USA > New Mexico > Men of our day; or, biographical sketches of patriots, orators, statemen, generals, reformers, financiers and merchants, now on the stage of action > Part 40
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
ABIEL ABBOT Low was born in Salem, Massachusetts, we believe, in 1796. His father, the late Seth Low, was himself an eminent merchant, and soon after Abiel had reached his majority, removed to New York, and made Brooklyn his place of residence. The house of Seth Low and Company, (after- wards Seth Low and Sons,) had, both in Salem and New York, been largely engaged in the China and East India trade, and it was not, therefore, surprising that Mr. Low should have desired to visit China, and acquire a knowledge of the business there, in which so many fortunes had been made. His excellent early business training, and the remarkable capacity for great enter- prises, which he had early manifested, rendered him peculiarly adapted to attain success in this position. Soon after his arrival in China, he received the offer of a partnership in the well- known house of Russell and Company, of Canton, and accepted it in 1833. His connection with this house continued till 1841, and sometime before that date, he had come to be its head. He returned to the United States in 1841, and established with his two brothers the great China house of A. A. Low and Brothers, retaining their correspondents in China. Under his wise and
522
MEN OF OUR DAY.
able management, this has been for several years past the leading American house in the China trade. Its traffic in all descriptions of Chinese goods is enormous. Ships freighted with the teas, silks, crapes, nankeens, lacquered wares, ginger, porcelain, rice, and mattings of the flowery kingdom, are con- stantly arriving in New York, and others departing laden with such goods as the Chinese require in their trade. Of late years this trade is not, to the extent it was formerly, the payment of silver on our part, and the delivery of their goods in exchange for that alone. Cotton goods, clocks, ginseng, and a yearly increasing list of our manufactured goods are taken by the Celestials in exchange for their products.
Within a few years past, the Messrs. Low have turned their attention also to the Japan trade, and in the beginning of 1867, Mr. Low having visited San Francisco, sailed thence to Hong Kong and Yokohama, in the first steamship of the China mail line, and after establishing a branch house at the latter point, returned by the overland route to Europe, and thence home.
During the war, few men in this country were as liberal, as patriotic, as judicious in their benefactions, and as wise in their counsels as Mr. Low. He lost heavily through the piratical conduct of the Confederate cruisers, several of his richly laden ships being seized, plundered and burned by those ocean marauders, Semmes and Maffit ; but amid all these losses, he was ever ready to aid the Government in every emergency, and to respond promptly to all its demands for counsel and encourage- ment. In that noble offering of aid by our merchants to the famine stricken operatives of Lancashire, Mr. Low not only contributed largely, but acted as treasurer of the committee, and at no small personal inconvenience, kept its accounts, made its purchases, and transmitted its statements to the committee in England
523
ABIEL ABBOT LOW.
The New York Chamber of Commerce, the most eminent body of American merchants on this continent, have twice called Mr. Low, the last time by acclamation, to preside over their deliberations for the year, and would have continued him in that high position for a succession of years, but for his absence from the country in 1867. This honor, so freely ac- corded, shows the estimation in which he is held by those who know him best for sound judgment, remarkable foresight, in- corruptible principle, and the highest executive ability. His action, and his words of cheer in the dark hours of our national history, and the critical condition of commercial affairs, and his skill in the management of the grave and often delicate and difficult topics which came up for discussion before the chamber during this eventful period of its history, fully justified the confidence which was reposed in him.
In all matters appertaining to the encouragement of art, literature, and higher education, as well as in all the charitable institutions of the city, State, and nation, Mr. Low's aid is con- stantly sought, and never in vain in a worthy cause. The institutions of religion find in him a zealous and consistent supporter. In private life, that true manliness of deportment, that scorn of every thing base and mean, and that genial and kindly nature, which have always characterized him in public, find still more adequate and complete expression, and in the bosom of his family, he ever finds his highest happiness.
JAY COOKE,
BANKER AND FINANCIER.
N the times that tried men's souls," the dark days of our revolutionary epoch, there was a time when there was the greatest possible danger that the sufferings, the bloodshed, and the sacrifices of our patriotic heroes, might all fail of accomplishing our independence, from the want of the sinews of war, the means of paying the troops, of supplying rations, clothing, arms, and ammunition. At this crisis, when the treasury of the confederation was bankrupt, and there seemed no more room for hope, a Philadelphia banker, Robert Morris by name, came forward, and taking upon his own shoulders the financial burden of the nascent republic, obtained for it, by the pledge of his own credit and private re- sources, the aid it could not otherwise command.
To this noble, self-sacrificing patriot, as much perhaps as to any other man of the revolutionary period, not less even than to Washington himself, do we owe it, that we are not, to this day, dependencies of the British crown.
In our second war of independence, so recently passed, a war which has had no parallel in ancient or modern times, in the extent of the forces brought into the field, or the vast scale of its expenditure, we had at one time drawn fearfully near the vortex of national bankruptcy. Our currency was greatly 524
CORNEL
IS
VAN
ERBILT
MS
CHAS. FRANCIS
COCKE
JAY
HUCH
MÇ CULI
WM. H. SEWARD
REVERDY
JOHNSON
DIX
A
525
JAY COOKE.
depreciated, the paper dollar being at one time worth, in the market, but about thirty-six cents in coin, and the prices of all goods of permanent value being inflated to such an extent as to alarm the cautious, and portend speedy ruin. Meantime the exigencies of the war demanded a constantly increasing force in the field, and the expenditure of the Government, mainly for the army and navy, was enlarging till it approached three mil- lions of dollars a day.
At this juncture, when the ablest financial secretary who ever controlled the national treasury was almost in despair, another Philadelphia banker, Jay Cooke by name, brought to the aid of the Government his enterprise, financial skill and extensive credit, and undertook for a pittance which, if he had failed of complete success, would not have been sufficient to have saved him from utter ruin, to negotiate and sell a loan of five hundred millions of dollars, an amount which would have staggered the Rothschilds. He not only accomplished this, but subsequently, to meet the pressing wants of Government, sold eight hundred and thirty millions more. More fortunate than Mr. Morris, in that he did not, in the final result, lose his own fortune, but by the extraordinary enterprise he manifested, paved the way for other and more profitable undertakings with private corpora- tions, Mr. Cooke yet manifested a spirit as truly patriotic as Mr. Morris, and like him, is entitled to the honor of rescuing the nation from threatened bankruptcy.
The Cooke family trace their lineage back to Francis Cooke, one of the godly and goodly men who formed the company which landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the Mayflower, in 1620, and who erected the third house built in Plymouth. Of his descendants one branch emigrated to Connecticut, and another to northern New York. From the latter stock, some of the descendants of which are still living in Granville, Washington
526
MEN OF OUR DAY.
county, New York, came the father of Jay Cooke, Eleutheros Cooke, an eminent lawyer and political leader of northern Ohio.
Eleutheros Cooke was born in Middle Granville, New York, received a collegiate education, studied law, and after practicing for a few years in Saratoga and its vicinity, removed, with a company of his neighbors, to the vicinity of Sandusky, Ohio, in 1817. Here he speedily attained distinction in his profession, ranking as the leading lawyer of that part of the State, and being the first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ohio. An active and influential Whig, he was elected to numerous positions of trust and honor, was the representative of his district in the State Legislature for many years, and in 1831 was elected to Congress.
In his early candidacy for the State Legislature he found his name (Eleutheros) a great disadvantage; the illiterate Germans of Seneca county could not comprehend, or write it correctly, and he was at one time defeated, by the throwing out by Democratic judges of a thousand ballots for defective spelling. He determined thenceforward to give his children short and simple names. His eldest he called Pitt, after the great English minister; the second, Jay, after our illustrious chief justice, a third, Henry, and so on.
Jay Cooke, the second son of this family, was born at Port- land (now Sandusky), Huron county, Ohio, August 10, 1821. His early education was obtained at home, for there were few good schools in that region at that early period. But though it was home teaching, it was none the less thorough on that account. Mr. Cooke was very anxious to have his children well educated. When at home, he instructed them himself, and when absent, his wife, a well educated lady, undertook the work. In his more distant legal or political excursions, when- ever he found a book store, he laid in a stock of books for the
527
JAY COOKE.
household at home. The boys were all quick to learn, and made progress in their studies. During Mr. Eleutheros Cooke's term in Congress, there was a very general time of financial pressure in the West, and on his return home, he found his affairs considerably embarrassed, and became somewhat de- pressed. Standing in his door one day, and seeing his three boys coming home from school, (for there was at this time a school of some merit in Sandusky,) he went to meet them, and putting his arms around them, said, half sadly and half in jest, " My boys, I have nothing left for you ; you must go and look out for yourselves." The elder and the younger remained silent and downcast, but Jay, then about thirteen years of age, look- ing up in his father's face with great earnestness, said, " Father, I am old enough to work. I will go and earn for myself." Mr. Cooke did not regard this remark as any thing more than an expression of the boy's affectionate and enterprising nature, and as he had no intention of turning either of his boys out, at that time, to earn their own living, he thought no more of it. But the next day, when the other boys went to school, Jay slipped away, and went to the store of a Mr. Hubbard, in Sandusky, and asked him to employ him as a clerk. Mr. Hubbard, who was doing a thriving business, happened to be just then in want of a clerk, having dismissed his only one a few days before, for dishonesty. Jay was a favorite of his, and admiring his artless- ness and resolution, he forthwith employed him.
That night, when Mrs. Cooke reproached the boy for playing truant, he replied, with a flush of noble independence, " Why, mother, I won't be a trouble to you any longer ; I am now earning for myself."
The parents, after consultation, determined to let Jay work out his own destiny, and the next day, and every day thence- forward, the boy was at his place promptly, and proved so faith
528
MEN OF OUR DAY.
ful, intelligent and apt as a salesman, and was so ready and quick at figures, that his employer formed a strong attachment for him, taught him book-keeping, and instructed him in other branches which he had failed to acquire at school.
After some time, Mr. Hubbard's partner left him for a long journey, and Mr. Hubbard himself fell sick, so that the whole care of the store came upon Jay. He attended to it faithfully, and at evening took the keys and the day's receipts to his sick employer, with whom he staid usually through the evenings. After he had been eleven months in Mr. Hubbard's employ, a Mr. Seymour who was about starting in business in St. Louis, prevailed on him to go with him to that city as clerk and book- keeper. The enterprise did not prove successful, and at the end of about nine months Seymour and Jay Cooke returned to Sandusky. While the latter remained at home for a time, awaiting a position, he attended an excellent school, in which he devoted his attention almost exclusively to algebra and the higher mathematics. In these he soon excelled. His only amusement was fishing, among the islands of Sandusky bay, a pastime which he still enjoys with all a boy's enthusiasm. After a few months of close application, his brother-in-law, Mr. William G. Moorhead, then, as since, largely engaged in rail- road and canal enterprises, and residing in Philadelphia, visited Sandusky, his former home, and perceiving young Cooke's proficiency in mathematical and mercantile studies, offered him the position of book-keeper in his office. Jay accepted and spent a year in Philadelphia, when the firm was dissolved, and Mr. Moorhead received the appointment from the Government, of consul to Valparaiso.
Jay returned to Sandusky and entered the school again, when his father received a letter from Mr. E. W. Clark, of E. W. Clark & Co., a leading banking firm of Philadelphia, asking permis-
529
JAY COOKE.
sion to take his son, Jay, of whom the firm had had very favorable accounts, into their establishment and give him a thorough training as a banker. The father, after some hesita- tion, decided to send his son to Philadelphia, and this proved the turning point in his fortune. The house of E. W. Clark & Co., was one of high reputation for probity and honor, and had its branches in Boston, New York, New Orleans, St. Louis, and Burlington, Iowa. It was at that time, and for several years, the largest domestic exchange banking house in the United States.
Though not quite seventeen years old when he entered this house, Jay Cooke soon impressed the partners so favorably by his earnest zeal to understand thoroughly the whole business of finance, and his careful attention to business, that he was, for some time before he became of age, entrusted with full powers of attorney to use the name of the firm. An act of kindness thoroughly characteristic of him, at this time, was, during the war, perverted into an occasion of slander and abuse. It was stated by some of the daily papers in New York and elsewhere that he was of low origin, an obscure western banker, and that while in Philadelphia he had been bar tender to a third rate tavern. There was hardly the faintest shadow of truth, to serve as the basis of those preposterous stories. He was never a western banker in his life, but as we shall show presently had been for twenty-five years a member, and the real head of one of the largest banking houses in the country ; he was from an honored and distinguished family in northern Ohio, and his only connection with a hotel in Philadelphia consisted in the fact, that, during his first residence there, he boarded with an excellent family who owned a small hotel, and who were very kind to him during his stay. On his return he again took a room with this family, and finding that the worthy landlord
34
530
MEN OF OUR DAY.
who was somewhat advanced in years and in feeble health, was in some financial difficulty, and had been obtaining heavy loans of Messrs E. W. Clark & Co., who had at last became apprehen- sive of his solvency, he persuaded the old man to let him examine into his condition. He found that he was nearly insolvent, and that he had been plundered by dishonest bar- tenders and book-keepers. He accordingly volunteered to make up his cash account for him every night, when he came from his office, and to do this was under the necessity of enter- ing his bar. He continued this kind service till the death of his old friend, and had the happiness of knowing that he had retrieved for him a part at least, of his fortune. For this he was sneered at, as a bar-keeper.
At the age of twenty-one (in 1842), he became a partner in the house of E. W. Clark & Co., and remained in it until 1858, being for the greater part of that time its active business manager, and much of the time its real head. During this time Government had issued several loans, to which the firm had largely subscribed. In 1840, when but nineteen years of age, Mr. Cooke had written the first money article ever published in a Philadelphia paper, and for a year continued to edit the financial column of the Daily Chronicle, one of the three journals in the country, which then had a daily money article. On his retirement from the firm of E. W. Clark & Co., in 1858, Mr. Cooke had amassed a comfortable fortune, and had purposed to live thenceforth more at his ease. He still, however, nego- tiated large loans for railroad and other corporations, and attended, in a quiet way, to other financial operations.
At the commencement of 1861, Mr. Cooke formed a partner- ship with his brother-in-law, Mr. William G. Moorhead, in the banking business, under the firm name of Jay Cooke & Co. The object of both partners was to provide business openings
531
JAY COOKE.
for their sons. Mr. Moorhead brought to the firm a long and successful experience ir. railroad matters. In the spring of 1861, when the Government sought to place its first loan, the firm of Jay Cooke & Co., procured and forwarded to Washing- ton, without compensation, a large list of subscribers. The State of Pennsylvania required a war loan of several millions, and it was negotiated mostly by Jay Cooke & Co., who suc- ceeded in placing it at par, though it was at a time of great commercial and financial depression.
These successful negotiations attracted the attention of the Secretary of the Treasury to their ability as financiers. Soon afterward, having failed to obtain satisfactory aid from the associated banks, Mr. Chase resolved to try the experiment of a popular loan, and to this end, appointed four hundred special agents, mostly presidents or cashiers of prominent banking institutions throughout the country. In Philadelphia, Jay Cooke & Company were selected, and they immediately or- ganized a system which resulted in the popularization of the loan, and secured the co-operation of the masses in the sub- scription to it. Of the entire sum secured by the four hundred agents, not quite thirty millions in all, one third was returned by Jay Cooke & Company. As this did not fill the treasury, whose wants were constantly increasing, with sufficient rapidity, Mr. Chase, after consultation with eminent financiers, determined to place the negotiation of the five hundred millions of five- twenty bonds, just authorized by Congress, in the hands of a special agent, as Congress had given him permission to do. Mr. Cooke's success in this small loan, led Mr. Chase to select him for the agent. He accepted the appointment, and organized his plans for the sale of the loan, with what success is now a matter of history.
A bolder and more daring financial undertaking than this is
532
MEN OF OUR DAY.
not to be found in the records of monetary history. The risks were frightful, the compensation, if no sales were made, nothing; if they were effected, five eighths of one per cent. on the amount sold, which was to cover all commissions to sub-agents, advertising, correspondence, postage, clerk hire, express fees, and remuneration for labor and superintendence. The Gov. ernment assumed no risks, and if the loan failed to take with the people, the advertising and other expenses alone would swallow up the entire fortune of Mr. Cooke and his partners. The commissions received by European bankers for negotiating such a loan, themselves assuming no risks, are from four to eight per cent., and there was not another banking house in the United States which would have taken it on the terms accepted by Mr. Cooke; but his country was engaged in a deadly strife for the preservation of its liberties; it needed money in vast sums to conduct this gigantic struggle successfully, and if it did not have it promptly, the great sacrifices made already, would prove in vain. Some one, possessing an ample fortune, must have patriotism enough to take the risk, great as it was, and if it must be so, ruin himself in the effort to save his country. In the secretary's tendering him this position, first and unhesitat- ingly, there seemed to be a call of Divine Providence on him to undertake this great responsibility. He accepted it as a Chris- tian and a patriot, and it is no more than the truth to say, that in the history of the war, no enterprise was undertaken from a higher motive, or from a loftier sense of duty and patriotism.
His labors, during this sale of bonds, were incessant; "he was," says a banker, a friend of his, "the hardest worked man in America." Public opinion, in favor of the loan, was to be · created and stimulated ; the loan itself was to be made accessible to all classes, and all were to be shown that it was for their interest and benefit to invest all their surplus, be it little or
533
JAY COOKE.
much, in these bonds of the nation; every village must have its agent, so that all parties, the sempstress, the domestic, the young journeyman, or the farmer's boy, who had but fifty dollars of their earnings to invest, the fruit of long savings and painful toil, might be as well and as promptly accommodated as the rich capitalist who wished to purchase his hundreds of thousands. Every loyal paper in the nation had its advertise- ments, and every vehicle of information by which the masses could be reached its carefully written articles explaining and commending the bonds. Over half a million of dollars were expended in this machinery, before the receipts began to come in. Mr. Cooke's partners were getting a little anxious, but his countenance was still sunny, and his faith in the loyalty of the nation, firm as a rock. Then, after awhile, the orders began to come ; first, like the few drops that betoken the coming storm, then faster and thicker, patter, patter, patter; then an over- whelming flood, that kept all hands busy till midnight, day after day. So great was the rush for the bonds toward the last, that when Mr. Cooke gave notice that no more could be sold after a certain day and hour, and that the five hundred millions were already taken, the orders and money poured in, till he was obliged to issue, and Congress to legalize, fourteen millions beyond the amount first authorized.
It was a grand, a glorious success, and at once put Mr. Cooke in the first rank among the great financiers of the world; but the immediate pecuniary profit from it was very small. As we have said, the commission to cover all expenditures was but five- eighths of one per cent., and from this were paid the advertising, review articles, clerk hire, postage, and express fees, and one fourth of one per cent. commission to sub-agents. But this was not all the deductions which were to be made on this gross commission The nation has never had an abler, nor a more
534
MEN OF OUR DAY.
really economical Secretary of the Treasury, than Mr. Chase. He was so careful, so scrupulous, in regard to the expenditures of his department, that even in these great enterprises, his economy almost approached to penuriousness. Though the sales of the five-twenty bonds were solely due to the almost superhuman efforts of Jay Cooke and the corps of agents whom he had trained, and he was entitled, therefore, to a commission on the entire amount, under the ordinary customs of financial transactions, a portion of the sub-agents had applied directly to the treasury department for their bonds, and Mr. Chase refused to pay him a commission on any of these, so that he actually received his commission only on three hundred and sixty-three millions. A selfish and mercenary man would have insisted on his right to the entire commission, and might very possibly have secured it, but it was from no selfish or mercenary motive that Mr. Cooke had entered upon this work, and he allowed the economical secretary, whose ability, integrity, and patriotism he never questioned, to settle the matter as he believed to be most for the interest of the nation.
Mr. Chase believed that the popularization of this loan had so enamored the people with Government bonds, that he should find no difficulty in floating a five per cent. ten-forty loan, without the aid of the Philadelphia banking agency. He tried it, but the public mind was not prepared for it, and he projected a large issue of seven-thirty three year bonds, the interest payable in currency, and the bonds convertible at maturity into five-twenty six per cent. bonds, the interest pay- able in coin.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.