Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-08-28
HOW THEY BEGAN LIFE.
Many New York MilliOnaires Started
Like Poor Boys.
Small Beginnings Out of Which Grea:
Estates Have GrOwn-FamOus
Men Who Have Succeeded.


find ample justification of their doctrine.
Occupying the highest inches in the struct-
ure of business and professional life are
men whose only heirloom was independ-
ence, and whose only aid to success was
energ y and brains. With few exceptions
these men are proud Of their humble be-
glnnings.
Henry Willard whose ups and downs
leave him power in the Northern Pacific
Railroad, earned his first money as a re-
porter.
Austin Corbin worked on his fathers
farm In Vermont for his first dollar.
Coils 7. Huntington began his career as
merchant In this city when he was fifteen
years old.
Calvin 5. Brice's first labor was over
law books In a country law office in
Ohio.
Daniel Dougherty, the silver tongued
orator, made his first bit of money hand
ling the ribbons over his fathers bus teams
on Arch street, Philadelphia.
Eugene Kelley, now banker worth S.
100000, earned his passage to this country
by driving a jaunting-car in his native
place, County Tyrone, Ireland.
Oswald Ottendorfer was bookkeeper on
the Staats-Zeitung when Hermann Uhl
controlled t.
Sidney Dillon, whose name is always
associated with Gould's and Sages S, was
once an errand bow In the employ of the
New York Central Railroad
Chauncey NJ Depew rose to his present
unique position from law office. He was
admitted to the ban in 1858
Jay Gould, it is we'll known was a
nd h1lo
County
Ex-Judge Noah Davis first felt the de-
lights Of making money Of his own on his
father farm.
Klihu Root is also a product of farm
life.
So are Ex-Judges William Fullerton and
his brother Stephen.
ID. o. Mills was born on small farm
near Albany, and worked there until the
gold fever took him to California in 1910.
Col. Joel B. Erhardt earned his fist
money as member of the Seventh Regi-
ment of this staoe during the evil war.
He was studying law when he went to the
front.
Ex-Mayor William r. Grace was It
butcher in Callao, Perue, until he became
a ship-Chandler.
James Watson Webb started out to WOO
fortune as a clerk in country store
Corporation Counsel Clerk read law and
ran errands in w. Bourke Cockran's of
hce after graduating from the public
schools of Newark, n J.
w. Bourke Cochran himself was a
country school teacher before he became a
porter for A. 7. Stewart
Col. S. V. r. Cruger, after the usual
life of a college boy entered the army at
the age of Is.
Inspector Williams began to earn his
living in d fsh-yard near Digby, n. S.,
spreading the fish on clakes to dry
A. II. Palmer was once a lawyer s
clerk.
Manager John A. McCaul ran away
from Mount St. Mary College, Emmitts-
burg, Md, to become a sergeant in
the Confederate army, at the age of IS
years.
J. M. Hill was manager of a juvenile
company at Lowell Mass, at the age of Is
years, and had we'll appointed playhouse
of his own
Heny E. Abbey began as cornet player
IN theater at Akron. O.
Daniel Frohman was IN errand boy in
the New York Tribune counting-room
John B. Schoefel was a jeweler in
Rochester.
Manager Proctor of the Twenty third
Street Iheater was an acrobat.
Augustin DAILY was originally news
paper man. John Stetson a professional
athlete. Tony Pastor a clown Harry
Miner policeman. Managan Hammer
stein a cigarmaker.
}. S. T. Stranahan, the Brooklyn million
alre, at the age 10 started out for the
northwest on a fur-trading expedition.
His trip was a great financial success.
John King, the railroad man, began as
an errand boy in hardware store in
Baltimore.
August Belmont began his career in a
counting house.
Rudolph Aronson was an enthusiastic
deyotee of music in his youth and earned
dollar or two out of it.
Rufus Hatch raised and sold garden
sauces.
Judge Morgan J. O'Brien of the Su-
pTeme Court was newspaper paragraph
er
EN-Congressman I. S. Cambell set forth
OH the struggle for existence as a printing
pressman.
}. Edward Simmons was clerk in his
brother S country store.
Nlce-President Levi ?. Morton was as a
boy a clerk in village dry goods store,
and aided his father, a poor clergyman,
with goodly share of his seven-dollar-a-
week-salary.
Russell Sage was taught frugali;y in
his brothers grocery store at Troy. n. Y
Henry Clews' early lite was spent as a
porter in a wooden house at 50 a week
Ira Shatfer combined alternately the
n, IF al a L
County.
Ex-Judge Horace Russell became AS
slStant District Attorney not long after re
signing a cleriship in a country store.
Thomas A Edison was once d telegraph
operator in Boston
Henry B. Hyde, the President of the
Equitable Life Insurance Company was a
clerk in the office of the Mutual Life In
surance Company thirty odd years ago,
when he conceived the idea on which the
Equitable was founded.
Marvelle W. Cooper, Appraiser of the
Port, was a public school teacher in Stock
bridge, VT
William H. Vanderbilt remained on his
father farm until he was 80 years old,
when the old Commodore put him in train.
ing for his railroad career.
Lawyer and Secretary of the Navy Ben
jamin F. Tracy was a farmer boy, and
one with mighty poor prospects at that
He was born few miles from Owego. He
dropped farming and taught school day
times, studying law at night.
Ex-Judge Henry A. Gildersleeve, set out
tor his cosmopolitan career by working a
farm.
Gen. Roger Pryor made enough money
to enable him to study law doing locals