Albuquerque daily citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1895-1903, 1902-04-05
SENATOR ELKlNS.
Gath" Sketches the Remarkable
Career of Our Steve.
HIS LIFE ALMOST ROMANTIC.

The case of Senator Elkins is in
point, that to come east is to go west.
Benton's statue pointed him to New
Mexico, saying, There is the east.
There is Europei" He returned to
West Virginia as his father came from
old Virginia, and has just sold out his
railroad, il Is believed for some $1I,-
DOC, 900.
Old Elkins, of about Fredericksburg.
Va. moved on to the Kanawha and up
the Hooking and settled in Perry coun
ty, Ohio. where Phil Sheridan was
bred. knowing more about the consti-
tuition thar John Marshall, less about
the law of gravity han a prophet. old
Elkins went on to Missouri. n his
son got an education there and set
tied on the border, where his friends
were the Younger boys, who finally
graduated at the Minnesota peniteH-
tiary. They believed in force, Elkins
in friendship. Just as he sells his rail-
road for S17, 900 900. they are applying
for civil rights so as to be welded.
The war on the border drove Elkins
afar. TO New Mexico, where ne studied
Spanish during our civil war and en-
tered the legislature and was public at
torney till he came to congress a dele
gate. Here Blaine was approached by
him with courtesy and became his
friends. Elkins married for a second
wife the daughter of Henry Davis, SEN
ator from West Virginia. who has been
everything on a railroad, and was a
cousin of Senator German. Davis was
working upon a lumber boom. or tor
rent NAVIGATION, on the upper Potomac.
"What's this?" said Elkins. Lets see
what il comes to- Lumber was above
the surface: coal and iron below. They
abandoned the boom and began to
build a railroad across the high divide
from the Potomac to the Monongahela.
II was and is a terrible grade. SONG
times 1.5O0 feet above the Blackwater.
The little railroad taxed the small re-
sources of the twain. Elkins began to
sell mines and Mexican grants. Thus
they played the west into the east till
finally they had a railroad over a nun
dred miles long. which hooked on at
the west with other little railroads 10
the Ohio and stopped east at Cumber-
land, Md. Now and then they sold a
bond. A train of lumber met an obli-
cation.
they founded the town of Elkins,
Richard Kerens. of Missouri, helped
them out ard all three built mansions
in hat pleasing wild beneath the effigy
of. Rich mountain, where Mcclellan
made fame. When the big railroads
began to buy the little ones n year or
two ago they left the West Virginia
Central QUE. So it stood ready for
other promoters TO take 1t in.
) At a little more than 60 years of age
Elkins is senator from West Virginia
for the second time, has been secretary
of war and is probably worth some
millions of dollars. He sold mucn
Colorado land for notes to promote
West Virginia. He is chairman OF the
interstate commerce committee. Inc
railroad he sold out, or merged, has
lust offered over IS, 1000 900 cash for
the Western Maryland railroad as an
eastern outlet. Thus ElkiDs' father-in-
law. Davis, once a conductor on the
Baltimore & Ohio railroad, has become
the paralleler of that railroad and 1t Is
believed that the Goulds and Wabash
system are behind the purchase.
II is, to be remembered that Robert
Hayne and John c.. Calhoun, OF old SEN
ators, tried sixty years ago to carry
railroads through the Alleghenies to
the Ohio, but their politics was at the
expense of their physics. They both
failed. The work Washington failed
in, to connect the Potomac with the
Kanawha in 1855, the son of another
man from FREDERICKSBURG mas acnie'-
ed. Elkins' railroad passes in sight OF
the Falriax stone planted by Washing
ton in the springs of the Potomac. BY
the old prejudices OF state rights the
Baltimore & Ohio railroad was forced
, north and thus settled he northwest
instead of the southwest. A stranger
returns and duplicates it in a state Sc
coded from Virginia, tho only effective
secession of the civil war.
Elkins has q dwelling at the county
seat of Elkins, which V about l5Oxloo.
probably the most elaborate dwelling
in both the Virginias. He made poll
tics tie Esau brother of astute physics.
Through Herrick, of Cleveland, ONO,
he is linked to Hanna. Herrick prooa-
bly, has the cash in his savings bank
to nay for the eastern connection In
ninety days. Real laborious develop.
ment, with a financier's finesse in wall
street, has made Elkins both a capital
list and a senator. He has also KEPT up
his reading. paid continuous
to his library and lives in Washington
in his W sumptuous residence.