Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-03-10
CALIFORNIA; WEALTH
It Makes Men Miserable and Drives
Them to Their Graves.
TRAGEDIES IN THEIR MANSIONS.
Sharon's Curse Fulfilled and His Nemesis
Now q Maniac.
HOW THEY SECURED THEIR MILLIONS.

the discovery Of gold by Marshall in the
millrace at Colima, men have been more
eager to make large fortunes here than in
any other part of the globe. Perhaps some
thing of this greed for money comes from
the spectacle of poor men being converted
into great capitalists by a single turn Of
fortunes wheel; perhaps it is in the air,
which is heavy with the speculative ozone
which makes gamblers of cautious, con-
servative men. Whatever it be, California
has seen a score of great fortunes gathered
by men who came here without a dollar,
and in nearly every case it has seen this
great wealth bring to its possessors only a
heritage of misery that has often ended in
suicide. In other countries the man who
has gathered millions generally raises a
family and leaves his estate to his sons, who
preserve the family name and wealth; but
in California it is the exception for rich
man to have family that is Of any service
to him, and a dozen very rich Californians
may be named to-day who are working 10
or IL hours day rolling up money. and yet
who have no worthy heir to the coin.
Taking the San Francisco millionaires in
chronological order we come first to Sam
Brannan, the pioneer rich man of the city.
Brannan was a Mormon elder, who brought
out here a shipload of Latter Day Saints be-
fore the discovery of gold. When he started
from New York it was the intention of
Brigham Young to found a Mormon empire
on the shores of the Pacific, but Brigham
halted by the way and built the New Zion
at Salt Lake CITY. So when Brannan
reached San Francisco after a voyage of
nearly two years, he found the Mormon
plans entirely altered.
Brannan Pockets Mormon Tithes.
He established his followers on ranches,
and when the gold discovery came he
utilized them IN mining, carefully collect
ing one-tenth of what they mined as Church
tithes This tithing money started him on
the way to fortune, and when Brigham de-
manded the tithes Brannan laughed at him.
The Mormon President, when this reply
was received, cursed Brannan and had a
vision in which he described the apostate
dying in misery and want among strangers.
Well, Brannan laughed and went on max
ing money. He was worth $1,000, 900 in
1855, when the first vigilance committee
was formed, and he was the life of this
body. He gave freely to every public pur-
pose. Like the elder Dumas, he had a score
of parasites who fattened on his iberality.
Everything he touched turned to gold. He
grew to believe that ill-fortune could not
strike him. He scattered his fortune in a
hundred ventures, and finally one day the
crash came. 1t was forced by Brannan's
drinking and his neglect of business.
One was sorry for the man except Brigham
Young and his jealous disciples. They took
him as an awful warning to apostates and
predicted that he would yet eat the bread of
misery. Brannan went to Sonora, where he
had been granted big concessions by the
Mexican Government; but his land was held
by the Yaqui Indians, and he could never
secure possession. He returned here several
times the last time just before his death.
He was then a broken down old man, and
when L saw him he was in wretched room,
in a cheap lodging house, for which he paid
% cents a night. He told me, with grim
humor, that he had met that day in the
streets no less than three men whom he
started on the road to wealth, and each one
passed by on the other side, pretending not
to know the broken man who once helped
them up out of the financial gutter. Yet
when he said this he wasn't bitter, and
when he left his last words to me were:
you'll see that in few months I'll be on
my feet again. There's plenty of life in the
old man yet"
Latham Lost His Head and Suicided.
The next millionaire to succeed Brannan
was Milton S. Latham, a lawyer, who de-
veloped great taste for building railroads
and developing industrial enterprises. He
had the finest house in the city in the later
Cos, filled it with costly paintings, held
superb receptions, but he couldn't keep
failure off He sunk $6, OO0, 900 in a rail-
road that skirts the coast above Frisco, and
swsmped him. He collapsed and died,
leaving no heirs. His fine mansion was
converted into boarding house. He is re-
membered now chiefly for the beautiful
monument that he erected in Lone Mount
ain Cemetery Parian marble life-sized
statue of his first wife, Sophie. She stands
gazing out upon the Golden Gate and the
shoreless ocean beyond-the only remaining
relic of the Latham millions
A cotenporary of Latham's was F. Z. A.
Phoebe, a shrewd Frenchman, who once
owned acres in South San Francisco He
handled his property well, built houses,
drew enormous rents and was soon many
times millionaire. He quarreled with bis
family, and sent them back to France with
ample means. Then he built superb house
OH Stockton street, overlooking the beau
tiful bay. The whole upper floor opened
upon balcony that commanded a view
from the Golden Gate to the far end of the
bay, with Mount Diablo standing as senti-
mel and Mount Tsmslpais as warder This
upper floor was fitted up in Turkish style,
and there Phoebe was fond of gathering his
friends and entertaining them. If these
mirrored and frescoed walls could speak
they would tell of Sardanapalian banquets
and of orgies in which houris from Paris
took a prominent part. But evil days fell
on Phoebe. Like SO many others he lost
his head, drank too much brandy, and one
morning was found dead in his beautiful
rooms with pistol bullet through his head.
He left his estate in such fearful confusion
that very little was saved from the wreck.
His noble mansion was degraded to the
service of boarding house and finally fell
into the hands Of the Chinese Consul.
The Most Brilliant of Them AL
But of all the men who have flashed like
meteors through the California financial
armament, by all odds the most brilliant as
well as the most lamented was Ralston. He
has justly been selected as the best type of
the Californian who combined nerve, energy
and audacity, and who finally came to be-
Heve in his star with the blind infatuation
of Napoleon. Ralston gained his nerve
and much of his remarkable GOODNESS in
time of danger as pilot on the Mississippi.
Old rivermen at ST. Louis still recall his
daredevil pranks and his reckless daring as
trader when the steamboat business
wearied him. He was among the early ad-
venturers who came here after fortune. 1t
was just the field for his genius. He made
thousands where others made hundreds, be-
cause he planned with great shrewdness and
was never bluffed by great risks. Mines,
banks. manufactures, railroads, ranches
all these he handled with consummate skill.
He formed partnership with Sharon, who