USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 6
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its starting-point clear to its destination-from Maine to Mexico if need be; in short, the modern railroad freight system, to the use of which we have grown so accustomed that we cannot realize that any other course was ever pursued. In his own business as forwarder or carrier he has paid five dollars per the one hundred pounds, to the wagoner, for a three hundred miles' haul between Philadelphia or Balti- more and Pittsburgh, occupying twenty days; and has lived to see tonnage scrambled for at rates one hundred times less. In short, Mr. Thaw has spent fifty consecutive years in one line of business, and that, too, over a time in which some marvelous changes have taken placc. That he has kept abreast of the times and made each of these changes subservient to the demands and use of his calling, let his life and its wonderful success stand for answer. William Thaw was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 12, 1818. Of Scotch-Eng- Ilsh lineage, on his father's side, his descent can be traced, traditionally, back to a still more distant period, but, reliably, to the time of Crom well-with whom in his revolutionary movement, his kindred of then, being zealous Covenanters, were in hearty sympathy. His great-grandfather, John Thaw, was born in Philadelphia in 1710, where he lived to a ripe old age, and where, near by, dying in 1795, his bones now lie buried in Abingdon church-yard. Benjamin, next in the line of succession, was born in 1753, married Hannah, daughter of Benjamin and Deborah Engle, Quakers-the family originally planted in Philadelphia late in the seventeenth cen- tury-and died in 1811. Of their issue, John was born in 1779, and married to Elizabeth Thomas, daughter of a sea-captain (lost at sea not long after- wards), in 1803. His career was an eventful one. Apprenticed early in life to Paul Beck, a Philadel- phia merchant, and from his calling having much to do with those that " did business in great waters," he acquired a fondness for a sea-faring life, which he soon was offered the opportunity to gratify. He was appointed supercargo of a vessel, which upon its first West Indian voyage, with himself, was seized (under Napoleon's Milan decrec) and taken into Guadeloupe, whence, when at length released, he managed to return ; only to be overtaken on the way, however, by a more serious distress-the yellow fever; that fell disease breaking out and striking down his crew, he, almost alone of all on board, escaping. Afterwards, undertaking to trade on his own account, he sent a ship laden with such wares as were merchantable there, to Senegambia. The captain of the vessel reaching his destination, disposed of his goods, bought slaves on his own account, sold them, returning, in the West Indies,
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
and ran away with the proceeds. The loss resulted | The canal and great rivers meeting here, it is need- in financial ruin to Mr. Thaw. He next sought and found service in the Bank of Pennsylvania at Phil- adelphia; was one of two sent out, shortly after, to establish a branch at Pittsburgh, in 1804, which, in 1817, was transferred to the old United States Bank, he shifting with it, to serve as its cashier until the doom decreed of President Jackson brought it to an end. Having acquired a comfortable competency he then retired, living at rest until his death, in 1866. It was fourteen years after the removal of his parents to Pittsburgh that their son William, the subject of this sketch, first saw the light. His early education, commenced under charge of a local schoolmaster, was completed in the Western Uni- versity of Pennsylvania. He opened his business career in 1834 as clerk in his father's bank. On
February 9, 1835, he engaged in the forwarding and commission business as a clerk with McKee, Clarke & Co. In 1840, in connection with Thomas S. Clarke, he formed the firm of Clarke & Thaw,
canal and steamboat owners and transporters, which
company continued in business until 1855. These
were fifteen busy and remarkable years. The canal
system was the great avenue of communication
between the East and the West. The opening of
some such artificial channel was suggested as early as 1762, but the almost insuperable barriers in the
way deterred from any practical attempt. Nothing
for the exploration of a route from Harrisburgh to Pennsylvania Legislature authorizing a commission was done until in 1823 or '24 a bill passed the
Pittsburgh via the Juniata and Conemaugh, the
western branch of the Susquehanna, the Sinnema- honing and Allegheny. Public sentiment was
1835, a convention of the friends of the enterprise stirred up to aid the project along. In August,
was held at Harrisburgh, in which forty-six counties were represented, and strong resolutions of endorse-
adopted and the contracts let. In the fall of 1827 was reported as the most practicable, and was ment adopted. The Juniata and Conemaugh route
were such in many places that it had to be let out water was let into the levels, but the defects of soil
Allegheny Portage road over the mountains were 1834 the Philadelphia & Columbia road, and the again and the sides lined with clay. In the fall of
completed, giving at last a through line from the
metropolis of eastern Pennsylvania to that of west-
lines of river steamboats on the other. The mineral the canals feeding her on one side and the great Pittsburgh a wonderful commercial impetus, with ern Pennsylvania. It is needless to say that it gave
resources of that section of the country were soon on their way to development-salt, iron, coal, etc.
less to say that the business of forwarding was one of the great enterprises of the day, and that there was rivalry of the most intense character. Nor need many be told that the Pennsylvania & Ohio line, owned and managed by Clarke & Thaw, held its own with the rest. Under the canal rules each line owned its own boats and horses, employed its own men and ran on its own schedule, paying tolls for the use of the waterway to the State. Each line also owned and loaded or unloaded its own cars on the connecting railways, the owner of the road pro- viding the motive power and charging so much to haul each car a given distance. To overcome the disadvantages of these alternate links of railroads and canal which constituted the main line of the Pennsylvania system of public works, devices were in use by which a canal boat built in three or four sections was placed upon trucks built to hold one section securely, and so carried over the mountains by rail. The State encouraged this system by sup- plying the trucks and by discriminating tolls, but the inherent defects of the plan prevented its gen- eral adoption. Under this cumbersome and unique
system, individual activity and vigilance counted for much, as the great point of one line was to carry its goods to the point of destination before capital was invested in it. But the new order of of permanent character was built up, and a large
the others. A great business that seemed as though things commenced gradually to dawn. The possi- bilities of steam began to suggest themselves, and experiments of a crude but potent nature were tried
1846, the now great and powerful Pennsylvania Clarke & Thaw was only six years old, on April 13, with a main result of success. When the firm of Railroad Company had a small and humble begin- ning. Its original line was declared to be between
struction was begun at the first named place in Harrisburgh and Pittsburgh. The work of con-
July, 1847. The division from that point to a junc- tion at Hollidaysburgh, at the eastern base of the mountains, with the Portage Railroad-then a State
work and operated in connection with the canals- was opened September 16, 1850. The western
Railroad at Johnstown to Pittsburgh, was opened division, from the western end of the Portage
September 10, 1852. The mountain division was opened February 15, 1854, and the subsequent pur-
chase by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company of the
Philadelphia and Columbia road from its original owner, the State, gave a direct rail connection from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and put an end to the canals. For the works purchased of the State. between those two points, the Pennsylvania Rail-
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
road Compauy paid $7,500,000 in its five per cent. bonds, payable at the rate of $460,000 annually, the balance, after the payment of interest, going to the reduction of the principal. When the railroads began to offer their competition to the canal and river boats, which long experience and care had placed on the footing of good management, and to which an undisputed field heretoforc had given possession of the then existing business, the steam railroad liues were such clumsy and ill managed affairs that, for a year or so, the transporters by the old methods actually held their own, and began to believe that the new order of things would not dis- turb them so much after all. But gradually they came to see their mistake. As the railroads devel- oped and stretched out into points where the water lines could not reach, as connections with this city or that were made, as the new mouster settled to his harness and became more manageable, as the crude methods of the early days began to work into those that were of a better order, the inevitable result began to be seen. The course that had made a success of the waterways had a like effect on the iron lines. Experience, method and tlic adjustment of clashing interests brought harmony and smooth- ness, and steam began to gain the victory. The weakcr, as has been the case in every contest since that between Eve and the serpent, went to the wall. The year 1855 saw Mr. Thaw, with others in a like position, with a difficult task on his hands-which was to dispose of his vessel and canal-boat interest with the least possible loss. He gave the year to the task; the canal boats were sold liere and tliere as they could be, the most of them going to canal systems that were yet in operation. The great boats on the Ohio proved a more difficult task. By close figuring and hard work, Mr. Thaw had about completed an arrangement to run them on the lower Mississippi as mail boats, when the Postmaster-Gen- eral, for political reasons, gave the contracts to a weak and poorly equipped line, and so that avenue of escape was closed. The attempt made to hold their owu against the roads lasted over several years and was attended with inevitable loss. Had the owners taken some of these boats that, in 1852, were worth $40,000 eaclı, and run them, early in 1853, on a sand-bar and set fire to them without insurance, they would have saved moncy, so costly did the competition become. The history of the great Ohio steamers was, in short, a repetition of that made by the palatial lines on Lake Erie in the decade between 1850 and 1860. The course of the roads at first was not altogether a success, as they had their discouragements and heavy trials. Some of them were able to raise just enough money to
build the roadway and lay the iron, and were com- pelled to depend on others for equipment. Mr. Thaw himself was one of a partnership which built one hundred cars-a great undertaking in those days-and leased them to the poor and struggling Fort Wayne road. In 1856 Mr. Thaw joined his former partner, Thomas S. Clarke, who had the year before undertaken the conduct of the freight traffic of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to and from all points west of Pittsburgh. This was a business then only in its infancy, and about to leave the Ohio River for the lines of railroad just opened from Pittsburgh to Chicago and St. Louis. The crude and tedious methods of handling freight have been alluded to above, but those who have been used only to the methods in operation to-day can hardly understand how cumbersome tlic old way was and are surprised that an improvement should not have been earlier suggested. A small line of railroad would carry a miscellancous load of goods to the terminus of its responsibility or author- ity, turn them over to the next line, unpack from one car into another, receive pay for the distance traversed, new bills would be made for the next line, and the same operation repeated at every change of road. Depots were built apart, and traffic liad to be hauled across from one to the other on drays, causing expense and delay. The whole thing was an experiment, we must remember, and had to go through the usual stages of development and growth. It was a great step forward when the point was reached where a car was unloaded and its contents directed to be kept together and sent forward as a designated carload on the next line. By 1864 the progress of railway construction and the great increase of traffic forced the adoption of methods to avoid these transfers and rehandling and to meet the public demand for responsible through bills of lading in place of the divided and irrespon- sible way in which, until then, the several roads forming any long line conducted their through busi- ness. In meeting this want the Pennsylvania system of roads devised the first organization for supplying through cars, both to avoid transfer and to supply equipment to the then new and poor roads west of Pittsburgh. Of this undertaking, known as the Star Union Line, Mr. Thaw had charge until 1873. It was followed by similar methods on other roads ; aud, with modifications to meet the increasing growth of tonnage, it still remains in operation in the larger organization of the Pennsylvania Com- pany. Those who, as spectators, viewed this solv- ing of the great traffic problem, and noted the value of the new method that had supplanted the old, give to William Thaw a large share of the credit thereof,
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
feeling that it was his keen vision, liis ready appre- ciation of what was needed, and executive ability in adapting opportunities to those needs, that largely produced the desired result. But Mr. Thaw, with an earnestness that means sincerity, and with a modesty that is one of the chief characteristics of the man, disclaims any credit of a special nature, and says that his labor was shared by many men, and that the new order of things came by its own motion and because there was need of it. In some way, and by some hands, he feels, it would have been worked out to a solution. Mr. Thaw's next onward step in the railroad business was taken in connection with the Pennsylvania Company. That great enterprise was chartered by the Legislature of Pennsylvania on April 7, 1870, for the purpose of managing in the interest of the Pennsylvania Rail- road Company the railroads leased and controlled by the latter west of Pittsburgh. Its power, immensity and responsibility may be imagined from the following summary of the lines nnder its con- trol : Total length of line leased to the Pennsylvania Company, 1,357.5 miles ; length of line through stock ownership, 1,433.2 miles; length of line through advances and guarantees of the Pennsylvania Rail- road Company, 420.5 miles; aggregate length of lines operated, 3,211.2 miles. Among these lines are such important railways as the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago, the Erie & Pittsburgh Railroad, the Cleveland & Pittsburgh and its branches, the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railway (Pan Handle), the Chicago, St. Louis & Pittsburgh Rail- road, the Cincinnati & Muskingum Valley Railway, the Little Miami, the St. Louis, Vandalia & Terre Haute Railroad, the Grand Rapids & Indiana Rail- road, and many more of a smaller nature that need not be recapitulated here. The capital stock of the Pennsylvania Company was originally $12,000,000, of which $8,000,000 was preferred and $4,000,000 common. The common stock was issued, but in 1874 was purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Subsequently the capital stock was in- creased to $20,000,000 and is entirely owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, so that the Penn- sylvania Company, in all its forms and possessions, is the sole property of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Mr. Thaw, in addition to being a direc- tor in the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, is Second Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Company. Since 1873 he has been largely relieved of duties connected immediately with transportation, and has been giv- ing liis attention mainly to the internal and financial affairs of the corporation he serves. He is also Second Vice-President of the Pittsburglı, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railway, managed by the Pennsylvania
Company. Mr. Thaw has been a member of the Third Presbyterian Church for many years. He is a director in the Allegheny Cemetery. To the Alle- gheny Observatory he has been a warm and generous friend, and much of the grand work that Professor Langley has done for science and to render the name of his institution known the world over could never have been done without the ample and unhes- itating generosity of Mr. Thaw. The expedition made to Mt. Whitney, in Sonthern California, some years since by Professor Langley, from which such admirable scientific results were obtained, was largely possible through the help of Mr. Thaw; and when Professor Langley, in April, 1885, in his lecture at the Royal Institute, London, spoke of " the liberality of a citizen of Pittsburgh, to whose encouragement the enterprise was due," and who had "furnished the costly and delicate apparatus for the expedition," no one in Pittsburgh necded to be told who was the man so delicately described. Mr. Thaw has been married twice and has a large fam- ily of children and grandchildren. Six sons and fonr daughters arc living, three of them married. Mr. Thaw, in his personal relations, is one of the noblest and most charitable men of Pittsburgh. His immense fortune is worthily used, and such good done with it that no one can begrudge him its possession. His affection for his alma mater, the Western University of Pennsylvania, is such that he has given it at various times from three to four hundred thousand dollars, while other like institu- tions, suclı as Oberlin, Hanover, Wooster Univer- sity, Geneva, Carroll (Wisconsin), the College at Maryville, Tenn., the Western Theological Semi- nary, were not forgotten nor neglected. The Penn- sylvania Female College (at Pittsburgh), after large sums of money had been expended, and heavy debts contracted, in its erection and maintenance afterwards, could not uphold itself, fell into distress and was about to perislı, when he came to its relief, eased it of its encumbrances, strengthened it in that in which it was weak, and set it whole upon its feet again. Churches, hospitals, asylums; societies for the improvement of the poor, for the care of the aged, the orphaned, the destitute; sanctuaries for the shelter, relief, and snccor of the unfortunate, the forsaken and the fallen; institutions and enter- prises of whatever name or nature, under whatever form, or no distinctive form of faith, provided only that the ends they aim at are true, and pure, and good-all are objects to the care and support of which he has been, and continues to be, a generous, constant contributor. He is, mentally, a remark- able man. Gifted with a liigli order of intellect, which has been ripened by long years of observa-
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
tion and thought, he grasps quickly the salient points of any subject presented to him, and reasons rapidly to a conclusion on the questions it may contain. Caution, however, marks all his efforts to reach the solution of any matter in which he has to exercise sound discretion and good judgment. Though impetuous in temperament and persistent in the assertion of his convictions, he listens well to any one in whom he has confidence that may hap- pen to differ from him, and willingly changes his views when he is convinced that they are wrong. But whoever assurnes to set him right must be well prepared on the question for discussion, for Mr. Thaw has a rare command of language and facts, and always delivers himself with such a degree of earnestness that few men are his match. His rea- soning is based on his moral conivctions of right and duty. and never on mere speculations such as policy or expediency might suggest. Honest, sincere and self-reliant, he never shrinks from the di-charge of what he has to do, nor from asserting his well formed opinions. In enterprises of great moment he takes broad and comprehensive views, such as always secure the confidence of his associates. and is regarded as a safe and prudent adviser. In the social walks of life he is all that kindness could require or courtesy could expect. Buoyant in dis- position, mild and gentle in his intercourse with his fellow-men, and strictly upright in all his dealing;, he is well entitled to the high rank he holds, for his character in all its elements is beyond reproach and his reputation without a stain. His confidence once gained is rarely lost. The friends of his early years are the special objects of his regard, and their children and grandchildren share, by inheritance, the love he bore the parent stock. Neither time nor adversity has changed him towards them, nor will, while the warm emotions of his nature con- tinue. His sympathy for the sick and suffering, his large benefactions to those whose calamities have made their lives bitter and full of sorrow, and his constant efforte for the advancement of projects of a humane character, have won for him the admi- ration and love of his fellow-citizens. Perhaps there is nothing more striking in the structure of his mind than the generous impulses it send: forth. If the widow, the orphan, the Fick or the suffering tell him the story of a blasted life, or of the sorrow: that have fallen upon them, his heart throbs with emotion at the recital, and his tear: are companions of those that course the cheeks of the unfortunate ones. Though rich, he has shown how wealth may add to the glitter of gold by making bright the desolate home and fireside of the poor and needy. He has lived to benefit many, and in a plain, una :-
suming way, has passed thus far through life, and will, long after the grave closes over him, be remembered for his good deeds.
DAVID HOSTETTER.
DAVID HOSTETTER, a distinguished business man, financier and railroad projector of Pittsburgh, was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Jan- uuay 23, 1819. His father was an educated phy- sician of solid acquirements and extensive practice, who was widely known and highly respected in that section of the State. The boyhood of Mr. Hostetter was spent on the farm owned and cultivated by his father. His early surroundings were such as would naturally stimulate and develop the refined and in- tellectual in his nature, and he was free to devote as much time as he pleased to reading and study. At school, which he attended with regularity, he obtained a thorough English education. Although his parents were cultivated people they were not wealthy. Following the custom of the day and locality, David, at the age of sixteen years, volun- tarily closed his school career and entered upon the task of making his own way in the world. The first employment he secured away from home was in a dry goods store in Lancaster, kept by Christopher Hager, with whom he remained seven years, passing, during that period, from the position of "boy" to that of "chief clerk and manager." Having saved some "capital," he left Mr. Hager's store to engage in business on his own account in the same town. At the time of the discovery of gold in California he was still keeping store in Lancaster. In common with other daring and adventurons spirits he caught the "gold fever," and, early in 1850, yielding to its delirium, he sold out his stock, and, on the 15th of April of the same year, left New York to try his fortune in El Dorado. He reached the Isthmus in safety, crossed it on a mule, and after a dreary delay of three months at Panama, awaiting the arrival of the steamer called for by his passage ticket, was transported to San Francisco. Among those who sailed with him from Panama were the late Commodore Garrison of New York, who at that time was part proprietor of a general store at the first-named place, and also the late Mr. Ralston, afterwards distinguished as a financier. The trip to San Francisco occupied fourteen days and was ren- dered specially memorable by the death of seven of the passengers from the Isthmus fever, a malarial affection which prostrated all save the most vigor- ous and sanguine, and seldom spared the weaker of
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
those whom it attacked. On arriving in San Fran- cisco, Mr. Hostetter took a rapid view of the situa- tion, and, concluding there was money in the grocery and provision business, embarked his capital in it, opening his store in the month of August. But, not- withstanding that he had overcome delay, passed unscathed through the deadly Central American climate, and appeared to be fairly on the road to fortune, destiny had decreed that he was not to achieve it on the Pacific Slope. The structures erected in San Francisco at that time were, in the natural order of things, merc wooden sheds, hastily thrown together and daily, even hourly, exposed to great danger from their combustible character and the carelessness and negligence of many of the popu- lation. Mr. Hostetter opened his store in one of these, and he had been in business scarcely a month, when a conflagration broke out, which rapidly en- veloped his entire belongings, reducing both the store and its contents to ashes, and left him abso- lutely penniless. It takes a strong nature to bear calamities of this kind at such a time with anything approximating to equanimity. Mr. Hostetter, al- though grievously stricken by this sudden and un- looked-for blow, did not become despondent. After looking in vain for an opening which appeared to promise cnough to warrant his remaining, he deter- mined to return to his native State. To think was to act, and, within a month from the day in Feb- ruary, 1851, that he reached this conclusion, he was again in Pennsylvania, having returned by the same route he followed to the Golden Gate. Soon after- wards he found employment as paymaster with the firm of McEvoy & Clark, contractors, on the Penn- sylvania Railroad, at Horseshoe Bend. Two years later he concluded the time was auspicious for put- ting in operation a project which he had had in his mind for some time, but which he had delayed exe- cuting, owing to lack of funds. This was nothing less than the manufacture of the patent medicine known as "Hostetter's Bitters," which has become one of the standards of its class and has achieved a reputation co-extensive with the domain of com- merce. Mr. Hostetter obtained the formula of this medicinal compound from his father, who had be- come satisfied of its merits as a safe stomach tonic from close observation of its effects during a long practice. Mr. Hostetter, fully aware of its value, determined to place it upon the general market, and associating with himself in the venture, George W. Smith, a former resident of Lancaster and who had been with him at Horseshoe Bend, he removed to Pittsburgh and founded the firm of Hostetter and Smith, whichi began business on Penn street near Hand strcet. Mr. Hostetter was fortunate in the
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