The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-07-22
CAN'T ESTIMATE
MACKAYS WEALTH
PhiIanthropist's Former Score.
tary Tells of His Holdings.
WAS A SHREWO FlNANcIER
SAN FRANCISCO PROPERTY ALL
LEFT 10 WIFE AND SON.

q AN FRANCISCO. July 21.-Riehard
Dey. a close personal friend and
former confidential secretary OF
the late John w. Mackay, says in an
interview:
Il do not suppose DIR. Mackay him
self knew within SIC, 006, 600 OF what he
such order and his arrangements We're
so carefully made that everything viii
go On just as though he were still alive
He WAS president of the Mackay-
Bennett Cable company, president OF
the Postal Telegraph company and
president of the prospective Pacific
Commercial Cable company, vice presi-
dent of the new $7.OoO,O0O sugar refinery
at YonkeTs, y. Y, of which Gus
SpreckelS is president; director of the
Canadian Pacific railway. director of
the Southern Pacific and director of the
new proposed railroad from Havana 10
Santiago, in Cuba. He was one OF the
largest owners of the White Mob Cop
per company Of Mackay, Ida, TO which
the Union Pacific built ninety mile
branch
He was interested with Charles d.
Lane in the Wild Goose Mining COM
pany at Nome He was heavily inter
ested in the Sprague Elevator & Flee
trical Works of New York
San Francisco Holdings.
'In San Francisco Mr.. Mackay
owned half the Nevada block, the
Grand opera house and the big lot at
the southeast corner of Market and
Fourth streets He owned, together
with Flood, the Burr Burr ranch of
about l .00O acres in San Mateo\ county,
the Coleman tract of about 1,5OO acres
in and adjacent TO the city of San Ba-
fael and 1900 acres of timber land in
Mendocino county.
He owned several thousand acres of
wood land in Nevada, between Reno
and Truckee. IN New York City he
owned the Postal Telegraph building,
a sixteen-story structure, and he was
the largest owner of the Commercial
Gable company's building, a twenty
one-stOry structure, and the property
adjacent to it. He owned the Terrific
rial Enterprise, a newspaper of Vir-
ginia, New. Mrs. Mackay owns the pa
latial house in which he died in Lon
don.
Mr.. Mackay was a member of the
Pacific Union club Of San Francisco
and of the Merchants Exchange. He
was a staunch Republican, but before
the civil war he was Democrat.
Again and again he refused to be SEN
ator from Nevada, and escheWed Of
flee. In religion he was a Catholic,
and two of his warmest friends were
the late Bishop Montague, who had
jurisdiction over northern CALIFORNIA;
mining regions and a large part Of
Nevada, and Archbishop Riordan. Mr..
Mackay for a long while virtually sup
ported the Catholic orphan asylum and
its $50 children at Virginia, New.
In Memory of His Son.
In New York he maintained five or
six free beds in hospitals in memory
of his son Willie, who died half a
dozen years ago at the age OF Is Mr..
AIackay was always doing good quietly
and giving money a large number of
regular pensioners viii miss him.
Mr.. Mackay came TO America from
ireland as an infant with his father,
who was afterwards naturaIized. But
along in 1867 James G.. Fair, who was
Mr.. Mackay's partner, and also born
in Ireland, couldn't remember whether
or not the elder Fair was naturaized.
so to make sure, Fair and Mackay
were naturaIized together in Virginia,
New, by their friend. Sandy W. Bald
win, who was United States district
judge.
Il think Mr.. Mackay was originally
a carpenter. for when he came on the
Comstock he was considered an author
ity on mine timbering.''