Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-01-21
FRITZ AUGUSTUS HEINzE.
Stirring Events Crowded Into His
Thirty Eight Years.

L
Thirty-Eisht Years.
Fritz Augustus Heinze has crowded
stirring events into his 3S years of life.
A strikingly handsome man, with all
| the ability of the trained actor and ex-
perienced orator, he would probably
have been a huge popular success as
a minister of the Gospel had he fol-
lowed the calling marked out for him
by his parents, plain Germans, resi-
dents of Brooklyn. HeinZe, with Won
derfully keen mind, daring, ambitious
and possessed Of boundless confidence
in his ability, had not thought of con-
fining his career within the narrow
limits of the Lutheran ministry
| Heinze was an importer, the head
Of a prosperous concern. The family
lived on Pierrepont street, the aristo-
cratic section of Brooklyn a quarter Of
q century ago. Heinze was born there
on December 5, 1869. AS each Of his
sons became old enough to go to
school the elder Heinze sent them to
the Fatherland. Fritz went there when
he was Q years old. He attended a
school in Hildesheim, and, returning
when he was IS, told his mother:
II am going to call myself August
many the boys here called me German
Fritz, and in Germany they called me
Yankee Frank" Ever since then he
has been known as F.. Augustus Heinze,
but by members of his family is still
called Fritz.
Fritz graduated in mining engineer
ing at Columbia University and went
to Butte, Mont, where he got job as
inside engineer at IS a day, working
| hard II hours a day. He gained prac-
tical knowledge in this way for five
years, and when his grandmother died
and left him $4,000 Fritz branched
out and with his brother Arthur be-
gan to succeed. HeinZe engaged in all
sorts of law suits, suing right and left
wherever he was opposed. He won a
suit over the Estrella mine from James
A. Murray, and then bought other
mines and railroads. Heinze got con-
es to his narrow-gauge road, and final
ly was doing so we'll with it that the
Canadian Pacific paid him $1,200.000
for the property, chiefly to get rid Of
such an energetic rival.
| When Heinze returned to Butte, in
1897, he was only % years old, but had
the reputation of being one Of the
ablest mining men and hardest fighters
in that section Of the country. HeinZe
came into conflict with Marcus DAILY
over mining property, and later with
the Standard Oil company, which
formed the Amalgamated Copper
Company and took over the DAILY inter-
ests. In a short time HeinZe had 60
law suits under way. Once Henry H.
| Rogers sent for him and offered to pay
him $250,000 for the Minnie Healy
mine HeinZe calmly asked $10,000,O00
for it. In October, 1908, HeinZe got a
decision in the Minnie Healy case that
was worth more than $10,000,000 to
him. In February, 1906, HeinZe and
the Amalgamated settled most Of their
differences on q basis that put several
millions into the young mans bank
account. Ugly charges of bribing the
judiciary were made against him but
never proved. He bought newspapers
and started banks, and was a power
in politics. He put all of his mines into
the United Copper Company, an $780,
900, 900 corporation, chartered in New
Jersey in 1902.
The real leaders in Wall street never
took kindly to Heinze. He was too will
ing to gamble on huge scale and the
substantial element in the financial
district fought shy Of him.
He established his brothers Otto and
Arthur in the stock exchange firm of
Otto G. Heinze & Co, then bought con-
troll of the Mercantile National Bank
from Edwin Gould and became its
president.
Given the cold shoulder by the high
class banking element, he took up with
Charles w. Morse, f. r. Thomas and
Wall street men of that type and en-
tered the directorates of several Of the
banks in the chains which these men
established
Heinze was never a success in Wall
street.-New York World.
|