The weekly Corinthian. (Corinth, Miss.) 1894-19??, 1900-11-15

New York, Nov. 12.-~Henry Willard
the railroad magnate and financier,
died at his summer residence at
Dobbs Ferry.
Mr.. Willard had intended to return
to New York about the middle OF
last month, but his condition was then
so precarious that his physicians adj
vised him to remain at his country
home until he should have gained
more strength. A week ago he
caught heavy cold, and since then
his condition had been gradually
growing worse. Two physicians had
been with him constantly for week
past.
Henry Wizards Career.
Henry Willard was born Heinrich Hill
gard In sgeyer Rhenish Bavaria ria on
superintendent of the United States coast
survey led a migration of the family con-
nection to Belleyille IL, In 1ss9: HIS ay ia
of the Bavarian government, and ended
Judge of the supreme court at Munich
in Zweibrucken, Phalsbourg and Speyer,
but in October 1858, broke off his uni
versity studies. and set out for the United
relatives at Belleville. His fathers oppo-
sition to this step made him borrow the
surname of French schoolmate at Phals-
burg, and he became Henry Willard.
Arriving at Belleville, he became a news
paper reporter, and continued in the pro-
fession until 1868. During these years he
served as a legislative correspondent In
Indiana and Illinois, a political reporter,
reporting the Lincoln-DouglaS debates;
the Chicago convention, which nominated
Lincoln; the Lincoln campaign, and, later,
as a war correspondent. The papers he
served in this period were the Cincinnati
Commercial, the New York Herald, the
Chicago Tribune, and the New York Trib-
une, and part OF the time he was at the
head of news bureaus at Washington.
Early in 1881 Mr.. Willard acquired the New
York Evening Post and the Nation.
In January, 1866, in Boston, he married
Fannie, the only daughter of VIM. Lloyd
Garrison. In 1868 he was chosen secretary
of the newly-founded American Social
Sceince association, having its headquar-
tiers in that city, and did not finally relin-
quish the post until 1871.
1t was in the latter year that, while
on visit to Europe, Mr.. Willard began
his railroad career. He formed connec-
ton with Frankfort and Berlin bankers,
and, In 1873, returned to the United States,
buying for the German bondholders the
property of the Oregon & California Rail-
road Co., and the Oregon Steamship Co..
being made president in 1875. He acted as
one of the receivers OF the Kansas Pacific
Railroad Co., and, later bought up the
bonds of the road IIe became interested
tho Oregon Railway and Navigation Co.,
of which he became president. and then
formed the Oregon e. Transcontinetal,
with which he merged the two other COM
panies to a so-called blind pool with the
Northern Pacific. being chosen president
If the latter company.
A few years later the companies in
which he was interested became so In
volyed that there was collapse, in which
Mr.. Willard suffered very heavily. Re-
turning to Germany he formed new finan-
cial relations which enable him to
pair his fortune and coming back to this
country, he started in once moro as a cap
Edison. his electrical manufacturing in
Of Newark. N. J., and the Edison works,
lied the Edison General Electric Co.. of
that capacity for about two years. In
October, 1889, he became chairman of the
Northern Pacific board of directors, but
the panic of 1893 again occasioned the loss
of most of his fortune. and led to his
withdrawal from railroad management
Mr.. Willard, when he died, was sur
rounded by the members of his fami-
ly, including Mrs. Willard and his two
sons, Oswald and Harold Willard. He
had been unconscious for two days.
His death, it is said, was caused by
cancer of the throat. The funeral
will take place Wednesday.