Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1893-02-16
HE READ GREEK.
Once Wealthy, College Graduate and
a Presidents Friend.


Presidents Friend.
Joseph Underwood, an eccentric
and very poor old man, was found
dead in his hut, seven miles north
west OF Pomona, Cal, near the Dalton
canyon. He had died of heart dis
ease, from which he had long suffered.
The old man probably suffered from
.ack of food during his last days.
His coffin, that he himself had made
rom rude fence boards several years
lgo, was found beneath his bed.
There are few men who have met
With tho great changes in fortune
that the deceased did in his seventy
;w0 years of life. He was the son Of
wealthy parents in England and was
/ student at Cambridge University
or three years. He came to the
United States in 1S43 with $4,000
md for several years added largely
20 his money in boat factory at
Buffalo. He was prominent in society
IN that city and was on friendly terms
with such men as ex-President Fill
more and Lewis Allen, the uncle Of
Grover Cleveland. In some affair
with young lady in Buffalo young
Underwood's character was so injured
that he lost his business and fed
from Buffalo with only few hundred
dollars. He made another small for
tune by lucky investments in the
growing city Of Chicago in 1850 and
started for California with other
young men who had the gold fever.
OF the horrors OF starvation, thirst,
cold and heat Of the seven months
Underwood spent in coming across the
plains he always spoke with shudder,
says the San Francisco Examiner. He
was several years recovering his
broken health, and when he did he
had not dollar. During sixteen
years Underwood made fortune OF
about $500 in mining in Nevada
county, and then lost it all in placer
mining scheme in Yuba county. For
year or two he was so poor that he
was helped by charity. Then he made
a strike in some real estate transac-
tion, and for several years every deal
he made in real estate was success
full. He had about $4,000 in 1870,
and went to Europe. He travelled
abroad for year, and became en-
gagged to a young widow on the
steamer that brought him back to this
country, and was married at Trinity
church as soon as they arrived.
Underwood was SO flush with money
in those days that he gave the minis
ter 81, 900 as a marriage fee. In less
than six months Underwood and his
bride had parted in great anger, and
no gave her $4,000 to leave him for
ever. He returned to California and
spent several years in Petaluma and
San Francisco, but his spirit was
broken. He lost his property in a
mine on the Comstock, and after
more poverty made several thousand
dollars in Tombstone, which he sub
sequently lost in real estate in San
Diego.
The last eight or nine years Of I'm.
derwood's life were spent in the most
abject poverty imaginable. He lived
alone in hut and subsisted on money
made from the sale OF firewood. He
was the dirtiest and most unkempt
person in Pomona valley. He hated
the world and despised every one who
had means. His only recreation was
in reading Greek testament, from
which he could repeat whole chapters
in tho original from memory. He
had numerous cousins, nephews ano
uncles in Sacramento and Tehama
cCNnties, but left no record of who
they are or where they live. Two
dollars will buy sll the property the
OLD man left