Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1925-02-09
Sketch Of Career

InonaS w. Lawson, financier, au-
thor and sportsman, opened the way
to his spectacular career by running
away from school in Cambridge,
Mass. to work in a financial house
in Boston as an office boy. His en-
ployers found him so promising that
they persuaded his mother to let him
stay. This was in 1869.
Five years later at the age of II,
Tom Lawson was worth $4,000 made
from a pool he had organized the
year before to buy railroad stock. OF
this sum he promptly lost S59.S41 in
another stock deal. Reduced to $159
he gave a dinner to friends at a
Boston hotel and when the bill was
paid found himself with 1870.
From the boy who in his teens
could make a small fortune and lose
1t developed the man who tumbled
money markets, who was a Million
aire one day and flat" the next, who
paid $4,000 for n carnation and who,
in a temper. junked a 100000 yacht
built to defend the Americas cup.
Tom Lawsons identity with cop
per began when he was a young man.
He knew nothing Of the mineral but
when the Butte and Boston mine
opened he took a tip from a news
paper friend and began buying at 16.
Then he sold the stock short and
whitfield the market down to rs
cents, taking up thousands of shares
between that figure and two dollars.
In this manner he obtained ma
jority Of the stock and saw it bring
far more than his predictions of $50
share.
This was the beginning Of deals
q MI iy,,o fo1x Inn, he of
Copper King" and which preceded
the operations that led to the FAM
Gus Amalgamated Copper transact
tions.
Lawson later became famous for
his "broad side advertisements of
advice and warning published SIM
ultaneously in large newspapers the
country over.
The eccentricities of his financial
career were matched in his recrea-
lions and diversions.
In 1901 he built the yacht Inde-
pendence at cost Of 5000, 900 and fit
ted her out as contender for the
honor of defending the America
Cup. Recognition was refused him
unless he would consent to enter the
boat as a member Of a yacht club.
A long controversy ensued, Lawson
insisting that he had a right to sail
his boat as he pleased.
Angered by his rebuff, Lawson or
dered the independence broken up
and sent bits of her bronze hull to
his friends. He wiote an elaborate
ly printed book on the affair for
private circulation, the estimated
cost Of each copy being $500.
The story of the famous Law
.,>f-y k@lI 11,% snr
as follows:
Il went into the florist shop and
saw that pink. 1 liked it and said:
How much?' The man said $oO,OOO,
and I said I'd take it. put it in ny
buttonhole and walked out. the
rext day it vithered like all jinks
but the glory of it went round the
world. I got at least $1,OOO,OOO
worth of advertising out OF that fool
transaction. Moreover, I like flow
ers."
With the pink. however, went the
florists entire lot of 5000 plants.
"Dreamwold," Mr.. Lawson'l
summer home at Egypt, Mass, was
built at a cost of $1,000, 900 to salts
fy, it was said, wfim of Mrs. Law
son who remarked that the stony
place. The training building for mis-
horses was as large as Madison
Square Garden.
Lawson's stable OF thoroughbreda
was one of the tt st known in the
country.
One Of Mr.. Lawson's superstitu-
ticns center ed about the figure thu ee.
His associates said that he never
bought shares in blocks of 1000
it was always 900 or 33333. He took
an office at So State street and got
3333 as a telephone number.
Lawson's advice to all who would
play the market was: Keep out III :
less you're on the inside"
Apply logic to all business propo-
sitions. If they will not stand the
test of logic, reject them,
Mr.. Lawson published several
books, among them was a history OF
the Republican party, of which only
four copies, printed on satin, were
published. One of these he present
ed to President Harrison, one to vice
President Morton and third TO the
Library of Congress. The fourth he
kept himself. Tho Secrets Of Con-
gress' appeared in 1888; a "Collec-
ton of Poems and Short Stories
from Magazines" in 1907: 1.-THE
Remedy" in 1912; and 1.-The High
Cost of Living" in 1913.
In 1873 MIR. Lawson married jean
ME Augusta Goodwillie of Cam
bridge, who died in 1902.
Mr.. Lawson was president Of the
following organizations: Bay State
Gas Company of Delaware; Thomas
w. Lawson Copper Company: Tri-
nifty Copper Company and First Ma
ton Copper Company.