USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume III > Part 3
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For more than half a century Mr. Farwell was a conspicuous figure in the work of the Young Men's Christian Association and in ยท the charitable and religious movements which revolved around the grand personality of Dwight L. Moody. In fact, an epigrammatic and mutual friend once christened Mr. Farwell as the "inventor of Dwight L. Moody," and it is doubtless true that the great evangelist would have fallen far short in the breadth of his achievements in this city without the warm and generous support which he always received from Mr. Farwell. The Chicago Avenue church was made an assured success through his financial support, and in 1856 when Mr. Moody founded the Illinois Street Mission for the reclai ning of street waifs, it was Mr. Farwell's unstinted means which kept it afloat. Neither was his work finished with the loosening of his purse strings; for ten years Mr. Farwell served as superintendent of the mission, and under his personal direction and impetus, the enter- prise developed into a church and Sunday school of large proportions and beneficent influence. He was also for years one of the most active trustees of the Chicago Evangelical Society, organized by Mr. Moody for the purpose of giving poor young men who have no church advantages a practical training for religious work. Among Mr. Farwell's other good works were also his labors in behalf of the prisoners at the Bridewell, where he was long in the habit of holding Sunday religious services, and where he was the means, through his temperance appeals and lay preaching, of reclaiming some of the most obdurate. His spirit of practical Christian helpfulness was conspicuously demonstrated during the ordeal of the Civil war, being one of the foremost members of the Sanitary and Christian Commission, whose splendid labors for the relief of stricken soldiers and their families have gone into the brightest pages of history. He was also instrumental in recruiting the Board of Trade Regi-
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ment. in the raising and equipment of which he donated $40.000 and a generous portion of his time and strength.
Mr. Farwell donated the first lots he ever owned in Chicago as a site for the home of the Young Men's Christian Association of Chicago. and from that time until his death its local prosperity was largely due to his liberality, his labors and his wise counsel. He was one of the leading promoters of its $1.000,000 endowment fund. and at the recent semi-centennial celebration of the organization in Chicago he contributed $12.500 toward it. Although then in his last long illness. the venerable and beloved citizen was represented at the exercises by one of his sons.
Mr. Farwell served at one time as vice president of the Chicago Board of Trade. but outside of his business. his charities and his re- ligion-which. happily. ran in parallel lines-he was little known as a public character. In 1864 he was a presidential elector for Illinois on the Republican ( Lincoln) ticket. and in 1869 he served as a mem- ber of the board of Indian Commissioners. His service in these ca- pacities covers his political record. It was in his capacity as a high- minded business man and citizen that his influence was so strongly felt in life and will be indefinitely continued now that his mortality has passed away.
Mr. Farwell was twice married. his first wife. to whom he was married April 16. 1849. being Abigail G. Taylor, daughter of John G. Taylor of Ogle county. Illinois. Mrs. Abigail Farwell died in IS51. leaving a daughter. and on March S. 1854. he wedded as his second wife. Miss Emeret Cooley. of Hartford. Connecticut, by whom he had three sons and one daughter. The sons are John V .. Jr .. Francis Cooley and Arthur Lincoln Farwell. Virtually from the incorporation of John V. Farwell & Co. in 1891 until their father's death, the two sons first mentioned held the active management of the great business. John V. Farwell. Jr., as treasurer of the corpora- tion. and Francis C. Farwell as its secretary.
To say that Marshall Field was the greatest merchant of his day is to proclaim that he was the most eminent merchant prince
MARSHALL in the world's history; and both statements are true
FIELD. to the letter. In his boyhood he was noted for both industry and perseverance. and. carrying the same pre-eminent traits into his mature life. he came to tower above
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his fellow merchants of the great working world. He penetrated to the possibilities of men and busines situations with lightning-like rapidity ; the intellectual sweep with which he finally organized a magnificent mercantile house whose scope embraced both the old world and the new, proclaimed the man of vast power, as well as penetration, and the unfailing courtesy and superb endurance of the man carried all before him. The old-time merchants of the Stewart school had these qualities of polished granite, but Marshall Field added to them a world-view, and also the application of artistic genius to mercantile affairs and environment. He not only sold goods honestly and gave the people promptly what they wanted, but he educated their tastes, showed them beautiful and new creations for their persons and their homes, and then met their advanced and more refined wants at as reasonable a cost as was compatible with honest goods and fair profits.
And when Marshall Field had personally progressed from the station of a raw clerk from the country districts of New England to a world-wide eminence in the field of his mastery, he was still a modest, unassuming man. "There have been men," said a local journal on January 17, 1906 (the day after his death ), "whom wealth has made purse proud, arrogant, offensive to their equals and tyrants to their employes. We are glad to say that Marshall Field was not one of them. Riches did not change his manners. He was never aggressive or pompous. There was in him no show of self-conceit in manner or speech. He was reticent, but it was the reticence of modesty, not of pride. His employes were attached to him. He treated them with the courtesy he extended to everybody. He was as quiet or reserved, and as unostentatious, when he was worth a hundred million as when he was worth a thousandth part of that. He attended strictly to his own business, which he understood per- fectly, and did not meddle with that of others. He did not set him- self up as the general instructor of the community. He asked people to let him alone as regarded the just conduct of his affairs, and he conceded to others the right he proclaimed for himself.
There was no man in Chicago more kindly regarded by his fellow citizens than Mr. Field. There was no one so conspicuous of whom so few harsh things were said. His riches made him odious to no one, for the people high and low saw that he was untainted by wealth,
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and was always an upright man, fair and even generous in his deal- ings. He was the first citizen of Chicago when he died, and he has left no one to take his place. He will be sincerely mourned by the men, women and children of Chicago."
In explanation of his lifelong inclination to keep himself in the background, Marshall Field always said frankly that he preferred to work where he could do the most good, which in his case he claimed was remote from public platforms and showy places. When counsel was asked of him, however, either as a member of society or as a citizen of Chicago, he gave it with exceptional power and insight, couching his arguments and his conclusions in straightfor- ward, forcible language. As a citizen he was ever ready to express an opinion, if he felt that it was wanted and would be useful, and not long before his death he analyzed Chicago's financial condition in masterly manner, pointing out that many of its ills of dirt, decay of public improvements, bad water and imperfect drainage, were due to lack of businesslike handling of available funds.
Mr. Field's self-poised momentum as a merchant and a man was an especial inspiration to young men, and, without assuming to be a teacher of moral, or even business laws, within the later period of his life he wrote a number of brief and pithy essays for their consid- eration, advising them of the value of economy, honesty and industry. The practical suggestions set forth may be summarized as follows : Never give a note. Never buy a share of stock on margin. Never borrow. Never give a mortgage on your holdings. Hold all cus- tomers to a strict meeting of their obligations. Do business on a cash basis. Give the best quality for the least money. Sell on shorter time than competitors. Try to sell the same grade of goods for a smaller price. Never speculate.
Mr. Field enjoyed the personal advantage that his physical ap- pearance was in perfect keeping with his high and substantial char- acter. Many noble men and women suffer a serious. drawback through life because of physical characteristics which seem a brutal contradiction of the real soul of their being. But Marshall Field was both distinguished and genial in appearance, and all his features were strong and large. With white hair and mustache, high and broad forehead, and calm yet penetrating gray-blue eyes shadowed
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by heavy brows, he was a man of marked bearing who at once com- manded attention and respect.
This superb personality originated and was nurtured near the little village of Conway, Massachusetts, the year of Marshall Field's birth being 1834. In this locality his English ancestors settled in 1650. The family homestead was about one mile and a half from town, on the summit of a considerable elevation, which had long been known as Field's Hill. Forest-clad hills were all around, and the panoramic view of meadows, brooks, nestling farms and villages, was something to soothe the mind for years after, in the smoke and bustle of great cities. Amid such surroundings were born and reared the four sons and two daughters comprising the Field family, Mar- shall being the third child and son. When he was six years of age he commenced to attend winter school, and within the next few years assumed the lead in such outdoor sports as "Fox and Hound," which called for both speed and endurance. It is a matter of record that Marshall was usually the Fox, that position requiring ingenuity as well, and old settlers who were boys in the days of his residence recall a famous run of twenty miles to South Deerfield and return, in which the fox finally came home untouched and unwinded. In- genuity, speed and endurance ; that was Marshall Field-the boy, father to the man. On account of the abandonment of the old road which ran past the homestead and lowered the price of the property, the home farm was sold when Marshall was about fifteen years of age, and, although another was purchased, it was decided that the third son was better fitted for a store clerk than for an agriculturist. It is said that his mates fully subscribed to this decision, complaining that they had no chance in a knife trade when Marshall was in the ring. After serving a short apprenticeship in a store at Pittsfield, which served to whet his ambition for a larger field, he decided in favor of the great undeveloped west.
Mr. Field became a resident of Chicago in 1856, so that the fifty years intervening between his majority and his death he devoted to the development of his house, his character and the upholding of the city's name for mercantile, commercial and civic honor. At the time of his arrival in the western city Cooley, Wadsworth & Co. were proprietors of its leading dry goods house. The population was esti- mated anywhere from sixty to eighty thousand inhabitants, which
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then seemed an empire of people to the young Massachusetts man. Although then unformed to city ways, when he said simply and firmly to the "boss" that he was a good clerk and could sell goods, there was that about him which carried conviction; he was therefore engaged, and in today's vernacular, "made good." In January, 1860, he was admitted to the partnership and appointed manager of the business, then conducted as Cooley, Farwell & Co., but after his association, as Farwell. Field & Co. In 1860 Levi Z. Leiter also entered the firm, and in January, 1865, Potter Palmer (who had already been in business for thirty years) approached Messrs. Field and Leiter with the proposition to buy his dry goods house, that he might retire and recuperate his broken health. Mr. Palmer's offer of part cash and notes for the balance was accepted, and the firm of Field, Palmer & Leiter, which was formed January II, 1865, transacted a flourish- ing business until 1867, when the notes were paid and Mr. Palmer's name dropped from the style.
The firm of Field, Leiter & Co. was formed in January, 1867, and in the following September their business was installed in a large building erected by Mr. Palmer on the northeast corner of State and Washington streets. For four years and one month this was the grand center of the dry goods trade of the northwest, and at the time of the fire of 1871 their sales had reached the aggregate of $8,000,000. But the fire swept all away, entailing a destruction of $3,500,000 worth of property, with an insurance of $2,500,000. Be- fore the ruins had ceased to smoke, temporary headquarters were established in the old street car barns, at the corner of State and Twentieth streets, and the business was there conducted until another store was completed on the old site in 1873. Meantime a building had been erected on the corner of Market and Madison streets, and a portion of it occupied for retail purposes and known as Retail No. 2, for the benefit of patrons coming from the west and north sides of the city. With the completion of the State street store in 1873, the retail was separated from the wholesale business and transferred altogether to the State Street concern. Fire again visited Marshall Field's State street store in 1877, the loss being $725,000, but it was re-opened in the following year, the business having in the meantime been carried on in temporary quarters. So the development of the gigantic enterprise continued apace, its intricate and powerful ma-
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chinery hidden from the public, but its continuous expansion indi- cated by the occupation of new space from year to year. In 1878 Mr. Higinbotham was admitted as a partner, and in 1881 Mr. Leiter retired. From the latter year, for a quarter of a century, Mr. Field was the master spirit of the house.
In 1885 was commenced the vast granite structure covering the square bounded by Adams, Franklin, Fifth avenue and Quincy, for the accommodation of the wholesale business, and it was completed in 1887. By the expansion of the retail department seven-eighths of the block bounded by State, Washington and Randolph streets and Wabash avenue has been covered with granite buildings twelve stor- ies in height-the portion which is still unoccupied being the corner of Randolph street and Wabash avenue. The different structures are connected by covered bridgeways, and for all conveniences are one. The Annex, on the corner of Washington street and Wabash avenue, was completed in 1893; Central Music Hall and other property on Randolph street, was razed and replaced by the Field buildings in 1901-02; in 1905 the great store was extended north of the Annex along Wabash avenue, and during 1905 and 1906 the original build- ing at the corner of State and Washington streets, which had been a mercantile landmark for so many years, was taken down and replaced by the present immense granite frontage. The floor area of the re- tail establishment is now forty-one acres, and its employes number from six to nine thousand, according to the season. Some thirty- five hundred persons are employed in the wholesale house.
Mr. Field's public works are numerous and important. In March, 1871, he took a leading part in the effort to merge the old Chicago Library Association into the Young Men's Christian Association. After the great fire, he was one of the foremost to inspire hope, courage and confidence in business circles, and make possible the greater Chicago which arose from the ruins. His services in the distribution of money and supplies were invaluable. Identified with the Chicago Relief Society from its organization, he was named by A. T. Stewart as first on the committee to control the $50,000 do- nated by him for the relief of women and children in Chicago. He was also for years a member of the Chicago Historical Society, aided in founding the Art Institute, was one of the organizers of the Citi- zens' League, and one of the charter members of the Commercial
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Club in 1877. In 1881 he aided in the establishment of the Chicago Musical Festival Association and of the Chicago Manual Training School in 1882. To the latter he gave $20,000, and to the new Chi- cago University he devoted a tract of land near the Midway Plais- ance, now valued at $200.000, and known as "Marshall Field." He was long a director of the Merchants' Loan and Trust Company, and was otherwise associated with many of the great commercial, finan- cial and industrial enterprises which have made Chicago a world's metropolis. The climax of his public benefactions was the establish- ment of the Field Museum, first at Jackson Park, and finally on the lake front, by the provisions of his will $8.000.000 being bequeathed for its founding and support.
The death of Marshall Field, generally pronounced the foremost citizen of Chicago. certainly one of the greatest figures of his day, occurred at the Holland House, New York, where he was staying during an anticipated week's absence from Chicago, on the 16th of January, 1906. There were present at his death bed his wife (for- merly Mrs. Arthur Caton), to whom he had been married only a few months. Mr. Stanley Field. and Mrs. Marshall Field. Jr. The latter, who was the widow of his only son, recalls the tragic death of Marshall Field. Jr .. less than two months before, a blow to the father which he bore with dignified silence, but which is thought by those nearest to him to have broken him in spirit and body. The great bulk of his fortune of about $125.000,000 went to his two grandsons, Marshall Field III., and Henry Field. His only daughter. Mrs. David Beatty, wife of Captain Beatty, of the British navy. in- herited $6,000.000, and Mrs. Delia S. Caton. the widow, the magnifi- cent family residence, with contents. and $1.000.000 (an ante-nuptial bequest ).
Since the death of Marshall Field, the head of the greatest mer- cantile establishment in the world is John Graves Shedd. Mr.
JOHN G. Shedd's single desire has been to be called simply a
merchant. In this respect he has reached the great SHEDD. goal at which he has aimed. Mr. Field on one occa- sion, before a senate committee investigating the tariff. referring to Mr. Shedd, said : "I believe him to be the best merchant in the United States." Mr. Field evidently spoke from his knowledge and faith in the man; he alone knew how much Mr. Shedd had been the
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builder of the great mercantile house which bore the name of Field; he knew who was the great master of the details of that gigantic establishment and the late merchant showed his own generosity by publicly giving credit where it was due.
Like Mr. Field, John G. Shedd started in a country store, where he thoroughly learned the fundamentals of merchandising. He was born in Alstead, New Hampshire, July 20, 1850, son of William and Abigail (Wallace) Shedd. He received only a common school educa- tion in his native town and Langdon. New Hampshire, and at the age of sixteen left the farm to become a clerk with Solomon Saunders, a small vender of groceries in Bellows Falls, Vermont. For the suc- ceeding two years he was in the employ of Timothy Tufts and James H. Porter, of his native town, as clerk in a general store.
Mr. Shedd became identified with Chicago about the time of the crisis caused by the fire and the subsequent beginning of a great era of industrial and business development. He entered the employ of Field, Leiter & Co. on the 7th day of August, 1872. and from that time until the present has never ceased to be active in the up-building of the house of Field. Mr. Shedd's thorough training makes him master of the situation, whether as buyer, salesman, credit man or manager. Outside of the production of merchandise, for which under his careful guidance this house is noted to a larger degree than any other business in the world, Mr. Shedd's greatest pride, perhaps, has been centered in the creating of their great retail store. the detail of whose fixtures, originating entirely with Mr. Shedd, are famed throughout the world. His one great sorrow has been that his eminent senior, the late Marshall Field, did not live to see the com- pletion of the model housing of this great business.
While Mr. Shedd recognizes the international scope of the modern mercantile house and its place in the world as an educator of taste and art, at the same time he insists that no merchant is ever equipped along modern lines unless he has gone through the drudgery of the business. An old friend of his once remarked : "I know a good many business men of Chicago, but of them all I know of no other man who can go as quickly and deeply to the heart of things, hitting the bull's eye with more certainty, than John G. Shedd." Like Marshall Field. Mr. Shedd has always been generous in bestowing credit upon his associates for good work; and for the success which has come to
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him he warmly accords a large share of the credit to the late Henry J. Willing, "who was his friend, adviser and counselor always."
With all his mercantile qualities, he will doubtless be mnost affec- tionately remembered by his fellow and subordinate workers for his efforts in affording them the opportunities of relaxation and recrea- tion which up to within a few years were largely denied those who toiled in the offices and great business houses of the city. for it was he who originated and insisted on putting in force the Saturday half-holiday among the wholesale establishments of Chicago. In twenty years the movement begun by him has become an almost general custom throughout Chicago and the West.
Mr. Shedd is a grateful, faithful Chicagoan. "Too many men have made fortunes in Chicago." he says, "and while making them have left the city to grow as it would. If some of these had found a little time for audience with men who had the welfare of the future city in mind and heart. fewer would have found fancied need to take up residence in more beautiful and more ripened environ- ments." Among the recent good works which Mr. Shedd has per- formed for the well being of the city. is that which has brought about the construction of a new county building, commensurate with the dignity of the second city in the United States and with the physical safety of thousands of its citizens. He was chairman of the con- mittee of investigation, as also of the citizens' committee which finally passed upon the architect's plans.
Mr. Shedd was married at Walpole, New Hampshire, May 15. 1878, to Miss Mary R. Porter, and their two children are Laura A. and Helen M. Shedd. The family home is a beautiful residence at 4515 Drexel Boulevard. Mr. Shedd has no other residence-Chicago is his home, first, last and always. It is but natural that a man in his position should be to some extent identified with club life, and he has membership in the Chicago. Union League. Commercial. University and most of the other prominent clubs in the vicinity of Chicago.
Charles Anthony Stevens, dry goods merchant, was born at Col- chester. Illinois. March 16, 1859, and received his education in the public schools of his native town. His early days
CHARLES A.
STEVENS. were spent on the farm, after which he worked for a time as a clerk in one of the local stores. In 1879 he engaged in a retail business, on his own account. at
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Avon, Illinois, and in 1890 came to Chicago and organized the re- tail dry goods firm which has done a continuous business since under the name of Chas. A. Stevens & Brothers. Mr. Stevens is president of the company. He is also vice president of the American Silk Company, wholesale silks. On March 16, 1882, Mr. Stevens was married to Miss Fannie E. Tompkins. They have three children : Elmer T., Alta C. and Hazel M. Mr. Stevens is a member of the Union League and Chicago Athletic clubs, and resides at the Ken- wood Hotel.
The leading dry goods merchant whose name heads this sketch has been one of the stanchest members of the firm of Carson, Pirie.
ANDREW Scott & Co. for a period of forty years, and is still MACLEISH. managing the retail business of the house which he himself founded. As his name implies and his earnest, honest, strong character doubly indicates, Andrew MacLeish is a Scotchman, born in Glasgow, on the 28th of June, 1838, son of Archibald and Agnes (Lindsay) MacLeish. As is customary with the boys of his nationality, whose parents are in comfortable circum- stances, Andrew received a thorough education, which embraced courses in the Glasgow Normal Academy, Hardy's English Acad- emy. Flint's Commercial Academy and the Glasgow high school. When about seventeen years of age he commenced to fill various clerical positions in Glasgow and later went to London, coming to the United States and Chicago in 1857.
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