The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-01-26
SOME LARGE FORTUNES.
A Sketch About Some People Who
Have Become MilIiOnaires.

There died last week two men whose for
tunes twenty years ago would have been
known and remarked all over the co lntry
as it was, they were not apparently recog.
niZed much beyond the immediate circles of
the possessors' acquaintance. Henry Field
OF Chicago, was supposed TO be worth S.
0eO,OO0; John b. Trevor of New ! ork, pos
sessed some S10,O0O,0OO. Neither name. saws
the 5 ringfeld (Mass.) Republican, appears
In the list of multi-milionaires which is
weekly paraded in some newspapers
reminders and stimulate the discontented
dreams of the less Fortunate They
were simply oyershadowed by larger
fortunes and multiplicity of better known
names. They were known, however, to be
very rich, and in that they differ from the
late MIR. Fayerweather Of New York. whose
fortune of $5,000,000 or SO WAS not even
known to his friends, and whose benefac-
tions, revealed at the same time, almost
rivaled those of George Peabody, Johns
Hopkins and Stephen Girard.
Trevor, Field and Fayerweather had
fortunes that we're as moe-hiIls to mount
aims when set up against the colossal
wealth of the Rockefellers, Vanderblts and
Gould; but, striking as that comparison
may be, there is another yet more sug-
wealth was not generally known, and, if it
had been, would not have been generally
regarded. George Peabody was never
worth much more than S100O0O00, and yet
his fortune had great reputation and was
considered in his day very large, Indeed.
John Jacob Astor's fortune, at the time of
his death in 1913, was tile wonder of the
country, but it aggregated only about S20.-
OC0,000. Alexander Ii. Stewart was counted
one of the three or four richest men in
the United States at the time of his
death, and that was as late as 1876 But
his fortune was only about three times
as large rs that of the retired and
unknown Western merchant, Henry Field.
Johns Hopkins, Of Baltimore, was we'll
known millionaire before his princely ben
efaction of the university and hospital, but
his fortune did not much exceed that of
Trevor. Stephen Girard of Philadelphia
who antedated Hopkins, was known IN
Europe, as well as America. for his large
fortune, which after all was only $4,000, ,0O0,
or less than twice the size of that Of the un-
known leather merchant in The Swamp"
at New York, Fayerweather, who left more
to various colleges than Grard did to his
only about S6,000000 at his death, although
during his life he had distributed con-
siderable fortune in itself in charitable gifts.
There was, in fact, IN the period in which
these millionaires flourished, but one for
tune accumulated which to-day would bear
comparison with the largeSt-CommOdore
Vauderbilt's of S90,000.000.
Now we have many such-accumulated
generally in the same way and rarely in
mercantile affairs, where the millonaires
OF the earlier period obtained their wealth.
The Vanderbilt fortune has now grown TO
an estimated S90,0G0,O00 in the hands of
Cornelius Vanderbilt, S50000,000 in the
hands OF William h, S35, ,00O, coo each IN the
hands of Fred w. and George, and more In
the hands of the widow OF William 81. and
his daughter. The Astor fortune through
real estate investments, has profited by an
enormOu "unearned increment" and is
now in the hands of w. w. Astor,
considerably above S1OOO00,00O, with
possibly as much more held by
other members of the family. The Stewart
fortune has been less fortunate, but is still
very much larger than at the time of its dis
tributon. Gould, Huntington, Sage, Brice.
Stanford and many others nave built up
fortunes on nothing in railway speculations,
beside which tile accumulationS OF the mer-
chant princes OF forty years ago are as
scarcely anything. But as railways sue
ceeded trade as the dice with which seekers
after wealth have played heaviest with for
tune, so now industrial consultations are
TO apparently to succeed railroads; and as
the railway accumulatlonS have exceeded
those IN trade, so those i'll the organization
of trusts" promise to exceed the fortunes
OF the transportation kings.
Within twenty years an individual for
tune has been accumulated from nothing
larger than thatot modOre Nanderbiits,
larger than that even OF William ii. Wander
Dllf, VINO built on huge inherited 1ounQa-
ton, and larger Than any individual AStOr
fortune. 1t is that of John ID. Rockefeller
of the Standard Oil Trust, who was not
many years ago poor man, but who now
commands the colossal wealth of nearly,
perhaps quite, perhaps more, than S130,oO0,
600. In the sa me line OF effort the Have
meyers, Theodore and II. o., have taken
some Sou.0U0,0O0 in the sugar refining indus
try.
Compared with the millionaires of the last
generation a man like Rockefeller appears
10 touch the material heavens. But an even
more significant comparison could be made
between these present accumulations of
Rockefeller, the NanderbiltS, the Astors and
Gould, and the fortunes of Europe. The
richest man in England is supposed to be
the Duke of Westminster. MI Gladstone,
few years ago, placed the dukes fortune
al S50,000,000 1t represents the accumula-
tions, not of one man or one gen.
Grafton, but many men through many
generations under system of entail
and prmogeniture which keeps
fortune intact and inalienabie. There ar Q
half dozen men of the free Republic of
America worth more than the richest man in
that other land of special privileges to the
favored few. The richest Of the Rothschild
brothers never had more than about S70,-
000,000, and none of their descendants is
worth as much, although in the aggregate
the ROthschild fortune is immense.
The greatest individual fortunes in the
world are to be found here in America, and
beside them-the accumulation of day
those of the centuries in the Old World sink
almost into inSignifcance in dimensions and