USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I > Part 31
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The Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe road is the only road in Texas that has not at some time been sold out to satisfy creditors or placed in the hands of receivers. Its finances were managed entirely by Mr. Sealy and his bank- ing firm. Every contract entered into by it was carried out to the letter and the contractors promptly paid in cash all amounts due them. These facts are mentioned to show that Mr. Sealy is entitled to be considered an able manager and financier. For the sake of history, we might men- tion that in the contract for the transfer, or cx- change of stock of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Co., to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Co., involving about twenty-five million dollars, includ- ing stock and bonds, it was agreed by him for the stockholders of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Co. that the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe should be dc- livered to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Co. free from floating indebtedness after the completion of its line of road. Owing to bad crops and con- sequent bad business, when the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe mileage was completed the road was not free from floating debt (debts due outside of its bonded indebtedness ), and Mr. Scaly so reported to the Atchison Company. The Atchison Com- jany, having every confidence in him, left the matter entirely in his hands for adjustment. The difference was made out by him and he submitted the accounts to the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe stockholders and asked them to pay an assessment amounting to only 3 per cent on the stock to make up the deficiency. This was freely paid by all of the honest stockholders. A few, however, refused, claiming that they could not be legally compelled to pay on the ground that the constitution of the State of Texas prohibits the consolidation with railroad companies outside of Texas. Mr. Sealy said that the debt was honestly due and, for him- self, he never looked for a legal loophole to get out of an honorable business transaction. The few, however, whose names we will not mention, whom he designated in public correspondence at the time as " Colonels " did not pay their assessments and, in order to comply with the contract he had made with the Atchison Company, he proposed to pay what was due from the " Colonels " himself, but the Atchison Company declined to permit him to do so, because of this legally unsettled constitu- tional question. In this transaction alone, Mr. Sealy could have made a million of dollars, but he acted in good faith as president of the Gulf, Col- orado & Santa Fe, and every stockbolder, large and small, received the same for their stock that he did. When he had the contract signed, in his
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hands, he could have purchased the stock of the "Colonels " at a much less price than they re- ceived, but he was not made of their kind of material, and was content to deal fairly with his fellow-stockholders. The correspondence that took place at the time would be interest- ing reading, but we have not space to intro- duce it here. Mr. Sealy is president of the Texas Guarantee and Trust Company, vice-presi- dent of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. Co., treasurer of the Galveston Cotton Exchange, Gal- veston Rope and Twine Co., Galveston Free School Board, Galveston Maritime Association, Galveston Protestant Orphans' Home and Galveston Evening Tribune Publishing Co. ; a director in the Galves- ton Wharf Co., Galveston Gas Co., Southern Kan- sas & Texas Ry. Co., Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. Co., Galveston Cotton & Woolen Mills Co., Galveston Cotton Exchange, Galveston Maritime Association, Texas Land & Loan Co., Rembert Roller Compress Co., Southern Cotton Compress Co., Bluefields Banana Co., Galveston Agency of the Galveston Meat Exporting Co., and the Galveston Electrie Light Co. He has never had a desire for public office. Being urgently solic- ited, he did, however, allow his name to go be- fore the people of Galveston in the year 1872, as a candidate for alderman and was elected to and filled that position. During his term he advocated and secured the introduction of reforms that were valuable to the city. When he entered the council, city scrip was selling at fifty cents on the dollar. This was caused largely by the fact of there being no limitation to the expenditure of money in any department of the city government. He saw the necessity of ascertaining the probable revenue for the coming year and of setting aside for the several departments of the government a certain propor- tion of the estimated revenues and confining ex- penditures to the estimated resources for that period. Ile also advocated the passage of an ordi- nance providing that the mayor should be subjected to a penalty for signing any draft on the treasurer of the city, when there was no money in the hands of the treasurer to cover it. Necessary ordinances were accordingly enacted. These salutary reforms accomplished, the credit of the eity was restored, and its affairs thereafter conducted on a cash basis. These reforms have since been generally adopted in other cities in the State. Mr. Sealy realizes that politics and business do not har- monize. Ile has frequently been called upon to allow his name to be presented for congressman, but has always declined. Had he consented, no doubt he would have been nominated and elected. His
name has also been frequently mentioned as a busi- ness .candidate for the position of Governor of Texas. He is well known to all classes, rich and poor, black and white, young and old. It has been a rule of his life to recognize manhood in the boy as well as the man, and he speaks pleasantly to all, irrespective of their position as regards color, wealth, or education. It has been reported that on one occasion, when passing through a city in Texas, a man engaged in a profitable business stopped Mr. Sealy in the street and, extending his hand, said: "You do not know me now, but I want to shake your hand. I well remember that when I was a boy in Galveston, serving as collector for a wholesale house and earning only a few dol- lars per month, you always spoke to me in passing and I always felt better after meeting you. It made me think better of myself, and I know that your kindly recognition had a good influence over me, as I believed that you considered inc a boy of character or you would not have spoken to me."
Kindness costs nothing, and it often exercises a good and lasting influence. There is no envy in Mr. Sealy's nature. He rejoices in the success of his competitors and during times of panic and dis- tress has frequently helped them with his means and advice to escape failure. He contributes to all classes of charities, because it is his pleasure to do so. He lias acted upon the principle that it is " more blessed to give than to receive."
Mr. Sealy was married to Miss Magnolia Willis. the daughter of P. J. Willis, of the great commer- cial house of P. J. Willis & Bros., of Galveston, in 1875. They have eight children, viz. : --
Margaret, Ella, George, Caroline, Rebecca, Mary, Robert and William.
Mr. Sealy is not fond of display or notoriety. He did, however, in order to gratify the desire of his wife and children and to show his great confi- dence in the future prosperity of Galveston, con- sent to erect an elegant residence, perhaps the most expensive in the State. It has been said that its cost amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Mr. Sealy's firm, Ball, Hutchings & Co., perhaps the wealthiest banking firm in the South, have been most liberal baukers. They have been successful and could afford to sustain occasional losses. Their losses, however, have been nearly all in- curred in trying to help some one to build up a business in the interest of Galveston and the State of Texas. From experience and observation Mr. Sealy has concluded that, as statistics prove but three men out of every one hundred succeed in making more than a living, it is very risky to ad-
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vance money to any one who has not proved lini- self competeut to accumulate something beyond his expenses from year to year, however small his capital may be at the outset. It has been said that " success is the only measure of merit." This truism applies not only to the making, or accumulating of property but to all professions, arts and sciences as well. Success is not a matter of chance, the few exceptions noted by common experience proving rather than militating against the rule.
Show me your man who occupies a high and useful place among his fellows and is adding to the happiness and prosperity of the community and country in which he lives and, nine times out of ten, I will show you a man who has made his own way, and that, too, against all manner of opposition, to the eminence, independence and usefulness of his present station. The life of no man who has made the world better or wiser by living, or having lived, or who has added to the comfort of his fellow-beings, or has set an example worthy of emulation, ever has been or ever can be a failure. To really fail is to fail in all these things.
There are men in Texas to-day whose lives are like salt leavening the mass ; whose lives are full of wholesome lessons to the young; men whose deeds have been prolific of good to the common- wealth ; men who have helped to lay broad and deep the foundations of the State's greatness. The development of natural resources and the
march of natural progress along all lines during the past thirty years is without parallel in any other period of time of thrice its length in the annals of human history. This has been particularly marked in the South since the war. She now no longer mainly boasts of her statesmen and soldiers, but that, from her best brain and purpose she has evolved a race of able financiers and city builders. Many railroads now traverse her hills and plains and valleys, rich argosies ride at anchor in her ports, furnaces glow deep red in her valleys, the whirr of ever-increasing spindles makes music in her cities and a tide of hardy, industrious immi- grants is flowing into her waste places. Texas has not been behind her sister States in the march of industrial and commercial progress. A change has been wrought that the most sanguine little dreamed of in those sad days that followed after the close of the war. The men who have been leading workers in the bringing about of this won- derful increase of wealth, unfolding of resources and general development, are worthy of all praise. They have made history - some of its brightest pages. The enduring monuments that they have erected are stately cities, great transportation lines and churches, school houses and industrial enter- prises.
One of the foremost of this band has been the subject of this memoir, whose financial skill, energy, liberality, patriotic purpose and con- structive genius have done much for Texas.
HENRY J. LUTCHER,
ORANGE.
Henry J. Lutcher, one of the wealthiest saw-mill operators in the United States and one of the most widely known citizens of Texas, was born in Williamsport., Pa., on the 4th of November, 1836.
His parents, Lewis and Barbara Lutcher, natives of Germany, eame to America in 1826 and located in Williamsport, where they passed the remaining years of their lives. The mother died in 1883 and the father nine days later, leaving but little property.
The subject of this memoir was early thrown upon his own resources. In 1857, he began busi- ness upon his own account as a farmer aud butcher and continued in these pursuits for five years, dur-
ing which time he cleared about $15,000.00. He then associated himself with John Waltman, under the firm name of Lutcher & Waltman, and engaged in the Jumber business at Williamsport. At the expiration of two years he induced his copartner to sell his interest to G. Bedell Moore, who has since been Mr. Lutcher's business associate, under the firm name of Lutcher & Moore. Mr. Lutcher while operating the mill at Williamsport, Pa., bought a large number of cattle which he shipped to that place over the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad and sold to local butchers. His profits from this source amounted to about $50,000.00. In 1876 he visited Texas for the purpose of prospecting for timbered
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lands. He first traveled through the country lying along the banks of the Neches as far up as Bevil- port. He then traveled along the west side of the Sabine to Burr's ferry, crossed the river there and came down the east bank to Orange, penetrating through the finest belt of long-leaf pine timber that he had ever seen. Ile and his partner at once invested largely in these lands and put up a mammoth saw-mill at Orange. In 1889 they also built at Lutcher, La., one of the largest and best appointed saw-mills in the United States. Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars were expended on this mill before it paid them a dollar. The two mills cut 200,000 feet of logs a day and average an output of sixty million feet of lumber annually, which meets with a ready sale. These invest- ments have increased in value until Mr. Lutcher
is now several times a millionaire. Messrs. Lutcher & Moore maintained lumber yards for a number of years at various points throughout the State, but finally discontinued them and now do a strictly wholesale business. They ran the mill at Williamsport, Pa., until about eight years ago, sinee which time they have confined their attention to their Texas and Louisiana interests. Mr. Lutcher says he knows that Orange and Beau- mont, Texas, and Lake Charles, La., have the best and most extensive saw-mill plants in the world. The improved methods that he has intro- duced in the operation of his properties have been adopted by other mill owners and have been largely influential in building up the lumber industry in Texas and Louisiana to its present enormous pro- portions. The mills at Orange (an attractive and thriving town of forty-five hundred people ) pay out upwards of $100,000 per month for labor, alone.
Mr. butcher was united in marriage to Miss Frances Ann Robinson, daughter of David Robin- son, Esq., of Williamsport, Pa., January 23, 1858, and has two children, Mariam, wife of W. A. Stark, Esq., and Carrie Launa, wife of Dr. E. W. Brown ; both living at Orange. He early mani- fested a taste for reading and although his business interests have required close attention, has found time to thoroughly familiarize himself with the works of the best writers and thinkers of Europe and America, in ancient and modern times, in the domains of science, art, philosophy, history, litera- ture, sociology and political economy. The study of the ethnic character, political institutions and history of the varions peoples who have figured on the world's great stage of action, from the dim day- dawn of the race to the present time, has been a source of deep and absorbing interest to him. Seated in his cosy library at night, when the
business cares of the day are laid aside, he has found it a pleasure to follow the rise and fall of the Grecian republics, to trace step by step the evolution of the Roman republic and its progress through days of unexampled glory to its final decay and the rise and decline of the Roman Empire built upon its ruins, to follow the growth and development of the British constitution and to study our own institutions. There are few public men in this country who have such an ac- curate knowledge of the events that preceded the American revolution, who are so familiar with the history of parties, who have acquired a truer in- sigbt into the Federal constitution or who better understand the purpose, scope and genius of our free institutions. Of a singularly clear and un- clouded mentality, he fully comprehends and appreciates the gravity of the problems that the people will be called upon to solve in the days that are moving toward us from the unknown future - riddles propounded by the sphinx of destiny and that must be answered rightly to avoid disaster. He is neither an optimist nor pessimist, but appre- hends facts as they exist and looks forward with the prevision that comes of a wide-extended knowl- edge of the past. Like many other of our ablest thinkers, he appreciates the necessity for reforms in many directions, the checking of the processes of corruption now at work in many departments of our national, State and municipal life, and for the rekindling of the fires of true patriotism that have lost much of the glow and warmth of earlier years. There was a time when the very existence of this, the greatest of all republics, exercised a potential influence upon the destinies of older States and acted as a beacon to guide liberty-loving men along the path to freer institutions. Then such a monu- ment as Bartholdi's statue " Liberty Enlighten- ing the World " would have been truly representa- tive of the spirit and mission of our country. but can this be truly said to-day, when we begin to hear of " upper," " middle," and " lower classes," when there has been a general and wide-spread departure from the plain republican simplicity of the fathers, when the burdens of government are borne by the many and the benefits enjoyed by the very few, when we are threatened with a pluto- cratic aristocracy in which money and not merit is to decide the rank and standing of those within its pale, and when the press can no longer be consid- ered the secure palladium of the people's liberties ! No one man can hope to avert the evils that threaten to undermine national life, for that must be the work of many patient, toiling minds, drawing their inspira- tion from an unselfish love for their country and
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- for their fellow-men, yet each man capacitated for the task can point out the defects that he has dis- covered and suggest the remedies that he deems sufficient to repair themu. Mr. Lutcher has done mueh thinking along this line and has been solicited by the editors of several of the leading magazines of the country to prepare a series of articles for publication in their periodieals, and will probably accede to their request during the coming year. Thoroughly familiar with his subjeet, an elegant and trenchant writer, possessed of a mind stored . with the "spoils of time," these productions will be looked for with interest and will doubtless cause something more than a ripple in the world of con- temporaneous thonght. Mr. butcher has a large and carefully selected library and one of his great- est home-pleasures is to spend the evening hours with his books. He agrees with Ruskin, who said that it seemed strange to him that a man would fritter away his time in idle conversation, when, by going to the shelves of his book-ease, he could talk with the great and good of all ages, with Plato and Socrates, with Plutarch and Marcus Aurelius - the kings and princes in the realm of letters.
He is an indefatigable worker, every hour having its appointed duties. He says that he owes much of his success in life to the aid given him by his wife
and that as they have journeyed down the stream of time she has " steered him clear of many a danger- ons snag." She is thoroughly conversant with his business affairs and he consults her judgment in all matters of importance. Their palatial home covers a beautiful site of four acres on the west bank of the Sabine, overlooking that stream, and here they dispense a royal hospitality to their numerous friends in Texas and other States. Mr. Lutcher has taken a deep interest and been a potent factor in the development of the Texas coast country. Every worthy enterprise has found in him a liberal supporter. Ile has been a power for good in Southern Texas. His is a strong, magnetic per- sonality that would make itself felt in any assem- blage, however distinguished, or in any field of effort. He is an ardent Democrat, but with his father was bitterly opposed to the late war. He believes that it was brought on by scheming and reckless demagogues, indifferent to the long train of miseries they heaped upon their distracted country.
In the prime of a vigorous mental and physical manhood and approaching the meridian of an un- usually successful and brilliant career as a financier, and full of plans for the future, his influence will be strongly felt in the future growth and develop- ment of his adopted State.
JAMES H. RAYMOND.
AUSTIN.
The present, with all that belongs to it, is the outgrowth and summing up of the entire past. Its meaning to be comprehended must be interpreted by the past.
To the young it is the border-line that separates them from the land of promise in which they are to be the dominant factors in the fight for mastery ; to the old the Pisgah height from which they gaze backward over the past through which they have journeyed, and forward to the future in which others will continue the work they have begun.
The Texas of to-day is far different from the Texas of the days of the Republic. There have been many changes and transformations since the first rifle shot of the Revolution was fired in 1835. Many men of remarkable genius have trod its soil and toiled with hand and brain and voice and pen to shape its destinies and direct the commonwealth
along the upward course which it has pursued to its present proud position among the States of the American Union.
The leaders in the work of pioneer settlement, the daring spirits who fomented aud led the pre- revolutionary movements, the heroes and martyrs of the struggle for independence, the presidents and cabinet officers of the days of the Republic and the men who laid the foundation of our State institutions have nearly all passed away.
The only surviving Treasurer of the Republic of Texas is the subject of this sketch, Mr. James HI. Raymond, now a resident of the city of Austin, with whose prosperity he has been identified for many years and where he has rounded out a career as a financier that, in point of success and brill- inney, is paralleled by that of few other meu in the State.
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James Harvey Raymond was born the 30th day of June, 1817, in Washington County, New York. He was named after Dr. Harvey, the re- nowned religious and metaphysical writer.
William Raymond, father of the subject of this biographical sketch, was born in Connecticut, and died in Genesce County, New York, in 1847, having located there in 1825. He was a merchant trader, and was well and favorably known in the community where he resided. He married Mary Kellogg, daughter of Justin Kellogg, one of the native farmers of Connecticut. She was an exem- plary wife and mother, remarkable for all those qualities of mind and heart which shine with undimmed brilliancy around the domestic hearth, and to her is the son indebted for the practical habits of his life. The greater portion of his early life was passed in Genesee County, New York, upon a farm, where he was inured to hard labor, enjoying no other educational advantages than were afforded by the ordinary country sehools, which he was only permitted to attend at intervals. In 1832, being then but fifteen years old, he aban- coned his home and the State of his nativity, and came to Cineinnati, Ohio, where, and at Newport across the Ohio river in Kentucky, he was engaged in clerking until 1836. In that year he returned to New York and clerked at Batavia until 1839, when he determined to emigrate. Texas was selected as the objective point, and his plans were immediately put into execution.
He started, but on the way stopped at Natchez, Miss., where he remained a short time, proceeding from thence to Woodville, Wilkinson County, Miss. Here he passed nearly a year studying and practicing the rudiments of surveying with the intention of following that occupation on his arrival in Texas. In July, 1840, he landed in Galveston and proceeded thence to Houston, from which place he went on foot to Franklin, in Robert- son County. Here he was employed as Deputy Surveyor to accompany an expedition to the upper Brazos country. However, in a few days, and after all necessary preparations were nearly com- pleted, hostile Indians approached the locality and the contemplated expedition was abandoned, muehl to his chagrin. In October following he went to Austin in company with Geo. W. Hill, after- ward Secretary of War under President Houston, but at that time a member of the Congress of the Republic of Texas. On his arrival at Austin he was made Journal Clerk of the House of Repre- tentatives of the Fourth Congress. In April, 1x11, Gen. Lamar, who was then President of the Republic, appointed him Acting Treas-
urer, the duties of which office he discharged with fidelity and marked ability. In November, 1811, he was elected by the Fifth Congress Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives and in this office he was retained by continued annual eleetions until 1845, when the Republic ceased its existenee and Texas became a member of the Fed- eral Union. In 1842 he served as a soldier in the expedition organized to repel the Vasquez and Woll invasions, and in 1844 was appointed Treas- urer by Gen. Houston, and discharged the duties of that office in connection with his other offices. In 1845 he was seeretary of the convention that framed the first State constitution and in February, 1846, was elected chief elerk of the House of Rep- resentatives of the legislature convened after the admission of Texas into the Union as a State. He served but a few days, when he resigned and was elected State Treasurer, the first Treasurer of the State of Texas. To this office he was continually eliosen by annual election until November, 1858. Two years afterward he began banking at Austin as a member of the banking house of John W. Swisher & Company, which, in 1861, changed its name to Raymond & Swisher, and in 1868 to Ray- mond & Whites. In June, 1876, Mr. Frank Hamil- ton and James R. Johnson purchased the interest of Mr. Whites, and since that time the business has been conducted under the firm name and style of James H. Raymond & Company. The State Agricultural and Mechanical College was erected under the supervision of a commission of which he was a member. As a member of this commission and in other official positions of minor importanee that he has since held from time to time, he has discharged the duties intrusted to him in a most satisfactory manner.
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