Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-04-17
The End of Two Californians Who Were
Once MiIlionaires.

The End of Two Californians Who Were
Once MiIlionaires.
Two curious careers were recently ended
on this coast, both showing the eXtraOrdin-
ary reverses that befell many spectators
in California, says San Francisco letter
to the ST.. Louis Globe-Democrat, In a
rude cabin in Virginia City last week was
found the dead body of H. D. Griswold,
who had persisted by his own hand. He
had taken razor and inflicted a deep
cash in his wrist. Then he had placed
his arm over a pan and calmly allowed his
| life blood to ebb away. Griswold was one
of the early pioneers who came here with
Harry Meings, afterward famous as the
railroad builder in Chill and Peru Meiggs
was soon worth millions, but Griswold
didn' t prosper so rapidly because he had
no fortune to start with. S5ill he owned
trading-schooner, winch piled between
this city and Mixican ports, and he amass-
ed a comfortable fortune. But when the
Comstock excitement broke out he went to
Virginia City with the rush of adventur-
ers and there sank all he had made in
California.
His old associate, Meiggs, was threaten.
ed with ruin here in the SOS, when he
took one of his clipper ships, loaded her
with a miscellaneous cargo of goods, and
| one night slipped the cable and made her
| way out of the Golden gate. There was
gnashing of teeth the next morning among
| the creditors; there was racing and chas-
| ing down the cost to capture the fugitive
vessel with the biggest defaulter Califor-
MIA had ever then known, but Meiggs
made his escape and was never afterward
seen in his old haunts His defalcation
and flight ruined a dozen men in this city,
whose only mistake was in trusting him
| implicitly. Six years after he left here
| Meiggs was rich, and for twenty years be-
| fore his death he was many times a mill
ionaire, yet in all this time he had made
no inquiries into the affairs of the men
whom he had ruined, nor did he make the
least effort to repair the great wrong he
had done.
Another speculator whose ill-started ca
reer closed, like Griswold's, in financial
gloom, was Daniel g. Burton, who died
recently at his little vineyard near Cucam
onga, in San Bernardino county. Burton
was a cousin of the great fnancier Raiston
and was a young and handsome broker
when the Big Bonanza excitement of 1874
IS struck San Francisco and converted
every curbstone ''clipper" into a respective
millionaire. Burton was shrewd ano
bought enought stock in the big Consolid
ated Virginia and California mines to
yield him over a half-million in a few
months His friends thought he was or
the high road to great wealthy, as he seem
| ed to have that invaluable instinct which
tells speculator when the market is going
to rise or fall His actions were closely
watched, and many small operators made
money by buying when they saw Burton
loading up and selling the moment he be-
gan to dump stocks. Yet despite his ex
traordinary run on luck. Burton suddenly
left the excitement of Pine street ano
| Pauper alley and paid visit to the eas
and Europe.
In Saratoga he cut an immense swath
He had suits by the dozen. and he wore
the costliest and most unique jewelry
He hob-nobbed with old Commodore Van
derbilt, whose graciosly allowed the Cali
fornian to bear more than his just burden
of the cost of entertaining the select crowC
of railroad millionaires that he gathered
about him. Burton shone like meteor
for single season. and he told friends OF
his return that he had dropped $4,000 IL
setting it up for the boys and in bad bet
on horses. The same run of Ill luck fol
lowed him in Europe. He took ''1ier
on all the English and French race courses
but there was hoodoo Oh him and h,
couldn win. He became desperate
plunged into all kinds of dissipation, an,
dropped the reminder of his coin at Mon
AGO in the vain endeavor to retrieve disas
ter. He saved just enough out of tn
wreck to pay his fare back to California
He was so thoroughly disheartened whel
he returned that he never visited his oil
haunts in the stock exchange, but he wen
to San Jose and started a small business
He couldn' make it go, however, and b
soon returned to his home at Cucamonga
which be had taken for small debt year
before and had regarded as worthless. Fo
the last seven years of his life he lived ik
a recluse, seldom venturing away from
home