The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-12-26
A SALT COMPANY OUTWlTTED.
A Millionaire Hires Out, Gains Admittance to
the Mine and Buys Adjoining Property.

Especial to THE HERALD-Examiner Dispatch. |
CANADAIGUA, N. Y, Dec. 25.-William
H. Smith, a millionaire interested in coal
and salt mines, has a bill of $3.50 against
the Retsof Salt Mining company of New
York, Livingston county, for two days
work as a common laborer in the Retsof
mines. The bill will probably be disputed,
but Smith doesn't care, for. acting upon
the knowledge gained during the two days
he took his place with the laborers IN the
mines, he had purchased valuable bid of
salt territory, which promises to net him
handsome profit. Smith presented himself
to the officers of the Retsof company the
other day and asked for WORK. He was
engaged as common laborer at Sl.30 per
day and sent down into the mine. On The
third day he pleaded sickness and was
granted a day off. He was well enough,
however, to drive to the farm house OF l.
II. Gray, who owned a valuable tract Of
salt territory which tho Retsof people had
been negotiating for. Smith said he was
an employee of the Retsof company, and
asked Gray what he would take for his land.
1.-Two hundred dollars per acre for 400
acres" was the reply, and the words had
hardly been uttered when the indisposed
miner pulled $4,000 in bills from his over
alls to bind the bargain. An agreement
was drawn up whereby Gray was to trans
fer his entire estate for $4,000, and Smith
returned to the shaft and announced that
he had recovered from his indisposition
and resumed work underground. Gray,
happening to meet an officer of the Retsof
company on that same day, remarked that
he had finally concluded the bargain with
one of their men. The explanations which
followed were not calculated to put the
Retsof people in good humor. They called
the men up from the mine in order to
allow Gray to identify the party of the
second part of the sale he had consum-
mated. When Smith was pointed out he
was promptly discharged. The Retsof
people were chagrined over the way they
had been outw1tted and were willing to
raise Smiths ante, but it was too late.
The millionaire culprit received his dis
missal philosophically and in extraordinary
good humor. In business like way he pre-
scented a bill for two days labor at the
office, but it was not honored. He told the
Retsof people that he was abundantly able
to stand it, that he was going TO sink a
shaft on his new purchase at once and start
in opposition.
Smiths achievement is looked upon as a
clever piece of business as well as good
Joke. He had been approached on the sub
iect of investing in western New York
salt lands, but had never been satisfied in
regard to the prospects of the profit The
Retsof people guarded their interests so
closely that he could get nothing from
them, so in the garb of a common laborer
he secured admission to the shaft, and
learned all he wanted to and secured valu-
able property adjoining, just as the Refs
of people were about to close negotiations
for it. Smith is extensively interested in
coal and oil lands in Pennsylvania. The
land he purchased from Gray is believed to
be the richest salt territory in the western
New York regions.