Morning journal and courier., 1886-01-15
A CONNECTS ROMANTIC CAREER. The Strange Fortunes of a Man Who Inherited And Squandered a FOr-
 

The Strange Fortunes of Man Who
 Inherited And Squandered a For
 tune.
 CHICAGO, Jan. 14-Silas McCloon, one of the four Deer Island convicts who were par doned at Boston this week for heroism in rescuing the remnant of the crew of the wrecked schooner Juliet off Winthrop's Point has had romantic career, according to the history of his life, which is published here to-day. McCloon's father was wealthy merchant and shipbuilder of Rockland, Me, and was worth at least $1 800, 900 at the time of his death. The inheritance was divided between the mother, two daughters and the son, he receiving in accordance with the provisions in the will one-third of the whole fortune. The residue was equally divided among the other heirs. One of the daughters, soon after the disposition of the estate married an ex-lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, now one of the most promi- nent members of the bar in that State. Silas became the husband of young lady distinguished in the society of
 HAverhill, Mass, for her great beauty
 and accomplishments. A S60,000 residence at
 Rockland was his first investment. His next
 was the fatal purchase of half interest in
 the incompleted invention of a Yankee to
 utilize steam without allowing an exhaust
 Thousands of dollars melted away in the
 scheme. The financial packer, inex perienced
 and insane with enthusiasm, hastened
 off to Europe with imperfect models
 and illustrations to introduce to the
 Old World an unpatented invention that
 was destined to revelutionize power. Sharp
 CTS at London and Paris saw the weakness of
 both the man and the machine, and while at
 testing to the marvellous worth of one showed
 no hesitation in patronizing the apparently
 inexhaustible wealth of the other. Young
 McCloon, it is said, had dined and wined himself out of nearly $2OO, 900 when his mar ried sister, then in Paris with her husband,
 had him spirited off to America one night He stuck to the invention until all his available resources were dissipated, noth ing being left but the Rockland house and a limestone quarry that yielded an income of $5, ,OO0. These he one day gave to his wife, convinced that he was 1rreclaimable. His mother gave him money with lavish hand, but when she saw that he was falling lower with each gift she withheld her favors His sisters closed the doors of their rich homes against him.
 At last his mother gave him a purse with which to start anew in the West, eXactlng a promise that he would never return unless he had overcome h1S unIOrGunaIo naDlCs III February, 1877, young McCloonpassed through Chicago on his way to the Black Hills, ,thenthe scene of gold excitement He had not al- lowed an intoxicant to touch his lips for
 month. At Omaha, while the overland
 train was waiting for lunch, he
 bought bottle of ale. The next night, while the train was speeding past Gibbon, small. station in Nebraska, the station agent was shocked to see body fall and apparently roll under the wheels He took the unconscious man into the sta- tion and restored him. It was the young New Englander He had miraculously es- caped with few bruises on the head
 The following train took him to Chey- enns. Then for some days he surprised the
 bordermen by his munifcence. On the fourth | day he awakened with meagre $200 remnant | of the S1O, ,OOO which his mother had given for the first installment on the purchase of a cat | tie ranch. His next effort at reformation | was made when an exile on the Medicine Bow Mountain range, where for four months
 he remained searching for gold. At the expiration of that period, having suffered the adverse fate of most gold hunt | CTS, McCloon returned home to his wife l end two children in Maine, sure that | circumstances had redeemed him and resolved to recover by hard labor the fortune he had
 so recklessly squandered. His release from | a conyict's celf for bravery is the first that l has been heard from him since then.