the interests in his 
charge, which have since developed into the im- 
portant and widespread interests over which he now 
presides. 

" Naturally, in the development and establishment 
of the business in his hands in those early days, it 
became necessary for him to select proper men to fill 
the various positions connected therewith and it is a 



100 The Life of 

notable f act, by experience shown, that the selections 
so made by him, were wise and judicioos, and one of 
the marked features of his executive action has been 
the kindly exercise of unlimited and undisputed 
authority. There is no recollection of his having 
displayed impatience or irritable temper, even under 
very vexatious circumstances. His manner was 
always friendly, frank and appreciative, so that the 
disposition of the men subject to his control, was 
always found to be actuated by a desire to accom- 
plish all that was possible for the interest of the in- 
stitution over which Mr. Plant presided, sufficiently 
encouraged and cheered by the hope of his appro- 
bation. So close an eye did he keep upon the 
services rendered by the most insignificant employee, 
that no service well rendered failed to receive his 
personal endorsement and approval. 

" By reason of his evenly balanced judgment and 
temper, his relations with the chief officers of rail- 
road and steamship companies over and by which 
express service was transacted, and with bank offi- 
cials — who were then our chief patrons — were always 
of the kindliest character, and he always enjoyed 
their perfect confidence and highest respect. 

" In fact, all of the characteristics, which have made 
his later life the magnificent success which the coun- 
try appreciates, were developed and maintained 
throughout his early business experience. 



Henry Bradley Plant 



101 



"There ia notbing new or peculiar about the facts 
to which I have referred, because they are well koown 
and appreciated by hundreds of men now in the 
service who have been continuously with it since its 
organization. 

" Very respectfully and truly, 

" RUFUS B. BULLOOK." 



CHAPTER IX. 

Hr. nant'a iDduBtr^ and Power to Endun Continaons Blisiii — I«bar 
of Examining and Answering bis Einonnoua Hail — Letter from 
Jftpan — Mail Delivered Beg^ularljr to Um at Home and Abraad — 
His Private Car, its Style, Structure, Hoepitality, and Cheering 
Presence — Numerous Calla — The Secret of hia Elnduiance — Tlio 
Esteem and Love of the Southern Elxpreas Company for its Presi- 
dent— Hr. Plant Enjoys Social Life — He is a Great Lover of almost 
all EJndsof Husic— Mr. Plant a Medical Benefactor — Some of the 
Progress Made in the Healing Art — Bishop of Wincbeeter's High 
Estimate of the Value of Health— Dr. Long's Opinion of the Onlf 
Coast as a Health Restorer — Unrecognized Medicines in Bestor- 
ing Lost Health— Nervousness among the American People— The 
Soothing and Strengthening Effect of Florida Climate — Mr. 
Plant's Part in Facilitating Travel and Providing ComfortaUe 
Accommodations (or the Invalid. 

MR. PLANT'S industry and power of endnrance 
are a tuarrel to thoee around him in office 
work. Over five hundred letters a week received is 
no unusual thing. These are read to him by hia 
private secretary, and answered ander his direction 
or dictation. They come from the three different 
departments of the Plant System, which extends over 
many thousands of miles, by land and by sea, and in 
its Express department forwards goods over a mileage 
greater than the circumference of the globe. 



Henry Bradley Plant 103 

Some of these letters require deliberation, skill, 
cai-e, and sound judgment in replying to the many 
complex questions of such a large and important 
business as the Plant System covers. Others are less 
complicated and more easily disposed of, while many 
are of a social character, from Mr. Plant's numerous 
friends scattered, I might say, over the world. One 
day while sitting in his office at Tampa Bay Hotel, 
he said : " I had a very pleasant letter this morning 
from Japan. Some lady missionaries there write me 
of an excursion I once gave them in Florida, which 
afforded them much enjoyment and of which they 
write in enthusiastic appreciation though it occurred 
many years ago, and I had forgotten all about it.'* 

This large mail is a matter of daily occurrence. No 
day in the whole week is free from its arrival. If he 
travels, as he often does in his own elegant private 
car, his mail is delivered at important stations all 
along the road. Being in constant communication 
with all departments of the System by telegraph, 
telephone, or messenger, his mail is forwarded to him 
promptly at aU railroad stations named for its de- 
livery, is examined and replied to as readily as if in 
his main office in New York City, for he has an office, 
desk, and all needed facilities in his car for sending 
out telegrams, letters, or messages from the different 
stations by the way. His car is a model of con- 
venience, comfort, and elegance in all its appoint- 



104 The Life of 

ments. It is finished in richly carved mahogany, 
upholstered and curtained in rich blue velvety with 
numerous windows and mirrors of heavy French 
plate glass. It is numbered *^ 100/' and known all 
over the South. Its entrance at any station causes 
sunshine to break on every face, and the old colored 
men who come, bucket in hand, to wash and polish it 
where it happens to remain over a night or a day at 
the station, are fairly beaming when they greet 
" Massa Plant " and are always paid back in their 
own coin with United States currency added. Every 
old ''uncle" at the railroad stations in the Cotton 
States knows "Car 100," and asks no better holiday 
than to " shine her." 

To return to the enormous office work of the Pres- 
ident of this great system of transfer and traffic, it is 
a marvel how he has stood it all these years. It is 
no unusual thing for him at Tampa to spend two 
hours in hard work in examining his mail before 
breakfast, then till luncheon, with perhaps an hour's 
intermission, and then work until late in the after- 
noon. His numerous calls from all sorts and classes 
of people, are a constant strain upon brain and nerve, 
not to say heart at times. The secret of this endur- 
ance of long and fatiguing work, is found in the 
fact that to a sound constitution, inherited from 
a hardy, thrifty ancestry, Mr. Plant has added a tem- 
perate life and great moderation in the use of stimu- 



Henry Bradley Plant 105 

lants. While a man of quick intuition and keen 
sensibility, he has shown the most wonderful self- 
control in the most trying circumstances. When 
others would be agitated and wholly thrown off 
their balance Mr. Plant would remain calm, quiet, 
cool, and clear-headed to a degree that stilled the 
tempest all around, and effected an amicable adjust- 
ment of matters most important as they were most 
complicated and difficult of settlement. This self- 
control is joined with great fertility of resources, 
great charity for the peculiarities of men, and withal 
a kindliness of nature, a disposition not to hurt any 
one, that have enabled him to render services to his 
associates and to his country that may not now be 
told, and perhaps will never be known until the great 
day when the " cup of cold water " shall be rewarded. 
Mr. Plant is never in a hurry, much less is he ever 
flurried, chafed, or worried about anything. All he 
does is done deliberately, systematically, easily, and 
once done it seldom or never has to be gone over 
again. " Make the best of everything," is his motto. 

A gentleman occupying a prominent position in 
the express department of the Plant System writes : 

" It affords me great pleasure to acknowledge the 
esteem and love of the Southern Express Company's 
employees, known to me, for Mr. Plant, who has 
favored us so often with his kindness, liberality, and 
mercy even when we were at fault. My knowledge 



106 The Life of 

extends back about thirty years, having commenced 
with the Southern Express Company in North Caro- 
lina in 1866, and having worked in Tennessee, Alar 
bama, Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky, and Mississippi 
since that time, mingling very freely and socially 
with my fellow-employees. I have never heard one 
word of condemnation of Mr. Plant during all that 
time but, on the contrary, a hearty, free expression 
of respect and affection for the man who, by divine 
aid, had done so much for the whole South as well 
as the great number of employees in the Southern 
Express. 

" Faithfully 

" I. S. S. A.^ 

In long years of intimate association with Mr. 
Plant I have never heard him utter a profane word 
or a bitter expression against any one. 

^^ Greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he that 
taketh a city," said the wise man. Mr. Plant has 
told me himself that if he learned of any one made 
unhappy by anything he had ever done or said, or 
if any misunderstanding should arise, he could not 
rest until all was settled to mutual satisfaction, and 
that, too, just as speedily as possible. " Charity for 
all, malice toward none," briefly expresses the spirit, 
tone, and temper of this great and good man. Hence 
he has been saved the consuming force of friction and 
hatred which grind and wear out so many before 



Henry Bradley Plant 107 

their time. The young men now entering public 
life will find most valuable suggestion even in this 
brief record of a life so large, useful, and honored, 
through a period of our country's history the most 
intense as it has been the most import-ant since the 
days of the Revolution and the formation of a free 
and independent republic. 

His busy life has made him neither a recluse, a 
pessimist, nor a slave of the world. He has been a 
good deal in society — both as guest and host he has 
mingled freely with his fellow-men and enjoyed to 
the full the pleasures of friendly reciprocity. 

Mr. Plant's love of music, in a man of his years 
and busy life, is remarkable. He says : " Music rests 
me, and helps me to sleep when I retire for the 
night, while I find it a great enjoyment in my wak- 
ing hours. It is medicine to me." Hence he is 
often seen spending the last hours of the day in the 
music room of the Tampa Bay Hotel, enjoying with 
the guests the delightful music rendered with such 
exquisite taste by the skilled orchestra. Mr. Plant 
is familiar with the best of the modern operas as 
well as with the finest classical music of the past. 
Among his favorites are Haydn, Handel, and Mozart. 
He is also fond of popular ballads and songs, such 
as Moore's melodies and national patriotic songs. He 
says he enjoys even the hurdy-gurdy. 

Mr. Plant might be termed a medical benefactor, — 



108 The Life of 

a health restorer, — ^because of the results of his work 
for the South and the North as well. In no depart- 
ment of scientific advancement during the last half- 
century has progress been more marked than in the 
department of medicine. The healing art, in its lessen- 
ing of pain and in the prevention and cure of disease, 
has made, and is daily making, the most wonderful 
discoveries. What a boon to suffering humanity 
was the discovery of ether by Dr. Charles T. Jack- 
son, of Boston, in 1846, who found that by the in- 
haling of this anaesthetic the patient is rendered 
unconscious of pain. Vaccine inoculation, introduced 
by Dr. Jenner in 1799, has prevented the spread of 
that much dreaded disease, small-pox. The name of 
Dr. Koch will long be held in grateful remembrance 
for his earnest efforts to cure consumption, as will 
those of Pasteur to cure hydrophobia. The Southern 
States to-day have thousands of people in ordinary 
good health, many of them in excellent health, who^ 
ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, were given up by 
their physcians as past recovery and soon to die. But 
thirty years ago the modes of travel to the South 
and the lack of adequate provision there for invalids 
were such as only a person in fair health could bear. 
Through Mr. Plant's efforts in large measure, both of 
these requisites for a sick man, or a delicate woman, 
have reached a state of perfection difficult to 
improve. 



Henry Bradley Plant 109 

At the banquet given to Mr. Plant at Leesburg, 
Florida, in the winter of 1896, one of the speakers 
referring to what Mr. Plant had done for the North 
as well as for the South, said : " In the * Dixie ' land 
he has made the desert to bloom like the rose, changed 
waste places into fertile fields, the swamps into a 
sanitarium, the sand heap into a Champs !^lys^es, the 
Hillsborough into a Seine, and reproduced the palace 
of Versailles on the banks of Tampa Bay, and away 
up in freezing, shivering New England and Canada, 
when the doctor had written his last recipe and the 
druggist had emptied his last bottle and the under- 
taker was at the front door, our friend has placed 
the patient in a wheeled palace, and signalled, ' On 
to Richmond,' not to die, but to live ; and old Vir- 
ginia has smiled on the dying man. North Carolina 
has fairly laughed aloud. South Carolina has taken 
him into her warm embrace, and Florida has thrown 
flowers not on his coffin but on the resurrected Laza- 
rus, and the family have invited their friends, not to 
a funeral, but to a feast. The Plant System ships 
have ploughed the Gulf of Mexico and spanned the 
Caribbean Sea, and have brought health and happi- 
ness to many homes over which bereavement and 
sorrow were hovering like the black angel of death." 

The Bishop of Winchester once said : " The first 
thing is good health, and the second is to keep it, 
and the third to protect it. Then arises the question, 



no The Life of 

where shall we go ? '^ It is not known that the noted 
physician had ever seen the Bishop's question when 
he wrote : '^ Were I sent abroad to search for a haven 
of rest for tired man, where new life would come 
with every sun, and slumber full of sleep with every 
night, I would select the Gulf Coast of Florida. It 
is the kindest spot, the most perfect paradise ; more 
beautiful it could not be made, still, calm and elo- 
quent in every feature." This was said by Dr. Long, 
an army physician in charge at Fort Brook, Tampa. 
The power of the fine arts over the mind, and of the 
mind over the body, are demonstrated facts. The 
most frequent and depressing of ailments among 
Americans is nervousness in various forms^ and in 
different stages of progress, from morbid sensitive- 
ness to utter prostration. In many cases medicine 
merely aggravates it. Its chief symptoms are irrita- 
bility and wretchedness, often ending in suicide. 
Healing must come largely through the mind in rest^ 
peace, comfort, and pleasant occupation. 

While the mind in this condition cannot bear strain, 
neither can it be idle. Idleness induces morbid- 
ness and misery. Physical comfort must not be neg- 
lected, but there must be wholesome, nourishing food, 
pure air, and proper exercise. Hence, the value 
of the well-equipped and elegantly finished Pull- 
man palace car, and the well-built steamer designed 
for comfort and safety, furnished and finished in a 



Henry Bradley Plant HI 

style that delights the eye and ministers to the en- 
joyment of every faculty. Hence the luxuriant 
hotel, with all its home comforts, its artistic adorn- 
ments, and its princely entertainment, beauty for the 
eye, music for the ear, feasting the aesthetic while 
feeding the materialistic nature of man. All this 
enjoyment, while a soft, balmy air is breathed be- 
neath a clear, blue sky, and while the invalid is 
bathed in the bright, warm sunshine of a southern 
clime, induces repose, peace, content, happiness, and 
health. The spirit loses its irritability, the mind 
regains its elasticity, sleep refreshes the tired brain, 
food nourishes the exhausted body, the whole man 
is renewed, and life that was not worth living has 
become an inspiration, a joy, an heroic and manly 
achievement. 

It should be said here that up to the time that 
Mr. Plant established the steamship line between 
Tampa and Havana, there had been no regular com- 
munication between those two ports during the 
quarantine season. There were some irregular op- 
portunities of transfer when passengers were de- 
tained for days to be investigated, fumigated, and 
harassed by quarantine regulations. Mr. Plant 
held that ships could be built and managed that 
would make communication as safe in summer as in 
winter, and he has proved the correctness of his 
theory. In ten years of regular service, the steamer 



112 The Life of 

Mascotte has never had a case of yellow fever. 
Through Mr. Plant^s suggestions, the Tampa Board 
of Health has established rules and regulations for 
travel to the West Indian ports which make it per- 
fectly safe at all seasons of the year, so far as con- 
tagion from disease is concerned. 

How much Mr. Plant has done to bring this 
blessed change to thousands, many beautiful tributes 
testify in the public press of our times. The ex- 
pressions of enjoyment in the following letters could 
be extended almost indefinitely. In the Saint Au- 
gustine News of March, 1895, an enthusiastic corre- 
spondent writes : " It was early in the present century 
that this man of brains and bounty appeared on the 
great stage, and began a career scarce equalled by 
any in the annals of American financiers, and it is to 
him that Florida owes a debt of gratitude, deeper 
than to any other man — and this man is H. B. Plant. 
Favored indeed is Florida, not only in climate, 
scenery, and fruit, but with the munificence of these 
mighty-hearted millionaires, who have AUadin-like 
metamorphosed the sunny peninsula into a veritable 
fairyland. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. H. B. 
Plant, who has transmogrified Tampa, and ribboned 
Florida with his railroad system. As usual with 
men of great minds and means, he is wholly unpre- 
tentious, as much so as his humblest employee. He is 
anything but fastidious ; yet he is a clean-cut man of 



Henry Bradley Plant 113 

the world, of vast business capacity, a keen, pene- 
trating financier, and altogether lovable in his do- 
mestic life. His shipping interests extend from 
Halifax to Boston, his express and rail lines from 
New York to Tampa and New Orleans, and his 
connecting vessels run from Cuba and all Gulf of 
Mexico ports. Mr. Plant's homes are the family 
place in Branford, Connecticut, a palace on Fifth 
Avenue, New York, and the Tampa Bay Hotel in 
winter. Mr. Plant's family consists of a son who will 
succeed to his great responsibility and estate." 

Writing from Cuba in January 1888, "J. C. B." 
says in his " Notes " : 

" In the language of an intelligent observer, writing 
from Havana early in the present month, it would 
be difficult to find any other interesting foreign land, 
when its accessibility is considered, so worthy the 
attention of American travellers as Cuba. To the 
average thought of one who has not visited it, it 
seems far and repellent. It is neither of these. 

" The improved special fast facilities furnished by 
the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Atlantic Coast line, 
the Plant system of railways, and its new, swift, and 
superb steamships, carry you from the American to 
the Cuban metropolis in three days. 

" While the north shore of the island has three im- 
portant harbors — Havana, Mantanzas, and Cardenas 
— the former is incomparably the finest and most 



I 

} 



,w 

If 

W 
! 

i 



i 
I 

] 

I 



114 The Life of 



I spacious ; the city, to the west of the gleaming bay, 

! is a rare stady in Moorish, Saxon, and Doric architec- 

I ture. The scene has been thus pen-pictured : 

! ^' ^ On the east side, where the close jaws of the 

I harbor open, and clambering up the mountain side 

! where frown the landward outworks of Moro Castle, 

^ is Casa Bianca, with its queer villas and structures, 

I each one standing out in this wonderful daylight of 

f the tropics in such distinctness, and with such a 

? strange seeming of approaching and growing propor- 

f tions, that, in your fancy, the houses individually 

i become great pillared temples. In and over and 

through this dreamful spot, away up the side of the 
mountain, thread and run such indescribable wealth 
of vegetation that, as you look again and again, the 
', clustered, shining houses seem like great white grapes 

bursting through a glorious wealth of vines and 
f leaves. 

" * Beyond Casa Bianca the bay debouches to the 
' east. Here is a veritable valley of rest. Every half 

i a mile is a little cluster of homes set in a marvellous 

wealth of rose and bloom. Beyond this valley are 
seen pretty villages, each with its half-ruined church, 
whose only suggestion of use or occupation is had in 
the din of never-ceasing chimes; and still beyond 
these are uplands which almost reach the dignity of 
mountains, upon whose far and receding serrated 
heights an occasional cocoa tree or royal palm looms 



Henry Bradley Plant 115 

lonely as a ghcMstly sentinel upon some medisBval 
tower. 

^^ ^ Farther to the soath lie the great Santa Catalina 
warehouses, where the saccharine source of Cuba's 
wealth is stored in huge hogsheads, or rests dark as 
lakes of pitch in tremendous vats. Behind these is 
Regia, the lesser Havana, across the harbor, with its 
churches, its quaint old markets, its cockpits, its 
ceaseless fandangoes and its bull pen. Over be- 
yond this, set like a gleaming nest in the crest of the 
mountains, a glimpse is caught of Guanabacoa, full 
of beautiful villas, beautiful gardens and fountains, 
and in the olden times the then oldest Indian village 
of which Cuban legends tell. Beyond Regia to the 
south, and upon the shores of the bay, is the ferry 
and railroad station, whence thousands reach the out- 
lying villas, or leave the capital for the various sea- 
ports of the northern coast ; and right here, night 
and day, is as busy and interesting a spot for the 
study of manner and character as may be found in 
all Cuba. At this station is seen a famous statue to 
Edouard Fesser, founder of the Havana warehouse 
system. The entire southern portion of the bay, 
where some day the barren shore line will be lined 
with great warehouses and docks, is filled with old 
hulls of sunken steamers and ships, conveying the 
keenest sense of desolation, and the shore here rises 
to uplands bare as Sahara, until, skirting to the 



116 Henry Bradley Plant 

right, the bold moantaiD, Jesu del Monte, is seen; 
and then come the great outlying forts extending far 
around to the sea. Between you and these, if still 
aboard-ship, you see Havana's domes and minarets, 
and, to all intents, you are anchored in a scenefol 
harbor of old Spain.' 

^^ This schedule of the quick mail service performed 
by the elegant steamers, MascoUe and OUvettSj of 
the Plant line, in connection with the railway sys- 
tem heretofore mentioned between Tampa and Key 
West, in the east, affords but a few brief hours of 
rest in the harbor at Havana. Upon the first ap- 
pearance of the Olivette^ fresh from her conspicuous 
performances in distancing the fleet of steamers 
which accompanied the racing yachts of the intemar 
tional regatta, the writer had the good fortune to be 
among the invited guests who paid a visit to this 
magnificent vessel, which is justly the pride of her 
distinguished owner, Mr. H. B. Plant, the President 
and Managing Director of the Plant System of raU* 
ways and steamships." 



CHAPTER X. 

MBon for Sabmittlng Press Sketches of Mr. PUst — Deteriptioo 
America, December, 1888— Ci(v Items, Deoember, 188S— AiO- 
rood Tbpie»—Home JbumoJ, New York, March, 18M(— F. Q. De 
Fontain in same Jonnutl— Ocala Eoenmg Tinea June, ISOA— 



IN the following chapter are given a few press 
notices of Mr. Plant and his work in the South, 
because they contain reliable information of some 
of that work which we have left to them to chron- 
icle, and because they are public expressions of the 
appreciation of that work and of the jastly high 
esteem, and friendly regard in which the worker is 
held by the people among whom and for whom he 
has spent the best part of hb Iif& Instead of a brief 
chapter, a volume of such complimentary sketches 
might be presented, written in even stronger langu^e 
than is here used and by masters in the art of 
writing. But these few will suffice to show the deep 
interest of the people in the life and work of their 
friend and benefactor, Mr. H. B. Plant 

The following extract is taken from the Florida 
number of Descriptive America. 



118 The Life of 

BAILBOAD Ain> EXPSBS8 PBESIDENT. 

" In our Wiaoanain number we gave the lif e-histoiy 
of one man who, beginning as a farmer's son, had, 
by his energy, ability, and integrity, come to occupy 
a position of great power, wealth, and usefulness, 
and we emphasized the point, that, while he had been 
wonderfully successful, his highest claim to our 
admiration, lay in the fact that, whenever the oppor* 
tunity offered, he had sought the prosperity of the 
nation, the state, or the city of his adoption, and had 
made his own gain and increasing wealth subordin* 
ate to the public weaL In this number we have 
some similar characters, who, if their wealth does 
not equal that of the great banker and railroad king^ 
have at least followed his good example. 

^' Such men are always modest, their achievements 
seem to them very small, compared with what they 
might and should have done, and they shrink from 
publicity with genuine dread. One of these men is 
the subject of our present sketch, Mr. H. B. Plant. 

" Mr. Plant is of pure Puritan stock ; his earliest 
American ancestors left England about 1640, and if 
they were not among the little company who came 
with John Davenport to Quinnipiac, afterward 
called New Haven, they followed very soon after. 
They settled in Branford, Connecticut, a town 
lying between New Haven and Guilford, at which 



Henry Bradley Plant 119 

place some of Davenport^s most eminent men soon es- 
tablished themselves. The Plants of BranCord were 
a good family, and they have always borne a high 
reputation through the eight or nine generations 
which have elapsed since they first established them- 
selves in Branford. They were intelligent, thought- 
ful farmers, industrious, sound thinkers, orthodox in 
faith, and leading those quiet country lives, of which 
the old New England towns presented so many ex- 
amples. The village minister was a man greatly 
reverenced by all his people, and if a youth of more 
than ordinary promise could be instructed under his 
direction, it was something to be proud of. 

" To one of these Branford families, the represent- 
ative Plant family in the town, several children were 
bom in the earlier decades of the present century ; 
one of them, H. B. Plant, gladdening their hearts in 
October, 1819. He must have been a boy of con- 
siderable promise, for after the usual course of study 
in the District Schools, not at that time of a very 
high grade, he spent several terms in the Branford 
Academy, then under the oversight of the Branford 
pastor. Rev. Timothy P. Gillett, a man of high 
scholarship and great aptitude for teaching. Whether 
he had any aspirations for a collegiate course, we 
do not know ; but he did not rest content, till he 
had completed his course of study with John E. 
Lovell, of New Haven, the founder of the Lancaste- 



120 The Life of 

rian system of iDstruction in America^ and, at that 
time, the most celebrated teacher in the country. 

'^ His school days over, Mr. Plant soon found em- 
ployment on the steamboat line plying between 
New Haven and New York. Very soon, one of the 
first express lines ever established in this country, 
known as Beecher's New York and New Haven 
Express, was started, and young Plant became in- 
terested in it, and from that time to the present has 
always been largely engaged in the express business. 
His first important interest in it was with Adams 
Express. In 1853, he went to the South, and estab- 
lished expresses upon the southern railroads, as a 
branch enterprise of Adams Express. In 1861, he 
organized the Southern Express Co., and became its 
president, and has continued so to the present time. 
He is also president of the Texas Express Co. In 
1853, he visited Florida for the first time, for the 
benefit of the health of an invalid wife. There was 
no means of communication with Jacksonville, ex- 
cept by steamers up the St. John's. The place was 
small and the accommodations meagre, but the fine 
climate and mild and balmy air were the means of 
prolonging her life many years, and from that time 
he made yearly visits thither. During these visits 
the place grew, and he saw the necessity for railway 
communication with that and many other points in 
Florida ; but he devoted most of his attention to his 



Henry Bradley Plant 121 

extensive express business, until 1879, though own- 
ing large blocks of railroad stocks, particularly in the 
Georgia and Florida Railways. In 1879, with some 
friends, he purchased the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad 
of Georgia, and subsequently organized the Savan- 
nah, Florida, and Western Railroad, of which he be- 
came president. Soon afterwards he extended this 
railroad to the Chattahoochee River, and he also 
constructed a new line from Way Cross to Jackson- 
ville. 

** The Savannah and Charleston Railroad (now the 
Charleston and Savannah), had been in the courts 
for many years, but, in 1880, Mr. Plant purchased 
and thoroughly rebuilt it ; his purpose being to per- 
fect the connections between Florida, Charleston, and 
the North. 

" The immense labor connected with the manage- 
ment of these railways, and of the vast business 
connected with the expresses, led Mr. Plant and his 
associates to organize the Plant Investment Co., to 
control these railways, and also to manage and ex- 
tend, in the interest of its stockholders, the Florida 
Southern and the South Florida Railway. The 
former road was extended by the Investment Com- 
pany to Tampa, and to Bartow, and they are now 
building it to Pemberton Ferry, where it will be 
joined by the South Florida line thus making con- 
nection via Gainesville with South Florida, and 



122 The Life of 

via Tampa for Key West and the West India 
Islands. 

'< In connection with these railroads, we may well 
answer the question which is of special importance 
to us in this Florida number. 

"What has Mr. Plant done for Florida ? We an- 
swer in general, that he has rendered the culture of 
the orange and of the other perishable products of 
the State profitable, has greatly facilitated the occu- 
pation of the best lands of the State, opened the way 
for the settlement of the lands of Southern Florida, 
given free and ready access to the Gulf ports, and 
thence to Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston, and 
established a regular, frequent, and prompt steam- 
boat service on the St. John's River. 

" How has he done this ? When he had purchased 
and rebuilt the Charleston and Savannah Railroad, 
access to the interior of Florida was difficult and al- 
most impracticable except by wagon road. There 
was irregular and fitful navigation of the St John's 
River, but the steamboats ran when they had suffi- 
cient freight, and only then. There had been some 
railroads built (especially those of the Yulee system) 
but the country was undeveloped, and as the orange 
groves required from five to ten years of growth 
before they came into profitable bearing, meanwhile 
the railways were suffering for want of freight and 
were unprofitable. Mr. Plant was convinced that 



Henry Bradley Plant 123 

although a more rapid development was in progress, 
there would still be delay before the railroads he 
proposed to build would prove paying investments. 
He therefore determined to avail himself of the land 
grants already made, and to keep them in repair. 
** The orange product would not bear jolting over 
wagon roads, or being stacked up on the wharves 
waiting for the uncertain coming of the steamers. 
His first move was to build a railway direct from 
Way Cross, Ga., to Jacksonville, thus bringing his 
Georgia roads into immediate communication with 
a port on the St. John's River. He then established 
a steamboat line on that river which was regular, 
prompt, efficient, and carried freight at low rates. 
Meantime a road had been constructed from Jackson- 
ville to Palatka, making connection with St. Augus- 
tine via Tocoi; this road is now being extended 
to cross the river a few miles above Palatka and 
thence by way of De Land and other places, re-cross- 
ing the St. John's a short distance north of Lake 
Monroe; thence proceeding to Sanford where it 
will form a connection with the South Florida, thus 
opening up the fine highlands west of the St. John's 
and those east of that river to a ready market, and 
giving choice of a river or raU transportation at 
several points. The Legiskture having granted 
a charter for a railway connecting Palatka with 
Lake City by way of Gainesville and thence down 



124 The Life of 

the peninsula it was taken in hand by capitalists 
from Boston, and connection made by rail between 
Gainesville, Palatka, and Leesburg. 

" With this company Mr. Plant made arrange- 
ments for the construction of the road from Gaines- 
ville west to a connection with the Southern 
extension of the Savannah, Florida and Western 
Railroad which has been constructed and is now 
in operation. 

^' A branch will soon be built to connect it with 
Lake City. 

" By reference to our map, it will be seen that 
these roads traverse all the counties of the interior, 
down to the Everglades, and open them to settle- 
ment and to profitable orange culture and the pro- 
duction of sugar, cotton, and rice. These roads 
have brought actual settlers by scores of thousands 
to occupy these rich and fertile lands, the finest in 
the State, and other railway companies, stimulated 
by their example and encouragement, have con- 
structed roads connecting with these. By the 
charters of bankrupt railroads which they have 
bought, the Plant Investment Company is entitled 
to a large amount of lands from the State, 10,000 
acres to the mile, in most cases, as well as later 
grants on their newly constructed roads; but the 
State has not yet the lands to deed to them, except 
to a small amount, though eventually it may have. 



Henry Bradley Plant 126 

^^ Mr. Plant is a man of fine and commanding ap- 
pearance, dignified and quiet, yet genial in manners, 
and of the most genuine modesty and gentleness in 
his intercourse with others. No judge of character 
could fail to observe, however, that he is a man of 
remarkable executive ability and sound judgment, 
or that he has a greater amount of reserve power 
than most business men possess. His associates, 
and those with whom he is brought into business 
relations, all speak of him in terms of the highest 
admiration and esteem." 

The City Item for December 4, 1886, says : 
" Mr. Henry B. Plant is a very admirable type of 
that class of successful men of enterprise who owe 
their prosperity to broad business views, large pubHc 
spirit, and commanding integrity of character joined 
to solid capacity. Bom in Branford, Conn., his 
entrance upon active life was in connection with 
transportation on the New Haven steamboat line, 
and his subsequent career has been identified with 
similar enterprises. Ultimately entering the service 
of Adams Express Company, he was instrumental in 
extending its business throughout the Southern 
States, and finally, with others, purchased its lines, 
and formed the Southern Express Company, of 
which he became president. This position he still 
holds, having by his enei^y and enterprise greatly 
enlarged and extended the business of the company. 



126 The Life of 

In 1853, when the delightful climate, attractiveness 
and fertility of Florida were as yet but poorly ap- 
preciatedy Mr. Plant recognized the possibilities which 
that State opened up, and an opportunity being 
presented for the eztention of transportation facili- 
ties by the sale of the Savannah and Charleston Rail- 
way, and the Atlantic and Gulf Railway, those 
properties were purchased and reconstructed by 
him, the name of the former being changed to the 
Charleston and Savannah, and the latter to the Savan- 
nah, Florida, and Western Railway. This last he 
extended to the Chattahoochee River, to Jacksonville 
and Gainesville, in Florida. Subsequently he con- 
structed the road between Way Cross, Georgia, and 
Jacksonville, and Live Oak and Gainesville, and 
also placed steamship lines on the Chattahoochee 
and St. John's Rivers, connecting the railroad at 
Jacksonville with Sanford on Lake Monroe, and 
building the South Florida Railway thence to Bar- 
tow and Tampa, establishing steamboat communica- 
tion to the Manatee River and other points on Tampa 
Bay. More recently he has established a steamboat 
line between Tampa, Key West, and Havana. This 
service was increased on the 1st inst. to tri-weekly 
trips, under special contract with the Post-office 
Department. By this route, in connection with the 
railroad from Tampa, the line from New York to 
Havana is only three days, thus enabling the inva- 



Henry Bradley Plant 127 

lid or pleasure seeker of the metropolis to exchange 
the rigors of our winter climate for the delicious tem- 
perature of Cuba, with an ease and under conditions 
of travel which must make this line increasingly 
popular with the lapse of years. The MasooUej now 
running on this route, is one of the most handsome 
and complete steamships built, its appointments being 
in every respect really luxurious, while in point of 
seaworthiness it is everything that the most expert 
mechanism could make it. Its staterooms are dainty 
boudoirs, while its saloon is as exquisitely fitted up 
as any drawing-room. A second vessel, now building 
for the line, will be equally attractive in all its in- 
terior aiTangements. Mr. Plant, while a thorough 
man of business, and deeply immersed in material 
pursuits, has never lost the courtliness of manner 
and genial whole-heartedness which are Nature^s 
choicest gifts to her favorites ; and among all who 
know him he ranks as the loyal friend and elegant 

gentleman." 

Railroad Topics says : 

" In this day of vast individual fortunes, it is no 
special compliment to say of a man that he is rich. 
If the public takes any interest in his wealth, there 
is generally more concern manifested in the manner 
in which he made his money, than in the mere fact 
that he has it. But conspicuous success and marked 
prominence do, and will always, command attention 



128 The Life of 

and challenge admiration. The spirit of the Ameri- 
can people is to applaud achievement and honor 
distinction wherever they are observed, and when 
found combined in one man, they make him a pop- 
ular object of praise and an interesting subject for 
biographical sketch. Such a case we have in the 
person of Mr. Henry B. Plant, whose record we at- 
tempt to outline in the following brief story : 

" Mr. Plant was born at Branford, Conn., in Oc- 
tober, 1819, and is consequently now in the seventieth 
year of his age. It is indeed a pleasure to contem- 
plate the record of a man who has fulfilled the sacred 
tradition of his allotted time, and stamped that 
rounded life with innumerable evidences of steadily 
growing strength, constantly increasing usefulness^ 
continually widening reputation, and vastly expand- 
ing possessions. The personal history of H. R 
Plant, if shorn of all details, would stand complete 
in that one paragraph. 

" He has thus far lived to excellent purpose, and 
in the run of that existence has accomplished in full- 
est measure all that is comprehended in the descrip- 
tive suggestion. 

" If we wrote not another line, we would feel that 
we had made a practical analysis of his life and set 
forth the salient truths of it. But when a man has 
attained Mr. Plant^s prominence, and compassed 
achievements such as his, people are interested in 



Henry Bradley Plant 129 

the details of his career, and naturally inquire as to 
his distinguishing characteristics. In deference to 
that reasonable curiosity, and likewise for the pleas- 
ure that there is in it to ourselves, we gladly make 
this sketch of him. 

^^ It is nothing remarkable to say that he was bom 
poor. Most men who have ever amounted to much 
were. Hence in that particular he is not exceptional. 
Neither would we be satisfied simply to class him 
with that great multitude, popularly termed, "self 
made men." He does belong in that catagory, but is 
so far above the average, that we incline to think of 
that descriptive fact more as an accident than as a 
cardinal virtue. 

" The first account we have of him is only a meagre 
record of his school days. He never went to college, 
but had to content his ambitious young spirit with 
a good academic course, supplemented by a brief 
term of finishing study under a thoroughly compe- 
tent tutor. This, however, was only a theoretical 
disadvantage, from the fact that the termination of 
his school days was no interruption to his mental 
acquirements. He was bom with an ambition for 
knowledge, and does not to this day feel himself too 
old, or too wise, to learn. 

" Mr. Plant's first experience in business, was when, 
a mere boy, he secured employment on one of that line 
of steamboats, then running between New Haven 



130 The Life of 

and New York. Although very young, he appreci- 
ated even then that the only way to learn any busi- 
ness thoroughly was by beginning at the bottom. 
Accordingly he took his first lessons in steamboat 
life in a humble position. It was not long, how- 
ever, before, by faithfulness and efficiency, he lifted 
himself into higher and more responsible places. That 
first and prompt promotion was the initial sign 
of what his life would be, and from then till now, 
he has steadily marched onward and upward, over- 
coming obstacles and mastering difficulties with 
heroic energy, and winning success in the various 
lines of his broadening operations with positive 
brilliancy. 

"While employed by the New York and New 
Haven Steamboat Company, one of the first express 
lines ever established in this country was inaugurated 
between New Haven and New York, and the en- 
terprise at once fascinated young Plant. He bent 
every energy toward the acquirement of a small in- 
terest in the new express company, and in reasonable 
time accomplished his purpose. From that day to 
this, express business has been his best love through- 
out the wide range of his material interests. His 
first important connection in that line was with the 
Adams Express Company about 1847. In that cor- 
poration he became a leading spirit and holds such 
position to-day. His special pet, however, among 



Henry Bradley Plant 131 

the various express systems with which he is iden- 
tified is the Southern Express Company which he 
established in 1862. This child of his wisdom has 
grown to be a giant, and is to-day one of the richest, 
most influential, and ably managed corporations in 
this country. It traverses all the Southern States, 
and is, for all practical purposes, permanently estab- 
lished on nearly every important railroad system in 
the South. 

^^ Of late years Mr. Plant has been giving much 
of his attention to the acquisition of railroad prop- 
erties, and in admirable continuance of his previous 
record, he has crowned this undertaking with splen- 
did success. He is virtually master and largely own- 
er of the Savannah, Florida, and Western Railway, 
and likewise of the Charleston and Savannah Rail- 
way. This gives him a direct and popular line from 
Charleston, South Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida. 
He has also made various branches from his main 
line, penetrating the principal districts of Florida, 
and by this wise railroad building has done far more 
than can be computed or told, toward that marvel- 
lous development of Florida which has been accom- 
plished within the last ten years. Mr. Plant was 
truly a pioneer in this praiseworthy work, and there 
is probably no man who deserves more than he does 
the grateful acknowledgements of the Florida peo- 
ple, as well as the hearty gratitude of the countless 



132 The Life of 

thousands who have gone from all other sections of 
the country to enjoy the healing benefits of that 
curative climate, and the sweet restfulness of that 
floral dreamland. 

" The Plant Investment Co., of which Mr. EL B. 
Plant is the head, and in which he has associated 
with him several sagacious millionaires, is a power- 
ful corporation which was organized for co-operative 
investment in valuable southern railroad properties 
and advantageous control of the same. This com- 
pany is managed with exceptional ability, and by its 
vast acquisitions and extensions, has become a great 
power in the railroad world, and is rapidly accumu- 
lating for its stockholders untold wealth. This In- 
vestment Company is practically controlled by Mr* 
Plant, and its entire policy is shaped by his judgment. 
One of his latest enterprises, under the auspices of 
the Investment Company, is the establishment of a 
fast line of steamers from Tampa, Florida, to Cuba. 
At Tampa, Mr. Plant has extended one of his rail- 
roads out to deep water, and thereby made it an ex- 
cellent port for even heavy draught ships. The 
whole of Florida bears the impress of his energy, 
enterprise, and wisdom. 

" Mr. Plant's home is New York City, where he 
has a palatial residence on Fifth avenue, and luxuri- 
ous business quarters at No. 12 West 23d street. 
Whenever a man amasses a fortune he naturally 



Henry Bradley Plant 133 

drifts into Wall Street, the financial centre of 
America. Mr. Plant is a conspicuous exception to 
this rule. He rarely treads the narrow golden street 
leading from Trinity Church to East River. There 
is no speculative element in his nature. He is con- 
servative to the last degree, and works on no plan 
that is not founded on reason and justified by a posi- 
tive trend from cause to effect. He has all the vigor 
and alertness usually to be found in a man of fifty 
years of age. He is keenly alive to all the possibili- 
ties of affairs that come under his observation, and 
quick to determine any question that is presented to 
him. 

" He is a thoughtful man and extremely reserved. 
It is necessary to know him well to appreciate the 
excellent fairness of his mind, and the kindness of 
his heart. He is ostentatious in nothing, but under 
all circumstances conducts himself with modest dig- 
niiy and irresistible reserve foree. He is emphati- 
cally what might be called an extractive man. That 
is, he has an inexplicable faculty for drawing any 
one out, without ever appearing inquisitive, or lead- 
ing on by talking much himself. If he has one 
characteristic stronger than all others, it is his won- 
derful genius for keeping his own counsel. He 
never lacks cordiality of manner, but is always 
gracious and genial. Another forceful point of his 
character^ is that inexhaustible patience which has 



184 The Life of 

enabled him to live undisturbed in the faith that 
' all things come to him who knows how to wait.' 

"He thoroughly systematizes every department 
of his life, and keeps his house in such perfect order 
that if he should shake the harness off and quit 
work to-morrow, all those far-reaching plans which 
have had their foundations laid under his wise di- 
rection, would by his faithful followers be worked 
out to rounded completeness and finished perfection* 

" And thus by the mighty working of his master 
brain he has achieved success, won renown, accumu- 
lated an immense fortune, done great good, and made 
for himself an undisputed place among the leaders 
of this day. And besides all these victories, he has 
set on foot gigantic plans that may not fully mature 
for many years to come, but in those very plans 
he has laid the corner-stone of a great monument to 
his worthy memory, and those who come after him, 
if faithful to their trust, will build on as wisely as 
he has planned, until the capstone of his imperish- 
able memorial is fitted in its place, by the final 
accomplishment of each and every purpose of his 
well-spent life." 

The Home Journal says : 

" Henry B. Plant, president of the Plant System 
of hotels, railways, and steamship lines, is one of the 
men of to-day, whose work will influence the future. 
He controls twelve different railway corporations 



Henry Bradley Plant 135 

with a mileage of 1941, and 5506 employees; is 
president of the Southern and the Texas Express 
Companies, employing 6808 men; president of 
steamship lines, covering the coasts of the Gulf, go- 
ing to Cuba and Jamaica, and skirting the coasts of 
the North, running to Cape Breton and the maritime 
provinces ; founder of the most palatial winter re- 
sort in America, the Tampa Bay Hotel, and owner 
of five other beautiful resorts within the State. To 
Mr. Plant may be accredited the development, if not 
the real discovery, of the grand West or Gulf Coast 
of Florida. He is an American, and is seventy-seven 
years old ; a man of tireless energy, wonderful abil- 
ity, and remarkable industry. His career is marked 
by honesty, uprightness, straightforwardness, and 
business-like dealings. These qualities, together 
with a broad intelligence and keen perception, have 
brought him success. Withal, he is modest and 
unassuming, and has no pride but that which he 
takes in good works." 

From the Ocala Eoening Sta/r^ June 22, 1896 : 
'^ H. B. Plant, the railroad king, has again stepped 
into our midst and proposes to add to the new im- 
provements of our city a large and elegant passenger 
depot. 

'^ Notwithstanding the fact that he has done much 
already to advance the prosperity of the beautiful 
perpetual summer land of flowers and sunshine, he is 



136 The Life of 

still, at the present time, losing no opportunity to 
add to the beauty and upbuilding of the State of 
Florida. 

"If every railroad running into our State would 
feel as much interest in her welfare as does the Plant 
System, but a few years would elapse before this 
section would be the most prosperous in the Union. 

"Thousands upon thousands of dollars are spent 
every year by the officials of this road in the im- 
provement and erection of property within our 
borders. 

" H. B. Plant is indeed a friend to Florida, and if 
other roads would spend as much money in our State 
as he does, there would not be such a cry for free 
silver, as there would be plenty in circulation, and 
every one, from laborer to governor, would have his 
share. 

" While Mr. Plant is somewhat advanced in life, 
the 8ta/r hopes that his years may yet be many and 
his love for the sunny peninsula as great in coming 
years as in the past." 

From the Home JoumdL^ New York, March 11, 
1896: 

" If, comparatively a few years ago, one had ven- 
tured the prophecy that the time would arrive when 
we could leave New York at half-past nine one morn- 
ing, and wake up at daylight the next morning in 
Charleston, a court of inquiry would have been 



Henry Bradley Plant 137 

called to pass upon his mental condition. Such, 
however, are the facts to-day. 

" You leave Jersey City in a sleeper, supplied with 
all of the latest appointments for comfort ; a courte- 
ous conductor takes your tickets, with which you 
have no further concern until you reach Charleston, 
when they are handed to you in an envelope. What 
a comfort not to have to be pulling out the everlast- 
ing ticket just in the midst of conversation or while 
reading an interesting magazine article ! 

" If the cars are not crowded, you feel a sort of 
proprietary right to roam around at pleasure, change 
your seat as often as you desire, and wash your face 
and your hands whenever they need it in the cosy 
little toilet-room. What a change from the old-fash- 
ioned water-cooler, where a cupful of water was wont 
to be poured over a pocket-handkerchief, and the 
face and hands wiped with it, leaving arabesque 
designs in black and white wherever it touched ! 

"Then, instead of rushing to a railroad eating- 
house in order to refi'esh the inner man, having to 
put up with * railroad coffee,' and experiencing a 
nervous shock every time a whistle blows, your meals 
are taken at dainty little tables, in your own compart- 
ments, where polite and eflScient waiters do your 
bidding. 

" Instead of the tiresome, old-fashioned trip of two 
days and a night, the trip now is twenty hours. 



188 The Life of 

Verily the twin powers of steam and electricity have 
wrought wonders in the conditions of life. 

'^ The Plant System, to which the Atlantic Coast 
Line is ' a feeder/ has emphatically gridironed the 
South. To-day Mr. Henry B. Plant is the president 
of a railroad system that embraces twelve different 
corporations, and whose mileage extends to 1941, 
with a list of employees numbering 6606. He is 
also president of the Plant steamship and steamboat 
lines, covering the coasts of the Gulf, Cuba, and 
Jamaica, and skirting the coasts of the North, mn- 
ning from Boston along Nova Scotia to Gape Breton 
and Prince Edward Island. In addition to these in* 
terests, Mr. Plant is president of the Southern and 
Texas Express companies, which do a business as 
express forwarders over 24,412 miles of railway, and 
have lines in fifteen States, employing 6808 men and 
using 1463 horses and 886 wagons^ Mr. Plant is 
seventy-six years of age. He needs no eulogy ; his 
works speak for him. Although of Northern birth, 
he is as much beloved and respected at the South as 
if native-born. 

" Thirty-six years ago, President Jefferson Davis, 
of the Southern Confederacy, demonstrated his confi- 
dence in, and admiration of Henry Bradley Plant 
by giving him a pass entitling him to move hither 
and thither at will through army headquarters, or 
wherever he pleased, in the interest of the Adams 



Henry Bradley Plant 139 

Express Company^ which he then represented, al- 
though Mr. Plant declared that he did not sympa- 
thize with the political movement which sought to 
rend the States. 

" The Tampa Bay Hotel, Port Tampa Inn, and the 
Seminole, Winter Park, Florida, are monuments of 
Mr. Plant's enterprise and a portion of the System. 
From one of these palatial hotels one can catch a 
fish on the back porch and pluck a lemon to dress it 
with from the front porch. In Charleston the 
name of Henry B. Plant is a synonym for success, 
and a name which many a young man mentions with 
veneration, as one to which he owes a lasting debt 
of gratitude." 

The May number of the JSx^ess Qazettej Cincin- 
nati, Ohio, has this appreciative paragraph : 

"The editor of the Advertiser j Key West, Florida, 
pays the following eloquent tribute of praise to Mr. 
H. B. Plant, President of the Plant System of Rail- 
roads and the Southern Express Company : 

" ' Mr. H. B. Plant, the president, the founder, and 
the controlling spirit of the great Plant System, is 
held in high estimate by the citizens of this island. 
He found it, years ago, isolated and remote from the 
great centres of commerce, and his partiality to us 
soon changed a semi-occasional connection with the 
mainland, by vessels of inferior character, into a tri- 
weekly communication by the finest coastwise 



140 Henry Bradley Plant 

steamers in the Southern waters. Brought in ready 
touch with the marts of trade, factories sprang into 
existence, commerce grew, and a city with millions 
of revenue supplanted a fishing hamlet Through 
his enterprise we are enabled to write our history in 
a line — ^a village, a city, a metropolis — ^and all this 
in a decade. 

" * The debt of gratitude which Key West owes to 
Mr. Plant is beyond estimate. Indeed, so accus- 
tomed are we to the conveniences at hand, that we 
are prone to fail in appreciation of what we have, 
in our greed for more. That Mr. Plant has been and 
is still our best friend cannot be questioned in the 
light of past experience; and while we cordially 
welcome and hail with delight the coming of other 
transportation, our city should never be foi^tful of 
the man who was our friend when we had no other/ ^ 




CHAPTER XL 

Hr. Plant's Cloee and ConBtant Contact with the Great S^atem aa 
Seen in the Following Letters — Letter Written on Board the 
St«amer Comot— Letters on Trip to Jamaica, West Indies, Harch 
16, 1893, and Published in the Home youmaL 

MR. PLANT keeps himself coostaDtly informed of 
the workings of the whole System over which 
he presides, by daily commuoication with every part 
of it. The head of each department writes to the 
president every day, or telegraphs, or does both it 
necessary, and in return, Mr. Plant, through his sec- 
retary, replies daily to each commanication received. 
So close does he keep to the workings of the System 
that wherever he travels in the country his mail is 
regularly delivered to him at points arranged for the 
purpose, and it is as promptly answered from his 
private ear as if he were at his own office in New 
York City. Nor are all these letters which pass be- 
tween the president and his associates about hard 
business ; they are often social, familiar greetings, and 
interchanges of friendly intercourse. The following 
extract from a letter, written by Mr. Plant when trav- 
eling to Galveston, Texas, is an illustration of this : 



142 The Life of 

KOTBS OF THE YOTAaK 

'^ Left wharf on Steamer Oomalj Saturday, July 
22, 1893, 4 P.M., wind southwest Passed Sandy 
Hook about 5.30, found sea smooth ; well off the 
coast, shore houses vaguely seen in the distance. 

" 8undayj 236?. — Had a still and comfortable moon- 
light night ; smooth seas ; wind southwest ; off Gape 
Charles, twelve o'clock. About one o'clock wind all 
died away. The sea perfectly smooth until 2.30, when 
a light breeze came in from the southeast, which lasted 
until sunset, then died away and came out again from 
the west about six o'clock. Passed Body Island 
Light with light breeze. No sea. 

" 8.10 P.M. — ^Hatteras Light fairly abreast — ^ten sail- 
ing vessels and one steamer in sight. Weather be- 
ing fine, captain concluded to cross the Gulf Stream 
and run down on the east side and along the Ba- 
hama Banks. We have now been out twenty-eight 
hours, and I have felt very well. No annoyance 
from the stomach so far in any particular. 

"12 (J dock nooUj Monday j 24tth. — ^We are bowling 
along in the Gulf Stream with a good breeze from 
the west — smooth sea. Had a fairly good sleep. 
Room being on the port side and the wind from the 
west made it rather warm. At noon to-day the tem- 
perature of the water is eighty degrees and the air is 
eighty-two degrees, which is not so bad as might be. 



Henry Bradley Plant 143 

We are now well off Charleston and about abreast 
of the Bermudas. 

" Taesdayy 25th. — The wind continued from the 
west until about four o'clock, when it ceased, and 
from that until nine we had a dead calm and a smooth 
glassy sea. Now at ten o'clock a light breeze comes 
in from the east, and we have prospect of a comfort- 
able day. 

" Yesterday p.m. we had crossed and were entirely 
east of the Gulf Stream and there was no wind, of 
course, in still water. While in the Stream we had 
a current of about three knots against us. Our course 
is now bringing us again near the stream, which we 
shall cross in the course of the day and will probably 
pass Jupiter before bedtime, say, nine o'clock. We 
<are having a delightful voyage so far, and I seem to 
be doing quite well. 

" P.M. — The southwest wind has died out and we 
have a gentle breeze from the east ; this gives promise 
of the northeast trades for to-night, which will be 
quite acceptable and will put me on the windward 
side of the ship; have been on the lee side so 
far. 

" 5 P.M. — Have not seen a sail to-day, and am hav- 
ing a very restful time. 

" 9.30 P.M. — ^Have been with the captain since din- 
ner, and for the last half hour on the lookout for 
Jupiter Light. The lead informs us that we are too 



144 The Life of 

far off the coast to enable us to see the Light just 
yet. 

" 9.50 P.M. — Now we just have a glimpse of the 
Light from the bridge, and as * All 's well,' I will to 
my couch for the night The winds are favoring 
those on the port side, having swung around to the 
northeast, giving a promise of the southeast trades for 
to-morrow ; so good-night. 

" Wednesday a.m. — Had a splendid shower this A.ii. 
just after daylight, and right after the northeast wind 
died out and was soon followed by the good south* 
east trade, and now (10.30) we are sailing along just 
outside the reefs, having passed Cape Florida early 
this A.M. During the night we have passed Palm 
Beach (Lake Worth), 

" 10.30 A.M. — We are now directly abreast of Carys- 
fort Light, and a more pleasant day to be at sea could 
not be desired. While at breakfast we passed near 
the wreck of the English steamer EaH King. She 
went on the reef about a year and a half ago ; noth- 
ing now in sight but a portion of what looks to be 
the bow — a good beacon to warn others from this 
dangerous reef. She is reported to have been an 
old ship loaded with cement and other cheap freight^ 
bound for New Orleans, and well insured. 

" The indications are that we shall arrive at Key 
West about seven o'clock this p.m. and in time to 
meet the MascoUe on her return from Havana. As 



Henry Bradley Plant 145 

we have but a small freight for Key West, we shall 
not be long detained there, and shall expect to arrive 
in Galveston early Saturday night. Temperature 
of air at one o'clock 8 If degrees ; water 83 degrees. 

^^ Wednesday p.m — Passed Aligator Light one 
o'clock ; this will bring us to Key West about eight 
o'clock, and enable me to place this on Mascotte 
without much to spare, and probably place us ashore 
at Galveston Sunday morning, and as you may not 
be in Darien Sunday, you will only receive the mes- 
sage at office on Monday a.m. Send to Mrs. Plant 
at Branford on arrival, so she may receive the infor- 
mation same day. Would like to have you make at 
least a synopsis of the daily notes to Mr. O'B., that 
you may send to him should he be absent. We are 
now well up with American Shoal Light ; next we 
shall have Sombrero, and then Sand Key and Key 
West. We are likely to fall in with the Mas- 
cotte. 

" We are jogging along veiy pleasantly with wind 
well on the port quarter and temperature quite com- 
fortable." 

The following letter from Mr. Plant, published in 
the Home Jownal^ New York, March 15, 1893, 
speaks for itself. It shows its author to be at home 
on shipboard, and as much at his ease as in his own 
parlor ; while carefully noting all points of interest 
and enjoying to the full all that was enjoyable. 



zo 



146 The Life of 

On Board S. 8.<*Haijfaz," 
Sunday, Feb. 26, 'dS. 

" We sailed from Port Tampa on Thursday, Febru- 
ary 16th, and after a delightfully smooth and pleasant 
trip arrived at Nassau, N. P., on Saturday morning. 
A number of our party were entertained by the 
Honorable Sir Ambrose Shea, governor of the isl- 
and ; others of us preferred to pass the few hours 
in riding and driving, seeing something of the 
beauties of the place. We returned to the steamer 
in the afternoon and got under way, passing out of 
the harbor through the " Hole in the Wall," as it is 
called. We steamed down over the banks, passing 
along the eastern shore of the island, and leaving 
Cape Mayce on our starboard, until away over to 
port were seen the highlands of HaytL 

" All the way from Port Tampa to Jamaica, the 
weather was simply delightful, and the sea as smooth 
as the waters of our Seneca Lake. We arrived at 
the wharf at Kingston at seven o'clock Tuesday 
morning. Our excuraionists all went to the Myrtle 
Bank Hotel, where choice accommodations were 
provided. We received a call from the Consul-Gen- 
eral of the United States, Mr. Dent, and also visits 
from other important people of the city of Kingston. 
In the afternoon we received an invitation, conveyed 
to the party through our conductor, Mr. A. E. Dick, 
a hotel man well known in New York, to attend a 



Henry Bradley Plant 147 

garden party given by Lady Blake at King's House. 
Lady Blake is the wife of Sir Henry Blake, the 
governor of the island. We found a large crowd of 
people, a gracious welcome, exquisite music and 
bountiful refreshment. Only think of it — an out-of- 
door reception on the twenty-first day of February ! 

" In the evening we were surprised to learn that a 
grand ball would be given in our honor by the citi- 
zens of Kingston. It proved a very brilliant affair. 
The beautiful costumes of the ladies formed a strik- 
ing contrast to the militaiy costumes of the officers 
of the British West Indian Squadron; there were 
eight ships in the harbor. 

" We were called very early in the morning, coffee 
and fruit being served in our rooms, and took car- 
riages to the Western Railway station, whence we 
started by rail for Bog Walk, on the Rio Cobre 
River. We arrived at half -past ten. After leaving 
the train our attention was called to a gi'oup of 
negro men and women who were engaged in load- 
ing bananas into a car for transportation to the city 
of Kingston and thence to the United States. 

"At Rio Cobre, we enjoyed one of the most beau- 
tiful drives that your correspondent has ever experi- 
enced, down the valley of the Rio Cobre, a most 
beautiful sheet of water, and after a ride of two 
hours, reaching Spanish Town, one of the principal 
cities on the island of Jamaica. It was at Spanish 



148 The Life of 

Town that a son of Christopher Columbus settled 
when he came to the island of Jamaica. We were 
entertained by the proprietor of the Rio Cobre 
Hotel, where we remained until the afternoon, when 
we again took train for our headquarters at Myrtle 
Bank, in Kingston. 

"Early the following morning we were called^ 
fruit and coffee were again served in our rooms, and 
we started at six o'clock for a drive of twenty-five 
miles over and across the beautiful mountain ranges 
and towards the north coast of the island. At ten 
o'clock we arrived at the Castleton Gardens, a beau- 
tiful spot owned and sustained by the government 
as a garden of acclimation. Here are found the 
grandest of all tropical palms. At the hotel con- 
nected with the gardens we partook of a royal 
breakfast, into which entered many different kinds 
of fruit. After a stop of two hours we resumed our 
journey over the mountains, and in the distance we 
obtained a good view of the lovely Annotta bay. 

" En route, we visited a sugar estate where we 
saw the conversion of sugar-cane into Jamaica rum 
of the first quality. Most of the labor is performed 
by Malays, brought from the valley of the Ganges 
in India, who while here are compelled to labor in 
competition with the negroes. The men are paid at 
the rate of one shilling and six pence per day, while 
the women receive only one shilling per day. I can 



Henry Bradley Plant U9 

asBure you, from the manner in which they work, 
it is evident that they earned every penny they 
received. By the way, the coachman who drove 
us, informed me that his wages were ten shillings 
per week of seven days' continuous work and he 
has to board himaelf out of that pittance. 

" On the afternoon of this day, Friday, we were 
well off the coast of Jamaica, homeward bound. 
Now as I write, Sunday morning, we are approach- 
ing Egmont Key, which is situated at the entrance 
of Tampa Bay. Soon we shall be docked, and soon 
thereafter at that haven which has been bo often 
described but to which no writer to my mind has 
done justice — ^the Tampa Bay Hotel" 




CHAPTEE XII. 

UANAGEMENT OF THE GREAT PLANT SYSTEM WOBTHT 
OF ADUIBATIOH AND IMITATION. 

THERE is perhaps no greater source of waste in 
our country than that of labor strikes, which 
have become of frequent occurrence dming the last 
two decades. There is great waste of material from 
the deatmctive violence of infuriated mobs. la 
1877, the great railway strikes of the Baltimore and 
Ohio Railroad, and the Pennsylvania and Erie Sys* 
terns, resulted in the destruction of sixteen hundred 
cars, one hundred and twenty^six locomotives, and 
five million dollars worth of property. A report 
made in 1895 by the United States Commissioner of 
Labor (covering a period of twelve years and eix 
months, that is, from January 1, 1881, to June 80, 
1894) on strikes in the United States, gives the fol* 
lowing su^estive statistics. We read that the 
number of strikes was 14,390, affecting 69,167 estab- 
lishmenta The number of employees thrown out of 
work was 3,714,406. Loss of wages during this 
period to the striking workmen amounted to $163,- 



Henry Bradley Plant 151 

807,866. From lockouts the loss was $26,685,516. 
The losses to employers from the same cause were, 
from strikes $82,590,386, and from lockouts $12,- 
235,451. The losses to employees and employers 
amount to the enormous sum of $285,319,219. And 
this is only a part of the losses, for it does not take 
into account the cost of police, detectives, and sol- 
diers, required to protect persons and property. In 
one strike eight thousand of the latter force alone 
were needed to subdue riots, and save life and prop- 
erty. What estimate can be made of the damage to 
commerce, the disorganization of labor, the de- 
moralization of the laborers, the families broken up 
and scattered, the hate and bitterness engendered ? 
The corporation, therefore, that can co-operate peace- 
fully with its working force adds much wealth and 
moral progress to the nation, as well as legitimate 
profits to its own treasuiy, and comfort, well-being, 
and happiness to its employees. There is mutual 
advantage on both sides, and far reaching and bene- 
ficial influence on all sides. There must be justice 
and consideration for the workman fi*om the employer, 
and there must always be justice and appreciation 
from the workman to the man who gives him work, — 
mutual interest, benefit, and advantage. It is greatly 
to the credit of the Plant System, that the public 
has never suflEered inconvenience in travel from 
strikes among its large working force, that the men 



152 The Life of 

have not suffered in person or estate^ and that the 
company has been saved losses and crosses from this 
hydra-headed monster, " Conflict between labor and 
capital/^ That these evils have been avoided, is due 
to the head of this great System, due to his sense of 
justice, to his personal knowledge of, and friendly 
interest in such a large number of the employees, and 
to a large-hearted consideration for the weaknesses 
of human nature. Mr. Plant was one day riding in 
a baggage car, when he saw an expressman turn 
wrong side up a box that had been marked ^ Glass." 
He called attention to the fact. '' That box," said 
he to the man, ^^ is marked ^ Glass ' and should be 
kept * glass ' side up as marked.'' " Oh I know it is 
marked * Glass,' but I never pay any attention to 
that," said the expressman. Mr. Plant said no more. 
When the man and the superintendent of the express 
office were alone together, the superintendent said 
to the man, "Do you know who that gentleman 
was who spoke to you about the box marked 
* Glass ' ? "— " No."—" Well, that was Mr. Plant, the 
president of the eicpress company." — " Oh my ! that 
means my dismissal sure." — " Yes, I think it does ; 
I shall have to dismiss you " ; and he said, later, 
to Mr. Plant, " I shall dismiss that man of course." 
"No," said the president. "Don't discharge him; 
call him to your office and impress it upon him that 
that is not the way this company does its business. 



Henry Bradley Plant 153 

and he won't forget it/' The man has been long a 
faithful and efficient employee of the company. Mr. 
Plant's name does not figure as often as do some 
others in lists of large donations to churches and 
charities of deserving character, though they have 
not been passed by without recognition, and kind 
and generous ti-eatment of the deserving men in his 
employ have never been wanting. While travelling 
with Mr. Plant to Atlanta, one of the heads of a de- 
partment reported to him that an old gentleman 
who held an honored and important position in the 
System was greatly broken down with nervous pros- 
tration. " Send him to his home to remain until he 
is well, and remit his salary all the same." It was 
remarked by a bystander that he thought that that 
was very kind of the president. "Oh," was the 
answer, " that is only a regular occurrence to those 
of us who have been with President Plant as long 
as I have." 

Those who have read the blood curdling accounts 
of some of the strikes that have occurred within 
the past ten years, and have experienced some 
of the inconveniences and dangers resulting from 
them, will contrast such accounts with what was 
seen on "Plant Day" at the Atlanta Exposition, 
and on all other days throughout the South as well, 
and will feel that the account of that day was worthy 
of a place in the record of the noble life we are 



154 The Life of 

endeavoring to preserve as an eicample to public men 
and as a lesson and inspiration for coming genera- 
tions. We let the associates and employees of the 
Plant System tell their own story. It was printed 
in a beautiful pamphlet as a souvenir of the day, 
and was specially designed for those whose devotion 
to duty prevented them from sharing, in person, the 
pleasures of that memorable day. With the excep- 
tion of a few paragraphs of biographical matter con- 
tained in other sections of the volume, or merely of 
temporary interest, the account is published in full 
in a later chapter. 

It is as creditable to the men who have stood 
around their president most faithfully in his arduous 
labors, as it is honorable to him who has led them 
on to noble achievement, and deserved success. Mr. 
Plant's methods of management are worthy of high- 
est commendation, and would repay careful study in 
like conditions. If any man were to discover a plan 
for extinguishing fire that would to save the country 
$285,390,219, in the course of a dozen years, the 
insurance companies would purchase his patent for 
a large sum of money, and the country would raise 
monuments to his honor. Mr. Plant's method is 
even better ; it is on the philosophical principle of 
prevention. It prevents the kindling of the flames^ 
and while it may not be absolutely fire-proof, it has 
stood a long and severe test. We honor him and 



Henry Bradley Plant 155 

his loyal associates and employees for the more than 
peaceful course they have left on record. We say 
" more than peaceful '' for it has been a course of mu- 
tual concessions, personal interest, and f nendly asso- 
ciation, as the following chapters will show. Nor is 
the view taken in these chapters narrowed to special 
and individual cases. It is as broad as the South 
linked to the North, and covers the whole United 
States ; for no part of our country can be advanced 
without every other part sharing in the uplift. 

It would not be surprising if the best part of Mr. 
Plant's work should fail to be recognized. People 
see the material progress of a State, the things that 
can be measured, weighed, and valued at a price ; 
the subtle forces that produce the material are 
often overlooked. The intellectual, moral, patriotic, 
and philanthropic spirit that moves the man and 
diffuses itself throughout the State or nation is not 
the first thing that arrests attention. Yet this un- 
recognized force is the gi'eat uplifting power of a 
people in all that is best and noblest in their onward 
march of progress. It is now an aidom that the 
North and South did not know and understand each 
other previous to the late war; that if they had 
understood each other, a war such as the revolt of 
the Southern States would never have occurred, 
would, in fact, have been impossible. The facilities 
afforded for travel and the superior hotel accommoda- 



156 Henry Bradley Plant 

tions which have been provided by^ and have resulted 
from, the Plant System, have brought North and 
South together in mutual interest and friendly ac- 
cord to such an extent that a war can never again 
take place, for these two sections of our country are 
so interlaced, interdependent, and identified in inter- 
est, and withal in such friendly association, that the 
misunderstandings of the past can never again arise. 
It is a fact of history, that in proportion as nations, 
races, and religions come closer to each other, the 
causes of conflict are, to the same degree, lessened. 
A homely illustration of this fact is contained in the 
story of the Irishman who was walking along the 
Strand in London one morning, when through the 
fog he discovered a monster from which, at first, he 
was going to run away ; then, grasping his shillelah, 
he came close up to the monster intending to kill the 
" baste,*' when " lo and behold," said Pat, " it was 
me brother John ! " So it often comes to pass that 
the monster in the distance to be annihilated, in closer 
proximity is a brother to be loved. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Plant Da7 at the Cotton States and International Expodtion of 18M 
at Atlanta, Georgia — PreparationB for its Celebration — Impree- 
mve Obeerrance of Hr. Plant's Birthdaj at the Aragon Hotel— 
Ht. Plant's Bemarka in Acknowledging Presentation of Oif ta. 

'I'MJi Atlanta Cotton States and iDternatioual Ex- 
^ positioD was created through the zeal and en- 
terprise of a Dumber of the patriotic citizens of the 
city of Atlanta and of the State of Georgia, and, on 
the 18th day of September, 1895, when its doors 
were opened to the world, naught but words of ad- 
miration and praise could be spoken for the men, 
who, through the devotion of their energies, time 
and money, had made it in every way a success. 

There are already extant records of the speeches 
of the prominent men who, from the Auditorium 
platform in the Exposition grounds, addressed the 
public on that day and proclaimed to the world the 
reasons which actuated the creation of this Exposi- 
tion, not only for the advancement of the mercantile 
interests of the southern section of the country, but 
as well for the education of its people. 

While it is, therefore, futile to reproduce here 



168 The Life of 

the history of the Exposition^ it might be well to 
say that as far back as December, 1 894, Mr. H. B. 
Plant was called upon by a committee of gentlemen 
representing the Cotton States and International Ex- 
position Company and urged to make an exhibit at 
the Exposition. In recognition of his acquiescence, 
and the erection of a building by the Plant System 
of Railways and Steamship Lines, in which was 
placed a most creditable exhibit from the sections of 
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida trav- 
ersed by the Plant System of Railways, the Exposi- 
tion Company determined that a day should be set 
apart, to be known as ** Plant System Day," and as 
the founder and president of the System, Mr. Henry 
B. Plant, was to celebrate the seventy-sixth anniver- 
sary of his birth on October 27, 1895, it was decided 
that in his honor the two events should be commem- 
orated as a unit This plan was impracticable, as 
the 27th fell on Sunday, but that the celebration 
should be as closely connected as possible, the day 
following, October 28th, was named by the Com- 
mittee and announced to the public as " Plant Sys- 
tem Day " at the Cotton States and International 
Exposition. 

From the time of this announcement until the 
day of the festivities, preparations were made to 
make the occasion in all ways enjoyable. Mr. Plant, 
accompanied by his family, arrived in Atlanta on 



Henry Bradley Plant 159 

Saturday, and on the succeeding morning, the 
seventy-sixth anniversary of his birth, was greeted 
by the following article, written by Mr. Clark 
Howell, and published in the GcmstituUon. It 
served as an index to a time replete with pleasure, 
and as a welcome to Mr. H. B. Plant, President, and 
to the Plant System in Atlanta, Georgia, October 
27 and 28, 1895. 

From the Atlanta OonstittUiony October 27, 1895. 

" No more important day will be celebrated dur- 
ing the present Cotton States and International Ex- 
position than to-morrow, which has been set aside in 
honor of Mr. Henry B. Plant, the head of the great 
Plant railway and steamship lines. The impor- 
tance of the day will spring not only from the suc- 
cessful life of which Mr. Plant is an example, but 
from the fact that above any other man living he 
represents the great industrial revolution which has 
come over the face of the Southern States, and 
which marks the success of free over slave labor. 



"To-day Mr. Plant might be called an interna- 
tional developer. Of this, however, the story of his 
life will be the best witness. To-morrow he will 
have completed his seventy-sixth year, forty-one of 
which have been spent in the South, during which 



160 The Life of 

time the twin powers of steam and electricity have 
wrought wonders in the conditions of life. To- 
day he is the president of a railway system which 
embraces twelve different corporations, and whose 
mileage extends to 1941, with a list of employees 
numbeiing 5506. He is also president of the Plant 
steamship and steamboat lines, the one covering the 
coasts of the Gulf and going to Cuba and Jamaica^ 
the other skirting the coasts of the North, running 
from Boston and along Nova Scotia to Cape Breton 
and the maiitime provinces of Canada. In addition 
to these interests, he is still president of the South- 
ern and the Texas Express Companies, which do a 
business as express forwarders over 24,412 miles of 
railway; have lines in fifteen States, employing 
6,808 men, and using 1,463 horses and 886 wagons. 
As a complement to the handling of railroads, and 
the sailing of ships, and the expressing of freightage, 
Mr. Plant has erected four winter resort hotels in 
Florida, one of which, the great Tampa Bay Hotel, 
is probably the largest winter resort hotel of its kind 
on the continent. It will thus be seen that this 
great man, who is to be the toast at the Exposition 
to-morrow, does service under three flags, those of 
America, England, and Spain. 

" Such developments as these are enough to make 
his life history of interest to the old and of profit to 
the young, as showing the vast possibilities which 



Henry Bradley Plant 161 

our country affords, and the immense rewards which 
come to industry, tact, and intelligence. 



" The coming of Mr. Plant to the Southern States 
really marked the opening of Florida to the people 
of this country as a winter resort. It was in 1853, 
the year of Mr. Plant's arrival, that he visited Florida 
for the sake of his invalid wife, when access could 
only be had by steamboat, by the St. John's River. 
The mild climate of that State prolonged Mrs. Plant's 
life for years. He saw the necessity of railroads in 
the State, and it was in this way that he began buy- 
ing stock in various Florida and Geoi^a railroads, 
though he did not engage in any railroad enterprise 
as a manager until 1879. In that year Mr. Plant 
purchased the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad of Geor- 
gia, and subsequently reorganized the company as 
the Savannah, Florida, and Western Railway, of 
which he is still the head. The Savannah and 
Charleston Railway was next purchased in 1880, 
and the story of the completion of the Plant Sys- 
tem — now extending to Charleston on the one side, 
to Montgomery, Alabama, on the other, covering 
Florida and forming a perfect network — would be 
to repeat the story of railroad development in that 
entire section. 

^^ In these enterprises it was the purpose of Mr. 



162 The Life of 

Plant and his associates to extend and add to the 
various properties, and they believed this could best 
be accomplislied under a single organization with 
ample powers. With this object in view, several of 
his associates being residents of Connecticut, the 
birth-place of Mr. Plant, a chaiter was obtained in 
1882 from the legislature of that State, and the Plant 
Investment Company organized. Mr. Plant became 
president, and remained such to the present time. 
Among his associates were W. T. Walters and B. F. 
Newcomer, of Baltimore ; E. B. Haskell, of Boston ; 
Henry M. Flagler and Morris K. Jessup, of New 
York, and Lorenzo Blackstone, Henry Sanford, 
Lynde Harrison, H. P. Hoadley, and G. H. Tilley, of 
Connecticut. Since the formation of the Plant In- 
vestment Company, several properties have been ac- 
quired by purchase. In 1885, they bought the 
South Florida Railroad, at the time running only 
between Sanford and Kissimmee, which was changed 
from narrow to broad gauge, with an extension of 
the line to Port Tampa, Florida, which is the port 
of entry for the West India fast mail steamers (Plant 
Steamship Line) between Port Tampa and Havana, 
Cuba. Subsequently the line was extended north 
from Lakeland to a connection with the Savannah, 
Florida, and Western Railway (Gainsville division) 
at High Springs, thus completing the line from 
Charleston, South Carolina, to Port Tampa, Florida. 



Henry Bradley Plant 163 

Thereafter the company acquired, in 1887, the Bruns- 
wick and Western Railroad, between Brunswick and 
Albany, Georgia, via. Waycross, which road was re- 
built ; in 1889, the Alabama Midland Railway, from 
Montgomery, Alabama, to Bain bridge, Georgia ; and 
in 1892, the Silver Springs, Ocala, and Gulf Rail- 
road, extending from Ocala to Homosassa and Inver- 
ness, Florida. In 1893, the Tampa and Thonoto- 
sassa Railroad was constructed, from Tampa to 
Thonotosassa, and the Winston and Bone Valley 
Railroad was purchased to accommodate the people 
of the phosphate mining districts. In 1894, the 
Abbeville Southern Railway, from Abbeville, Ala- 
bama, to a junction of the line of the Alabama Mid- 
land Railway, was built. The system has been 
extended in 1895 by the purchase of the Florida 
Southern Railway and the Sanford and St. Peters- 
burg Railroad, both narrow gauge roads, and prepar- 
ations are now being made to change them to 
standard gauge. 

" In addition to the railway properties enumerated, 
Mr. Plant established two lines of steamboats : one, 
in 1880, to run between Sanford and Jacksonville, 
which was discontinued upon the completion of the 
railway between these two points ; the other on the 
Chattahoochie River, known as the People's Line, 
plying between Columbus and Bainbridge, Georgia, 
and Apalachicola, Florida. In 1886, he established 



164 The Life of 

tbe Plant Steamship Line for regular service between 
Port Tampa, Key West, and Havana, Cuba, under 
contract with the United States Post Office Depart- 
ment, for the carriage of the Key West and Havana 
mails, and for occasional service between Port Tampa 
and the island of Jamaica, with regular service be- 
tween Port Tampa and Mobile, and Port Tampa and 
points on the Manatee River. 

^^ Subsequently the line of the Atlantic, Canada^ 
and Plant Steamship Line, Limited, running between 
Boston and Halifax, was acquired by purchase, and 
chartered under the Dominion Government as the 
Canada, Atlantic, and Plant Steamship Company^ 
Limited. In 1893, the North Atlantic Line of 
steamers was added to the line through purchase^ 
and the route between Boston, Cape Breton, and 
Prince Edward Island is now operated by the 
company of which he is at the head. 

"The Plant Investment Company had widened 
the gauges of its various roads to the standard 
measure, has organized the fast mail steamships 
between Port Tampa and Havana, and has in many 
other ways developed the country and revolutionized 
the face of nature in that section. A reading of the 
names of the directors of the Plant Investment 
Company shows that through Mr. Plant other men, 
such as Mr. Flagler, have been led to investments in 
the Gulf States, which are of incalculable value, and 



Henry Bradley Plant 165 

which will perpetually influence the destiny of the 
South. 

" Without entering into the statistical and prosaic 
relation of railroad names and technical details^ it 
may be said Mr. Plant stands foremost as a de- 
veloper, and that while honor is due him for the 
creation of so much wealth, for the integrity of his 
life, for the energy with which he has built up the 
country, yet it is as a public benefactor and as one 
who has contributed vastly to the possibility of such 
an Exposition being held in the South, that he will 
be spoken of to-morrow. When he came here, in 
1854, he found the country wedded to a slave-labor 
system, which necessarily meant a purely agricul- 
tural condition, and under which it would be 
impossible to develop manufacturing and other cor- 
porative industries. Without having been connected 
in any way with the war or with the politics which 
preceded it or followed after it, yet he was the 
pioneer of that new business which the war made 
possible, and which marks the end of the old and 
the beginning of the new. His career is a remark- 
able example of what can be accomplished by 
untiring industry and indomitable will. The people 
of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Alabama 
cheerfully acknowledge the great obligations under 
which they have been placed by the labors of this 
energetic and capable man. 



166 The Life of 

" In recent years he has made his home in New 
York City, spending each summer in Branf ord, Con- 
necticut. He is a member of the Union League 
Club and of the New England Society of New York, 
a man of commanding appearance, genial of nature, 
dignified and courteous of manner, and as modest 
as he is competent. 

« Such a man needs no eulogy. His works speak 
for him. Such a people as those of the South need 
no incentive to recognize worth wherever they see 
it. Mr. Plant will be royally received to-morrow, 
and in the closing years of his life he may well rest 
satisfied that a people for whom he has done so 
much will not easily forget it, and that his name will 
be remembered as one of the men who have served 
their time and generation, and who deserve the laurel 
wreath of immortality. 

" Forty-one years of his eventful life have been 
spent in the South ; and his great fortune has been 
made in the South. How many important volumes 
of history are crowded into those forty-one years ! 
Within that period this man of affairs has seen four 
million slaves emancipated; he has witnessed the 
greatest war of modern times ; he has practically wit- 
nessed the birth of those twin powers — steam and 
electricity — whose combined forces have created new 
conditions of life ; he has been an eye-witness to the 
tearing down and the upbuilding of States and the 



Henry Bradley Plant 167 

adjustment of the American people to a new environ- 
ment. And yet, amid all this kaleidoscopic change, 
this quiet business man has gone on adding to his 
fortune in peace and in panic, in storm and in sun- 
shine, and his potential force in Southern develop- 
ment will be fittingly recognized and crowned 
to-morrow, in a day set apart among the great days 
of the Exposition in his honor. 

"What superb judgment and business sagacity 
make up the background of this picture ! Mr. Plant 
has never sought or held office. His name is not on 
the roster of military heroes, nor is it emblazoned on 
the roll of those who have won renown in the evolu- 
tion of statecraft. But in that great battle of rebuild- 
ing States and industrial life in the South he stands to- 
day pre-eminent. Behind him, and loyally supporting 
him, is a busy industrial army of 12,639 men, and, 
counting their families, an army of 60,000 people. 

"The lessons of Mr. Plant's life are simple and 
should be an inspiration to young men throughout 
America. He has avoided politics and speculation ; 
he has never bought nor built a railroad to sell ; he 
has never wrecked a property in order to purchase 
it. He lives, and his companies live, within their 
income. He is scrupulously exact in keeping his 
engagements, and always acts within the limits of 
that truth, which he often quotes, ^It is easier to 
promise than it is to perform.' 



168 The Life of 

" The lesson of his life, which the occasion justi- 
fies in emphasizing, is this : Faith in the South and 
her possibilities is the basis of his great fortune. 
When others have faltered he has gone on investing 
the earnings of his properties in the South. In his 
loyal friendship to the South, and his unwavering 
faith in her greatness and her coming glory, he has 
proven his faith by his work. 

" Mr. Plant is one of those remarkable men who 
master all conditions and create environment. He 
is a builder — a creator. A whole State blossoms at 
the touch of his magic wand. Thousands and tens 
of thousands bless him that he uses and does not 
bury his talents. Long may he live — ^an example 
to all young men, an inspiration to investors, a 
true, a loyal, and a royal friend of the South.'' 

Surrounded by many of his friends and associates, 
who had assembled to pay their respects, Mr. Plant's 
anniversary was most auspiciously ushered in by the 
foregoing remarks of a representative of the Atlanta 
people. But it yet needed the remembrance of the 
officers and employees of the Plant System of Rail- 
way and Steamship Lines and of the Southern Ex- 
press Company to testify the admiration and esteem 
in which he was held by the men who served under 
him. This tribute on the part of the officera and 
employees was an unexpected pleasure to Mr. Plant 
In referring to the event, the Atlanta QmatUutian 



Henry Bradley Plant 169 

published the following account of the presentations 
and of Mr. Plant's response : 

From the Atlanta ConatH/uiiony October 28, 1895. 

*^ Mr. H. B. Plant, President of the Plant System 
of Railway and Steamship Lines, was complimented 
yesterday as few great railroad kings have ever been 
complimented by the men who compose the vast 
army of workers under their direction. 

"It was the seventy-sixth birthday of the well- 
known giant of the Southern railway world, and he 
was presented with rich and rare tokens of the love, 
honor and affection which his employees bear him. 

" It was a happy day all round, and the Plant peo- 
ple fairly revelled in the privilege of paying such be- 
coming tribute to the man who has done so much for 
the Southern States, 

" As for Mr. Plant himself, he declared that it was 
certainly one of the happiest moments of his life, and 
the brightest, happiest birthday he ever enjoyed. 

" At a quarter to ten o'clock Mr. Plant was noti- 
fied that a number of prominent officials of his vari- 
ous systems of transportation lines were waiting to 
see him at his private parlors at the Aragon. 

" He met them, and was informed that they wanted 
to join with him in the name of every employee of 
the lines to exchange the congratulations and com- 
pliments of the season of his birthday. Mr. Plant 



170 The Life of 

at once summoned his family and friends^ who are 
with him here, and soon Mrs. Plant, Mrs. M. A. 
Wood, Dr. G. Durrant, Rev. Dr. Smythe, and Vice- 
President M. F. Plant were in the parlor. There 
were also present the following friends and associ- 
ates in the railway and express business : 

" R. G. Erwin, Vice-President and General Coun- 
sel, Plant System; M. J. O'Brien, Vice-President 
and General Manager, Southern Express Company ; 
D. F. Jack, Assistant to the President ; B. Dunham, 
General Superintendent, Plant System of Railways ; 
J. W. Fitzgerald, Superintendent, Plant Steamship 
Line ; B. W. Wrenn, Passenger Traffic Manager, 
Plant System ; F. B. Papy, General Freight Agent, 
Plant System ; Hon. F. G. duBignon, General Coun- 
sel; T. W. Leary, Assistant General Manager, 
Southern Express Company; G. H. TiUey, Secre- 
tary and Treasurer, Southern Express Company; 
F. Q. Brown, President, Florida Southern Railway ; 
Hon. S. G. McLendon, Counsel, Plant System of 
Railways; O. M. Sadler, Superintendent Southern 
Express Company, Piedmont Division ; H. C. Fisher, 
Superintendent Southern Division, Southern Ex- 
press; C. T. Campbell, Superintendent Southern 
Express Company, Central Division; W. W. Hul- 
bert, Superintendent Georgia Division, Southern 
Express Company ; Mark J. O'Brien, Assistant Su- 
perintendent Southern Express Company, Central 



Henry Bradley Plant 171 

Division; F. DeC. Sullivan, New York; E. M. 
Williams, New York; W. S. Chisholm, member of 
the firm of Erwin, DuBignon, <fe Chisholm, Attorneys 
for the Plant System of Railroads, Savannah. 

" The room was a scene of rare beauty, there being 
on every side a huge bank of flowers, fragrantly 
speaking the affectionate salute of the employees of 
Mr. Plant and members of his family. On one side 
was a beautiful vase of American Beauty roses, sent 
from the main office of the Plant System in New 
York, by the employees there. 

"Appropriate inscriptions were embroidered in 
letters of gold on the ribbons of red, white, and blue 
tied about the long stems of the roses. On the 
other side was a bank of carnations, chrysanthe- 
mums, lilies, and roses from H. B. Plant, Jr. This 
pleased Mr. Plant greatly, coming from a little son 
of Mr. M. F. Plant, a grandson of the distinguished 
railroad magnate. 

" On a pretty table in the centre was a huge and 
gorgeous silver cup — ^a loving-cup — which was pre- 
sented to Mr. Plant by Mr. 8. G. McLendon, on behalf 
of the employees of the railway department of his 
great System. It is a most beautiful and elaborate 
solid silver cup, and will hold two gallons of cham- 
pagne. It is, perhaps, the finest and most artistic piece 
of work ever made by the Gorham Manufacturing 
Company, of New York. The idea conveyed in the 



172 The Life of 

loving-cup is a most beautiful one. The cup has 
two large handles, and around the festal board is 
turned from hand to hand, each guest taking a quafi^ 
the cup being held by two persons. The cup never 
touches the board until it has made the round of the 
guests. 

" This cup, presented by the Plant Railway Sys- 
tem employees, is handsomely engraved, and bears 
on one side this inscription: 'The Railway Em- 
ployees of the Plant System to H. B. Plant, Presi- 
dent.' On the reverse side is the date, * October 27, 
1895.' 

"In presenting this beautiful token, Mr. S. G. 
McLendon, attorney for the Plant System at Thom- 
as ville, read the following testimonial on behalf of 
the employees : 

" * Mr. Plant : — ^The employees of the Plant Sys- 
tem of Railways extend to you their sincere and 
heartfelt congratulations upon this, your birthday. 

" * As a slight token of their affectionate and loyal 
regard, they present you this loving-cup, filled with 
their best wishes for your continued health and 
strength. It was no idle fancy which prompted the 
selection of this modest testimonial ; its name aptly 
marks the impulse which prompted the gift, and 
which it but inadequately measures by its size. 

** * The author of a great railway system, such as 
that which bears your name, must be to all man- 



Henry Bradley Plant 173 

kind a genuine benefactor ; but to you belongs, in 
truth, an honor and distinction far more precious. 

" * To promote the well-being of one fellow-man, 
to upbuild the material interests of great and grow- 
ing States, and to see new life, hope, and promise rise 
up with smiling face and outstretched, laden hands, 
is indeed enough to fulfill the measure of any ordi- 
nary ambition ; but when to the gratification which 
springs from such a consciousness is added the 
knowledge that those who labored with and under 
you in these great enterprises, whose part it was to 
follow and obey, are each and all as loyal and de- 
voted to you personally as you have been, through 
many years and trials, to the great interests confided 
to your care, satisfaction must ripen into that con- 
tentment which only comes when the " softer green 
of our better selves " is in the ascendant 

*' * It is the earnest prayer of the employees that 
for many, many years yet to come your life and 
activity may be spared to the great properties 
which owe their existence and prosperity to your 
foresight and sagacity, and as the seasons come and 
go, they crave for themselves no higher privilege than 
to refill this cup with renewed affection and esteem. 

'**For the employees of the Plant System of 
Railways. 

"*B. Dttwham, 
" * General Superintendent' 



174 The Life of 

^'The employees of the steamship lines of the 
Plant System sent a handsome and perfect combin- 
ation compasSy barometer, and thermometer as a 
fitting birthday present to Mr. Plant Hon. Fleming 
du Bignon, General Counsel for the Plant System^ 
read the following letter in making the presentation 
on behalf of the men who manage this branch of 
Mr. Plant's vast business : 

" ' Atlanta, Geobgia, October 27, 1895. 

"*Mr. H. B. Plant, President. — ^DearSir: The 
love and confidence of associates, neighbors and 
friends are to be valued more than silver and gold. 
In this life the point set to bound one's career ought to 
be the esteem of his fellow-men. For such an honor 
good men strive in all the protean forms of earthly 
contest. To gain this reward, to touch the dust- 
covered goal with a glowing chariot wheel, is worthy 
of the loftiest ambition. No human being can pos- 
sess any greater glory than the estimation of the 
people among whom he lives. 

" ^ Acting upon the principle that labor conquers 
all things, and that time will bring its own rewards, 
you struck out for yourself into the great ocean of 
busy life around you and struggled heroically with 
its billows. You were strong and worthy, and your 
fellow-men were not slow in making the discovery. 
Your unbounded faith in the future of this marvel- 



Henry Bradley Plant 175 

lous section, coupled with your genius and intelligent 
direction, have advanced the several States into 
which your enterprises now extend into command- 
ing positions of commercial superiority. Your ships 
have not drifted like dead sea-weeds upon the tops 
of sleepy waves, but, laden with the rich treasures 
of this and other climes, have travelled the wide 
seas over as a public benefaction. The mind of 
man cannot measure, nor can the tongue of man de- 
scribe, the practical good your energies have accom- 
plished. The Plant System, consisting of many 
thousands of miles of telegraph, express, railway, 
and steamship lines, founded by your genius, is a 
monument to your memory more lasting than brass 
and more enduring than marble. 

" ' Concealing quick feelings under an appearance 
of reserve, you have never deemed it a weakness 
to give sway to the influence of loving and sympa- 
thetic emotions. Your benevolences, therefore, 
have made life beautiful to many people. Associ- 
ated with you for so long a time, it is natural 
that we, the employees of the Plant Steamship 
Line, should feel a filial pride in the success of 
your varied and various undertakings. We are 
proud of the history you have made. We come 
to-day, therefore, to bring you our greetings, to 
manifest our love and admii*ation, and to express 
the hope that your useful and distinguished life 



176 The Life of 

may be spared many years to your couatryj family^ 
and friends. 

" * As an evidence of our affection and respect, we 
herewith present you, as a fitting birthday gift, this 
compass, commonly used for directing and ascertain- 
ing the course of ships over a waste of waters. 
This compass is fitted with a magnetic needle which 
points ever to the north, enabling the tempest-tossed 
mariner to hold his way over the stormy sea when 
there is neither cape nor headland, sun, moon, nor 
stars, nor any mark in the heavens or on the earth 
to tell him when or where or how to steer. 

" * We pray that the star of destiny, like this mys- 
terious needle, will ever guide and help you to keep 
an unfaltering step along the dangerous crags and 
treacherous precipices which beset the pathway of 
every man, and that your life may be long and use- 
ful " in the land that the Lord, thy Gk)d, giveth thee.'^ 

" * Truly yours, 

" * J. W. FrrZGKKALD. 

" * On behalf of the employees of the Plant Steam- 
ship Line.' 

^' The Southern Express men presented their pres- 
ident with a handsome marine glass. 

" The following testimonial, read by T. W. Leary, 
Assistant General Manager of the Southern Express 
Company, which was organized by Mr. Plant in 



Heniy Bradley Plant 177 

1853, explains the sentiment conveyed with the 

gift: 

"* Atlanta, Georgia, October 27, 1895. 

" * Mb. H. B. Plant, President Southern Express 
Company. — Dear Sir : The employees of the South- 
em Express Company extend to you on this anni- 
versary of your birthday cordial greetings, fraught 
with sentiments of highest respect and esteem, in- 
spired by the kindly courtesy and impartial consid- 
eration which have ever marked your intercourse 
with them. 

" * Regarding you not alone as an official superior, 
but also as a personal friend, sensible to their wel- 
fare and the true relationship of the employer and 
the employee, exemplified by your long career in 
friendly association with those with whom you have 
called around you in the conduct of the company's 
affairs, they are glad to avail themselves of this 
auspicious occasion to manifest the interest it in- 
spires within them by an offering in token of their 
appreciation and good will. 

" * It is, therefore, the privilege and pleasure of the 
undersigned, in behalf of the employees of the 
Southern Express Company, to present to you the 
accompanying testimonial, coupled with heartfelt 
wishes that as things viewed through its lenses are 
brought clearer and closer to vision, so with each 
succeeding return of the day this glass commemo- 



178 The Life of 

rates, may you see the nearer fruition of the unre- 
mitting labor of years devoted to the upbuilding of 
those important enterprises with the history of 
which your name is indissolubly connected. 

" * Commending this souvenir to your acceptance 
with the united hope of those from whom it comes 
that continued health, strength, and success may be 
granted you in the future, we are, yours faithfully, 

" ' F. L. COOPEB, 

** ' W. A. Dewees, 
" * W. M. Shoemaker, 
" * Committee.' 

"After the above letters were read, Mr. Plant 
addressed those present in substance as follows : 

"'Gentlemen of the Plant System of Railroads 
and Steamship Lines and of the Southern Express 
Company, and my Friends : I thank you sincerely 
for the beautiful presents which you have given me 
on this the anniversary of my birth, and for the lov- 
ing words of congratulation which accompany them. 

" * While it reached my eara that there was to be 
some observance of the occasion, I am wholly unpre- 
pared for the magnificence of the gifts and the 
demonstration of fidelity and affection with which 
they are accompanied, and I am, therefore, unable 
to do justice to myself in expressing to you the ap- 
preciation I feel. I speak from a full heart, and can 



Henry Bradley Plant 179 

more than fill this beautiful loving-cup with affec- 
tion and esteem for you, and for the employees 
whose feelings towards me are manifested not only 
by this testimonial, but as well by their constant 
and untiring devotion to the trusts confided to them 
through many years. To them, in a large measure, 
is due such success as has crowned my efforts in 
railway construction and management, and I now 
take pleasure in making this acknowledgment, and 
in assuring them of my continued confidence in 
them and of my gratitude to them ; without their 
unflagging efforts no measure of success could have 
been achieved. I look to them all with the full 
assurance that the future, with their assistance, will 
result in still greater accomplishments in our rail- 
way enterprises. 

" ' This compass, the gift of the employees of the 
Plant Steamship Line, bnngs to my mind the 
thought that, whatever may have been my mistakes 
in life, I have always had one aim, which, like the 
needle, though oscillating and varying at times in 
some slight degree, pointed ever to one end, and that 
was to endeavor to do what was right and just. 

" * Our steamships were the children of my later 
years, and they, with the faithful employees who 
operate them, are, and shall continue to be, very 
near to my heart. 

'^ ' The gift of the employees of the Southern Ex- 



180 The Life of 

press Company brings to my mind pictures of the 
past. The express business was my first love, and I 
see here present those who were with me in troub- 
lous times, and bore with me the heat and burden 
of the fight. Their affection and loyalty have sus- 
tained me in many an anxious moment, and the 
knowledge that I had around me those upon whom 
I could count in every peril has enabled me to 
achieve some measure of success. To extend to 
them my thanks for all that they have been to me 
and done for me would be idle. They know how I 
feel towards them, and I am sure I know how they 
feel towards me. 

" * I wish to say to you all that I am more apt to 
express my feelings in acts than in words ; many of 
the employees of our several companies have been 
with me so long that they have become as members 
of my family. I feel towards all the employees 
that in a business sense they are members of my 
family and I want them to feel that they bear this 
relation to me. 

" ' I see with us to-day one to whom I feel I owe 
much ; I refer to Dr. G. Durrant, of New York. I 
had a severe attack of illness last May, but did not 
know until long after it was over how near to death 
I was. To his untiring and faithful attention, both 
as a good friend and as a skilled physician, I owe my 
recovery, perhaps my life, and it gives me pleasure to 



Henry Bradley Plant 181 

take this occasion to express my confidence in him 
and my thanks to him. 

*^ ^ These beautiful flowers on my left came to me 
from my Uttle grandson, and I bespeak in his behalf 
from you all the love and affection which you have 
shown to me, and express the hope that in days to 
come, when I am no more with you, he may be one 
of yourselves and a co-worker in the enterprises 
which all the employees of our companies sustain 
by their energies and their work. 

" * These flowers on my right come from those at 
our New York office, some of whom cannot be with 
us to-day in person, but who are with us in spirit 
and love and testify their memory of the occasion by 
this beautiful remembrance. 

" * Mr. and Mre. Frank Q. Brown, of Boston, have 
presented me with this cane, which I appreciate very 
highly, but will hope that I may not need to have 
immediate use for it, though if that time should come 
it will be a staff upon which I will gladly lean. 
Mr. Brown is now one of us, and though he has but 
lately come among us, I am sure you will all welcome 
the President of the Florida Southern Railway in 
our ranks.' [Applause.] 

^^ It was the happiest of seasons for Mr. Plant, and 
his face beamed brightly with the light of profound 
gladness. 

^'All day there was a stream of distinguished 



182 



Henry Bradley Plant 



callers, who congratulated him on the day with good 
wishes for many returns. Letters and telegrams and 
cablegrams were read, all bearing the hearty con- 
gratulatious of friends and employees." 




CHAPTER XIV. 

Tampa Bay Hotel, One of the Modem Wondere of the World— Its 
Architecture, Fomiture, Works of Art, Deoorationa, Tapestriea, 
Paintings, Inlaid Table and Three Ebony and Gold Cabineta from 
the Tuileries, a Sofa and Two Chairs once Owned by Harle An- 
toinette — The Dream of De Boto Kealixed — A Palace of Art tta 
the Delight and Joy of Those who are in Health, and an Elysiam 
for the Sad and BorrowfoL 

THE following account of the Tampa Bay Hotel, 
from the pen of W. C. Prime, is taken from the 
New York Journal of Chmmerce : 

*' The most charmiDg book in all the world of lit- 
erature is the collection of tales known to common 
fame as the Arabian Nights. Their charm consists 
in the total freedom from all restraints of verities, of 
either probabilities or possibilities. Events occur 
in dreamlike succession, and transformations take 
place with such delicious swiftness and ease that, if 
you read the story as you should, with foi^tfulness 
of self, and without any of the folly of critical judg- 
ment, you are removed into another world than this 
— a world of refreshing liberty, wherein thought has 
no bounds and imagination flows in glorious revelry. 



184 The Life of 

"That which the unknown Saracen story-teller 
created in words and fancies^ this late nineteenth 
century seeks to create in reality, by the aid of wealth 
and steam and electricity. It does not succeed. But 
it comes so near to success that we may wonder and 
admire, and for a moment at a time we can forget 
that the result is artificial, not natural, and that it is 
a miracle of human invention which dazzles and as- 
tonishes our senses. All this by way of introduction 
to my letter. . . . 

** The scene changed suddenly. The train emerged 
into a blaze of electric light. By this blaze of light 
you could see, high in the air and stretching a thou- 
sand feet to right and left, bright domes and mina- 
rets, appearing and disappearing with all the 
swiftness of magic. It was bewildering. A few 
steps lead into the blinding light of the grand hall 
of the new hotel, a wilderness of all that is gorgeous 
in works of modern art. Rich furniture in gold 
and ebony, velvets, tapestries, grand vases of porce- 
lain, massive figures in pottery, bronzes in groups, 
small and of life size, oil-paintings, works of mas- 
ters, etchings, engravings, carvings, in short, count- 
less examples of the most costly and superb art 
productions of the age, under a fiood of light from 
a hundred electric bands ; all this bursting on the 
gaze of the traveller at the end of his journey, it 
forms what may well be considered a modem arti- 



Henry Bradley Plant 185 

ficial approximation to one of the transformations in 
dreams of the Saracens. 

^^ It is not to be denied that this Tampa Bay Hotel 
is one of the modem wonders of the world. It is a 
product of the times. It illustrates the age, the de- 
mands of the people, what they enjoy, and what they 
are willing to pay for. I have no space to enter into 
a description of it. It would require a guide-book 
for a full description. ^ It is splendid, but it is in- 
congruous,' said a friend. * Why should it be in- 
congruous?' was my reply. * It is a hotel, not a 
private house.' There is, nevertheless, a suflSciency 
of uniformity in the building and decorations, while 
the general principle of the furnishing is in harlequin 
style, which is most pleasing to the mass of visitors. 
Each work of art (of which there are hundreds and 
hundreds) is chosen by some one who has exercised 
taste of high order. The objects are good, each 
worthy of examination. The many large tapestries 
are costly, and are fine works. The paintings are 
of extraordinary rank. There is no more striking 
feature of the furniture than the table porcelains. 
These are exquisite works of ceramic art. The 
plates are of infinite variety. You may have your 
beef on a very charming bit of French porcelain, 
your salad on a reproduction of an old Vienna 
plate of semi-Saracenic pattern, your ice on one of 
the little plates designed by Moritz Fischer, and 



186 The Life of 

copied elsewhere, your coflEee in a very perfect repe- 
tition of one of Wedgewood's simple and lovely 
bordered cups. In fact, there is no end to the 
variety of these lovely porcelains. And just here 
I may add, that the cooking and the service are 
unexceptionable. The table is of the very best 
class, and equal to that of any hotel in the world. 
This, too, is miraculous, in a new house at this re- 
mote point. 

^^I may sum up a sketch of the hotel in a few 
words. There is nothing cheap, nothing inferior in 
it. Money has been freely expended in the pur- 
chase of the most costly objects, in all departments 
of art, for furniture and decorations ; good taste 
has been exercised in the selection of these objects, 
and they are brought together in lavish profusion. 
The building is vast in extent. The grounds around 
it have been rescued from savage nature and re- 
duced to order and beauty. The river is in front 
and Tampa lies across the river, which is narrowed 
to less than three hundred feet wide. Some hun- 
dred palmetto trees have been transplanted to form 
a grove near the river. Orange blossoms in neigh- 
boring orchards fill the air with their odor. Pine- 
apples grow in luxuriance. To one who knew 
this spot as I knew it years ago, the gorgeous hotel 
and its surroundings may well seem the creation of 
a dream.'' 



Henry Bradley Plant 187 

Mr. Henry G. Parker, in the Boston Saturday 
Evening Oazette^ writes : 

" It was reserved for the sagacious and enterprising 
railroad and steamboat magnate, Mr. H. B. Plant, to 
reap the honor of erecting in tropical Florida the 
most attractive, most original, and most beautiful ho- 
tel in the South, if not in the whole country ; and it 
is a hotel of which the whole world needs to be ad- 
vised. It has one vase, which is the admii*ation and 
wonder of all who behold it, in the grand office ro- 
tunda, where ladies and gentlemen congregate at all 
hours of the day and evening. The entire estate, 
including land and building, cost two millions of dol- 
lars, and the furnitui*e and fittings half a million more. 
No one who does not see it and dwell in it for at least 
a day, can form the faintest idea of the comprehen- 
siveness of its purpose, the breadth of its plan, the 
ideal refinement of its comforts, the noble scale of its 
luxuries. Nothing offends the eye or the taste at any 
point, and while the fii'st view of the hotel exteriorly 
is impressive, the effect produced by a first glance on 
entering its broad and inviting portals is one of aston- 
ishment and delight. 

" The architecture of the Tampa Bay Hotel is Moor- 
ish, patterned after the palaces in Spain. The horse- 
shoe and crescent are everywhere visible in its design, 
and minarets and domes tower above the great build- 
ing, which is five stories high above the basement. 



188 The Life of 

The house is constructed of Atlanta red brick with 
rolled steel beams^ and brick partitions^ floors, and 
ceilings, and so is absolutely fire-proof. 

" Numerous flights of stone steps lead up by easy 
ascent to the long verandas that extend along each 
side of the structure. These piazzas vary in width 
from sixteen to twenty-six feet. The length of the 
main building is 611 feet, but with the solarium and 
dining-room, which are connected with it, the house 
affords a continuous walk of twelve hundred feet, and 
the walk around it on the outside is exactly one mile. 
On the building there are thirteen minarets and domes^ 
each surmounted with a gilt crescent, making in all a 
complete lunar year. The hotel contains, nearly five 
hundred rooms. 

" The drawing-room, in perfect taste throughout, 
is a museum of beautiful things, embracing fine con- 
trasts, rich harmonies, and pleasant innovations that 
render it indeed * a joy forever.* Here there is an 
inlaid table which once graced the Tuileries, as did 
also three ebony and gold cabinets. On the table is 
a rare bit of sculpture. The Sleeping Beauty^ in 
Carrara marble. There are a sofa and two chairs that 
were owned by Marie Antoinette. A set of four 
chairs may be seen that belonged to Louis Philippe. 
Then there are numerous French and Japanese cabi- 
nets, and above each is suspended a dazzling crystal 
mirror. All these and hundreds of other wonderful 



Henry Bradley Plant 189 

things were personally secured in Europe by Mr. 
Plant and his accomplished wife, while Boston, New 
York, and Grand Kapids have been drawn upon for 
what is best in their specialties in useful and orna- 
mental furniture. 

^^ The dining-room is octagon in shape, lighted from 
above, and is decorated with costly and elegant tapes- 
tries and Japanese screens. Its tables and nicely up- 
holstered chairs are the very acme of comfort, and 
the whole apartment is tempting, aside from the 
unsurpassed excellence of the cuisine. The waiters 
are well groomed and well trained, having gained 
their knowledge and their courtesy in the leading 
hotels and clubs of New York. The ckef is Joseph 
P. Campazzi, celebrated all over this country. He 
has fourteen first-class assistants, besides a dozen 
others, in his kitchen, which is the largest, most thor- 
oughly equipped and most convenient to be found in 
the United States. He has arranged his departments 
for the care of meats, game, and fish on a plan of his 
own, which is worthy the attention and examination 
of every chef in the land. His ice-box contains be- 
tween four and five tons, and he provides also for 
The Inn (also Mr. Plant's property), at Tampa Port, 
and for the Havana steamers of the Plant Line. Meats 
are shipped in a refrigerator car from New York, 
while game goes from Baltimore, and largely from 
the sportsmen in and about Tampa. Fish is to be 



190 The Life of 

found in great variety and abundance in Southern 
Florida, at very low prices, and red snapper, pom- 
pano, sheepshead, and shad, deliciously cooked, are 
always to be found upon the table. Giovanni Car- 
retta, who for fifteen yeara enjoyed a remarkable 
fame in New York at Delmonico's and the Union 
Club, is the pastry-cook, and his deft hand has lost 
none of its wonted cunning. Bossi, from the Man- 
hattan Club, is the baker. 

" There are two hundred employees in the Tampa 
Bay Hotel, all of them carefully selected with a view 
to their special fitness for the places they fill. The 
chambers and suites are handsome and convenient 
proportionately with the public rooms. The carpets 
everywhere are harmonious in color, restful to the 
eye, and in the best of taste ; more than thirty thou- 
sand yards of them have been laid. 

" The music-room is a special feature. It is large, 
well ventilated, attractive in its circular form, simple 
in decoration, has a raised stage, and its acoustic 
properties are fine. Moreover, the band is superb. 
It consists of sixteen picked and skillful musicians, 
six of whom were taken from the Boston Symphony 
Orchestra. Their performances of classical music, as 
well as of the tuneful and delicious dance music, will 
stand the test of severe criticism, and not be found 
wanting. This important feature of enteiijainment 
is to be maintained at any cost, and it affords a great 



Henry Bradley Plant 191 

deal of pleasure to all who visit the Tampa Bay Hotel 
" Tampa is of interest historically, being the place 
where Ferdinand De Soto landed, May 25, 1539. 
From there he started on his search for the mines of 
wealth supposed to exist in the New World, which 
resulted in the discovery of the Mississippi River. 
There also Navarez, having obtained a grant of 
Florida from Charles V. of Spain, landed with a 
large force, April 16, 1528. Tampa is on the Gulf 
coast of Florida, 240 miles from Jacksonville. There 
are two trains daily, with Pullman cars, from Jack- 
sonville and St. Augustine to Tampa, passing through 
Palatka, Sanford, and Winter Park, both having di- 
rect connection with all Eastern and Western cities, 
and one being a through train from New York. Its 
rapid growth during the past seven years, from eight 
hundred inhabitants to as many thousands, has been 
brought about by the Plant System having completed 
the South Florida Kailroad to Tampa for the purpose 
of developing it commercially. The climate is perfect, 
and it is the only city in Florida with all the advan- 
tages of both inland and coast without the incon- 
venience of either ; the only city that affords all the 
delights of a sportsman's life to hunter and fisher, 
yachtsmen and horsemen, along with first-class busi- 
ness facilities in all directions. No malaria ever in- 
fects the delicious air, and the water is as soft as 
lavender. It is the place of places for invalids, and 



192 The Life of 

a lapse of two years will see Tampa the most impor- 
tant business city in its State. We are writing, not 
for the interest of the Tampa Bay Hotel alone, fine 
as it is, but to impart information and to convey sug- 
gestions that may be valuable to many of our readers. 
By no means fail to go as far as Tampa if you visit 
Florida in this tempestuous winter." 

AT TAMPA BAY. 

" Was it not some old reportorial ruse played upon 
the credulity of the ancients that made the story of 
Aladdin's wonderful lamp to live in literature and 
come down to us through the ages to make us listen 
with open ears, gape with open mouth, and wonder 
with open eyes at the wonders of it — and I wonder 
if that ancient reporter could prove in any way the 
foundation of his story oi the lamp and the rubbing 
of it. Aye, there 's the rub — ^I think he could n't 
prove it. He might show the lamp, but no palace 
would rise up at his rubbing, however hard. £iU^ 
to-day, the vision may be produced and the palace 
reared, and yet no lamp to rub. I would lead to a 
land where balmy breezes blow and sigh among the 
pines, and make the feathery palm trees wave as 
nodding plumes. Coming out from under these, on a 
night when the moon is bright, to the banks of a 
beautiful river with banks fringed with ferns, look 



Henry Bradley Plant 193 

across its waters where the moon and stars are re- 
flected and so many, many lights that are on the 
river's other shore, there the palace is, a brighter 
than Aladdin's, and more beautiful. That 's Tampa 
Bay. That your coming under these pines and 
palms may be in a palace car, produces no disil- 
lusion, — there 's a palace at Tampa Bay. 

« It might have been, in the long centuries agone, 
when his ship floated lazily and his barges glided 
noiselessly over the waters to the fem-fringed banks 
of Tampa's river, that that ancient and original tour- 
ist, on the same mission bent as those of to-day, in 
search of the fount of perpetual youth, might have 
looked, disheartened, on the tangled forest and heard 
the moaning of the winds through the pines that 
brought no tidings of a land of life. 

*^ I wonder if in his dreams that night, when his 
ship came in to Tampa Bay, this grand old Grandee 
was back in his castles in Spain, and sported 
in fantastic fandango with the dark-browed Seno- 
rita of fair Castile. Was his dream a prophetic 
vision that it seemed to be an Alhambra just there 
under the lee of his ship, or did some grander palace 
with Moorish minarets and silvered domes, glisten- 
ing with more silvery brightness under the rays of a 
tropic moon, topped with golden crescents that could 
only come from the Orient to ornament its towers 
high above the pines, seem to be here in this far-ofl^ 



194 The Life of 

land — a dream passing all realization. And what a 
disappointing awakening awaited this ancient cavalier 
who sought the waters that would make him young 
again, for when the morning came, and the sun shone 
brightly, the knight must have trod the deck with 
restless impatience ; the vision of last night carried 
him back to lordly Spain, the awakening brought 
him here again, and only a lofty pine stood in the 
place of the tallest tower, the swaying top was not a 
silver dome, and the mournful moaning in its boughs 
fell not as sweetly on his ear as the tinkling tingle 
of guitars and his dream-made mandolins. And I 
am sure, in haste he left a spot so disappointing, and 
perhaps to the tune of *Over the Hills and Far 
Away,' marched to find the great Mississippi. 

'^ I say, perhaps old De Soto dreamed all this when 
he landed here at Tampa, and if he did, behold 't was 
prophecy— for the swaying pines have toppled and 
in their places have risen higher the golden crescents 
of the Orient, and the silvered domes and Moorish 
minarets that ornament a palace, and here at Tampa 
Bay the Spaniard's dream has been realized two 
hundred years after. 

" The tourist of to-day does not approach from the 
direction of his illustrious predecessor, but has the 
decided advantage, whether the coming be by night 
or day. If by day, the grandly magnificent picture 
comes suddenly upon the view as the train makes a 



Henry Bradley Plant 195 

turn and stops between the little town and the river. 
The foreground is the river, the middle distance, 
green sloping lawns dotted with flowers, around 
whose beds are winding walks that circle fountains 
and lead through groves of palms and oranges to the 
pines beyond, the same great pines that De Soto 
walked under in the struggle to get oflE his *sea 
legs.' In the brightness of a semi-tropic sun the 
domes and crescents glisten intensely, and the mas- 
sive pile gi'ows to immensity. The broad galleries 
extend all along the front, the roof commencing 
above the third-story windows, slopes gently, so as 
not to obstruct the view, and at its outer edge drops 
in huge ornaments, in arched and hanging pendants 
ending in brackets at every column, and at the walls ; 
the grateful shade inviting as on a summer's day. 

"The lawn, carefully kept and green as one of 
Kentucky's own, has a miniature fort with mounted 
cannon and a flagstaff that floats the country's colors 
by day, and sports a crescent of electric fire at night 
The fountains, the flowers, and tropic fruits growing 
here as if 't was their natural home, serve as orna- 
ments. A dainty little boat-house at the bottom of 
the lawn is headquarters for all sorts of boats for 
rowing or sailing, as well as for naphtha and steam 
launches. The view from the cars comprises all this, 
as also from the bridge that spans the river from the 
hotel to the town. The intending guest need not 



196 The Life of 

leave the train here ; after a short stop it will cross 
the river and come right to the galleries of the west 
entrance and stop under the shadow of the great 
hotel at Tampa Bay. 

*^ If in the ecstacy of a first impression I likened 
this to a palace of Spain that Ponce de Leon might 
have dreamed of, I had no retraction to make when 
the second day of my visit came and I saw it with 
modem surroundings of railway and steamer — ^it is a 
palace still, and more of that than the hotel, and in 
its appointments more like a gentleman's residence 
on a scale exaggerated to positive magnificence — 
totally unlike any other, and it is no disparagement 
to any to say it is the most unique in the world — ^I 
was about to say of its kind — it has no kind ; there 
is none other in similarity with it, and taken all in 
all is the finest in the world. 

^^ I say this not without thought of what it means 
— the Ponce de Leon at St. Augustine may have cost 
more dollars to build, decorate, and furnish, and the 
name and fame of the Ponce de Leon has gone to 
the four quarters, and 't is not intended to compare 
invidiously. Here at Tampa Bay, the surroundings 
take one back through the centuries even before De 
Soto came, and this may have been the very spot 
where he landed. 

" The horseshoe arches of the Moorish curve are 
everywhere, from the grand galleries to the rotunda 



Henry Bradley Plant 197 

doors, in the salon entrances and to the grand ban- 
quet hall, for it is nothing less, and every minaret is 
crescent crested, and passing under them leads to 
some old picture, antique, or cabinet that ornamented 
some palace hall before the land on which this one 
stands had been discovered, — and herein is the argu- 
ment that this is the only one in the world. The 
others boast of their ^ especially made ' appointments, 
while these were made before the land was dis- 
covered. 

" The rotunda is a grand assembly hall with its 
polished floors, rich carpets and hangings, antique 
vases and bric-a-brac, divans and luxurious lounges, 
as little like a hotel office as the ^ east room ' of the 
White House is like a railway station. The apart- 
ment is seventy-eight feet square and is thirty feet 
from the floor to the ceiling. The massive doors are of 
Spanish mahogany, highly polished, encasing heavy 
plates of bevelled glass, the frames are carved in de- 
signs of great beauty. Thirteen marble columns 
support a balcony that looks over from the second 
floor, around which is a carved raO, also in Spanish 
mahogany. 

" The Moorish and Spanish styles which prevail 
in the architectural work do not always obtain in 
the decorations and furnishings— the divans in the 
rotunda were once in the Tuileries salons, and there 
is an original portrait in oil of Louis XIV. of France^ 



198 The Life of 

also a clock of the same period. The paintings are 
varied in design^ as they are in age and history, and 
every one, every antique and cabinet, has its history. 
On one wall is a beautiful canvas, the Meturn from 
the Masquerade^ on another, Wine^ Woman^ and Songy 
these suggest the gay side of life, while some of the 
old faded examples of the school of long ago carry 
one back to the old masters. Two dwarfs in bronze 
that suggest the Black Forest legends guard the en- 
trance to the hall of the grand salon, and near them 
are two Japanese vases, six feet high, which were 
exhibited at the Vienna exposition. 

" Mirrors in antique frames rich in gilded carvings 
are on the walls, massive doors in bevelled glass lead 
to parlors, halls, libraries, and writing rooms, elec- 
trie lights are imbedded in the ceilings and walls^ 
and hang down in chandeliers. This is the rotunda. 
The business office occupies the smallest comer, as 
if it was of the smallest importance in a hall so re- 
plete with ornament and so devoted to comfort and 
luxury. The telegraph and ticket offices are also 
in the rotunda, and everything that pertains to the 
more prosaic business ideas — but they do not intrude 
upon the dreamy existence that obtains from the 
antique surroundings. 

"The grand parlor is magnificent. Every nook 
and corner has some dainty bit to show a woman's 
hand has been here, and in all the grand apartment 



Henry Bradley Plant 199 

shows what might have been done by a princess in 
her own house. It was a woman's design that this 
divan should have growing flowers from its centre, 
and between the seat-arms, that roses and calla-lilies 
should mingle their perfume where beauty holds 
sway. Her idea that this cabinet, three hundred 
years old, should be brought from some castle in 
Seville or Salamanca to ornament this salon. It is an 
exquisite piece with inlaid woods, ebony, pearL and 
ivory, with quaint little paintings under maWellously 
clear glass in the carved panels. The bronzes, gild- 
ings, and inlaid woods of the cabinets contrast with 
the white and gold of the surrounding decorations 
in pleasing effect. The white and gold of the up- 
holstery and the hangings have their beauty en- 
hanced by the shaded electric lights in ground glass, 
softly tinted, that are set in the arched dome above ; 
the light falls on these cabinets, tables inlaid in a 
hundred woods and pearl and ivory, bric-a-brac and 
candelabra from every land. Paintings not from 
this shop or that, but from the old masters to salon 
celebrities of modem times. One is a portrait of 
Marguerite de Valois and another of the Due de 
Savoy. On the mantels and cabinets are some beau- 
tiful, exquisitely chased ewers and drinking cups in 
silver, and busts of Elizabeth of England and Mary, 
Queen of Scots, in very rare silver bronze. 

"There is marble statuary in exquisite designs 



200 The Life of 

from the chisels of the best scalptors — some Sedan 
chairs with the eagle of France in their decorations. 

"The drawing-room is a museum of beautiful 
things, embracing fine contrasts, rich harmonies, and 
pleasant innovations that render it indeed ^ a joy for- 
ever.' Here, there is an inlaid table which once 
graced the Tuileries, as did also three ebony and gold 
cabinets. On the table is a rare bit of sculpture, 
*The Sleeping Beauty,' in Carrara marble. There, 
are a sofa and two chairs that were owned by Marie 
Antoinette. A set of four chairs may be seen that 
belonged to Louis Philippe. Then there are numer- 
ous French and Japanese cabinets, and above each 
is suspended a dazzling crystal mirror. 

" There are eight cabinets of antique pattern that 
have been brought from this or that province of old 
Spain, gathered in their travels by Mr. and Mrs. 
Plant, and noty as I have said, ordered from this fac- 
tory or that, in the ordinary way of the modem 
hostelrie. 

"The carpet — scarlet, with its black lions ram- 
pant, made in France — is a replica of one of Louis 
XIV., and covers the entire floor of this splendid 
salon, in which are chairs of gold and silk and plush 
of the same era — as there are also tapestries of in- 
calculable values and richness that have hung in 
palaces before they came to this one. The writing 
and reading rooms just off the rotunda are furnished 



Henry Bradley Plant 201 

in the same unique manner — one which might be 
called * the Louis XIV. room ' has all its decorations 
and appointments of the era of that monarch ; these 
are replicas, or in some cases originals. 

" In the grand chambers the style is not less regal ; 
in magnificence these surpass anything I have ever 
Been; no two of them are alike. They range in 
size from the grand suite of complete living apart- 
ments with parlors and libraries, to the chamber for 
two, with silken hangings of gros-grain watered silk, 
in white and delicate rose color ; a canopied dressing- 
case, as dainty as the bride who may stand before it 
to attire her pretty self for the grand halls outside 
her door. The guest rooms on the floors above have 
every convenience known to modem inventive 
genius, including telephone connection with the 
office and through a * central ' to every other room 
in the house. A grand hall-way extends from south 
to north seven hundred feet, passing through the 
rotunda. Just south of the rotunda is the grand 
staircase, with its life-size bronzes, holding groups 
of electric lights, and near by are the elevators to 
the upper floors. The north hall passes from the 
rotunda by the grand parlors to the gracefully 
rounding curve of the solarium till it ends, where 
shall I say it ends ? — ^in modern parlance at the din- 
ing-hall, but what might be the banquet-room of a 
Moorish king, with its lofty dome and arches that 
rest on fluted pillars. 



202 The Life of 

^^ There is no more striking feature than the table 
porcelain. These are exquisite works of ceramic art. 
The plates are of infinite variety. You may have 
your beef on a very charming bit of French porce- 
lain, your salad on a reproduction of an old Vienna 
plate of semi-Saracenic pattern, your ice on one of 
the little plates designed by Moritz Fischer and 
copied elsewhere, your coffee in a verjr perfect rep^ 
tition of one of Wedgewood's simple and lovely bor- 
dered cups. In fact, there is no end to the variety 
of these lovely porcelains. And just here I may 
add that the cooking and the service are unexcep- 
tional. The table is of the very best class and equal 
to that of any hotel in the world. 

" The room may not be faithfully described in its 
frescoes and its lights and pictures, any more than I 
could satiate your appetite by copying the menu 
here — it can't be done. 

^^ Just at the end of this hall and very near the en- 
trance to the dining-room is a grand orchestrion^ 
which, with interchangeable rollers, plays the latest 
music, from the popular airs of the day to the classic 
productions of the great composers. 

" Just off the rotunda is the music-room with its 
waxed floor for terpsichorean uses. There is a per- 
fect stage suitable for concert, lecture, or tableau, 
there are foot-lights, and overhead, the electric fire 
gleams in a star and crescent group. The room is 



Henry Bradley Plant 203 

circular in form with broad gaUeries extending around 
it, so the company may sit in the open air and listen 
to the music or look in upon the dancers. These 
broad galleries extend on the west and east side, 
forming a grand promenade for the gay company 
such a place attracts. 

" The interior scenes under the brilliant glow of 
the lights is entertaining, but I remember in more 
dreamy way a stroll by moonlight, down by the 
river under the palmettos. The moon shone bright 
and made a wide silver ribbon far up the broad 
river and across it, and here came to me the idea of 
Ponce de Leon's dream. 

**The arched and towered facade, the silvered 
dome, again silvered by the moon's rays, lifted up 
more brightly against the star-lit sky, the crescented 
minarets, the electric-fired crescent on the color-stafE, 
the lights from a hundred windows, the soft patter 
of the water in the fountains falling on the lily-pads, 
the perfume of the flowers, the splash of an oar and 
the half murmur of a love song from him who 
splashed the oar. Think you this is not an Alham- 
bric picture? Then you have not read of the 
Alhambra nor seen Tampa Bay." 



CHAPTER XV. 

Kogramme of Plant D&y Ceremonim — Ringing of the Liberty Bell — 
Preeentation of AddresBee to Hr. Plant in the great Aaditoiimn — 
His Replf—Beaolationa from the Different Departments of the 
System, from the Savannah Board of Trade, etc. — Mr. Uorton 
F. Plant's Aolmowled^ments. 

KNOWING that all employees would be anable 
to attend the celebration in Atlanta, President 
Plant requested the superintendents of the railways, 
steamship, and express interests to allow such men 
as could be spared from duty without detriment to 
the operative departments to be present, and also 
requested that special train service should be pro- 
vided for their accommodation. This request of the 
president was so heartily carried out by the super- 
intendents, and so willingly accepted by the employ- 
ees, that three special trains of the Plant System, 
canyiug several thousand employees, rolled into the 
Union Depot in Atlanta at an early hour Monday 
morning, October 28th. In order that all might be 
fully informed of the movements of their worthy 
president, and of the programme of the day, the fol- 
lowing notice was published in the Atlanta Qm^i- 
ttttim of October 28, 1895 : 



Henry Bradley Plant 205 

" Mr. Plant will call on Governor Atkinson at 10 
o'clock this morning. 

''He will be at the Exposition grounds at 12 
o'clock, when the Columbian bell will ring for the 
first time, in his honor. 

" At 1 o'clock all the employees of the Plant Sys- 
tem will assemble at the Auditorium on the grounds, 
at which time addresses will be delivered by Presi- 
dent Collier, on behalf of the Exposition Company, 
and Mayor King, on behalf of the city of Atlanta. 
Mr. Plant will respond to these addresses. 

" Music will be furnished by Innes's band, and, 
after Mr. Plant's speech, resolutions, congratulatory 
and otherwise, will be read on behalf of the employ- 
ees of the system and commercial bodies. 

" At 3 P.M. Mr. Plant will be at the Plant System 
Building, which is one of the most picturesque on 
the grounds. He will spend some time making a 
close inspection of the exhibit that has been placed 
there and which has attracted such attention all the 
while from visitors to the great fair. 

" At 8 o'clock this evening a banquet will be ten- 
dered Mr. Plant at the Aragon." 

Mr. Plant placed himself in the hands of his friends 
for the day, and carried out to the letter the pro- 
gramme as above set forth, in order that he might 
have opportunity of meeting the employees at the 
Exposition. Such of us who had the pleasure of being 



206 The Life of 

present and of personally congratulating the gentle- 
man will be pleased, no doubt, to read the following 
account of the day's proceedings, and to those who 
were less fortunate it will be interesting to hear 
what the Atlanta QmstihUioriy of the 29th of Octo- 
ber, had to say of ^^ Plant System Day at the Ex- 
position." 

^^ Eloquent indeed was the demonstration of affec- 
tion and loyalty by the employees of the Plant Sys- 
tem to their great chieftain, Henry B. Plant, yester- 
day at the celebration of Plant System Day at the 
Exposition. 

" Never was there such an ovation to any living 
ndh'oad magnate in the Southern States. The day 
was beautiful and bright and most auspicious, and 
the exercises in the auditorium at the Exposition 
grounds were profoundly interesting and impressive. 

" Early in the morning Mr. Plant was driven to 
the Exposition grounds in a carriage, the rest of his 
party accompanying him in other carriages. They 
drove through the grounds, and at 12 o'clock sharp 
they stopped at the Columbian bell, near the Forestry 
Building, and, in accordance with the programme as 
arranged, the bell was rung many times over in honor 
of the great railroader. The bell was rung by Mr. 
and Mrs. H. B. Plant, assisted by Mrs. Wood, Mrs. 
B. W. Wrenn, Major O'Brien, and Mrs. TiUey. 

" Those present at the ringing of the bell were : 



Henry Bradley Plant 207 

Miu H. B. Plant, Mrs. W. A. Wood, Mrs. B. W. 
Wrenn, Mrs. George H. Tilley, Mrs. Porter King, 
Mr. H. B. Plant, Mr. R G. Erwin, Mr. M. F. Plant, 
Dr. G. H. Smythe, Mr. G. H. Tilley, Major M. J. 
O'Brien, and Col. B. W. Wrenn. 

" The party then drove through the grounds, and 
after a brief glimpse of the splendid Exposition from 
the carriages while passing, they went to the Audi- 
torium, where the regular programme of the day was 
to be carried out. 

** Long before they arrived at the auditorium the 
hall was fairly packed with the employees of the 
Plant System of Railroads and of the Southern Ex- 
press Company, of which Mr. Plant is president 
The distinguished party, consisting of Mr. Plant and 
his family and a number of friends, arrived at the 
eastern side of the auditorium and entered the vast 
hall through the doorway to the stage. 

" At the first sight of them the vast multitude of 
people within gave a round of applause which lasted 
for a long time, and which was a becoming greeting 
from the several thousands of Mr. Plant's employees 
to him at such a season. 

" When Mr. Plant and his companions were seated 
on the stage, the applause ceased and order was re- 
stored in the hall. On the platform, Mrs. H. B. 
Plant was seated on the left of Mr. Plant. There 
were also there Mrs. W. G. Wood, Mrs. G. H. Tilley, 



208 The Life of 

Mrs. B. W. Wrenn, Mr. M. F. Plant, Mr. R G. Erwin, 
Mr. M. J. O'Brien, Mr. S. G. Mcl^ndon, Mr. G. H. 
Tilley, Mr. A. A. Wiley, Mayor Porter Bang, Vice- 
President W. A. Hemphill, of the Exposition Com- 
pany; Mr. W. F. Vandiver, Mr. Fleming G. du 
Bignon, Mr. W. C. Bibb, Judge Robert Falligant^ 
Hon. W. B. Thompson, formerly Second Assistant 
Postmaster-General ; Hon. W. H. Brawley, U. S. Dis- 
trict Judge ; Mr. F. Q. Brown, Mr. G. W. Adair, and 
others. 

" After music by the Innes Band, Vice-President 
W. A. Hemphill, of the Exposition Company, act- 
ing as president in the absence of President Charles 
Collier, arose and addressed the vast audience on 
behalf of the Exposition Company, bidding them a 
cordial welcome to the fair. 

" Mr. Hemphill said : 

" * Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen : — I have 
no doubt that the welcome that Mr. Collier was to 
have given you to-day would have been the most 
pleasant duty he would have had to perform since 
the opening of the Exposition, but he was suddenly 
called away, and wired me to welcome you. 

'^ ^ This is an hour of thanks and congratulations. 
The Board thanks you for the interest you have 
taken in our Exposition. We thank you for the 
magnificent exhibit of the resources along your line 
that you have made at our Exposition, and for the 



Henry Bradley Plant 209 

competent people you have placed in charge of it. 
We thank you for your presence here to-day, and 
we are highly honored that so many distinguished 
people are here with us. 

" * Mr. President, we congratulate you upon the 
magnificent system of railroads and steamships that 
you have builded up. Your life and example have 
been a great thing for the young men of this country 
to profit by [applause], showing them what it is 
possible for them to attain. We congratulate you, 
sir, upon your birthday, and we wish that you may 
live to observe many happy birthdays and that each 
one may be brighter than the one preceding it. 
[Applause.] 

" * What an opportunity this Exposition has given 
to the States of this section ! The State that has 
neglected to be represented here has missed the 
opportunity of its history. I am glad, sir, from your 
side, that Florida is represented here. Her grand 
resources of factory, of mines, of forest, of rivers, 
her fruits and flowers, are here to show our visiting 
fiiends from the North what a great country Florida 
is. [Applause.] 

" * We thank you, sir, for being such a friend to 
the South. You have spent more money and devel- 
oped more territory in this section than any other 
man in the Union. [Great applause.] We thank 
you and honor you for it, and we hope you will live 



14 



210 The Life of 

to see the day when your railroad lines will extend 
all over this country [applause] ; when your steam- 
ships will plow the Atlantic Ocean and reach the 
ports of Europe. We hope, sir, that you will live 
to see the building of the Nicaragua Canal ; when 
your steamships shall go through that canal, and, 
crossing the Pacific Ocean, reach the ports of China, 
Japan, And Australia — all these lines pouring immi- 
gration and wealth into this section, making it the 
most powerful, most populous and richest section of 
this Union, and your System the greatest upon the 
face of the earth. [Continued applause.] 

" * I now have the honor and pleasure of introduc- 
ing to you Mayor King, who will welcome you for 
the city of Atlanta.' " 

" Mayor Pointer King was greeted with applause 
and spoke as follows : 

** * Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen : — On the 
part of the city of Atlanta it is to me a matter of 
peculiar pleasure and pride to welcome in our midst 
that broad-minded, grand, glorious, golden-hearted 
gentleman and the splendid men who come with 
him. [Great cheering and applause.] 

" * I but re-echo the sentiment so beautifully ex- 
pressed by Colonel Hemphill, who preceded me, 
that if Georgia, the South, and Atlanta owe aught 
to any man, it owes as much to Colonel Plant as to 
any one whose name I could call. I speak a truth 



Henry Bradley Plant 211 

which is perhaps not generally known, so modest is 
this gentleman, that to-day he is one of the largest 
real estate owners in the city of Atlanta. [Ap- 
plause.] We think in that, he has shown the 
wisdom of his judgment. 

'^ ' I honor the head of this great System because 
of the policy that he has pursued — ^to build up him- 
self, not by pulling down another, but by carrying 
others up with him. [Applause and cheers.] And 
not alone to him, but to this vast army of employees, 
who are themselves but representatives of the mag- 
nificent System of which he is at the head, I extend a 
cordial welcome. [Applause.] I am sure it is not 
in his heart to detract one bit from any progress, or 
any forward movement of the very lowest employee 
connected with his whole System. [Applause and 
cheers.] Kather than to grow up that way, I 
believe he would rather see his whole System 
wrecked. 

" * We thank you for your presence here to-day. 
We thank you for the manificent exhibit which your 
System has placed upon these grounds. To you, 
one and all, Mr. President and gentlemen, we bid you 
welcome to Atlanta ; all that she has is yours. We 
gladly turn it over to you.' " [Great and continued 
applause and cheering.] 

"Colonel Hemphill proposed three cheers for 
President Plant. The cheers were given. 



212 The Life of 

^' Here the Innes Band gave a splendid rendition 
of the popular medley, * Plantation Echoes,' includ- 
ing * Way Down Upon the Suwanee River,' which 
was loudly cheered. 

" Mr. Plant's Address was as follows : 

" * Mr. President of the Cotton States and Interna- 
tional Exposition Company, and the Honorable 
Mayor of the city of Atlanta : — In behalf of my as- 
sociates and employees of the Plant System, and 
friends, gentlemen and ladies, whom I see around me 
and before me, I scarcely know how to thank you 
for this glorious welcome, this grand reception. I 
can but say that we are here to witness a very 
magnificent Exposition, quite beyond any conception 
of mine, and, I believe, of any of the gentlemen who 
have come here with me to^ay, to examine and make 
a study of this monument to the enterprise and 
energies of the good people of the city of Atlanta 
and of the State of Georgia. 

" * When I was called upon in Jacksonville, Florida, 
in December, 1894, by a committee of gentlemen of 
the Exposition Company, and requested by them 
to make an exhibit here of interesting products from 
the country bordering our Unes of roads in South 
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, the four 
States that our rail lines traverse, I was backward 
to do so, for the reason that I feared we had nothing 
that would do credit to our line, our interests and 



Henry Bradley Plant 213 

our patrons ; and had I kDown, sir, of the extent 
and the grandeur of this Exposition, I believe that I 
should have continued to hesitate. 

" * It has been some years since I have visited 
Atlanta, and I was hardly prepared to see the 
growth, the tremendous growth, that I find has 
occurred in my absence. I see you are rapidly going 
forward ; that you are becoming a metropolis. You 
represent, sir, the capital of one of the greatest 
States of the Union — ^the Empire State of the South. 
[Applause and cheers.] 

"*You never need be backward to represent 
Atlanta ; it appears to me that within a very short 
time, without saying anything to the detriment of 
any of the other cities in this country, that it will 
be called The City of the South. [Applause.] 
Other cities may advance, and do advance ; many 
cities and many communities in the South advance 
rapidly ; they advance in population and in wealth, 
but, sir, nothing have I seen in many years to admire 
like your city of Atlanta. 

" * I hardly know what language to use that will 
fittingly present to you, sir, and to my audience, the 
opinions I hold in regard to this great Exposition. 
It is a surprise, it is a marvel, it is to me wonderful, 
and, sir, it proves what can be done by people acting 
in unison, united in their enterprise, united in their 
progress and their desires to benefit their people and 



214 The Life of 

their country, and united through their capital. 
Without this unity, and without the other qualifica- 
tions that have made the representative men of 
Atlanta and of this Exposition what they are, this 
Exposition could never have been what it is. It 
is a visible proof of the importance of united 
action ; it shows what may be accomplished through 
union. Without union none of us would be what 
we are to-day. 

^^ ^ To my friends and associates, and to the officers 
and employees of the Plant System I desire to ex- 
press my thanks for the numbers they show here to- 
day. I commend you all for your good judgment 
in embracing this opportunity afforded by the Cotton 
States and International Exposition Company, to 
come here and witness this great work that has been 
going on almost without our knowledge. We have 
all read in the newspapers about the Cotton States 
and International Exposition, but I believe that very 
few of us had any idea what we were to see and to 
meet hei'e to-day. But we are here, most of us only 
for the day, and I hope that we will earnestly avail 
ourselves of all the time possible, not only for the 
gratification of our curiosity, but for our further 
education as well. Everything we see should be 
made useful to us ; it is such an opportunity as some 
of us may never have again, and I therefore say to 
you all — ^while you are in Atlanta, emulate my 



Henry Bradley Plant 215 

example^ and make this ExpositioD a study. [Cheers 
and applause.] 

" * As I said before, I am pleased to see such a 
large representation here. It is very gratifying to 
me. It is gratifying to know that so many could 
be spared from their duties without disadvantage to 
the public whom we serve. You all know the gen- 
eral principles that have influenced us in the forma- 
tion of the Plant System. It was to prepare the 
way to make as good means of communication as 
possible with the resources we had at hand. We 
have used of our means freely ; not only myself, but 
my associates have not been sparing in this partic- 
ular. We have expended capital and energy in the 
hope of some day reaping a benefit, which is proper. 
As you know, all men seek to benefit themselves ; 
but there has been behind it, as the President of 
this great Exposition and the Honorable Mayor 
have to-day stated, a desire to do good to our fellow- 
man. [Applause.] We have at least been able to 
furnish good means of transportation, and I am 
pleased to say that it is appreciated by our patrons. 
I would, however, have you recollect that we are 
the servants of the people, who are our patrons, to 
the extent that we must treat their property, while 
in our possession, with all the care we would our 
own. We must be careful in our manners and our 
speech ; we must see to it that no patron of the 



216 The Life of 

Plant System ever comes to an oflScer or employee 
for information without getting it to the fullest. 
[Applause.] 

" * We must also see that our connecting lines of 
railways receive proper treatment from us. Be sure 
that we cannot well serve the public unless we treat 
our allied lines fairly, justly, and properly ; be sure 
of this. Be sure that we are not all for ourselves. 
We are public servants, and we must serve all well, 
and always recognize the rights of our patrons. We 
must never take a customer's money without giving 
him his money's worth. All this is very easy to say, 
but it is very difficult for human nature to carry it 
out, and we must, therefore, school ourselves in the 
effort to learn how best to serve our patrons, and at 
the same time be just to ourselves. 

" * How are the railroads built ? Where does the 
money come from that constructs and maintains 
them? It is through the union of men, and the 
combination of means and labor. This is how it is 
accomplished. [Applause.] There can be but little 
success in any effort to accomplish good, in this age, 
without union. This Exposition could not have 
been created and carried on, could not have presented 
the grandeur it does now, except through the combi- 
nation of capital and the energy of men of enterprise. 
Look at the States that are represented here. We 
see not only many of the States of the United States, 



Henry Bradley Plant 217 

but also many foreign States as well. I find the 
Central American Republics are represented here; 
those unions that are dependent upon the voice of 
the people for their government are here. They are 
getting in line with us. They are here to co-operate 
with us of the South in this great work. Even our 
United States Government has made a large appro- 
priatioUy and has sent down many of its people and 
many of its products to illustrate itself and its peo- 
ple. It is through union that success is attained. 
Look over this city to-day, I suppose it is so every 
day, we see floating from the house-tops, from the 
towers, and from the flagsta ves, that emblem of Union, 
the Star Spangled Banner ! [Great applause.] Long 
may it wave over us [applause], and we be fit and 
proper citizens to represent it in this " Land of the 
free and the home of the brave ! '' ' [Long contin- 
ued applause.] 

" * We are going to have some resolutions read,' 
said Mr. Hemphill, * and, Mr. President, I wish you 
would commission me a brakeman in order that I 
may vote with the boys.' 

" * I do,' said Mr. Plant. 

" In presenting the resolutions passed by the Com- 
mercial and Industrial Association of Montgomery, 
Alabama, Mr. W. C. Bibb, Jr., chairman of the com- 
mittee appointed to convey them to Mr. Plant, said : 

^' ' Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen : Among 



218 The Life of 

the ancient Greeks and Romans the laurel was thesym* 
bol of triumph ; the laurel wreath was second only 
to a kingly crown. Shafts of stone and marble and 
statues of bronze commemorated the deeds of demi- 
gods, kings, and conquering heroes. History teems 
with names and deeds of men who carved out a niche 
in the Temple of Fame with a bloody sword. To raze 
a fair city, invade, overwhelm, and destroy a smiling 
land, hew down and slaughter its inhabitants, or drag 
them in chains to slavery, were the only deeds by 
which Fame might be won. 

^ ' In this fair land and enlightened age, he who 
makes two blades of grass to grow where was one 
before ; who links new cities with the old by shining 
bands of steel ; who masters the sea and brings the 
forces of nature subservient to the will, the comfort^ 
and the uses of his fellow-man ; who builds up, de> 
velops, and makes the land to abound in plenty, while 
thousands of happy men and women rise up and call 
him blessed — ^he it is for whom the laurel blooms, he 
it is who has builded for himself a monument more 
enduring than brass and more lasting than marble. 
We are gathered here to celebrate the natal day of 
such a man. 

^^ ' Sir, it is the pleasure of this committee, in behalf 
of the Commercial and Industrial Association, of the 
people of Montgomery, and of Alabama, to read in 
the presence of this audience and to present to you 



Henry Bradley Plant 219 

the resolutions I have in my hands, and to wish for 
you many happy returns of your birthday. 

"^ Whebeas, The 28th day of October, 1895, has 
been set apart by the Cotton States and Interna- 
tional Exposition Company, of Atlanta, Georgia, to 
do honor to H. B. Plant, the genius and controlling 
spirit of the two great Southern enterprises — the 
Southern Express Company and the Plant Invest- 
ment Company ; and 

** * Whebbas, We deem the time and occasion fit 
and opportune to unite with other Southerners in 
paying homage to one so richly endowed with merit 
and worth, yet so unpretentious ; so eminently suc- 
cessful, yet unassuming; who has, by his latest 
achievement on land and sea, given to the three 
States of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida a system of 
railroads, steamships, and palatial hotels in the 
interest of commerce, travel, and internal develop- 
ment unsurpassed in the civilized world. Therefore, 
be it 

" * Hesolvedj That we, the members of the Com- 
mercial and Industrial Association of the City of 
Montgomery, Alabama, by unanimous rising vote, 
do most heartily congratulate Mr. Plant upon his 
continued health and prosperity upon this his birth- 
day; that we convey to him by these resolutions 
tidings that his name and fame are dear to ns and 
to all Alabamians. 



220 The Life of 

" * Mesolvedj That a copy of these resolutions be 
forwarded to Atlanta, Georgia, to be publicly read 
and presented to Mr. Plant on October 28, 1895,' 
[Applause and cheers.] 

" Colonel Hemphill : — * I move these resolutions be 
adopted by a rising vote. All in favor of the re- 
resolutions will stand.' All present responded. 

**0n behalf of the Savannah Board of Trade, 
Judge Robert Falligant spoke as follows : 

" * Mr. Chairman : I was spending with my 
family a season of quiet and rest amid the mountains 
of Georgia when we got news of this auspicious oc- 
casion. In former years I had the pleasure of 
serving under the great leader whose birthday we 
celebrate to-day, and I could not resist the temp- 
tation of being present and adding my voice to the 
universal acclaim, not only of Georgia, but of all 
Southern States. As I came in, these resolutions 
were presented to me to read and I was requested 
to make a few preliminary remarks. I really don't 
know what I can say on this occasion so replete 
with force and eloquence, both in speech and re- 
solutions, but my heart is impelled to say something 
in this magnificent presence. I feel that not only 
Georgia is here, but the entire South and the entire 
country. [Applause.] 

'' ^I am proud to see that Atlanta has touched the 
high -water mark of civilization in this illustrious 



Henry Bradley Plant 221 

display. I feel proud as a GeorgiaD, and, as the 
representative of Savannah, I bid her godspeed in 
the magnificent tide of prosperity that awaits her. 
We have no envious feeling upon the coast, but 
trust that her future may be as limitless and as 
beautiful as the grand ocean that expands beyond 
her borders, the image of infinity. 

^^ ^ I say this is an occasion for patriotic emotions^ 
and we should all unite in doing honor to the citizen 
who has devoted himself to the public good. Let 
us honor the man who plants his high purposes in 
his native land, who knows no South, no East, no 
West, no North, but is an American, heart and 
soul.' [Great and continued applause and cheering.] 

" Then the following was read : 

** * Atlanta, Georgia, October 28, 1895, 

«*Mr. H. B. Plant, Atlanta, Ga.— My dear 
Sir : — On behalf of the Savannah Board of Trade 
I congratulate you most heartily upon this auspicious 
occasion of your seventy-sixth birthday. You have, 
in the providence of infinite power, been permitted 
to dwell among your fellows beyond the allotted pe- 
riod of man, and it has also been your most favored 
privilege in that period to bring to completion 
undertakings of vast magnitude for the uplifting of 
the South especially, and for the whole country in 
general, which will stand a monument to your fore- 



222 The Life of 

sight, zeal and patriotic devotion to our common 
country long after the shaft or statues of marble or 
bronze have lost their significance as finger posts 
pointing to martial renown or the triumph of the 
foram. For your works, engraven upon the hearts 
of your generation with the stylus of commercial 
probity, will always be recalled with pleasant 
memory because free from the painful associations 
of sanguinary fields or the bitter words of fierce 
debates. May the mighty God, in His providence, 
as He spares you for the years to come, continue to 
bless you with bodily strength to pursue your 
active career of usefulness, until your eyes can look 
upon the full fruition of the great works in the 
interests of commerce, with which your name wiU 
ever be inseparably associated in fruitful memory 
through the multiplying cycles of time. With 
profound esteem, very truly and sincerely yours, 

" ' D. G. PUBSB, 

" * President Savannah Board of Trade.' 

** The resolutions were adopted by a rising vote. 

** The Plant System employees were represented 
by Hon. A. A. Wiley, who spoke as follows : 

" * Mr. President, Mr. Plant, Ladies, and Gentle- 
men : ' These men who wear these badges to-day, 
whether they come from South Carolina, Florida, 
Georgia, or Alabama, are the employees of the Plant 



Henry Bradley Plant 223 

System, consisting of telegraph, express, railway, and 
steamship lines. They number perhaps three thou- 
sand, but represent more than twelve thousand 
employees, and have come from the smoke and the 
dust of the workshop, from the railway car, from 
the locomotive, from express and law offices, to 
pay their tribute of respect, and to manifest their 
love for our distinguished chief, their admiration 
and appreciation of hinu [Applause and cheers.] 

^^ ^ This great day becomes a national day, because 
it is replete with mighty consequences to both North 
and South. 

"*Here we may forget our business cares and 
worldly contests, for the soft hand of kindness^ 
friendship, and hospitality smoothes down the ruf- 
fled brow. A quarter of a century ago, ruthless 
and unpitying war, with all the devastations that 
follow in its wake, swept with relentless fury over 
our fair and fruitful fields. 

" * When that fratricidal struggle was ended and 
the soldiers who survived it returned to their des- 
olated homes to find poverty and want at every 
door, Mr. Henry B. Plant, a Union man, who, not- 
withstanding his loyalty to the North, had been 
commissioned by President Davis, because of his 
honesty and integrity, to go at will everywhere 
throughout Dixie, was also true to the South. He 
recognized the fact that the war was over. He had 



226 Henry Bradley Plant 

"The Tampa (Florida) Band then furnished 
music. 

"Mr. M. F. Plant addressed the crowds as fol- 
lows: 

" * Colonel Hemphill, Ladies and Gentlemen, and 
Members of our Family, the Plant System [Great 
cheering^ and applausel : I desire to thank you 
in beh^ of my mother, of my wife, who is absent, 
and my boy, for the great compliment you have 
paid my father. [Great applause.] It is, indeed, 
a great treat to me to be here and to thank you 
for your kindness, not only to my father, but to the 
name of the System which, by your very careful, 
studious, and painstaking appUcation to its business, 
you have built up. Gentlemen, I thank you.' 
[Great applause and cheers.] 

" Mr. Hemphill announced that at 3 o'clock p. m. 
Mr. Plant would hold a reception in the Plant 
System Building. 

"This reception was most pleasant. Mr. Plant 
sat beneath the tropical foliage of the Plant Build- 
ing display and shook hands with all his employees^ 
who passed him by the hundred. He was driven 
back to the Aragon Hotel late in the afternoon." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Banqnet at the Aragon Hotel Elnds the Feativitiee of tiie Dftj — Sketch 
of the Southern Express Gompanj — Distmguiehed C&llers on Pres- 
ident Plant dnring the D«;— Many Telegrams and Letters of Cod- 
g^tulation Received — Many Preaa Notices of the Day, and many 
Tributes of Respect and Esteem for him who Called it fortih. 

" 'T'HE banquet at the Aragon last night," aaya the 
^ Atlanta Oonstitution, "given in honor of Mr. 
H. B. Plant, was a fitting climax to the day set apart 
for the celebration of the seventy-sixth birthday of 
that distinguished man. 

"The occasion was one that must have been 
gratifying to the honored guest, in that he received 
the warmest assurances of the high esteem in which 
he is held by the people of the South from the 
eloquent representatives of many of the States. 
He was the toast of the evening, and he bore the 
distinguished honors with his characteristic de- 
meanor. 

" When Captain Evan P, Howell called upon the 
fifty prominent guests to rise and drink to the health 
of the guest of honor, Mr. Plant, there was an 
enthusiasm and love for the latter inspired in the 



228 The Life of 

heart of every man around the banquet tables, which 
found vent in the many eloquent speeches of tribute 
which followed. Upon Mr. Plant there was 
bestowed the highest encomiums of praise, admira- 
tion, and love, and he was made to feel the enthu- 
siasm of the sentiment in the hearts of the speakers. 

"The dinner in honor of Mr. Plant was given by 
the Exposition directors. It was the concluding 
honor bestowed upon the South's benefactor in con- 
nection with the great Plant System Day at the 
Exposition. About fifty guests assembled to do 
honor to the occasion, and among them were some 
of the best-known and most influential men of the 
country. The South was represented by distin- 
guished men from many States. 

" At the conclusion of the dinner, Captain Howell, 
who acted as toast-master, arose and proposed a toast 
to the distinguished guest of honor. At the request, 
every guest arose and drank to the health of Mr. 
Plant in silence. 

" * I have been oflfered many toasts and received 
some honors,' said Mr. Plant, in response, * but none 
has ever afforded me more pleasure than this. I 
feel that I am among friends to-night, and it is use- 
less to assure you that I am deeply appreciative of 
this honor. I have had something to say to you 
already to-day, and am almost talked out. There 
is so much talent and so many men here to-night 



Henry Bradley Plant 229 

who can entertain you with a ventilation of the 
English language, and I am so hoarse that I will 
yield to them and not detain you. I thank you, 
Mr. Toast-master, and gentlemen.' 

" Captain Howell, in introducing the speakers of 
the evening, took occasion to say many happy things 
about Mr. Plant and the guests around the tables. 
He was in his happiest vein, and with wit, wisdom, 
and story, he entertained the assemblage. Each 
effort of the toast-master was received with applause. 

"*We are indebted to the distinguished gentle- 
man we have gathered to-night to honor,' said Cap- 
tain Howell, *for one of the best exhibits at our 
great Exposition. His is an exhibit of which we 
should feel proud; one that reflects credit on his 
effort and the Exposition. He has shown us loyalty, 
fidelity, and love for the South by the work he has 
done for us. We are pleased and honored to have 
him among us, and to call him one of us. This South- 
land owes to him much of gratitude. He has bene- 
fited every section of the Southeast, and done work 
which will last as a monument to his fame for years 
to come. 

"*We regret that our zealous president, Mr. 
Collier, is unable to be with us this evening to ex- 
tend to Mr. Plant in person the welcome felt by the 
Exposition Company, but in that absence we have a 
man to speak for him who can do so fittingly. 



230 The Life of 

We ask Mr. Alexander W. Smith to return to Mr. 
Plant the thanks of the Exposition Company for the 
splendid exhibit he has sent us and for the good 
work he has done, not only in our interest, but for 
the State and the entire South.' 

" Mr. Smith paid a fitting tribute to the worth of 
Mr. Plant to the State of Georgia, the South, and to 
the Exposition. He thanked him on behalf of the 
Exposition Company for the complete and mag- 
nificent exhibit sent by Mr. Plant, and warmly con- 
gratulated him on his birthday, which gave ocLion 
for such a great day as yesterday had been to the 
Exposition. Colonel George W. Adair was called 
upon and he made one of his best speeches. He en- 
tertained his hearers with stories and reminis- 
cences of his boyhood and manhood days, referring 
to the time when he first met Mr. Plant. The speaker 
had assisted in forming the Southern Express Com- 
pany, and he proposed to share the honors with Mr. 
Plant, for the evening at least. 

" Among the other speakers were Colonel H. S» 
Haines, Colonel A. A. Wiley, of Alabama ; Speaker 
Fleming, Major J. W. Thomas, of Nashville ; Judge 
Falligant, of Savannah ; Hon. Fleming du Bignon, 
of Savannah; Dr. Smyth, and several others. All 
of the speakers paid high tribute to Mr. Plant and 
his work for the South. He was eulogized in the 
language of highest praise, and declared to be a man 



Henry Bradley Plant 231 

worthy of all honors that could be bestowed upon a 
citizen. 

" Some of the speakers referred to the esteem in 
which Mr. Plant is held by his twelve thousand em- 
ployeeSy and laid stress on that fact as being the best 
evidence of the noble character of the man, one who 
treated all men with justice, moderation, and kind- 
ness. Mr. Plant was made to feel that the welcome 
extended him was sincere, and he left the banquet 
table honored as perhaps no other man will be hon- 
ored during the Exposition period. To him was 

of his work, by setting aside a special day in his honor, 
something that will not be accorded to any other 
individual 

" The banquet was one of the most elaborate of 
the season, and reflected credit on the committee in 
charge and Manager Dodge, of the Aragon, who 
supervised it in person." 

With the banquet at the Aragon, tendered to 
President Plant by the directors of the Exposition 
Company and the citizens of Atlanta, the festivities di- 
rectly incident to " Plant System Day " were brought 
to a close. This history, however, would be incom- 
plete without reference to the Southern Express 
Company, to which Mr. Plant has been pleased to 
allude as his ^^ first love.'' It numbers among its offi- 



232 The Life of 

cers some of the men whom Mr. Plant had m mind 
when he said on Sunday morning, October 27th, " I 
see here present those who were with me in troub- 
lous times and bore with me the heat and burden of 
the fight," and this may be considered a fitting place 
to give a brief history of the company as published 
in the Constitution of October 29, 1895. 

From the Atlanta Constitutiariy Tuesday, October 
29, 1895 : 

^^ Among the thousands who gathered at the Ex- 
position yesterday to do honor to Mr. Henry B. Plant, 
the great ' man of affairs,' the officers and employees 
of the Southern Express Company formed a notable 
group, the central and most prominent figure of which 
was Mr. M. J. O'Brien, the vice-president and general 
manager. It was fitting that this great enterprise 
should be represented by its most prominent officials 
and a large delegation of its employees on this day, 
for it was as an express company employee that Mr. 
Plant began life, and the history of the express busi- 
ness in the South is almost identical with Mr. Plant's 
great success. It was also appropriate that the rep- 
resentatives of the great army of Southern Express 
Company employees should be headed by the man 
whose master mind and admirable executive ability 
have contributed so largely to every success of the 
mammoth enterprise over which he presides with such 
marked distinction, for the history of the Southern 



Henry Bradley Plant 233 

Express Company is not only the history of Mr. 
Plant but of Mr. O'Brien, since the latter gentleman 
has been closely identified with the express business 
of Mr. Plant for the past thirty-five years, and its 
achievements have largely been his own. 



"history of the southebn express COMPAinr. 



" On July 5, 1861, a charter was granted for the 
Southern Express Company for fourteen years, with 
H. B. Plant as President; R. B. Bullock, Super- 
intendent of the Eastern Division ; E. Hulbert, 
Superintendent of the Central, and D. P. Ellwood, 
Superintendent of the Western Division, who, how- 
ever, shortly resigned, and was succeeded by A. B. 
Small, with James Shuter as Assistant Superin- 
tendent. 

" As the Federal forces advanced into Dixie the 
Southern Express Company abandoned its lines, 
which were immediately utilized by the Adams Ex- 
press Company. In fact, the Southern Express 
Company was operated under difficulties throughout 
those belligerent times, arising from the changing 
lines of armies, destructions of railroads, and from 
the conscription acts, until express employees were 
exempted from service in the army and navy. 

" At the close of the war another source of danger 
presented itself. Gangs of disbanded soldiery and 



234 The Life of 

raiding parties, ever ready to appropriate portable 
property wherever it could be found, in many cases 
plundered the express offices, their horses being taken 
and nothing valuable left. But it 's a long lane that 
has no turn. A reaction soon set in, and the marvel- 
lous prosperity of the * Sunny South ' has been only 
equalled by the growth and development of the 
Southern Express Company. To^ay its service ex. 
tends from Richmond, Louisville, and St. Louis on 
the North ; Charleston and Savannah on the East ; 
Springfield, Missouri, and Houston, Texas, on the 
West, and New Orleans, Mobile, and Tampa, Florida, 
on the South, reaching twelve States and embracing 
about three thousand agencies, with a through line 
to New York and direct communication with 
Cuba. 

" In 1875, a renewal of the company's charter was 
applied for and granted, and, in 1886, the Georgia 
Legislature granted the company a charter for thirty 
years from December 2l8t of that year. The little 
concern organized at Augusta, Georgia, in 1861, has 
now become one of the strongest and most successful 
express companies in the United States. 

" The Constitution to-day publishes excellent por- 
traits of General Manager M. J. O'Brien, Assistant 
General Manager T. W: Leary, Traffic Manager C. L. 
Loop, and Superintendent W. W. Hulbert, all of 
whom have been intimately identified with the 



Henry Bradley Plant 235 

growth and development of the Southern Express 
Company. 

" General Manager O'Brien began service with the 
Adams Express Company at Memphis, in 1859. He 
next served as way-bill clerk and then as messenger, 
being later promoted to the cashier's office at New 
Orleans. Evincing a remarkable aptitude for the 
express business, he was next appointed agent at 
Montgomery, Alabama, and, in rapid order, succes- 
sively became President Plant's secretary, secretary 
of the Southern Express Company, general superin- 
tendent, general manager, and vice-president and 
general manager. 

'^ Assistant Genei'al Manager Leary commenced as 
secretary to General Superintendent O'Brien and for 
years was his faithful lieutenant Subsequently he 
was made assistant to the general manager and then 
appointed assistant geneml manager. 

^^ Traffic Manager Loop began his express career as 
messenger in the Adams Express Company's service, 
and was particularly prominent in express operations 
during the war. He was for many years auditor and 
cashier of the western department of the Southern 
Express Company, and upon the consolidation of the 
eastern and western departments was made general 
auditor, succeeding from that position to his present 
office. 

^'Superintendent Hulbert began service as local 



236 The Life of 

agent at West Point, Georgia, in 1858, and with the 
exception of four years, during which time he was 
in the war, has been continuously in the service of 
the Southern Express Company ever since. 

** To give some idea of the magnitude of the South- 
em Express Company's business, it is only necessary 
to say that should their employees, with their fami- 
lies and others dependent for their living upon ser- 
vices rendered to this great enterprise, move to the 
State of Nevada, and the present population of that 
State should leave it, Nevada would have a much 
larger population than she has at present. In other 
words, the oflScers and employees of the Southern 
Express Company who are in Atlanta to-day repre- 
sent a larger number of citizens of this country than 
do the two United States Senators who represent the 
State of Nevada in the upper House of Congress. 
Again, the amount of money invested in horses, wag- 
ons, etc., is simply fabulous, while their stationery 
bill for one year would make a man independently 
wealthy. 

" The business of the company must necessarily be 
enormous to support and justify such an expense. 
It consists of forwarding freight, money, and valu- 
ables of all descriptions by the fastest passenger 
trains, in charge of special messengers. As forward- 
ers of money, bonds, and valuables, they successfully 
compete with the government mail service. Abso- 



Henry Bradley Plant 237 

lute safety is guaranteed in all transactions, and in 
case of damage to, or loss of goods, the delay, almost 
inevitable in government red tape, is avoided. 



^^THE ILAITDBOUE EXHIBrF. 



'* The Southern Express Company's office on the 
Exposition grounds makes one of the handsomest ex- 
hibits to be seen. It is not, however, altogether for 
show, but the express business in all its branches is 
conducted just as it is in the Atlanta office. The 
pretty, tasty little office is doing a thriving business, 
if one can judge from the crowds which are constantly 
about it. Mr. M. W. Wooding is in charge of the 
Exposition office, and yesterday happily sustained 
the reputation which he has earned of being a most 
delightful host. Mr. Wooding is an old Atlanta boy, 
and has been with the Southern Express Company 
for the past twelve years. 

"Among the well-known gentlemen who called 
yesterday at the express office were : H. B. Plant, 
President, New York City, New York ; M. J. O'Brien, 
Vice-President and General Manager, New York City, 
New York ; M. F. Plant, Vice-President, New York 
City, New York ; T. W. Leary, Assistant General 
Manager, Chattanooga, Tennessee ; C. L. Loop, Traffic 
Manager, Chattanooga, Tennessee ; G. H. Tilley, Sec- 
retary and Treasurer, New York ; P. J. Virgin, Au- 



238 The Life of 

ditor, Chattanooga, Tennessee ; Superintendent 
H. Dempsey, Augusta, Georgia; C. T. Campbell, 
Chattanooga, Tennessee; O. M. Sadler, Charlotte, 
North Carolina; H. C. Fisher, Nashville, Tennes- 
see ; G. W. Agee, Memphis, Tennessee ; W. J. Cross- 
well, Wilmington, North Carolina; C. L. Myers, 
Jacksonville, Florida; V. Spalding, Boanoke, Vir- 
ginia ; C. A. Pardue, New Orleans, Louisiana ; As- 
sistant Superintendent Mark J. O'Brien, Chattanooga, 
Tennessee ; Route Agents — J. B. Hockaday, Green- 
ville, South Carolina ; K. C. Barrett, Florence, Sonth 
Carolina; S. R Golibart, Suffolk, Virginia; P. B. 
Wilkes, Monroe, North Carolina; J. Cronin, Way- 
cross, Georgia; John Lovette, Atlanta, Georgia; 
W. C. Agee, Memphis, Tennessee ; Agents — F. L 
Cooper, Savannah, Georgia ; W. A. Dewes, CEatta- 
nooga, Tennessee ; W. M. Shoemaker, Montgomery, 
Alabama; F. M. Folds, Messenger, Montgomery, 
Alabama. 

" It would not do to close this article without giv- 
ing due meed of praise to Daniel Davis, the urbane 
colored boy who, under the direction of Mr. Wood- 
ing, dispensed ^ the hospitalities of the house ' in the 
most approved and satisfactory manner. 

"Were we to record herein the numerous tele- 
grams and letters of congratulation received by Mr. 
Plant from his many friends who were unable per- 
sonally to be present in Atlanta, we would have to 



Henry Bradley Plant 239 

publish a second edition to retain a pamphlet form 
of this little volume. We must, therefore, content 
ourselves with saying to one and all who so thought- 
fully remembered Mr. Plant on the occasion of 
his anniversary, that their kindly sentiments were 
highly appreciated by him, and to each and every 
one, through these columns, he returns his sincere 
thanks. 

"To our newspaper friends, who so kindly espoused 
our cause, prior to, at the time of, and since the festivi- 
ties in Atlanta, and who are always ready to deal 
kindly by us, we return our thanks. To them we 
would most heartily accord the space necessary in 
which to reprint all of the nice things they have 
said of us, but for the same reason as given in the 
foregoing paragraph, we must abbi^^ate. How- 
ever, we feel that it is not just to them or to our- 
selves entirely to ignore all quotations from their 
columns, and with their permission we give below, 
in so far as our limited edition will permit, some of 
the many pleasant references made by our journal- 
istic friends. 

"Among the many telegrams of congratulation 
received by Mr. H. B. Plant, President of the 
Plant System, we give below two, together with 
copies of Mr. Plant's responses, which were omit- 
ted in our report of proceedings in yesterday's 
issue. 



240 The Life of 

"^ MONTGOMEBTy ALABAMA, Oct. 28, 1895. 

« * HiBNBY B. Plaot, Atlanta, Georgia : 

" * Montgomery Division, No. 98, Order of Railway 
Conductors, tenders you its heartiest congratulations* 
It is the uniform hope of all its members that yoa 
may live to see many more years of such usefulness 
and happiness, and that your every wish may be 
realized. 

" * John C. Elliott, 

" ' Chas. J. RSAD, 

" * Committee.^ 

" ^Atlanta, Georola., Oct. 29, 1895. 

** * Jno. C. Elliott and Chas. J. Read, Committee, 
No. 98, Order Railway Conductors, Montgomery, 
Alabama : 

" ^ Of the many telegrams of congratulation I have 
received, none are appreciated more than the one 
from you, as representatives of the Order of Railway 
Conductors, and my best efforts in the future, as in 
the past^ will be to deserve the commendation of all 
members of your order. 

" ' H. B. Plant.' 

"< Tampa, Flobida, Oct. 27, 1895. 

** * H. B. Plant, Atlanta, Georgia : 

" * Recognizing in you a friend of Tampa and of 



Henry Bradley Plant 241 

Florida, our city congratulates you on this the an- 
niversary of your birthday, and indulges the hope 
that you may live to celebrate many others and to 
reap the fruits of your labor and enterprise. 

" * F. A. Salomonson, Mayor.' 

" * Atlanta, Geoeoia, Oct. 28, 1895. 

" * F. A. Salomonson, Mayor : 

" ' I thank you personally, and through you the 

good people of Tampa and Florida, for your hearty 

congratulations and well wishes. I shall hope to 

celebrate many more anniversaries of my birthday, 

and as each milestone is passed I trust we may all 

look back and see that I have contributed in a 

measure to the interests of the good people of your 

State and city. 

" ^ H. B. Plant.' 

JLB OVATION. 

" President H. B. Plant, of the Plant System, was 
a happy man yesterday when he looked into three 
thousand smiling faces at the Exposition Auditorium 
and saw among them about one thousand five hun- 
dred of his faithful employees, who were assembled 
to celebrate his seventy-sixth birthday. 

'' It was a rare tribute to a great and a good man. 
Probably no railway president in the world could 
have commanded such an ovation. 

z6 



242 The Life of 

" Mr. Plant was overwhelmed with graceful atten- 
tions from his employees, the Exposition directors, 
and our citizens generally. The day at the Exposi- 
tion was a celebration in his honor, and at night the 
directors entertained him at a banquet. 

^^ It goes without saying that this tribute is worth 
more to Mr. Plant than presents of silver and gold. 
It will touch his heart as nothing else could. That 
he may long hold his honored place among us is the 
earnest wish of all who know him. 



"MB. PLANT AND THE NEGBOES. 



'^ In addition to what has been said of Mr. Plant 
and his great System, the negroes are grateful for 
what he has done for them. There are over two 
thousand negroes employed by Mr. Plant. A great 
number of them have accumulated homes, educated 
their children, and have nice bank accounts, and they 
all love him. He has contributed liberally to churches, 
school-houses, and other negro enterprises ; in fact> 
he has built several institutions of learning for ne- 
groes. A number of negroes hold positions of trusty 
with good pay attached, as is not the case with any 
other system the size of his in the United States. 

"May the years of Mr. Plant's usefulness in be- 
half of the South, colored and white, be many 
more." — Atlanta Constitution. 



Henry Bradley Plant 243 

"honors to MB. PLANT. 

" Few men have done as much as Mr. H. B. Plant 
to develop the South, and the Journal joins heartily 
in the tributes which are being paid to him to day. 

" He has reached the age of se venty-six with a rec- 
ord which any man might envy, and we trust is good 
for many more years of usefulness. Mr. Plant is the 
head of great corporations which have been of incal- 
culable value to the South. They have been so, not 
because they are rich and powerful, but because, un- 
der his direction, they have been conducted on broad 
and liberal lines. Mr. Plant's policy has been to 
build up. His career presents a splendid contrast 
to those of the railroad wreckers who have enriched 
themselves at the expense of thousands of individual 
victims and of great regions of the country. 

"Mr. Plant has used his power nobly. He has 
made it beneficial to multitudes of his fellow-citi- 
zens, and has contributed immensely to the general 
development of the South. As the president of a 
great railroad system, of steamship lines, and of the 
Southern Express Company, and the Texas Express 
Company, Mr. Plant enjoys, not only the kind regards 
of a host of employees, but the respect and admira- 
tion of the public as well. The many evidences 
which he receives to-day of the good- will and esteem 
of his fellow-men must be exceedingly gratifying to 
him, but we are justified in saying that seldom have 



244 The Life of 

tributes been more richly deserved. We extend to 
Mr. Plant our cordial congratulations on his seventy- 
sixth birthday, and hope that we shall have the 
pleasure of seeing his honored and useful career con- 
tinued for many years to come. 

" Mrs. H. B. Plant, the wife of the distinguished 
president of the Plant System, is at the Aragon. She 
is a beautiful, cultured, travelled woman, and as such 
receives everywhere the most flattering social atten- 
tions. She will be the conspicuous social figure of 
this week, and several brilliant affairs will be given 
in her honor. Mrs. Plant is one of the New York 
Commissioners, and has proven her interest in At- 
lanta's Exposition in many satisfactory and assuring 
ways." — Atlanta Jov/mal. 

" A splendid banquet was tendered by the Southern 
Express Company to its superintendents, route agents^ 
and agents attending the Cotton States and Interna- 
tional Exposition, last evening in the Kimball 
House. 

" The occasion was a most happy one. 

" The banquet was held in honor of Plant Day — 
Mr. Plant being president of the Southern Express 
Company. 

" Mr. T. W. Leary, the popular and genial assistant 
general manager of the Southern Express Company, 
presided and acted as toast-master. In this capacity 



Henry Bradley Plant 245 

he distinguished himself, and made some of the hap- 
piest hits of the evening. The speeches were of the 
happiest character, and befitted the occasion which 
they commemorated — the birthday of the venerable 
president of the express company, who has done so 
much towards the building up of this rich and pow- 
erful transportation company. 

" Among those who spoke were the following : 

" Mr. C. L. Loop, traffic manager of the Southern 
Express Company ; Mr. H. Dempsey, superintendent ; 
Mr. H. O. Fisher, superintendent ; Mr. G. W. Agee, 
superintendent ; Mr. V. E. McBee, general agent 
Seaboard Air Line; Mr. J. L. McCollum, superin- 
tendent Nashville, Chattanooga, and St Louis Rail- 
way ; Mr. F. H. Richardson, editor Atlanta Jov/mal; 
Mr. C. S. Gadsden, superintendent of the Plant 
System. 

" The entire occasion was marked by the greatest 
enthusiasm, and it will be long remembered by those 
present. The following is a list of the guests : 

"J. S. B. Thompson, assistant general superintendent 
Southern Railway ; V. E. McBee, general agent Sea- 
board Air Line ; W. R. Beauprie, superintendent 
Southern Railway ; J. L. McCollum, superintendent 
Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis Railway ; D. 
E. Maxwell, general manager Florida Central and 
Peninsular Railway ; L. M. Weathers, Memphis, Ten- 
nessee ; F. de C. Sullivan, E. M. Williams, George 



246 The Life of 

E. Carter, New York ; B. R Swoope, Virginia ; F. 
H. Richardson, Atlanta Jowmalj and G. W* 
Haines, H. A. Ford, C. O. Parker, C. S. Gadsden, 
W. B. Denham, Judge Brawley, of the Plant System ; 
M. F. Echols, agent Southern Express Company, 
Atlanta, Georgia; W. A. Dewees, agent Southern 
Express Company, Chattanooga, Tennessee; F. L. 
Cooper, agent Southern Express Company, Savannah, 
Georgia, and H. M. McCuUoch, W. E. McGill, G. A. 
Wilkinson, J. A. Cleary and F. M. Folds ; C. L. 
Loop, traffic manager Southern Express Company ; 
H. Dempsey, superintendent ; H. C. Fisher, superin- 
tendent; C. T. Campbell, superintendent; O. M. 
Sadler, superintendent ; W. J. Crosswell, superinten- 
dent ; G. W. Agee, superintendent ; C. L. Myers, 
superintendent ; W. W. Hulbert, superintendent ; 
V. Spalding, superintendent ; C. A. Pardue, super- 
intendent ; J. C. Arnold, route agent ; S. R. Goli- 
bart, route agent ; P. B. Wilkes, route agent ; W. C. 
Agee, route agent ; J. Cronin, route agent ; K. C. Bar- 
rett, route agent ; John Lovette, route agent ; H. E. 
Williamson, route agent ; J. B. Hockaday, route 
agent ; W. M. Shoemaker, agent Southern Express 
Company, Montgomery, Alabama. 

" The Exposition was crowded to-day with the em- 
ployees of the Plant System and the friends of Mr. 
H. B. Plant, the president of that System, for it was 
Plant Day. 



Henry Bradley Plant 247 

«There is perhaps no more interesting figure in 
American business life to-day than H. B. Plant, and 
his employees have for him that feeling of love that 
is so rarely held by the employees of a great corpo- 
ration for its head. As an evidence of that love and 
kindly feeling the employees gathered to-day to do 
him honor." — Atlanta Jov/rrud. 

« The Chronicle publishes this morning an inter- 
esting sketch of Mr. Henry B. Plant, by Mr. Clark 
Howell. The writer has a most excellent subject 
for his theme, and he has handled it admirably. 
Than Mr. Henry B. Plant there is not a better man 
to be found anywhere. Starting from the plain 
people, unaided by the adventitious circumstances 
of birth or wealth, he has, step by step, ascended 
the ladder of fame and fortune, until he is now 
classed among the railroad magnates and the multi- 
millionaires of the country. He has been the archi- 
tect of his own fortune, and he has done the work 
in the most artistic and substantial manner. His 
work for Florida and the South cannot be exagger- 
ated. He has been one of the most potential factors 
in the upbuilding of this section, and he is still full 
of hope and faith in the present and future possi- 
bilities of the South. He knows thoroughly the 
advantages which we possess, and he is enthusiastic 
for their full utilization. Mr. Plant was for years 



248 The Life of 

a familiar figure in this community and a valued 
citizen of Augusta. 

"Speaking of Mr. Plant yesterday, one of our 
prominent citizens observed that he had the remark- 
able gift of always selecting the right man for the 
right place. He is a capital judge of human nature. 
His lidFe has been a most exemplary and laborious 
one. He is the personification of kindness and 
courtesy in his intercourse with his fellow-citizens, 
and his consideration for his employees is most 
marked. 

"Monday was set apart by the Cotton States 
Exposition in honor of Mr. Plant. This recognition 
of his services to the South is well deserved. In 
his case it is an honor most worthily bestowed. At 
the age of seventy-six, Mr. Plant possesses a sound 
mind in a sound body. Long may he live to con- 
tinue his good work for Florida and the South, and 
to wield his influence for good among his fellow- 
men." — Augusta Ch/ronide. 

" The employees of the Plant System, who went to 
the Cotton States and International Exposition on 
the invitation of President Plant, returned yesterday 
very much gratified with their visit. And Mr. Plant 
was very greatly pleased to meet them at the Expo- 
sition. The occasion was the celebration of Mr. 
Plant's seventy-sixth birthday. 



Henry Bradley Plant 249 

'^ Mr. Plant is still a very vigorous man. His mental 
faculties are as bright and keen as they ever were. 
He looks back on a long life of great activity and 
usefulness. He has built up a splendid monument 
to himself in the Plant Railway and Steamship 
System. All his life he has been a builder — never 
a wrecker. And the speech he delivered to his em- 
ployees on Monday shows that he has a just ap- 
preciation of the relations he holds to the public. 

^'No man has contributed more to the building 
up of the South than Mr. Plant. The country tribu- 
tary to his lines of railroad presents an appearance 
vastly different from what it did a quarter of & 
century ago. There are thousands of comfortable 
homes now where there was then only a wilderness. 
Plant Day was a feature of the Exposition, as the 
Plant System is a feature of the South.'' — Savannah 
Morning News. 

« On this, the seventy^xth anniversary of hi. 
birthday, we extend our wishes to Mr. H. B. Plant, 
the head of the great system of railways which bears 
his name. Long life and happiness to hioL'' — ^The 
BtiHetin, Savannah, Geor^a. 

^ The ceremonies attending the anniversary of lb. 
Plant's birthday yesterday in Atlanta were very im- 
posing. There was a large crowd on hand, and Mr. 
Plant responded in a very feeling and appropriate 



260 The Life of 

speech. There was a feeling and eloquent address 
by Judge Falligant. One of the gems of the occa- 
sion was the excellent letter of Capt. D. G. Purse.** 
— Savannah Press. 

" To-day is a great one in Atlanta. The Plant Sys- 
tem celebration of the birthday of its great founder is 
perhaps the most remarkable event of its kind that 
ever occurred in this country. It marks the begin- 
ning of a distinctive era in progress— when the men 
who are leaders in material progress are recognized 
and honored as public benefactors. While Florida 
is under vast obligations to statesmen of the past and 
present, to the heroes of several wars, to the pioneers 
who redeemed its lands to the plow and hoe — ^it is 
not too much to say that the present generation owes 
fully as much to the group of men who, having ac- 
quired large means elsewhere, are expending and 
investing them in developing the resources and ad- 
vertising the resources of the State. And it is not 
overstating the case to say that to no one on this list 
belongs so much credit as to Henry B. Plant. He 
was the first, as he is to-day the leader, to see the 
good points of our soil and climate, and to bring 
them to the notice of the world. To him, and to his 
unwavering attachment to Florida, is due, to a pre- 
ponderating extent, the surprising and persistent 
growth of the State. No pretense is made that he 



Henry Bradley Plant 251 

has done it all^ but he led the way and set the pace, 
and it is a pleasure to the intelligent and fair-minded 
people of Florida to hold him in high esteem, and to 
testify to it. As long ago as 1863, Mr. Plant saw and 
appreciated Florida, and from that day to this he has 
been its unflinching friend. He has been the direct 
agency for the investment of many millions of dol- 
lars here, and the indirect cause of its duplication by 
others. He deserves the honors and compliments 
that are paid him, and more." — ^Tampa limes. 

" The birthday of Henry B. Plant, head of the Plant 
Railway System and of the Southern Express Com- 
pany, was yesterday celebrated in fine and appropri- 
ate style at the Atlanta Exposition. It was Plant 
System Day. Mr. Plant deserves such recognition* 
He has done much for the South, the section of his 
adoption. He has brought a great deal of capital 
and enterprise into the section, and built up import- 
ant conveniences that have proven highly profitable 
to the Southern country and people. No one man 
has done more for the advancement of the South's 
material development. He was seventy-six yester- 
day, but looks twenty years younger, in spite of the 
big load of care and the big amount of work he has 
done in the last fifty years. Long may he live to 
enjoy the fruits and honors of his good works.'' 
— Daily Times^ Chattanooga. 



252 The Life of 

^' The west coast of Florida, Alabama, and the 
portions of the country around the Plant System in 
Georgia, sent thousands of people to the Atlanta 
Exposition for the celebration of Plant System Day 
at the Exposition. They have been coming on spe- 
cial trains since yesterday morning. To^ay Mr. H. 
B. Plant celebrated his seventy-sixth birthday, and 
to-day is Plant System Day at the Exposition. Offi- 
cials and employees from all the railway, steamship, 
and express lines controlled by Mr. Plant, and num- 
bering nearly 5000 men, are here to celebrate the 
day. The public exercises occurred in the Audi- 
torium, and the Plant System people were welcomed 
by Mayor King. Mr. Plant made a response to the 
welcome." — New Orleans Times-Demoorai. 

"The following invitation for last Monday the 
Ma/rine Jov/mal regretted very much not having 
been able to accept : 

" * The Cotton States and International Exposition, 
Atlanta, Ga., having designated October 28, 1895, as 
Plant System Day, the officera and employees of the 
system will meet there to commemorate the birthday 
of their president, Mr. Henry B. Plant. You are 
invited to be present.' 

"Advices from Atlanta since Monday announce 
that the event was a brilliant success, as befitted 
such an occasion. Mr. Plant was weighed down 
with congratulations, both peraonal, telegraphic, and 



Henry Bradley Plant 253 

by maily and presented himself in such an excellent 
state of health and enjoyment that no one would 
have imagined he had so far passed the regulation 
threescore years and ten as the day commemorated. 
Mr. Plant saw much that must have deeply gratified 
him on the occasion^ not only the result of his own 
labor and enterprise, but in the encouraging present- 
ation of things that give evidence of such a restored 
measure of prosperity throughout the South as only 
men like himself, who have worked so hard to ac- 
complish such a happy state of affairs, can thoroughly 
appreciate. The recognition of the Plant System in 
such an auspicious manner by the management of 
the Atlanta Exposition was a fitting testimonial to 
the prominent part that the System is recognized to 
hold in conducing to the well-being of the South, 
not only from a commercial point of view, but from 
the excellent reputation among the best classes of 
people that must necessarily attach to the places 
where the Plant hotels for winter tourists are situ- 
ated. Thus the day became a fitting compliment to 
the true worth of the founder and president of the 
Plant System and an additional ray in the glory 
with which his deeds crown him in the fulness of 
his days. Long may he enjoy it." — MaHne Joiumdl. 

" To-day the anniversary of the birth of Mr. H. B. 
Plant, President of the Plant System of Railroads 



254 The Life of 

and Steamships, the Soathem Express CompaDy and 
the Plant Investment Company, is being celebrated 
by the officers and attaches of these companies and 
friends of Mr. Plant at Atlanta — principally by the 
Plant System men. 

^^ H. B. Plant is a remarkable man, and though 
well advanced in years, he is just as active in busi- 
ness to-day as he was a half -century ago. Thousands 
of his employees to-day assemble to pay tribute to 
his worth as a man ; besides, thousands of acquaint- 
ances and admirers extend their heartiest congratu- 
lations. 

"No better place or time for such celebration 
could be had than at the Atlanta Exposition, where 
is another, and the latest, monument to Mr. Plant's 
worth as a developer and as a man of enterprise and 
genius. The building and the exhibits there of the 
Plant System are similar to his good works all over 
the country, and every Floridian, South Carolinian, 
Georgian, and Alabamian must feel proud of these 
representatives of the products and enterprise of 
their States collected and displayed to such an 
advantage by the great System that benefits the 
States. 

"The best men in Florida acknowledge H. B. 
Plant as one of the State's truest friends, and will- 
ingly in heart, if not in person, join in doing him 
honor on this, his seventy-sixth birthday, and all 



Henry Bradley Plant 255 

hope he may be spared many more years to the 
grateful people." — Jacksonville Metropolis. 

"The reception given to the venerable president 
of the great Plant System of hotels in Florida on 
Monday, October 28, at Atlanta, was a deserved 
recognition of the work he has done in developing 
Florida and, indirectly, the whole South." — ^New 
York Hotd Register. 

"As a rule, men of large interests are charm- 
ingly simple and unaffected in manner, and this is 
eminently true of H. B. Plant, President of the 
famous Plant System Bail way and Steamship Lines, 
a millionaire, and the controlling power of three great 
hotels, the Tampa Bay, the Seminole at Winter 
Park, and the Inn at Port Tampa, all in Florida. 

"Mr. Plant resides in New York much of the 
time, in an elegant home, but is also to be found 
a good deal in Florida, while he takes trips to 
Jamaica and other places where he has business to 
transact. 

"Personally, he is a delightful conversationalist, 
and remarkably young for his years, which are not 
few. He is quite up to date in every way, and 
never lets a business chance go by him. The magni- 
tude of his orders may be understood from the fact 
that he has recently given an order at Newport 
News for the largest coastwise steamer ever built^ 



256 The Life of 

440 feet in length, and having every comfort and 
modern arrangement for safety. He is deeply inter- 
ested in the Cotton States and International Expo- 
sition, and has a building of his own at the grounds, 
with a comprehensive exhibit." — ^New Haven Eoerir 
ing Reguter. 

" THE ATLAITTA EXPOSITION. 

** We hardly think the Northern Press has been 
as generous in its good o£S[ces to the Southern Ex* 
position as it might. We have just returned from 
a visit to Atlanta, and were delighted with the 
beautiful landscape order of the grounds, the large 
and elegant buildings, and, above all, the wonderful 
exhibits they contained. The farm products will 
astonish our Northern visitors. Canned fruits and 
garden produce are varied, numerous, and luxuriant. 
The manufactures, especially of cotton, were very 
fine, and their machinery equal to the best in the 
country — was so pronounced by the Manufacturers' 
Committee from the New England States. The Art 
Building is a model of artistic taste and elegance. 
The Industrial Building, in which France, Germany, 
Italy, Spain, Portugal, and other nations are repre- 
sented would require an entire day to explore. The 
minerals, fossils, photo plates, gold and silver ores, coal, 
salts, lime, and peculiar clays found in the Southern 
States, will repay close inspection. I saw beautiful 



Henry Bradley Plant 267 

china made from a white clay found in Florida only 
four months ago ; also great blocks of salt as they 
were taken from the mine, that needed only to be 
crushed to fit them for immediate use. 

" One of the things that has given a great uplift 
to the Cotton States has been the improvement of its 
railroads. A quarter of a century ago these were in 
a very depressed condition, crippled, bankrupt, and 
unremunerative, and about this time, H. B. Plant, of 
New York, interested Northern capitalists in them, 
bought, combined, reorganized, and improved them 
in every way, adding steamboat lines to the West 
Indies, and perfecting an express system unsurpassed 
in any part of the country, for the whole South. 
This so increased travel to the South, especially in 
the winter season, by health-seekers and pleasure- 
seekers, that better hotel accommodations were de- 
manded. These were soon provided, at a large 
outlay, giving the South, especially Florida, the fin- 
est hotels in the world. St. Augustine, Palm Beach, 
and Tampa Bay, especially the latter, are unsurpassed 
for healthful, comfortable, and luxuriant appoint- 
ments. Hence, Plant Day was one of the great 
days of the Exposition, when some two thousand of 
the more than twelve thousand employees of the 
Plant System came to do honor to the man who had 
done so much for the Southern section of our coun- 
try. Receptions, addresses, silver cup, compass, and 

«7 



258 The Life of 

flowers, and a grand banquet in the evening at the 
Aragon Hotel, were cordially tendered to this bene- 
factor of the Cotton States. Labor and capital 
clasped hands in the most friendly accord, and this 
problem of the age was here solved, where peace 
and good-will abounded among these men. We saw 
the man of war, the admiral of the fleet at Hampton 
Koads, pay his respects to this man of peace, whose 
guest we were, and whose power for good has 
been so widely felt in our land." — An East Obangb 
DoMTsiB, Mist Orcmge Gazette^ East Orange, New 
Jersey. 

"EXPOSmON ECHOES. 

" Mr. A. B. Wrenn, special agent of the Southern 
Pacific, who has been in Atlanta for the past few 
days, returned to the city yesterday, and gives a 
glowing account of the Exposition. He says that 
the number of people who visited the great show 
on President's Day was something over 78,000, and 
that on Atlanta Day the number will be considera- 
bly more. 

" * One of the prettiest sights I saw while in At- 
lanta,' said Mr. Wrenn, ^ was that of the thousands 
of the employees of the Plant System, when Plant 
Day was celebrated. Mr. fl. B. Plant, president and 
owner of the Plant System of railroads, gave the 
thousands of his employees, who could possibly get 



Henry Bradley Plant 259 

off duty, a free trip to the Fair, and on Plant Day 
there were several thousands of them present. A 
grand reception was given, and section bosses, freight 
agents, clerks, and even negro laborers who worked 
on the sections, were given an opportunity of shak- 
ing hands with Mr. Plant, who is now an elderly 
gentleman. Mr. Plant made a speech and expressed 
his satisfaction at meeting so many of his men, and 
the affair passed off most pleasantly.' 

" Mr. Wrenn says that the Exposition is well worth 
seeing.'' — Daily Picayune^ New Orleans, Louisiana. 

"the ATLANTA EXPOSITION. 
<<BT THJB RBV. GEORGE H. SMYTH, D.D. 

^^ Coming so soon after the great Exposition at 
Chicago, — the greatest the world has ever seen, — and 
considering the general depression of the country, and 
the short time taken for preparation, the Exposition 
of the Cotton States, at Atlanta, Georgia, is a marveL 
The terraced ground, selected and laid out with such 
beautiful landscape effect, the architectural designs 
of the buildings, the artistic skill displayed in locat- 
ing them, together with the drives, walks, ponds, 
fountains, lawns, and ornamentations of the whole 
Fair grounds, reflect great credit on the committee 
of distinguished gentlemen who had the matter in 
charge, and who spared neither pains nor expense to 



260 The Life of 

make the Exposition a great success. Atlanta alone 
contributed $1,000,000 to the enterprise. 

" Plant Day was the great day of the Fair thus far. 
It was set apart by the Committee of Management 
in honor of Henry B. Plant, who has done so much 
for the progress, prosperity, and welfare of the South- 
ern States. More than a quarter of a century has 
passed since he began his patriotic, not to say phUan- 
thropic, work of uplifting a prostrate section of our 
country. Up to this time the railroads of the Cotton 
States were poor, crippled, and some of them bank- 
rupt. In 1879, Mr. Plant interested other capital- 
ists in purchasing, reorganizing, and improving the 
railroads of the South. He organized and pei-fected 
an express system, steamboat system, railroad sys- 
tem — until now, the Plant System, as it is called, 
embraces nearly two thousand miles of railway lines 
and over twelve hundred miles of steamship lines. 
Of course, the facilities for comfortable travel to and 
through the South brought the health-seeker, the 
pleasure-seeker, investor, and permanent settler to 
the South ; and this influx of population continues 
with increasing numbers each year. 'To-day, the 
South is universally acknowledged to be the most 
prosperous portion of the great Union, and that por- 
tion over which the Plant System ramifies itself is 
known as the garden-spot. Mr. H. B. Plant is the 
mainspring that moved the whole, and he is, in every 



Henry Bradley Plant 261 

sense, a public benefactor.' This is only the briefest 
intimation of the reasons for Plant Day at the Expo- 
sition. 

" Sunday, October 27th, was Mr. Plant's seventy- 
sixth birthday. I had the pleasure of being one of 
a party of friends that filled his private car in 
going to the Exposition, and occupied one of the 
large and elegant rooms of his suite at the Aragon 
Hotel, Atlanta. On the morning of that day a few 
gentlemen — ^and they were gentlemen in every sense 
of the term — representing the more than twelve thou- 
sand employees of the Plant System, adroitly enter- 
tained their president in his own room, while the 
others took possession of his parlor. When every- 
thing was in readiness, Mr. Plant and his guests were 
invited into the parlor. He was most cordially 
greeted and congratulated on the seventy-sixth re- 
turn of his birthday. Then written addresses, 
couched in choice language, were read from the three 
different departments — railroad, express, and steam- 
boat — of the Plant System, followed by presenta- 
tion of flowers, of a silver compass, suggesting the 
straight and upright course of his life, and a silver 
cup, large and massive, — a * loving-cup,' — * filled, Mr. 
Plant, with the esteem, affection, and best wishes 
of your associates and employees, to whom you have 
been a benefactor and friend.' Mr. Plant's response 
was beautiful, tender, and touching, as kindly eyes 



262 The Life of 

looked through their tears at this grand old man 
whom they esteemed as a father. 

" Next day, the reception given Mr. Plant in the 
Auditorium, by the employees of the Plant System, 
where addresses and resolutions of appreciation, es- 
teem, and gratitude for what he had done for 
the South, were presented to him, was grand be- 
yond description. In the evening of the same 
day a banquet was tendered him at the Aragon 
Hotel by the managers of the Exposition. Judges^ 
lawyers, merchants, the mayor of Atlanta, and a 
large company of distinguished gentlemen sat down 
to a sumptuous repast. But it was ^the feast of 
reason and the flow of soul' — ^the eloquent and 
patriotic sentiments expressed in the after-dinner 
speeches that gave this choice chapter of Plant Day 
its chief significance and greatest charm. Never 
was Southern eloquence more eloquent or tongues 
more fluent in giving forth the overflow of heart. 
* No North, no South, but one united, happy country 
— the land of the free and the home of the brave.* 

" When, near the close, we were most unexpectedly 
called on for a speech, what could we say but express 
the pleasure experienced in all we had seen and en- 
joyed this whole day. We had witnessed the solu- 
tion of the greatest problem of the age, a problem 
that many say will never be solved, that will yet 
bring on universal revolution. We had to-day seen 



Henry Bradley Plant 263 

labor and capital — employer and employed — clasp 
hands in mutual sympathy and most friendly accord. 
We had seen, everywhere we travelled in the South, 
the Plant System men vie with each other in doing 
honor to their chief. His presence was the signal 
for willing hands and happy faces in any service 
they could render him. Men felt better for his pre- 
sence. The Czar of all the Russias might well envy 
this modest, quiet, Connecticut man, the connecting 
link between North and South, the harmonizer of 
differences, and the promoter of peace and good-will 
among men ; and around whom cluster the respect 
and manly affection of 12,000 employees and many 
more thousands of invalids who find lost health 
travelling in the luxuriant cars and dwelling in the 
luxuriant hotels of the Plant System. Mr. Plant 
was first led to Florida in 1854 in search of health 
for his invalid wife, whose life he believes was 
prolonged many years by her residence in the soft, 
balmy air of this State. Travel then was so uncom- 
fortable, and hotel accommodations so poor, that he 
began to think what could be done to improve both. 
Verily, 'There is a divinity that shapes our ends, 
rough hew them as we may,' and well is it when our 
own sufferings lead us to discover means of alleviat- 
ing those of our fellow-men." — The Christimi InteUir 
genceTj New York. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Some Changes that have Taken Place in the Configuration of the 
Globe — Islands Bom and Buried — French ReToludon — Napoleon's 
Influence on Europe — England's Long Wars — Barbarous Treat- 
ment of PrisoneTS — Slavery Abolished — English Profanity and 
Intemperance — Temperanoe Movemente— Duelling — Fenaj Post- 
age — Expansion of the Preee — Canals, Erie and Suez — Hailroads 
in England and the United States — Fint Steamer to Cross the 
AUsntio— flnt Steamship Line. 

'T*HE changes that have taken place on the globe 
-^ itself, and in its inhabitants during the life of 
Mr. Plant, are varied, numerous, and wonderful. 

The configuration of the earth has altered to a de- 
gree incredible to any but those observant of such 
changes. Winchell has tabulated some of these an- 
dulatory movements that have taken place along 
the Atlantic shore line of the American continent 
and elsewhere. " At St. Augustine, in Florida, the 
stumps of cedar trees stand beneath the hard beach 
shell-rock, immersed in water at the lowest tides. 
Some of the sounds upon the coast of North Caro- 
lina, which have been navigable within the memory 
of living sea-captains, are now impassable bars, or 
emerging sand-fiats. Along the coast of New Jersey 
the sea has encroached, within sixty years, upon the 



Henry Bradley Plant 265 

sites of foimer habitations, and entire forests have 
been prostrated by the inundation. In the harbor 
of Nantucket the upright stumps of trees are found 
eight feet below the lowest tide, with their roots 
still buried in their native soil." Similar ruins of 
ancient submarine forests occur on Martha's Vine- 
yard, and on the north side of Cape Cod, and again 
at Portland. In the region of the Saint Croix River, 
separating Maine from New Brunswick, the coast 
has been raised, canying deposits of recent shells 
and sea-weeds, in one instance, to the height of 
twenty-eight feet above the present surface of the 
sea. The island of Grand Manan, off the mouth of 
the Saint Croix River, is slowly rotating on an axis, so 
that, while the south side is gradually dipping be- 
neath the waves, the north is lifted into high bluffs. 
Near the River St. John is an area of twenty squai'e 
miles containing marine shells and plants recently 
elevated from the sea. One hundred and fifty 
miles east of this place, the shore is experiencing a 
subsidence. 

The north side of Nova Scotia is sinking, while 
the south is rising, insomuch that breakers now ap- 
pear off the southern coast in places safely navigable 
in years gone by. The ancient city of Louisburg, 
on the island of Cape Breton, is another testimony 
to the uneasy condition of the land. This place was 
once the stronghold of France in America, and one 



266 The Life of 

of the finest harbors in the world. It was well forti- 
fied and had a population of twenty thousand souls 
within its walls. 

It was destroyed during the French and Indian 
War, and the inhabitants dispersed, but Nature had 
herself ordained its abandonment. The rock on 
which the brave General Wolfe landed has nearly 
disappeared. The sea now flows within the walls 
of the city, and sites once inhabited have become the 
ocean's bed. In 1822, the entire coast of Chili was 
elevated to a height varying from two to seven feet^ 
an area equal to that of New England and New 
York, having been lifted up bodily. In 1831, an 
island, since called Graham's Island, sprang from the 
bed of the Mediterranean between Sicily and the 
site of ancient Carthage. The island is now but a 
sunken reef. Another island, as recently as 1866, 
rose from the bottom of the Grecian Archipelago, 
before the veiy eyes of the American Consul, Mr. 
Chanfield, bearing upon its slimy back fragments of 
wrecks that had been sunken in the little harbor of 
Santorin. 

" An island in the Missouri River, broken into 
fragments and washed away, was the unusual spec- 
tacle witnessed by the people of Atchison, Kansas. 
For years an island of 600 or 700 acres has been 
one of the attractions of Atchison. It was as fertile 
as a garden, and was known all over the West for 



Henry Bradley Plant 267 

the excellence of the celery, asparagus, sweet pota- 
toes and melons it produced. It had the appear- 
ance of a veritable oasis in a desert, and its green 
shrubbery, generous shade trees, velvet lawns, and 
cool spring, were a perpetual joy. Upon this island 
a shooting club had a home, and the base-ball enthu- 
siasts had their grounds, and grandstand. Alto- 
gether, it was a most pleasant resort. In a single 
night this island was dissolved into fragments. 

" The big June rise in the Missouri River struck 
it, and to-day it is only a reminiscence. What was 
Kansas's loss, however, was Missouri's gain. With 
the obliteration of the island the current left the 
Missouri shore and struck hai*d against the Kansas 
bluffs. The result of this is that the Missouri ban- 
ner has been planted a mile westward, and hun- 
dreds of acres of rich bottom land hare been added 
to its domain, while Kansas mourns the loss of its 
green island and pleasant park." 

The wonderful changes going on in the configura- 
tion of England are recorded in a well-known 
London paper {lU-Bita) in the following words: 

"Is England disappearing? Readers may pucker 
up their lips and ejaculate ' Absurd ! ' but facts, 
nevertheless, remain and show pretty clearly that 
England is positively disappearing, and may in 
years to come be marked on the map as a van- 
ished isle. 



268 The Life of 

'^On the coast the sea is encroacbiDg upon the 
land at an astonishing rate. Seaside towns and 
villages, holiday resorts, are gradually being eaten 
up and the inhabitants driven inland. In many 
parts the sea runs up on a beach which was once 
far inland. In other cases churches which were at 
one time far from the sea now stand at the edge of 
cliffs and have the sea lapping almost at their doors. 

^^The Goodwin sands, about five miles off the 
coast of Kent, were at one time a portion of the 
mainland itself and the property of Earl Goodwin* 
But the sea has swallowed them up. 

"The coast of Norfolk is minus three villages 
which it once possessed — Shipden, Eccles, and 
Wimpwell — all of which have been taken into the 
arms of the encroaching ocean. The Cromer of to- 
day stands miles inland of the original Cromer. 

" Auburn and Harlburn, two Yorkshire villages, 
once promised to develop into seaport towns of con- 
siderable importance ; but, like the will of Canute, 
the will of the inhabitants of these villages was 
ignored by the rising sea, and Auburn and Harlburn 
now exist in mere names and sand-banks. 

"Dunwich, on the coast of Suffolk, is gradually 
being swallowed up. Every now and then the 
inhabitants move a distance inland, rebuild their 
houses and shops and wait patiently and philosoph- 
ically for the next " notice to quit " from the sea. 



Henry Bradley Plant 269 

Many other seaside places have suffered or are suf- 
fering a similar fate. 

'^ It may be argued, on the other hand, that some 
seaside towns are gradually becoming inland towns 
by the failure of the sea to * come up to the mark/ 
and running out only to run in for a shorter distance. 
Winchelsea, Sandwich, Rye, and Southport are all 
sufiEering in this way. Winchelsea and Rye were 
originally two of our cinque ports, but the sea has 
left them standing high and dry. Sandwich was 
once a highly important seaport town. It now 
stands two or three miles inland. 

" The sea is leaving Southport quite in the lurch — 
so much so indeed that the inhabitants have had to 
sink extensive lakes down on the beach to keep the 
sea from running off altogether and leaving merely 
an ordinary inland town. 

** But the extension of our island in this way is 
very much less than the encroachment of the sea at 
other points, and while our land is certainly becom- 
ing more extensive in one direction, it is contracting, 
and with much greater rapidity, in some other. And 
the ultimate effect may be that our mountain peaks 
may form small islands, and eventually be pointed 
out by posterity as Hhe position in which Great 
Britain is reputed to have stood.' '' 

The nineteenth has been the most remarkable 
century in the world's history. It was the most 



270 The Life of 

destructive and wasteful of life and property in the 
early part of its career, and in the latter half has been 
the most constructive and uplifting to the human race 
of any of the past centuries. The population of all 
Europe at the beginning of the century numbered 
one hundred and seventy millions, of whom four 
millions were engaged in the murderous work of 
war. The demoralization of society and the miseries 
inflicted on the people by these wars are beyond the 
power of pen to describe. France had an absolute 
monarchy. '^The King held in his hands the un- 
questioned right to dispose, at his will, of the lives 
and property of the people. He was the sole 
legislator. His own pleasure was his only rule. He 
levied taxes, asking no consent of those who had to 
pay. He sent to prison men with no crime laid 
to their charge, and kept them there, without trial, 
till they died." Political corruption was rampant. 
For sixty years the court of Louis XV. had festered 
in the most filthy debauchery. Then followed the 
bloody Revolution, unparalleled in history. The 
guillotine, worn out with its butchery of more than a 
million lives stood idle, and peace — rather, the lull of 
an unfinished storm, for a time rested upon unhappy 
France. Then the tumultuous hurricane burst out 
anew in the wars of Napoleon, which terminated 
only at Waterloo in 1815. 

"The influence which Napoleon exerted upon the 



Henry Bradley Plant 271 

course of haman affairs/' says McKenzie, ^^ is with- 
out a paraUel in history. Never before had any 
man inflicted upon his fellows miseries so appalling ; 
never before did one man's hand scatter seeds des- 
tined to produce a harvest of change so vast and so 
beneficient. It was he who roused Italy from her 
sleep of centuries and led her towards that free and 
united life which she at length enjoys. It was he, 
who by destroying the innumerable petty states of 
Germany, inspired the dream of unity which it has 
required more than half a century to fulfil." The 
progress made by these two countries during the 
century, in liberty, education, and all that conduces 
to the welfare of the individual and the strength of 
the nation, has been great beyond precedent. 

England has perhaps outstripped all other nations 
in the advancement she has made during this period 
of the world's greatest progress. Her long and 
terrible wars with France and her allies had wasted 
her people and depleted her treasury. Taxes were 
enormous, food was high, wages low, and work 
scarce. The introduction of machinery in some de- 
partments reduced hand-labor a hundred-fold. The 
power loom threw thousands of people out of em- 
ployment. England was badly governed. The laws 
were all made in the interests of the rich. Multi- 
tudes of the poor were famine stricken, one in eight 
being fed on charity, and many died of starvation. 



272 The Life of 

Hunger maddens men, and hence crime abounded* 
Laws, numerous and terrible, were enacted for its 
prevention and punishment. Capital offences num. 
bered two hundred and twenty-three. Some of the 
offences were ridiculous trifles. If a man appeared 
disguised in public, cut down young trees, shot 
rabbits, or stole property worth a dollar and a quarter^ 
he was at once hanged. The treatment of prisoners 
was most barbarous. Young and old of both sexes 
were huddled together like cattle. Vermin, filth, 
and starvation were the common lot of all. John 
Howard and Elizabeth Fry inaugurated reforms in 
the interests of the prisoners that have since engaged 
the thought and effort of the best men and women 
of the nation. 

War was carried on in the most cruel and brutal 
manner. Conscription and the press gang forced 
men from their families, and from peaceful occupa- 
tion, and drove them to an unwilling military or 
naval, bloody field-servitude. Five hundred lashes 
was no uncommon punishment for some trifling of- 
fence. "The men who applied the torture were 
changed at short intervals, lest the punishment should 
be at all mitigated by their fatigue. The doctor 
stood by to say how much the victim could bear 
without dying. When that point was reached, he 
was taken down and carried to the hospital, to be 
brought back for the balance of his punishment when 



Henry Bradley Plant 278 

his wounds were healed. There is record of a soldier 
sentenced to one thousand lashes, seven hundred of 
which were actually inflicted. In the Crimean war 
two thousand six hundred British soldiers were 
killed, while eighteen thousand died in hospital of 
wounds and disease." 

Scientific skill directed by generous-hearted Christ- 
ian philanthropy has now mitigated these horrors, 
miucing them almost to a minimum. The same 
may be said of the brutality endured by women and 
little children working in mines from twelve to six- 
teen hours a day. 

Slaveiy, which was almost universal at the begin- 
ning of the century, has been abolished. Forty mil- 
lions in Russia, four millions in the United States, 
and many more millions in other lands have been 
made free. 

Nor has this freedom been confined to the chattel 
slave. The courts of Europe were debauched beyond 
description. Even in England among the higher 
classes, " the supreme crowning evidence that an en- 
tertainment had been successful was not given till 
the guests dropped one by one from their chairs, to 
slumber peacefully on the floor till the servants re- 
moved them." 

The temperance movement belongs to our present 
century, and while it has not yet accomplished all 
that could be desired, it has done much to lessen 

x8 



274 The Life of 

some of the grossest evils of society, and is fall of 
promise for final triumph. The first temperance 
society was only eleven years old when the subject 
of this biogi*aphy was bom. It was organized in 
April, 1808, at Morean, Saratoga County, New 
York, with forty-three members. The American 
Temperance Society was formed at Boston, Feb- 
ruary, 1826, and, in 1829, the New York State 
Temperance Society, which in less than a year had 
one thousand local societies with a hundred thousand 
members. Soon the movement extended to the Old 
World, and a society was formed at New Ross, County 
Wexford, Ireland, and within a year sixty other so- 
cieties were formed in different parts of the country. 
The Father Mathew crusade began in 1838, and it 
resulted in the enrollment of one million eight hun- 
dred thousand men and women in the temperance 
cause. The wave spread to Scotland, England, 
Wales, and the Continent. The Washington move- 
ment, started at Baltimore in 1840, doubtless ad- 
vanced the cause of temperance in our country, half 
a million having signed the pledge. The great pro- 
gress made in this direction is seen not so much in 
the number of temperance societies as in the fact 
that while there is difference of opinion as to the 
moderate use of wines and liquors, there is but one 
opinion among respectable people as to the immoder- 
ate use, and any one indulging in orgies such as those 



Henry Bradley Plant 275 

to which we have alladed would be excluded from 
all participation in decent society. No man of stand- 
ing in good society glories in the shame of beastly 
intoxication ; multitades do not use liquor at all, and 
many others use it only as a medicine or aid to health. 

The duel was made a legal way of settling dis- 
putes between gentlemen, and even, "Fox, Pitt, 
Gastlereagh, Canning, O'Connell, and Wellington, 
had all att^empted the slaughter of a foe." 

Profanity was almost universal. " Erskine swore 
at the bar. Lord Thurlow swore on the bench. 
The King swore incessantly. Ladies swore orally 
and in their letters. The chaplain cursed the 
sailors, because it made them listen more attentively 
to his admonition." Obscene books were exposed 
for sale by the side of bibles and prayer-books. 

Education was limited in its range and extent, 
and only the more wealthy could enjoy its benefits. 
In 1818, more than one half the children in England 
were without school advantages. In manufacturing 
districts, forty per cent, of the men and sixty-five 
per cent, of the women could not write their own 
names. 

Penny postage^ first proposed by Rowland Hill in 
1837, adopted by Act of Parliament in 1839, and 
followed since then by every civilized country in the 
world, has proved to be a great adjunct in the edu- 
cation of the people. 



276 The Life of 

The freedom and expansion of the press daring* 
this century have also been a great power for the 
enlightenment of mankind. True, it has not been an 
unmixed good, but let us hope the good has been^ 
and will continue to be in the ascendant. 

Canals, before the days of railroads and steam- 
ships, did much for the transportation of merchandise 
and intercommunication of the people. The Erie 
Canal, 363 miles in length, commenced in 1817, and 
finished in 1825, is said to have been one of the first 
impulses given to New York City in its ascendancy 
over every other city in the United States. On ao- 
count of its great cost many of the people were op- 
posed to it ; ^' but in 1866, it was ascertained that 
besides enlarging many of the principal cities, and 
adding to the comfort and wealth of nearly all the 
people of the State, it had returned into the public 
treasuiy s^23,500,000 above all its cost, including 
principle, interest, repairs, and superintendence.'* 

In this same year, 1825, New York City was first 
lighted, partially only, with gas. 

The Suez Canal, opened in 1870, was used by 
only 486 vessels, with a total net tonnage of 436,609, 
but its use was steadily increased, until in 1891, it 
rose to 8,698,777. When the canal was opened, it 
had cost $100,000,000, that is, $1,000,000 a mile, 
and since then $40,000,000 more have been ex- 
pended in improvements. These are large amounts, 



Henry Bradley Plant 277 

but the canal pays annually from $4,000,000 to 
$6,000,000 over the interest of its bonded debt 

The introduction of railroads into England and the 
United States marks a great era in the progress of 
these two nations, not to say that of the whole 
world, though the event is of comparatively recent 
date, as the following account taken from a recent 
issue of the New York IHbune goes to show : 

" The Chicago Record says that Edward Entwistle 
who has lived in Des Moines, Iowa, for forty years, 
ran the first passenger engine. He was born at Til- 
sey's Banks, Lancashire, England, in 1815, and was 
apprenticed to the Duke of Bridgewater, who had 
large machine shops at Manchester. The first rail- 
road for general passenger and freight business was 
•completed in 1831, between Manchester and Liver- 
pool, a distance of thirty-one miles. The Rocket^ 
the first locomotive or passenger engine, was built 
under the direction and according to the plans of 
George Stephenson, in the works where young En- 
twistle was serving as an apprentice. Stephenson 
engaged Entwistle as his assistant in the engine. 
The line being opened for general traffic, young En- 
twistle was put in charge of the Rocket, and for two 
years made two round trips every day between 
Liverpool and Manchester, one in the forenoon and 
the other in the afternoon. He came to this coun- 
try in 1837." 



378 Henry Bradley Plant 

When Mr. Plant was nine years old, there were 
only three miles of railroad in the United States. 
They were completed in 1827. Now there are 178,- 
453 miles, and the speed of trains has been increased 
from ten miles an hour to more than seventy miles. 
The sleeping- and parlor-cars have made travel one 
of the great luzuiies of this most lazariant centaiy. 
The first ocean steamer that crossed the Atlantic was 
the Savamiah, which made the trip to Earope in 
the year 1819, the year Mr. Plant was bom, and in 
1888, the first r^olar line of Atlantic steamers was 
established. 




CHAPTER XVm. 

Bailroada Established— Engiseeriiig Progress— Steel, Iron Steam- 
ships — Horse Railroad — Kerosene Oil in Use 1880 — Sewing Ha- 
chinee — Agricultural Implemente 1881-51 — Sanitaiy Frogreee — 
Philanthropic and Christian Progress — Higher Education — 
Medical Progress — Humaite Care of the Insane — Sailors' and 
Seamen's Home — World's Faire— Kaligious Reciprocity — Arbi- 
tration — Numerous Inventione and Discoveries — Concluding Be- 

ENGINEERING skill has greatly improved, and 
by its daring achieTemeDts has added much to 
the progress of the world during the last forty yeara 
This is seen in the construction of riulroads of vast 
dimensions, four of which span our own continent, 
and stretch over vast prairies, deep chasms, and great 
rivers, penetrating through the Rocky Mountains, 
seemingly impassable as they rear their snow-capped 
peaks to the clouds. The Mont Cenis Tunnel con- 
necting the railways of France and Italy, on the di- 
rect railway route from Paris to Turin, is a marvel 
of eng^eering skill. It ie seven miles, four and three 
fonrths furlongs in length. Fourteen years passed 
during its construction, and it cost about six millions 
and a half of dollars. It was begun In 1857 and 
completed in 1871. The Saint Gothard Tunnel 



280 The Life of 

which runs through a section of the Alps to Italy, 
six thousand feet below the top of these mountains^ 
is another great achievement of engineering daring. 
The work consumed ten years* time, the labor of 
over three thousand men daily, and cost over eleven 
millions of dollars. The Sutro tunnel, in our own 
Rocky Mountains, was another grand feat of me- 
chanical progress during the last half of the century. 
In 1830, the first steel pen was made and the first 
iron steamship was built. One year before this, the 
first lucifer match was made ; and nine years after- 
wards, envelopes were first used. In 1826, the first 
horse-railroad was built, and kerosene oil was first 
used for lighting purposes. In 1846, Howe's sewing- 
machine was given to the public, but it took eight 
years' hard work to convince the public that the new 
invention was of any great value. Many other sew- 
ing-machines have since come into use, but all are 
modifications of Howe's. They have revolutionized 
the whole " make up " of men's and women's wear- 
ing apparel, not to mention horse harness, upholster- 
ing, and all departments of life where fine stitching 
is called for. The delicate services of this wonderful 
machine have increased certain industries a thousand- 
fold, though at first, like all other improved methods 
of work, it was supposed to be the destroyer of these 
industries, and to bring untold miseries upon all who 
lived by the needle. The manufacture of these ma- 



Henry Bradley Plant 281 

chines, sales, and repairs have employed tens of 
thousands of people, and added milUoDs to the 
wealth of a nation ; to say nothing of the comfort 
and betterment of the life of the people. 

Agriculture has made great strides during the last 
half century by reason of the increasing use of scien- 
tific methods. Rotation of crops and artificial man- 
ures have preserved the laud from exhaustion and 
maintained it at a high power of production. Ma- 
chinery also has added largely to the facilities for 
its cultivation. Ploughing, sowing, reaping, thresh- 
ing, and other machines have made it possible for the 
farmer of comparatively limited means to produce 
immense quantities of food for man and beast, so 
ihat starvation in almost any part of the globe can 
be averted by the over-production in other parts. 
In 1855, at a great trial of threshing-, reaping-, and 
mowing-machines in France, the American machines 
gained a complete victory. In 1862, the United 
States Government established the Agricultural De- 
partment at Washington. Agricultural societies 
and colleges, in many of the States, have greatly 
advanced this most important department of the na- 
tion's strength. It is as true now as when the wise 
Solomon spoke it, " The profit of the earth is for 
all : the king himself is served by the field." A better 
knowledge of agricultural chemistry has contributed 
much to the more profitable uses of the soiL The 



282 The Life oi 

sanitary conditions of living have greatly improved^ 
especially among the poor, during the last half-cen- 
tury. Underground sewerage in cities, drainage of 
swampy grounds, removal of the cesspool which 
often poisoned the well which supplied the family 
for cooking and drinking, and the introduction of 
pure water in abundance, cleaner streets, and better 
homes for the working-classes, have lessened the 
death rate about one half. From McKenzie we 
learn that " In 1842, the average length of life among 
the gentry and professional men of London, was 
forty-four years : in the laboring-class it was twenty- 
two years. Filth and bad ventilation cost England 
more lives annually than she had lost by death in 
battle or by wounds during the bloodiest year of 
her history. The annual waste of adult life from 
causes which ought to be removed was estimated at 
from thirty to forty thousand." Food is abundant 
and of great variety in our favored land, and the can- 
ning industry supplies the luscious fruits of summer 
at low prices throughout the entire year. 

One noteworthy feature of the progress of the 
last fifty years is that it touches all classes ; the work- 
ingman especially shares largely its advantages. 
The general and rapid diffusion of knowledge, by 
means of the greatly improved press, is one of the 
marvels of this most wonderful age. The " Hoe ^ 
octuple press can print 96,000 copies of a newspaper 



Henry Bradley Plant 283 

per hour, or 1600 every minate ; the paper travels 
through the press at the rate of 32^ miles an hour ; 
is printed, pasted, cut, folded, counted, and delivered 
in bundles of twenty-five, automatically. Three of 
these presses would be able to print 748,000 eight- 
page sheets, equal to forty-two tons per hour of 
printed matter. 

Mr. Plant might stand on the roof of his office at 
Twenty-third Street in New York City, and say, 
^ How changed is this city since I first saw it when 
a boy.'' It had no horse-cars, no trolley-cars, no 
cable-cat's, no elevated roads, no large hotels, no 
buildings of more than three stories in height, few 
stores more than twenty-five feet wide. It had no 
telegi*aph, telephone, phonograph, or electric lights, 
^-only oil lamps, — no asphalt pavements. No steam- 
cars, no photograph galleries, no sewing-machines or 
type-writers, or bicycles, or horseless carriages, or 
public baths. No time-lock safes, stem-winding 
watches. No submarine cables, or Bessemer steel, 
or great suspension bridges. In 1820, the popula- 
tion of New York City was only 123,706; now it 
is over a million and a half. In the same time he 
has seen the population of the country grow from 
9,628,131, (of whom 1,528,064 were slaves) to up- 
wards of 70,000,000, and he has seen the inaugura- 
tion of nineteen of the twenty-five Presidents of the 
United States. The territory of the United States 



284 The Life of 

has nearly doubled during Bis lifetime, and its ac- 
cumulated wealth can hardly be measured daring 
the same period. The development of our coal 
mines, iron mines, gold and silver mines, oil wells, 
natural gas stored up in the bowels of the earth — 
these, too, have made giant strides. The great rail- 
road industries of the country, furnishing work for 
hundreds of thousands ; the increase and enlarge- 
ment of our manufactories, the great cities that have 
been built, some of them burned and rebuilt, as was 
the case with Boston, Portland, and Chicago; all 
these have added to the enormous wealth of the 
nation. In 1831, a dozen families around Fort 
Dearborn formed the nucleus of the present city 
of Chicago. Minneapolis this summer removed its 
first house, built in 1849, to a more convenient 
place, to be kept as an heirloom of that city of phe- 
nomenal gi'owth. With the increase of wealth, large 
fortunes have been accumulated and have enabled 
their earners and owners to build the large railroads 
which have done so much for the development and 
progress of the country; to lay ocean cables, and 
work large mines, providing work and wages for 
millions of men. 

The humane and philanthropic progress of this 
period is seen in the reforms instituted in prisons. 
Up to the present century punishment for crime 
seems to have been the leading idea of prison man- 



Henry Bradley Plant 285 

agement Instruction in the common-school elemen- 
tary branches of education was introduced with 
encouraging resulte. Then libraries were established, 
and moral and religious instruction tended greatly to 
the reformation of the criminal. Wholesome rules 
and regulations were adopted. Various kinds of 
work, adapted to the prisoners' intelligence and 
strength, were given. Rewards were apportioned 
for good behavior, which shortened the period of 
confinement. Better classification was made of the 
inmates, and generally just and kind treatment was 
instituted. All this had an uplifting influence on 
the crushed and degraded men, and turned many 
from being the enemies of society to be its friends, 
and to appreciate the efforts made for their recovery 
from lives of vice. Reformatories for youthful offen- 
ders caused their separation from old and hardened 
criminals, and caused many of them to become useful 
members of society. The first of these was "The 
House of Refuge " on Randal's Island, in New York 
City. 

The "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
Animals," established by Henry Bergh in New York, 
proved to be the seed from which germinated hun- 
dreds of other similar societies throughout our coun- 
try. Later, the "Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Children ^ has saved many an unprotected 
child from inhuman treatment, often received from 



286 The Life of 

its own parents. It is by far the best age of the 
world for children. Many millions of dollars are 
invested in the manufacture of toys and in prepar- 
ation of books, papers, and magazines especially 
devoted to the interests of children. Life-saving 
stations along the coast of dangerous seas have res- 
cued thousands of lives from a watery grave, and 
saved many millions worth of property. Travel by 
sea and land has become one of the greatest luiniries 
and means of education in this most enlightened cen- 
tury. The circumnavigation of the globe is no longer 
the daring feat of the skilled mariner. The human 
race is coming closer together, and is massing into 
cities. Clubs are being formed for the discussion of 
literary, scientific, »sthetic, historic, political, dra. 
matic, musical, and social topics, and admit to their 
membership young and old of both sexes. 

It is also an age of conventions, — scientific, politi- 
cal, and religious. Christianity is exerting a mighty 
influence in various forms. Throughout the world 
this is shown by the multitudes it has lifted out of 
barbarism in India, China, Japan, Australia, Africa, 
and made them law-abiding, peace-loving, and self- 
governing Christian peoples. Cannibalism and human 
sacrifice have now disappeared from the earth, with 
many other practices too horrible to name. For the 
care of the poor and unfortunate, New York City 
alone spends annually more than $6,000,000. It has 



Henry Bradley Plant 287 

homes for the aged, for orphans and for half -orphaned 
children, also for crippled, and the deformed. Poor 
women about to become mothers may go to a suit- 
able institute where medical attendance and trained 
nursing are furnished free, or they may have both 
free in their own homes. The advance in the higher 
education, as well as great improvement in our com- 
mon-school system, is a marked feature of our times. 
Most of our colleges have greatly raised the course 
of study, and several have become fully equipped 
universities, whUe other new universities have been 
added to the number ; one in Chicago, two in Wash- 
ington City, one in California, and one in Baltimore. 
Probably the most marked feature in the education 
of our time is the throwing open the doors of so many 
colleges and universities to women. These have 
flocked thither to take equal stand with the men, who 
have had a monopoly of these privileges since col- 
leges and universities were founded : and they have 
entered the learned professions of medicine, law, 
and divinity, professions once thought to be forever 
barred against their sex. Co-education, the higher 
education of women, and their aspiration to lead a 
professional life, fifty years ago would have been 
considered the dream of fanatics only. Some even 
now doubt the wisdom of the movement, but, good 
or bad, it is here to stay, and will advance with ever 
increasing velocity. 



288 The Life of 

There are homes for incurables where their hope- 
less condition receives such treatment as not unfre- 
quently returns them to their homes restored to a 
measure of health. The blind, deaf, and dumb are 
kindly cared for, educated, and made useful members 
of society. That class once considered hopeless^ 
women fallen from virtue, are sought out, cared for, 
and restored frequently to society, and often become 
rescuers of their own sex from like degredation. Dis- 
charged criminals are looked after and provided with 
temporary homes, and work is sought out for thenu 
The children of the street are taken up, taught, and 
placed in homes in the West, away from the city 
temptations that were destroying them. For young 
men, and now for young women, coming from the 
country to our large cities, the Christian Associar 
tions find safe lodgings, work, schools, and churches, 
and throw around them every safeguard. The read- 
ing-room, gymnasium, lecture course, evening classes^ 
and devotional meetings are all intellectual and moral 
forces in character building, and in preparation for 
the great work of life. 

The higher education of medical science has 
made rapid progress during the last century, and 
especially during the last half of it. Health boards 
have done much in the way of sanitation to prevent 
disease and protect communities against epidemics 
and virulent plagues that have scourged the world 



Henry Bradley Plant 289 

for centuries. The use of ansBsthetics has saved an 
incalculable amount of agony, and has greatly aided 
physicians in improved methods of surgery. Opera, 
tions are now performed, with almost universal 
success, which would not have been thought of 
fifty years ago. Improved medical apparatus and 
instruments for examining the body have proved 
of great value in the treatment of bronchial and 
internal affections. The Roentgen Say, which can 
bring to light the whole inside of a man, is the 
latest and greatest discovery of the period under 
consideration. The discovery of disease-producing 
germs or microbes is worthy of mention in this 
connection. Pasteur's cure for hydrophobia has 
lessened the dread of one of the most terrible mala> 
dies that has afflicted the human family. 

It might be supposed that humane treatment of 
those most unfortunate beings who have been de- 
prived of their reason would be found even in 
the least civilized period of the world's history, 
but alas ! the opposite has been true. Until within 
a comparatively recent date it was customary to 
confine these poor creatures in jail, along with the 
vilest criminals, a custom still prevailing in some 
places. "In 1826, a young clergyman, rendered in- 
sane by overwork, was found in the Bridewell 
Prison of New York, herded with ruffians and mur- 
derers. At that time there was in the prisons of 



290 The Life of 

Massachasetts thirty lunatics. One had been in 
his cell nine years, had a wreath of rags around 
his body, and another around his neck. This was 
all his clothing. He had no bed, chair, or bench ; 
a heap of filthy straw like the nest of a swine was 
in the corner. He had built a birdVnest of mud in 
the iron grate of his den.'' Many were chained, 
kept in cages, ^^ whipped, scourged, ironed, shut in 
close cells, and left for years in filth, naked, hungry, 
exposed to bitter cold, frozen,'' had lost toes or feet^ 
and suffered torture until death ended their misery. 
All this is happily changed, and medical skill and 
intelligent, humane care, have taken its place, with 
some exceptions perhaps. Sailors were once the 
legitimate prey of the worst class of men and women 
the world ever produced, when they landed in large 
cities, often after most tempestuous voyages, and 
dangers most terrible to contemplate. In so-called 
sailor's boarding houses they were drugged, robbed, 
stripped naked, and thrown out on the street at mid- 
night to groan and suffer and die. 

Seamen's Friends Societies and Sailors' Homes, 
with hospitals, libraries. Christian ministry of godly 
men, and kindly care for the sick, disabled, or aged 
sailor until he enters the haven of eternal rest, is 
now in all Christian countries the provision made 
for this brave man to whom the world owes so much. 
Similar provision is made for the old or disabled 



Henry Bradley Plant 291 

soldier who has fought his country's battles. The 
^Soldier's Home'' is one of the institutions for 
which America has reason to be proud. 

The World's Fairs, first organized by Prince Al- 
bert in London in the year 1851 and continued in 
different countries until the present time, the last 
and greatest of them all held at Chicago in the 
United States in 1893, have done much to stimulate 
progress in every department of life, and to 
strengthen the spirit of friendly reciprocity that 
should bind the human family closer together in 
mutual helpfulness and good-wilL The interna- 
tional congress of all religions held at the Chicago 
Fair, the first and only congress of the kind ever 
held, was in the line of the Fatherhood of God and 
the Brotherhood of Man. 

The bitterness of the sectarian spirit among all 
Christian denominations is happily passing away, 
and a desire for closer relations, even for a union of 
all peoples of the Christian faiths, is fast taking its 
place. The Roman Catholic Church through its 
head, Leo XIIL, and the Episcopal Church through 
its Bishops have both expressed their desire for the 
union of all Christian peoples. Arbitration for the 
settlement of disputes between labor and capital, 
and even between nations, is advancing towards a 
blessed consummation, and the day cannot be far 
distant when peace and good- will among men shall 



f 

r 



292 The Life of 

become universal, and Jesas of Nazareth shall reign, 
Prince of Peace and King of Nations through the 
whole world. Who knows but that the six hundred 
and one thousand miles of telegraph in the United 
States and the one hundred and sixty thousand 
miles of submarine telegraph in the world, shall 
soon flash the news round the globe, ^^ The Lord is 
come." 

The following item taken by permission of Charles 
Scribner's Sons from The Last QuaHer of the Cen^ 
turyj by Andrews, is significant in this connection : 

" During the great Electrical Exposition in New 
York City, May, 1896, a message was transmitted 
round the world and back in fifty-five minutes. It 
was dictated by Hon. Chauncey Depew, and read — 
* God creates. Nature treasures. Science utilizes elec- 
trical power for the grandeur of nations and the 
peace of the world.' Starting at eight thirty-five 
these words sped over the land lines to San Fran- 
cisco, thence back to Canso, Nova Scotia, where they 
plunged under the sea to London. A click of the 
key four minutes later announced the completion of 
this part of the journey. 

" Cannon were fired in honor of the achievement^ 
while the throng on the floor of the Exhibition 
Building cheered. 

" Meantime, the general manager of the Western 
Union Company had despatched the same message 



Henry Bradley Plant 293 

over his lines to Los Angeles, Galveston, City of 
Mexico, Valparaiso, Baenos Ayres, Pernambuco, 
across the Atlantic to Lisbon, and back to New 
York by way of London, a journey of ten thousand 
miles, in eleven and one half minutes. 

"At nine twenty-five, just fifty minutes from the 
start, the receiving instrument clicked and Mr. Edi- 
son, for the nonce again a simple telegraph operator 
as of yore, copied from it the Depew message. 

" It had travelled from London to Lisbon, thence 
to Suez, Aden, Bombay, Madras, Singapore, Hong 
Kong, Shanghai, Nagasaki, and Tokio, returning by 
the same route to New York, having traversed a 
distance of 27,500 miles.'' 

We have thus tabulated, in the briefest manner, 
a few of the advances made in various departments 
of life during the period covered by this biography : 
and we have done so because Mr. Plant loves to 
recount the progress of the human family. He has 
kept in touch with it all, enjoyed it all, and has 
himself contributed no small share to its further- 
ance. It enhances one's estimate of the marvellous 
progress of the age in which we are living when 
we think how much has been accomplished in the 
comparatively brief period of one life. It gives 
ground for believing, too, that the next decade will 
surpass any that has preceded it, and that the 
twentieth century will outstrip the nineteenth as 



294 The Life of 

far as the nineteenth has outstripped any of its 
predecessors. It inspires the wish, also, that the 
subject of this biography may live to enjoy much 
of the world's era of peace and progress in science, 
art, industry, philanthropy, and Christian aUevisr 
tion and uplifting power. May this very imperfect 
history of a very instructive life prove helpful to 
those taking their place in the onward march of the 
race towards its great and final destiny. 

The wish expressed above for the continued health 
and life of the subject of this biography was 
written one year ago, and what follows affords 
strong hope of its realization. 

The winter after the Atlanta Exposition found 
Mr. Plant with signs of failing health, somewhat 
alleviated by his sojourn in the South ; but on his 
arrival in New York in the spring of 1896, he was 
taken violently ill and was constantly under the 
doctor's care for four or five months. The next 
winter he passed in the South, resulting in marked 
evidences of improved health. The next spring, 
however, another malady developed, greatly impair- 
ing health and threatening life for several weeks. 
Early in the spring he had so far recovered that 
he went by rail to San Francisco, in his own pri- 
vate car, thence by ocean to Japan and China, and, 
returning to Japan, spent a large part of the sum- 
mer there, from whence he sailed for San Francisco 



Henry Bradley Plant 295 

and returned to New York early in November, 
nearly all evidences of past diseases having disap- 
peared, and he has passed his seventy-eight birdi- 
day in apparently good health. 

It is needless to say that honors, courtesies, and 
kindnesses were liberally tendered him throughout his 
whole trip in the East, which he enjoyed to the fulL 

The following incident is one among many that 
occurred to Mr. Plant during his very interesting 
tour in the land of the Rising Sun, and shows how 
promptly he improved every opportunity that came 
in his way, not only for learning all about the cus- 
toms, manners, and ways of the Japanese, but of 
recalling old acquaintances, and renewing old friend- 
ships of his early boyhood in his native State, and 
town of Branford. On his return voyage via the 
Hawaiian Islands, the steamer stopped for a few 
hours at Honolulu. Mr. Plant at once set out to 
find a Branford lady who had long been a resi- 
dent in these islands. Soon his search was rewarded 
by finding Mrs. Mary Parker, widow of a missionary 
of that name, and now in the ninety-fourth year of 
her age. Mr. Plcmt was present at the marriage 
of this good lady in Branford, Connecticut, when only 
a boy of seven, and doubtless some of the happy 
boyhood emotions of that occasion came back to 
him when he clasped the hand of this aged woman 
so far away from their native Branford. 



296 The Life of 

HENBY B. PLANT IN WAR AND IN PEACH 

Few men are more blessed with a peaceful dis- 
pcsition and an inborn dislike of the antagonisms 
that arise so frequently between men and nations 
than is the subject of this sketch. Nor has it fallen 
to the lot of many to take such an important part in 
the two greatest wars of our country. In the for- 
mer chapters of this biography we have spoken of 
the valuable services rendered to both sides of the 
contestants in our Civil War by the Plant System, 
then only in its embryo state of development. At 
the banquet given to Mr. Plant at the Atlanta Ex- 
position we heard, from some of the representative 
men of the South, patriotic speeches full of native 
eloquence, that thrilled us in every fibre of our 
being. " Mr. Plant," said one of the distinguished 
speakers, "you have done more to bring the North 
and South together than any other man living." 
Mr. Plant has been privileged to have a large part 
in the present conflict that has completely cemented 
the whole nation as never before. This is by no 
means the smallest benefit that has come to our 
country out of this great conflict, for it is as true 
now as when it was uttered by one of the greatest 
American statesmen, " United we stand, divided we 
fall." The following description of the facilities 
afforded for shipment at Port Tampa is from the 



Henry Bradley Plant 297 

pen of one who is well acquainted with every foot 
of land and water about which he writes, 

" The war with Spain directed attention more to 
Port Tampa than any one place in the United States. 
This was for the reason that the largest military ex- 
pedition that ever left the shores of the United 
States was loaded and sailed from the docks there. 
The work was done in a very short time, consider- 
ing the lack of experience of the government officials 
in charge. 

^^So much has been said and written about the 
loading of General Shafter's expedition, with its 
fleet of thirty-six steamships, that the public will 
appreciate some detailed information about the im- 
mense facilities which are found ready for use at 
Port Tampa. This was through the foresight and 
business sagacity of the head of the Plant System, 
for he built largely for the great business that must 
pass through that port at no distant day. 

"The railroad yards of over thirty-six miles of 
track, at Port Tampa, Port Tampa City, and Tampa, 
belong to the Plant System, and have a capacity of 
over two thousand cars, leaving working room for 
all the business that this number of cars would 
bring to the place. The tracks are perfectly ar- 
ranged, and experienced railroad men say that no 
railroad yard in the South will compare with this 
for conveniences in handling a big business. The 



298 The Life of 

business is in the hands of railroad men of experi- 
ence, and no delays were traceable to them. Be- 
tween Tampa and Port Tampa is a stretch of nine 
miles. To illustrate the perfect system employed 
in handling the business, it is only necessary to 
say that from six o^clock in the morning until 
11:40 at night, twenty-six passenger trains passed 
over this nine miles every day. Besides this, the 
freight trains numbered more than this, comprising 
the various sections of regular trains and the large 
number of troop and supply-trains for the move- 
ment. There was no delay and not an accident. 

'^ Of the facilities at the docks, as much can be 
said. It is the only port in the country where 
vessels drawing twenty-four feet of water can come 
alongside and load in such numbers. There is 
room for twenty-four vessels of that draught, three 
hundred and twenty feet long, to lie end for end, 
and receive cargoes at the same time. These steam- 
ers are all loaded from the railroad tracks, just 
twenty feet removed from the edge of the pier, and 
nothing stands in the way of the quick work. Ves- 
sels of less length make it possible to increase the 
number, and at one time there were thirteen vessels 
loading end to end at one side of the pier. Accord- 
ing to this calculation, thirty-two vessels could be 
accommodated. At these docks are to be found 
berths for phosphate vessels where their cargoes are 



Henry Bradley Plant 299 

loaded from electric elevators, which are the latest 
improved. Just across the slip is the government 
coal dock, and here are electric elevators for hand, 
ling this business. A large amount of coal is now 
stored in these docks for the government 

^ It was not necessary to provide any of these facili- 
ties for the especial purpose of handling the gov- 
ernment war business. They were all there and 
in use before the war, and the government used 
them in sending off this fleet of thirty-six vessels, 
under convoy of a large number of war vessels. It 
was one of the most imposing sights of the age to 
see this great fleet steaming down the bay ; flags flying 
and bands playing, and sixteen thousand American 
soldiers cheering as they felt the vessels move over 
the waters of Tampa Bay, all bound for a victorious 
campaign against the enemy. 

" The Plant System has done well its part in the 
great modem war, and is equally well prepared to 
do its part in carrying on the great commerce be- 
tween the United States, Cuba, the West India 
Islands, and all of the South American countries.^' 

The Marine Journal of New York of July 9, 
1898, has the following editorial : 
"PoBT Tampa — Phoenix-like Rose and Met the Oc- 
casion — Over Thirty Troop Ships Loaded and 
Departed from its Piers — ^The Largest War 
Fleet ever Sent from One Port at One Time 



300 The Life of 

in the Nation's History — ^The Port's Imnoiense 
Facilities. 

"It would take the entire reading space of the 
Marine Journal to describe the great amount of 
work done at Port Tampa, Fla., in getting Gen. 
Shafter's army afloat, and the exhaustive facilities 
that were found by the government to exist there 
available for this purpose ; in fact, only those who 
have visited the West coast of Florida within ten 
years past have any idea of the extensive improve- 
ments that have been made at Port Tampa by the 
Plant System with a view to bringing the commerce 
of the United States within close communication 
with the Island of Cuba, Jamaica, and other nearby 
Gulf ports. Millions of dollars have been expended 
by Henry B. Plant and associates under the super- 
vision of the best known experts in railroad and 
harbor improvements that could be obtained for this 
object, and the work was near completion when war 
was declared with Spain, and the Island of Cuba be- 
came the base of hostilities. 

" Fortunately the government was well informed 
as to the superior facilities already in operation at 
Port Tampa, and the Quartermaster's Department of 
the Army was not slow in recommending this place 
for the mobilization of troops and their preparation 
and embarkation to Cuba therefrom. The vexatious 
delays caused by inexperience in handling such a 



Henry Bradley Plant 801 

large body of men and munitions of war, reports of 
spook Spanish fleets, etc., are more or less familiar 
to our readers, as well as the detail of the fitting out 
and embarking of over 12,000 troops and their sup 
plies ^hich were loaded on board over thirty trans- 
ports at Port Tampa in a very short space of time. 
The wharf facilities at some times accommodated as 
many as thirteen of these troop ships strung along 
end on. 

^* Let the Ma/rme JcywmdL readers imagine for a 
moment that the Florida terminus of the Plant Sys- 
tem of railroads at Port Tampa extends out into the 
harbor nearly a mile on two solidly built piers of sheet 
piling, earth, and rocks between which is a canal 
or basin with twenty-five feet depth of water its 
entire length, where a fleet of ships can lie and load 
or unload from or into cars night and day. The 
south pier is seventy feet wide, and has three tracks 
laid upon it, twenty feet of this width is set apart 
for working cargo from car to ship, and vice versa, 
also a promenade its entire length, midway of which 
is the famous " Inn,'' built out over the water, where 
passengers in transit to Cuba and Key West, as well 
as tourists, can enjoy a cool, delightful rest after a 
trip by sea or land. One can hardly imagine the 
amount of transportation facilities afforded at this 
immense terminus, with its mile in length railroad- 
yard, and Port Tampa is but twenty-four hours sail 



302 The Life of 

from Havana by steamers of fair average speed. The 
Olvvettey of the Plant Line, has frequently made the 
trip in nineteen and a half hours. 

" There is twenty feet of water on the shoalest 
part of the bar at the entrance of the (thirty feet) 
harbor of Port Tampa, and a very small expense in 
dredging, which i8 iW being arrknged for, ViU en- 
able vessels to enter drawing twenty-five feet. Out- 
side of the harbor, in Tampa Bay, is a roadstead 
where the entire naval and transport fleet of the 
United States could ride safely at anchor in the 
fiercest hurricane, thereby adding another valuable 
argument for Port Tampa as a naval as well as an 
army base. 

"It is a well-known fact to mariners who are 
familiar with West Indian and Gulf navigation, that 
after July 15th, it is necessary to keep an eye to wind- 
ward for hurricanes up to the middle of September ; 
then more or less heavy weather occurs until the 
middle of March. And here comes in another great 
advantage in favor of Port Tampa as against all other 
ports in the United States as regards safety from the 
elements. With the present able weather bureau, 
and its complete arrangements for signaling the con- 
ditions of the weather from all important points, 
there is not the slightest danger of encountering a 
hurricane between Port Tampa and Cuba. The 
weather reports available make it not only easy to 



Henry Bradley Plant 303 

avoid them through reliable information of their 
coming, but enables the mariner to prepare for them 
in the harbor of Port Tampa or Key West if there 
is n't time to reach Cuba. If the government is wise 
it will ship no more troops to Cuba or Porto Rico 
this season from north or south of Hatteras, as there 
is no need of subjecting them to the risk of hurri- 
canes. Our soldier boys should have as short and 
comfortable a sea voyage as possible, and that is only 
obtainable in first-class shape from Port Tampa, 
following down the west coast of Florida, always 
under the lee of the land in case of an eastern gsJe 
or hurricane." 

The caution contained in the above against storms, 
and the desire for a safe and comfortable passage for 
our soldier boys, will find a tender response in many 
hearts for him who facilitated the embarkation of 
the brave men going from their native land to fight 
a foreign foe. 

TESTIMONIAL AOOOMPAimNO A SILVER 8EBVI0E PRE- 
BENTED BY THE OFFICERS AND EMPLOTEBB OF THE 
SOUTHERN EXPRESS COMPANY TO MR. AND MRS. H. B. 
PLANT ON THE CELEBRATION OF THEIR TWENTY- 
FIFTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. 

" New York, July 2d, 1898. 

" To Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Plant. 

" ThefoUowmg officers cmd employees of the Southr 
em Mispress Company ask that you accept this 



304 The Life of 

^8ER VICE'^ OB an evidence of the affectionate re- 
gard in which tiiey hold thei/r honored President a/nd 
his Wife. 

'' It has appea/red to them that v/pon a day com- 
memorative of the ceremony which twenty fhe years 
ago untied in affection yov/r lives, they shovid give 
some enduring eospression of the esteem in which they 
hold you both. 

" TTiey graiefuO/y recognize the wise directdon, the 
patient forheara/nce amd thefriendh/ cownsel of their 
President, which has done so much to guide amd aid 
them in their respective spheres of dtUy, and they are 
equaXln/ sensible of the fact that under advancing years, 
and multiplicity of duties, only the ceaseless care and 
affectionate heed of a devoted Wife has made this 
possible. 

" 27iey beg that you €ux>ept the testimonial in the 
spirit which has prompted it, and with the assurance 
that to your ' wedded love ^ is indissolubly linked their 
respect, admiration and affection. 

" H. Dempsey, J. Cronin, N. S. Woodward, W. X 
Crosswell, C. A. Pardue, Mark J. O'Brien, W. A. 
Dewees, W. W. Allen, F. G. du Bignon, W. A. 
Blankenship, A. M. Richardson, H. E. Williamson^ 
L. H. Black, J. L. S. Albright, L. Spaulding, A. 
Montgomery, J. B. Hockaday, G. C. Crom, F. de C. 
Sullivan, W. Buckner, W. E. McGill, G. A. Wilkin- 
son, S. C. Hargis, G. W. Bacot, G. Sadler, C. C. 



Henry Bradley Plant 305 

Wolfe, P. B. Wilkes, W. J. Brown, F. R Osborne, 
O. M. Sadler, C. T. Campbell, V. Spalding, H. C. 
Fisher, M. P. Plant, F. J. Virgin, C. Pink, C. L. 
Loop, W. C. Agee, F. Q. Brown, J. C. Stuart, L. 
Minor, R. B. Smith, W. B. Menzies, John Lovette, 
E. J. Loughman, J. T. James, W. H. Hendee, S. R. 
Golibart, E. M. Williams, J. C. Barry, W. R. Twy- 
man, E. C. Spence, L. Kuder, C. R Smith, J. B. 
Gartrell, M. Culliny, A. Welsh, G. W. Agee, C. L. 
Myers, W. K. Haile, W. A. Mehegan, R. G. Erwin, 
C. H. Albright, W. M. Shoemaker, H. C. Menden- 
hall, G. H. Tilley, A. McD. Mailings, J. W. Gaines, 
T. W. Leary, C. G. McCormick, W. W. Hulbert, K. 
C. Barrett, M. F. Loughman, E. F. Gary, J. J. Cross- 
well, E. J. Michelin, T. T. Weltch, Thomas Grier, 
R A. Buckner, H. M. Smith, M. J. O'Brien, W, S. 
McFarland, E. G. Williams.'^ 

MB. AOT> MRS. plant's ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF TE8TI- 

MONLAli AND SERVICE. 

" Nkw York, July 2nd, 18W. 

" Esteemed Friends and Associates : 

" Twenty-f/ve years agOy this secxmd day of Jvhfj 
was a very lia/ppy one for us^ andj to-day^ on owr 
Silver Anniversary ^ we a/re most pleasa/rvH/y reminded 
of theoccasion hy the wneaypected receipt of a handsome 
token indicative of the affection in which we are held 
hy those whOy during the la>st quarter of a ceni/wry^ 



806 Henry Bradley Plant 

Tiave 8urr(ymided vs as friends as weU as btistness 
associates. 

^^ Ths serUimerUs embodied in the testimonial ac- 
oompanying the very hea/uiiful ' Service ^ are highly 
appreciated and accepted by vs as an evidence of the 
sincere fediTigspromptmg yov/r thoughifvl recollection 
of this memorable milestone in our lives. 

" In returning our deep graiitvdefor your rememr 
brance and hind eapressionSj we indulge the hope thai 
we vriU have ma/ny yea/rs together to enjoy the gift 
which your generosity has provided^ amd thai while 
life lasts we may have the friendship of those whose 
acts i/n the past amd present home brought them so near 
to us. 

" Very sincerely ^ 

" Henby B. Plaitt, 
" Margabet J. Plant." 



PLANT GENEALOGY 

paBPARBD Br 
G. S. DICKERMAN 

THE PLANTS IN GENERAL 

THERE are many families of the Plant name. This will be 
seen on looking into city directories and running the eye 
over lists there given. Accounts show that these families have 
come from several progenitors who arrived in this country at 
different times. 

Attention is paid here more particularly to the descendants 
of John Plant, of Branford, Conuecticut. But it may be of 
interest to glance at certain other families. 

The Plants of St. Louis, Missouri, have occupied an honor* 
able place in the history of that city during the last fifty years. 
One of their number* tells of having traced their ancestry 
back some three hundred years to the County Palatine, of 
Chester, in England, where, about 1600, were two brothers, 
Samuel Plant and John Plant. From the latter of these they 
are descended in the following line : John,' Thomas,' George,' 
Samuel,* who married Ann Haigh and lived in Macclesfield, 

* Mr. Alfred Flut, of W«b»ter Grore, HiHonri, in s l«tt«r of Decembw 
II, 1897. 



308 Plant Genealogy 

England, Samuel/ who came to Boston, Massachusetts, be- 
tween 1790 and 1800, and married there Mary D. Poignaud, 
a Boston lady of Huguenot ancestry. 

This Samuel * Plant was sent out by his uncle, Mr. Haigh, a 
manufacturer of woollen cloths at Leeds, to sell his goods, 
which he did, with his headquarters at Boston, though he 
travelled extensively, going once as far as Charleston, South 
Carolina. Some years later he brought over from England 
plans for cotton machinery and built, in 1808-9, the first cot- 
ton factory in Worcester County, Massachusetts, at Clinton. 

He was the father of six sons and six daughters. The sons 
were George P.,* Frederick William,* Samuel,* Alfred,* Wil- 
liam M.,* and Henry,* who all removed to St. Louis, and have 
been identified with the enterprise and development of that 
city since 1840. Of these sons Mr. Alfred * Plant is the only 
survivor. 

Another family has a representative * in Chicago, who writes 
that his branch came from Ireland to Massachusetts early in 
this century. His father's name was Thomas Plant and he 
had an uncle Robert, who also settled in Massachusetts. 

Again the name appears in the annals of Newbury, New 
Hampshire, where the Rev. Matthias Plant was rector of 
Queen Anne's Chapel from April, 1722, till his death on De- 
cember 23, 175 1, a period of twenty-nine years.f Previous to 
his time the church had been weak, but under his ministry its 
position became secure. St. Paul's Church was built in an- 
other part of the town from Queen Anne's, and he officiated 
there also. His wife was the youngest daughter of Samuel 
Bartlett, of Newbury. No further knowledge of this family 
has been obtained. 

The name occurs twice in lists of persons embarking from 

* Mr. George D. Plant, Principal of the Seward School in Chicago, 
f New Eng. Hist, and Gtn. Reg,, April 1886. 



Plant Genealogy 809 

England in early times to settle in the colonies.* In one list 
William Plant is reported to have died on a plantation in Vir- 
ginia in 1624. In another Matthew Plant, who was then 
twenty-three years old, was enrolled to sail on the Assurance 
from Gravesend for Virginia, July 24, 1635. Under the term 
*' Virginia," in those times, were included the New England 
colonies as well as those in the South, so that it is quite sup- 
posable that Matthew Plant may have settled in New England. 

THE PLANT FAMILY 

OF BRANFORD, CONNECTICUT. 

John ' Plant, the progenitor of this family, was a soldier in 
the Narragansett war. The Connecticut General Assembly, 
in October, 1696, bestowed on the " English Volunteers " in 
this struggle a tract of territory six miles square, to be divided 
among them, which was located in New London County, and 
has since borne the name of Voluntown. In the list of those 
receiving these grants John ' Plant was numbered 59 in the 
drawing of ** Cedar Swamp Lots." f 

The Narragansett war ended in 1676. Soon after this the 
name of John ' Plant appears on the records of the town of 
Branford, January 21, 1677, when a lot of two acres was 
granted to him on condition that he should build upon it 
within three years. It seems unlikely that l^e was at Branford 
much before this date, for the reason that his name is not in 
the lists of residents enrolled in January, 1676. Nor do we 
find any others of the Plant name previous to this date. Sub- 
sequently his name occurs a number of times in connection 
with grants of land.^ 

♦ Lists of Emigrants^ by J. C. Hotten. 

f Soldiers in King Philifs War^ by George M. Bodge, page 443. 

X His name appears, November 6, 1677, as a witness on the record of a 



11 



[ ! 



; I 
1 



810 Plant Genealogy 

He died about 1 691, as evidenced by the inventory of his 
estate taken June 4, 1691. The valuation of his property 
was ^^130 Ss. gd. 

The indications concerning his family are not altogether 
clear.* He had a son John/ concerning whom accounts are 
somewhat full. There was a Martha Plant enrolled among 
the members of the church in 1704. She may have been his 
daughter. There was also an Elizabeth Plant,t who may have 
been another daughter. 

payment. On February so, 1683, he was given six acres on Mnlliner's HOI, 
below the road, on condition of his improying it within two years. On 
February 4, 1688, he was given six acres more '* on the way hill," that is, 
half way to the iron works at the outlet of the lake. He was sworn in as a 
ireeman at Branford, April 8, 1690. His lot was laid out below the path, 
bounded on the west comer by a great white-oak-tree, on the north comer 
by a small walnut-, on the east by a black-oak-, and by a walnut-tree at the 
south. 

The original home of the Plants seems to have been near Geozge Plant's 
present residence. The old Plant house was once used as a hotel and again 
as a store. A tornado once tore down a fine orchard behind the house, and 
overthrew a cider mill near it. John * Plant, Jr., sold the part of Mulliner's 
Hill, which had formerly belonged to Thomas Goodsell, to Deacon John 
Rose, July 13, 1713, and bought of John Goodsell, in 1797, three acres at 
Mulliner's Neck. 

* Orcutt's History oj Stratford says that John Plant's wife was Betty 
Roundkettle, and that he was probably of the Saltonstall company, but the 
authority is not stated. 

f Elizabeth Plant married, July 23, 1719, John Coach, also of Branford, 
who died about 1728, as evidenced by the Probate Records. She was ap- 
pointed administrator, June 14, 1728. The inventory exhibited June 26th 
following gives the valuation of his property at £\i% 141. 4^/. The chil- 
dren are named, Sarah, about twelve years of age, James, ten, Elizabeth, 
eight, Mary, five, John, three. 

Sarah Coach married, September 90, 1738, Eleazer Stent. 

Elizabeth Coach married, March 9, 1736, Jacob Carter. 



Plant Genealogy 



311 



CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN 
OF JOHN » AND HANNAH (WHEDON) PLANT. 



John Plant, Jr. 

baptbed March 3, 1678 

died Febmary xo, tjst 

nuuried 

Hammam Wmxdon 

dkd Not. 5, 1754, aged 69 



Hannah Plant 
bom July^xd, 1708 
mamed 
Absamam Whbdow 



Torn Plant 
born September 19, 1711 

loNATHAN Plant 
Dom July 99, X714 



Jamss Plant 

bom Norember 4, 17x6 

died Febmarr 7, tjgs 

' September aa, 1740 

Batbskbba Pack 



Elbabith Plant 

bom Anguat x, X790 

married SefMraiber ax, 1748 

Josiah Paxusb 



Timothy Plant 

bom ADfil 6, 1734 

married February xa, 1745 

Lucy Paxusb 



Absaham Plant 

bapdaed September aa, tfwj 

married (x) 

Hannah Hoaolby 

married (a) 

Tamar FxxisBiB 



BBNf AMOt Plant 

bom X73a 

died Auguat xx. x8o8 

married (i) 

LOBANA BBCKwrrR 

married (a) 

Abigail Palmbb 

married (3) 

Lois Fbisbib 



'' Reuben Wbedon 
William Wbedon 
Noah Wbedon 
Hannah Whedon 
Martha Whedon 
Submit Whedon 
Sarah Whedon 
D^orah Whedon 



Sotomoa Plant 
Jamea Plant 
Samuel Plant 
Stephen Plant 
Lou Plant 
Ebe n e i er Plant 
Sarah Plant 
Moaca Plant 



Joalah Parriih 
Elisabeth Parrish 
SibUParrith 
Hannah Parrish 
Mary Parrish 
John Parrish 



Loqr Plane 
Hannah Plant 
Timothy Plant 
JoelPlaiat 
Ithial Plant 



Eli Plant 
Electa Plant 
Lvdia Plant 
Abraham Plant 
Anne Plant 
Hannah Plant 
Eliaabeth Plant 
Rebecca Plant 
Jason Plant 



Hannah Plant 
John Plant 
Beniamim Plant 
AndefBon Plant 
Lo r ana Plant 
Peggy Plant 
Samuel Plant 
BUaa Plant 



I 



11 

I 



' 



812 Plant Genealogy 

JOHN • PLANT, JR.— HANNAH WHEDON. 



John ' Plant, Jr., son of John ^ Plant, was baptized at Bran- 
%! ford, March 3, 1678 ; died February 10, 1752, aged seventy- 

four ; married Hannah Whedon, a daughter of Thomas and 
Hannah (Barnes) Whedon, who was bom in 1686 ; died 
November 5, 1754, aged sixty-nine.* 
Their children were bom in Branford, and were as follows : 



* Thomas Whedon, the grandfather of Hannah Whedon, came to New 
Haven with John Meigs, who, in 164B, bought the lot on the comer of 
Chapel and Church Streets, where the Cutler building now stands. Befoce 
leaving England Thomas Whedon had been bound to Meigs as an apprentice 
to learn his art of tanner. He took the oath of fidelity in 1657 ; married. 
May 24, 1651, Ann Hairey, at New Haven ; moved to Branford, and his 
name appears on the lists of proprietors, January 17, 1676, as having five 
children, and an estate valued Mt£qlb ; he died in 1691, leaving a wife and 
five children. Their son, Thomas Whedon, Jr., was bom May 31, 1663, 
at New Haven, and died in 1692 ; his wife, Hakinah Barnes, was the eldest 
daughter of John and Mercy (Betts) Barnes, and was bom December 23, 
X670. 

John* Plant became a member of the church at Branford, September 
j 2, 1 7 16, and Hannah Plant, September 21, 1729. His will is in the Probate 

Records at Guilford, Connecticut, dated Febroary 29, 1752, proved July 7^ 
1752. It names his wife, Hannah Plant, who was appointed administratrix, 
daughters Hannah Whedon and Elizabeth Plant, and sons John, Jonathan, 
James, Timothy, and Abraham. The inventory of the estate places the 
valuation at j£^ioo7 6j. i)(d. whereof £Sgi 8j. nX^* '''^^ real estate, of 
which one hundred acres of land was in Litchfield. In the distribution, 
which was made December 19, 1752, Elizabeth is called the wife of Josiah 
Parrish. 

The will of Hannah Plant is also to be seen at Guilford, dated Novem- 
ber 31, 1752, proved December 18, 1753, presented by John Plant, execo- 
tor. It names sons John, Jonathan, James, Timothy, Abraham, and 
Benjamin, and daughters Hannah Whedon and Elizabeth Parrish. The 
distribution occurred February 18, 1754, when Hannah was called the wife 
of Abraham Whedon, and Elizabeth the wife of Josiah Parrish. 

Benjamin's name occurs in his mother's will, but is omitted in his 
father's. 



Plant Genealogy 313 

I. Hannah' Plant, bom July i6, 1708; baptized August 7, 

17x5 ; married Abraham Whedon, who died about 1762.* 

II. John* Plant, bom September 19, 17x1 ; baptized August 

7, 1715 ; died about 1788. f 

III. Jonathan' Plant, born July 29, 17x4; baptized August 
7, 17 15 ; living in Branford May 29, 1753, as shown by 
the " ear mark " for his cattle entered on the records, May 
29, X753 ; died before October 7, 1772. J 

rV. James' Plant, born November 4, 1716 ; baptized Novem- 
ber 18, 1716 ; died February 7, 1795 ; married, September 
32, 1740, Bathsheba Page, daughter of Samuel and Mind- 
well Page, of Branford ; bom January 25, 17 15-16 ; 
died, at Stratford, January 5, 1803. Account continued on 

* His will, dated December 22, 1761, proved September 7, 1762, names 
wife Hamiah Whedon, sons Reaben, William, and Noah, daughters 
Hannah, Martha, Submit, Sarah, and *' yoongest daughter Deborah, that 
still lives with me." William and Noah were minors, and chose their mother 
guardian. 

Reuben Whedon's will, signed March 20, 1806, proved September 23, 
1806, names wife Rachel, son Abraham, of Bolton, grandson Daniel, son of 
Abraham. The court appoints Captain William Whedon one of two com- 
missioners to divide the estate. 

William Whedon's will, dated February 6, 1821, names daughter Polly 
Page, son Captain Ozias Whedon, grandsons William N., Charles R., and 
Amasiah H., also five grandchildren, John, Catharine, Andrew, Noah, and 
George, children of son Edward Whedon. 

Guardian's records of Amos Seward, January 20, 1822, and June 14, 
1824, name Charles R. Whedon, minor son of Captain Noah Whedon, of 
New Haven, and grandson of Captain William Whedon, with his brother 
William N. Whedon, and Lucretia, the widow of Captain Noah Whedon« 

t His will, signed at Branford, March 4, 1755, proved March 25, 1788, 
names his brother Benjamin executor and sole legatee. 

X The deed of Timothy* Plant to his son Timothy^ (page 313) names 
*' heirs of Samuel Baker, deceased, assignee of my late brother Jonathan 
Plant, deceased." 



814 Plant Genealogy 

V. Elizabeth* Plant, bom August z, 1720 ; baptized August, 

1720 ; married, September 21, 1748, Josiah Parrishy son 
of John and Hannah Parrish, of Branford.* 

z. Jonah ^ Parrish, horn April 6, 1749 ; married, December 25, 1770, 

Thankful Plant, perhaps the widow of Samuel Plant. 
9. Elizabeth* Parrish, bom August 3, 175Z. 

3. Sibil* Parrish, bom March 28, 1753. 

4. Hannah* Parrish, bom July 11, Z756. 

5. Mary* Parrish, bom June 7, 1759. 

6. John* Parrish, bom May 16, 1762. 

VI. Timothy' Plant, bom April 6, 1724; baptized May 17, 
1724 ; married, at Branford, Lucy Parrish. Account con- 
tinued on pagegjj, 

VII. Abraham' Plant, baptized September 23, 1727 ; married 
(i). May (or March) 9, 1751, Hannah* Hoadley, daughter 
of John' and Lydia (Rogers) Hoadley (John*, William'); 
bom May 8, 1733 ; died April 4, 1755 5 married (2), Jan- 
uary 13, Z763, Tamar Frisbie ; bom about 1740; died 
17939 ^gc^ 53* Children by second marriage, and bom 
at Branford. 

z. Eli * Plant, bom August 4. 1763 ; married, July 8, Z787, Sardi Stent. 

2. Electa* Plant, bom September 27, 1765. 

3. Lydia* Plant, bom December ao, Z767 ; b^>ticed, with the 

younger children. May 2, 1784. 

4. Abraham* Plant, bom August 3 or 4, 1770. 

5. Anne* Plant, bom August 3 or 4, Z770, twin with Abraham* 

6. Hannah* Plant, bom March 14, 1773. 

7. Elizabeth* Plant, bom October 12, 1775. 

8. Rebecca* Plant, bom March 7, 1777. 

9. Jason* Plant, bora August 11, Z78a. 

* The will of John Parrish, the father of Josiah and also of Lucy Parrish, 
the wife of Timothy* Plant, dated April 5, Z748, proved April Z4, Z748, 
names wife Hannah Parrish, son Josiah, two younger sons, Gideon and 
Joel, and three daughters, Hannah, Luda, and Abigail. In the inyentory 
his estate was valued at £^11 lox. &/. 



Plant Genealogy 816 

VIII. Benjamin' Plant, bom about 1732; died August zi, 
1808, aged 76 ; married (i), April 5, 1758, Lorana Beck- 
withy of Lyme ; bom about 1736 ; died March 16, 1789, 
aged S3; married (2), June 17, i7SK>f Abigail Palmer; 
married (3), December 6, 1797, Lois Frisbie. Account 
conHtmed an pc^e jj8. 

AuiMoritus, — New HftTen and Branford Town and Church Records ; 
Probate Records at New Haven, Branford, and Guilford ; Atwater's History 
0fNrm Haven Colony; Orcotf i History of Stratford. 



JAMES* PLANT— BATHSHEBA PAGE. 

James' Plant, son of John' and Hannah (Whedon) Plant 
(John'); bom November 4, 17 16; baptized November z8, 
Z716, at Branford ; died there February 7, 1795 » married, 
September 32, 1740, Bathsheba Page, daughter of Samuel 
and Mindwell Page, of Branford ; bom January 35, 17x5-16 ; 
died January 5, 1803, at Stratford, Connecticut. See page 313, 
He had a farm near the head of Lake Saltonstall and raised 
a family, most of whom left Branford. He was drowned while 
crossing the lake on the ice, and his farm was sold by John 
and Samuel Plant to George Townsend, of East Haven. His 
widow seems to have passed the closing years of her life with 
their oldest son in the home he had made at Stratford. 
L Solomon* Plant, bom May x, X741 ; died May 20, x833 ; 
married (x), November x6, 1769, Sarah Bennett, of Strat- 
ford, who died September X5, x8x5 ; married (2), No- 
vember 19, x8i6, Mrs. Esther (Frost) Botsford. Account 
continued on page 320. 
II. James* Plant, bom September xo, X742 ; living at South- 
ington, Connecticut, as late as June X5, 18x3, when he 
deeded land to his son Ebenezer ' ; married, January 9, 
1773, at New Haven, Lucy Judd, daughter of Joseph and 



316 Plant Genealogy 

Ruth (Thompson) Judd, of that place. Account continued 
on fage J2I, 

III. SamueP Plant, baptized February xo, 1745; married, 
July 2, 1769, Thankful Towner, of Branford. He was lost 
at sea. 

IV. Stephen* Plant, baptized March 8, 1747; died before 
February 3, x8o8, when his estate was admitted to probate 
in Litchfield, Connecticut, and his widow was appointed 
administratrix. Account continued on page 322. 

V. Lois* Plant, baptized April 2, 1749 ; died April 21, 1833, 

aged 84, at South Hill, Onondaga County, New York ; 
married Obed Fellows, of Canaan, Connecticut Their 
son, Ephraim * Fellows, was the father of Lucy ' Fellows, 
who became the wife of William Agur ' Plant Seepage 
328, 

VI. Ebenezer* Plant, bom October 26, 1751 ; baptized De- 
cember 15, 175 1 ; died April or May, 1796; married, 
August 17, 1774, Esther' Bassett, daughter of Lieutenant 
John* and Naomi (Wooster) Bassett (Samuel,* Robert," 
Robert," John '), residence, Derby, Connecticut* 

Captain Samuel * Plant, his son, died at Norfolk, Virginia, 
in 18x5. His wife was Dorothy ' Gorham, daughter of Isaac* 
and Sarah (Atwater) Gorham (John,* Isaac,* Jabez,* John,* 
Ralph," James *), bom February 22, 1775 ; died August 4, 
1832, aged 57. Their daughter, Sarah Atwater* Plant (bom 
December 4, 1800, died June 16, 1880), married Nathaniel 
Jocelyn, of New Haven (bom January 31, 1796, died January 
18, 1881). 

* On December 25, 1780, he was appointed by the town of Derby to col- 
lect the assessments to raise recruits for the Continental army. 

His will, dated April I, 1796, proved July 3, 1796, names widow Esther 
Plant, two sons, Samuel and David, daughters Lucy, Polly, and Sally. The 
estate was appraised at ;f3i3 4r. lid, and includes seventy acres of land 
with a house and bam, in the parish of Great Hills. 



Plant Genealogy 317 

VII. Sarah* Plant, bom May 6, 1754 ; baptized June 9, 1754. 

VIII. Moses* Plant, bom March 17, 1760 ; supposed to have 
settled at Niagara, New York, and died there. He was 
in the Revolutionary War, Sixth regiment, Connecticut 
line, Captain James Prentice, of New Haven ; enlisted, 
April 20, 1777, for eight months ; discharged, January i, 
1778 ; also enlisted, February 21, 1778, in the regiment of 
Artificers, from Branford, for three years. 

AuikcriHes, — New Hayen, Bninford, Guilford, Litchfield, and Sonth- 
ington Town and Probate Records ; Branford Church Records ; Orcutt'i 
History of Stratford; Orcutt's History of Derby; The Tuttle Family; 
gravestones in Grove Street Cemetery at New Hayen; private records 
of Hon. Livingston W. Cleaveland, of New Haven, a grandson of Mr. and 
Mrs. Nathaniel Joceljm. 

TIMOTHY' PLANT— LUCY PARRISH. 

Timothy ' Plant, son of John ' and Hannah (Whedon) Plant 
(John*), bom April 6, 1724, at Branford; baptized May 17, 
1724 ; married Lucy Parrish, daughter of John and Hannah 
Parrish of that place. See page j 14. 

I. Lucy* Plant, bom May 27, 1745 ; died February 26, 1825, 

aged 80, at Saybrook, now Westbrook, Connecticut ; 
married, December 24, 1764, Daniel Dee, son of William 
Dee, of Saybrook ; bora about 1739 ; died August 23, 1823, 
aged 84. Their gravestone is in the old cemetery at 
Westbrook. 

II. Hannah* Plant, bom March 15, 1747 ; married, at Say- 

brook, Jared Baldwin, son of Jerjah Baldwin, of Milford, 
where they afterward lived and are mentioned in the 
records, November 30, 1819, as occupying their house 
with their daughter, Hannah Basset t See The Baldwin 
Genealogy. 

III. Timothy* Plant, bora July 4, 1750 ; married, 1770, Mary 



318 Plant Genealogy 

Ann Colberth, who died about 1788, residence, Litchfield, 
Connecticut. Account canHnued on page J2j. 

rV. JoeP Plant, bom March 25, 1753. He is supposed to 
have died young. 

V. IthieP Plant, bom in 1755 ; married, November 20, 1783, 
at Saybrook, Connecticut, Hannah Denison, daughter of 
George and Jemima (Post) Denison of that place ; bom 
October 25, 1758.* 

Autkoritiis.^'Town and Probate Records at Deep RiTer; gravestone at 
Westbrook ; Early Connecticut Marriages, by F. W. Bailey ; The Bald^ 
win Genealcgy ; Record of Connecticut Men in the War of the RevohtHon^ 
United States Pension Records as given by Commissioner Evans. 

BENJAMIN • PLANT— LORANA BECKWITH. 

Benjamin' Plant, son of John' and Hannah (Whedon) 
Plant (John *), bom, about 1732, at Branford ; died August 11, 
1808, aged 76 ; married (i), April 5, 1758 (by Rev. Philemon 

* Ethan Plant, of Saybrook, is recorded as in the Revolutionary army, 
from May 8, i775« to December 18, of the same year. 

Ethel Plant is also enrolled as enlisting at New London, May 24, 1778, 
in the Third troop of light dragoons, and b described as '* a cooper, statnre, 
5 feet 8^ inches, complexion light, eyes light, hair dark." 

On June 5, 1813, Ethel Plant made application for a pension, being at 
that time 63 years of age, and a resident of Delhi, New York. The pension 
was allowed for six years* actual service in the Connecticut troops in the 
Revolutionary War. 

The town clerk of Delhi writes, January a6, 1898, that no traces of such 
a person are now to be found there. 

His marriage was by the name of Ethiel Plant The various spellings 
were no doubt due to the unusualness of the name. 

The home of this family seems to have passed from Branford to Saybrook 
soon after the marriage of the elder daughter, devolving on her the care of 
her younger sister and brothers. In a similar way, after the marriage of 
Hannah Plant to Mr. Baldwin, her home in Milford may have become a 
place of frequent resort for her brothers. This would account in a measure 
for the marriage of Timothy to a person who seems to have been of a 
Milford family, probably that of Humphrey and Margaret Colebreath. 



Plant Genealogy 319 

Robbins), Lorana Beckwith, of Lyme, Connecticut ; bom 
about 1736 ; died March i6, 1789, aged 53 ; married (2), June 
17, 1790, Abigail Palmer; married (3), December 6, 1797, 
Lois Frisbie. He lived in Branford and his children were 
bom there. See page jj^, 
L Hannah* Plant, bom January 26, 1759 ; baptized April 25, 

1759 ; married, June 30, 1779, John Russell. 
IL John * Plant, bom December i, 1761 ; baptized January 17, 
1762 ; removed to Seneca Lake, New York ; was twice 
married but left no children. 
in. Benjamin* Plant, bom October i, 1763; died 1812 ; 
married, 1787, Lucinda Potter, daughter of Captain Ste- 
phen and Sarah (Lindley) Potter ; bom April 4, 1767, at 
Branford ; died June 26, 1848. They removed to Utica, 
New York, about 1795. 

X. Sally* Plant, bom 1790 ; died 1808. 

a. Stephen* Plant, died 1793. 

3. Benjamin* Plant, born April 28, 1794; died Aogust 7, 1876; 
married, April 7, 1823, Sarah Mason, daughter of Arnold and 
Mercy Mason, 1 798-1879. 

4« James* Plant, bom June 16, 1798 ; died January 5, i860 ; mar- 
ried, Noyember 27, 1833, Hannah A Mason, daughter of Arnold 
and Merqr Mason ; bom 1812. 

5. John* Plant, bom June 16, 1789 ; died young. 

6. Mary Eliza* Plant, bom June 9, 1800; died March i, 1886; 

married, September 9, 1820, Roswell Keeler, son of Timothy 
and Luranay (DeForest) Keeler ; 1 791-1864. 

7. Frederick* Plant, bom April 27, 1810; died January 31, 1884. 

IV. Anderson* Plant, bom November 18, 1765 ; baptized No- 
vember 24, 1765 ; was drowned in the Susquehanna River 
at the age of about 25.* 

^Anderson Plant, of Branford, bought three acres of land in Southington, 
October 3, 1787, and sold the same to Thomas Stow of Middletown, April 
7. I7S8* Witnessed by John FyaskUSouthingtan Land Records, Vol ii., 
pp. 302-321. 



820 Plant Genealogy 

V. Lorana* Plant, baptized August 30, 1767 ; married Henry 

Garret and went to Trenton Falls, New York. Their son 
Orrin Garret was a printer, and one of the early mission- 
aries to the Sandwich Islands. 

VI. Peggy * Plant, bom May 26, 1769 ; baptized June 4, 1769 ; 
married, March 23, 1793, Jonathan Frisbie. 

VII. Samuel* Plant, bom April i, 1772 ; baptized April 12, 
1772 ; died July 29, 1862, aged 90 ; married, Febmary 
IX, 1795, Sarah Frisbie ; bom May 15, 1774 ; died August 
25, 1 841, aged 67. Account continued on page J 24. 

VIII. Elias* Plant, baptized August 7, 1774; married {i\ 
March 31, 1799, Ruhama Hall, daughter of Elias and 
Ruhama Hall, and widow of Thomas Trowbridge ; bom 
January 16, 1776 ; married (2), November 10, 1843, Lydia 
Linsley. Account continued on page J2j. 

Authcriius, — Town, Chnrcb, and Probate Records at Branfoid and 
Guilford ; History and Geneaicgy of ih* Potter Family^ Part V., p. 6. 

SOLOMON* PLANT— SARAH BENNETT. 

Solomon * Plant, son of James ' and Bathsheba (Page) Plant 
(John,* John'), bom, May i, 1741, at Branford ; died. May 
20, 1822, at Stratford ; married (i), November 16, 1769, Sarah 
Bennett, of Stratford, who died September 15, 1815 ; married 
(2), November 19, 1816, Mrs. Esther (Frost) Botsford.* See 

I. Hannah* Plant, bom October 25, 1770 ; married, October 

7, 1787, Asa Benjamin ; born December 2, 1763. 

II. Sarah* Plant, born January 5, 1775 ; died August 14, 

^ He was a soldier in the French and Indian War, enlisted at the age of 
19, April lOf 1760, under Captain Jonathan Baker, in Suffolk County, 
**from Brandford, New England, wheelwright.*' He served in Captain 
David Mulford's company. On returning from the war he settled in Strat- 
ford, where his children were bom. 



Plant Genealogy 321 

1857 ; married, September xo, 1797, Daniel Judson ; bom 
November 24, 1763 ; died October 4, 1847. 
III. Cata* Plant, bom December 30, 1777 ; died January 16, 

1778. 
rv. David* Plant, bom March 29, 1783; died October 18, 

1851; married, December 5, x8io, Catharine' Tomlin- 

son ; bom October 9, 1787 ; died June 2, 1835. Account 

continued on page 32 j, 

Au/AorituM.—KoUsoi Soldienin the State of New York ; Orcatt's History 
^f SiratfortU 

JAMES • PLANT— LUCY JUDD. 

James* Plant, son of James' and Bathsheba (Page) Plant 
(John,* John')» bom September 10, 1742, at Branford ; died 
May 16, 1814 ; married, January 9, 1772, at New Haven, Lucy 
Judd, daughter of Joseph and Ruth (Thompson) Judd ; bom 
1742 ; died August 17, 1822. See page jij. 
L Lucy* Plant, bora May 14, 1773 ; died May, 1863. 
IL Joseph ' Plant, bom March 26, 1775 ; died March 30, 1803. 
IIL Rebekah ' Plant, bom Febmary 6, 1778 ; died September, 

1862. 
rv. James' Plant, bom Febmary 16, 1781 ; died March 23, 
x8o6 ; residence, Harwinton. Litchfield records say that 
he left a wife, Nancy, and an infant daughter, Laura. 

V. Sally' Plant, bom April 14, X784; died May 23, 1874; 

married, February 5, 1803, Zephi Brockett, son of Amos 
and Lucy (Dutton) Brockett. See " The Tuttie Family^* 

VI. Ebenezer' Plant, bom January xo, X787 ; died April 30, 
182 1, at Southington, married, August 29, 1809, Lydia 
Neale, daughter of Jeremiah and Anna (Fuller) Neale, 
of that place ; bom January 29, X788 ; died Febmary 22, 
X 85 7 . Account continued on page j2g. 



822 Plant Genealogy 

VII. Vesta* Plant, bora March 23, 1791 ; died January 30, 
1815. 

AutharitUs. — Town and Probate Records at Branford, Guilford, New 
Hayen, and Soutbington ; gravetones in Quinnipiack Cemetery at Plants- 
▼ille ; Letter of Mr. F. H.** Plant. 



STEPHEN* PLANT— REBECCA 



Stephen * Plant, son of James ' and Bathsheba (Page) Plant 
(John,* John *), baptized March 8, 1747, at Branford ; died 
before Febraary 3, x8o8, when his estate was admitted to 
Probate in Litchfield, Connecticut, and his widow, Rebecca 
Plant, was appointed administratrix.* See page 316. 

I. Naomi * Plant, bora September 2, 1776. 

II. Jerasha* Plant, bora May 17, 1778. 

III. Orpah* Plant, bora July 24, 1780. 
rv. Stephen* Plant, born June 25, 1782. 

V. Ruel* Plant, bora March 21, 1785 ; married (i), Sep- 
tember 18, 1807, Phebe Spinyer ; married (2), October 
30, 1842, Hutsah Williams. Children by the first mar- 
riage, and bora in Litchfield. 

X. Isaac* Plant , bom August 13, 1S08. 

a. Maryan* Plant, bom Febmary 7, 181 x. 

3. Hariot* Plant, bom March 10, 18 14. 

4. Stephen* Plant, bora January 31, 18 17. 

5. Jane * Plant, bom February 4, 1819. 

6. David* Plant, bom January 30, 1821. 

7. Phebe* Plant, bora September i, 1823. 

8. Charlotte* Plant, bom July i, 1826. 

9. Abigail* Plant, bom October, 21, 1828. 

* On May 5, 1770, he, with John Smith, also of Branford, bongfat of 
Joseph Pickett forty acres of land in Litchfield, for which they paid ;f 45. 
Soon after this he removed to Litchfield, and on July X3 following the land 
was divided, and he took the north half. Here he seems to have lived and 
jeared his family. 



Plant Genealogy 323 

VI. Rebecca* Plant, born May 21, 1787. 

VII. Ammi • Plant, bom November 5, 1789 ; married, De- 
cember 7, 1820, Mary Barney, of Litchfield, the service 
being by Rev. Isaac Jones, of St. Michael's Church. 

YIII. Isaac * Plant, bom March 31, 1793. 

TIMOTHY • PLANT— MARY ANN COLBERTH. 

Timothy * Plant, son of Timothy ' and Lucy (Parrish) Plant 
(John,* John'), bom July 4, 1750, at Branford ; died about 
1777 ; married, 1770, Mary Ann Colberth.* See page 3JJ. 
I. Margaret* Plant, bom December 11, 177 1; married a 

Gleason. 
IL Timothy • Plant, bom January 3, 1773 ; died April 7, 1836, 
aged 63 ; married, January 3, 1795, Chloe Dickerman, of 
New Haven. Account continued on page 330, 

^ He remored to Litchfield, Connecticut, about 1772, the occasion for 
which was as follows: On June 26, 1734. his grandfather, John' Plant, 
bought of Josiah Rogers, of Branford, a tract of one hundred acres of land 
in Litchfield on the west side of the Waterbury Riyer. This land renudned 
undiYided at the settlement of John' Plant's estate, and passed in this man- 
ner to his six sons. Of these, Timothy ' Plant sold his share of one sixth to 
his son Timothy,* October 7, 1772, for jfi" 17. A little later, January 13, 
1773* Timothy* Plant, Jr., bought also the share of his uncle James, which 
had been previously sold to David Wooster. Then, May 23, 1774, he 
bought of Asa and Harris Hopkins two thirds of another tract of one hun- 
dred acres. He afterward sold both of these tracts at a considerable advance 
on their cost. But having made his home in Litchfield, the family remained 
there. 

In the Revolutionary War he entered the army, March 2, 1777, in the 
Fifth regiment, Connecticut line, Captain J. A. Wright's company, and 
was reported missing at Germantown, October 4, 1777. Tradition says that 
he was drafted, and that in the battle he was taken prisoner and confined in 
"the old sugar house" at New York, or in "the prison ship," and died 
there, no word having ever come from him to his family. The births of hif 
children are registered in Litchfield, except of the youngest, who most have 
been bom after he went to the war. 



824 Plant Genealogy 

III. Lucy Parrish* Plant, bom November 6, 1774; married a 

Dickinson and went to the West. 
rV. Joel • Plant, bom August 22 (or 24), 1776 ; died 1853, at 

Meridian, New York. Account continued on page jj^» 
V. Avis* Plant, bom 1777; unmarried; resided in Richmond, 

Virginia, for some years and died there. 

AuthyriiUs. — Town and Probate Records at Litchfield; Conmieiiait 
SMUrs in the War of the Revolution ; Family Records and Traditions. 

SAMUEL* PLANT— SARAH FRISBIE. 

Samuel * Plant, son of Benjamin and Lorana (Beckwith) 
Plant, bom April i, 1772 ; baptized April 12, 1772, at Bran- 
ford ; died July 29, 1862, aged 90 ; married, Febmary 11, 
1795, Sarah ' Frisbie, daughter of Joseph * and Sarah (Rogers) 
Frisbie (Joseph,* Joseph," John," Edward'); bom May 15^ 
1774 ; died August 25, 1841, aged 67. They lived at Bran- 
ford. He served as a coastguard in the War of 18x2. Su 

I. Anderson* Plant, bom January 2, 1796; died October 29^ 
1826, aged 30; married, December 23, 1818, Betsey Brad* 
ley, of Branford. Account continued on page 33 j, 

n. Polly* Plant, bom October 16, 1798; died April 20, x8oo. 

III. Sally* Plant, bom September 17, 1801; married Judah 
Frisbie, a merchant in New Haven. 

IV. John * Plant, bom May 19, 1806 ; died May 22, 1881 ; mar- 
ried Angelina Beach, daughter of Asher S. and Statira 
(Baldwin) Beach ; bom October 9, 1807; died January 13^ 
1883. He was a deacon of the church. 

X. Mary E.* Plant, bom October 13, 1826 ; died September X9, 
1879 ; married, Norember 9, 1852, William Norton. 

2. Anderson W.* Plant, bom March 21, 1829 ; died June 22, 1847. 

3. Sarah J.* Plant, bom July 24, 1831 ; died May 30, X846. 



Plant Genealogy 325 

4* Geoige W.* Plant, born Maxch 12, 1833 ; married, October 6, 1857, 
Eliza E. Lane, of New Hayen ; bom November 16, 1832 ; she 
died March 17, 1895. 

5. John B.* Plant, bom May 5, 1836 ; died December 28, 1836. 

6. Angelina B.* Plant, bom December 24, 1838 ; died July 20, 1841. 

7. Angelina B.* Plant, married, October 5, 1858, Henry T. Swift 

8. Emily S.* Plant, bom August 9, 1842 ; died June 11, 1856. 

9. Elizabeth R.* Plant, baptized August 9, 1846 ; married, July 12, 

187 1, Edward A. Anketdle. 
la John A.* Plant, bom April 7, 1848 ; died September 16, 1852. 

V. Mary R.* Plant, born October 9, 1808 ; died October i, 

1825, aged 17. 

VI. Samuel Orin * Plant, bora June 24, 1815 ; married, Febru- 
ary 26, 1839, Mary Ann Blackstone, daughter of Captain 
James Blackstone. 

I. Ellen Blackstone* Plant. 

a. Sarah Frisbie * Plant, married Hon. Lynde Harrison, residence. 
New Hayen. 

AuthariHes, — ^Town and Church Records at Branford ; gravestones at 
Branford ; Family Records ; Baldwin Genealogy; Kokebfs If istory of New 
Haven County, 

ELIAS * PLANT— RUHAMAH HALL. 

Ellas* Plant, son of Benjamin' and Lorana (Beckwith) 
Plant (John," John*), baptized August 7, 1774, at Branford; 
married (i), March 31, 1799, Ruhamah Hall, daughter of Elias 
and Ruhamah Hall,* and widow of Thomas Trowbridge ; born 
January 16, 1776 ; married (2), November 10, 1843, Lydia 

• Elias > Hall was the eldest child of John« and AbigaU (Russell) Hall ; 
(John,' John,* John *). Ruhamah was the only child of his second wife, who 
died at her daughter's birth. He served in the French and Indian War in 
Colonel Whiting's regiment, under Lord Amherst, and was on duty at 
Ticonderoga and Crown Point until 1759. He settled in Cheshire, Con- 
necticut ; removed in 1784 to Pittsford, Vermont, and died October 30, 
i8ai, at the house of his son Elias, at Williston, Vermont. 



326 Plant Genealogy 

Linsley. The children were by the first marriage. See 

I. William* Plant, bom January 4, 1800; baptized with the 

four younger children, September 30, x8io, at Branford ; 
married Polly Beach, daughter of Asher S. and Statira 
(Baldwin) Beach. Children bom at Branford. 

I. Anna Loaisa* Plant, bom Febraary 14, 1832. 
a. Alonzo Austin * Plant, born October 27, 1834 ; married, July a» 
1857, Elizabeth Mary Hough, of New Hayen. 

3. Edwin Ezra* Plant, bom February 6, 1837. 

4. Margaret * Plant. 

5. Lucerne * Plant. 

6. WiUiam* Plant. 

7. Albert £.* Plant married Bessie Upson, of East Hayen, and had 

two children, Albert C. Plant and Mabel M. Plant. 

II. Mary* Plant, bom September 3, 1801. 

III. Thomas* Plant, bom April 14, 1804; died about 1873 ; 
married Sarah Chidsey. His will, dated April 4, 1867^ 
proved June 26, 1873, appoints his brother James execu- 
tor, and bequeaths ail his estate to his sister, Jane Maria* 
Plant ; residence, Guilford. 

rV. Edward* Plant, bom September 8, 1806; married, Sep- 
tember 13, 1 83 1, Harriette Jennette' Street, daughter of 
Elnathan * and Clarissa (Morris) Street (Nicholas,* Elna- 
than,* Samuel,* Samuel,* Nicholas *) ; born July 8, 1807 ; 
died June 14, 1866. 

1. De Forest Edward * Plant, bom June 27, 1832 ; died March 7» 

1875 ; married, June 16, 1857, (by Rev. H. W. Beecher at Ply- 
mouth Church in Brookljrn), Harriet Ely, daughter of C. H. 
Ely, of Hanover, New Jersey. 

2. Harriet Evelina* Plant, bom January 18, X834; died January 13, 

1837. 

3. Marian Albertina* Plant, bom April i, 1839; died November, 

1863 ; married James La Hon. 

4. Ella Alexina* Plant, bora July 29, 1849 ; died 1864. 



Plant Genealogy 327 

Y. Jane* Plant, bom March i, 1808. 

VL James' Plant, baptized April 28, 181 1. 

VII. Harriet ' Plant, baptized May 23, 1813 ; married, Febni- 
ary 28, 1839, James Morris. 

VIII. Julianna' Plant, baptized July 22, 1815 ; married, Au- 
gust 6, 1839, James T. Leete. 

IX. Elias ' Plant, baptized June 27, 181 7 ; married, December 
31, 1848, Delia £. Beach. He died, and she married, 
November 24, 1874, Henry Doolittle. 

I. Jane Frances* Plant, baptized September 3, 1851. 

X. Jane Maria* Plant, baptized July 4, 1819. 

AutkcritUs, — Town and Probate Records ; The Trawbri^ Fawdfy i 
HaUFamify Record; The Street Genealogy, 

DAVID* PLANT— CATHARINE TOMLINSON. 

David * Plant, son of Solomon * and Sarah (Bennett) Plant 
(James,* John," John*), bom March 29, 1783, at Stratford; 
died October 18, 1851 ; married, December 5, 1810, Catharine' 
Tomlinson, daughter of Dr. William Agur ' and Phebe (Lewis) 
Tomlinson (Agur,* Zechariah,* Agur," Henry *) ; bom October 
9, 1787 ; died June 2, 1835.* See page 321. 

* ** He prepared himself for college at the Cheshire Academy, and was 
gradnated at Yale College in 1804, after which he studied law at the Litch- 
field Law School. He was a classmate and friend of John C. Calhoun, 
who was not only with him in college but also studied law at Litchfield. 
In 1 8 19 and 1820 Mr. Plant was Speaker of the Connecticut House of 
RepresentatiTes, and in 182 1 was elected to the Senate, after which he was 
twice re-elected. He was Lieutenant-Governor from 1823 to 1827, and 
from 1827 to 1829 was a member of the United States Congress. In poli- 
tics he was a staunch Whig. Calhoun when Secretary of State offered 
him, for friendship's sake, any position within his gift, but he declined to 
bold office under the dominant party. He was one of the most influential 
men of his day in political circles of the State of Connecticut." 



828 Plant Genealogy 

I. William Agur* Plant, bom November 21, 1811, at Strat- 

ford ; died January 29, 1898, aged 86, at Syracuse, New 
York ; married (x), April 29, 1832, Lucy Fellows, 
daughter of Ephraim Fellows, and granddaughter of 
Obed and Lois (Plant) Fellows ; she died in 1883, after 
a married life of over fifty-one years, and he married (2), 
September 5, 1886, Abbie Healey.* 

II. Catharine Tomlinson' Plant, married John W. Sterling, 

son of David and Deborah (Strong) Sterling, residence, 
Stratford, Connecticut. 

III. Sarah Elizabeth ' Plant, married Lauren Beach, resi- 
dence, Marcellus, New York. 



^ For several years of his early life he was in mercantile business in New 
York City. At the age of twenty he removed to Marcellus, New York, and 
^ng^cd in farming until 1872, when he made his home in Syracuse, where 
he became a prominent member of the Brown Memorial M. £. Church. 

" He was a man of strong character, honorable and upright, with clear 
intellect and much originality, fond of books, and well informed on the 
events transpiring in his country and throughout the world." 

There were six children by his first marriage, two of whom were Charles 
H.^ Plant and Mrs. W. R. Knowles, who died before him. The four others 
are Dr. WiUiam T.'' Plant, Alfred D.'' Plant, and Miss Ailda^ PUnt, of 
Syracuse, and Mrs. I. W. Davey, of Marcellus. 

William Tomlinson ^ Plant, the eldest of these, was graduated from the 
University of Michigan in i860, and began practice as a physician in Ithaca, 
New York. Early in the war he entered the United States Navy as sur- 
geon, and continued till October, 1865, when he resigned, and in 1866 
began the practice of medicine in Syracuse. This he followed till about 
1894, when paralysis compelled him to retire from active life. He has filled 
many positions of honor and responsibility ; has been on the medical staff 
of a large hospital, doing duty there four months in the year ; was one of 
the founders of the Medical College of Syracuse, in which he held the chair 
of Jurisprudence and Pediatrics, and has contributed much to medical 
journals, having been the editor of one such periodical. 

He has one son, John W.^ Plant, who is in the graduating dass of Syra- 
cuse Medical College for 1898. 



Plant Genealogy 329 

IV. Henry * Plant, married Eudocia He was promi- 
nent as a business man in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

V. John David • Plant, died February 29, i860, at St Anthony, 

Minnesota, where he was in business. 

AutkoritUs.^-OtcoXX^ History of Siraiford; Tki Syroiuse Press ; Ijtftim 
of If IS. W. T. Plant, of Synunise. 

EBENEZER^ PLANT— LYDIA NEALE. 

Ebenezer* Plant, son of James* and Lucy (Judd) Plant 
(James,* John," John'), bom January 10, 1787 ; died April 
30, 182 1, at Southington ; married, August 29, 1809, Lydia 
Neale, daughter of Jeremiah and Anna (Fuller) Neale, of that 
place ; bom January 29, 1788 ; died February 22, 1857. See 

I. Harriett* Plant, bom May 29, x8io ; died September 30, 

1816. 

II. Laura Ann* Plant, bom April 20, 1812 ; died January 4, 

1871 ; married, June 28, 1831, Alfred A. Hotchkiss. 
I. Edwin P.^ Hotchkiss, a manufacturer at PlantsviUe. 

III. Amzi Perrin * Plant, bom July 2, 1816 ; died July 24, 
1874; married (i), A. E. Shipman, who died April 3, 
1849 ; married (2), March, 1850, Cornelia Dakin. 

1. Adelia^ Plant, bom June 22, 1843 ; died July i, 1846. 

2. Emily C.^ Plant, bom May 4, 1853 ; died April 18, 1867. 

3. William Perrin' Plant, bom Febmary 8, 1857. 

IV. Ebenezer Howard* Plant, bom Febmary 25, 1821 ; died 
January 12, 1891 ; married, September 28, 1843, Hannah 
K. Ives, daughter of Samuel and Abigail (Moss) Ives ; 

bom January 6, 1823 ; died August 17, 1873. 
I. Frederick Howard^ Plant, bom November 15, 1859. 
Messrs. Amzi Perrin * Plant and Ebenezer Howard * Plant 
engaged in manufactures in the southern part of Southington, 
which developed into large industries, giving employment to 



330 Plant Genealogy 

many people. The village growing up about these establish- 
ments received their name, and is known as Plantsville. 

Authorities. — Soutfamgtoo Town and Probate Records; grayestones in 
Soathington ; TrumbuU's History of Hartford Qmnty, 

TIMOTHY • PLANT— CHLOE DICKERMAN. 

Timothy * Plant, son of Timothy * and Mary Ann (Colberth) 
Plant (Timothy,* John," John'), bom January 3, 1773, *t 
Litchfield, Connecticut ; died April 7, 1836, aged 63, at New 
Haven ; married, January 3, 1795, Chloe' Dickerman, of New 
Haven, daughter of Stephen * and Eunice (Tuttle) Dickerman 
(Isaac,* Abraham,* Thomas') ; bom July 7, 1773 ; died May 
17, 1850 ; residence, Litchfield and New Haven. See page 323, 

I. Mary Ann* Plant, bom Febmary 17, 1796; died 1852; 

married. May 19, 1816, Samuel Westcott, of Providence^ 
Rhode Island, died January 28, 1824. 

I. Susan ^ Westcott. 
a. Mary Ann ^ Westcott. 

3. Henry P.* Westcott, 

4. George ^ Westcott. 

II. Benjamin Dickerman* Plant, bom Febmary 8, 1798; 

married, November 6, 1828, Maria Kaigler, of South 
Carolina ; bom December 27, 1805. He was a book- 
seller in Columbia, South Carolina. 

I. Caroline Elizabeth^ Plant, married Samuel Rumph; residence, 

Marshallville, Georgia. 
a. George Benjamin ^ Plant, married Lsetitia McGehee ; residence, 

MarshaUville. 
3. Emily Maria^ Plant, married William I. Greene ; residence, Fort 

Valley, Georgia. 

III. Susan * Plant, bom September 19, 1800 ; died August 30, 
1801. 



Plant Genealogy 331 

IV. Susan* Plant, bom October 21, 1802 ; died January 20, 
1831 ; married, November 6, 1828, Timothy McCarthy. 

V. Caroline* Plant, bom January 27, 1806; died July 14, 

1879 ; married, February 21, 1830, Fordyce Wrigley, son 
of Edward Wrigley, of England ; bom January 25, 1803 ; 
died October i, 1846 ;' residence, Macon, Georgia. 

1. Benjamin Henry* Wrigley, married, January 12, 1864, Lucy 

Knott. 

2. Jnlia^ Wrigley, married, May 10, 1866, D. H. Peden ; residence. 

Griffin, Georgia. 

3. Lncia^ Wrigley, married, October 31, 1888, A. W. Blake. 

4. William ^ Wrigley, married (i), November, 1866, Annie Mellard ; 

married (2), Ida McPherson. 

VI. Timothy Henry* Plant, bom Febmary i, 1808; died 
January 4, 1871 ; married, August 28, 1834, Sarah Maria 
Peck, of Kensington, Connecticut, bom September 14, 
1814. He and his brother, Increase Cook* Plant, were 
together at Columbia in the store of their older brother, 
and from there went to Augusta, Georgia, and established 
a book business under the firm name of ^'T. H. & I. 
C. Plant." 

I. Angnsta M.^ Plant, residence, Macon, Georgia. 

VII. Ebenezer* Plant, bom April 28, 1810 ; died November 
26, 1876 ; married Adeline Gibbs Nye, of New Bedford, 
Massachusetts. 

1. Ida^ Plant. 

2. Lucy^ Plant. 

3. Annie ^ Plant. 

VIII. A child bom April 8, 1812, died young. 

IX. Increase Cook * Plant, bom Febmary 27, 1814 ; died No- 
vember 16, 1892 ; married (i), July 24, 1838, Charlotte 



ti 



882 Plant Genealogy 

Walker; married (2), October 2, 1843, Elizabeth Marj 
Hazlehurst Account continued on page jjj. 
X« A daughter, twin of Increase Cook * Plant, died young. 

Authorities, — Families of Diekerman Aneestry ; PriTate funilj recordi. 



JOEL* PLANT— MARY JORDAN. 

Joel* Plant, born August 24, 1776, in Connecticut ; died in 
1853, at Meridian, New York ; married, November 27, 1800, at 
Litchfield, Connecticut, Mary Jordan, of Woodstock ; bom 
December 4, 1776 ; died in 1846, at Peru, New York.* See 

L John * Plant, bom June 26, 1801 ; married twice ; a physi- 
cian at Hyde Park, Pennsylvania. 

* A tradition represents him to haTe been the son of Jod^ Plant, the 
brother of Timothy/ but no records confirm this view, while a number of 
points in his story seem to identify him with Joel/ the son of Timothy/ 
bom at Litchfield, according to one entry there, Augast 22, 1776, and ac- 
cording to another, August 24, 1776. The following account is from his 
son, Mr. Lauren Plant, of Cicero, New York, December 25, 1897. 

'* Timothy, the son of John Plant, married Lucy Parrish, settled in New 
Haven, and was in the bookbinding business. Among their children were 
two sons. Timothy, bom July 4, 1750, who subsequently settled in Litch- 
field ; and Joel, bom March 25, 1753, who was a soldier in the Revolu- 
tionary War, and died, or was killed, on Long Island in 1779, leaving a 
wife and two children in New Haven. A daughter, Margaret, afterward 
married Benoni Gleson and went to Vermont. Joel was bom August 24, 
1776 ; his mother died when he was twelve years old, and at the age of four- 
teen he was bound out to work in the bookbindery that his grandfather had 
established long before. Not liking the business, he ran away, at the age 
of seventeen, and went west to the banks of the Susquehanna River, where 
he remained two seasons, returning to his Uncle Tim*s in Litchfield and 
attending school in the winter, where he made the acquaintance of Mary 
Jordan, whom he married. They lived two or three years in Worthington, 
Massachusetts, then moved to Benson, Rutland County, Vermont, and, in 
1837, to Onondaga County, New York.' 



*t 



Plant Genealogy 333 

II. Lorenzo* Plant, bom April 17, 1803 ; died July 2, 1836, 

at Orwell, Vermont ; married (i), October 7, 1829, Louisa 
Hall, who died May 9, 1830, aged 21 ; married (2), 
October 11, 183 1, Harriet M. Cook ; bom December 29, 
1812 ; died March 11, 1888, at Georgia, Vermont. (She 
married (2), Febmary 13, 1844, Noah R. Parker.) 

I. Azro MelTin^ Plant, bom May 25, 1835; married, Norember 99, 
1864, Annie Faiichild, of Milton, Vennont, bom March 37, 
1846. He was Assistant Surgeon, 14th Regiment, Vermont Vol- 
unteers in the war, and served in hospitals at Washington, after 
which he was a dmggist at St. Albans, Vermont. Residence, in 
1898, Milton. 

III. Alanson * Plant, bom March 28, 1805 ; died in 1844 ; 
married Betsey Hiscock, of Onondaga Hill, New York ; 
residence, Kenyonville, New York. 

rV. Althea Mariah* Plant, bom May 7, 1807 ; died June 27, 
1862 ; married William M. Taylor (died December, 1850), 
who had previously married her sister Mary, who died ; 
residence, Dudley, Massachusetts. 

I. Mary P.^ Taylor, bom Angost xi, 1839 ; died July 3, 1843. 
3. William A.^ Taylor, bom about 1841 ; died July ao, 1864. 

3. Martha O.^ Taylor, bom January 15, 1843 ; died August 2, 1848. 

4. MiCry A.^ Taylor, bom NoTember 3. 1844 ; married, October 19, 

1871, Prentice, Norwich, Connecticut. 

5. Helen ^ Taylor, bom July 37, 1846 ; married Henry Holt ; resi- 

dence, Hartford, Connecticut. 

6. Hyram ^ Taylor, bom July 27, 1846 ; died July 33, 1863. 

7. Annie Maria* Taylor, bom November 2, 1847; died July 19, 

X849. 

8. Lorenzo P.'' Taylor, bom December, 1850 ; died March 30, 1851. 

v. Almira * Plant, bom April 30, 1809 ; died December, 1891 ; 

married A. G. Wheeler. 
VL Mary* Plant, bom March 8, 181 1 ; died 1837, at New 

Boston, Connecticut ; married William M. Taylor. 



834 Plant Genealogy 

VII. Lucy* Plant, bom June 26, 1813 ; died 1843, at Peru, 
New York. 

VIII. A. Joel* Plant, bom May 15, 1815 ; died 1872, in Cort- 
land County, New York ; married, 1845, Margaret Phillips, 
of Locke, New York. 

1. Adin* Plant, residence, Bingliamton, New York. 

2. Leona ^ Plant, residence, Binghamton, New York. 

IX. Lauren P.* Plant, bom March 7, 1817, in Rutland 
County, Vermont ; died at Cicero, New York, January 
29, 1898 ; married, February 25, 1836, Mrs. Sarah R. 
Smiley, of that place, who died there December 5, 1877. 
He was a Republican in politics and held the offices, at 
different times, of Town Clerk, Constable, and Deputy 
Sheriff. 

1. Byron * Plant, bom April 29, 1839 1 married, September 25, x86i, 

Minerva Saunders. 

2. Mary Elizabeth^ Plant, bom January 18, 1842, at Sullivan, New 

York ; died February 25, 1891 ; married, April 11, 1867, Job 
Fuller, of Syracuse. 

3. Almira * Plant, bom September 2, 1844, at Cicero ; married, 

October 6, 1886, John S. Botsford, of Clay, New York. 

X. Arunah H.* Plant, bom October 25, 1819 ; died Septem- 

ber 5, 1873 ; married, April 19, 1848, at Maumee, Ohio, 
Mrs. Amelia Lane. In 1866 he wrote to his niece in Ver- 
mont, ** I have not accumulated much of this world's 
goods, but have a pleasant home and am contented." 

1. Mary Sedate^ Plant, bom December 31, 1848 ; married, January, 

1885, J. M. McCann, of Toledo, Ohio. 

2. Helen M.^ Plant, bom September 12, 1850 ; married, September i, 

1880, Elijah Lee Jaquis. 

AutAcritUs, — Letters from members of the family. 



Plant Genealogy 835 

ANDERSON • PLANT— BETSEY BRADLEY. 

Anderson • Plant, son of Samuel * and Sarah (Frisbie) Plant 
(Benjamin,* John,* John *), bom January 2, 1796, at Branford ; 
died there October 29, 1826*; married, December 23, 1818, 
Betsey * Bradley, daughter of Levi * and Lydia (Beach) Brad- 
ley (Timothy,* Daniel,' Isaac,' Francis*), bom August 28, 
1799 ; died January 20, 1886, at New Haven. She married (2), 
Philemon Hoadley, bom March 31, 1797, at Southampton, 
Massachusetts ; died January 28, 1862, at New Haven. Su 

I. Henry Bradley * Plant, bom October 27, 1819 ; married (i), 

September 25, 1843, Ellen E. Blackstone, who died Feb- 
raary 28, 1861 ; married (2), July 2, 1873, Margaret Jose- 
phine Loughman, only daughter of Martin Loughman of 
New York City. Account continued onpcige jjd. 

II. Eliza Ann ' Plant, baptized September 26, 1824, died 
young. 

AuthoriiUs. — Bnnford and Guilford Town and Probate Records ; Tki 
IfcadUy Family, 

INCREASE COOK' PLANT— MARY E. HAZLEHURST. 

Increase Cook * Plant, son of Timothy * and Chloe (Dicker- 
man) Plant (Timothy,* Timothy,' John,* John *), bom Febru- 
ary 27, 1814, at New Haven ; died July 23, 1883, at Macon, 
Georgia ; married (i), July 24, 1838, Charlotte Walker, of 
Leamingston, Vermont, who died March 12, 1839 ; married 
(a), October 2, 1843, Elizabeth Mary* Hazlehurst, daughter 
of Robert* and Elizabeth Pettingale (Wilson) Hazlehurst 

^ Anderson Plant's estate was in probate, Jane 13, 1827. Mr. Samuel 
Plant was chosen and appointed guardian of Henry Bradley Plant, who 
with his mother, Mrs. Betsey Plant, were the only heirs. 



886 Plant Genealogy 

(Robert,* Isaac,' Robert *), bom April 20, 181 9, at Branswick, 
Georgia ; died July 23, 1883, at Macon. 

Beginning business in a bookstore with his brother at 
Augusta, Georgia, he soon entered upon a banking business^ 
which he followed at Columbus and Brunswick, and finally 
at Macon, where his name is held in honor not only as a 
banker but as an influential, public-spirited citizen. See 

I. Mary Hazlehurst* Plant, married, October 6, 1875, Marshall 

de Grafifenried ; residence, Atlanta, Georgia. 

II. Robert Hazlehurst * Plant, bom December 21, 1847 ; mar- 

ried, July 25, 1 87 1, Margaret Redding Ross, daughter of 
John Bennett and Martha (Redding) Ross, of Macon. 
He succeeded his father in the banking business, and has 
engaged in other enterprises, insurance and manufactur- 
ing, which are highly prosperous. 

III. George Henry* Plant, married Minnie Leila Wood ; resi- 
dence, Macon, where he is engaged in banking in the firm 
with his brother. 

rV. Elizabeth Wilson * Plant, married Alonzo D. Schofield ; 
residence, Macon. 

HENRY BRADLEY • PLANT- 1 1^]:11^^]^^^IITk^^ 

Henry Bradley * Plant, son of Anderson • and Betsey (Brad- 
ley) Plant (Samuel,* Benjamin,* John,* John '), bom October 
27, 1819, at Branford ; married (i), September 25, 1843, ^llen 
£.* Blackstone, daughter of Captain James* and Sarah 
(Beach) Blackstone (Timothy,* John,* John,* John,* Rev. W. 
T.*) ; bom February 21, 1821 ; died February 28, 1861 ; married 
(2), July 2, 1873, Margaret Josephine Loughman, only daugh- 
ter of Martin Loughman, of New York City. See page $35- 

I. A boy ; , bom , died June 17, 1846, aged 17 mo., 

4 days. 



Plant Genealogy 337 

II. Morton F/ Plant, born August i8, 1852 ; married Nellie* 
Capron, daughter of Col. F. B.* Capron, of Baltimore, Md. 
They have a son, Henry Bradley * Plant, Jr., bom May 
18, 1895. 

Banfield * Capron, bom in Chester, England, in 1640. In 
1654 he came to America, to Barrington, Mass. ; married a 
lady named Callender, of Rehoboth, Mass. They had twelve 
children, six sons and six daughters. He died August 20, 
1752 ; gravestone in Attleboro. 

Jonathan * Capron, farmer, sixth son, of Attleboro, Mass., 
bom March 11, 1705 ; married Rebecca Morse, who died 
August 29, 1772. (See gravestone, Attleboro.) They had 
eight children. 

Elisha' Capron, third son, married Abigail Makepeace, of 
Norton, Mass., and resided at Attleboro, Mass.; had nine 
children. 

Seth * Capron, first son, bom September 23, 1762 ; married 
Eunice Mann, of Attleboro, Mass., daughter of Jesse Brown, 
of Cumberland, R. I. They had six children. Fought in the 
Revolutionary War ; died at Walden, Orange County, N. Y., 
September 4, 1835. 

Newton Mann * Capron, first son, bom August 24, 1791, at 
Cumberland, R. I. ; married Maria Brown, May 29, 1815 ; 
had two children. 

Francis Brown* Capron, first son, bom May 17, 1816 ; mar- 
ried Olivia Royston at Baltimore, Md., and had three children. 

Nellie ' Capron, first daughter ; married Morton Freeman * 
Plant, June 23, 1887. 




^'f-j 



Aduni Expren Compuiy, oigaaiied 
M«jcb, 1853. >na April, tSs4 ; 
list of thsreholden, ja : in 1S61 
thii company sold and transferred 
iti entire intCKsU in the Sonth to 
H. B. Pknt. 54 

Atlanta Exposition of l8gs, object 
of, IS7 ; Mr. Plant's interest in, 
and exhibit at, said Eipoaition, 
157. 158 ; " Plant Day*' at the 
Exposition; Mr. Plant's seventy- 
eighth birthday ; importance of 
'•Plant Day," 159; Plant System 
described, 160 ; opening up of 
Florida by this System, 161 ; pur- 
chase of railroads ; cilending the 



Systen 



Plant Investment C 



ail- 



is and establishment of steam- 
boat lines, 161-163 i steamship 
line to Canada, 164 ; Exposition 
described by ihe press ; varioni 
newspaper accounts, 331-263 : 
AtUnta Exposition's recognition 
of Mr. Flam's services to the Ex. 
position, 153 ; he is appreciated, 
feasted, and honored. 354 ; Flor- 
ida's truest friend, 354 

Blaclutone famUy : William Blax- 
ton only one in State of Massa- 
chusetts ; lived in wilderness 



Mr. Plant'i fint wife ; hit ton 
Timothy's gift of a library (m»- 
morial to Us father) ; hit educa- 
tion and successful career, a6, 37 : 
history of BUckstone family in 
Massochosetts, Rhode Island, and 
Branford, Connecticnt. 3g, 30; 
five generations lived and died on 
the old family farm in Branford ; 
James a itrong character in P«il- 
itics and patriotic service ; 'Tim- 
othy, his son, donor of libraij, 
31-33; Ellen Elizabeth, second 
daughter of James Blackstone, 
married Henry B. Plant ; Sir 
William Blacltstone, author of 
Law Commtntariii, was fifth 
cousin of Jamea Blackstone, 34 

Board of Trade, Savannah, retola- 
tions, 331 : Mr. Wiley's address, 
333 ; Mr. Plant's ackaowledg. 
ment, 336 

Branford, Connecticut, purchased 
from Indians in 1638 ; first set- 
tled, 1644, by people from New 
Haven, 15 : first church ; danger 
from Indians; records of; colony 
from, 16 : John Plam first town 
clerk; resembles Harlem, N.V., in 
customs, 3 : second chorch built, iti 
architectare, seating, etc.. 17 ; ttl 
pulpit; foot stores, 18: Rev. Tim- 
othy Giliett. its pastor, taaefat an 
academy also ; strained rdationt 
vrith hii coogre^tion, 19 ; be and 
wife buried at Brai 



Branford, 30; thU 



340 



Index 



Bianford, Connecticut — Qmtinued 
town rendered patriotic service in 
Revolution, 20, 21 ; once ship- 
building flourished; seaport town ; 
seat of colonial governor, 22 

Bullock, Ez-Govemor : description 
of H. B. Plant, 99-101 

Canals : Erie ; Suez, 276 

Changes that have taken place in the 
configuration of the globe during 
Mr. Plant's lifetime, 264-269 

Cotton States, development due 
largely to H. B. Plant, 165, 248- 

251 
Cuba: scenery; architecture, Moor- 
ish, Saxon, and Doric ; Monro Cas- 
tle ; Santa Catalina warehouses ; 
mail service by the Plant line of 
steamers, 114-116 

Duelling once legalized, 275 

Engineering skill, great achieve- 
ments of, 279 

England's bad laws ; favored the 
nch ; severe in punishing crime ; 
cruel treatment of prisoners, 271, 
272 : war barbarities, inhuman 
treatment of soldiers, 272, 273 ; 
educational progress, 275 

Frisbee family, sketch of ; Edward 
Ebenezer; Elisha; Prof essor Levi ; 
James ; Richard ; John ; Joseph ; 
President Edward S., of Wells 
College ; O. L. Frisbee, 4-7 

Nineteenth century : demonstration 
at its beginning, 269, 270 ; polit- 
ical and social condition of 
France, 270 ; Napoleon's bad and 
good influence on Europe, 271 

Penny postage originated, 275 
Plant, A. P., his industry, religion, 

and success in life, 1-2 
Plant, David, 2 ; education and 

career, 3 



Plant, Henry Bradley : birth and 
parentage, i ; descended fnmi 
J. Frisbee, a major in Washing- 
ton's army, 4 ; right to join the 
'* Sons of the American Revolu- 
tion," 13; the Plants settled in 
Branford over two hundred years 
ago ; their descendants still own 
the lands of the first settlers ; An- 
derson Plant, father of Henry 
B., 35 : died when Henry was six 
years old, 36; death of father's 
sister, and also Henry's sister; 
Henry's first recollections of his 
mother. 36 : enduring and tender 
impressions of an hour ; poem, 37 ; 
poet's mother, 38 ; the boy 
Henry's first day at school, 38 ; 
his courage fails him, 39; diffi- 
dent all his life, 39 ; his mother's 
second marriage, 40 ; moved from 
Branford to Martinsburg; lived 
part of the time there with mother 
and stepfather, and part with 
grandmother Plant at Branford, 
40 : here he was thrown from a 
plow horse and badly injured, 
40, 41 ; testimony of A. r. B., 
*' one of die noblest and best of 
men," 41 ; parents moved to New 
Haven, 41 ; declined grandmoth* 
er's offer of a course in Yale Col- 
lege, 41 ; studies under Rev. Gillett 
and John E. Lovell, 42 ; his first 
attempts at business did not suc- 
ceed, 42 ; in 1837 began as cap- 
tain's boy on New York and 
New Haven line of steamers, 42 ; 
manly boy, 42, 43 ; first experi- 
ences in express business, 43 ; it 
was hard at first, but improved 
after a time, 44 ; his development 
of Southern Express, 44 ; enlarge- 
ment of responsibility by addition 
of railroads, steamship lines, and 
hotels, 45 ; Captain Stone's fond- 
ness for young Plant, 45 ; marries 
Miss Blackstone in 1842 ; first 
child died, aged eighteen months ; 
second son, Morton Freeman, 



Index 



341 



Plant, Henry Bradley — Continued 
now associated with his father, 
45 : removes from New Haven 
to New York; is employed by 
Beecher Express Co., 46 : next 
by Adams Express Co., 46 ; his 
mother banked his savings, 46 ; 
bought some New Haven bank 
stock, which he still owns, 46 ; 
bu3rs a pew in a new church, 46 ; 
stepfather died at New Haven in 
1862 or 1863 ; failure of his wife's 
health takes him to Florida in 
1853 ; the journey took eight days 
by three aifferent steamers, 47 : 
Mrs. Plant's improved health and 
return to New York, 47 ; landing 
at Jacksonville, and romantic ex- 
periences while in Florida, 48 ; 
lost their way in the woods 6ve 
mUes from boarding-house ; sail 
in a " dug-out," 48 : drive in a 
buggy ; Indian girl, 49 : board- 
ing at the Judson Hotel, New 
York ; Captain Stone leaves his 
son in Mr. Plant's care ; Plant re- 
turns South on account of wife's 
failing health ; appointed super- 
intendent of Hamden's Express, 
at Savannah, 51 : appointed su- 
perintendent of Adams Express 
Company, 1854, 52 ; large devel- 
opment of the company under his 
superintendence ; difficulty of the 
work, 53 : extent of business of 
the Southern and Texas Express 
Companies, of which Mr. Plant 
is president, 54 ; formed, and be- 
came president of, Southern Ex- 
press Co. in 1861, 55; death of 
wife at Augusta, Ga., February 
28, 1 861 ; remains afterward re- 
moved to Branford, Conn., 55; 
buys a slave, who proves a 
pood nurse to Mr. Plant, 58 ; 
impaired health, and change of 
climate ordered by doctor ; pass 
from President Davis to pass 
through Confederate lines at any 
P^'^^* 59 • S^s ^ Bermuda, Hali- 



fax, and Montreal ; son Morton 
brought to him ; visits his mother 
at New Haven, Conn. ; in fall 
sails for Liverpool ; a stranger in 
a strange land, 59 : goes to Paris ; 
courtesy of French officials in 
passport ; visits Rome, Naples, 
Leghorn, Barcelona, Milan, and 
Venice, 60 : travelled in Switzer- 
land, 60, 61 ; returned by way of 
Canada, and was in New York 
when President Lincoln was as- 
sassinated, 61 ; his second mar- 
riage and trip to Europe in 1873^ 
accompanied by his wife, mother, 
and son, 61 ; his third visit to 
Europe, 1889; represented the 
United States as juror in Class 
Six, at the Paris Exposition. 61 : 
medals for Plant System, diploma 
to Mr. Plant, and many courtesies 
extended, 61 ; his busy life in 
Augusta ; difficulties of express 
work caused by the war ; brave- 
ly met and adjusted, 62 : hotel 
life in Augusta ; letter of a friend, 
63 : his health fails, 64 ; re- 
wards a kindness done to his 
wife and child thirty-six years 
ago, 65 ; his second wife Miss 
Loughman ; her ancestors ; her 
interest and impress on some 
achievements of the System, 67: 
Mr. Plant's intuitive knowledge 
and keen insight illustrated, 
68, 69 ; after-dinner speeches, 
Tampa Board of Trade banquet, 
70-72; Florida Mr. Plant's hobby ; 
banquet given him at Ocala, in 
1896. at Ocala Hotel,87, 88: his re- 
ply to many addresses of welcome 
on the subject, *' The Plant Sys- 
tem," 88-94 ; reception, excursion, 
and banquet given Mr. Plant and 
friends by the mayor and leading 
citizens of Leesburg, 95 ; recep- 
tion next day at Eustis, 95 ; lus 
words of cheer to the people who 
had suffered great loss from the 
freeze of the previous winter de- 



342 



Index 



Plant, Henry Bradley — QmHnued 
stroying their orange groves, 96 ; 
their grateful appreciation of his 
visit, 96 ; honesty, importance of ; 
testimonies to this quality of his 
character, 97, 98 : his power and 
influence over employees and as- 
sociates, 99; Ex-Gov. Bullock's 
description of Mr. Plant's ability, 
fidelity, and gentlemanly charac- 
ter, 99, 100 ; industry and power of 
endurance, 102-104 ; character 
and manner of answering his 
large mail, 102-104; missionary 
letter from Japan, 103 ; his pri- 
vate car; comfort, elegance of, 
103 ; olddarkie ** shining up 100," 
104 ; keen intuition, and great 
power of self-control, 105 ; calm, 
quiet spirit, kindly nature, and effi- 
cient performance of all he does, 
105 ; testimony of an employee, 
of respect and appreciation of Mr. 
Plant's character and work for the 
South, 105, 106 ; his calm and 
kindly spirit saved him the con- 
suming force of friction which 
grinds some men, 106 ; not a pes- 
simist or recluse ; loves music and 
social life, 107 : medical benefac- 
tor, 107, 108 ; much pain saved 
by medical progress, 108 ; Mr. 
Plant's share in alleviating suffer- 
ing, 109 ; testimony of physicians 
to healUifulness of Florida for in- 
valids, no; Mr. Plant facilitates 
travel, and provides hotels health- 
ful and luxurious, 111-113 ; fur- 
nishes comfortable transit from 
Florida to Cuba and Jamaica ; 
press notices of Mr. Plant and 
his philanthropic work for the 
South in railroads, steamship lines, 
hotels, etc., 121, 122 ; promoted 
orange-growing by the facilities 
afforded for getting the fruit soon 
and safe to market, 123 ; railroads 
induced many people to settle in 
the South, 124 ; various railroads 
bought, built, and combined in 



the Plant System, 126 ; steamer 
MascotU^ elegant and comforta- 
ble, 127 ; nduoad topics ; notes, 
characteristics, and success of his 
life, 128 : largely a pioneer in his 
work of opening up the South, 
131 ; the Plant Investment Com^ 
pany's president, 132 ; his palatial 
residence in New York City, 132 ; 
never speculates in WaJl Street, 
133 ; analysis of his disposition, 
temper, spirit, and pleasant man- 
ner, 133, 134; Home jfournal; 
Ocala Evening Star ; similar de- 
scriptions, 134-140: his close and 
constant contact with the Plant 
System, 141 ; notes of his voyage 
from New York to Key West, 
142-146 ; also from Port Tampa 
to Jamaica ; attentions of dis- 
tinguished people, 146: Lady 
BliQce's garden party at King's 
House on February ist, 146, 147 ; 
entertainment and enjoyment at 
Jamaica, 147-149 ; his economi- 
cal management of the Plant Sys- 
tem, 150; riding in a baggage- 
car saw expressman handle care- 
lessly a box marked* 'glass," etc.; 
gentle rebuke ; saved the man 
From discharge by superior officer, 
152, 153 : generous treatment of 
an honored employee, 153; hor- 
rors of strikes contrasted with 
*' Plant Day " at AtlanU Exposi- 
tion in 1896, 153 ; spent over forty 
years of his life in developing the 
South, 166 ; eulogies on his char- 
acter and work, 166-168 ; ** Lov- 
ing Cup " and other presentations, 
169-178 ; Mr. Plant's response, 
1 78-1 8 1 ; programme of ** Plant 
Day " at Atlanta Exposition, 
204, 205 ; ringing of the ** Lib- 
erty Bell," 206 ; services at the 
Auditorium ; enthusiastic recep- 
tion, 207 ; music and speeches, 
208-210 ; Mayor King and others, 
210-212 ; Mr. Plants response, 
212-217 ; resolutions, complimen- 



Index 



343 



taiy, 217-220 ; Jw%e FaUigaiit's 
spcedk, 220-221 

a75 



lUihoads: viste ol nflroad strikes. 

150 ; looes to eoiplofen mud 
ployed, 150, 151 ; daouge to 
■lerce, demoi alirafion <m labor, in- 
co n f en ience and losses to the piib> 
Be. 151; no strikes 00 PlantSjstem, 

151 ; dbe to President PUnt, 152 ; 
strikes contrasted with **Plant 
Daj ** at Atlanta Ezpositiao, IS3 ; 
^' Plant Day*' as described by 
CBplojees of the System. 154 ; 
introdnction to this descziptioo, 
XS^IS6 ; railroads, introdnction 
of in England, and United States, 
377 ; Edward Entwistle ran the 
SUt train in England, came to 
this country, 277 ; railroad mile- 
age in the United States increased 
from three miles to 173, 453 in Mr. 
Plant's lifetime. 278 ; fiist steam, 
ship that crossed the Atlantic; 
first regular line established, 278 

Southern Express Company f onned, 
1861, S4« SS : its relations to and 
serrices for the Soathem Confed- 
eracy; gircn the custody of all 
goremment funds, it collected 
tariffs, and had soldiers detailed 
for its serrice, 56; President 
Daris* proclamation for all non- 
dtizens of Confederacy to leave 
its bounds ; permission given Mr. 
Plant to remain and ognduct 
CJipieaa business, 57: generous 
service of the company to soldiers 
in the war, 65-66 ; presentation of 
silver service by the company to 
its president, 66 ; Southern de- 
Tclopment due largely to H. B. 
Plant, 165 ; history of the com- 

Cr. 233-236 ; the company's 
ding and exhibit on the fair 
grounds, 236; reception in this 



building to Mr. Plant and friends, 
237, 2^: thanks tendered the 
press, 239; telegrams and co»- 
gratnlatioos, 239-241 ; boras 
to Mr. Plant, 245 : hst of em- 
ployees present. 245 : sketch of 
Mr. Phmt published in Atlanta 
Ckrmticle, 247-24S ; sUwiy abol- 

a73 



Tampa, progress of, 70-7^ • speech 
of Mr. Plant, 73, 74 ; growth of 
Tampa, Mr. F1ant*s share in its 
growth, 74, 75 : cigar-making in- 
dustry, 76 ; phosphate mines* 76 ; 
the town as Mr. Plant found it in 
1^5. 77 ; description of the great 
hotel, 78 ; grounds. So ; descrip- 
tion of Tampa, streets, buiUings» 
water supply, briA-making. $1 ; 
population, character ol ; Span- 
iaids, Cubans, colored, Americans. 
81-82 : Ybor City, its tobacco fac- 
tories, 82-83; rapid increase of 
population and wealth, 83 ; colored 
people thrifty and wdl-to-do, £4 ; 
own their homes, have sdhools. 
diurdies, and are respected by 
their wldte neighbors. 85 ; Port 
Tampa, its inn, or hotel, open all 
the year, 85 ; good fishing, bass, 
tarpon or silver king, 85 ; Tam- 
pa's boards of trade, health, and 
education, 86; Tampa Bay Hotel, 
—described by W. C. Prime. 1S3- 
186 ; also by Henry G. Psxker, 
X87-192 

Tampa Bay. De Soto's dream. Alad- 
din's Lamp, 192-195 ; description 
of the Palace Hotel, ardiitecture, 
furniture, 196-203 

Tampa's historical interest: De 
Soto landed here on May 25. 
J 539, discovers the Mississippi 
Kiver afterwards, 191 ; Navarez 
obtains grant of land from Charies 
V. of Syain, 191 

Temperance societies formed, 273- 

275 
Tunnels, 279, 280 



Index 



Vuied progTCtt : iteel pens, tt««i»- 
(hipi, iron, lucifer oiatches, 
kerosene oil used, machine 
lewing, agriculture, aSo ; Mr. 
Plant on roof of office in New 
York noting progress, 3S3 ; sani- 
tary progress, life lengthened by 
It, aBa; territorial extension of 
oar country, increase of wealth, 
rapid growth of cities, 383-384 ; 
philanthropic and Christian prog- 
re*i ; higher education, belter 
care of the insane, aged, orphans, 
■ailors, neglected dkildren, sea- 
nteo, and others by societies, 385, 
aB6 ; Gon*«nti<nia for mutual 



counsel in refonn and charitable 
work, dabs multiplied, social, 
fdentiSc, a86, 387 ; female edu- 
cation, co-education, 1S7 ; homes 
for all classes of dependent human 
beings, >8S ; pn^ress of medical 
science, lessening disease and sof- 
fering, 188-390 

World's Fain, Internationa], agi; 
arbiitation; bettei Christiaa spirit, 
among all who bear the name, 
agi: Electrial Exposition, iga ; 
mcisi^ round the world tn 55 
minnles, 391, 393 







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