Part 6

As we have just been reading the lives of the three bonanza kings, J. C. Flood, J. C. Fair and J. W. MacKay, possibly a description of one of their enterprises in the shape of a flume will be interesting as described by a New York Tribune correspondent:

A fifteen-mile ride in a flume down the Sierra Nevada Mountains in thirty minutes was not one of the things contemplated in my visit to Virginia City, and it is entirely within reason to say that even if I should make this my permanent place of residence--which fortune forbid--I shall never make the trip again. The flume cost, with its appurtenances, between $200,000 and $300,000--if it had cost a million it would be the same in my estimation. It was built by a company interested in the mines here, principally the owners of the Consolidated Virginia, California, Hale & Norcross, Gould & Curry, Best & Belcher and Utah mines. The largest stockholders in these mines are J. C. Flood, James C. Fair, John W. MacKay and W. S. O'Brien, who compose without doubt the wealthiest firm in the United States. Taking the stock of their companies at the price quoted in the board, the amount they own is more than $100,000,000, and each has a large private fortune in addition. The mines named use 1,000,000 feet of lumber per month under ground, and burn 40,000 cords of wood per year. Wood is here worth from $10 to $12 per cord, and at market prices Messrs. Flood & Co. would have to pay nearly $500,000 a year for wood alone. Going into the mine the other day, and seeing the immense amount of timber used, and knowing the incalculable amount of wood burned in the several mines and mills, I asked Mr. MacKay, who accompanied me, where all the wood and timber came from. "It comes," said he, "from our lands in the Sierras, forty or fifty miles from here. We own over twelve thousand acres in the vicinity of Washoe Lake, all of which is heavily timbered." "How do you get it here?" I asked. "It comes," said he, "in our flume down the mountains, fifteen miles, and from our dumping grounds is brought by the Virginia & Truckee Railroad to this city, about sixteen miles. You ought to see the flume before you go back; it is really a wonderful thing." The flume is a wonderful piece of engineering work. It is built wholly on trestle-work and stringers; there is not a cut in the whole distance, and the grade is so heavy that there is little danger of a jam. The trestle-work is very substantial, and undoubtedly strong enough to support a narrow-gauge railway. It runs over foot-hills, through valleys, around mountains, and across canyons. In one place it is seventy feet high. The highest point of the flume from the plain is 3,700 feet, and on an air-line, from beginning to end the distance is eight miles, the course thus taking up seven miles in twists and turns. The trestle-work is thoroughly braced longitudinally and across, so that no break can extend further than a single box, which is 16 feet. All the main supports, which are five feet apart, are firmly set in mudsills, and the boxes or troughs rest in brackets four feet apart. These again rest upon substantial stringers. The grade of the flume is from 1,600 to 2,000 feet from top to bottom--a distance, as previously stated, of fifteen miles. The sharpest fall is three feet in six. There are two reservoirs from which the flume is fed. One is 1,100 feet long and the other is 600 feet. A ditch, nearly two miles long, takes the water to the first reservoir, whence it is conveyed 3-1/4 miles to the flume through a feeder capable of carrying 450 inches of water. The whole flume was built in ten weeks. In that time all the trestle-work, stringers and boxes were put in place. About 200 men were employed on it at one time, being divided into four gangs. It required 2,000,000 feet of lumber, but the item which astonished me most was that there were 28 tons, or 56,000 pounds of nails used in the construction of this flume.

Mr. Flood and Mr. Fair had arranged for a ride in the flume, and I was challenged to go with them. Indeed the proposition was put in this way--they dared me to go. I thought that if men worth twenty-five or thirty million dollars apiece could afford to risk their lives, I could afford to risk mine, which isn't worth half as much. So I accepted the challenge, and two 'boats' were ordered. These were nothing more than pig troughs, with one end knocked out. The 'boat' is built like the flume, V shaped, and fits into the flume. The grade of the flume at the mill is very heavy, and the water rushes through it at railroad speed. The terrors of that ride can never be blotted from the memory of one of the party. I cannot give the reader a better idea of a flume ride than to compare it to sliding down an old-fashioned eve-trough at an angle of 45 degrees, hanging in mid-air without support of roof or house, and extending a distance of fifteen miles. At the start we went at the rate of twenty miles an hour, which is a little less than the average speed of a railroad train. The red-faced carpenter sat in front of our boat on the bottom as best he could. Mr. Fair sat on a seat behind him, and I sat behind Mr. Fair in the stern and was of great service to him in keeping the water which broke over the end-board, from his back. There was also a great deal of water shipped in the bows of the hog-trough, and I know Mr. Fair's broad shoulders kept me from more than one ducking in that memorable trip. At the heaviest grades the water came in so furiously in front that it was impossible to see where we were going, or what was ahead of us; but when the grade was light, and we were going at a three or four minute pace, the view was very delightful, although it was terrible. When the water would enable me to look ahead, I could see the trestle here and there for miles; so small and so narrow and apparently so fragile that I could only compare it to a chalk-mark upon which, high in the air, I was running at a rate unknown to railroads. One circumstance during the trip did more to show me the terrible rapidity with which we dashed through the flume than anything else. We had been rushing down at a pretty lively rate of speed when the boat suddenly struck something in the bow, a nail, a lodged stick of wood or some secure substance which ought not to have been there. What was the effect? The red-faced carpenter was sent whirling into the flume ten feet ahead. Fair was precipitated on his face, and I found a soft lodgment on Fair's back. It seems to me that in a second's time--Fair himself a powerful man--had the carpenter by the scruff of the neck, and had pulled him into the boat. I did not know at this time that Fair had his fingers crushed between the flume and the boat. But we sped along; minutes seemed hours. It seemed an hour before we arrived at the worst place in the flume, and yet Hereford tells me that it was less than ten minutes. The flume at the point alluded to must have been very nearly forty-five degrees inclination. In looking out, before we reached it, I thought the only way to get to the bottom was to fall. How our boat kept in the track is more than I know.

The wind, the steamboat, the railroad, never went so fast. In this particularly bad place I allude to, my desire was to form some judgment as to the speed we were making. If the truth must be spoken, I was really scared almost out of my reason, but if I were on my way to eternity I wanted to know exactly how fast I went, so I huddled close to Fair, and turned my eyes toward the hills. Every object I placed my eyes upon was gone before I could plainly see what it was. Mountains passed like visions and shadows. It was with difficulty that I could get my breath. I felt that I did not weigh a hundred pounds, although I knew in the sharpness of intellect that I tipped the scales at two hundred. Mr. Flood and Mr. Hereford, although they started several minutes later than we, were close upon us. They were not so heavily loaded, and they had the full sweep of the water, while we had it rather at second-hand. Their boat finally struck ours with a terrible crash. Mr. Flood was thrown upon his face, and the waters flowed over him. What became of Hereford I do not know, except that when we reached the terminus of the flume he was as wet as any of us. This only remains to be said: We made the entire distance in less time than a railway train would ordinarily make, and a portion of the distance we went faster than a railway train ever went. Fair said we went at least a mile a minute. Flood said that we went at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, and my deliberate belief is that we went at a rate that annihilated time and space. We were a wet lot when we reached the terminus of the flume.

Flood said that he would not make the trip again for the whole Consolidated Virginia mine. Fair said that he should never again place himself upon an equality with timber and wood, and Hereford said he was sorry that he ever built the flume. As for myself, I told the millionaires that I had accepted my last challenge. When we left our boats we were more dead than alive. The next day neither Flood nor Fair were able to leave their beds. For myself, I have only the strength to say that I have had enough of flumes.

HORACE GREELEY.

In the history of journalism, Horace Greeley must, for all time, hold a position in the front rank. As it is well-known he is a self-made man, being born of poor parents at Amherst, New Hampshire, on the 3rd day of February, 1811. His father was a farmer. The Greeley ancestors enjoyed a reputation for 'tenacity,' which was clearly shown in the pale-faced, flaxen-haired but precocious lad of fifteen, who presented himself and was employed at the office of the Northern Spectator, at Poultney, Vermont, in 1826; having walked from West Haven, his home, eleven miles distant. He was to remain an apprentice until twenty, and received in money the princely sum of forty dollars a year 'with which to buy clothes and what was left he might use for spending money.' Why he lived to found a great paper the reader can easily guess, when it is learned that Greeley used the greater part of said forty dollars each year for buying books.

He joined a local debating club where he became the 'giant' member, a tribute paid to his intellect. Most of the members were older than Greeley, but knowledge proved a power in that society and he was invariably listened to with marked attention despite his shabby appearance. Especially was he fond of political data; he followed the exchanges in the Spectator office with increasing interest. His parents removed to Pennsylvania, where he visited them during his apprenticeship as "printers' devil," and general assistant at Poultney, walking the most of the way, a distance of about 600 miles. The Spectator having collapsed, young Greeley, with his entire wardrobe done up in a handkerchief, once more visits Pennsylvania, but not to remain idle; he soon obtained a place in a printing office near his home, at eleven dollars per month, and later still he obtains employment at Erie where he receives fifteen dollars per month. Soon after this, not yet content, he is enroute for New York, where he arrived August 17, 1831.

His appearance in the metropolis was ludicrous in the extreme. One can imagine from accounts given of him how prepossessing he must have looked; flaxen locks, blue eyes, his hat on the back of his head as if accustomed to star gazing, must have given him the appearance of one decidedly 'green,' to say the least. As is a noted fact he was, to his death, exceedingly indifferent as to his dress and what are known as the social demands of society. Indeed he could be seen on the street almost any day with his pockets stuffed full of papers, his hat pushed back on his head like a sailor about to ascend the rigging, his spectacles seemingly about to slip off his nose, his boot heels running over, and we doubt not that he was as likely to have one leg of his pantaloons tucked into his boot top while the other was condescendingly allowed to retain its proper place. In fact it is hardly probable that he would have impressed any one with the idea that he was indeed a great editor of that city. But we return to his first visit; office after office was visited without avail but that hereditary 'tenacity' did not forsake him, and at last he met an old friend, a Mr. Jones whom he had first met in Poultney. This friend, although not a 'boss,' printer fashion set him at work on his own case. When the proprietor came in he was dumbfounded at the specimen of a printer he beheld, and declared to the foreman that he could not keep him. Fortunately, however, for young Greeley, the job that he was on was setting small type,--a most undesirable one. The foreman shrewdly suggested that as Jones, who was a good workman, knew him it would be a good policy to wait and see the result. As it was a very difficult job no wonder that Greeley's proof looked as though it had the measles, but as he was retained he must have done as well if not better than was expected. When the job was finished he was thrown out of employment, and he shifted about for some time doing odd jobs; in fact it must have been very discouraging, but finally he obtained employment on the Spirit of the Times, and afterward formed a business partnership with Mr. Story who, with Mr. Greeley, invested about $240. They established a penny paper, and were moderately successful, but Mr. Story was drowned and his place was filled by another. His connection with the New Yorker was his next business venture. While on this paper he was also editor of a paper in Albany, and a regular contributor to the Daily Whig. When we think that he gave himself only four hours sleep out of the twenty-four, we can realize how he could find time to edit two papers and write for the third, but despite this assiduousness his enterprise failed and he thereby lost $10,000.

Greeley's opinion on economy was clearly defined when he said: "For my own part, and I speak from sad experience, I would rather be a convict in States Prison or a slave in a rice swamp, than to pass through life under the harrow of debt. If you have but fifty cents and can get no more for the week, buy a peck of corn, parch it, and live on it rather than owe any man a dollar." He next started the Log Cabin. It was started in the beginning of 1840, designed to be run six months and then discontinued. Into this undertaking Horace Greeley threw all his energy and ability, guided by his experience. In those days a journal with a circulation of ten thousand was a big concern. When an edition of nearly fifty thousand of its first issue was called for, the publishers were beside themselves, and later when the Log Cabin ran up a circulation of eighty and even ninety thousand, the proprietors were frantic as to how they should get them printed. It is needless to say that the Log Cabin outlived its original expectations.

Ultimately the Log Cabin and the New Yorker were merged into the New York Tribune. As is a recognized fact, Greeley was stronger in a fight than in peace, and the attacks which this new enterprise received soon run its circulation from the hundreds into the thousands. Of course new presses had to be bought and Greeley, who by the way preferred to discuss the financial policy of a great nation than that of his own office, soon found himself obliged to get a business man as a partner. He was exceedingly fortunate in securing Mr. Thomas McElrath, who soon brought order from chaos, and the Tribune became not only an ably conducted paper but a paying one as well.

Mr. Greeley next became a lecturer, and in this field he was also fairly successful. He traveled in Europe and wrote such books as "Hints About Reform," "Glances at Europe," "History of the Slavery Extension," "Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco," "The American Conflict," "Recollections of a Busy Life," "Essays on Political Economy," and just before his death, "What I Know About Farming."

While Mr. Greeley must ever be regarded among journalists as one of their brightest stars; he was one of the most peculiar writers it has ever been our pleasure to read. In fact he must be regarded as a kind of literary gymnast. While conducting a political paper he at one time devoted page after page to the theory of reorganizing society after the plan of Fourier; that is to divide society up into small communities to live in common. After wearying the readers on this and numerous other 'isms,' it was discontinued. He went into a political frenzy over Clay and protection; next his paper was full of the 'Irish Repeal,' 'Advocacy of the Water Cure,' 'Phrenology,' 'Mesmerism,' 'Opposition to Capital Punishment,' 'Trinitarianism' and the 'Drama.'

He was finally elected to Congress to fill an unexpired term. While here he caused some amusement by his eccentricities. He refused to sit up at night sessions, abruptly leaving when his hour for retiring arrived. Possibly his letter addressed to the managers of his party in his State was one of the greatest surprises that he ever sprung upon the country. It was addressed to Mr. Seward personally, but upon mention being made of it by that gentlemen's friends, it was made public by Greeley's demand. It ran something as follows: "The election is over, and its results sufficiently ascertained. It seems to me a fitting time to announce to you the dissolution of the political firm of Seward, Weed and Greeley by the withdrawal of the junior partner, said withdrawal to take effect on the morning after the first Tuesday in February next. I was a poor young printer, and editor of a literary journal--a very active and bitter Whig in a small way, but not seeking to be known outside of my own ward committee. I was one day called to the City Hotel where two strangers introduced themselves as Thurlow Weed and Lewis Benedict, of Albany. They told me that a cheap campaign paper of peculiar stamp at Albany had been resolved on, and that I had been selected to edit it. I did the work required to the best of my ability. It was work that made no figure and created no sensation; but I loved it and I did it well."

"When it was done you were Governor; dispensing offices worth three to twenty thousand to your friends and compatriots, and I returned to my garret and my crust and my desperate battle with pecuniary obligations heaped upon me by bad partners in business and the disastrous events of 1837. I believe it did not occur to me then that some one of these abundant places might have been offered to me without injustice. I now think it should have occurred to you. In the Harrison campaign of 1840 I was again designated to edit a campaign paper. I published it as well and hence ought to have made something out of it despite its low price. My extreme poverty was the main reason why I did not."

"Now came the great scramble of the swell mob of coon minstrels and cider suckers at Washington, I not being counted in. I asked nothing, expected nothing, but you Governor Seward ought to have asked that I be Post Master at New York."

When the Republicans met at Chicago he 'paid' Mr. Seward off by checkmating his chances of the nomination, and placing Lincoln at the head of the ticket. Mr. Greeley had always been an uncompromising opponent of slavery, and once had all but asked for the impeachment of Buchanan, hence the South expected little sympathy from him; yet, this great editor dismays his friends while his enemies are dumbfounded when they read, "Let the South go," but no sooner do the 'erring sisters' act upon his suggestion than this political ranchman is out with his literary lasso vainly trying to keep them in. He next raises the war-whoop of "On to Richmond," and thereby aids in precipitating the terrible disaster of Bull Run. Time goes on--the Union cause looks gloomy enough--all seems lost; yet, when once more the nation needs his powerful support he rushes off to Canada unauthorized, to negotiate a treaty with Southern Envoys which, to say the least, would have been disgraceful to the Union Government. When the cause is won he flees to Washington to sign the bail-bond of the arch traitor, and is thus instrumental in his release from justice. Yet, for all this the Tribune prospered.

He was regarded by many of his readers as a kind of moral law-giver, and if, per chance, one person journeyed to New York and returned to state that their beau ideal had used undue profanity in his common conversation, the indiscrete individual was ostracised.

If Mr. Greeley's previous career had surprised the country and disappointed some of his friends, it remained for the last political act of his life to completely paralyze the country at large, and plunge some of his most ardent supporters into the deepest gloom. This was when they beheld him the nominee of Republicans, 'who were anything to elect Greeley,' and endorsed by Free Traders and Democrats whom he had so bitterly denounced all his life. Had he been nominated by the straight Republican party it might have been considered as a somewhat extravagant reward for party service for this position could not have been regarded otherwise than consistent; but the position he now assumed was inconsistent, not to say ludicrous. The result was he carried only six States against the successful Grant.

He was a Universalist in belief, but educated his daughters at a Catholic school. He refused to get his brother, who actually needed assistance, a position worth perhaps $1,000 a year; yet, he could lend Corneel. Vanderbilt about eight hundred thousand dollars without security. His early friend, Mr. Jones, once sent a friend to him bearing a note requesting Greeley's aid to a subordinate position in the custom-house. No sooner had Greeley glanced it over than he astonished the gentleman, who was aware of Mr. Greeley's early obligation to Mr. Jones, by the volley of oaths and vituperation which he heaped upon him because he did not go West instead of hanging around there seeking office. No wonder the gentleman, who was a reputable middle-aged man, fled from the presence of this famous expounder of 'Moral Ideas.' However, when all this has been said we cannot help but admit that a great and good man died on December 29th, 1872. Certain it is that Journalism lost one of its brightest and most successful stars.

THURLOW WEED.

Who indeed has not heard of Thurlow Weed, "The king maker," born at Cairo, Greene County, New York, November 15, 1797. His father was a teamster and farmer. The reader can get some insight into the seemingly mysterious power he held for so many years, when it was known that so great was his thirst for knowledge that he was glad to wrap bits of a rag carpet about his feet and thus shod walk through the snow two miles to borrow a history of the French Revolution, which he mastered at night, stretched before 'the sap bush fire.'

The more one investigates the character and lives of those men whom we so often envy, the more we are forced to see that it was will-power rightly directed that overcame all obstacles. Certain it is to this that Thurlow Weed owes his everlasting fame as the 'American Warwick'; for knowledge is power. He first left the farm work as a cabin boy on a Hudson river steamboat bound for New York, but being born a journalist he soon drifted into a printing office where he became a good journeyman.

When the second war with Great Britain broke out he enlisted, and served on the Northern frontier, where by faithfulness he became Quartermaster Sergeant. When the war was over he returned to the printing office, being at one time in the same establishment with the late James Harper. Finally he started a paper at Oxford, New York, in 1818. He afterward became connected with the Onondaga Times, which he finally changed to the Republican. For the next few years he is connected with several different papers until we find him in Rochester at the head of the Anti-Masonic Enquirer.

About this time the body of a man who had drowned in Lake Ontario was found, and it was claimed that his name was Morgan; if so, he was a renegade mason. A question of identity was raised, but as his murder was boldly asserted to have been the work of Masonry, it caused a great excitement for the time being. This excitement divided the political parties into Mason and Anti-Mason factions. Anti-Masonry was the political fertilizer which produced the astonishing growth of the assiduous Weed, he being sent to the Assembly twice, mainly on that issue. While at Albany his ability as a party leader becoming so apparent he was decided upon as the proper person to assume the party leadership against the obnoxious 'Albany Regency,' the great Democratic power in New York State at the time. He accordingly moved to Albany and assumed the editorship of the Albany Evening Journal. Weed was one of the men who consolidated the Anti-Jackson, Anti-Mason and old Federal factions into the Whig party. The 'Regency' with which he had to deal consisted of such men as Martin Van Buren, Silas Wright, Willian L. Marcy and others of equal ability. Such were the men with whom he was pitted, but they soon found him in every way worthy of their steel. No one, when speaking of this great political warrior ever thought or spoke of him as a millionaire. Seemingly no one cared how much he was worth; but what did worry them was,--what will be the outcome of this secret conclave which we now suspect to be in progress at the headquarters of the opposition of the 'Albany Regency.'

He went to battle fearlessly, and his terse pen dealt stinging blows straight in the face of the opponent. Indeed, as an editor he has been rarely equaled. While Greeley would devote a column to an article, he would take the same subject and in a few words put the argument in such shape as to carry far more conviction. His two terms in the State Assembly wound up his career as a legislator, although he could have had any place within the gift of his party from 1830 to 1860. His ambition was not to hold office but to rule men, and it is well-known that his desires were accomplished. He was a great dictator, being largely instrumental as an independent advisor in the selection of Harrison, Taylor and Scott. His first trial of personal strength in this line was when he secured the nomination and election of his personal friend, William H. Seward, as the first Whig Governor of New York. Mr. Seward, who was an unobtrusive man, was one time riding with the driver on a stage when that dignitary asked the stranger his name and business, as was customary when people did not volunteer the information. The answer was, "Why, I'm William H. Seward, Governor of the State." This was too good for the driver, whose answer was a loud laugh, plainly implying that he considered that the gentleman had given a most cute but evasive answer. "Don't you believe me?" asked Seward. "Of course not," replied the driver. Mr. Seward, who was acquainted with the proprietor of the next hotel they came to, agreed to leave it to him. In time they arrived and the driver, calling out the landlord, immediately said, "This man says he is Governor of New York State and we have left the matter to you." "Yes," broke in Seward, "am I not Governor of this State?" The answer came quick and sharp; "No, but Thurlow Weed is." "There," exclaimed the ignorant driver, who could not see the point at once; "I knew you weren't Governor of New York State."

In 1864 Mr. Weed sold the Journal, but never entirely suspended literary work. He afterward assumed the editorship of the New York Commercial Advertiser, and often sent letters to the Tribune. In 1882, shortly before his death, the country was set in a flutter by his publishing the whole details relating to the Morgan matter, which he had kept all this time claiming it would injure certain parties, but as the last had died, it was now made public. On November 23rd of the same year one more great journalist passed away. He left a large estate, but a larger host of friends.

GEORGE W. CHILDS.