Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1901-01-10

A, Mr.. Armour's death will not max
any change in the business interests o
which he was the moving spirit. Hi
only individual enterprise is tn
| Armour Elevator company, whose in
corporation probably will follow. ]
| Ogden Armour is vice president Of tht
| Packing company and undoubtedl.
will succeed his father as president, a.
the family interests comprise nine
tenths of the $30,000,0O0 invested.
Mr. Armour's only pretensions were
that he was business man. He KEEP
out of everything that might distrac
his attention from his interests. Be
ginning as a grain merchant and com
mission broker in Milwaukee, he never
abandoned the line, and at his death
he was the greatest grain dealer in
the world. He entered the packing
business, in which he had been pre-
ceded by his brother, H. o. Armour
who survives him, and eventually be-
came the owner of the Chicago plant.
The local branch brought the name
of Armour into Chicago business in
the early SOS. Today the clearinghouse
has its branches in every important
city of the United States. Between
the grain trade and the packing trade
there was not much of a gap. The step
from the one to the other was not diff
ficult
The packing-house in Chicago grew
in Importance and the grain business
outgrew the small city of Milwaukee
till in 1875 Philip D. Armour brought
his two interests together in Chicago.
The grain business took him into the
railroads and his financial affairs into
the banks. He was accustomed to say
that he was led insensibly by the de-
velopment of his affairs into the cor
related lines with which his name was
associated.
His Life.
Philip D. Armour was born at
StOckbridge, Madison county, n. Y, in
1882. His father was Danforth Armour
a farmer of old New England stock
and his mother, whose maiden name
was tulane Brooks, traced her an
cCstry back to the early days of the
Puritans. Married in Union, Conn, in
1926, Danfoth Armour and his bride
moved to New York and reared their
large family of six boys and two girls
in the hills Of Madison county and
gave them the advantages of the edu-
cation of the eighborhood-the dis
trict school and the academy of the
county seat.
Philip D. Armour's boyhood was like
that of the average country boy of
that period. He worked about the farm
and attended the school and academy.
young man, the leader of his associ-
ates, a shreWd trader at the store and.
noted for his industry and his help
fulness to the family. He had the gold
fever in 1849, but his services at home
were needed and the keen young
farmer, schooled by a sturdy father.
learned to hold himself in restraint
before the duties Of life.
Three years later, in 1852, when the
other boys had grown old enough to
be of support to their father and sur
plus Of labor was apparent, Philip an
10 l. ca{
was now open for the journey to Cali
fornia and the approval of his father
was cheerfully given to the boy who
had demonstrated strong self-reliance.
courage and self-control
In the spring of 1852 Philip was one of
a party of thirty people that left
Oneida, n. Y, and six months later the
toilsOme journey over the plains was
and the farmer boy became
a miner.
Here again his industry shone out
his fellows The best claims
had been gathered up before young
Armour reached the golden state, but
while others were fitting from place to
place hoping to make a strike the
New Yorker stuck to
mis- claim and worked over every bit of
earth. Four years of mining, quietly
and unostentatiously enabled him to
gather a few thousand dollars. He
returned home in 1856. He did not
boast of his earnings; in fact, he was
just as reserved about the results of
i, in, Co1ifOrnio no
in his latter days about wheat deal.
The humdrum life of a country dis
trict in New York offered no induce
ments to the active spirit of Philip D.
Armour He had seen a wider hori-
zon in the world and the limitations of
the hills of his native county could not
hold him and again he went west, but
not to California. He was seeking for
a commercial opportunity and in the
fall of 1856 he reached Milwaukee and
formed good impression of its
future He became acquainted with
Frederick B. Mills and formed part
nership in the commission business
Grain and farm produce were the chief
lines the firm handled.
1t was here he met Miss Belle Og-
den, daughter of Jonathan Ogden Of
Cincinnati, who was visiting friends in
Milwaukee. In 1862 they were married
at Cincinnati. Mr.. Armour, then at
80 years of age, had amassed quite a
fortune as fortunes were rated in the
west of that period
In 1868 he formed partnership with
John Plankinton of Milwaukee, a
pioneer packer, and dissolved his part