The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-07-24
sTOwAwAY TOM Upton.
How the shamrOek's Owner First
Struck New York
From the New York journal.

from the New York journal.
The Charleston steamer came to its dock
and tied up. The passengers loi.ered
about her, attending to their bags and bag
gage, but the gangplank was hardly down
when a bruised, begrimed, ragged boy of
l6 or IT, rushed onto the dock, and pushing
his way through the crowd, lost himself
in New York
Nobody pursued him.
1t was SO years ago that Tom Upton
came up sasping from the nreroom of the
Charleston boat and ran into New York.
He had known more kicks than sixpeuce
from childhood up, and the treatment he
got as a stowaway did not break his spirit.
II was just an experience more in a life OF
hard luck
Born Of Scotch-Irish parents in Glasgow,
who were poor as poverty, he struggled
up TO boyhood somehow.
At last his heap of boarded pennies had
| grown TO be enough to pay for a steerage
passage TO America, and he ran away. He
was boy of 10 years then, and small for
his age, but there was that within him that
kept him going when grown men would
have given up in despair.
This Glasgow rat starved in cities, s!ept
in doorways walked when he could not
self in South Carolina. lie got job as a
| harvest hand on a rice plantation, and for
| two years ne was a farm labOrer, fighting
| with the newly freed negroes for a chance
| at the hardest work in the world.
But as he worked in the fields it dawned
| on the lad that not here where the whole
| poulation was hunting riches, but in the
old grooved life of mis- native city lay his
| best chance of wealth. He would apply
| American methods to business in Glasgow
| and see if in the combination there was
| not something for Tom Upton Homesick-
| ness was also driving him back. He had no
money, but he had stout limbs and that
| Undated spirit that recognizes no obstacle
| as insurmountabe.
| He walked to Charleston and begged a
steamer captain to let him work his way
to New York He met blunt refusal
| Consequently, when the steamboat sailed
she carried Tom Upton hidden amid the
merchandise in her hold. lie took Inc
| bows and curses consequent on discoV-
| ery overwhelmingly. His sufferings paid
for his passage, and he disregarded them
| accordingly.
Again Upton found himself in New
| York, this time with purpose and plan
In his mind
He washed himself of his CRIME in a park
| fountain, earned a breakfast and begar
| his search for work.
The strong young boy, his thews steelec
by the hard training in the rice fields
found little difficulty in getting work.
Of course, he thrived He did not know
any luxury, and but little rest, but he pu
by money. Before the year was out III
had saved enough for a Storage passage
and was back in Glasgow.
His parents were little better off thar
when he had left them. He told them hi
plan and they put in his hands all the!
had saved. The whole family fun
amounted 10 $400
Presently the staid Scottish city wa
astonished to see two monster hogs
groomed until their bristles g.isteneJ
decked with ribbons and led through tn
street behind a banner labeled Upton
Orphans"
A crowd gathered and followed the hug
swine to little shop with the name Q
Upton above the door
| The young fellow was proprietor, clerk
salesman, bookkeeper and porter all i
one. He lunched in the shop and dine
not at all at first.
The venture succeeded He got a clerk
and presently in another quarter of III
city where there was another Upton shoI
an exact duplicate of the other.
To-day there are 400 Upton shops scat
tered through Great Britain, 50 of Their
being in London. They are all alike, a
gayly colored and Illuminated so that the
stand out like lighthouses on a dark might
; Lipton's tea comes from his own planta
l tions In Ceylon, but score of other fco
products also bear his label and swell h.
fortune. In The United States he owns
: butcheriug Plant that kills 1900 hogs da
". and he has 500 refrigerator cars I
carry the meat to the markets.
His fortune is estimated at $50,O00OO
5 and he is not 50 years Old. When his LOr
don interests were formed into a joir
stock company, with a capitalization {
? n-oaa 6n % pop dln !, f1h
4 for sale. the stock was subscribed 25 time
over.
For his charities he was knighted yea
j ago, and it is Sir Thomas Upton who sal
over here in his yacht, the Shamrock,
race for the Americas cuD-Sir Thoma
: Upton. who shoveled coal to pay for hi
stolen passage on the Charleston steame