St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1877-09-14

manifest in Hartford as in cities more
Iemote from the Home Offices.
In this connection we are pleased to
note few facts respecting the Etna
Life Insurance Co., of which the people
of this city may well feel proud. Its
name is tower of strength, and its
sOlvency has never been questioned.
With twenty-seven years of successful
and uniformly progressive business,
with conservative management and ju-
diciOus investments which have char
acterized the history of the Company,
its patrons may feel assured their in
terests are well protected. The Presi-
dent, II. o. Enders, has been identified
with the Company twenty-fOur years.
With his executive ability and untiring
efforts, and the cooperation of an eff
cient and honorable board of directors
the company has guarantee of a sue
cessful future.
The Etna embraces both the ''stock"
and mutual" plans of doing business.
Let us now look at the Connecticut
Mutual, an institution operating purely
on the latter basis, and see whether or
no the public may feel safe in putting
premiums into its hands. Here is an
other company, which was born during
the infancy of life underwriting in this
country and after thirty years of busi
ness during which it has grown to be
the second life company in the world in
point of size, it can make the rare boast
that the finger suspicion has never once
been pointed at either its solvency or
its conduct. What words of laudatiOn
could be more eloquent than those facts,
backed by the fifty millions of assets
which the company possesses and which
need no sitting to bring them down to a
cash basis! The laws governing NOR
tality simply preclude the possibility of
disaster to a corporation in its position
except through gross and long continu-
ed mismanagement-a thing too foreign
to the traditions of the company to be
considered for moment. In this re-
gard it is enough to say that President
Goodwin who has filled that office dur
ing almost the entire life of the cOrpor-
alton, bids fair to give it the benefit of
his wisdom and experience for many a
year to come, as does also Secretary
Jacob L. Greene under whose six years
of direct personal management some
eighteen millions have been added to
the company's assets despite the uni
versal depression of more than half that
period.
In the two grand divisions of life in
surance we see by the above examples
that the bottom has not fallen out, nor
any thing like it; but there is third
variety, of growing claims and impor
tance, represented by the casualty COM
panies. Casualty insurance is the latest
development of underwriting and was
introduced into this country about
dozen years ago by James G. Patterson,
the present president of the Travellers,
which | presume is pretty well known
to all of your readers who have been
inside Il railroad depot any time within
| five years and the way in which he
started it is well worth telling. 1t was
early in 1764, shortly before the incor-
poratiOn of the Travellers, that Mr.. Bat
tersOn was approached on the street one
day by an intimate friend, who loosely
asked him how much he would take to
insure him for $4,000 against accident
during his trip home, distance of
about half a mile. "Two cents,n
promptly replied Patterson. "Done,"
said the equally laconic applicant for
insurance, fOrking over the required
premium and thus was perfected the
first accident policy ever given in the
United States. Luckily for Mr.. Batter
son, there was ''nO loss" and the pre-
MUM was clear profit. Those two
Identical cOppers are now framed and
hung up in the home Office of the Trav-
elers.
One month more after this incident,
the latter was opened for business and
| thn Sta mi ho, a.
within eighteen months it had written
eighty-five millions of insurance at
profitable rates. This success proved a
great stimulus to competition, so that
before couple of years were over,
eleven other accident companies were
in existence. But the start and the su-
perior management of the Travellers
proved too much for it's imitatOrs, and
before long the former again found it
self master of its peculiar field, in which
1 position it remains at this writing, pos
sessing, after having paid two and
three fourth millions of accident losses,
snug four millions of irreproachable
assets and Il surplus, by the Massachu-
setts standard of reserve, the severest
of all, of 81, ,172,O 900. Notwithstanding
the financial pressure, the Travellers
has increased the amount of its accident
business, every month this year, over
the corresponding months of last year.
1t is not limited to accidents of travel,
as many suppose, but covers all sorts OF
casualties to the person, in all lawful
callings and pursuits. The Travellers
also does handsome life business, in
which it is well holding its own against
the burden of the times and the current
of popular distrust of life insurance.
With this brief sketch of the three
Companies that are first in their respect
i've departments, l must leave this sub
ject; for although Hartford is largely
given over to this interest, it is not all
insurance. The buildings alone might
form the subject of letter. Here is
the palatial residence of the late Col.
Colt of revolver fame, manor house
surrounded by meadows, groves and
gardens, with fountains and statuary
dd Rbitun, and an English deer park.
This is one of the finest places in the
country and bears the appropriate name
of ''Armsmear." Here, too, are the
handsome and picturesque residences of
our great American "funny man." Mark
Twain, Charles Dudley Warner, Mrs.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, and many other
literary lights. And last but not least,
here is, or rather here aUas, the Charter
Oak, which gives it's name to about
every other street, building and insti-
tuition in the city. | have seen here a
good many pictures of this remarkable
piece of vegetation, but l don't think
they can any of them do justice to its
size; for l am prepared to make affi-
davit that in my various wanderings i
have already seen 1000 cords of its