USA > West Virginia > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of West Virginia. Including reference articles on the industrial resources of the state, etc., etc. > Part 7
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
enabled to perform an amount of mental labor greater than would have broken down many of stronger body, and he has also borne the physi- cal strain of long and late hours at the desk in the preparation of legal documents or in the careful formulation of constitutions and laws. Perhaps the secret of his long life is that he permits nothing to worry or fret his spirits. Always serene, cool, and equable in disposition, patient and uncomplaining under disappoint- ment, he is never unduly exultant in success. Always courteous and obliging, charitable and kind, his life is gentle and calm. Some years ago he was very fond of an annual outing among the trout streams or the haunts of the black bass, but of late years this sport has been given up and he now contents himself with such quiet amusements as may be had within doors. His domestic life has been peculiarly happy. The wife of his youth still remains to cheer him and his children and grandchildren surround him with loving ministration. His long life has been one of usefulness and honor, his name has ever been a synonym for integrity, and now as he nears the close of a well-spent life he can well say with the poet of his ancestral faith :
"And so beside the silent sea I wait the muffled oar ; No harm from Him can come to me On ocean or on shore.
I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air ;
I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care."
JOHNSON N. CAMDEN.
HON. JOHNSON NEWLON CAMDEN, United States Senator from West Virginia, and widely known in connection with the industrial development of the State, was born at Collin's Settlement, Lewis County, Va. (now West Vir- ginia), March 6, 1828. His immediate ancestry originated in Maryland, from which State his grandfather, Henry Camden, and wife emigrated to Virginia early in the present century, where he brought up his family, including four sons, all of whom became noted in the history of the Old Dominion. John S., the father of Johnson Newlon, married Nancy, daughter of William
Newlon, of Lewis County, and moved to Sutton, the county-seat of Braxton County, in the spring of 1838, where Johnson N. grew to boyhood, receiving such schooling as the settlement afforded. This wild region of the Elk River country was very sparsely settled, and at the time John S. Camden moved there the horse, canoe, and flat-boat were the only means of transportation; and for a livelihood the settlers depended largely upon the rifle and the fishing- rod. Here in the solitude and grandeur of primeval nature the subject of this sketch passed his youth. He became skilled as a hunter and fisherman, and his rifle and canoe were famous round about. In these rugged sports of his forest home he found great delight, and to this day fondly cherishes their memory. Said he : " The Elk is the most beautiful river I ever saw; its waters are the clearest and its wood-skirted banks the loveliest in the world." In 1842, when young Camden was in his fourteenth year, he went to Weston and entered the service of the county clerk of Lewis County, remaining there over a year. He, however, returned to school, and for two years continued at the North- western Academy of Clarksburg. Then he served for about a year as Deputy Clerk of the Circuit Court of Braxton County, with his uncle, Col. William Newlon. At the age of between seventeen and eighteen years he was appointed a cadet in the United States Military Academy at West Point, where, after two years-being half the full course needed to make him a candi- date for military honors-he resigned his cadet- ship, having decided to study law and qualify for that profession. He was admitted to prac- tice in 1851, and soon thereafter appointed Com- monwealth Attorney for Braxton County and subsequently of Nicholas County. He finally became interested in surveying, and secured several tracts of land in these counties. In 1853 he settled in Weston, and accepted a position as clerk and assistant cashier in the old Ex- change Bank of Virginia, where he remained for four years, the conditions of the engagement being that he should have a portion of his time to attend to land matters and to his duties as Prosecuting Attorney. Up to this period Mr. Camden had seemingly been sounding his way upon the voyage of life for that real and per- manent vocation which he was destined to pur-
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sue. The freedom of his boyhood, spent in the midst of splendid natural scenery, supplemented as this was by the military training at West Point, had naturally turned out a young man with rather original, if not perfectly defined, ideas regarding life and its opportunities. When he left the Weston Bank, in 1857, Mr. Camden had satisfied himself that the law was not to his taste and that he did not care to follow bank- ing as a business; so he cast about for some in- terest which should attract and hold him and at the same time be an adjunct to his future. At this stage of his career the West Virginia oil- fields were coming into public notice, and Mr. Camden, having been engaged in investigating the subject of making oil from cannel coal, rec- ognized at once that the character of the oils was the same, and turned his attention toward Burn- ing Springs, on the Little Kanawha River, where the first petroleum development was put to practical use. But one oil-well existed in the now famous section at this time, when Mr. Camden organized a company, leased the land, and began to bore. The oil was near the sur- face and soon poured forth a stream which was run through troughs into an old flat-boat on the river near by. Fortunately General Karnes, who owned the other (the first well above alluded to), had two thousand oil-barrels, just received from Downer, the pioneer oil refiner of Boston and New York. The Karnes well was not then producing, and the owner turned the barrels over to Mr. Camden. They were filled by hand from the flat-boat and shipped to Parkersburg. This first venture yielded to Mr. Camden and his company in one week about $23,000. A speculative fever now set in; and convinced of the value and certainty of his new investment, Mr. Camden took an early opportunity to in- crease it, forming a partnership with John and J. C. Rathbone, original proprietors of that dis- trict, paying them $100,000 for half the tract, and to work it with their co-operation. Mr. Camden had but a small portion of the cash needed, but investors having faith in his sagac- ity, he soon disposed of three-fourths of his pur- chase for $100,000 and retained one-fourth as profit. The civil war broke out at this time and resulted in scattering the parties to the contract -some going South with the Confederacy-and the enterprise was abandoned by mutual con-
sent. The oil-fields in this section became sub- ject to the depredations of both armies and many wells were finally deserted. But Mr. Camden himself continued and did a profitable business for three years, during the progress of the war, and in copartnership with the Messrs. Rathbone. Their business grew rapidly and necessitated banking facilities which resulted in the founding of the First National Bank of Parkersburg, with a capital of $100,000, in the early part of 1862. Mr. Camden was chosen president of the bank and has continued its President ever since, making it one of the strongest institutions in the State. He continued to invest shrewdly and judiciously in oil-lands, and it is stated of him that with one exception he soon possessed large interests in every oil- producing territory in the State of West Vir- ginia. In the mean time the discoveries and development at Oil Creek and other points in the Pennsylvania oil region had assumed im- portant magnitude, and it became evident that here was a field of much larger proportions and greater relative value than that of West Vir- ginia. Mr. Camden was prudent and far-sighted, and having thoroughly investigated the pros- pects of the Pennsylvania output, he with his partners disposed of the oil interests on the Lit- tle Kanawha for about a half-million dollars. Perceiving that the production of petroleum, which had now grown to such enormous propor- tions in Pennsylvania, would soon be wrested entirely from West Virginia, Mr. Camden had determined with equal foresight to go out of the producing business altogether; and accord- ingly he and his partners, with the large capital which they had obtained through the sale of their oil property, set up an extensive refinery plant at Parkersburg. The production of West Virginia and the business connected immediately therewith soon declined, as Mr. Camden had an- ticipated, and it even became difficult to obtain sufficient crude oil to run the stills of the Par- kersburg refinery. It was about this time that the Standard Oil Company had begun to get thoroughly under way and was controlling and absorbing large oil interests in all parts of the country. Mr. Camden arrived at the conclusion that he could conduct the interests under his control better and with more certainty if asso- ciated with such a wealthy and powerful cor-
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poration as the Standard Company than he could alone. Accordingly he organized the Camden Consolidated Oil Company, to consolidate the different refining interests of West Virginia in connection with the vast system of the Stand- ard. By the latter organization Mr. Camden was enabled to exercise a greater scope of oper- ations, and his executive ability, his judgment, and his thorough knowledge of the business were universally recognized. He was made one of the directors and member of the Executive Committee of the Standard Oil Company, with special charge of its affairs in West Virginia and Maryland. The extent and importance of the refinery at Parkersburg became greatly in- creased after this combination had been made, and it grew to be one of the principal sources for the supply of the Southwest, turning out annually more than 300,000 barrels of refined oil, requiring 15,000,000 staves in their manu- facture; but the changes which went on in their business, as they do in every other of any im- portance, soon necessitated different arrange- ments. The business of exporting oil increased greatly and required that the refining industry should be at the points of export. Mr. Camden now turned his attention to the formation of the Baltimore United Oil Company, combining the oil refineries of that city under one manage- ment, with a million dollars capital. Of this corporation he was made President. In the mean time, while giving full attention to the immediate interests in his charge and under his direction, Mr. Camden had shown himself the public-spirited and far-thinking man that he has proven himself to be. It has been said that "the Standard Oil Company stands without a rival among the corporate bodies in the trade of the world." Mr. Camden has had a great share of the work, and enjoys an equally great share of the honor and distinction of making this vast concern what it is to-day-the one and undisputed owner of the petroleum trade throughout the United States. In the criticisms often justly made about trusts and combines for keeping up prices, very indiscriminate remarks have been launched forth at the expense of this great corporation, which a little reflection will show is just the opposite in its results of in- creasing the cost of oil, crude or refined. The Standard has cheapened oil to the lowest point
and refined it to the fullest extent of scientific accuracy. It has likewise branched out into other industries, has saved valuable rolling and iron mills from rust and destruction, and its vast wealth is ready for investment anywhere and in any legitimate business that promises a safe profit. It must not be forgotten, also, that the wealth of the Standard Oil Company has been distributed over the United States gener- ally through its president, John D. Rockefeller, who, besides numerous private charities, has lavished hundreds of thousands and even mil- lions of dollars upon the altar of religious edu- cation and to the shrine of divine worship. Thoroughly believing in the efficacy of the Standard Oil Company for the good of the world, and especially for the benefit of the United States, Mr. Camden contributed an in- structive paper on the work accomplished by the company, and in which he has been an active participant, which article was published in the North American Review of February, 1882. He reviews the history of petroleum since the opening of the first well in Pennsylvania, August 28, 1859, down to 1882, and refers as follows to the agencies through which it was wrought:
" The specific agency through which this de- velopment has been mainly effected is the or- ganization known as the Standard Oil Company, which may be defined to be an association of business houses united under one management in such a manner as to insure harmony of inter- ests and a consolidation of capital adequate to any possible business emergency, yet each re- taining its individuality and even competing sharply with the other. In order to appreciate what the Standard Oil Company has achieved, it is first necessary to glance at the condition of the oil industry at the time when this com- pany entered it. All the circumstances sur- rounding the first production of petroleum tended to make it an unbusiness-like enterprise. The novelty of the article, the romance of the search for it in the wilderness, the sudden and fabulous wealth that rewarded success, all these attracted especially the unsettled and adven- turesome elements of the community and made the oil regions in 1865 almost the counterpart of California fifteen years before. . . . In such a condition of affairs the state of the oil industry was of course deplorable from a business stand- point. The universality of speculation, the utter disregard of the laws of supply and de- mand, aggravated by the haste of each land- owner to multiply his wells and get as large a
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
share as possible of the underlying oil-pool which his neighbors were sucking up, the lack of handling facilities, resulting in prodigal waste, the apparent instability of the whole business which was hourly expected to vanish, and in many instances did vanish as suddenly as it had appeared-all this conspired to make the oil regions a pandemonium of excitement and con- fusion, and the simple statement of a man's connection with oil was a severe blow to his credit. The refining of oil at this early period was on a basis but little better than its produc- tion. Processes were extremely crude, and their product would be to-day unmerchantable for illuminating purposes. Still the demand for it was great and growing, and refineries multiplied. The competent and incompetent rushed into the business in shoals, until the refining capacity of the country was more than three times that for consumption. Reaction, failures, and demoralization were the inevita- ble consequences. The refiners recognized the dangerous and demoralized condition into which their excessive capacity had brought them. The world would take only so much refined oil as it needed for immediate consumption and no more, and the manufactured article, unlike the crude, could not be stored for any length of time. Various efforts were made to correct the evil of overproduction, through pools and running ar- rangements, restricting capacity, but pools were broken and agreements were ineffectual until the lowest ebb in the oil business was reached. By this time bankruptcy had overtaken a large portion of the refining interest and was threat- ening all. Such in general was the situation out of which was developed the Standard Oil Company as a necessity to arrest the conditions which were driving all connected with the busi- 11css to bankruptcy and ruin. To limit produc- tion was impossible. The extent of the oil-field was a matter of conjecture, while the number of persons who would engage in boring wells and in prospecting for new territory was with- out limit. Leaving production, therefore, to take care of itself, the labors of the Standard Company were concentrated upon the refining interest, with the object of stopping the dis- astrous overproduction of the manufactured products."
Continuing his description of how the differ- ent interests were consolidated under the Stand- ard management and of the possibilities result- ing therefrom, Mr. Camden continues:
" How these possibilities have been developed is indicated by the fact that a day's work of the Standard Company at this time includes among other things the handling of more than 60,000 barrels of oil, the putting together of 90 tons of tank iron, and the making of 100,000 tin cans,
holding five gallons of refined oil each, and 25,000 oak barrels, to hoop which requires 150 tons of iron."
Speaking of the early methods of transporta- tion and storage and their inadequacy for the production, he says :
" With such methods as these and a universal craze for well-boring, it is small wonder that a large proportion of the oil brought to the sur- face had to soak back into the earth or float off through the water-courses of the vicinity."
Then came the new era of storage tanks and pipe-line certificates, of which he writes as fol- lows:
" This condition of things, however, did not last long. Railroads were built, tank cars in- vented, and finally, in 1865, iron pipes began to be laid to bring oil from the wells. During the ten years following a number of pipe-line com- panies wcre organized for running and storing the crude liquid. Each company covered cer- tain territory and the producers availed them- selves of the pipe-line facilities. Each producer received a certificate of deposit for his oil, re- deemable in oil at any time on payment of storage charges. These certificates, which were not negotiable, were influenced somewhat in value by the pecuniary standing of the company, but more particularly affected by the nature of the territory the pipe line covered. It was like old State bank currency. Outside its particu- lar territory a pipe-line certificate was at a dis- count. In 1877 the Standard Oil Company consolidated these various organizations under its own control as the United Pipe Lines. The result is that to-day an oil certificate, like a greenback, is as good in one part of the country as another and can be negotiated at any of our commercial centres. These brief statements, however, give only an outline of what the Standard Oil Company has accomplished. It has been the instrument, if not the cause, of al- most the whole development of the oil industry, production excepted, during the last decade; of vastly improving and bringing to uniformity all oil manufactures; of cheapening these latter to an unprecedented degree and pushing the intro- duction of American petroleum to the remotest parts of the earth; of furnishing employment to a host of men equal in number to the standing army of the United States, and of giving an im- pulse of prosperity to every locality in which its operations are conducted. It has probably had less trouble with its enormous laboring force than any other corporation of comparable importance in the world."
It would be impossible within the limits of this biographical sketch to even adequately out-
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line the scope of Mr. Camden's numerous enter- prises in West Virginia, whose interests he has always had near and dear to his heart. Here he has remained, and here too he has brought other men and large sums of money for devel- oping her inexhaustible resources of oil, timber, coal, and iron. To do this required railroad transportation. When he began his enterprises on the Little Kanawha the State was very de- ficient in railroad facilities. The Baltimore and Ohio road, it is true, connected the Northern and Eastern Panhandles, but the Northern and Southern portions were almost wholly without intercommunication most of the year, with un- certain water transportation at the best, and the interior of the State with its untold resources was almost inaccessible. Mr. Camden, with the late Gen. John J. Jackson, inaugurated the im- provement of the Little Kanawha River and the establishment of slack-water navigation from Parkersburg. This was his first enterprise of that character, and remains an enduring pub- lic work to his memory; and it is noticeable that the first efforts of the man to improve the condition of his State were put forth in the region where his happiest recollectons ever re- turned-the Elk River country of Kanawha and Braxton Counties and the rivers tributary there- to. About 1875 Mr. Camden engaged in his first railroad venture-the narrow-gauge road connecting Clarksburg and Weston. It showed the adaptability of this plan of road for reaching remote sections, and the line was ultimately extended to Buckhannon, Upshur County; and more recently narrow-gauge roads were pro- jected to the county-seats of Braxton, Gilmer, Jackson, and other counties which have been beyond the reach of transportation other than that which prevailed since the early settlement of the country, rendering the stored treasures of nature unattainable and almost valueless. But the resources of the counties opened up by the narrow-gauge roads soon demonstrated to Mr. Camden's mind not only the capacity of his section to maintain profitably standard-gauge roads, but also the necessity of providing for transportation for the immense mineral and timber developments which followed, without transferring or breaking bulk; and as soon as this was demonstrated to his satisfaction the narrow-gauge roads were transformed into well-
built standard-gauge roads, and now the stand- ard-gauge lines are penetrating farther and farther into the depths of the forest, the recesses of the coal-beds, and the mountains of iron and mineral deposit. He also associated with his distinguished friend and fellow-Senator, Hon. Henry G. Davis, and others, in the construction of the West Virginia Central, which is rapidly becoming one of the most important roads in the United States. The Ohio River road be- tween Wheeling and Huntington was also pro- jected and built through Mr. Camden's resources and energy and the Executive Board of Man- agers, of which he is Chairman, his brother-in- law, George W. Thompson, being President. A further enumeration of the railroads which Mr. Camden has projected and placed in suc- cessful operation and of which he is President, includes the Monongahela River Railroad, from Fairmont to Clarksburg, reaching one of the best coal-fields in the State, being a continua- tion of the Pittsburgh and Connellsville veins into West Virginia. With the projecting of this road Mr. Camden also organized a coal and coke company, of which he is President, having a capital of $2,000,000. This company has 15,- 000 acres of coal and 500 coke-ovens in operation at Monongah, and is likely to become a rival of the largest Pennsylvania coke companies, and will probably prove to be the most valuable and important of all Mr. Camden's achievements. The Clarksburg, Weston and Midland road, connecting with the above road at Clarksburg, was transformed into the West Virginia and Pittsburgh Railroad Company, with Mr. Camden as President, and forms a continuation of the same line to Weston, and thence to Braxton Court-House, and thence to the Gauley River, in Webster County, where immense lumber mills and a manufacturing town called Camden- on-Gauley is being rapidly built up. From Weston branch roads extend to Buckhannon, and thence to Newlon and Pickens, at the head of the Buckhannon River, in Randolph County, making about five hundred miles of railroads in West Virginia projected and built by Mr. Cam- den, which has come to be known as "the Camden System" in West Virginia. These rail- roads also form a direct line through the centre of West Virginia by way of the Monongahela Valley, Fairmont, and Morgantown to Pitts-
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burgh, and open up vast territories rich in tim- ber, minerals, and fine limestone grazing lands. This list of enterprises, which make up what is technically known as "the Camden System," has recently been augmented by the purchase, by a syndicate in which Mr. Camden is interested, of an immense iron-ore tract on Potts Creek, with the view of extending the West Virginia and Pittsburgh road to a connection with it and the Chesapeake and Ohio road at Covington, Va., thereby completing the direct line through West Virginia from Pittsburgh to the iron-ore fields of Virginia. This imperfect sketch of railroad enterprises, which Mr. Camden has been the means of promoting, demonstrates the fact that he has done more than any other man in pioneer work for the development of the State, and it is safe to say that very few men in the United States possess the confidence of richer or bet- ter coworkers than he does, or can command more financial aid from abroad than he can. These facts are generally conceded on all sides by the best thinkers in West Virginia. Of course, Mr. Camden's prominence in such public works as have been described could not but in- sure his popularity among those of his imme- diate acquaintance, and they naturally called upon him to accept political responsibilities and honors. Having demonstrated his capacity and given every evidence of high executive ability and strength of character, the people of West Virginia naturally turned to him in the time of important public movements of a political na- ture. As a matter of fact, in 1867 we find him leading a movement to restore the franchise to citizens of West Virginia who had lost it through their connection with the Confederate movement. The adherents to this cause formed what was called the Conservative party and ran Mr. Camden for Governor, but he was de- feated by about 2,500 majority after a well- organized and well-fought campaign, the op- eration of the disfranchising statutes, or test- oath restrictions, being too powerful for the new movement. An amendment to the Constitution of the State, known as the Flick Amendment, was submitted to the people and adopted. Mr. Camden indorsed the proposed change, which was a liberal departure and in keeping with the Constitution of the United States; but many Democratic citizens were opposed to it, and in
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