USA > Pennsylvania > A biographical album of prominent Pennsylvanians, v. 3 > Part 15
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Some years ago Colonel Smith purchased a tract of land on the Clove Road at West Brighton, Staten Island, N. Y., to which he gave the name of " Beech- lawn," and upon which he erected the handsome mansion wherein he resided at the time of his death. For several months before his demise Colonel Smith, suffering from infirmities and disease contracted during his service in the army, was confined to his residence. He expired November 27, 1887, sur- rounded by his children and relatives. His funeral took place December Ist, and his remains were deposited in the old Moravian Cemetery near his home. The services were attended by many personal friends and a large number of the surviving members of his regiment. Essentially a domestic man, he spent much of his time at home, and was widely known and highly esteemed in social circles both on Staten Island and in New York.
Colonel Smith married Miss Lucy P. Woods, of Pittsburgh, who survives him. He left four children-R. Penn Smith (4th), Mary F., Morton W. and Edward G. The daughter was wedded to Barclay Harding Warburton, son of Charles E. Warburton, proprietor of the Evening Telegraph, of Philadelphia. She died in that city on April 30, 1889. D.
F. GUTEKUNST.
PHIL A
LOUIS H. VOIGT
LOUIS HENRY VOIGT.
L' OUIS H. VOIGT, one of the pioneer produce commission merchants of Pitts- burgh, whose life "points a moral and adorns a tale," was born June 6, 1821, in the parsonage at Augustdorf, a village in the Principality of Lippe- Detmold, Germany. This locality is noted for the great battle fought between the early Germans and the old Romans, in which the German general, Herman, was victorious, and in commemoration of which the Herman monument was recently erected on the nearest mountain top. Five years later his father, the Rev. H. E. F. Voigt, was appointed by the German Reformed Church as a mis- sionary to the State of Ohio in the United States, to organize a German settle- ment then forming on the Maumee river. The missionary left the care of three small children to their mother, who heroically volunteered to support and train them until they would be able to follow their father to the new world, which responsibility she faithfully carried out by teaching and doing needle-work, and by her precept and example incited her boy and his two younger sisters to indus- try, instilling into them principles which developed into usefulness in their after life.
The son early manifested an aptitude for learning, and developed a talent for sketching scenery from nature. Forty-three years afterwards when he visited his fatherland he was surprised to discover one of his crayon sketches in his uncle's parlor, to whom it was given as a birthday present from his twelve-year old nephew, and who refused to part with it for a quarter section of land in America. On the 20th of August, 1834, the journey to America was undertaken on the three-masted sailing vessel "Weser " from Bremen to Baltimore, where, after a voyage of sixty days, the little family was met by the father, and the journey was continued by the then only railroad westward as far as Frederick, Md .; thence by stage-coach across the mountains to Mount Pleasant, Westmore- land county, Pa., where the father was then serving six congregations at a salary of four hundred and fifty dollars per annum for the lot, part of which was usually paid in grain and other farm produce, with perquisites of occasional marriage fees at from fifty cents to two dollars. After a few weeks rest it was deemed advisable to send the German boy to school to learn the English language. The only school-house in the village at that time was a one-storied log-house with a ten- plate wood stove in the centre, broad boards around three sides of the room for desks and slabs for benches; the text books were the United States Speller, English Reader, Peter Parley's Geography and an arithmetic which ended with the double rule of three. This thirteen-year-old boy, who thought he knew everything, who was the only boy of his age in the village who sported red-top boots and carried a Swiss watch in his pocket, and who but a few months before was at the head of his class at a German academy, felt himself very much humil-
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iated when he was placed in a class with "tackers" not half his size and some of them in their bare feet; but realizing that his German knowledge availed him nothing unless supplemented with English he studied diligently, and in a few sessions passed an examination equal to a born native. To acquire the means of gaining a livelihood he was indentured at the age of sixteen to the village store- keeper for a term of four years, the stipulation being that he was to receive for his services his board and clothes, and a seventy-five dollar " freedom suit" at the expiration of his term. Clerkship in a country store embraced a much wider scope then than now. It was the duty of the new clerk not only to wait upon the country lasses across the counter and lead their nags to the " upping block," to open and sweep out the store and attend the fires, but the responsibility extended to grooming a horse, foddering a cow, cutting wood for a cook-stove, attending a warehouse and a lumber-yard, and keeping the store open for smokers and loungers until ten o'clock on winter evenings, and sleeping on a mattress spread on the counter at night. Besides attending to his varied duties, the boy was ever ready for new adventures. At the age of fourteen he walked with his father all the way from Mount Pleasant to attend a Synodical meeting at New Lisbon, Ohio, to get a sight of Pittsburgh and its surroundings, and recollects . when the Court House stood in Diamond Square surrounded by market stalls, and a lumber-yard and apple trees occupied space on Liberty street above Hand. He remembers also when East Liberty had but one street, and he was enter- tained at the Reiter Mansion when it stood by itself in the fields at what is now Collins avenue, East End. At the age of eighteen, after connecting him- self with one of his father's spiritual flocks, whose place of worship was two miles from the village, he organized the first Sunday-school in that con- gregation, which necessitated a walk of four miles every Sunday, and this he continued for three years, and then, having accepted a clerkship at Massillon, Ohio, the school was turned over to his successor with an attendance of eleven teachers and over a hundred scholars. During those three years he served as superintendent, librarian and treasurer, and, as reading matter for the children was scarce, he had some of his German story books reprinted at Chambersburg, Pa., where the German Reformed printing establishment was located before the war. Although brought up in a store where all kinds of liquors were sold, and tobacco and cigars were free to him, he never to this day acquired the habit of using them in any form. At the age of twenty-five years, having laid by the sum of five hundred dollars, saved from a salary of one hundred and seventy-five and board per year, he invested it as part payment on a stock of merchandise, and commenced business for himself. Then winning the hand of a neighboring farmer's fair daughter, they commenced the battle of life with brave hearts and willing hands, and for a number of years made satisfactory headway in their struggle for success in life. At that time Mount Pleasant was a flourishing vil- lage which gloried in macadamized and plank roads, and pointed with pride to its traffic between the East and West, its daily stage-coaches, its line of express
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wagons, its caravans of six-horse Conestoga freight wagons, its droves of horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, and turkeys; but after the financial panic of 1857, and the completion of two competing railroads, its trade fell off and its glory departed. Mr. Voigt, realizing the situation, then accepted a proffered clerkship in Pitts- burgh at five hundred dollars per year, but this terminated after a few months by his employer removing to Philadelphia. Seeing no alternative but to venture again in business, though his capital was quite limited, he leased a warehouse on Liberty street at a rental of four hundred and fifty dollars, payable at the end of twelve months, and embarked in business as a produce commission merchant. At that time a number of the grocery firms in Pittsburgh sold produce for their customers and farmers in that vicinity, and the market was supplied with butter, eggs and poultry by peddlers, and vegetables were supplied by near-by gardeners, while grain and other heavy products were transported by canal, Conestoga wagons and river boats, but the sale of produce on commission as a distinct and important business was not established until the breaking out of the war. Mr. Voigt brought to the business an intelligent comprehension of it obtained by a thorough training in a country store, and an intimate knowledge of farm and garden products. He says :
" I was led into the produce commission business through the influence and encouragement of some of the old-time grocers and prominent business men of Pittsburgh-Reymer Brothers, Watt & Wilson, McDonald & Arbuckles, McCandless & Co., McCords, Childs, Roddy Mellon and others. My first extensive consignments were green apples shipped to me by river from St. Louis, Mo., and in such large quantities that I found myself compelled to sell part of the cargo on board of the boat to obtain money enough to pay freight on the whole shipment. Apples being a short crop in this section, we realized as high as six to seven dollars per barrel. The unexpectedly large amount of money that we were able to return made us solid with the shipper for many succeeding seasons, and induced large shipments of various other kinds of produce. Our next move was securing orders from a New York exporter, O. W. F. Randolph, for all the clover and flaxseed obtainable in this market, which at that time was the centre for the sale of seeds raised in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia. Shipments of seeds were not only made by rail to New York but also by river, via New Orleans, direct to European markets. The first receipts of early peaches were from Loveland, near Cincinnati, Ohio, in shipments of five to ten boxes. In after years the shipments from Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey were in car-loads of one, two or three cars per day, in their season. The first shipment of cranberries was a ten-barrel lot of Sack- ets-Bell and Bugle berries from Minnesota, and it took us all winter to dispose of theni, coaxing hucksters and retailers to buy a peck at a time and to try to introduce them; in later years they met with quick sale in car-loads, or divided to the retailers in ten to fifty barrel lots. Our house was the first to receive a shipment to this market of a full car-load of comb-honey from California, the first car-load of California oranges from San Diego, the first ship-load of potatoes billed through direct from Ireland to Pittsburgh, and the first car-load of Aroostook seed potatoes from Maine. Our books show receipts of car-loads of venison and buffalo hams from St. Paul, and innumerable car-loads of eggs, cheese, butter, dried fruits, vegetables and nuts from nearly all the shipping points in the country. One season our sales of Alle- gheny mountain chestnuts alone amounted to eighteen thousand dollars.
"Among the changes developed in the commission business since its early stages in this section is the decline of clover, flax and timothy-seed traffic, which has drifted westward, with Chicago as its centre. To compensate for this decline there has been a great growth in the articles already named, and also in foreign fruits. When I began business in this city a large bunch of bananas was a curiosity, and a few barrels or boxes of the fruit would supply this market. California grapes, pears, apricots, cherries and peaches were unknown, while now all our leading houses receive them in car-load lots, and nearly every
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commission house has its banana-ripening room. In our early days of the business we handled every- thing that afforded a commission, from a fat opossum to a live deer, a bawling calf to a car-load of hoop poles, a basket of turnips or a car-load of broom-corn. In later years the commission houses show a commendable tendency to specialties, some handling only grain, some cheese, some butter, eggs and poultry, others green fruits, others dried fruits, and a few having offices or desk room only, sell in car- loads on arrival, or divide to suit small dealers, much to the advantage of both sellers and buyers."
During the first year of Mr. Voigt's connection with the commission business his sales amounted to about sixty thousand dollars, which in the course of years increased tenfold, and in the twenty-three years, during which he was identified with the business, the aggregate sales amounted to over ten millions of dollars. His reputation for integrity and fidelity to the interests of his patrons spread from Maine to California, from New Orleans to Montreal, and consignments poured in unsolicited from all parts of the country. On September 15, 1884, however, he disposed of his extensive produce business, and, after settling up his affairs, took a trip with his family to the New Orleans Exposition and to Florida.
When Mr. Voigt quit active business he announced that he intended to step back to where he left off fifty years before and be a boy again, which suggestion he has carried out to the surprise of many of his friends. Selecting Swissvale, one of Pittsburgh's most romantic suburbs, for his residence, he has spent his time alternately between his house and his garden, his workshop and laboratory, in botanizing and collecting oddities and curiosities from nature's storehouse. Beside much rustic work for his friends and neighbors, he has collected, mounted and embellished over twenty different kinds of birds' nests with their eggs in natural and ornamental style, and also collected, mounted and framed in the same summer over sixteen hundred butterflies, all caught by himself within a radius of one mile of Swissvale. Recently, however, he is again turning part of his time and attention to the city to lend a helping hand to the several enterprises in which he has invested his savings.
Mr. L. H. Voigt and his estimable wife, although having battled with many obstacles and difficulties in life, yet count themselves highly favored that, at the age of sixty-seven and sixty respectively, they are enjoying excellent health, and are happy in having reared and educated a family of three sons and three daugh- ters, four of them married, and all of them living in comfortable circumstances near them. The family recently celebrated Mr. Voigt's mother's birthday, who in her eighty-seventh year is still able to ply her fine needles, and contributes much to the comforts and enjoyments of her surroundings.
PHILA,
F. GUTEKUNST.
JOHN WANAMAKER
JOHN WANAMAKER.
J OHN WANAMAKER, now Postmaster-General of the United States, and the most widely known merchant of his time, was born in Philadelphia, July 11, 1837. His father and grandfather had been brickmakers in the southern portion of the city, known as the " Neck," and the house in which he was born, at the corner of Buck road and Federal street, is still standing. His school education was limited to that which he obtained at the Landreth Public School; but he was studious and attentive, and participated very little in the sports of the boys of his neighborhood. Very early in life he gave indication of future eminence ; for there is in possession of his brother an old roll-book in which the superin- tendent of the Sunday-school that he attended wrote: "John Wanamaker is a good boy, a bright boy ; he will make his mark." And later he wrote: " John Wanamaker is a good young man, with determination. He will make his mark." His first employment was in a book store, where he earned a dollar and a quarter a week, and his next in Barclay Lippincott's clothing store, where he received an increase in his wages of twenty-five cents a week. When he was about fifteen he entered Bennett's "Tower Hall," where he remained five years, and, as he im- proved in efficiency as a salesman, his salary was raised again and again. Dur- ing this period he also published a small paper, called Everybody's Journal, for which he solicited advertisements and subscriptions at odd hours, his em- ployer being one of his principal patrons. From this, and by rigid economy in saving his salary, he found himself at the age of twenty in possession of two thousand dollars. When he left "Tower Hall " he travelled for some time in the South, for the benefit of his health, which had become impaired, and on his return he accepted a position as a salaried Secretary of the Young Men's Chris- tian Association.
In April, 1861, he formed a partnership with Nathan Brown (who subsequently became his brother-in-law, and died in 1868), and each contributing two thou- sand dollars they bought out McNeil, who had been doing a ready-made and custom-clothing trade in three rooms in the old Schuylkill Bank building at the south-east corner of Sixth and Market streets; and on that eventful day in our national history when Fort Sumter was evacuated the firm of Wanamaker & Brown announced they were ready to do business. At that time the portents of war paralyzed trade, many merchants were closing out, and credit was at a low ebb. Mr. Wanamaker went to New York to purchase stock on credit, taking with him an expert judge of cloths, who relates: "We walked all day and didn't get but about $500 worth of goods, and I was getting discouraged ; but before we went to bed that night, in our room at the hotel, I saw J. W. get down on his knees at the foot of the bed, and I knew he was asking for credit, and I believed he would get it. Sure enough, so he did; for next day we struck
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luck and bought all we wanted. What is better, we came home and sold them for spot-cash, and with the money discounted the bills; and our credit was good for all we wanted thereafter from these houses."
One of the first contracts undertaken by the new firm was to furnish equip- ments for some of the Custom House employés at an hour named of the day following that on which the order was given. The articles were finished in time, and delivered to the Custom House in a wheelbarrow by Mr. Wanamaker him- self and two assistants, who relieved each other in turn. The delivery accom- plished, Mr. Wanamaker directed the others to take the barrow back to the store, while he went directly to the office of one of the city newspapers and expended the whole of the profits ($38) in an advertisement. And here we strike one of the secrets of the wonderful success of this remarkable man. When a lad he had read "Freedley's Practical Treatise on Business," and he resolved, as he has stated, that if he ever became the owner of a store he would test one of the principles suggested therein, and that is, "Advertise your business ; for advertising is like the seed sown in the ground by a farmer : it grows while you are sleeping. But advertising is like learning-a little is a dangerous thing." He has tested this advice thoroughly, persistently and in an original manner- employing an expert to write his advertisements, to whom he pays a larger salary than he himself receives as a Cabinet minister-and the result has been that his income now, it is estimated, exceeds a million of dollars a year.
When the firm of Wanamaker & Brown commenced business they adopted as their cardinal rule, vigilant attention to the wants of customers. As a guide in ascertaining the wants of the public they kept, in a special book, a register of every suggestion made or objection offered from which information could be gained. Every salesman was required to enter in a book the assigned reasons why persons left without purchasing, and all objections that it was possible to obviate were reniedied with studious care. The price was marked on each article, and no purchaser could justly complain that he had been overcharged. Later on they adopted a rule which was a wide departure from the old methods of doing business. Any purchaser dissatisfied with his bargain could return the goods, and get his money refunded without question or assigning a reason for the dissatisfaction. This rule is adhered to in the store at Thirteenth and Mar- ket streets. "We hold," says Mr. Wanamaker, " that everything bought here is as good as a check. Whoever brings back anything bought here can get his money back. Even if you buy a piece of dress goods that is ' cut bias' as the ladies say, when they mean cut from corner to corner, we take it back if your wife or sweetheart does not like it. That is a loss to us ; but it satisfies you and and her, and that is what we are after." By these and other means confidence was established; the inexperienced felt safe in dealing with such a firm, and the trade increased from thousands to hundreds of thousands per year. The old store was enlarged again and again, branches were opened in other cities, and in 1869 a new store was established on Chestnut street devoted to the finer grades
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of men's wear. It may here be stated that this store has since been transferred to S. M. Wanamaker & Co., who now manage its business, and Wanamaker & Brown is now an incorporated company, of which William H. Wanamaker is President.
In 1875 Mr. Wanamaker purchased the Pennsylvania Railroad freight depot at Thirteenth and Market streets at a cost of about a half million dollars, and fitted up a store for the sale of ladies' dress goods and men's wear, which was opened in March, 1876. This store, by the addition of department after depart- ment, is now, it is believed, the largest retail store in the world-larger than any two of the retail stores in New York, and a third larger than the famous Bon Marche of Paris-its floor surface covering fourteen acres. It is, in fact, a bazar; an aggregation of more than fifty stores in one; each department being in charge of the most competent man in his specialty that could be found, and many of whom receive higher pay than United States Senators.
"Every head of a department," says a writer in the Philadelphia Press, " is theoretically his own master, and runs his corner as if he were an independent shopkeeper. To carry out this idea he is even charged rent for his department ; he is debited with its expenses and credited with its income. If at the end of the year the balance is on the right side, he revels in glory ; but if the big figures are on the wrong side, he is supposed to have furnished prima facie proof that he is not the right man for the place, and is usually provided with a successor. He is given all the freedom he needs to show his methods. If he wants a certain line of goods, he mentions the fact to Mr. Thomas B. Wanamaker, and he gets them. If he has any new ideas, he is given a reasonable opportunity to carry them out. More than that, no one, not even the firm, presses any ideas upon him that he may not be pleased to receive, but the results decide everything." It is characteristic of the firm that they have very few buyers resident abroad. Each head of a department is so completely master in his own province that he himself goes over the ocean to make purchases, or selects his goods from designs or samples shown here, or has them made up after his own designs approved by the firm. An account is given at the end of each working day. The various departments are known to the firm, not by the goods sold in them, but by a letter of the alphabet, and by numbers running from twenty-six to fifty-two. The heads, just before closing time, go to the different sales-people and take an account of the day's sales. The sum total opposite the letter or figure repre- senting the department is put down on a slip of paper. At six o'clock a bell rings. That is a signal to the heads of departments to turn in their reports. They go off to Mr. Wanamaker's private office and hand in their slips to him in person, or, in his absence, to Thomas B. Wanamaker or Robert C. Ogden, who are now his partners. The memoranda are at once transferred to a daily sales- book, and entered opposite an entry for the same department of exactly a year previous. When all are entered the sum total is cast up and put down opposite the sum total of the same day of the preceding year. In that way the drift of
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the business can be seen at a glance. Each slip may be commented on as it is handed in. The remark may be 'very good,' or a ' little off,' or 'far below last year,' or 'must do better,' or 'that is excellent.' In the case of a falling off inquiry is carefully made as to the cause, and where the sales are unusually large an equally earnest endeavor is made to learn the reason why. According to what is learned the ship of trade is steered.
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