The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-01-03

Then the old hero went back to New
ark for his wife, daughter and grand
children. He brought them to Prescott.
Next he received a quarter interest in
silver mine and was made manager
at salary. In year more his sa-
Gacity and business prudence put that
enterprise, also, on a paying basis. In
six months more, when new tunnels
were made according to his IDEAS the
silver mine was paying dividends of
per cent. per month. Mr.. Mason sold
his block of stock for 100000 Most men
would have been satisfied at seventy
years of age to have such a sum and
to settle down to an easy life. The old
mans ambition, however was set on
achieving fortune ahead of anything
he had ever possessed. In 1891 he re-
moved with his family to Los Angeles,
and, believing that prosperity in silver
mines was at an end for his day, he
began studying the gold mining region
of Kern county, Cal. For seven or eight
months he lived in mining camp away
up under the peaks of the Sierras in
Kern county, near Saliente. No fatigue
was too severe for him, and no food too
ing the oldest active miner He was as
ceaselessly active in acquiring informal
ton there as he had been in Arizona, but
he now had the satisfaction of knowing
that he had capital to work with when he
got ready, and that his family lived in
comfort and ease. With Daniel w.
Ewarts of Sacramento he finally bought
an undeveloped quartz gold mine for
$1,000. The mine was equipped with
machinery, and after the first week it
began to pay. A month later it turned
out gold ore worth $45 a ton In six
months the mine paid $4,000 over and
above expenses. Then a syndicate
bought the mine and machinery for
| $4,000 Mr. Mason S ambition was sat
| istied. At the age of seventy-three he
| quit work. He built a beautiful home
among the orange groves of San Gabriel
| valley, and there he lived happily, sur
| rounded by his family Two years ago
his wife died, and last year he and
| two grandchildren went on a long tour
| to Europe. He was stricken with pneu-
| monia at Coronado and he died sudden
| ly. His estate amounts to fully 500, 900,
Among his requests is 81 900 for the
| man at Newark who looked after his
| family while he was struggling for sue
cess in Arizona.
1t might be thought that man who
had college education and inherited a
| fortune, who had failed four times in a
| business career of twenty-eight years
twice as dry goods merchant once as
| a farmer, and once as the head of a
seminary-and who had reached his fif-
ty-sixth year with not dime of assets
| besides having a family of three grown
up children and several grandchildren,
| had little prospect Of ever achieving
4 financial success in any direction. Ex-
| Assemblyman Hugh E. Williams, who
| has thousands of acres of the most fer
tile soil In Ventura and Santa Barbara
counties and lives in one Of the finest
houses In southern California, was in
| just that condition when he was fifty
six Years old somewhere along about
1873, To-day, in his serene old age--he
is about eighty now-he loves to tell
how he finally achieved success.
He was born at North Adams, Mass.
and went into business at Buffalo.
Then he failed, Then he became a
| school-teacher, and was.not a success at
that. Next he tried business at Adrian,
Mich. When the annual crops failed,
and he could not make collections, he
failed again. Four years later he went
to Des Moines, Ia. After a struggle of
six years he saved money and began
life anew as farmer In the course
of ten years he was burned out and his
prairie fires took two successive grain
crops and his cattle were lost. Then he
was sold out in foreclosure proceedings.
After a few years of clerking for mer-
chant he embarked as principal and
proprietor of seminary at Humboldt
la. Four years of that took every cent
he could rake together, and he was left
without dollar when he was gray
haired man. His two sons had died
and he was left with several grand
children to care for He was voted a
failure by all who knew him and he
| could get nothing to do to earn even a
living for his family
One day his, wife received present Of
two hundred dollars from a brother in
Massachusetts Ashamed, but not dis.
couraged, over his thirty years of fail
ure, Williams resolved to get far away
from his old-time friends by coming to
California, and to work as he had neve,
der before for his family, and at the
same time bury himself, as he now ex-
presses 1t, from the world There were
no railroads in southern California in
those days and the only towns of any
size were San Diego, with / 200 popula-
ton, and Los Angeles with 5000 popu-
lation-about one hundred and sixty
miles apart. A weekly steamer from
San Francisco, five hundred miles
north, afforded the only connection
with the outside world Mr.. Williams
and his family came down the coast
from San Francisco to Los Angeles in
November, 1873 There were eight per
sons in the family and, after selling
their household goods at Humboldt and
paying fares to Los Angeles, they ha6
1910 left to start life with in a new
country. Leaving his family in ar
adobe house at Los Angeles, Mr.. Will.
lsams went to see what he could do
He Travelled over to the Workman ranch
(now the superb country seat o.
Lucky" Baldwin, twenty miles to the
eastward There he saw what wonder.
in horticulture could be done with wa
ter on the soil of this region. A few
weeks were spent in hunting up a trac
Of Uncle Sans free homestead land ad-
jacent to some water course. He wen
forty miles southeast and found tn,
kind of soil he wanted near the Santa