Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1900-02-16
LIVED In STAUNT0u
Where lie Got Ills Start in
Life Selling Newspapers.
IS NOW A MILLIONAIRE.
Such is the History Of Thomas L.
Johnson as Printed by the New
York National Banking and Ex-
change Record.

TON" johnson, as he prefers to be
or rather insists on being called, j
one of the most noteworthy of Ameri
rs seIf-made men.
Only 45 years old, he has retired from
active business, with fortune o.
$4,000, 900; and purposes to spend boil
his time and his money as long as h'
shall live, toward benefitting his fel
low men through following and pr0pa
eating the doctrines of the late Henry
| George.
He is Kentuckian, ,and in 1854, ,wher
only ten years old, he made his first
speculation. His father had returned
from the war sick and impoverished
and as Mrs. Johnson was i'll also, il
behooved him, as the eldest Of three
children, to do something.
The little family was then at Staun-
ton, Va, to which hamlet the train
came only once day. Seeing the In
tense eagerness of the people to get
the war news, "Tom.'' on capital of
one silver dollar, held up the conduc-
tor of said train, and made him agree
on a percentage basis to let young
johnson have every one of the papers
brought in.
BY thus cornering the market,
"Tom" got fifteen cents apiece for
daily papers, and thirty-five cents for
Illustrated weeklies, and within five
weeks he was the proud possessor of
eighty-eight Northern dollars. With
this sum he was able to take his folks
back to their home, near Louisville,
and then he went to school again.
Three years later he had to be bread
winner again, and he went as helper
in the Louis vile rolling mills. He
saw no prospects in working there on
salary, and noticed that the lone
mule" street railway company of the
town might be greatly improved.
He went to work there as driver,
and before he was twenty years old he
was superintendent of the line, with
an interest in the company. The COM
pany had grown under his ideas to be
dividend paying concern, with two
horse cars, and well laid rails, and one
of the directors, Biderman Du Pont,
called him into his Office one day.
"Tom, said he, ''you've done about
all you can here You re married now
and need more money. I think you
had better rejuvenate some other road
on better terms. Here ia $4,000. I
don't want any note. If you live, l
know 1 III get it back"
Mr.. johnson looked around for
while. and picked out Indianapolis for
his scene of action. He invested his
whole $4,000 in the forming of a
street railway company, and by dint
of pressing cheaper fares, better &C.
commodation and the transfer idea.
paid back the 1000 and had a for
tune of his own before be was thirty.
Then be speculated In the furnish
ing branches of the street railway bus
mess, and also invented new types of
rails, brakes, etc. Soon he was sup
plying all the material for his own
roads in Indianapolis, Cleveland, st.
Louis and Detroit, and from then his
progress was easy up to the coup of
getting half the street railway privi-
leges of Brooklyn.
Mr.. johnson has never believed in
grubbing along at salary, and relig-
iously saving few hundred year
for a pittance of few thousands in
old age. He has always spent his mon
ey royalty, and lived his life, looking
only for the big speculative chances
that come in every mans way.