The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-06

then made fifty-one trips to the Golden
bly, there is no other colored man who,
unaided, has accumulated so large a for
tune He is estimated to be worth
81, 100000.
The colored Crpsus is now "a years old.
His life is a wonderful story, reading like
chapter out of Monte Cristo. All the
money he has he made himself, and he
made it amid difficulties SC. great as to ap-
pal the average man.
Daniel Meyer, the millionaire banker, is
his intimate friend. He and his brother,
the banker lately deceased, were married
in one of the houses now owned by Mr..
Scales on Green street. Isador Jacobs was
born in another, as was Mrs. Rosencrantz.
the wife of the noted painter. Mr.. Scales
has since his arrival called on Daniel
Meyer at his uptown mansion, and the
two moneyed princes had an interesting
session discussing old times.
The colored money king regrets that he
aid not have an education and become
lawyer. His large real estate holdings in
different cities, however, had at various
periods involved him in so many contests
in the courts that he has become pretty
good lawyer as it is. While battling in
the courts he read some law, and thus is
u.
naturally most entertaining talker
having all the oratorical gifts OF his race
He is heavily built man OF medium
height, with grayish whiskers reaching al
most to point. PROBABLY he weighs 200
pounds. A white plug hat sets off the
regular features of the self-made million
aire, and his rotund form and easy speech
would mark him as man of affairs any
where.
Never Republican National Conven-
ton goes round that the noted colored
man does not have a seat in it, and he
knows statesmen as the farmer knows the
trees in his yard Never, either. does a
meeting of the California Pioneers take
place in Washington that ne does not jour
ney to it. His children have graduated at
some of the best educational institutions
gether he is an up-to-date man, with
points to give and to spare, and yet be at
all times interesting.
Briefly, he is here to get the money for
his rents and pluck his coupons otherwise
With 275 feet of buildings on Green
street, and half as much on Dupont,
and with soil and hereditaments in other
localities, he feels that it pays to come to
the land where he got his start quite
often.
II arrived here first on the ship Panama
on January 2, 1852" said the visiting King,
''and Immediately got job at $12O
month in the warehouse department of
the Custom-house. My father, who, for
tunately, never was slave, was an owner
of horses at Lexington, KY. / had no
money, but, as | had the California fever,
| borrowed 500 of him and got off.
Transportation, you know, was then very
high.
Immediately sent that back. In six
months l had made the other 5000, and |
sent that on, too, and paid the whole thing
up in full.
"My expenses I cut to low-water mark
by hitting on some very advantageous
plans. Two white men and rented three
rooms, / taking the attic at $25 month.
To square the SIS made up the beds and
swept the rooms Of the other two. l had
brought mattress and some covering
along, and one of the first things did was
to make a sawbuck, get saw and proceed
to make bedstead. This I set up in my
attic. Then l was all fixed on the rent
question.
"In the room, too, did my own cook
ing. For something to drink / used to buy
half dozen bottles of maple syrup and
mix with water. The syrup came on ships,
was cheap and made good drink. Coffee
was out of the question, because it cost 25
cents a cup. As for my washing did that
myself, too, so there was no expense there.
Then began to buy property. l
bought at Dupont and Green streets, then
on the southeast corner of Union and
Kearny; at Calhoun and Union, at Union
and Dupont, on Valparaiso street; where
the Unitarian church now is, and also
where the Fourth Congregational was.