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Title: The Life of Henry Bradley Plant
Author: Smyth, G. Hutchinson
Language: English
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_Henry Bradley Plant._
THE LIFE OF
HENRY BRADLEY PLANT
FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF THE PLANT SYSTEM
OF RAILROADS AND STEAMSHIPS AND ALSO
OF THE SOUTHERN EXPRESS COMPANY
BY
G. HUTCHINSON SMYTH, D.D.
[Illustration: text decoration]
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1898
_Compliments of
The Author._
COPYRIGHT, 1898
BY
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
[Illustration: text decoration]
PREFACE.
If it be asked why another biography is added to the almost endless
number now in our bookstores and libraries, an answer is found in the
countless distinctions of individual character, and in the varied
experiences which come to men in different walks of life. The botanist
says that of all leaves in the forests of the world, no two can be found
alike in every particular. The phrenologist says the same of the various
forms of the human head, and the psychologist affirms it of the
intellects and dispositions of men and women. Hence each life has its
own peculiar experience to record for the pleasure or profit of others.
Biography is the most universally interesting and instructive branch of
literature; hence the power of the novel and drama, which are merely
biographies pictured and acted before us. A study of history shows that
the nations’ great movements are the work of individual men and women.
In illustration of this fact it is needful to mention such names only
as Abraham, Joseph, Esther, Joan of Arc, Napoleon, and Washington.
The commercial and industrial occupations from which a nation now
derives its strength should be honored as truly as the military exploit,
or the scientific achievement. The record of a noble life which, in its
sphere of quiet duty, has accomplished much for the good of others, is a
lesson in patriotism and a legacy to posterity. The best period of the
history of the Cotton States could only be written by taking into
account the share which the subject of this biography has had in their
development.
It is rare to find a man who has had dealings with so many of his
fellows, and who, at the same time, has won the esteem and affection of
his associates and employés, as has Henry Bradley Plant in every
department of his great railroad system.
The writing of this biography is undertaken in the belief that there are
many general readers to whom the record of such a life will be as
welcome as it must be to those to whom, in his manifold activities, he
has proved a benefactor and a friend.
G. H. S.
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CHAPTER I.
PAGE
The Plant Family--Birth of Henry Bradley Plant--Mr. Plant’s
Parents--Ancestors Came from England in 1639--David Plant Occupied
Many Positions of Honor and Trust--A. P. Plant’s Successful Business
Career--H. B. Plant on his Mother’s Side is Descended from Joseph
Frisbee, a Major in Washington’s Army--Reverend Levi Frisbee, Father
of Professor Levi Frisbee of Harvard College--Connection with Sir
William Pepperell, Bart.--The Historian of the Frisbee Family--Richard
of the Second Generation Went from Virginia to Connecticut, and
Settled at Branford, 1644--Sketch of Oliver Libby Frisbee, Historian
of his Family--Senator Hoar’s Relations to the Frisbee Family--Frisbee
Patriotism and Services to their Country--They Were Good, Church-going
People, mostly of the Puritan Belief--Probability that the Frisbees
Came from Wales.....1-14
CHAPTER II.
Branford, Connecticut, Purchased by the New Haven Colonists from
the Totokett Indians in 1638--First Settlements Were Made in
1644--First Church of Logs Surrounded by Stockade to Protect from
Indians--Guards at the Gate during Service--Church and Town Records
Preserved at Branford--John Plum, the First Town Clerk--Style of
the Second Church Building and Character of its Services--Rev.
Timothy Gillett its Pastor--He Taught an Academy in Addition to his
Pastoral Work--Prominent Families of Branford--Intelligent Character
of the People--De Tocqueville’s High Estimate of this “Leetle
State”--Branford in 1779.....15-22
CHAPTER III.
The Blackstone Family--The Ancestor Came from England before
1630--His Name Was William Blaxton--Settled first in Massachusetts,
afterwards Went to Rhode Island--His Beautiful Character and Numerous
Descendants--Origin of Yale College of Branford--The Blackstone
Memorial Library.....23-34
CHAPTER IV.
The Plants Came from England to Branford, between Two Hundred and
Three Hundred Years ago--Still Own the Lands first Acquired--Henry’s
Father Died of Typhus Fever when Henry Was about Six Years Old--His
Tender Recollection of his Mother--Henry’s First Day at School--His
Natural Diffidence--Mr. Plant’s After-dinner Speeches--His Mother’s
Second Marriage--Stepfather Kind to Henry--Thrown by a Plough Horse
and nearly Killed--Attended School at Branford--Engaged on Steamboat
Line Running between New Haven and New York--On Leaving, Promised a
Captaincy--Marriage--Express Business--Leaves New Haven and Goes to
New York--Romantic Experience in Florida .....35-50
CHAPTER V.
Mr. Plant Goes from New Haven to New York--Captain Stone’s
Friendship--Mrs. Plant’s Health Fails again--Returns to the South--Is
Appointed Superintendent of Adams Express Company--His Great Executive
Ability--The Civil War--Mrs. Plant’s Death--Mr. Plant Buys out the
Adams Express Company.....51-55
CHAPTER VI.
Relations to the Confederate Government--Jefferson Davis Gives him
Charge of Confederate Funds--Mr. Plant Buys a Slave, who afterward
Nursed him through a Severe Sickness--Impaired Health--Goes to
Bermuda, New York, Canada, and Europe--Second Marriage.....56-67
CHAPTER VII.
Education from Books and from Experience--Keen Intuitions--Abreast of
the Progress--Mr. Plant’s After-dinner Speech at Tampa Banquet Given
him by Tampa Board of Trade, March 18, 1886--Location of Tampa--In
Territorial Days Had a Military Reservation--In 1884 Population about
Seven Hundred--Its Cosmopolitan Population now--Many Cubans and
Spaniards in Tampa--Tobacco Industry--Phosphate Abounds in this Part
of the State--Much of it Shipped to the North and to Europe--Plant
System Gives Impetus to the Prosperity of the Place--Its Progress the
Last Five or Six Years.....68-86
CHAPTER VIII.
Florida Mr. Plant’s Hobby--Banquet at Ocala--Mr. Plant’s Speech--Sail
on Lakes Harrison and Griffin--Banquet at Leesburg--Visit to
Eustis--Cheering Words to a Young Editor--Make the Best of the
Frost--It may be a Blessing in Disguise--Must Cultivate Other Fruits
(and Cereals) besides Oranges--Importance of Honesty--Sense of
Justice--Consideration for the Workmen--Unconscious Moulding-Power
over Associates and Employees--Letter of Honorable Rufus B.
Bullock.....87-101
CHAPTER IX.
Mr. Plant’s Industry and Power to Endure Continuous Strain--Labor of
Examining and Answering his Enormous Mail--Letter from Japan--Mail
Delivered Regularly to him at Home and Abroad--His Private Car,
its Style, Structure, Hospitality, and Cheering Presence--Numerous
Calls--The Secret of his Endurance--The Esteem and Love of the
Southern Express Company for its President--Mr. Plant Enjoys Social
Life--He is a Great Lover of almost all Kinds of Music--Mr. Plant
a Medical Benefactor--Some of the Progress Made in the Healing
Art--Bishop of Winchester’s High Estimate of the Value of Health--Dr.
Long’s Opinion of the Gulf Coast as a Health Restorer--Unrecognized
Medicines in Restoring Lost Health--Nervousness among the American
People--The Soothing and Strengthening Effect of Florida Climate--Mr.
Plant’s Part in Facilitating Travel and Providing Comfortable
Accommodations for the Invalid.....102-116
CHAPTER X.
Reason for Submitting Press Sketches of Mr. Plant--_Descriptive
America_, December, 1886--_City Items_, December, 1886--_Railroad
Topics_--_Home Journal_, New York, March, 1896--F. G. De Fontain
in same Journal--Ocala _Evening Times_, June, 1896--_Express
Gazette_.....117-140
CHAPTER XI.
Mr. Plant’s Close and Constant Contact with the Great System as
Seen in the Following Letters--Letter Written on Board the Steamer
_Comal_--Letters on Trip to Jamaica, West Indies, March 15, 1893, and
Published in the _Home Journal_.....141-149
CHAPTER XII.
MANAGEMENT OF THE GREAT PLANT SYSTEM WORTHY OF ADMIRATION AND
IMITATION.....150-156
CHAPTER XIII.
Plant Day at the Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895
at Atlanta, Georgia--Preparations for its Celebration--Impressive
Observances of Mr. Plant’s Birthday at the Aragon Hotel--Mr. Plant’s
Remarks in Acknowledging Presentation of Gifts.....157-182
CHAPTER XIV.
Tampa Bay Hotel, One of the Modern Wonders of the World--Its
Architecture, Furniture, Works of Art, Decorations, Tapestries,
Paintings, Inlaid Table and Three Ebony and Gold Cabinets from the
Tuileries, a Sofa and Two Chairs once Owned by Marie Antoinette--The
Dream of De Soto Realized--A Palace of Art for the Delight and
Joy of Those who are in Health, and an Elysium for the Sad and
Sorrowful.....183-203
CHAPTER XV.
Programme of Plant Day Ceremonies--Ringing of the Liberty
Bell--Presentation of Addresses to Mr. Plant in the Great
Auditorium--His Reply--Resolutions from the Different Departments of
the System, from the Savannah Board of Trade, etc.--Mr. Morton F.
Plant’s Acknowledgments.....204-226
CHAPTER XVI.
Banquet at the Aragon Hotel Ends the Festivities of the Day--Sketch
of the Southern Express Company--Distinguished Callers on President
Plant during the Day--Many Telegrams and Letters of Congratulation
Received--Many Press Notices of the Day, and many Tributes of Respect
and Esteem for him who Called it forth.....227-263
CHAPTER XVII.
Some Changes that have Taken Place in the Configuration of the
Globe--Islands Born and Buried--French Revolution--Napoleon’s
Influence on Europe--England’s Long Wars--Barbarous Treatment
of Prisoners--Slavery Abolished--English Profanity and
Intemperance--Temperance Movements--Duelling--Penny Postage--Expansion
of the Press--Canals, Erie and Suez--Railroads in England and the
United States--First Steamer to Cross the Atlantic--First Steamship
Line.....264-278
CHAPTER XVIII.
Railroads Established--Engineering Progress--Steel, Iron
Steamships--Horse Railroad--Kerosene Oil in Use 1830--Sewing
Machines--Agricultural Implements 1831-51--Sanitary
Progress--Philanthropic and Christian Progress--Higher
Education--Medical Progress--Humane Care of the
Insane--Sailors’ and Seamen’s Home--World’s Fairs--Religious
Reciprocity--Arbitration--Numerous Inventions and Discoveries--Henry
B. Plant in War and in Peace--Testimonial Presented to Mr. and Mrs.
Plant on the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of their Wedding.....279-306
PLANT GENEALOGY.....307-337
INDEX.....339-344
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
The author takes pleasure in acknowledging his indebtedness to many of
the Southern Express and “Plant System” officials for their prompt and
valuable assistance in the preparation of a biography of their able and
esteemed President. Chief among those to whom thanks are due may be
mentioned Messrs. A. P. C. Ryan, M. J. O’ Brien, D. F. Jack, B. W.
Wrenn, and G. H. Tilley. The last named furnished not only much material
in manuscript and print, but many valuable suggestions as to their use.
The letter of Ex-Governor Bullock of Georgia, published in the volume
reveals the noble nature which penned it, far more eloquently than any
words which can be written here, and is alike honorable to its
distinguished subject and its eminent author.
Acknowledgment is due also to the papers from which extracts have been
taken.
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THE LIFE OF HENRY BRADLEY PLANT.
CHAPTER I.
The Plant Family--Birth of Henry Bradley Plant--Mr. Plant’s
Parents--Ancestors Came from England in 1639--David Plant Occupied
Many Positions of Honor and Trust--A. P. Plant’s Successful
Business Career--H. B. Plant on his Mother’s Side is Descended from
Joseph Frisbee, a Major in Washington’s Army--Reverend Levi
Frisbee, Father of Professor Levi Frisbee of Harvard
College--Connection with Sir William Pepperell, Bart.--The
Historian of the Frisbee Family--Richard of the Second Generation
Went from Virginia to Connecticut, and Settled at Branford,
1644--Sketch of Oliver Libby Frisbee, Historian of his
Family--Senator Hoar’s Relations to the Frisbee Family--Frisbee
Patriotism and Services to their Country--They Were Good
Church-Going People, Mostly of the Puritan Belief--Probability that
the Frisbees Came from Wales.
Henry Bradley Plant was born October 27, 1819, at Branford, Connecticut.
His paternal great-grandfather was attached to Washington’s army as a
private, when Washington was at Newburg, and he was one of the guard of
the unfortunate Major André at the time of his execution. His
great-grandfather on his grandmother Plant’s side was a major in General
Washington’s army at the same time.
Mr. Plant’s father was Anderson Plant and his mother was Betsey Bradley.
They were married December 23, 1818, and were of good old Puritan
ancestry who came from England about two hundred and sixty years ago.
According to a genealogical table at the end of this volume, it will be
seen that John Plant was in Hartford, Connecticut, in the year
1639,--some give the date three years earlier,--and his son, John Plant,
is granted a tract of land at Branford in 1667. These people possessed
the characteristics that distinguished their race. They loved freedom,
were thrifty, energetic, self-reliant, patriotic, and devoutly
religious. Many of them were officers, and most of them members in the
Congregational Church, which was the only church in the town for the
first hundred years of its history.
Some of them occupied positions of honor and responsibility in the State
and country.
David Plant was born at Stratford, prepared for college at the Cheshire
Academy, graduated at Yale College in 1804, studied law at the
Litchfield Law School, and was a classmate of John C. Calhoun. In 1819
and 1820, he was Speaker of the House of Representatives, and in 1821
was elected to the State Senate and twice re-elected. He was
Lieutenant-Governor of the State from 1823 to 1827, and from 1827 to
1829 he was a member of the United States Congress. In politics he was a
staunch Whig. He was an influential man in the political circles of his
day in the State of Connecticut, and Calhoun, when Secretary of State,
offered him any position within his gift; but he refused to hold office
under the dominant party.
Another successful man of the Plant family was A. P. Plant, son of
Ebenezer and Lydia (Neal) Plant, born at Southington in the year 1816.
Early in life he began to earn his own living, and by industry, economy,
and business tact he became in time the head of a large manufacturing
establishment. He settled in that part of the town known as the
“Corner,” a part which rapidly increased in population and soon grew
into a prosperous village. It bears the name of Plantsville in honor of
A. P. Plant and his brother E. H. Plant. His biographer says: “He made a
profession of religion in 1833; and from that time was an influential
member of the Baptist Church. In 1850, he was elected a deacon of the
church in Southington, and held the office until 1872, when he
transferred his relations to the new enterprise started in his own
village. To this church he gave liberally, and left it a legacy in his
will.” He is described as a most faithful and consistent Christian, an
esteemed officer in the church, and a firm believer in the presence of
the Holy Spirit in the heart of the Christian.
Henry Bradley Plant, on his grandmother’s side, is a direct descendant
of Joseph Frisbee, a major in Washington’s army. The Frisbees were a
numerous family, and many of them occupied positions of honor and
influence in the history of the country. One of them writing to Mr.
Plant says:
“I suppose you have often wondered what has become of my history of the
Frisbee family. I have been diligently at work on it since you heard
from me. It has grown from a very small beginning to be quite an affair,
namely, from looking up my ancestors so that I could join the hereditary
societies of the United States, to writing a history of over one
thousand of the lineal descendants of Edward Frisbee, the first settler.
I find them a noble race, worthy of history. I have also looked up my
maternal ancestors and can trace them back to 1497, thirteen
generations, among them Sir William Pepperell.”
The fitness of the writer, Oliver L. Frisbee, for his task of searching
the records of his long line of progenitors may be gathered from another
paragraph in the same letter where he says: “My Alma Mater, Bates
College, gave me the degree of Master of Arts, last Commencement, for
eminent success in business and proficiency in the studies of genealogy,
heraldry, and colonial history.”
The following sketch, with some slight corrections, is taken from a
carefully prepared account, by the same writer, of the descendants of
Richard Frisbee, the first-named ancestor of this family.
“Richard Frisbee came from England to Virginia, in 1619, when he was
twenty-four years old. In 1642, the Governor of Virginia ordered all
those who would not join the Church of England to leave the Colony, and
hundreds went to Eastern Virginia, now the State of Maryland. Among
these refugees were Richard Frisbee and his two sons, James and William.
They purchased plantations in Cecil County and resided on Kent Island,
the northern part of Chesapeake Bay.
“At first the Governor of Virginia claimed this island; later, Lord
Baltimore and afterwards, William Penn. The latter wrote to James
Frisbee, from London, in 1681, instructing him to pay no tax to Lord
Baltimore. James Frisbee was a member of the House of Representatives of
Maryland, and held other important positions in the State. In addressing
a petition to His Majesty, in 1688, he, with others, began their
petition thus: ‘We the undersigned Englishmen though born in America,’
etc. James went back to England, the land of his birth, in his old age.
“Richard, son of Richard the emigrant, came from Virginia to
Connecticut, and settled at Branford in 1644, when his brothers went to
Maryland. His son John had several children, among them Edward and
Joseph. The former was the ancestor of Major Philip Frisbee, of Albany
County, New York. He was in the War of the Revolution, and his grandsons
belonged to the Sons of the American Revolution, of the State of New
York. President Edward S. Frisbee of Wells College, in New York State,
is his descendant. The latter, Joseph, your ancestor [referring to Mr.
Plant], married September 14, 1712, had a son Joseph who married Sarah
Bishop, August 25, 1742. Their son Joseph married Sarah Rogers, March
11, 1773. Their eldest child, Sarah, born May 15, 1774, was your
grandmother.
“The name Joseph has been in our branch of the family a long time. My
father’s name was Joseph. I had a brother Joseph, and my son born this
summer is also named Joseph.
“The youngest child of the first Edward was Ebenezer, my ancestor,
brother to John, your ancestor. He had two sons, Ebenezer and Elisha.
The latter was the father of the Rev. Levi Frisbee who settled at
Ipswich, Massachusetts, and was the father of Professor Levi Frisbee of
Harvard College, who died in 1820, one of the most talented men that
ever passed through that institution. Senator Hoar was named for him,
George Frisbie Hoar. Ebenezer’s son James, born in 1722, was lieutenant
with Captain Paul Jones, and was killed one hundred and fifteen years
ago to-day, September 23d, in the engagement between the _Bonne Homme
Richard_ and _Serapis_ in the English Channel. This was my
great-grandfather and by right of descent from him I joined the Sons of
the American Revolution. His son Darius (born in 1769), my grandfather,
settled in Kittery, Maine, and married Dorothy Gerrish, a
great-granddaughter of Colonel William Pepperell, a well-known merchant
and the father of Sir William Pepperell, Bart., the hero of Louisburg.
Dorothy Gerrish was also related to some of the most distinguished
colonial families in New England.”
The subjoined letters from John B. Frisbee and Senator Hoar will be of
interest in this connection.
“LAKEWOOD, N. J., December 16, 1894.
“MY DEAR MR. PLANT:
“This tardy reply to your favor of the 6th inst. is occasioned by
illness since its receipt, and which prompted my coming to this
place to recruit. I am now rapidly recovering from quite a severe
attack of grippe, and hope to be able to leave for Mexico this
week.
“Referring to the subject of your letter, I can only give you
meagre information. My great-grandfather, Philip Frisbie, was a
major in the New York Militia and served under Washington, and I
have no doubt was closely related to the Joseph Frisbie you
mention.
“I have a first cousin, Mrs. Farman, the wife of Judge Farman,
formerly United States Consul-General in Egypt, who has devoted
much time and research in obtaining an accurate history of our
family. Recently, she went to Europe for the purpose of educating
her children in the French and German languages.
“I have written to her, requesting her to advise you directly in
regard to the information you desire, hence I feel assured that you
will in due time receive a letter from her upon the subject.
“Since we last met I have visited New York several times, and upon
each occasion you have been absent from the city, thus depriving me
of the coveted pleasure of paying my respects to Mrs. Plant and
your good self; with best regards to both, I remain,
“Yours very sincerely,
“JOHN B. FRISBIE.”
“UNITED STATES SENATE.,
“WASHINGTON, D. C., January 26, 1895.
“MY DEAR SIR:
“I know very little about the Frisbie family in this country. I
have no relatives of that name. I was myself named for a very
intimate friend of my father, Prof. Levi Frisbie, who was an
eminent scholar in his time, a graduate at Harvard in 1802, and
afterwards filled two professorships there. His writings, as I dare
say you know, were collected with a brief memoir and are
occasionally to be found in bookstores. He was son of the Rev. Levi
Frisbie, of Ipswich, who delivered several addresses that have been
published. Prof. Frisbie wrote some articles for the _North
American Review_ which you will find referred to in Cushing’s lists
of the articles. Dr. Holmes wrote me some years ago an account of
Prof. Frisbie’s personal appearance, which I suppose I can find
when I am at home in Worcester, if you desire. Prof. Frisbie was
nearly blind and instructed his classes and pursued his studies
without being able to read
“I am faithfully yours,
“GEO. F. Hoar.[1]
“To O. L. FRISBIE,
“Portsmouth, N. H.”
The Frisbee family was patriotic and promptly responded to the call
of freedom and independence. There were thirty-five of them from
Connecticut in the War of the Revolution. Eleven of them spelled
their names Frisbee; seventeen, Frisbie; and seven, Frisby. They
continued in the service of their country from the Lexington alarm,
April 19, 1776, until the disbanding of the army, by Washington,
on the Hudson in 1783. A regiment marched from Connecticut towns,
in 1775, to the relief of Boston. John Frisbee, son of Titus
Ebenezer, represented Branford in the Legislature from 1690 to
1692. O. L. Frisbee writes to Mr. Plant: “Your ancestor was a good
churchman. From him, there is a long list of Frisbees in the
records of the church of Branford. In 1700, the annals of Branford
say that among the families prominently identified with the church,
town, and business from 1700 to 1800, the Frisbees, Bands, and
Plants head a long list in the order in which I have written their
names. This religious element seems to have been with the Frisbees.
Rev. Levi Frisbee, father of Professor Levi of Harvard College, was
a very pious man.
“He was invited to deliver an oration on Washington at his death.
My grandfather was a very pious man; he founded a church at
Kittery, Maine. My father, Joseph Frisbee, was a deacon in the
church. He and Caleb Frisbee were in the regiment from Branford. I
found Noah and Edward Frisbee were members of the company that
marched to the relief of Fort William Henry, August, 1757, from
Connecticut. I found your ancestor Joseph Foote Frisbee was in the
Revolutionary War. He lived to be ninety-eight years of age. About
1700, Samuel Baker and Samuel Frisbee, Jr., bought land for a
wharf at Dutch House Point, from Joseph Foote at Branford. Joseph
Foote Frisbee might have been named for this man.
“In the church records of Branford there is a great deal about
Joseph Frisbee, in connection with the church from 1743 to 1746. I
find all the Frisbees good church (Congregational) people, from the
first Edward who settled at Branford, July 7, 1644. He and his wife
Abigail joined the Congregational church soon after settling in
Branford. I should say the Frisbees were good fighters in war, and
good church and law-abiding people, with Puritanic principles that
helped to build the nation.”
In a history of the Wolcotts of Connecticut, it is stated that John
Frisbee and Abigail Culpepper, his wife, came from Wales. This may
be correct, although in the genealogical sketch already given it is
stated that the first of the family, Richard Frisbee, came from
England to Virginia in 1619, but the same sketch says that in 1642
the Governor of Virginia ordered all who would not join the Church
of England to leave the Colony, and that hundreds went to Eastern
Virginia, now called Maryland, and that among them was Richard
Frisbee, who with his sons settled in Cecil County, living on Kent
Island, the northern part of Chesapeake Bay. Now it is quite
common, in the early accounts of immigration to America, to
describe the people as English, or as coming from England, when in
fact they were Scotch or Irish. But coming from any of the British
Islands they were often called English. This would be more likely
to be the case with those coming from Wales, which is,
geographically speaking, a part of the island of Great Britain. Be
this as it may, it is not of great importance. The spirit of
dissent from the Established Church was just as strong in England
as in Wales. The name Frisbee or Frisby, as its terminal denotes,
is of English origin, but it is quite possible that the family came
from one of the border countries.
Whether this family came from Wales or England may be only a matter
of historic accuracy and personal interest; certain it is the
Frisbees are a people who have done honor to their country both in
war and in peace. They bore a prominent part in the victorious
struggle for the freedom and independence of the American Colonies.
They have been the promoters of education, peace, piety, and “the
righteousness that exalteth a nation.” We have given this account
of this people, for four reasons. First, because the historian of
the family, with a commendable pride, has collected and preserved
the family record of his people, from which the material for this
brief notice was placed at our disposal. Secondly, because the
family histories of the people who have combined to form the
American nation are only beginning to receive a slight part of the
attention which they justly merit. Thirdly, because a knowledge of
the numerous and varied races that have formed the nation is
essential to a correct understanding of the American people.
Fourthly, because in the present case, owing to the early death of
Mr. Plant’s father, the widowed mother was especially dear to him,
and is still cherished in his memory with the most tender and
affectionate regard.
Mr. Plant’s connection with Washington’s army during the
Revolutionary War was one of the family traditions, but he was not
the man to accept honors unless he knew they rightly belonged to
him. So after an extensive correspondence, and a thorough
investigation of the military register in several States, and at
the national capital, he received the following communication,
which I have carefully copied from the original.
“Records and Pension Office, War Department, Washington, November
15, 1895. Respectfully returned to Mr. Oliver L. Frisbee, A.M.,
Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It appears from the records of this
office, that Joseph Frisbee was enlisted September 3, 1780, and
served as a private in Lieutenant-Colonel Sherman’s Company (also
designated as Captain Sylvanus Brown’s and Lieutenant Joseph Hait’s
Company), Eighth Connecticut Regiment, Revolutionary War, and was
also discharged October 29, 1780.” On transmitting the above to Mr.
Plant, Mr. O. Frisbee writes from Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
December 24, 1895: “Enclosed please find the record from Washington
of the service of your grandmother’s father, Joseph Frisbee, in the
Revolutionary War. He was born August 17, 1745; married, March 11,
1773, Sarah Rogers; had a daughter Sarah, born May 15, 1774,
married Samuel Plant, February 11, 1795. These records will enable
you and your sons to join in ‘The Sons of the American Revolution.’
“O. L. FRISBEE.”
[Illustration: text decoration]
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CHAPTER II.
Branford, Connecticut, Purchased by the New Haven Colonists from
the Totokett Indians in 1638--First Settlements were Made
1644--First Church of Logs Surrounded by Stockade to Protect from
Indians--Guards at the Gate during Service--Church and Town Records
Preserved at Branford--John Plum the First Town Clerk--Style of the
Second Church Building and Character of its Services--Rev. Timothy
Gillett its Pastor--He Taught an Academy in Addition to his
Pastoral Work--Prominent Families of Branford--Intelligent
Character of the People--De Tocqueville’s High Estimate of this
“Leetle State”--Branford in 1779.
Soon after New Haven was settled, the people negotiated with the Indians
for an additional tract of land, some ten miles in length from north to
south. It extended eight or ten miles east of the Quinnipiac River. The
purchase of this land occurred in December, 1638. It was bought from an
Indian sachem named Sorsheog of Mattabeseck. The territory included the
land on which the town of Branford was built, and its Indian name was
Totokett. It was several years before the purchasers went to live at
Totokett. It was early in the year 1644 when the first settlers located
upon their lands at Branford. By the first of October of that year, the
society was so far organized that their minister could gather them for
regular service. The people soon built him a house and a meeting-house,
or church. This latter stood in the front of the old burying-ground; it
was built of logs and had a thatched roof, and was surrounded by a
cedar-wood stockade twelve feet high. A cedar-wood vase made from the
wood of this stockade is still in the possession of Mrs. Samuel O.
Plant.
During the hours of worship, one or more of the men stood guard near the
entrance of the stockade. All carried firearms to church, or when going
any distance from home. They were not afraid of the Totokett Indians,
but of raiding bands of other Indian tribes who attacked both the whites
and Indians. The fierce Mohawks from the neighborhood of the Hudson were
often the assailants. The first thing that appears on the ancient
records of Branford is the division of lands among the first settlers in
the month of June, 1645. It has been said, and often repeated, that in
1666, when so many people went from Branford to settle at Newark, New
Jersey, they took the records of Branford with them. These in some way
were burned, and thus much valuable history was lost. But such was not
the fact.
The town and church records have always
[Illustration: _Old Homestead of the Plant Family._
_Branford, Connecticut._
_Birthplace of Henry Bradley Plant._]
remained at Branford. They are quite full and in a reasonably good state
of preservation. In a manuscript history of Branford from which the
above account is taken, the name of the first town clerk, John Plum, in
1645, and a list of his successors, are given with the date of their
service. It is interesting to note how much alike are the ways and
customs of this old Puritan town to those of the town of Harlem, built
by the Dutch a little later and now part of New York City. In both
places the history of the town and the history of the church are one.
They are so interwoven that they can hardly be separated. The division
of the meadow-lands is the same; mutual protection from the Indians, and
the manner of defence are also alike. The official appointment, by the
town, of a man to gather in all the cows of the settlers, take them out
to graze in the morning, and bring them back at the proper time to be
milked, and many other such customs, are very much alike in both
settlements.
The second church, or meeting-house, was built on the common, of wood,
and was succeeded by the present house of worship, which is built of
brick. Mr. Plant remembers the high galleries in the old church where
the seats were arranged in slips, the boys on one side, and the girls on
the other; neither could see the minister, and it is very doubtful
whether any of them heard him. There were no children’s sermons in
those days. The babes, of whom Paul writes, were not fed on milk, but on
strong meat, which even the rigorous doctrinal appetites of the fathers
sometimes found hard to digest. Some of the modern church movements,
such as women preaching, and Salvation Army barracks, would have
sufficiently alarmed those good orthodox people to make them call for a
day of fasting and prayer. Nevertheless they were a noble race, among
whom misappropriation and embezzlement of funds, trust swindling and
corporation stealing and political corruption were unknown.
The pulpit was the old-fashioned barrel-shaped structure, and, like some
of the sermons, was high above the heads of the people. There was a
great sounding-board over the head of the preacher, and it used to be a
subject of calculation with the boys, whether this board would not some
day fall on the devoted head of the speaker and stop the sound
altogether. This church had the old family square pew, and in front of
the pulpit was a bench for the deacons. The people were classified in
their pews according to age, and the oldest, perhaps on account of their
difficulty in hearing, occupied the seats nearest the pulpit. The church
building was not warmed, save by the fervid sermons of those grand old
Puritan divines. That, however, reached only the head and heart, hence,
for the feet, they made stoves of sheet iron, over which was a
perforated tin casing, and over this a hardwood casing. Coals from
corncobs, or seasoned hickory, as being the most durable, were placed in
this stove, which was carried in the bottom of carriage or sleigh to
church, where its heat would last all forenoon. At the close of the
forenoon service, the people went to the neighboring church house, which
was warmed by a log fire. Here they ate their luncheon, and then
returned to the church for another two hours’ devotion.
The Rev. Timothy P. Gillett was pastor of this church in Mr. Plant’s
boyhood. He taught an academy--Mr. Plant being a scholar for several
terms--in addition to his ministerial duties of preaching, visiting, and
catechising the church people. He was a sober, solemn, orthodox
clergyman of the old school, scholarly and dignified both in and out of
the pulpit. It is only a hint of the changes that time brings, and no
reflection on this good man’s charity to say that, had he seen one of
the modern ministers visiting his flock on a bicycle, he would have had
him deposed from the sacred office. Some unfortunate misunderstanding
came between him and his congregation in the latter part of his
ministry, so that his wife refused to have his remains interred in the
church burying-ground. She afterwards relented, was herself buried in
the church cemetery, and left in her will two thousand dollars to
defray the cost of removing her husband’s remains thither, and for
erecting a suitable monument to his memory. The sacred dust of both
pastor and wife rests, as it should, among the people to whom they
ministered for some fifty years or more. The town of Branford was
composed of an intelligent, industrious, and religious people, mostly
farmers and well-to-do citizens. The academy presided over by the Rev.
Timothy P. Gillett constituted a centre of intellectual, moral, and
spiritual development that inspired the life and elevated the character
of the people.
The following account from, the _Branford Annals_ is only one of the
many testimonies that might be recorded of the patriotism and courage of
this people:
“No town in New Haven County was more important during the war of
independence than old Branford. Her citizens proved very patriotic. She
had a few royalists who were somewhat troublesome. But most of her
people were self-sacrificing in a special degree in sustaining the
federal cause. No town surpassed her in furnishing men and means. Most
all of her able-bodied men were in the army, responding promptly at
every call. Col. William Douglass’ regiment, which did most effective
service, was largely recruited from Branford. The coasts and harbors of
Branford exposed her to visits from the vessels of the enemy.
Coast-guards were needed, and were kept night and day at Stony Creek,
Indian Neck, Town Neck, and at Branford Point. At the approach of the
enemy, two reports of a cannon were to call out all the people to repel
invasion. Expresses were kept in readiness to hasten to the remote parts
of the town with the alarming news. When New Haven was invaded, patriots
from Branford were quickly on hand to help. A company of her men were in
the battle at Milford Hill. Two Branford men, Goodrich and Baldwin, were
killed, and several others wounded at that battle. The attack of the
British on the east side of New Haven harbor was repelled by the
Branford home guard mostly. Those from Branford were supported by men
from Guilford, who hastened to the rescue.
“At that time a new vessel, a brig named the _New Defence_, was at
Branford wharf almost ready to sail against the enemy. She had been
built and manned at Branford. Her future history was tragical. At the
first alarm of the landing at New Haven the guns of this vessel were
taken out and hurried over the hills to East Haven. There mounted and
vigorously used and well supported by the brave minute-men with their
muskets, the invaders were compelled to hasten a retreat. One of the
reports made by the British officers speaks of the strong force and
‘great guns’ encountered in that direction. There is an old record at
Branford showing that Mason Hobart, of that place, was paid £5 for
carting two cannon to East Haven from the brig _New Defence_, July 5,
1779.”
Connecticut, though one of the smaller States of the Union, has ever
maintained a high standard of patriotism, education, and moral power in
the progress of the country. De Tocqueville was in the habit of saying,
“All de great men in Amerique comed from dat leetle State dey call
Connecti-coot.” Branford is an old seaport town. Its shipbuilding,
fisheries, West India trade, two hundred years ago, were quite extensive
for that day. It is also a seaside resort in summer, being half-way
between Boston and New York.
Branford was for many years the Governor’s seat of the colonial
government of Connecticut. The house of Governor Saltonstall is still
standing. Many of the useful and prominent men of the country were born
and reared in this quiet yet enterprising little town, founded more than
two and a half centuries ago by the Puritans of old England. Among its
noted and worthy families were those of the Plants and Blackstones, of
whom we shall speak in the following chapter, as the two families became
connected by marriage, and are still warmly attached to their native
town.
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER III.
The Blackstone Family--The Ancestor Came from England before
1630--His Name was William Blaxton--Settled First in Massachusetts,
afterwards Went to Rhode Island--His Beautiful Character and
Numerous Descendants--Origin of Yale College of Branford--The
Blackstone Memorial Library.
From a pamphlet history of the Blackstone family, in which the name is
spelled Blaxton, we gather the following interesting account:
“For several years before Winthrop came, in 1630, William Blaxton
constituted the entire population of this peninsula [Massachusetts, of
which the present Boston Common was then a part], at that time an
unbroken wilderness of woods traversed by savages, by wolves, and other
wild beasts almost as dangerous. Here he dwelt alone, exposed to
dangers, many and great. He was a man of culture, refinement, and
gentlemanly bearing, amiable and hospitable, liked by Indians, and
indeed by everybody. These noble traits, this love of nature, his sacred
calling, his trusting faith, invested whatever belonged to him with a
romantic interest. He was a clergyman of the Church of England, born in
1595, graduated from Cambridge, England, in 1617, and died 1675, aged
eighty years. Blaxton took orders in the Episcopal Church, but it seems
that he never had a cure, though he still wore his canonical coat, which
would indicate his attachment to the English Church, yet some have
represented him as a non-conformist, ‘detesting Prelacy.’ He had in his
library ten large volumes of manuscript books, presumably sermons, all
of which were burned in his house during King Philip’s War. Blaxton came
to America in 1623 with Robert Gorges.”
The father of Mr. Plant’s first wife was Captain James Blackstone. He
lived to the ripe old age of ninety-seven. His son, Timothy B.
Blackstone, is building a public library in Branford to the memory of
his revered father. The following extract of a letter to the donor from
one of the trustees of this library, Mr. Addison Van Name, will be of
interest in this connection, showing, as it does, the origin of Yale
College. The letter is dated from Yale University Library, and runs as
follows:
“My fellow-trustees asked me to procure a design for a book-plate, and
one is herewith submitted for your approval. It seemed to us that a
memorable incident in the earlier library history of Branford might
appropriately be commemorated here, and this has been attempted in the
vignette, in the upper right-hand corner of the plate. You are no doubt
familiar with the story, but President Clap’s _Annals of Yale College_
is not a very common book, and I may be excused for quoting his exact
language.
“In the year 1700, ‘The Ministers so nominated met at New Haven, and
formed themselves into a body, or society, to consist of eleven
ministers, including a rector, and agreed to found a college in the
colony of Connecticut, which they did at their next meeting at Branford,
in the following manner, viz.: Each member brought a number of books and
presented them to the body, and laying them on the table said these
words, or to this effect, “I give these books for the founding a college
in this Colony.” Then the trustees, as a body, took possession of them,
and appointed the Rev. Mr. Russel, of Branford, to be the Keeper of the
Library, which then consisted of about forty volumes in folio.’”
The story is so good that, if there were not the best of reasons for
believing it true, one might easily suspect it to have been invented.
But in his preface President Clap says: “Several circumstances [and
among them we may well suppose the incident in question] I received from
sundry gentlemen who were contemporary with the facts related, among
whom were some of the founders of the college with whom I was personally
acquainted in the year 1726.”
The following account of Mr. Timothy B. Blackstone is taken from the New
York _Herald_ of April 12, 1896:
“Mr. Blackstone was born in a part of Branford known as Blackstoneville,
on March 28, 1829. His father, Captain James Blackstone, in whose memory
he erected this building, was a well-to-do farmer and stock-raiser. He
derived his title of captain from being elected to that position in a
company of local militia. He was elected to the Legislature in the
sessions of 1825, 1826, and 1830, and was elected State Senator in 1840.
“Timothy attended the public schools here until he was eighteen years
old, when he left, and obtained employment as assistant to a civil
engineer, who was at that time surveying on the construction of the New
York and New Haven, now the Consolidated, Railroad. After finishing this
piece of work he became an engineer, and was appointed assistant
engineer of the Stockbridge and Pittsfield Railroad, a short line
constructed in 1849, and now a part of the Housatonic road. After this
road was completed, Mr. Blackstone went west in 1851, and took charge of
the construction of a portion of the Illinois Central Railroad. He
settled at this time in La Salle, Ill., and was Mayor of the city for
one year. In 1856, he became civil engineer of the Joliet and Chicago
Railroad, which ran from Joliet via Lockport to Chicago. After this he
was employed in surveying the land over which the Chicago and Alton
Railroad now runs.
“Mr. Blackstone first began accumulating wealth while this road was
being built. He purchased land ahead, and then sold it at a profit. He
then invested in stock, and held several responsible offices until he
attained his present position--president of the great system.”
On June 17, 1896, the magnificent library was dedicated with appropriate
ceremonies, and called forth much enthusiasm from the towns-people.
In the course of his speech on this occasion, as reported in the _Daily
Palladium_ of New Haven, Judge Harrison said:
“While the primary purpose of the generous donor of this building, and
its endowment fund, is to benefit the people of the town of Branford, it
will never be forgotten that it serves also as a memorial to Hon. James
Blackstone, who spent his long life of ninety-three years in this town,
where he was born, and to the welfare of which he devoted so much time
during the years of his young and mature manhood. For nearly two
centuries the Blackstone family has occupied a conspicuous place in this
community, and for the same length of time representatives of the family
have been tillers of the soil, the title to which has always been in a
Blackstone.
“We cannot properly dedicate this building to the purpose for which it
is intended without calling your attention briefly to James Blackstone,
his life, his family, and his ancestors. He was born in Branford in
1793, in a house located nearly opposite that home which was during
nearly his whole life his residence, and where he died on the 4th of
February, 1886. His first ancestor in this country was the Rev. William
Blackstone, a graduate, in 1617, of Emanuel College, Cambridge. He
received Episcopal ordination in England after graduation, but, like
John Davenport of New Haven, he soon became of the Puritan persuasion,
left his native country on account of his non-conformity, and became the
first white settler upon that famous neck of land opposite Charlestown,
which is now the city of Boston. When the Massachusetts colony came to
New England they found William Blackstone settled on that peninsula. He
had been there long enough to have planted an orchard of apple trees.
Upon his invitation, the principal part of the Massachusetts colony
removed from Charlestown and founded the town of Boston, on land which
Mr. Blackstone desired them to occupy. He was the first inhabitant of
the town, and the colony records of May 18, 1631, show that he was the
first person admitted a freeman of Boston. His house and orchard were
located upon a spot about half-way between Boston Common and the
Charles River. A few years passed by, and the peculiar notions of the
Puritans of Boston on the subject of church organization and government,
had satisfied William Blackstone that while he could not conform to the
church of Archbishop Laud, neither could he conform to the Puritan
Church of Boston, and when they invited him to join them he constantly
declined, using this language: ‘I came from England because I did not
like the lord-bishops; but I cannot join with you because I would not be
under the lord-brethren.’
“In 1633, an agreement was entered into between himself and the other
old settlers, in the division of the lands, that he should have fifty
acres allotted to him near his house forever. In 1635, he sold
forty-four of those acres to the company for £30, retaining the six
acres upon which was his orchard, and soon afterwards he removed to
Rhode Island, living near Providence until the time of his death, which
occurred on the 26th of May, 1675. A few years after leaving Boston he
sold the orchard of six acres to a man named Pepys. He was not in any
manner driven away from Boston by the Puritan Fathers, but holding
certain ideas which did not agree with those of his neighbors, he
concluded to move to a new location, from similar motives to those which
led John Davenport to leave New Haven and go to Boston after the union
of the New Haven colony with the Connecticut colony at Hartford. All of
the accounts and records of Rev. William Blackstone show him to have
been a religious man, with literary tastes, of correct, industrious,
thrifty habits, kind and philanthropic feelings, living for several
years on Boston Neck, and demonstrating the ability of the white man to
live in peace with only Indians for his neighbors. While living in Rhode
Island he frequently went to Providence to preach the gospel, and was
highly esteemed by all the settlers of that colony. In July, 1659, he
married a widow named Sarah Stevenson, and by her he had one son, John
Blackstone. The inventory of his estate after his death describes him as
having a house and orchard, 260 acres of land, interests in the
Providence meadows, and a library of 186 volumes of different languages.
A river of Rhode Island and a town in Massachusetts were named
Blackstone in his honor.
“His only son, John, married in 1692, and about 1713 moved to the town
of Branford, where he took up his residence on lands southeast of the
centre of the town, and bounded southerly by the sea.
“The son of this John Blackstone was born in 1669, and died in Branford,
January 3, 1785, aged nearly eighty-six. His son, John Blackstone, was
born in Branford in 1731, and died August 10, 1816, aged eighty-five.
The son of this last John Blackstone, Timothy Blackstone, was born in
Branford in 1776, and died in 1849, at the age of eighty-three. This
Timothy Blackstone was the father of Hon. James Blackstone, who was born
in Branford, in the old homestead of his father and grandfather, in
1793.
“Here were five generations of the Blackstones living and dying upon the
old family farm in Branford. All of them seem to have possessed many of
the traits of their first ancestor in this country. They were noted for
their force of character, industry, modesty, and marked executive
ability. James Blackstone, like his ancestors, was a farmer. At the age
of twenty he was elected a captain in the Connecticut militia, and as
such commanded his company for several months while serving as
coastguard on Long Island Sound during the war of 1812-15. He held at
one time or another during his life the important local offices of the
town, such as assessor and first selectman. Before the separation of
North Branford in 1831, the township of Branford, as one of the original
towns, was entitled to two representatives in the General Assembly, and
on several occasions Captain James Blackstone of Branford and Captain
Jonathan Rose of North Branford were the representatives of the town at
Hartford and New Haven. In 1842, James Blackstone represented the Sixth
District in the State Senate. In politics he was a Federalist, a Whig,
and a Republican. His advice and counsel were sought by people, not
only of his own town, but of neighboring towns, when occasions arose
concerning the settlement of estates or other matters, where the opinion
and advice of a man of marked good judgment were needed. The first time
I ever saw Captain James Blackstone, he was pointed out to me by a
resident of the town, as he was driving past the old public square, with
the remark: ‘That is Captain James Blackstone. When he rises in a town
meeting and says, “Mr. Moderator, in my humble opinion it is better for
this town that a certain course be taken,” the expression of his opinion
always prevails with the majority of the voters in the meeting, so great
is the confidence the people of the town have in his judgment.’ His
character and remarkable ability can be easily read by any student of
physiognomy who will look at the admirable life-size portrait of him now
placed in this building. If his tastes had led him to a larger place for
the exercise of his ability, no field would have been so large that he
would not have been a leader among men.
“Yet here he chose to dwell, performing his part well through the whole
of his long life....
“The donor of this library was the youngest son of James Blackstone. To
many of you his history and life are well known. He left the east more
than forty years ago to pursue his chosen profession. He married, in
1868, Miss Isabella Norton of Norwich, and since that time his home has
been upon Michigan Avenue, in that great metropolis of the west,
Chicago. There, for over thirty years he has managed with consummate
skill the affairs of the most successful of all the great railroads of
the west. Of him, his character, his generosity, and his remarkable
modesty, but great ability, I am not at liberty to speak ... but this is
not complete as a memorial of James Blackstone unless I mention briefly
the other descendants. The eldest son of James Blackstone, George, died
in 1861, never having been married. The eldest daughter, Mary, married
Samuel O. Plant. One of her daughters, Ellen Plant, is with us to-day.
Three grandchildren of Mrs. Mary Blackstone Plant, being the children of
her daughter Sarah, are William L., Paul W., and Gertrude P. Harrison.
“The second son of James Blackstone, Lorenzo Blackstone, who lived for
many years in Norwich, and died there in 1888, had five children. The
eldest, De Trafford Blackstone, has one son, Lorenzo. The second child
of Lorenzo is Mrs. Harriet Blackstone Camp of Norwich, who has three
children, Walter Trumbull, Talcott Hale, and Elizabeth Norton Camp. The
second daughter of Lorenzo is Mrs. Frances Ella Huntington of Norwich.
The fourth child of Lorenzo Blackstone is William Norton Blackstone of
Norwich; and his youngest son, Louis Lorenzo Blackstone, died in 1893.
“The second daughter of James Blackstone, Ellen Elizabeth, married Henry
B. Plant, now of New York City. She died in 1861, leaving one son,
Morton F. Plant, who is married and has one son, Henry B. Plant, Jr.
James Blackstone’s third son was John Blackstone, who died several years
ago, leaving three children, George and Adelaide Blackstone and Mrs.
Emma Pond.
“Sir William Blackstone, the great authority upon the common law of
England, was a cousin of the fifth degree to our James Blackstone, and
the portraits of the two men bear a marked family resemblance.
“Ten years ago James Blackstone passed to his reward. His influence for
good still exists in this community, where the old New England ideas are
yet strong, though modified by the leaven of modern industry, education,
and thought.”
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[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER IV.
The Plants Came from England to Branford, between Two Hundred and
Three Hundred Years ago--Still Own the Lands First
Acquired--Henry’s Father Died of Typhus Fever when Henry was about
Six Years Old--His Tender Recollection of his Mother--Henry’s First
Day at School--His Natural Diffidence--Mr. Plant’s After-Dinner
Speeches--His Mother’s Second Marriage--Stepfather Kind to
Henry--Thrown by a Plough Horse and nearly Killed--Attended School
at Branford--Engaged on Steamboat Line Running between New Haven
and New York--On Leaving, Promised a Captaincy--Marriage--Express
Business--Leaves New Haven and Goes to New York--Romantic
Experience in Florida.
The Plants settled in Branford at an early date, and their descendants
still own the lands on which their ancestors first settled over two
hundred years ago. It will be seen, by referring to the genealogical
table at the end of this volume, that Anderson Plant was of the fifth
generation from John Plant, who resided in Hartford, Connecticut, in
1639. Anderson Plant was the father of Henry B. Plant, the subject of
this biography. He is described as a farmer in good circumstances, of
amiable disposition, fond of outdoor sports, gunning being a favorite
amusement. He died when Henry was six years of age, and, consequently,
Mr. Plant does not remember much about his father. He can recall, how
his father once came in, with a friend, from a morning’s duck shooting,
and threw down half a dozen ducks on the floor. At another time, his
father took him by the hand to see something that was happening in the
town which had drawn out the people, but he does not remember what it
was. His father died of typhus fever, and he himself also had the fever,
and was so ill that he knew nothing of his loss until he was partially
recovered from the dreadful disease.
One week after the father’s death, the father’s youngest sister died,
and Henry’s sister also died a few days following, when she was about a
year old. He was then left alone with his mother.
She was the only daughter of the Honorable Levi Bradley. He was a member
of the Legislature and also a musician who taught a singing school. Mr.
Plant remembers that his mother sat with the choir in front of the
pulpit and led the singing in the Congregational Church. She had been
brought up in the Episcopal Church, and though her father did not
approve of it, she deemed it her duty to go with her husband to his
church.
“One of the first recollections I have of my mother,” says Mr. Plant,
“was on a Christmas Eve, when she dressed me up neatly, took me on her
knees, talked affectionately to me, and sang that beautiful vesper
hymn, ‘Adeste Fideles’; even now, whenever I hear it, it brings tears to
my eyes.” This explains tears the author has seen in his eyes while
listening to the orchestra in the music-room, but knew not then what
were their tender and sacred association. Little did that mother realize
the mighty power, the subduing influence, the enduring benediction to
her child of that simple act, the outgoing of the maternal heart. The
hallowed influence of that sacred hour has never been effaced through
long years, in the whirl of business, in the varied conflicts incident
to a public life, in close contact with civil war, within sound of the
booming cannon, and the groans of the dying, away in far distant lands,
and on stormy seas. Yet amid all, the hallowed influence of that sacred
hour, when a mere child on a mother’s knee, has never been effaced. How
well it accords with what the poet wrote:
“I had a mother once like you,
Who o’er my pillow hung,
Kissed from my cheek the briny dew,
And taught my infant tongue.
“She, when the nightly couch was spread,
Would bow my infant knee,
And place her hand upon my head,
And kneeling, pray for me.
“Youth came; the props of virtue ruled;
But oft at day’s decline,
A marble touch my brow could feel,
Dear mother was it thine?
“And still that hand so soft and fair,
Has kept its magic sway,
As when amid my curling hair
With gentle force it lay.
“That hallowed touch was ne’er forgot,
And now though time hath set
Stern manhood’s seal upon my brows,
These temples feel it yet.
“And if I e’er in Heaven appear,
A mother’s holy prayer,
A mother’s hand and gentle tear,
That pointed to a Saviour dear,
Will lead the wanderer there.”
Mr. Plant’s first day at school is another tender memory connected with
his mother. She had dressed him up in new clothes and talked to him
about going to school and learning to read, and becoming a good scholar,
and doubtless much more that her kindly mother-heart would suggest to
awaken interest and stimulate ambition in the boy. Then she took him
outside the gate, pointed out the schoolhouse, kissed him, and told him
to go thither and give his name to the teacher as a scholar. His mother
intuitively knew her child’s sensitive disposition, and had her
misgivings about his being able to carry out her instructions; so she
concealed herself and watched him till he reached the school door. Here
poor little Henry’s courage failed him, and he came running back to his
mother, not to be scolded, but to be encouraged and helped over his
childish timidity. His mother this time went with him to the
schoolhouse, took him in, and made him acquainted with the lady teacher.
Thus began, more than seventy years ago, the first lesson of this most
successful man. The scene is as vivid in his mind to-day as it was on
the day when it was enacted. How little that teacher knew of the man
that was enfolded in this timid child, and of the great privilege, as
well as great responsibility, that was hers, thus early preparing him,
in part, for his great career.
Henry was a very diffident child, nor did his diffidence quite cease
with childhood, for even in manhood at public dinners when he suspected
that he might be called on for a speech, it took away his appetite if
not the enjoyment of the otherwise pleasant occasion.
This will surprise many of Mr. Plant’s friends who have listened to him
with pleasure and profit on many occasions. He rarely prepared his
speeches, but drew his ideas from that knowledge and experience which he
possessed on so many different subjects, and always spoke intelligently
in plain, clear, well-chosen words, without any attempt at oratorical
display. Of this we shall speak in another place.
“Some time after my father’s death, perhaps three or four years,” says
Mr. Plant, “my mother married again, a man by the name of Philemon
Hoadley. He was a very religious man, and was exceedingly kind to me; he
said I was the best boy he had ever seen. He lived in New York State,
and mother left Branford and we moved to his home at Martensburg, New
York. I lived part of the time with her there and part of the time with
my grandmother Plant at Branford. She always attended church on the
Sabbath, and took me with her, never failing to carry a good luncheon,
which we ate in the church house at the close of the morning service.”
An incident of Mr. Plant’s boyhood was sent to the writer by one who has
known him long, and esteems the President of the Southern Express
Company, (of which he has been a faithful and efficient agent in North
Carolina for many years) very highly, and loves him with a genuine,
manly affection. He writes thus:
“The following incident which occurred in Branford during Mr. Plant’s
boyhood may be of interest to you, in showing how near the country came
to being deprived of his great usefulness and noble life. When a boy of
about eight or ten years of age, he was one day riding a plow horse at
work in the field. The horse became frightened and ran away, carrying
plow, boy, and all with him. Barefooted and bareheaded, the brave lad
clung to the horse until entirely exhausted, when he fell and was
severely injured. He was found in the woods by friends who carried him
into their house. After several hours’ hard work by the doctor and
others, he revived sufficiently to be taken to his home. The fight for
life was severe and protracted, but he bore it heroically.
“I wish I could express all I feel towards Mr. Plant. I have been in his
employ thirty-eight years--with the Southern Express Company. During all
these years he has been a friend to me in all that that word implies. I
am sure I voice the sentiments of thousands of his employees when I say
that he is one of the noblest and best of men.
A. P. B.”
* * * * *
After his mother married and had lived for some time at her husband’s
home in New York State, they went to live at New Haven and Henry made
his home with them, often visiting his grandmother Plant at Branford.
The grandmother wanted him to go to Yale College, doubtless in the hope
that he might enter the ministry, for few took a college course in those
days unless they intended to enter the ministry. But Henry was not
particularly fond of study. He had attended the district school at
Branford, and had studied for a time at the Gillett Academy, and at
Lowville, New York State. He had also studied under John E. Lovell, a
famous teacher in New Haven, whose birthday was celebrated in New Haven,
long after his death. He was the founder of the Lancastrian System of
instruction in America. Henry did not accept his grandmother’s offer of
a college course at Yale. He was anxious to try his hand at some active
occupation. He attempted several things, none of which seemed to suit
him. At last, in 1837, he engaged himself to a steamboat line running
boats between New York and New Haven.
The boats of the line were named respectively, _New York_, _New Haven_,
_The Splendid_, _The Superior_, and _The Bunker Hill_.
Henry began as captain’s boy and worked his way up, filling various
positions for some five years, to the entire satisfaction of the
company, so that on leaving it he was promised a captaincy of the next
new boat if he would remain with the line. The following account, taken
from, a recent issue of _The Marine Journal_, shows how young Plant
would pocket his fastidiousness, and stand up to manly duty like a true
American. This recalls the story of a man in a Philadelphia market who
tendered his services to an Irish coachman, who was troubled to find a
man to carry home some fish which he had bought for his master.
Arriving at the fine mansion on Chestnut Street the Irishman offered to
pay his porter, who respectfully declined saying: “Oh, no, I only just
carried the fish to oblige you. I do not need pay. I am a United States
Senator. Good morning.”
“There are few men who can call to mind more interesting reminiscences
of ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ and tell them in a more agreeable manner than Henry
B. Plant. Referring to his early manhood, Mr. Plant said recently: ‘I
got my first experience in the express business when performing the
service of a deckhand on a steamboat running between New Haven and New
York in the latter part of the “thirties.” At the time referred to I was
employed on the side-wheel steamer _New York_, which had for companion
steamers the _New Haven_, _Splendid_, and _Bunker Hill_, on each one of
which I served at one time or another. It was on the _New York_,
however, that I spent the most of my apprenticeship. The deck-hands
slept below in the forecastle, an uncomfortably small space in the
“eyes” of the boat, and took our meals in the kitchen, standing up. Take
it all in all it was rather rough on a fellow that had just left a good
home, and when some of my towns-people would come aboard and catch me
with swab or broom in hand I didn’t feel altogether happy, but had too
much pluck to quit. One winter the _New York_ had been laid up for new
boilers, and I was transferred to the _Splendid_ till the _New York_
was ready for service, and when she came out in the spring it was quite
an event. She had two new copper boilers, one on each guard, the first
to be placed on the guards.
“‘Up to this time a considerable lot of package freight, express matter,
began to be sent back and forth. This was stowed in different places
about the boat and not properly cared for, until one day the captain
conceived the idea that a big double stateroom forward of the wheel
could be used in which to store it, and I was given the duty of looking
after it, and a berth was put up there for me to sleep in. As I look
back upon my career in those days, the one on which I was transferred
from the dingy forecastle to the express room was by far the happiest,
and it was there that I took my first lessons in the express business.’”
Those who are familiar with the extensive business of the Southern
Express Company, of which Mr. Plant was the founder, and which begins at
Washington and extends throughout the railroads south of Washington and
the Ohio, excepting the Illinois Central, and to Cuba by the Plant
Steamship Lines, can understand why it has taken nearly a lifetime of
earnest toil to get it up to its present magnitude. It is a monument to
the enterprise of the youngster from Connecticut, who got his first idea
of the express business on a steamer between New Haven and New York
nearly sixty years ago. The other large undertakings of Mr. Plant in
railroads, steamships, hotels, etc., that have helped make the State of
Florida the garden spot of the United States in winter, were easy as
their necessities developed, in comparison to the Southern Express
business which was the foundation of this enterprising citizen’s fame
and fortune.”
Captain Stone was very fond of young Plant, and deeply regretted his
loss to the service. It was during Mr. Plant’s engagement with this
company, in 1842, that he married Miss Ellen Elizabeth Blackstone,
daughter of Hon. James Blackstone, one of the Blackstone family already
referred to in this biography. One son was born to him, a promising
child, who lived only eighteen months. His second and only living child
is his son, Morton Freeman, now associated with his father as his
assistant, and Vice-President of all the interests of the “Plant
System,” over which his father presides. Mr. Plant’s position on the
steamboat line plying between New York and New Haven, entailed a
frequent absence from his home in New Haven, and he therefore decided to
be more at home. At this time he went into the express business of the
line conducted by Beecher and Company. At first he had charge of the
business at New Haven, but afterwards went to New York City, still
keeping up his connection with the boats. When the Beecher Company was
consolidated with the Hartford and New Haven line, owned by Daniel
Philipps and C. Spooner of Hartford, Mr. Plant was placed in charge of
all the express business of the New Haven line in New York. Subsequently
the business was acquired by the Adams Express Company, and was
transferred from the steamboat line to the railroad, and Mr. Plant was
transferred with it. While thus employed, young Plant was economical and
saving. He received his pay monthly, and instead of wasting it in folly
and dissipation he gave his earnings to his mother, and she banked it
for him. He then bought some stock in a New Haven bank which he still
retains. His stepfather, being a religious man, advised Henry to buy a
pew in a new church which the Congregational Society was building at New
Haven. This he did, and in after years, on the failure of the church,
when the property was sold, he got back his money. His stepfather died
at New Haven about 1862 or 1863.
It was in 1853 that Mrs. Plant was seized with congestion of the lungs,
and Doctors Delafield and Marco advised that she be at once taken to
Florida. On March 25, 1853, Mr. Plant started with his sick wife from
New York City to Charleston, South Carolina, by the steamer _Marion_.
From Charleston he sailed on the steamer _Calhoun_ to Savannah, Georgia.
And from Savannah he went by the steamer _Welaka_ to Jacksonville,
Florida. It took over eight days to
[Illustration: _Ellen Elizabeth (Blackstone) Plant._]
make the journey which is now a delightful trip of one day, for he left
New York on the Sabbath morning and the next Sabbath evening he arrived
at Jacksonville, which was a small village then with only one poor wharf
and not a vehicle of any kind to carry passengers or baggage. He
succeeded in getting some negro boys to carry his trunk to a poor hotel
where he remained only one day. Through some persuasion he found a man
to take him into his private house at Strawberry Mills, seven miles in
the country from Jacksonville, across the St. John’s River. Here Mrs.
Plant’s health greatly improved, her cough disappeared and she was so
much better that by the first of May, Mr. Plant was able to leave her
and return to New York. Early in July, Mrs. Plant came back to the city
apparently in good health. The following almost romantic story is told
in the New York _Times_ of their first experience in Florida.
“In the winter of 1853, a Northern man with an invalid wife brought her
down to Jacksonville to benefit her health. The present metropolis of
Florida was then a settlement of five or six houses, one of which was
called a hotel, but the hotel was so badly kept that the gentleman was
cautioned against going to it, and he found accommodations in a private
house. He had letters of introduction to a Florida settler, whose home
was six or eight miles out of Jacksonville, and as soon as he could
communicate with him through a stray traveller, the settler sent his
boat after the Northerner and took him to his house. The boat was an
immense ‘dug-out,’ made from a single mammoth log, manned by a crew of
uniformed blacks, who handled their oars in man-of-war style. At this
settler’s house a hospitable and comfortable stopping-place was found.
“In the course of the winter the lady’s health improved to such an
extent that her husband decided upon taking her to St. Augustine for a
pleasure trip. There was in the household a beautiful Indian girl, the
daughter of one of the Seminole chiefs, who afterward became the wife of
the settler I have mentioned, and she volunteered to accompany the lady
on what was then the long and difficult journey. The only road between
Jacksonville and St. Augustine was the old Spanish highway known as ‘the
king’s highroad,’ and this was so grown up with trees and bushes that it
was barely passable. But even this road lay five or six miles from the
settler’s house, and to reach it it was necessary to drive through the
trackless woods. The gentleman and his wife and the Indian girl set out
in a buggy, their host going before them on horseback to select the road
and blaze the trees between his place and the king’s highway, to enable
the strangers to find their way back.
“The journey was made in safety; but the return trip took a little
longer than was intended, and the party found themselves at the point
where they must leave the old highway and turn into the forest just as
the deep shades of a Florida night were about to fall. They found the
blazed trees, but were unable to follow them. The gentleman, however,
managed for some time to pick his way by finding the indistinct wheel
tracks in the sand and the broken twigs; but as the darkness increased
this became impracticable, and there was every prospect that the invalid
lady and her husband and the Indian girl would be compelled to spend the
night under the pine trees. But their host was better acquainted with
blazed trees, and, as they did not arrive when expected, he set out on
horseback to hunt them up, and his shouts soon gave them welcome
assurance of succor. The lady’s health was so much improved before the
winter ended that she returned home comparatively well, and during the
remainder of her life every winter was passed in Florida. Her husband
has not since that time missed his annual winter trip to Florida, and he
is now spending his thirty-ninth winter in the State.
“The gentleman who found Jacksonville a settlement of a few shanties,
and who came so near passing a romantic but uncomfortable night in the
woods with his wife and the Seminole girl, told me the story of his
adventure a few days ago, while I sat with him in his gorgeous private
car, so far down in the State of Florida that, in 1853, few white men
had reached it. The Florida climate never did a better winter’s work
than when it restored the health of this gentleman’s wife, and thus
interested him in the new country, for the gentleman was Mr. H. B.
Plant, who no longer does his Florida travelling in a dug-out, but sends
his own cars over his own tracks to the farthermost corners of the
State.”
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER V.
Mr. Plant Goes from New Haven to New York--Captain Stone’s
Friendship--Mrs. Plant’s Health Fails again--Returns to the
South--Is Appointed Superintendent of Adams Express Company--His
Great Executive Ability--The Civil War--Mrs. Plant’s Death--Mr.
Plant Buys out the Adams Express Company.
When Mr. Plant first went to New York City he boarded at the Judson
Hotel, then kept by a Mr. Judson of Hartford, Connecticut. A little
incident of that period shows the high estimation in which he was held
by Captain Stone, Superintendent of the New York and New Haven steamship
line. Captain S. Bartlett Stone brought his son George to board at the
Hudson Hotel, saying, “Henry, when you were a boy I took charge of you;
now do you the same for my son.” Mr. Plant remained in New York until
October, when the fall weather of the North began to affect the health
of his wife unfavorably. He then started South by the steamship
_Knoxville_, which ran to Savannah. When he reached Savannah he
commenced to exercise his appointment as superintendent of the Harnden
Express, which forwarded express matter from New York by steamer to
Savannah, and thence to Augusta, Macon, and Atlanta, by the Central,
Macon, and Western Railroads; and also in Charleston, of the Hoey
Express, by which goods were forwarded by steamer from New York to
Charleston and were then distributed through the interior by the South
Carolina Railroad.
About this time, Adams & Company had organized under the corporate title
of the Adams Express Company, and had acquired all these express
interests above mentioned. This was in March, 1853, and April, 1854. The
chief shareholders of the company were Alvan Adams, of Boston; William
B. Dinsmore, of New York; Edward S. Sanford, of Philadelphia; Samuel S.
Shoemaker, of Baltimore; James M. Thompson, of Springfield,
Massachusetts; Johnstone Livingstone, of New York; and R. B. Kinsley, of
Newport, Rhode Island. When it was found necessary for Mr. Plant to go
south again on account of his wife’s health he was appointed
superintendent of the Adams Express Company. This was in 1854, and he
was placed in charge of all the interests then controlled by that
company, and all that might be acquired by the company in the South
under his management or through his efforts.
During Mr. Plant’s administration of the Adams Express Company, the
lines were extended over all the railroads south of the Potomac River,
namely, Norfolk, Richmond, and Lynchburg, Virginia; Louisville,
Kentucky; Cairo, Illinois, and over all the railroad lines constructed
in the South, and over all the navigable rivers on which at that time
there was steamboat connection. The expanding and establishing of this
great express business at Nashville, Memphis, Vicksburg, Louisville, and
New Orleans, and many other cities and towns, proved to be a herculean
task requiring much arduous travel, often in stage-coaches by day and
night, over rough roads, through swamp and forest, in summer’s heat and
winter’s cold. It goes without saying that in securing efficient
service, properly locating offices, appointing qualified agents, and
earning the confidence and patronage of an exacting public, there was
demanded a discriminating judgment, prompt decision, skill, and tact of
the highest order. It was a tremendous strain on mind and body, and that
too upon one not yet used to a Southern climate. It must be remembered
also that the express business of the South forty years ago was in its
infancy; the great Adams Express Company was still in its swaddling
clothes, and required the greatest care and skill to nurse it into
maturity, strength, and power, especially in the peculiar condition of
the country at the time when a dreadful civil war raged throughout the
land.
Few men would have ventured on such a hazardous undertaking, and fewer
still would have conducted it to such a successful completion.
To the cool, clear head, the calm, quiet spirit, the persistent energy
and dominant will of Henry B. Plant, is due the success of this great
achievement. The Southern Express Company and the Texas Express together
do a business now extending over twenty-four thousand four hundred and
twelve miles of railway, have lines in fifteen States, employ six
thousand eight hundred and eight men, use one thousand four hundred and
sixty-three horses and eight hundred and eighty-six wagons. Of both
these companies, Mr. Plant is the honored and efficient president, and
were we to attempt to estimate the amount and value of the goods handled
by these great organizations we feel sure the figures would be beyond
the credulity of our readers.
This comes down to the year 1861, the beginning of the civil war, when
the Adams Express Company, believing that it would be hazardous for
Northern citizens to hold property in the South, decided to dispose of
their interests there. After unsuccessful negotiations with other
parties resident in the South, the company sold and transferred their
entire interest in the express line to Henry B. Plant. He formed a
corporation under the laws of the State of Georgia, taking in all the
shareholders of the Adams Express Company who were then residents of
the States south of the Potomac and Ohio rivers.
The company thus formed, known now as the Southern Express Company, at
once elected Mr. Plant as its president, and this honorable and
responsible position he still holds. A central office was established at
Augusta, Georgia.
Mrs. Plant’s health now began to give way. Their little boy Morton was
with relatives in the North. She saw that troubles many and great were
coming upon the country. Her disease returned, consumption laid its cold
hand upon her, and on February 28, 1861, this faithful wife and loving
mother was taken from a world of strife, with its tumults of war and
fratricidal conflicts, to the home of rest, peace, and eternal
blessedness. The remains were interred in Augusta, but afterwards were
removed to the family plot in the cemetery at Branford, the place of her
birth and where her early years had been spent.
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER VI.
Relations to the Confederate Government--Jefferson Davis Gives him
Charge of Confederate Funds--Mr. Plant Buys a Slave, who afterward
Nursed him through a Severe Sickness--Impaired Health--Goes to
Bermuda, New York, Canada, and Europe--Second Marriage.
The seat of the Confederate Government at this time was Montgomery,
Alabama, and the express company, just organized by Mr. Plant, was
appointed by that government collector of tariff upon all goods
consigned by the express company, and was also given the custody of all
funds of the Confederacy that were to be transferred from one place to
another. The express company filled this latter office until the
dissolution of the Confederacy.
In consequence of this responsibility, officers and agents of the
company were either relieved from military service, or detailed for the
service of the express company. Its officers and agents were also for
the same reason exempted from jury duty in Southern States.
Shortly before the removal of the capital of the Confederacy from
Montgomery to Richmond, it was deemed necessary by government officials
to define citizenship, and consequently a proclamation was issued by
President Davis, that specified a time in which all citizens of States
not in the Confederacy should leave it, or failing to do so within the
time specified, would become citizens of the Confederacy, and would be
subject to all duties and requirements of citizenship in the said
Confederacy.
“At that time I thought it was incumbent on me,” said Mr. Plant, “that
my duties and opinions should be understood by President Davis and his
advisers. To that end I caused myself to be represented by counsel to
Mr. Davis and his Cabinet, in order that my opinions and position might
be clearly defined and known to the government, so that its wish might
be expressed, as to whether I should continue to have charge of the
express company without interference, or avail myself of the
proclamation, and take my departure with other citizens of the State of
New York.
“I wished to know whether by remaining I would be required to abandon
the express and its obligations. It was a great satisfaction to me to
learn from my counsel that the Cabinet were unanimous in this decision
expressed by the President, that I should remain and continue to conduct
the business of my company, he having full confidence in whatever I
might do.”
The substance of this interesting episode has been published before with
some slight variations, but the above is from the most authoritative
source, and may therefore be received as correct.
While living at Augusta, Georgia, a curious incident occurred which
resulted in the purchase of a slave by Mr. Plant. When the express
office was opened at this place, help was needed, a sort of
man-of-all-work for the many requirements of the office. Dennis Dorsey,
a colored man, was hired from his owner to act as porter, and in
whatever capacity he might be required. One summer when Mr. Plant was
about to go north, Dennis came to him and said that his master was going
to sell him, and that he wanted Mr. Plant to buy him. “What does your
master want for you?” asked Mr. Plant. “Fifteen hundred dollars,” Dennis
replied, “but it is too much, I am not worth so much. You can buy me
when you come back, as there is little danger of my being sold at that
price.” But Dennis was sold in Mr. Plant’s absence. When Mr. Plant
returned, Dennis besought him to buy him from the trader at Mobile who
then owned him. Mr. Plant bought him for eighteen hundred dollars, and
brought him back to Augusta. In a short time after this Mr. Plant was
stricken down with gastric fever, and Dennis proved a good and faithful
nurse to him. Mrs. Plant was in her grave, and Mr. Plant lived alone at
the hotel, so Dennis was gratified by the opportunity to return the
kindness rendered to him by his generous purchaser.
Early in August, 1863, Mr. Plant returned from the mountains, whither he
had gone during his convalescence. His health had been improved by the
change, but he was still far from strong. Mr. Thomas H. Watts,
attorney-general for the Southern Confederacy, had seen Mr. Plant’s
physician, who had advised a change of climate. Mr. Watts sent Mr. Plant
a passport, with an order from President Davis authorizing him to pass
through the Confederate lines at any point. In about a month after this
he went to Wilmington, North Carolina, and embarked on the steamer
_Hansa_, for the Bermudas. He remained there about a month, when he went
by the steamer _Alpha_ to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and thence to Montreal.
There some friends from New York came to see him, and brought his son
Morton from school to him. Mr. Plant then went to New Haven,
Connecticut, to visit his mother, and in the fall took passage on the
steamship _City of Edinburgh_ for Liverpool.
He was now a stranger in a strange land; the weather was cold, and with
impaired health his experience was rather depressing.
However, Mr. Plant has never been the man to despond, still less to
despair, but to make the best even of discouraging circumstances. So he
went to Paris, whose mercurial people seldom cry, and always laugh when
they can. Here he heard of some friends who were staying in Rome, and
whom he would like to meet, so he determined to go there. By the French
Commissioner of Passports he was informed that his passport from the
Confederacy could not be recognized, and he was summoned to appear at
the commissioner’s office. He at once presented himself to this
official, answered many questions, and was informed that there was no
way by which his passport could be accepted at present, but as he wished
to visit Rome, then occupied by French troops, his case would be
considered.
A few days afterwards he had the satisfaction of receiving a document
which served as a passport, given in the name of the Empire of France,
and in which he was described as a citizen of the United States of
America, resident at Augusta, Georgia, and all officers, civil,
military, and naval, were commanded to protect this stranger. He went to
Rome _via_ the Mediterranean Sea, and was received everywhere with great
respect. He was about two weeks in France, several weeks in Rome, and
from thence he went to Naples, Leghorn, Genoa, Milan, and Venice, which
latter place was occupied by an Austrian army.
From Venice he went to Switzerland, visiting many places in that
picturesque land, and returned to Paris by way of the Rhine. He then
passed his time between London and Paris until the autumn, when he
returned to America by way of Canada. He afterwards went to New York,
where he was staying when President Lincoln was assassinated. By the end
of April he was back in Augusta, Georgia.
Mr. Plant’s second tour in Europe was in 1873, on the occasion of his
second marriage. He was then accompanied by his mother and his son,
Morton Freeman, and on this occasion he made quite an extensive tour of
the continent.
His third visit was in the year 1889, when he went to the Paris
Exposition with an exhibit of Southern products. Soon after his arrival
in Paris he was asked by General Franklin, representative and
Commissioner-General of the United States, to accept the position of
juror in Class Six, representing the United States. To this responsible
position he was duly appointed by the proper authorities, and served
with entire satisfaction to all concerned. He was the only
English-speaking juror in that class, as Sir Douglas Galton was absent
until near the close of the Exposition. From this Exposition the “Plant
System” was awarded a large number of medals, which may be seen framed
in that palace of art, wrongly named an hotel, at Tampa Bay. A diploma
was given to Mr. Plant, in addition, and many other marks of esteem and
courteous attention were freely tendered him.
Mr. Plant led a very busy life in Augusta. He lived with his wife at the
hotel, and, when she was travelling in the North in the summer, he had
his office, for convenience, on the same floor as his bedroom. It had
been his habit to keep pad and pencil by his bedside, so that when there
came to his mind a matter that called for attention he at once put it
down on his memoranda. He was constantly receiving reports from his
express offices all over the South. There came to him, for adjustment,
many questions of management that were perplexing and urgent, so that he
was often on the road, called away at short notice, north, south, or
southwest. Complications, great, varied, and numerous, were superinduced
by the civil war. The railroads were often seized by the contending
armies, offices were raided, and confusion worse confounded heaped
troubles thick and fast upon the president of the company, sufficient to
have crushed a man of ordinary brain and nerve. But Mr. Plant was not
the man to give way to difficulties,--only coolly to plan, determine,
execute, and conquer.
The following communication in memorandum form, from one intimately
acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Plant while in Augusta, Georgia, will be
found suggestive of the busy life he led, and will prove valuable in
furnishing the dates when he lived in that city, and the location of his
various residences while there. Moreover, its sequel sounds like the
plot of a good novel.
“Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Plant became residents of Augusta, Georgia, in 1854.
Captain W. and his wife moved to that city in 1855. Both families
boarded at the Eagle and Phœnix Hotel, and thus became acquainted.
The Eagle and Phœnix was on Broad Street, and is now believed to be
the property of Mr. Plant. Mr. Plant was busy organizing and developing
the express business, was continually on the road, and made frequent
visits to the North. He moved to the Globe Hotel about the summer of
1856. Captain W. and his wife moved to the Trout House, in Atlanta,
Georgia, early in 1858, and Mr. and Mrs. Plant joined them there and
spent the summer months with them, while Mr. Plant still made Augusta
his headquarters and was constantly on the road.
“On Mr. and Mrs. Plant’s return to Augusta in the fall of 1858, they
took residence at the Planter’s Hotel, then kept by Mr. Robbins. In the
spring of 1859, Mr. and Mrs. Plant, leaving their young son Morton, with
Captain W. and his wife in Atlanta, visited New Orleans and remained
there during Mardi Gras. Their stay, however, was much shortened by the
demands made upon Mr. Plant’s time and attention by the celebrated
Maroney robbery. Mrs. Plant’s health, which had been failing for some
time, was rapidly growing worse. Mr. Plant’s movements were thus
handicapped, and his trips necessarily became shorter and more frequent.
Captain W. and wife moved to Athens in April, 1861. Mrs. Plant intended
to spend the spring and summer of 1862 with them, but their plans were
broken up by her death, at the Planter’s Hotel, Augusta, February 28,
1862.
“Mr. Plant visited Athens shortly after the funeral, and remained
several weeks; from thence important business called him back to
Augusta. Health began to fail him and he visited Athens again in the
following year. It was at this time that his friends prevailed upon him
to pay a visit to Europe in the hope that his strength would be restored
to him.
“In illustration of the good memory which Mr. Plant possessed for a past
kindness, the following interesting story is told. The narrator was
sitting in his office talking with Mr. Plant, when the latter suddenly
turned from him to a clerk to instruct him in the following words.
‘While I remember it, I want you to write to Mrs. W. to say that her
request that we take charge of her money is granted. We will take it and
give her six per cent., this will give her ---- dollars to pay for her
board, and we will add to it ---- dollars, which will keep her
comfortably among her friends.’
“The amount added was very nearly one and a half times as large as the
interest on the moderate amount of insurance which her deceased husband
had placed on his life before he died.
“Then when all arrangements for this poor widow’s comfort had been made
with the treasurer, Mr. Plant, not supposing that I had ever heard of
the woman, explained that long years ago, when his first wife was sick
in Augusta, this now widowed woman was very kind to her and also to his
son Morton who was then a very little child. This was thirty-six years
ago, but it was as fresh in Mr. Plant’s memory, and as near to his heart
as if it had occurred only a few weeks ago. Little did this good woman
think at the time she rendered this kindly service to a delicate wife,
that thirty-six years hence it would be paid back to her with compound
interest. It may be truly said that ‘bread cast upon the waters shall
return after many days.’”
The Southern Express Company rendered very valuable services to the men
engaged on both sides during the Civil War, by carrying packages, boxes,
and parcels of all descriptions free of charge,--medicines, and comforts
of various character, that made the hard life of the soldier a little
easier, and gladdened his heart with the evidences that he was
remembered tenderly in his far-away home. This service was especially
acceptable on the occasions of exchange of prisoners, when clothing and
money were the special needs of the men.
The benediction of many a brave heart, now still in death, rests upon
the kindly services of the Southern Express Company so generously given
during the four years of the bloody struggle.
In evidence of Mr. Plant’s popularity and the esteem in which he was
held by his associates in business as early as 1861, it may be mentioned
that on January 1st of that year, at Augusta, Ga., he was made the
recipient of a magnificent testimonial in the form of a service of solid
silver bearing the following inscription:
PRESENTED TO
H. B. PLANT
BY HIS ASSOCIATES IN THE ADAMS
SOUTHERN EXPRESS
AS A TESTIMONIAL OF THEIR
RESPECT AND ESTEEM
AUGUSTA, GA.,
JANUARY 1, 1861
In 1873, eleven years after the death of his first wife, Mr. Plant
married Miss Margaret Josephine Loughman, the only daughter of Martin
Loughman, of New York City. She is descended from an ancient and noble
family, whose ancestral estate, eight miles long, in the Land of the
Shamrock, is now occupied by Lord Dundrum. Mrs. Plant’s great
grandmother on her mother’s side was Lady Mary Murphy, of Ballymore
Castle, Ballymore. Her own mother was Miss Ellen O’Duyer, said to have
been a woman of great beauty and to have been descended from the Kings
of Munster.
The finest train of Pullman palace cars we ever saw was prominent among
the beautiful exhibits at the Atlanta Exposition of last year (1896).
Their exquisite upholstering and decoration owed their superlative
finish to the refined taste of Mrs. Plant. The Tampa Bay Hotel, more
like a palace of art, is indebted to this same lady for much of its
elaborate furnishing and artistic adornment. The two hand-carved
mantelpieces in the salon, the admiration of all visitors, as well as
some of the fine cabinet-work in the gentlemen’s reading-room, evinced
her business capacity and fine sense of the fitness of beautiful
furnishing that costs no more than the plain and commonplace. She has
given much time and earnest effort to the selection, purchase, and
direction of the upholstering and decorations of that finest of
American-built steamships, _La Grande Duchesse_, just completed at
Newport News.
The impress of her forcible character and refined taste can be detected
in many places throughout the great system over which her husband so
ably presides, but is known only to those who are admitted to the inner
circles of its operations.
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER VII.
Education from Books, and from Experience--Keen Intuitions--Abreast
of the Progress--Mr. Plant’s After-Dinner Speech at Tampa Banquet
Given him by Tampa Board of Trade, March, 18, 1886--Location of
Tampa--In Territorial Days Had a Military Reservation--In 1884
Population about Seven Hundred--Its Cosmopolitan Population
now--Many Cubans and Spaniards in Tampa--Tobacco
Industry--Phosphate Abounds in this Part of the State--Much of it
Shipped to the North and to Europe--Plant System Gives Impetus to
the Prosperity of the Place--Its Progress the Last Five or Six
Years.
Text-books are necessary instruments in a systematic course of
instruction, especially in the period of school and college days, but
their chief value lies, not so much in the actual knowledge which they
impart as in the intellectual training which they give for the
acquisition of knowledge in the future. Hence, as civilization advances
and the schools of higher education increase, less dependence is placed
on text-books, and more emphasis is laid upon lectures and laboratories
by which the student is stimulated to original investigation and
independent thought. The knowledge of current events which we derive
from observation of human nature, and which gives us great
opportunities to do good to ourselves and to others, is not acquired
from books.
The books may have done good service in the previous mental discipline,
but the actual knowledge, the practical experience in a professional or
business career, has come to us in the course of solution of the
problems of life. Mr. Plant is a striking illustration of this fact. He
was never a bookish man, and lays no claim to classical erudition or
scientific knowledge; yet he is fully alive to the progress of the human
race. Few events of importance in the world escape his keen observation.
It was his quick insight and keen penetration which led him to see the
opportunities and possibilities offered in the South, when others had
passed them by unseen.
Mr. Plant has an intuitive knowledge, possessed by few men, of many
things outside his immediate sphere of action. He spent several days
going over the plans of _La Grande Duchesse_ in minute detail before the
contract for building her was signed, noting scores of corrections which
the architect was more than gratified to make. His after-dinner speeches
at Southern banquets have no spread-eagleism in them; no declamation,
but calm, quiet, easy suggestion, as if talking to a few friends whom he
loved and wanted to help, and better still, wanted them to help
themselves. There is no alarm, but friendly admonition, wise counsel,
valuable instruction, most kindly administered.
In March, 1886, the Tampa Board of Trade honored Mr. Plant with a
splendid banquet, and warmly welcomed him and his friends to this once
sleepy old hamlet, now kept awake by the steam whistles of the South
Florida Railroad and those of the steamships sailing to the West Indies.
In reply to a toast by General John B. Wall, Mr. Plant said:
“Some two years and a half ago I was escorted here by some of the
gentlemen present, upon a wagon-line across the peninsula of Florida
from Kissimmee City, with Mr. Haines, Mr. Ingraham, Mr. Elliott, and Mr.
Allen. We had a day’s journey to reach over the gap in the railway that
was then being constructed, connecting Tampa with the St. John’s River.
It was an interesting trip. I think to the best of my recollection we
passed not more than seven habitations on that journey, certainly not
more than that while daylight lasted, and now we can make the trip from
Kissimmee to Tampa in three or four hours and find cities on the
way,--cities of enterprise, with a frugal and industrious population.
Business has grown, and great progress has been made in this part of
Florida, but no place has improved more than this town of Tampa. Tampa,
it seems to us, had a chill, although the climate was good. A citizen
told me on that visit that they did not value the land at anything, but
that the air was worth one thousand dollars an acre. That gave the value
of Tampa land at that time. All are aware what is the value of Tampa
land at present. Very little I am told is for sale.
“That is what the railroad has done for Tampa. The gentlemen who are
associated with me look with pleasure upon the progress that has been
made in Tampa. We go back and look upon the progress that has been made
by what is known as the Plant System, which commences at Charleston,
reaches out to Chattahoochee, and terminates at Tampa. This system,
which you probably know, we call under various names; it is part
railway, part express company, part steamboat company, part steamship
company, but it all has one object and is known as the Plant System. It
has been successful in what it has undertaken so far. I think that
success may be attributed to the harmony that prevails in the councils
on the part of the officers of the railroads, of the steamships, of the
steamboats, and express, that go to make up that system. There is no
jealousy, but rather a rivalry to know which will do the most. And to
that spirit, in every one connected with the system, to do all that is
possible to advance its progress, is due the success of the Plant
System.
“This is, I think, all that can now be said in direct response to the
toast, but I would like to say a few words of Tampa, of its
possibilities and its opportunities. You are all aware that Tampa is but
one port on the Gulf of Mexico from which a railroad extends to the
interior. There are ports north of it and ports south of it; ports where
railways extend to deep water. Some of them have the advantage of Tampa.
It is useless to mention the names, for you all know them; you are
familiar with the advantages of all these ports. I will not give the
reason why they have not advanced. It may be because they have not all
had the railway backing that Tampa has had; they have not had a united
line of railways leading to them and extending from them. Tampa has just
started, it seems to me, in its progress towards prosperity, and the
prosperity that it must receive if it receives the backing that commerce
would dictate to it. The wants of commerce are large; they are exacting,
and Tampa has many rivals. There are many cities that aspire to it and
to grow as these cities see that Tampa is growing at the present time.
They will do it, if it is possible, by putting on steamship lines, by
putting on railway lines, by extending them to get some of the business
at least, that is now drawing towards Tampa, and it is for the people of
Tampa to determine for themselves to what extent they shall share it.
“As I have stated, it is important to Tampa’s interests to see that all
obstructions to commerce are removed; in other words, that commerce and
trade shall be unimpeded both to and through Tampa. You all recollect
that last year there was a great Exposition in a neighboring city of the
Gulf--New Orleans,--where millions of money were expended to draw the
attention of the countries south of us, notably the West Indies and
South America. This, that their attention might be drawn to the United
States, and especially the southern part of the United States, for
trade, and, as I said, millions of money were expended on making that
Exposition and maintaining it all the winter for the purpose of showing
the people of the West India Islands what could be done. That Exposition
was gotten up not for benevolence, but for the purpose of inviting
trade. Now we are doing all we can to encourage that trade by opening up
mail communication between the United States and those very countries
that so much money was spent to encourage the trade from.
“We are running steamships three times each week, and I think that every
gentleman in this hall should raise his voice to the authorities at
Washington and endeavor to persuade them to send the mails of the entire
United States (I mean the mails of the entire United States, the South
and West as well as the East), by the quickest route whereby they can
reach those countries of which I have spoken. By that route the mails
can reach the whole of the West India Islands, the whole of the west
coast of South America, in better time and more frequently, with the
present source of communication than by any other line. And
notwithstanding that line was put on on the 1st of January, our postal
authorities at Washington hardly seem alive to that fact, and, as I said
before, I think that the gentlemen of Tampa should raise a united voice
that the Post-Office Department may be waked up to know there is a route
via Tampa that is the quickest for the entire countries south of us. I
do not know that I can say any more. I have responded to the toast ‘Our
Honored Guests,’ and said very little about them. I feel somewhat in the
position that Mr. Ward probably felt when he was advertised to deliver a
lecture on ‘Twins.’ He occupied his entire evening on the introduction,
and left the speech on the ‘Twins’ out altogether.”
The following account of the growth of Tampa is taken from the New York
_Daily Tribune_ of November 17, 1891. It illustrates the large share
which Mr. Plant has had in this growth, and the way in which he has
closely identified himself with its history.
“Over on the west coast of Florida in Hillsborough County, or less than
two hundred miles north of the southern end of the State, is an old, old
town, which, in the territorial days of Florida, when the Government
first established a military reservation here, was a small settlement
that grew into a village and was called Tampa. Owing to its extreme
isolation, its growth was slow, and, in 1884, there were not more than
one or two shops, and a population of a little less than seven hundred.
A year later the southern terminus of the Plant System of railroads was
established at Tampa, and since then the growth of the place has been
phenomenal. As Postmaster Cooper, one of Tampa’s wide-awake citizens and
a newspaper editor, says: ‘Henry B. Plant may be said to have been the
founder of Tampa, and people of enterprise, industry, and capital from
every State in the Union, and Cuba, have flocked here and built upon the
foundation, until to-day Tampa rivals the best cities in the State. The
South Florida Railroad is one of the best equipped railways in the
South, extending from Port Tampa to Sanford, a distance of 124 miles.’
“The South Florida Road runs through the most fertile and most
prosperous part of the State and has done more than any other agency to
develop South Florida. And while it is true that the railroad gave to
Tampa her first onward impetus, and has done, and is yet doing, much
toward the development of the place, yet there are other agencies which
have done much to help along the great work. The most prominent of these
is the cigar-making industry, which was first established here three
years ago. It is second to none as an important factor in Tampa’s
substantial prosperity and commercial success. Tampa has also profited
by the immense deposits of phosphate, which is shipped from here, not
only by rail all over the country, but by water direct to Europe. There
is a large grinding mill here, and a meeting of representatives of
phosphate interests was held recently, and a movement started to put up
the necessary tanks and machinery for making the acids and other
materials for the manufacture of superphosphate. When factories of this
sort are put up it will no longer be necessary to send the phosphate to
Europe to be acidulated.
“I went over to the palatial Tampa Bay Hotel, an enterprise of Mr.
Plant, and the completion and furnishing of which, preparatory to its
opening in two or three weeks, Mr. Plant has been personally
supervising. I found him and a portion of his family at breakfast in his
private car, in which he was to start north in the afternoon for a brief
stay before coming down here for the winter. Mr. Plant is always
approachable, genial in his manner, ready to talk about people and their
prosperity, but not of himself or his. No one can accuse him of egotism.
He said nothing of his massive hotel until I drew him out. I said: ‘Mr.
Plant, I learn that no one knows better than you of the beginning and
the progress of Tampa and its probable future. In fact, they say that
you are the father of Tampa; tell me about it, please.’
“‘Well,’ said the genial railroad president, ‘when I first drove across
the country from Sanford, for we are nearly west of that point, and
there was no other way of getting here by land, I found Tampa slumbering
as it had been for years. This was eight years ago. It seemed to me that
all South Florida needed for a successful future was a little spirit and
energy, which could be fostered by transportation facilities. There were
one or two small shops and a population of about seven hundred in Tampa.
I made a careful survey of the situation, calculated upon its prospects
and concluded to take advantage of the opportunity, and we who made
early investments have proved the faith in our own judgment. Tampa was
really unknown to the commercial world until the South Florida Railroad
introduced her there. This was in 1885, and it brought to the town a new
life, and breathed into it all the elements of push, progress, and
success. Tampa at once began to spread itself, and ever since has been
fairly bounding along the road to greatness. It has now a population of
about ten thousand, and is rapidly increasing. Hundreds upon hundreds
of thousands of dollars have been invested in business, and instead of a
few scattered and unpainted storehouses, there are now many magnificent
brick blocks, handsome private residences, cosey cottages, large
warehouses, mammoth wholesale establishments, busy workshops,
comfortable hotels, two newspapers, a phosphate mill, cigar factories,
first-class banking facilities, telegraph and telephone communications,
two electric-light establishments, ice factories, a complete system of
waterworks, eight lines of steamships and steamboats giving
communication to Key West and Havana, Mobile, places on the Manatee
River, etc.’
“Mr. Plant’s hotel, upon which he has spent about $2,000,000 on the
building and grounds and $500,000 for the furnishing, and which is
nearly ready for the opening, is in the centre of a sixteen-acre plot of
ground just north of the city bridge. The architecture is Moorish,
patterned after the palaces in Spain, and minarets and domes tower above
the great five-story building, each one of which is surmounted with a
crescent, which is lighted by electricity at night. The main building is
511 feet in length, and varies in width from 50 to 150 feet. A wide
hall, on either side of which are bedrooms, single and in suites, runs
the entire length of the building to the dining-room at the southern
end. The exterior walls are of darkened brick, with buff and red brick
arches and stone dressings. The cornices are of stone and iron; the
piazza columns are of steel, supported on pieces of cut stone.
“The main entrances are through three pairs of double doors, flanked by
sixteen polished granite columns, supporting Moorish arches, over which
balconies open from the gallery around the rotunda to the second floor.
The principal staircase is of stone, and the horseshoe arch and the
crescent and the star meet the eye at every turn--the electric lights in
the dining-hall, the music-hall, the drawing-room, the reception-room,
the reading-room, and the office being arranged after these patterns.
The drawing-room is a casket of beautiful and antique things, embracing
fine contrasts. There are a sofa and two chairs which were once the
property of Marie Antoinette; a set of four superb gilt chairs which
once belonged to Louis Philippe; two antique Spanish cabinets, and
between ten high, wide windows appear Spanish, French, and Japanese
cabinets, both old and quaint. Old carved Dutch chairs, rare onyx
chairs, and queer seats of other kinds are scattered along the hall.
Among the large collection of oil paintings, water-colors, and
engravings, are portraits and old pictures of Spanish castles and
fortresses.
“A large rustic gate for carriages and two for pedestrians lead into the
grounds on the northern side. These gates are made of cabbage-palmetto
trunks, the mid-ribs being of the leaves worked into a quaint and rustic
design. On either side of the great gate stand giant cabbage-palmettoes,
thirty and forty feet high, set in groups of five and seven, the Moorish
numbers. A number of large live-oaks, one a tree of great breadth and
beauty, remain on the grounds. Near the centre of the lawn a fort has
been built of white stone, having two embrasures. In it are mounted two
old cannon that were spiked on the reservation of Tampa during the Civil
War. The grounds front on the Hillsborough River and overlook the city,
Fort Brooke and Tampa Bay, and are filled with fruit-trees, roses and
flowers.
“The streets of Tampa are not what they will be, but a great improvement
has been going on in the last year; and when all the thoroughfares are
paved, macadamized or otherwise hardened, they will be attractive
drives. The roads on the west side of the river are naturally hard and
smooth, giving fine drives in various directions. The water supply is
obtained from one of the largest springs of water in the State, and is
abundant for all purposes, and ample factories provide ice from
distilled water. Until the session of Congress of 1889, Tampa was in the
Key West customs district, and the customhouse business was looked after
by a deputy appointed by the Collector of Customs at Key West. But when
Congress passed a bill making Tampa a regular port of entry, a collector
and a full corps of assistants were appointed. To give an idea of the
growth of Tampa, it is only necessary to compare the customs returns for
1885, when, under a deputy-collector, the receipts were only $75, with
the report of last year, which showed receipts considerably above
$100,000.
“For a long time builders had suffered great inconvenience and delay
because there were no brickmaking works. It was not believed that good
brick could be made in Tampa, and all orders for this necessary building
material had to be sent away from home. But in 1888, one of the
enterprising citizens, who had found a bed of good clay just north of
the city, began to manufacture bricks. The result is that builders are
now furnished with home-made bricks almost as fast as they need them. It
was stated to me that as much as $300,000 had been expended in the
erection of brick buildings during the last year. One of the new public
buildings is the City Hall and Court House. It is 50 by 100 feet on the
sides and is two and a half stories high.
“Tampa’s population may certainly be called cosmopolitan, comprising
people from every quarter of the globe; but three classes preponderate
so largely as to warrant distinction,--the American, the Cuban white
people, and the African or colored people. There is no difference worthy
of note between the first mentioned in Tampa and those of other sections
of the United States. They have all the push and enterprise
characteristic of the American people, and are the peer of any in social
life.
“There are between three and four thousand Cubans in Tampa, and some
Spaniards, too, but there is an intense prejudice on the part of the
Spaniards against the Cubans, and as the latter feel the same dislike
for the Spaniards, conflicts between the two sometimes occur, and if it
were not for the good police administration might prove serious in some
instances. The Cubans are many of them property-holders and are
identified closely with the city’s growth. They are reported as moral,
temperate, energetic and quite desirable citizens; and, are almost
without exception, engaged in cigar-making and kindred industries. They
are also an amusement-loving people, have several clubs and societies,
an opera-house, a band and a newspaper. The Cuban settlement is in the
Fourth Ward, called Ybor City, after Martinez Ybor, the pioneer cigar
manufacturer in Tampa. Only four years ago this part of the city was an
unimproved and uncultivated forest; now it is an active, bustling,
wealthy town within itself, and, to add to its interest, Postmaster
Cooper recently established a branch station, as he has also in the
settlement of the colored people, for the accommodation of those who
live far from the general post-office.
“Twelve cigar factories are located in Ybor City, and there nearly all
of the cigar-makers live. The largest factories are those of Ybor &,
Co., Sanchez, Haya & Co., Lozano, Pendas & Co., R. Monne & Bro., and E.
Pons &, Co. These five factories manufactured 33,950,575 cigars last
year, the output of the Ybors alone being 15,030,700. The total number
manufactured in the thirty factories in Key West was 77,251,374. More
than $30,000 is paid out to the 1500 or 2000 cigar-makers in Ybor City
every Saturday night, one-fourth of which is paid out at Ybor’s factory;
and about $150,000 has been expended here in the past six years upon
improvements. This cigar-making industry has contributed materially to
the development and growth of Tampa during the last five years, and it
promises much greater benefit in the future. It was in October, 1885,
that Martinez Ybor & Co., who began manufacturing in Havana in 1854, and
afterward put up a large factory in Key West, came to Tampa to
investigate the resources and advantages offered for cigar-making. They
soon afterward purchased forty acres of land in the Fourth Ward, cleared
it of the pines, wild-oats and gophers, and built a factory, a large
boarding-house or hotel, and several small cottages for the workmen
whom they brought from Key West and Havana. The venture proved a success
from the start and improvements were added. The original factory, a
wooden structure, is now the opera house, and a large brick factory has
succeeded the first one, where the daily output of the 450 cigar-makers
employed is 40,000 to 50,000 cigars. Then came Sanchez & Haya, Emilio
Pons, and others, and all declare that they are doing an excellent
business.
“‘The required condition of the climate of Tampa for good cigars is said
to be fully equal to that of Key West or Havana,’ said one of the
manufacturers who has had factories in both places. ‘This has been
proven by an actual and thorough test. Another advantage comes from the
superior transportation facilities of the South Florida Railroad, which
gets freight quickly to New York.’
“The colored people of Tampa are declared to be in a better general
condition than they are in any other part of the South. They are also
represented to be a generous, quiet and inoffensive class of citizens.
They are also far more industrious than those in some other sections of
the South, working almost every day, and the 2000 negro population have
a settlement of their own, midway between Tampa proper and Ybor City,
which would be a credit to any community. Many of the houses, like the
streets, run in irregular lines, but the homes and the shops have a
tidy and orderly appearance as though not neglected, and at night
everything about them is quiet and peaceful, only the songs and the
moderate conversations and the musical laughter being heard. Very few of
these people live in rented apartments, but nearly all own their little
cottage homes. They have many excellent churches, schools taught by
colored teachers, and nearly every home has a small library. Then, too,
or with very few exceptions, the colored people command the respect of
the whites.
“Port Tampa, which is the port from which the Plant Steamship Line sails
for Havana and other places, is about ten miles below here. One of its
attractions is ‘The Inn,’ a great hotel built in colonial style, beside
the South Florida Railroad, over the water and about 2000 feet from the
shore. It is both a summer and winter resort for tourists and
Floridians. Another attraction is the fishing, either for bass from the
wharf or boats, or for the tarpon, or, ‘Silver King,’ at Pine Island.
The third attraction is Picnic Island, the name itself telling its
purpose.”
Notwithstanding the general depression of the country during the last
five years, the growth of Tampa has gone forward with a rapidity
unsurpassed in any five years of its history. The entire city has
increased in population from seven thousand to twenty-eight thousand
during the past decade and is still growing steadily. Property is as
valuable on the main business street of Tampa as it is in New York City
above Central Park. The city has a Board of Trade, a Board of Health,
schools, academy and churches of all Christian denominations. Few, if
any, cities in Florida have a more promising future before them than
Tampa.
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER VIII.
Florida Mr. Plant’s Hobby--Banquet at Ocala--Mr. Plant’s
Speech--Sail on Lakes Harrison and Griffin--Banquet at
Leesburg--Visit to Eustis--Cheering Words to a Young Editor--Make
the best of the Frost--It may be a Blessing in Disguise--Must
Cultivate other Fruits, (and Cereals) besides Oranges--Importance
of Honesty--Sense of Justice--Consideration for the
Workmen--Unconscious Moulding-Power over Associates and
Employees--Letter of Honorable Rufus B. Bullock.
Mr. Plant’s associates say of him: “Oh, Florida is one of the
President’s pets.” Anything touching the prosperity of Florida is sure
to get a sympathetic hearing from him at all times. He loves the Land of
Flowers and has spent many pleasant days in it at all seasons of the
year. Nor does it fall to the lot of every man to receive such high
appreciation for the good he has done and such esteem and affection as
Mr. Plant receives from these warm-hearted, whole-souled Southern
people. Mr. Plant having recently included Ocala in his railroad and
hotel system, a fact which promises much for the future progress of this
enterprising town and section of Western Florida, the people wished to
express their grateful appreciation of the man whom all the South
delights to honor. So, in the winter of 1896, they tendered to him a
grand banquet to which he and his friends and associates in office were
welcomed. Nothing was left undone by these good people to make the
occasion pleasant.
The feast was held in the Ocala Hotel which came into the possession of
Mr. Plant during 1896, and was opened that season as one of the Plant
System Hotels. The house was elaborately decorated with Southern ferns
and flowers. A reception was first held in the parlor, then about
seventy ladies and gentlemen sat down to a sumptuous dinner, enlivened
by sweet music, and good cheer. Many beautiful tributes of esteem and
friendship were eloquently presented to the guest of the evening, who
had been requested by the committee of arrangements to speak to the
toast, “The Plant System.” The following account taken from the Atlanta
_Constitution_, is a fairly good report of his speech, which held the
audience spellbound from beginning to end. He said: “I am gratified and
pleased beyond measure to be with you to-night on an occasion of social
enjoyment to exchange compliments and greetings with the undaunted
citizens of Ocala and revel in the bounteous hospitality of this proud
and prosperous little city. Words count for but little in the effort to
express my sincere appreciation of such evidences of cordiality as have
been shown this night to me and to my friends and associates in
business. Surely the very presence of so many of your community’s worthy
citizens, your city’s leading business and professional men, who have
rendered the further compliment of bringing with them their charming
wives and daughters, would of itself inspire any man, who is not
insensible to the impulse of gratitude, with a feeling of gratification
and deep appreciation for the compliment it conveys. It pleases me to
see so many of the ladies of Ocala here to-night, for their charming
presence lends beauty to the brilliant scene and makes all the more
enchanting this hour of pleasure and promise.
“I feel that it is good to be here. I am always glad to mingle in social
intercourse with my good friends of Florida, for I warrant you that
nothing is more comforting than to know that in all my endeavors to aid
them in the upbuilding of their favored section I have their hearty
good-will and unstinted co-operation. In congratulation upon the
continued prosperity of Ocala, despite the recent chilling frosts, which
seemed well-nigh to sweep away your beautiful orange groves and blight
the interests of your agricultural community, I wish to say that it is
pleasing to me to observe the undaunted pluck and courage of your
irrepressible and invincible people, who, never swerving from the
duties of citizenship, have set about the arduous task of building up
again the agricultural and industrial interests of this region of
Florida, with a newness of life and a heartier zest. Such determined
effort will surely be crowned with unbounded success and prosperity in
the end. There is no reason why Ocala should not be a prosperous city.
Your climate is excellent; your water is pure and wholesome; your lands
are fertile and prolific, and your people are joined with a unity of
ambition and a unity of aim for the upbuilding of every interest alike.
“I have been asked to speak to you of what is known as the ‘Plant
System.’ Not this mere physical system of the man--for that speaks for
itself. But the system of railways and steamships and other interests
which have been built up as all other industries are built up in the
great march of American progress and industrial development. In touching
upon the plans and scope of the Plant System, I believe I will be
credited with perfect sincerity when I say in the very outset, that if
some of the conditions of which we now have knowledge had been known in
the beginning, much of this system would not exist to-day. I have
reference to such conditions as have in late years arisen and confronted
corporations in the nature of an obstacle and an obstruction. As you all
perhaps know, there has been a great change in the plans and methods of
railroad construction during the last decade or two. In the old days
railroads were built for the most part by the people of means along the
proposed route, and they were for the most part short lines. People did
not set out in the earlier days to build long lines of railways. As
years rolled by, however, there sprang up among the people of some
sections an unexplained feeling of hostility to corporations--a sort of
antagonism to capital--which has worked its way like a devouring worm
into the politics of the nation, and which, in recent years, has well
nigh sapped the lifeblood from many of the leading railway systems of
the country, by plunging them into such a complicated pool of injurious
legislation as to land them on the dangerous shores of bankruptcy. Just
at the time when such a spirit of antagonism was at its zenith there
came a change in the methods of operating railway lines. Instead of the
short lines, several of the roads began to be joined together for a
longer line, thus reducing the expenses of operation and at the same
time giving better facilities of travel and of shipment. It was found
that the railroads could not live if operated on the short-line basis,
for competition grew so great it became necessary to link this road and
that to form a through line binding the commerce of one section to that
of another in rapid transit at reduced expenditure. This came as a
necessity born of the situation, for the railroads were being bankrupted
on the old plan and were sold out by receivers for their original owners
to the men of capital, and they saw the absolute necessity of a more
economical basis of operation. Taxes were high, competition was great
and everything served evidence that the old plan would no longer prove
feasible.
“Just why there should be any hostility to such a plan of railway
management among the people who are, after all, the ones benefited most
by the increased facilities that are given them, is not made clear to
me, but such a spirit did prevail, and does prevail to-day in some
sections to such an extent that men, blinded to the interests of the
people of their sections, are continually stabbing at the very heart of
the railway corporations and crying out that they need to be watched by
legislative censors, and of this notion the railway commission was born.
My friends, I know but little of the motives that prompt such
legislation against railroads, but I do know that some very serious
mistakes have been made. It has been said that the king can do no wrong,
but it has with equal truth been said that the king can make mistakes.
In the State of Georgia, this persistent spirit of hostility to
railroads, this organized effort of legislative restriction, has within
the past few years thrown nearly every railroad in the State into the
hands of a receiver. The result has been a gradual reorganization of
these properties by the men of capital in the East, and a new plan of
operation at reduced expenditure through consolidation. What else could
have resulted?
“The interests of the people and the railroads are certainly not
conflicting interests. They are common interests and should go hand in
hand and heart to heart in the great work of building up this country.
The one should not be made an obstacle for the other. I cannot see how
the Plant System of railways and steamships could be other than a pillar
in the structure of the industrial world of this Republic, interested in
all that tends to the promotion of the general interests of the people.
Of what avail would railroad construction be to the owner if it were
intended to be run in hostility to the business interests of the people
of the country it traversed? What would a railroad be worth if not
supported by a healthful business community in perfect harmony? On the
contrary, what would any country be without the railroads?
“It is true that the people of this section have suffered heavy loss
lately through some unexplained stroke of Providence, by which the
orange groves of Florida were laid low by the withering touch of the
hand of dread winter, and it is furthermore true that the phosphate
interests have been injured by an over-production, but that is a matter
that rests with the fates, to be worked out in their own good season.
Misfortunes sometimes prove to be but blessings in disguise, and it
rests not with mortals to gainsay the wisdom of that edict which comes
from an Omniscient Providence. In all your losses on the farms and in
the phosphate mines, bear in mind that the railroads are suffering a
kindred loss, for the blow was as keenly felt by them as by you.
“Let us move together while the hand of adversity weighs heavily upon
us, just as we have always tried to do when we were more prosperous. Let
us take no part in the systematic effort that some are making, to
persecute the railway enterprises of Florida at such a time as this, for
such persecutors are blinded to their country’s interests. If there was
ever a time when the people and the railroads ought to work in perfect
harmony that time is at hand. I believe labor ought to be protected in a
reasonable and rightful degree, but I also believe that capital ought to
be protected against the unrighteous onslaughts of those who know not
what they do.
“In conclusion, my good friends of Ocala, I beg to thank you again for
your generous reception to-night. I believe there is much in the spirit
that rules here that bespeaks the dawn of brighter and better days for
the people of this region.”
The following day a special train took Mr. Plant and his party to
Leesburg, where arrangements had been made by the people of that
beautiful little town to give Mr. Plant and his friends another ovation
of most healthful pleasure and exquisite enjoyment. The Mayor and
leading citizens of the place met the party at the railroad station and
welcomed them with marked cordiality to their best hospitality and
friendship. At the close of a day’s most delightful sailing up Lakes
Harrison and Griffin, and many carriage rides on the shores of those
beautiful lakes, situated as they are in some of Florida’s most
picturesque scenery, the party sat down to a banquet in the hotel given
by the Leesburg Board of Trade. “It was truly a feast of reason and flow
of soul,” for nothing could have been in better taste or evinced more
genuine esteem and friendship for the guest of the occasion than was
shown there.
On the next day a special train took Mr. Plant and his party to Eustis.
At the station all the prominent people in town were gathered to welcome
him. Carriages were in waiting to take him and his friends through the
beautiful little town. It was with visible emotion that he looked upon
the withered, lifeless orange trees bared by the terrible frost of the
preceding winter, a drear and desolate scene as compared with the bloom
and beauty of other days. Mr. Plant, however, was never given to
fruitless murmuring. To a young editor in the carriage with him he
said: “No, we must make the best of even the adverse situation. It might
be worse. You must publish words of cheer and hope to your people, and
do all that you can to help them over this trying time. Suggest to them
the planting of other crops, the rearing of other fruits. It will not do
to be altogether dependent on oranges. The soil is capable of raising
many other things besides oranges, and it may be that this calamity will
become a blessing in disguise.” So he ministered good cheer and
practical instruction to the people, who felt that he loved them, and
who were very responsive to his encouraging words.
I doubt not these people uttered the true sentiments of their deep
feeling when they said as they bade him good-bye: “Mr. Plant, you have
done us all a great deal of good, we shall never forget you for this
visit you have made us. It will be a pleasant memory to us always, and
if you and your friends have enjoyed your visit half as much as we have
enjoyed having you, then is our happiness increased a hundred fold.”
Never have we witnessed anything more beautiful and tenderly impressive
than the kindly interest which Mr. Plant’s visit called out among these
people. His every want was anticipated, luncheons, rare and delicious,
were carefully stored away on boat and train and brought out at the
right time. After sail or ride in train and carriage in this most
appetizing atmosphere had made the party hungry as prairie wolves, then
a sumptuous repast was served and enjoyed to the full. Rooms, and rest
and care in hotel, cars, or boats were provided with a skill and tact
that made one think of the Plant System.
Honesty is the foundation and keystone of every noble character. It is
the quality that must pervade the whole nature. Nothing can take its
place or atone for its absence, nor can there be a perfect manhood where
it is not the warp and woof of the whole man. “Honesty is the best
policy” says the policy man, but he who is honest only from policy and
not from principle, is not an honest man, but a knave, if not a fool as
well. Genius, scholarship, wit, humor, brilliancy are worse than
worthless when they do not rest on a foundation of honesty. Never was a
greater tribute paid to man than when President Lincoln’s neighbors
dubbed him “Honest Abe.” Nor did poet ever rise to higher flights of
truth than when Scotia’s Bard wrote “An honest man’s the noblest work of
God.” “To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of
ten thousand,” says Shakespeare. In the history of the human race men of
all ranks have ever paid the highest tributes to honesty and accorded to
it the first place in human character. It is this quality, combined
with his great energy, which has enabled Mr. Plant to carry his
undertakings to so successful an end.
One of his associates in business for long years said: “Mr. Plant does
not rashly promise but when he does, performance is sure, cost what it
may. Were I having a business transaction with Mr. Plant for any amount,
and knew that he would live to fulfil his engagement I would ask neither
bond nor written contract. His word would be just as good to me as any
security that could be drawn by the best legal authority in the land.”
“I should name honesty as the dominant principle of Mr. Plant’s
character,” said another.
It has been naïvely said that no “man is a gentleman to his valet,” but
the testimonies here quoted are from men of long and most intimate
acquaintance, and might be multiplied by hundreds of those who were once
in his employ as well as by those still connected with the great System
over which Mr. Plant presides. Careful scrutiny and good judgment have
characterized all Mr. Plant’s dealings with his fellow-men, but crooked
ways and mean advantage never. He has rendered to his generation an
invaluable service in that he has demonstrated to it that honesty is the
best _principle_ and the surest way to the greatest success. And he has
done this in departments of commerce proverbial for their unjust and
unfair methods of dealing.
He has a wonderful amount of unconscious power which moulds those who
come within its influence. Hence his associates have remained long with
him even when tempted by other positions. The following extracts from a
letter of ex-Governor R. B. Bullock will be found of interest in this
connection.
“REV. Dr. GEO. H. SMYTH.
“Reverend and Dear Sir:--
“Replying now to your esteemed favor of March 17th, would say that Mr.
Henry B. Plant came to this city in 1854, representing the Adams and
other express interests, which were then being extended through this
section of the country; and he continued to make this city his
headquarters in that connection until ’69 or ’70, when he made his home
in New York. There are no ‘incidents’ within my knowledge connected with
Mr. Plant’s life here, which would be of special interest to incorporate
in a biography. He developed then the same persistent, conservative and
industrious perseverance in planning for and directing the interests in
his charge, which have since developed into the important and widespread
interests over which he now presides.
“Naturally, in the development and establishment of the business in his
hands in those early days, it became necessary for him to select proper
men to fill the various positions connected therewith and it is a
notable fact, by experience shown, that the selections so made by him,
were wise and judicious, and one of the marked features of his executive
action has been the kindly exercise of unlimited and undisputed
authority. There is no recollection of his having displayed impatience
or irritable temper, even under very vexatious circumstances. His manner
was always friendly, frank and appreciative, so that the disposition of
the men subject to his control, was always found to be actuated by a
desire to accomplish all that was possible for the interest of the
institution over which Mr. Plant presided, sufficiently encouraged and
cheered by the hope of his approbation. So close an eye did he keep upon
the services rendered by the most insignificant employee, that no
service well rendered failed to receive his personal endorsement and
approval.
“By reason of his evenly balanced judgment and temper, his relations
with the chief officers of railroad and steamship companies over and by
which express service was transacted, and with bank officials--who were
then our chief patrons--were always of the kindliest character, and he
always enjoyed their perfect confidence and highest respect.
“In fact, all of the characteristics, which have made his later life the
magnificent success which the country appreciates, were developed and
maintained throughout his early business experience.
“There is nothing new or peculiar about the facts to which I have
referred, because they are well known and appreciated by hundreds of men
now in the service, who have been continuously with it since its
organization.
“Very respectfully and truly,
“RUFUS B. BULLOCK.”
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER IX.
Mr. Plant’s Industry and Power to Endure Continuous Strain--Labor
of Examining and Answering his Enormous Mail--Letter from
Japan--Mail Delivered Regularly to him at Home and Abroad--His
Private Car, its Style, Structure, Hospitality, and Cheering
Presence--Numerous Calls--The Secret of his Endurance--The Esteem
and Love of the Southern Express Company for its President--Mr.
Plant Enjoys Social Life--He is a Great Lover of almost all Kinds
of Music--Mr. Plant a Medical Benefactor--Some of the Progress Made
in the Healing Art--Bishop of Winchester’s High Estimate of the
Value of Health--Dr. Long’s Opinion of the Gulf Coast as a Health
Restorer--Unrecognized Medicines in Restoring Lost
Health--Nervousness among the American People--The Soothing and
Strengthening Effect of Florida Climate--Mr. Plant’s Part in
Facilitating Travel and Providing Comfortable Accommodations for
the Invalid.
Mr. Plant’s industry and power of endurance are a marvel to those around
him in office work. Over five hundred letters a week received is no
unusual thing. These are read to him by his private secretary, and
answered under his direction or dictation. They come from the three
different departments of the Plant System, which extends over many
thousands of miles, by land and by sea, and in its Express department
forwards goods over a mileage greater than the circumference of the
globe.
Some of these letters require deliberation, skill, care, and sound
judgment in replying to the many complex questions of such a large and
important business as the Plant System covers. Others are less
complicated and more easily disposed of, while many are of a social
character, from Mr. Plant’s numerous friends scattered, I might say,
over the world. One day while sitting in his office at Tampa Bay Hotel,
he said: “I had a very pleasant letter this morning from Japan. Some
lady missionaries there write me of an excursion I once gave them in
Florida, which afforded them much enjoyment and of which they write in
enthusiastic appreciation though it occurred many years ago, and I had
forgotten all about it.”
This large mail is a matter of daily occurrence. No day in the whole
week is free from its arrival. If he travels, as he often does in his
own elegant private car, his mail is delivered at important stations all
along the road. Being in constant communication with all departments of
the System by telegraph, telephone, or messenger, his mail is forwarded
to him promptly at all railroad stations named for its delivery, is
examined and replied to as readily as if in his main office in New York
City, for he has an office, desk, and all needed facilities in his car
for sending out telegrams, letters, or messages from the different
stations by the way. His car is a model of convenience, comfort, and
elegance in all its appointments. It is finished in richly carved
mahogany, upholstered and curtained in rich blue velvet, with numerous
windows and mirrors of heavy French plate glass. It is numbered “100,”
and known all over the South. Its entrance at any station causes
sunshine to break on every face, and the old colored men who come,
bucket in hand, to wash and polish it where it happens to remain over a
night or a day at the station, are fairly beaming when they greet “Massa
Plant” and are always paid back in their own coin with United States
currency added. Every old “uncle” at the railroad stations in the Cotton
States knows “Car 100,” and asks no better holiday than to “shine her.”
To return to the enormous office work of the President of this great
system of transfer and traffic, it is a marvel how he has stood it all
these years. It is no unusual thing for him at Tampa to spend two hours
in hard work in examining his mail before breakfast, then till luncheon,
with perhaps an hour’s intermission, and then work until late in the
afternoon. His numerous calls from all sorts and classes of people, are
a constant strain upon brain and nerve, not to say heart at times. The
secret of this endurance of long and fatiguing work, is found in the
fact that to a sound constitution, inherited from a hardy, thrifty
ancestry, Mr. Plant has added a temperate life and great moderation in
the use of stimulants. While a man of quick intuition and keen
sensibility, he has shown the most wonderful self-control in the most
trying circumstances. When others would be agitated and wholly thrown
off their balance Mr. Plant would remain calm, quiet, cool, and
clear-headed to a degree that stilled the tempest all around, and
effected an amicable adjustment of matters most important as they were
most complicated and difficult of settlement. This self-control is
joined with great fertility of resources, great charity for the
peculiarities of men, and withal a kindliness of nature, a disposition
not to hurt any one, that have enabled him to render services to his
associates and to his country that may not now be told, and perhaps will
never be known until the great day when the “cup of cold water” shall be
rewarded. Mr. Plant is never in a hurry, much less is he ever flurried,
chafed, or worried about anything. All he does is done deliberately,
systematically, easily, and once done it seldom or never has to be gone
over again. “Make the best of everything,” is his motto.
A gentleman occupying a prominent position in the express department of
the Plant System writes:
“It affords me great pleasure to acknowledge the esteem and love of the
Southern Express Company’s employees, known to me, for Mr. Plant, who
has favored us so often with his kindness, liberality, and mercy even
when we were at fault. My knowledge extends back about thirty years,
having commenced with the Southern Express Company in North Carolina in
1866, and having worked in Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia,
Kentucky, and Mississippi since that time, mingling very freely and
socially with my fellow-employees. I have never heard one word of
condemnation of Mr. Plant during all that time but, on the contrary, a
hearty, free expression of respect and affection for the man who, by
divine aid, had done so much for the whole South as well as the great
number of employees in the Southern Express.
“Faithfully
“I. S. S. A.”
In long years of intimate association with Mr. Plant I have never heard
him utter a profane word or a bitter expression against any one.
“Greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city,” said
the wise man. Mr. Plant has told me himself that if he learned of any
one made unhappy by anything he had ever done or said, or if any
misunderstanding should arise, he could not rest until all was settled
to mutual satisfaction, and that, too, just as speedily as possible.
“Charity for all, malice toward none,” briefly expresses the spirit,
tone, and temper of this great and good man. Hence he has been saved the
consuming force of friction and hatred which grind and wear out so many
before their time. The young men now entering public life will find
most valuable suggestion even in this brief record of a life so large,
useful, and honored, through a period of our country’s history the most
intense as it has been the most important since the days of the
Revolution and the formation of a free and independent republic.
His busy life has made him neither a recluse, a pessimist, nor a slave
of the world. He has been a good deal in society--both as guest and host
he has mingled freely with his fellow-men and enjoyed to the full the
pleasures of friendly reciprocity.
Mr. Plant’s love of music, in a man of his years and busy life, is
remarkable. He says: “Music rests me, and helps me to sleep when I
retire for the night, while I find it a great enjoyment in my waking
hours. It is medicine to me.” Hence he is often seen spending the last
hours of the day in the music room of the Tampa Bay Hotel, enjoying with
the guests the delightful music rendered with such exquisite taste by
the skilled orchestra. Mr. Plant is familiar with the best of the modern
operas as well as with the finest classical music of the past. Among his
favorites are Haydn, Handel, and Mozart. He is also fond of popular
ballads and songs, such as Moore’s melodies and national patriotic
songs. He says he enjoys even the hurdy-gurdy.
Mr. Plant might be termed a medical benefactor,--a health
restorer,--because of the results of his work for the South and the
North as well. In no department of scientific advancement during the
last half-century has progress been more marked than in the department
of medicine. The healing art, in its lessening of pain and in the
prevention and cure of disease, has made, and is daily making, the most
wonderful discoveries. What a boon to suffering humanity was the
discovery of ether by Dr. Charles T. Jackson, of Boston, in 1846, who
found that by the inhaling of this anæsthetic the patient is rendered
unconscious of pain. Vaccine inoculation, introduced by Dr. Jenner in
1799, has prevented the spread of that much dreaded disease, small-pox.
The name of Dr. Koch will long be held in grateful remembrance for his
earnest efforts to cure consumption, as will those of Pasteur to cure
hydrophobia. The Southern States to-day have thousands of people in
ordinary good health, many of them in excellent health, who, ten,
twenty, or thirty years ago, were given up by their physicians as past
recovery and soon to die. But thirty years ago the modes of travel to
the South and the lack of adequate provision there for invalids were
such as only a person in fair health could bear. Through Mr. Plant’s
efforts in large measure, both of these requisites for a sick man, or a
delicate woman, have reached a state of perfection difficult to
improve.
At the banquet given to Mr. Plant at Leesburg, Florida, in the winter of
1896, one of the speakers referring to what Mr. Plant had done for the
North as well as for the South, said: “In the ‘Dixie’ land he has made
the desert to bloom like the rose, changed waste places into fertile
fields, the swamps into a sanitarium, the sand heap into a Champs
Élysées, the Hillsborough into a Seine, and reproduced the palace of
Versailles on the banks of Tampa Bay, and away up in freezing, shivering
New England and Canada, when the doctor had written his last recipe and
the druggist had emptied his last bottle and the undertaker was at the
front door, our friend has placed the patient in a wheeled palace, and
signalled, ‘On to Richmond,’ not to die, but to live; and old Virginia
has smiled on the dying man, North Carolina has fairly laughed aloud,
South Carolina has taken him into her warm embrace, and Florida has
thrown flowers not on his coffin but on the resurrected Lazarus, and the
family have invited their friends, not to a funeral, but to a feast. The
Plant System ships have ploughed the Gulf of Mexico and spanned the
Caribbean Sea, and have brought health and happiness to many homes over
which bereavement and sorrow were hovering like the black angel of
death.”
The Bishop of Winchester once said: “The first thing is good health, and
the second is to keep it, and the third to protect it. Then arises the
question, where shall we go?” It is not known that the noted physician
had ever seen the Bishop’s question when he wrote: “Were I sent abroad
to search for a haven of rest for tired man, where new life would come
with every sun, and slumber full of sleep with every night, I would
select the Gulf Coast of Florida. It is the kindest spot, the most
perfect paradise; more beautiful it could not be made, still, calm and
eloquent in every feature.” This was said by Dr. Long, an army physician
in charge at Fort Brook, Tampa. The power of the fine arts over the
mind, and of the mind over the body, are demonstrated facts. The most
frequent and depressing of ailments among Americans is nervousness in
various forms, and in different stages of progress, from morbid
sensitiveness to utter prostration. In many cases medicine merely
aggravates it. Its chief symptoms are irritability and wretchedness,
often ending in suicide. Healing must come largely through the mind in
rest, peace, comfort, and pleasant occupation.
While the mind in this condition cannot bear strain, neither can it be
idle. Idleness induces morbidness and misery. Physical comfort must not
be neglected, but there must be wholesome, nourishing food, pure air,
and proper exercise. Hence, the value of the well-equipped and elegantly
finished Pullman palace car, and the well-built steamer designed for
comfort and safety, furnished and finished in a style that delights the
eye and ministers to the enjoyment of every faculty. Hence the luxuriant
hotel, with all its home comforts, its artistic adornments, and its
princely entertainment, beauty for the eye, music for the ear, feasting
the æsthetic while feeding the materialistic nature of man. All this
enjoyment, while a soft, balmy air is breathed beneath a clear, blue
sky, and while the invalid is bathed in the bright, warm sunshine of a
southern clime, induces repose, peace, content, happiness, and health.
The spirit loses its irritability, the mind regains its elasticity,
sleep refreshes the tired brain, food nourishes the exhausted body, the
whole man is renewed, and life that was not worth living has become an
inspiration, a joy, an heroic and manly achievement.
It should be said here that up to the time that Mr. Plant established
the steamship line between Tampa and Havana, there had been no regular
communication between those two ports during the quarantine season.
There were some irregular opportunities of transfer when passengers were
detained for days to be investigated, fumigated, and harassed by
quarantine regulations. Mr. Plant held that ships could be built and
managed that would make communication as safe in summer as in winter,
and he has proved the correctness of his theory. In ten years of regular
service, the steamer _Mascotte_ has never had a case of yellow fever.
Through Mr. Plant’s suggestions, the Tampa Board of Health has
established rules and regulations for travel to the West Indian ports
which make it perfectly safe at all seasons of the year, so far as
contagion from disease is concerned.
How much Mr. Plant has done to bring this blessed change to thousands,
many beautiful tributes testify in the public press of our times. The
expressions of enjoyment in the following letters could be extended
almost indefinitely. In the Saint Augustine _News_ of March, 1895, an
enthusiastic correspondent writes: “It was early in the present century
that this man of brains and bounty appeared on the great stage, and
began a career scarce equalled by any in the annals of American
financiers, and it is to him that Florida owes a debt of gratitude,
deeper than to any other man--and this man is H. B. Plant. Favored
indeed is Florida, not only in climate, scenery, and fruit, but with the
munificence of these mighty-hearted millionaires, who have Alladin-like
metamorphosed the sunny peninsula into a veritable fairyland. I had the
pleasure of meeting Mr. H. B. Plant, who has transmogrified Tampa, and
ribboned Florida with his railroad system. As usual with men of great
minds and means, he is wholly unpretentious, as much so as his humblest
employee. He is anything but fastidious; yet he is a clean-cut man of
the world, of vast business capacity, a keen, penetrating financier, and
altogether lovable in his domestic life. His shipping interests extend
from Halifax to Boston, his express and rail lines from New York to
Tampa and New Orleans, and his connecting vessels run from Cuba and all
Gulf of Mexico ports. Mr. Plant’s homes are the family place in
Branford, Connecticut, a palace on Fifth Avenue, New York, and the Tampa
Bay Hotel in winter. Mr. Plant’s family consists of a son who will
succeed to his great responsibility and estate.”
Writing from Cuba in January 1888, “J. C. B.” says in his “Notes”:
“In the language of an intelligent observer, writing from Havana early
in the present month, it would be difficult to find any other
interesting foreign land, when its accessibility is considered, so
worthy the attention of American travellers as Cuba. To the average
thought of one who has not visited it, it seems far and repellent. It is
neither of these.
“The improved special fast facilities furnished by the Pennsylvania
Railroad, the Atlantic Coast line, the Plant system of railways, and its
new, swift, and superb steamships, carry you from the American to the
Cuban metropolis in three days.
“While the north shore of the island has three important
harbors--Havana, Mantanzas, and Cardenas--the former is incomparably the
finest and most spacious; the city, to the west of the gleaming bay, is
a rare study in Moorish, Saxon, and Doric architecture. The scene has
been thus pen-pictured:
“‘On the east side, where the close jaws of the harbor open, and
clambering up the mountain side where frown the landward outworks of
Moro Castle, is Casa Bianca, with its queer villas and structures, each
one standing out in this wonderful daylight of the tropics in such
distinctness, and with such a strange seeming of approaching and growing
proportions, that, in your fancy, the houses individually become great
pillared temples. In and over and through this dreamful spot, away up
the side of the mountain, thread and run such indescribable wealth of
vegetation that, as you look again and again, the clustered, shining
houses seem like great white grapes bursting through a glorious wealth
of vines and leaves.
“‘Beyond Casa Bianca the bay debouches to the east. Here is a veritable
valley of rest. Every half a mile is a little cluster of homes set in a
marvellous wealth of rose and bloom. Beyond this valley are seen pretty
villages, each with its half-ruined church, whose only suggestion of use
or occupation is had in the din of never-ceasing chimes; and still
beyond these are uplands which almost reach the dignity of mountains,
upon whose far and receding serrated heights an occasional cocoa tree or
royal palm looms lonely as a ghostly sentinel upon some mediæval tower.
“‘Farther to the south lie the great Santa Catalina warehouses, where
the saccharine source of Cuba’s wealth is stored in huge hogsheads, or
rests dark as lakes of pitch in tremendous vats. Behind these is Regia,
the lesser Havana, across the harbor, with its churches, its quaint old
markets, its cockpits, its ceaseless fandangoes and its bull pen. Over
beyond this, set like a gleaming nest in the crest of the mountains, a
glimpse is caught of Guanabacoa, full of beautiful villas, beautiful
gardens and fountains, and in the olden times the then oldest Indian
village of which Cuban legends tell. Beyond Regia to the south, and upon
the shores of the bay, is the ferry and railroad station, whence
thousands reach the outlying villas, or leave the capital for the
various seaports of the northern coast; and right here, night and day,
is as busy and interesting a spot for the study of manner and character
as may be found in all Cuba. At this station is seen a famous statue to
Edouard Fesser, founder of the Havana warehouse system. The entire
southern portion of the bay, where some day the barren shore line will
be lined with great warehouses and docks, is filled with old hulls of
sunken steamers and ships, conveying the keenest sense of desolation,
and the shore here rises to uplands bare as Sahara, until, skirting to
the right, the bold mountain, Jesu del Monte, is seen; and then come
the great outlying forts extending far around to the sea. Between you
and these, if still aboard-ship, you see Havana’s domes and minarets,
and, to all intents, you are anchored in a sceneful harbor of old
Spain.’
“This schedule of the quick mail service performed by the elegant
steamers, _Mascotte_ and _Olivette_, of the Plant line, in connection
with the railway system heretofore mentioned between Tampa and Key West,
in the east, affords but a few brief hours of rest in the harbor at
Havana. Upon the first appearance of the _Olivette_, fresh from her
conspicuous performances in distancing the fleet of steamers which
accompanied the racing yachts of the international regatta, the writer
had the good fortune to be among the invited guests who paid a visit to
this magnificent vessel, which is justly the pride of her distinguished
owner, Mr. H. B. Plant, the President and Managing Director of the Plant
System of railways and steamships.”
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER X.
Reason for Submitting Press Sketches of Mr. Plant--_Descriptive
America_, December, 1886--_City Items_, December, 1886--_Railroad
Topics_--_Home Journal_, New York, March, 1896--F. G. De Fontain in
same Journal--Ocala _Evening Times_ June, 1896--_Express Gazette_.
In the following chapter are given a few press notices of Mr. Plant and
his work in the South, because they contain reliable information of some
of that work which we have left to them to chronicle, and because they
are public expressions of the appreciation of that work and of the
justly high esteem, and friendly regard in which the worker is held by
the people among whom and for whom he has spent the best part of his
life. Instead of a brief chapter, a volume of such complimentary
sketches might be presented, written in even stronger language than is
here used and by masters in the art of writing. But these few will
suffice to show the deep interest of the people in the life and work of
their friend and benefactor, Mr. H. B. Plant.
The following extract is taken from the _Florida_ number of _Descriptive
America_.
RAILROAD AND EXPRESS PRESIDENT.
“In our _Wisconsin_ number we gave the life-history of one man who,
beginning as a farmer’s son, had, by his energy, ability, and integrity,
come to occupy a position of great power, wealth, and usefulness, and we
emphasized the point, that, while he had been wonderfully successful,
his highest claim to our admiration, lay in the fact that, whenever the
opportunity offered, he had sought the prosperity of the nation, the
state, or the city of his adoption, and had made his own gain and
increasing wealth subordinate to the public weal. In this number we have
some similar characters, who, if their wealth does not equal that of the
great banker and railroad king, have at least followed his good example.
“Such men are always modest, their achievements seem to them very small,
compared with what they might and should have done, and they shrink from
publicity with genuine dread. One of these men is the subject of our
present sketch, Mr. H. B. Plant.
“Mr. Plant is of pure Puritan stock; his earliest American ancestors
left England about 1640, and if they were not among the little company
who came with John Davenport to Quinnipiac, afterward called New Haven,
they followed very soon after. They settled in Branford, Connecticut, a
town lying between New Haven and Guilford, at which place some of
Davenport’s most eminent men soon established themselves. The Plants of
Branford were a good family, and they have always borne a high
reputation through the eight or nine generations which have elapsed
since they first established themselves in Branford. They were
intelligent, thoughtful farmers, industrious, sound thinkers, orthodox
in faith, and leading those quiet country lives, of which the old New
England towns presented so many examples. The village minister was a man
greatly reverenced by all his people, and if a youth of more than
ordinary promise could be instructed under his direction, it was
something to be proud of.
“To one of these Branford families, the representative Plant family in
the town, several children were born in the earlier decades of the
present century; one of them, H. B. PLANT, gladdening their hearts in
October, 1819. He must have been a boy of considerable promise, for
after the usual course of study in the District Schools, not at that
time of a very high grade, he spent several terms in the Branford
Academy, then under the oversight of the Branford pastor, Rev. Timothy
P. Gillett, a man of high scholarship and great aptitude for teaching.
Whether he had any aspirations for a collegiate course, we do not know;
but he did not rest content, till he had completed his course of study
with John E. Lovell, of New Haven, the founder of the Lancasterian
system of instruction in America, and, at that time, the most celebrated
teacher in the country.
“His school days over, Mr. Plant soon found employment on the steamboat
line plying between New Haven and New York. Very soon, one of the first
express lines ever established in this country, known as Beecher’s New
York and New Haven Express, was started, and young Plant became
interested in it, and from that time to the present has always been
largely engaged in the express business. His first important interest in
it was with Adams Express. In 1853, he went to the South, and
established expresses upon the southern railroads, as a branch
enterprise of Adams Express. In 1861, he organized the Southern Express
Co., and became its president, and has continued so to the present time.
He is also president of the Texas Express Co. In 1853, he visited
Florida for the first time, for the benefit of the health of an invalid
wife. There was no means of communication with Jacksonville, except by
steamers up the St. John’s. The place was small and the accommodations
meagre, but the fine climate and mild and balmy air were the means of
prolonging her life many years, and from that time he made yearly visits
thither. During these visits the place grew, and he saw the necessity
for railway communication with that and many other points in Florida;
but he devoted most of his attention to his extensive express business,
until 1879, though owning large blocks of railroad stocks, particularly
in the Georgia and Florida Railways. In 1879, with some friends, he
purchased the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad of Georgia, and subsequently
organized the Savannah, Florida, and Western Railroad, of which he
became president. Soon afterwards he extended this railroad to the
Chattahoochee River, and he also constructed a new line from Way Cross
to Jacksonville.
“The Savannah and Charleston Railroad (now the Charleston and Savannah),
had been in the courts for many years, but, in 1880, Mr. Plant purchased
and thoroughly rebuilt it; his purpose being to perfect the connections
between Florida, Charleston, and the North.
“The immense labor connected with the management of these railways, and
of the vast business connected with the expresses, led Mr. Plant and his
associates to organize the Plant Investment Co., to control these
railways, and also to manage and extend, in the interest of its
stockholders, the Florida Southern and the South Florida Railway. The
former road was extended by the Investment Company to Tampa, and to
Bartow, and they are now building it to Pemberton Ferry, where it will
be joined by the South Florida line thus making connection via
Gainesville with South Florida, and _via_ Tampa for Key West and the
West India Islands.
“In connection with these railroads, we may well answer the question
which is of special importance to us in this _Florida_ number.
“What has Mr. Plant done for Florida? We answer in general, that he has
rendered the culture of the orange and of the other perishable products
of the State profitable, has greatly facilitated the occupation of the
best lands of the State, opened the way for the settlement of the lands
of Southern Florida, given free and ready access to the Gulf ports, and
thence to Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston, and established a regular,
frequent, and prompt steamboat service on the St. John’s River.
“How has he done this? When he had purchased and rebuilt the Charleston
and Savannah Railroad, access to the interior of Florida was difficult
and almost impracticable except by wagon road. There was irregular and
fitful navigation of the St. John’s River, but the steamboats ran when
they had sufficient freight, and only then. There had been some
railroads built (especially those of the Yulee system) but the country
was undeveloped, and as the orange groves required from five to ten
years of growth before they came into profitable bearing, meanwhile the
railways were suffering for want of freight and were unprofitable. Mr.
Plant was convinced that although a more rapid development was in
progress, there would still be delay before the railroads he proposed to
build would prove paying investments. He therefore determined to avail
himself of the land grants already made, and to keep them in repair.
“The orange product would not bear jolting over wagon roads, or being
stacked up on the wharves waiting for the uncertain coming of the
steamers. His first move was to build a railway direct from Way Cross,
Ga., to Jacksonville, thus bringing his Georgia roads into immediate
communication with a port on the St. John’s River. He then established a
steamboat line on that river which was regular, prompt, efficient, and
carried freight at low rates. Meantime a road had been constructed from
Jacksonville to Palatka, making connection with St. Augustine via Tocoi;
this road is now being extended to cross the river a few miles above
Palatka and thence by way of De Land and other places, re-crossing the
St. John’s a short distance north of Lake Monroe; thence proceeding to
Sanford where it will form a connection with the South Florida, thus
opening up the fine highlands west of the St. John’s and those east of
that river to a ready market, and giving choice of a river or rail
transportation at several points. The Legislature having granted a
charter for a railway connecting Palatka with Lake City by way of
Gainesville and thence down the peninsula it was taken in hand by
capitalists from Boston, and connection made by rail between
Gainesville, Palatka, and Leesburg.
“With this company Mr. Plant made arrangements for the construction of
the road from Gainesville west to a connection with the Southern
extension of the Savannah, Florida and Western Railroad which has been
constructed and is now in operation.
“A branch will soon be built to connect it with Lake City.
“By reference to our map, it will be seen that these roads traverse all
the counties of the interior, down to the Everglades, and open them to
settlement and to profitable orange culture and the production of sugar,
cotton, and rice. These roads have brought actual settlers by scores of
thousands to occupy these rich and fertile lands, the finest in the
State, and other railway companies, stimulated by their example and
encouragement, have constructed roads connecting with these. By the
charters of bankrupt railroads which they have bought, the Plant
Investment Company is entitled to a large amount of lands from the
State, 10,000 acres to the mile, in most cases, as well as later grants
on their newly constructed roads; but the State has not yet the lands to
deed to them, except to a small amount, though eventually it may have.
“Mr. Plant is a man of fine and commanding appearance, dignified and
quiet, yet genial in manners, and of the most genuine modesty and
gentleness in his intercourse with others. No judge of character could
fail to observe, however, that he is a man of remarkable executive
ability and sound judgment, or that he has a greater amount of reserve
power than most business men possess. His associates, and those with
whom he is brought into business relations, all speak of him in terms of
the highest admiration and esteem.”
The _City Item_ for December 4, 1886, says:
“Mr. Henry B. Plant is a very admirable type of that class of successful
men of enterprise who owe their prosperity to broad business views,
large public spirit, and commanding integrity of character joined to
solid capacity. Born in Branford, Conn., his entrance upon active life
was in connection with transportation on the New Haven steamboat line,
and his subsequent career has been identified with similar enterprises.
Ultimately entering the service of Adams Express Company, he was
instrumental in extending its business throughout the Southern States,
and finally, with others, purchased its lines, and formed the Southern
Express Company, of which he became president. This position he still
holds, having by his energy and enterprise greatly enlarged and extended
the business of the company. In 1853, when the delightful climate,
attractiveness and fertility of Florida were as yet but poorly
appreciated, Mr. Plant recognized the possibilities which that State
opened up, and an opportunity being presented for the extention of
transportation facilities by the sale of the Savannah and Charleston
Railway, and the Atlantic and Gulf Railway, those properties were
purchased and reconstructed by him, the name of the former being changed
to the Charleston and Savannah, and the latter to the Savannah, Florida,
and Western Railway. This last he extended to the Chattahoochee River,
to Jacksonville and Gainesville, in Florida. Subsequently he constructed
the road between Way Cross, Georgia, and Jacksonville, and Live Oak and
Gainesville, and also placed steamship lines on the Chattahoochee and
St. John’s Rivers, connecting the railroad at Jacksonville with Sanford
on Lake Monroe, and building the South Florida Railway thence to Bartow
and Tampa, establishing steamboat communication to the Manatee River and
other points on Tampa Bay. More recently he has established a steamboat
line between Tampa, Key West, and Havana. This service was increased on
the 1st inst. to tri-weekly trips, under special contract with the
Post-office Department. By this route, in connection with the railroad
from Tampa, the line from New York to Havana is only three days, thus
enabling the invalid or pleasure seeker of the metropolis to exchange
the rigors of our winter climate for the delicious temperature of Cuba,
with an ease and under conditions of travel which must make this line
increasingly popular with the lapse of years. The _Mascotte_, now
running on this route, is one of the most handsome and complete
steamships built, its appointments being in every respect really
luxurious, while in point of seaworthiness it is everything that the
most expert mechanism could make it. Its staterooms are dainty boudoirs,
while its saloon is as exquisitely fitted up as any drawing-room. A
second vessel, now building for the line, will be equally attractive in
all its interior arrangements. Mr. Plant, while a thorough man of
business, and deeply immersed in material pursuits, has never lost the
courtliness of manner and genial whole-heartedness which are Nature’s
choicest gifts to her favorites; and among all who know him he ranks as
the loyal friend and elegant gentleman.”
_Railroad Topics_ says:
“In this day of vast individual fortunes, it is no special compliment to
say of a man that he is rich. If the public takes any interest in his
wealth, there is generally more concern manifested in the manner in
which he made his money, than in the mere fact that he has it. But
conspicuous success and marked prominence do, and will always, command
attention and challenge admiration. The spirit of the American people
is to applaud achievement and honor distinction wherever they are
observed, and when found combined in one man, they make him a popular
object of praise and an interesting subject for biographical sketch.
Such a case we have in the person of Mr. Henry B. Plant, whose record we
attempt to outline in the following brief story:
“Mr. Plant was born at Branford, Conn., in October, 1819, and is
consequently now in the seventieth year of his age. It is indeed a
pleasure to contemplate the record of a man who has fulfilled the sacred
tradition of his allotted time, and stamped that rounded life with
innumerable evidences of steadily growing strength, constantly
increasing usefulness, continually widening reputation, and vastly
expanding possessions. The personal history of H. B. Plant, if shorn of
all details, would stand complete in that one paragraph.
“He has thus far lived to excellent purpose, and in the run of that
existence has accomplished in fullest measure all that is comprehended
in the descriptive suggestion.
“If we wrote not another line, we would feel that we had made a
practical analysis of his life and set forth the salient truths of it.
But when a man has attained Mr. Plant’s prominence, and compassed
achievements such as his, people are interested in the details of his
career, and naturally inquire as to his distinguishing characteristics.
In deference to that reasonable curiosity, and likewise for the pleasure
that there is in it to ourselves, we gladly make this sketch of him.
“It is nothing remarkable to say that he was born poor. Most men who
have ever amounted to much were. Hence in that particular he is not
exceptional. Neither would we be satisfied simply to class him with that
great multitude, popularly termed, “self made men.” He does belong in
that catagory, but is so far above the average, that we incline to think
of that descriptive fact more as an accident than as a cardinal virtue.
“The first account we have of him is only a meagre record of his school
days. He never went to college, but had to content his ambitious young
spirit with a good academic course, supplemented by a brief term of
finishing study under a thoroughly competent tutor. This, however, was
only a theoretical disadvantage, from the fact that the termination of
his school days was no interruption to his mental acquirements. He was
born with an ambition for knowledge, and does not to this day feel
himself too old, or too wise, to learn.
“Mr. Plant’s first experience in business, was when, a mere boy, he
secured employment on one of that line of steamboats, then running
between New Haven and New York. Although very young, he appreciated
even then that the only way to learn any business thoroughly was by
beginning at the bottom. Accordingly he took his first lessons in
steamboat life in a humble position. It was not long, however, before,
by faithfulness and efficiency, he lifted himself into higher and more
responsible places. That first and prompt promotion was the initial sign
of what his life would be, and from then till now, he has steadily
marched onward and upward, overcoming obstacles and mastering
difficulties with heroic energy, and winning success in the various
lines of his broadening operations with positive brilliancy.
“While employed by the New York and New Haven Steamboat Company, one of
the first express lines ever established in this country was inaugurated
between New Haven and New York, and the enterprise at once fascinated
young Plant. He bent every energy toward the acquirement of a small
interest in the new express company, and in reasonable time accomplished
his purpose. From that day to this, express business has been his best
love throughout the wide range of his material interests. His first
important connection in that line was with the Adams Express Company
about 1847. In that corporation he became a leading spirit and holds
such position to-day. His special pet, however, among the various
express systems with which he is identified is the Southern Express
Company which he established in 1862. This child of his wisdom has grown
to be a giant, and is to-day one of the richest, most influential, and
ably managed corporations in this country. It traverses all the Southern
States, and is, for all practical purposes, permanently established on
nearly every important railroad system in the South.
“Of late years Mr. Plant has been giving much of his attention to the
acquisition of railroad properties, and in admirable continuance of his
previous record, he has crowned this undertaking with splendid success.
He is virtually master and largely owner of the Savannah, Florida, and
Western Railway, and likewise of the Charleston and Savannah Railway.
This gives him a direct and popular line from Charleston, South
Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida. He has also made various branches
from his main line, penetrating the principal districts of Florida, and
by this wise railroad building has done far more than can be computed or
told, toward that marvellous development of Florida which has been
accomplished within the last ten years. Mr. Plant was truly a pioneer in
this praiseworthy work, and there is probably no man who deserves more
than he does the grateful acknowledgements of the Florida people, as
well as the hearty gratitude of the countless thousands who have gone
from all other sections of the country to enjoy the healing benefits of
that curative climate, and the sweet restfulness of that floral
dreamland.
“The Plant Investment Co., of which Mr. H. B. Plant is the head, and in
which he has associated with him several sagacious millionaires, is a
powerful corporation which was organized for co-operative investment in
valuable southern railroad properties and advantageous control of the
same. This company is managed with exceptional ability, and by its vast
acquisitions and extensions, has become a great power in the railroad
world, and is rapidly accumulating for its stockholders untold wealth.
This Investment Company is practically controlled by Mr. Plant, and its
entire policy is shaped by his judgment. One of his latest enterprises,
under the auspices of the Investment Company, is the establishment of a
fast line of steamers from Tampa, Florida, to Cuba. At Tampa, Mr. Plant
has extended one of his railroads out to deep water, and thereby made it
an excellent port for even heavy draught ships. The whole of Florida
bears the impress of his energy, enterprise, and wisdom.
“Mr. Plant’s home is New York City, where he has a palatial residence on
Fifth avenue, and luxurious business quarters at No. 12 West 23d street.
Whenever a man amasses a fortune he naturally drifts into Wall Street,
the financial centre of America. Mr. Plant is a conspicuous exception to
this rule. He rarely treads the narrow golden street leading from
Trinity Church to East River. There is no speculative element in his
nature. He is conservative to the last degree, and works on no plan that
is not founded on reason and justified by a positive trend from cause to
effect. He has all the vigor and alertness usually to be found in a man
of fifty years of age. He is keenly alive to all the possibilities of
affairs that come under his observation, and quick to determine any
question that is presented to him.
“He is a thoughtful man and extremely reserved. It is necessary to know
him well to appreciate the excellent fairness of his mind, and the
kindness of his heart. He is ostentatious in nothing, but under all
circumstances conducts himself with modest dignity and irresistible
reserve force. He is emphatically what might be called an extractive
man. That is, he has an inexplicable faculty for drawing any one out,
without ever appearing inquisitive, or leading on by talking much
himself. If he has one characteristic stronger than all others, it is
his wonderful genius for keeping his own counsel. He never lacks
cordiality of manner, but is always gracious and genial. Another
forceful point of his character, is that inexhaustible patience which
has enabled him to live undisturbed in the faith that ‘all things come
to him who knows how to wait.’
“He thoroughly systematizes every department of his life, and keeps his
house in such perfect order that if he should shake the harness off and
quit work to-morrow, all those far-reaching plans which have had their
foundations laid under his wise direction, would by his faithful
followers be worked out to rounded completeness and finished perfection.
“And thus by the mighty working of his master brain he has achieved
success, won renown, accumulated an immense fortune, done great good,
and made for himself an undisputed place among the leaders of this day.
And besides all these victories, he has set on foot gigantic plans that
may not fully mature for many years to come, but in those very plans he
has laid the corner-stone of a great monument to his worthy memory, and
those who come after him, if faithful to their trust, will build on as
wisely as he has planned, until the capstone of his imperishable
memorial is fitted in its place, by the final accomplishment of each and
every purpose of his well-spent life.”
_The Home Journal_ says:
“Henry B. Plant, president of the Plant System of hotels, railways, and
steamship lines, is one of the men of to-day, whose work will influence
the future. He controls twelve different railway corporations with a
mileage of 1941, and 5506 employees; is president of the Southern and
the Texas Express Companies, employing 6808 men; president of steamship
lines, covering the coasts of the Gulf, going to Cuba and Jamaica, and
skirting the coasts of the North, running to Cape Breton and the
maritime provinces; founder of the most palatial winter resort in
America, the Tampa Bay Hotel, and owner of five other beautiful resorts
within the State. To Mr. Plant may be accredited the development, if not
the real discovery, of the grand West or Gulf Coast of Florida. He is an
American, and is seventy-seven years old; a man of tireless energy,
wonderful ability, and remarkable industry. His career is marked by
honesty, uprightness, straightforwardness, and business-like dealings.
These qualities, together with a broad intelligence and keen perception,
have brought him success. Withal, he is modest and unassuming, and has
no pride but that which he takes in good works.”
From the Ocala _Evening Star_, June 22, 1896:
“H. B. Plant, the railroad king, has again stepped into our midst and
proposes to add to the new improvements of our city a large and elegant
passenger depot.
“Notwithstanding the fact that he has done much already to advance the
prosperity of the beautiful perpetual summer land of flowers and
sunshine, he is still, at the present time, losing no opportunity to
add to the beauty and upbuilding of the State of Florida.
“If every railroad running into our State would feel as much interest in
her welfare as does the Plant System, but a few years would elapse
before this section would be the most prosperous in the Union.
“Thousands upon thousands of dollars are spent every year by the
officials of this road in the improvement and erection of property
within our borders.
“H. B. Plant is indeed a friend to Florida, and if other roads would
spend as much money in our State as he does, there would not be such a
cry for free silver, as there would be plenty in circulation, and every
one, from laborer to governor, would have his share.
“While Mr. Plant is somewhat advanced in life, the _Star_ hopes that his
years may yet be many and his love for the sunny peninsula as great in
coming years as in the past.”
From the _Home Journal_, New York, March 11, 1896:
“If, comparatively a few years ago, one had ventured the prophecy that
the time would arrive when we could leave New York at half-past nine one
morning, and wake up at daylight the next morning in Charleston, a court
of inquiry would have been called to pass upon his mental condition.
Such, however, are the facts to-day.
“You leave Jersey City in a sleeper, supplied with all of the latest
appointments for comfort; a courteous conductor takes your tickets, with
which you have no further concern until you reach Charleston, when they
are handed to you in an envelope. What a comfort not to have to be
pulling out the everlasting ticket just in the midst of conversation or
while reading an interesting magazine article!
“If the cars are not crowded, you feel a sort of proprietary right to
roam around at pleasure, change your seat as often as you desire, and
wash your face and your hands whenever they need it in the cosy little
toilet-room. What a change from the old-fashioned water-cooler, where a
cupful of water was wont to be poured over a pocket-handkerchief, and
the face and hands wiped with it, leaving arabesque designs in black and
white wherever it touched!
“Then, instead of rushing to a railroad eating-house in order to refresh
the inner man, having to put up with ‘railroad coffee,’ and experiencing
a nervous shock every time a whistle blows, your meals are taken at
dainty little tables, in your own compartments, where polite and
efficient waiters do your bidding.
“Instead of the tiresome, old-fashioned trip of two days and a night,
the trip now is twenty hours. Verily the twin powers of steam and
electricity have wrought wonders in the conditions of life.
“The Plant System, to which the Atlantic Coast Line is ‘a feeder,’ has
emphatically gridironed the South. To-day Mr. Henry B. Plant is the
president of a railroad system that embraces twelve different
corporations, and whose mileage extends to 1941, with a list of
employees numbering 5506. He is also president of the Plant steamship
and steamboat lines, covering the coasts of the Gulf, Cuba, and Jamaica,
and skirting the coasts of the North, running from Boston along Nova
Scotia to Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island. In addition to these
interests, Mr. Plant is president of the Southern and Texas Express
companies, which do a business as express forwarders over 24,412 miles
of railway, and have lines in fifteen States, employing 6808 men and
using 1463 horses and 886 wagons. Mr. Plant is seventy-six years of age.
He needs no eulogy; his works speak for him. Although of Northern birth,
he is as much beloved and respected at the South as if native-born.
“Thirty-six years ago, President Jefferson Davis, of the Southern
Confederacy, demonstrated his confidence in, and admiration of Henry
Bradley Plant by giving him a pass entitling him to move hither and
thither at will through army headquarters, or wherever he pleased, in
the interest of the Adams Express Company, which he then represented,
although Mr. Plant declared that he did not sympathize with the
political movement which sought to rend the States.
“The Tampa Bay Hotel, Port Tampa Inn, and the Seminole, Winter Park,
Florida, are monuments of Mr. Plant’s enterprise and a portion of the
System. From one of these palatial hotels one can catch a fish on the
back porch and pluck a lemon to dress it with from the front porch. In
Charleston the name of Henry B. Plant is a synonym for success, and a
name which many a young man mentions with veneration, as one to which he
owes a lasting debt of gratitude.”
The May number of the _Express Gazette_, Cincinnati, Ohio, has this
appreciative paragraph:
“The editor of the _Advertiser_, Key West, Florida, pays the following
eloquent tribute of praise to Mr. H. B. Plant, President of the Plant
System of Railroads and the Southern Express Company:
“‘Mr. H. B. Plant, the president, the founder, and the controlling
spirit of the great Plant System, is held in high estimate by the
citizens of this island. He found it, years ago, isolated and remote
from the great centres of commerce, and his partiality to us soon
changed a semi-occasional connection with the mainland, by vessels of
inferior character, into a tri-weekly communication by the finest
coastwise steamers in the Southern waters. Brought in ready touch with
the marts of trade, factories sprang into existence, commerce grew, and
a city with millions of revenue supplanted a fishing hamlet. Through his
enterprise we are enabled to write our history in a line--a village, a
city, a metropolis--and all this in a decade.
“‘The debt of gratitude which Key West owes to Mr. Plant is beyond
estimate. Indeed, so accustomed are we to the conveniences at hand, that
we are prone to fail in appreciation of what we have, in our greed for
more. That Mr. Plant has been and is still our best friend cannot be
questioned in the light of past experience; and while we cordially
welcome and hail with delight the coming of other transportation, our
city should never be forgetful of the man who was our friend when we had
no other.’”
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER XI.
Mr. Plant’s Close and Constant Contact with the Great System as
Seen in the Following Letters--Letter Written on Board the Steamer
_Comal_--Letters on Trip to Jamaica, West Indies, March 15, 1893,
and Published in the _Home Journal_.
Mr. Plant keeps himself constantly informed of the workings of the whole
System over which he presides, by daily communication with every part of
it. The head of each department writes to the president every day, or
telegraphs, or does both if necessary, and in return, Mr. Plant, through
his secretary, replies daily to each communication received. So close
does he keep to the workings of the System that wherever he travels in
the country his mail is regularly delivered to him at points arranged
for the purpose, and it is as promptly answered from his private car as
if he were at his own office in New York City. Nor are all these letters
which pass between the president and his associates about hard business;
they are often social, familiar greetings, and interchanges of friendly
intercourse. The following extract from a letter, written by Mr. Plant
when traveling to Galveston, Texas, is an illustration of this:
NOTES OF THE VOYAGE.
“Left wharf on Steamer _Comal_, Saturday, July 22, 1893, 4 P.M., wind
southwest. Passed Sandy Hook about 5.30, found sea smooth; well off the
coast, shore houses vaguely seen in the distance.
“_Sunday, 23d._--Had a still and comfortable moonlight night; smooth
seas; wind southwest; off Cape Charles, twelve o’clock. About one
o’clock wind all died away. The sea perfectly smooth until 2.30, when a
light breeze came in from the southeast, which lasted until sunset, then
died away and came out again from the west about six o’clock. Passed
Body Island Light with light breeze. No sea.
“8.10 P.M.--Hatteras Light fairly abreast--ten sailing vessels and one
steamer in sight. Weather being fine, captain concluded to cross the
Gulf Stream and run down on the east side and along the Bahama Banks. We
have now been out twenty-eight hours, and I have felt very well. No
annoyance from the stomach so far in any particular.
“_12 o’clock noon, Monday, 24th._--We are bowling along in the Gulf
Stream with a good breeze from the west--smooth sea. Had a fairly good
sleep. Room being on the port side and the wind from the west made it
rather warm. At noon to-day the temperature of the water is eighty
degrees and the air is eighty-two degrees, which is not so bad as might
be. We are now well off Charleston and about abreast of the Bermudas.
“_Tuesday, 25th._--The wind continued from the west until about four
o’clock, when it ceased, and from that until nine we had a dead calm and
a smooth glassy sea. Now at ten o’clock a light breeze comes in from the
east, and we have prospect of a comfortable day.
“Yesterday P.M. we had crossed and were entirely east of the Gulf Stream
and there was no wind, of course, in still water. While in the Stream we
had a current of about three knots against us. Our course is now
bringing us again near the stream, which we shall cross in the course of
the day and will probably pass Jupiter before bedtime, say, nine
o’clock. We are having a delightful voyage so far, and I seem to be
doing quite well.
“P.M.--The southwest wind has died out and we have a gentle breeze from
the east; this gives promise of the northeast trades for to-night, which
will be quite acceptable and will put me on the windward side of the
ship; have been on the lee side so far.
“5 P.M.--Have not seen a sail to-day, and am having a very restful time.
“9.30 P.M.--Have been with the captain since dinner, and for the last
half hour on the lookout for Jupiter Light. The lead informs us that we
are too far off the coast to enable us to see the Light just yet.
“9.50 P.M.--Now we just have a glimpse of the Light from the bridge, and
as ‘All’s well,’ I will to my couch for the night. The winds are
favoring those on the port side, having swung around to the northeast,
giving a promise of the southeast trades for to-morrow; so good-night.
“_Wednesday_ A.M.--Had a splendid shower this A.M. just after daylight,
and right after the northeast wind died out and was soon followed by the
good southeast trade, and now (10.30) we are sailing along just outside
the reefs, having passed Cape Florida early this A.M. During the night
we have passed Palm Beach (Lake Worth).
“10.30 A.M.--We are now directly abreast of Carysfort Light, and a more
pleasant day to be at sea could not be desired. While at breakfast we
passed near the wreck of the English steamer _Earl King_. She went on
the reef about a year and a half ago; nothing now in sight but a portion
of what looks to be the bow--a good beacon to warn others from this
dangerous reef. She is reported to have been an old ship loaded with
cement and other cheap freight, bound for New Orleans, and well insured.
“The indications are that we shall arrive at Key West about seven
o’clock this P.M. and in time to meet the _Mascotte_ on her return from
Havana. As we have but a small freight for Key West, we shall not be
long detained there, and shall expect to arrive in Galveston early
Saturday night. Temperature of air at one o’clock 81¾ degrees; water 83
degrees.
“_Wednesday_ P.M.--Passed Aligator Light one o’clock; this will bring us
to Key West about eight o’clock, and enable me to place this on
_Mascotte_ without much to spare, and probably place us ashore at
Galveston Sunday morning, and as you may not be in Darien Sunday, you
will only receive the message at office on Monday A.M. Send to Mrs.
Plant at Branford on arrival, so she may receive the information same
day. Would like to have you make at least a synopsis of the daily notes
to Mr. O’B., that you may send to him should he be absent. We are now
well up with American Shoal Light; next we shall have Sombrero, and then
Sand Key and Key West. We are likely to fall in with the _Mascotte_.
“We are jogging along very pleasantly with wind well on the port quarter
and temperature quite comfortable.”
The following letter from Mr. Plant, published in the _Home Journal_,
New York, March 15, 1893, speaks for itself. It shows its author to be
at home on shipboard, and as much at his ease as in his own parlor;
while carefully noting all points of interest and enjoying to the full
all that was enjoyable.
ON BOARD S. S. “HALIFAX,”
SUNDAY, Feb. 26, ’93.
“We sailed from Port Tampa on Thursday, February 16th, and after a
delightfully smooth and pleasant trip arrived at Nassau, N. P., on
Saturday morning. A number of our party were entertained by the
Honorable Sir Ambrose Shea, governor of the island; others of us
preferred to pass the few hours in riding and driving, seeing something
of the beauties of the place. We returned to the steamer in the
afternoon and got under way, passing out of the harbor through the “Hole
in the Wall,” as it is called. We steamed down over the banks, passing
along the eastern shore of the island, and leaving Cape Mayce on our
starboard, until away over to port were seen the highlands of Hayti.
“All the way from Port Tampa to Jamaica, the weather was simply
delightful, and the sea as smooth as the waters of our Seneca Lake. We
arrived at the wharf at Kingston at seven o’clock Tuesday morning. Our
excursionists all went to the Myrtle Bank Hotel, where choice
accommodations were provided. We received a call from the Consul-General
of the United States, Mr. Dent, and also visits from other important
people of the city of Kingston. In the afternoon we received an
invitation, conveyed to the party through our conductor, Mr. A. E. Dick,
a hotel man well known in New York, to attend a garden party given by
Lady Blake at King’s House. Lady Blake is the wife of Sir Henry Blake,
the governor of the island. We found a large crowd of people, a gracious
welcome, exquisite music and bountiful refreshment. Only think of it--an
out-of-door reception on the twenty-first day of February!
“In the evening we were surprised to learn that a grand ball would be
given in our honor by the citizens of Kingston. It proved a very
brilliant affair. The beautiful costumes of the ladies formed a striking
contrast to the military costumes of the officers of the British West
Indian Squadron; there were eight ships in the harbor.
“We were called very early in the morning, coffee and fruit being served
in our rooms, and took carriages to the Western Railway station, whence
we started by rail for Bog Walk, on the Rio Cobre River. We arrived at
half-past ten. After leaving the train our attention was called to a
group of negro men and women who were engaged in loading bananas into a
car for transportation to the city of Kingston and thence to the United
States.
“At Rio Cobre, we enjoyed one of the most beautiful drives that your
correspondent has ever experienced, down the valley of the Rio Cobre, a
most beautiful sheet of water, and after a ride of two hours, reaching
Spanish Town, one of the principal cities on the island of Jamaica. It
was at Spanish Town that a son of Christopher Columbus settled when he
came to the island of Jamaica. We were entertained by the proprietor of
the Rio Cobre Hotel, where we remained until the afternoon, when we
again took train for our headquarters at Myrtle Bank, in Kingston.
“Early the following morning we were called, fruit and coffee were again
served in our rooms, and we started at six o’clock for a drive of
twenty-five miles over and across the beautiful mountain ranges and
towards the north coast of the island. At ten o’clock we arrived at the
Castleton Gardens, a beautiful spot owned and sustained by the
government as a garden of acclimation. Here are found the grandest of
all tropical palms. At the hotel connected with the gardens we partook
of a royal breakfast, into which entered many different kinds of fruit.
After a stop of two hours we resumed our journey over the mountains, and
in the distance we obtained a good view of the lovely Annotta bay.
“En route, we visited a sugar estate where we saw the conversion of
sugar-cane into Jamaica rum of the first quality. Most of the labor is
performed by Malays, brought from the valley of the Ganges in India, who
while here are compelled to labor in competition with the negroes. The
men are paid at the rate of one shilling and six pence per day, while
the women receive only one shilling per day. I can assure you, from the
manner in which they work, it is evident that they earned every penny
they received. By the way, the coachman who drove us, informed me that
his wages were ten shillings per week of seven days’ continuous work and
he has to board himself out of that pittance.
“On the afternoon of this day, Friday, we were well off the coast of
Jamaica, homeward bound. Now as I write, Sunday morning, we are
approaching Egmont Key, which is situated at the entrance of Tampa Bay.
Soon we shall be docked, and soon thereafter at that haven which has
been so often described but to which no writer to my mind has done
justice--the Tampa Bay Hotel.”
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER XII.
MANAGEMENT OF THE GREAT PLANT SYSTEM WORTHY
OF ADMIRATION AND IMITATION.
There is perhaps no greater source of waste in our country than that of
labor strikes, which have become of frequent occurrence during the last
two decades. There is great waste of material from the destructive
violence of infuriated mobs. In 1877, the great railway strikes of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the Pennsylvania and Erie Systems,
resulted in the destruction of sixteen hundred cars, one hundred and
twenty-six locomotives, and five million dollars worth of property. A
report made in 1895 by the United States Commissioner of Labor (covering
a period of twelve years and six months, that is, from January 1, 1881,
to June 30, 1894) on strikes in the United States, gives the following
suggestive statistics. We read that the number of strikes was 14,390,
affecting 69,167 establishments. The number of employees thrown out of
work was 3,714,406. Loss of wages during this period to the striking
workmen amounted to $163,-807,866. From lockouts the loss was
$26,685,516. The losses to employers from the same cause were, from
strikes $82,590,386, and from lockouts $12,235,451. The losses to
employees and employers amount to the enormous sum of $285,319,219. And
this is only a part of the losses, for it does not take into account the
cost of police, detectives, and soldiers, required to protect persons
and property. In one strike eight thousand of the latter force alone
were needed to subdue riots, and save life and property. What estimate
can be made of the damage to commerce, the disorganization of labor, the
demoralization of the laborers, the families broken up and scattered,
the hate and bitterness engendered? The corporation, therefore, that can
co-operate peacefully with its working force adds much wealth and moral
progress to the nation, as well as legitimate profits to its own
treasury, and comfort, well-being, and happiness to its employees. There
is mutual advantage on both sides, and far reaching and beneficial
influence on all sides. There must be justice and consideration for the
workman from the employer, and there must always be justice and
appreciation from the workman to the man who gives him work,--mutual
interest, benefit, and advantage. It is greatly to the credit of the
Plant System, that the public has never suffered inconvenience in travel
from strikes among its large working force, that the men have not
suffered in person or estate, and that the company has been saved losses
and crosses from this hydra-headed monster, “Conflict between labor and
capital.” That these evils have been avoided, is due to the head of this
great System, due to his sense of justice, to his personal knowledge of,
and friendly interest in such a large number of the employees, and to a
large-hearted consideration for the weaknesses of human nature. Mr.
Plant was one day riding in a baggage car, when he saw an expressman
turn wrong side up a box that had been marked “Glass.” He called
attention to the fact. “That box,” said he to the man, “is marked
‘Glass’ and should be kept ‘glass’ side up as marked.” “Oh I know it is
marked ‘Glass,’ but I never pay any attention to that,” said the
expressman. Mr. Plant said no more. When the man and the superintendent
of the express office were alone together, the superintendent said to
the man, “Do you know who that gentleman was who spoke to you about the
box marked ‘Glass’?”--“No.”--“Well, that was Mr. Plant, the president of
the express company.”--“Oh my! that means my dismissal sure.”--“Yes, I
think it does; I shall have to dismiss you”; and he said, later, to Mr.
Plant, “I shall dismiss that man of course.” “No,” said the president.
“Don’t discharge him; call him to your office and impress it upon him
that that is not the way this company does its business, and he won’t
forget it.” The man has been long a faithful and efficient employee of
the company. Mr. Plant’s name does not figure as often as do some others
in lists of large donations to churches and charities of deserving
character, though they have not been passed by without recognition, and
kind and generous treatment of the deserving men in his employ have
never been wanting. While travelling with Mr. Plant to Atlanta, one of
the heads of a department reported to him that an old gentleman who held
an honored and important position in the System was greatly broken down
with nervous prostration. “Send him to his home to remain until he is
well, and remit his salary all the same.” It was remarked by a bystander
that he thought that that was very kind of the president. “Oh,” was the
answer, “that is only a regular occurrence to those of us who have been
with President Plant as long as I have.”
Those who have read the blood curdling accounts of some of the strikes
that have occurred within the past ten years, and have experienced some
of the inconveniences and dangers resulting from them, will contrast
such accounts with what was seen on “Plant Day” at the Atlanta
Exposition, and on all other days throughout the South as well, and will
feel that the account of that day was worthy of a place in the record of
the noble life we are endeavoring to preserve as an example to public
men and as a lesson and inspiration for coming generations. We let the
associates and employees of the Plant System tell their own story. It
was printed in a beautiful pamphlet as a souvenir of the day, and was
specially designed for those whose devotion to duty prevented them from
sharing, in person, the pleasures of that memorable day. With the
exception of a few paragraphs of biographical matter contained in other
sections of the volume, or merely of temporary interest, the account is
published in full in a later chapter.
It is as creditable to the men who have stood around their president
most faithfully in his arduous labors, as it is honorable to him who has
led them on to noble achievement, and deserved success. Mr. Plant’s
methods of management are worthy of highest commendation, and would
repay careful study in like conditions. If any man were to discover a
plan for extinguishing fire that would to save the country $285,390,219,
in the course of a dozen years, the insurance companies would purchase
his patent for a large sum of money, and the country would raise
monuments to his honor. Mr. Plant’s method is even better; it is on the
philosophical principle of prevention. It prevents the kindling of the
flames, and while it may not be absolutely fire-proof, it has stood a
long and severe test. We honor him and his loyal associates and
employees for the more than peaceful course they have left on record. We
say “more than peaceful” for it has been a course of mutual concessions,
personal interest, and friendly association, as the following chapters
will show. Nor is the view taken in these chapters narrowed to special
and individual cases. It is as broad as the South linked to the North,
and covers the whole United States; for no part of our country can be
advanced without every other part sharing in the uplift.
It would not be surprising if the best part of Mr. Plant’s work should
fail to be recognized. People see the material progress of a State, the
things that can be measured, weighed, and valued at a price; the subtle
forces that produce the material are often overlooked. The intellectual,
moral, patriotic, and philanthropic spirit that moves the man and
diffuses itself throughout the State or nation is not the first thing
that arrests attention. Yet this unrecognized force is the great
uplifting power of a people in all that is best and noblest in their
onward march of progress. It is now an axiom that the North and South
did not know and understand each other previous to the late war; that if
they had understood each other, a war such as the revolt of the Southern
States would never have occurred, would, in fact, have been impossible.
The facilities afforded for travel and the superior hotel
accommodations which have been provided by, and have resulted from, the
Plant System, have brought North and South together in mutual interest
and friendly accord to such an extent that a war can never again take
place, for these two sections of our country are so interlaced,
interdependent, and identified in interest, and withal in such friendly
association, that the misunderstandings of the past can never again
arise. It is a fact of history, that in proportion as nations, races,
and religions come closer to each other, the causes of conflict are, to
the same degree, lessened. A homely illustration of this fact is
contained in the story of the Irishman who was walking along the Strand
in London one morning, when through the fog he discovered a monster from
which, at first, he was going to run away; then, grasping his shillelah,
he came close up to the monster intending to kill the “baste,” when “lo
and behold,” said Pat, “it was me brother John!” So it often comes to
pass that the monster in the distance to be annihilated, in closer
proximity is a brother to be loved.
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER XIII.
Plant Day at the Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895
at Atlanta, Georgia--Preparations for its Celebration--Impressive
Observance of Mr. Plant’s Birthday at the Aragon Hotel--Mr. Plant’s
Remarks in Acknowledging Presentation of Gifts.
The Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition was created
through the zeal and enterprise of a number of the patriotic citizens of
the city of Atlanta and of the State of Georgia, and, on the 18th day of
September, 1895, when its doors were opened to the world, naught but
words of admiration and praise could be spoken for the men, who, through
the devotion of their energies, time and money, had made it in every way
a success.
There are already extant records of the speeches of the prominent men
who, from the Auditorium platform in the Exposition grounds, addressed
the public on that day and proclaimed to the world the reasons which
actuated the creation of this Exposition, not only for the advancement
of the mercantile interests of the southern section of the country, but
as well for the education of its people.
While it is, therefore, futile to reproduce here the history of the
Exposition, it might be well to say that as far back as December, 1894,
Mr. H. B. Plant was called upon by a committee of gentlemen representing
the Cotton States and International Exposition Company and urged to make
an exhibit at the Exposition. In recognition of his acquiescence, and
the erection of a building by the Plant System of Railways and Steamship
Lines, in which was placed a most creditable exhibit from the sections
of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida traversed by the Plant
System of Railways, the Exposition Company determined that a day should
be set apart, to be known as “Plant System Day,” and as the founder and
president of the System, Mr. Henry B. Plant, was to celebrate the
seventy-sixth anniversary of his birth on October 27, 1895, it was
decided that in his honor the two events should be commemorated as a
unit. This plan was impracticable, as the 27th fell on Sunday, but that
the celebration should be as closely connected as possible, the day
following, October 28th, was named by the Committee and announced to the
public as “Plant System Day” at the Cotton States and International
Exposition.
From the time of this announcement until the day of the festivities,
preparations were made to make the occasion in all ways enjoyable. Mr.
Plant, accompanied by his family, arrived in Atlanta on Saturday, and
on the succeeding morning, the seventy-sixth anniversary of his birth,
was greeted by the following article, written by Mr. Clark Howell, and
published in the _Constitution_. It served as an index to a time replete
with pleasure, and as a welcome to Mr. H. B. Plant, President, and to
the Plant System in Atlanta, Georgia, October 27 and 28, 1895.
From the Atlanta _Constitution_, October 27, 1895.
“No more important day will be celebrated during the present Cotton
States and International Exposition than to-morrow, which has been set
aside in honor of Mr. Henry B. Plant, the head of the great Plant
railway and steamship lines. The importance of the day will spring not
only from the successful life of which Mr. Plant is an example, but from
the fact that above any other man living he represents the great
industrial revolution which has come over the face of the Southern
States, and which marks the success of free over slave labor.
* * * * *
“To-day Mr. Plant might be called an international developer. Of this,
however, the story of his life will be the best witness. To-morrow he
will have completed his seventy-sixth year, forty-one of which have been
spent in the South, during which time the twin powers of steam and
electricity have wrought wonders in the conditions of life. To-day he is
the president of a railway system which embraces twelve different
corporations, and whose mileage extends to 1941, with a list of
employees numbering 5506. He is also president of the Plant steamship
and steamboat lines, the one covering the coasts of the Gulf and going
to Cuba and Jamaica, the other skirting the coasts of the North, running
from Boston and along Nova Scotia to Cape Breton and the maritime
provinces of Canada. In addition to these interests, he is still
president of the Southern and the Texas Express Companies, which do a
business as express forwarders over 24,412 miles of railway; have lines
in fifteen States, employing 6,808 men, and using 1,463 horses and 886
wagons. As a complement to the handling of railroads, and the sailing of
ships, and the expressing of freightage, Mr. Plant has erected four
winter resort hotels in Florida, one of which, the great Tampa Bay
Hotel, is probably the largest winter resort hotel of its kind on the
continent. It will thus be seen that this great man, who is to be the
toast at the Exposition to-morrow, does service under three flags, those
of America, England, and Spain.
“Such developments as these are enough to make his life history of
interest to the old and of profit to the young, as showing the vast
possibilities which our country affords, and the immense rewards which
come to industry, tact, and intelligence.
* * * * *
“The coming of Mr. Plant to the Southern States really marked the
opening of Florida to the people of this country as a winter resort. It
was in 1853, the year of Mr. Plant’s arrival, that he visited Florida
for the sake of his invalid wife, when access could only be had by
steamboat, by the St. John’s River. The mild climate of that State
prolonged Mrs. Plant’s life for years. He saw the necessity of railroads
in the State, and it was in this way that he began buying stock in
various Florida and Georgia railroads, though he did not engage in any
railroad enterprise as a manager until 1879. In that year Mr. Plant
purchased the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad of Georgia, and subsequently
reorganized the company as the Savannah, Florida, and Western Railway,
of which he is still the head. The Savannah and Charleston Railway was
next purchased in 1880, and the story of the completion of the Plant
System--now extending to Charleston on the one side, to Montgomery,
Alabama, on the other, covering Florida and forming a perfect
network--would be to repeat the story of railroad development in that
entire section.
“In these enterprises it was the purpose of Mr. Plant and his
associates to extend and add to the various properties, and they
believed this could best be accomplished under a single organization
with ample powers. With this object in view, several of his associates
being residents of Connecticut, the birth-place of Mr. Plant, a charter
was obtained in 1882 from the legislature of that State, and the Plant
Investment Company organized. Mr. Plant became president, and remained
such to the present time. Among his associates were W. T. Walters and B.
F. Newcomer, of Baltimore; E. B. Haskell, of Boston; Henry M. Flagler
and Morris K. Jessup, of New York, and Lorenzo Blackstone, Henry
Sanford, Lynde Harrison, H. P. Hoadley, and G. H. Tilley, of
Connecticut. Since the formation of the Plant Investment Company,
several properties have been acquired by purchase. In 1885, they bought
the South Florida Railroad, at the time running only between Sanford and
Kissimmee, which was changed from narrow to broad gauge, with an
extension of the line to Port Tampa, Florida, which is the port of entry
for the West India fast mail steamers (Plant Steamship Line) between
Port Tampa and Havana, Cuba. Subsequently the line was extended north
from Lakeland to a connection with the Savannah, Florida, and Western
Railway (Gainsville division) at High Springs, thus completing the line
from Charleston, South Carolina, to Port Tampa, Florida. Thereafter the
company acquired, in 1887, the Brunswick and Western Railroad, between
Brunswick and Albany, Georgia, via. Waycross, which road was rebuilt; in
1889, the Alabama Midland Railway, from Montgomery, Alabama, to
Bainbridge, Georgia; and in 1892, the Silver Springs, Ocala, and Gulf
Railroad, extending from Ocala to Homosassa and Inverness, Florida. In
1893, the Tampa and Thonotosassa Railroad was constructed, from Tampa to
Thonotosassa, and the Winston and Bone Valley Railroad was purchased to
accommodate the people of the phosphate mining districts. In 1894, the
Abbeville Southern Railway, from Abbeville, Alabama, to a junction of
the line of the Alabama Midland Railway, was built. The system has been
extended in 1895 by the purchase of the Florida Southern Railway and the
Sanford and St. Petersburg Railroad, both narrow gauge roads, and
preparations are now being made to change them to standard gauge.
“In addition to the railway properties enumerated, Mr. Plant established
two lines of steamboats: one, in 1880, to run between Sanford and
Jacksonville, which was discontinued upon the completion of the railway
between these two points; the other on the Chattahoochie River, known as
the People’s Line, plying between Columbus and Bainbridge, Georgia, and
Apalachicola, Florida. In 1886, he established the Plant Steamship Line
for regular service between Port Tampa, Key West, and Havana, Cuba,
under contract with the United States Post Office Department, for the
carriage of the Key West and Havana mails, and for occasional service
between Port Tampa and the island of Jamaica, with regular service
between Port Tampa and Mobile, and Port Tampa and points on the Manatee
River.
“Subsequently the line of the Atlantic, Canada, and Plant Steamship
Line, Limited, running between Boston and Halifax, was acquired by
purchase, and chartered under the Dominion Government as the Canada,
Atlantic, and Plant Steamship Company, Limited. In 1893, the North
Atlantic Line of steamers was added to the line through purchase, and
the route between Boston, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward Island is now
operated by the company of which he is at the head.
“The Plant Investment Company had widened the gauges of its various
roads to the standard measure, has organized the fast mail steamships
between Port Tampa and Havana, and has in many other ways developed the
country and revolutionized the face of nature in that section. A reading
of the names of the directors of the Plant Investment Company shows that
through Mr. Plant other men, such as Mr. Flagler, have been led to
investments in the Gulf States, which are of incalculable value, and
which will perpetually influence the destiny of the South.
“Without entering into the statistical and prosaic relation of railroad
names and technical details, it may be said Mr. Plant stands foremost as
a developer, and that while honor is due him for the creation of so much
wealth, for the integrity of his life, for the energy with which he has
built up the country, yet it is as a public benefactor and as one who
has contributed vastly to the possibility of such an Exposition being
held in the South, that he will be spoken of to-morrow. When he came
here, in 1854, he found the country wedded to a slave-labor system,
which necessarily meant a purely agricultural condition, and under which
it would be impossible to develop manufacturing and other corporative
industries. Without having been connected in any way with the war or
with the politics which preceded it or followed after it, yet he was the
pioneer of that new business which the war made possible, and which
marks the end of the old and the beginning of the new. His career is a
remarkable example of what can be accomplished by untiring industry and
indomitable will. The people of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and
Alabama cheerfully acknowledge the great obligations under which they
have been placed by the labors of this energetic and capable man.
“In recent years he has made his home in New York City, spending each
summer in Branford, Connecticut. He is a member of the Union League Club
and of the New England Society of New York, a man of commanding
appearance, genial of nature, dignified and courteous of manner, and as
modest as he is competent.
“Such a man needs no eulogy. His works speak for him. Such a people as
those of the South need no incentive to recognize worth wherever they
see it. Mr. Plant will be royally received to-morrow, and in the closing
years of his life he may well rest satisfied that a people for whom he
has done so much will not easily forget it, and that his name will be
remembered as one of the men who have served their time and generation,
and who deserve the laurel wreath of immortality.
“Forty-one years of his eventful life have been spent in the South; and
his great fortune has been made in the South. How many important volumes
of history are crowded into those forty-one years! Within that period
this man of affairs has seen four million slaves emancipated; he has
witnessed the greatest war of modern times; he has practically witnessed
the birth of those twin powers--steam and electricity--whose combined
forces have created new conditions of life; he has been an eye-witness
to the tearing down and the upbuilding of States and the adjustment of
the American people to a new environment. And yet, amid all this
kaleidoscopic change, this quiet business man has gone on adding to his
fortune in peace and in panic, in storm and in sunshine, and his
potential force in Southern development will be fittingly recognized and
crowned to-morrow, in a day set apart among the great days of the
Exposition in his honor.
“What superb judgment and business sagacity make up the background of
this picture! Mr. Plant has never sought or held office. His name is not
on the roster of military heroes, nor is it emblazoned on the roll of
those who have won renown in the evolution of statecraft. But in that
great battle of rebuilding States and industrial life in the South he
stands to-day pre-eminent. Behind him, and loyally supporting him, is a
busy industrial army of 12,639 men, and, counting their families, an
army of 60,000 people.
“The lessons of Mr. Plant’s life are simple and should be an inspiration
to young men throughout America. He has avoided politics and
speculation; he has never bought nor built a railroad to sell; he has
never wrecked a property in order to purchase it. He lives, and his
companies live, within their income. He is scrupulously exact in keeping
his engagements, and always acts within the limits of that truth, which
he often quotes, ‘It is easier to promise than it is to perform.’
“The lesson of his life, which the occasion justifies in emphasizing, is
this: Faith in the South and her possibilities is the basis of his great
fortune. When others have faltered he has gone on investing the earnings
of his properties in the South. In his loyal friendship to the South,
and his unwavering faith in her greatness and her coming glory, he has
proven his faith by his work.
“Mr. Plant is one of those remarkable men who master all conditions and
create environment. He is a builder--a creator. A whole State blossoms
at the touch of his magic wand. Thousands and tens of thousands bless
him that he uses and does not bury his talents. Long may he live--an
example to all young men, an inspiration to investors, a true, a loyal,
and a royal friend of the South.”
Surrounded by many of his friends and associates, who had assembled to
pay their respects, Mr. Plant’s anniversary was most auspiciously
ushered in by the foregoing remarks of a representative of the Atlanta
people. But it yet needed the remembrance of the officers and employees
of the Plant System of Railway and Steamship Lines and of the Southern
Express Company to testify the admiration and esteem in which he was
held by the men who served under him. This tribute on the part of the
officers and employees was an unexpected pleasure to Mr. Plant. In
referring to the event, the Atlanta _Constitution_ published the
following account of the presentations and of Mr. Plant’s response:
From the Atlanta _Constitution_, October 28, 1895.
“Mr. H. B. Plant, President of the Plant System of Railway and Steamship
Lines, was complimented yesterday as few great railroad kings have ever
been complimented by the men who compose the vast army of workers under
their direction.
“It was the seventy-sixth birthday of the well-known giant of the
Southern railway world, and he was presented with rich and rare tokens
of the love, honor and affection which his employees bear him.
“It was a happy day all round, and the Plant people fairly revelled in
the privilege of paying such becoming tribute to the man who has done so
much for the Southern States.
“As for Mr. Plant himself, he declared that it was certainly one of the
happiest moments of his life, and the brightest, happiest birthday he
ever enjoyed.
“At a quarter to ten o’clock Mr. Plant was notified that a number of
prominent officials of his various systems of transportation lines were
waiting to see him at his private parlors at the Aragon.
“He met them, and was informed that they wanted to join with him in the
name of every employee of the lines to exchange the congratulations and
compliments of the season of his birthday. Mr. Plant at once summoned
his family and friends, who are with him here, and soon Mrs. Plant, Mrs.
M. A. Wood, Dr. G. Durrant, Rev. Dr. Smythe, and Vice-President M. F.
Plant were in the parlor. There were also present the following friends
and associates in the railway and express business:
“R. G. Erwin, Vice-President and General Counsel, Plant System; M. J.
O’Brien, Vice-President and General Manager, Southern Express Company;
D. F. Jack, Assistant to the President; B. Dunham, General
Superintendent, Plant System of Railways; J. W. Fitzgerald,
Superintendent, Plant Steamship Line; B. W. Wrenn, Passenger Traffic
Manager, Plant System; F. B. Papy, General Freight Agent, Plant System;
Hon. F. G. duBignon, General Counsel; T. W. Leary, Assistant General
Manager, Southern Express Company; G. H. Tilley, Secretary and
Treasurer, Southern Express Company; F. Q. Brown, President, Florida
Southern Railway; Hon. S. G. McLendon, Counsel, Plant System of
Railways; O. M. Sadler, Superintendent Southern Express Company,
Piedmont Division; H. C. Fisher, Superintendent Southern Division,
Southern Express; C. T. Campbell, Superintendent Southern Express
Company, Central Division; W. W. Hulbert, Superintendent Georgia
Division, Southern Express Company; Mark J. O’Brien, Assistant
Superintendent Southern Express Company, Central Division; F. DeC.
Sullivan, New York; E. M. Williams, New York; W. S. Chisholm, member of
the firm of Erwin, DuBignon, & Chisholm, Attorneys for the Plant System
of Railroads, Savannah.
“The room was a scene of rare beauty, there being on every side a huge
bank of flowers, fragrantly speaking the affectionate salute of the
employees of Mr. Plant and members of his family. On one side was a
beautiful vase of American Beauty roses, sent from the main office of
the Plant System in New York, by the employees there.
“Appropriate inscriptions were embroidered in letters of gold on the
ribbons of red, white, and blue tied about the long stems of the roses.
On the other side was a bank of carnations, chrysanthemums, lilies, and
roses from H. B. Plant, Jr. This pleased Mr. Plant greatly, coming from
a little son of Mr. M. F. Plant, a grandson of the distinguished
railroad magnate.
“On a pretty table in the centre was a huge and gorgeous silver cup--a
loving-cup--which was presented to Mr. Plant by Mr. S. G. McLendon, on
behalf of the employees of the railway department of his great System.
It is a most beautiful and elaborate solid silver cup, and will hold two
gallons of champagne. It is, perhaps, the finest and most artistic piece
of work ever made by the Gorham Manufacturing Company, of New York. The
idea conveyed in the loving-cup is a most beautiful one. The cup has
two large handles, and around the festal board is turned from hand to
hand, each guest taking a quaff, the cup being held by two persons. The
cup never touches the board until it has made the round of the guests.
“This cup, presented by the Plant Railway System employees, is
handsomely engraved, and bears on one side this inscription: ‘The
Railway Employees of the Plant System to H. B. Plant, President.’ On the
reverse side is the date, ‘October 27, 1895.’
“In presenting this beautiful token, Mr. S. G. McLendon, attorney for
the Plant System at Thomasville, read the following testimonial on
behalf of the employees:
“‘Mr. Plant:--The employees of the Plant System of Railways extend to
you their sincere and heartfelt congratulations upon this, your
birthday.
“‘As a slight token of their affectionate and loyal regard, they present
you this loving-cup, filled with their best wishes for your continued
health and strength. It was no idle fancy which prompted the selection
of this modest testimonial; its name aptly marks the impulse which
prompted the gift, and which it but inadequately measures by its size.
“‘The author of a great railway system, such as that which bears your
name, must be to all mankind a genuine benefactor; but to you belongs,
in truth, an honor and distinction far more precious.
“‘To promote the well-being of one fellow-man, to upbuild the material
interests of great and growing States, and to see new life, hope, and
promise rise up with smiling face and outstretched, laden hands, is
indeed enough to fulfill the measure of any ordinary ambition; but when
to the gratification which springs from such a consciousness is added
the knowledge that those who labored with and under you in these great
enterprises, whose part it was to follow and obey, are each and all as
loyal and devoted to you personally as you have been, through many years
and trials, to the great interests confided to your care, satisfaction
must ripen into that contentment which only comes when the “softer green
of our better selves” is in the ascendant.
“‘It is the earnest prayer of the employees that for many, many years
yet to come your life and activity may be spared to the great properties
which owe their existence and prosperity to your foresight and sagacity,
and as the seasons come and go, they crave for themselves no higher
privilege than to refill this cup with renewed affection and esteem.
“‘For the employees of the Plant System of Railways.
“‘B. DUNHAM,
“‘General Superintendent.’
“The employees of the steamship lines of the Plant System sent a
handsome and perfect combination compass, barometer, and thermometer as
a fitting birthday present to Mr. Plant. Hon. Fleming duBignon, General
Counsel for the Plant System, read the following letter in making the
presentation on behalf of the men who manage this branch of Mr. Plant’s
vast business:
“‘ATLANTA, GEORGIA, October 27, 1895.
“‘Mr. H. B. PLANT, PRESIDENT.--Dear Sir: The love and confidence of
associates, neighbors and friends are to be valued more than silver and
gold. In this life the point set to bound one’s career ought to be the
esteem of his fellow-men. For such an honor good men strive in all the
protean forms of earthly contest. To gain this reward, to touch the
dust-covered goal with a glowing chariot wheel, is worthy of the
loftiest ambition. No human being can possess any greater glory than the
estimation of the people among whom he lives.
“‘Acting upon the principle that labor conquers all things, and that
time will bring its own rewards, you struck out for yourself into the
great ocean of busy life around you and struggled heroically with its
billows. You were strong and worthy, and your fellow-men were not slow
in making the discovery. Your unbounded faith in the future of this
marvellous section, coupled with your genius and intelligent direction,
have advanced the several States into which your enterprises now extend
into commanding positions of commercial superiority. Your ships have not
drifted like dead sea-weeds upon the tops of sleepy waves, but, laden
with the rich treasures of this and other climes, have travelled the
wide seas over as a public benefaction. The mind of man cannot measure,
nor can the tongue of man describe, the practical good your energies
have accomplished. The Plant System, consisting of many thousands of
miles of telegraph, express, railway, and steamship lines, founded by
your genius, is a monument to your memory more lasting than brass and
more enduring than marble.
“‘Concealing quick feelings under an appearance of reserve, you have
never deemed it a weakness to give sway to the influence of loving and
sympathetic emotions. Your benevolences, therefore, have made life
beautiful to many people. Associated with you for so long a time, it is
natural that we, the employees of the Plant Steamship Line, should feel
a filial pride in the success of your varied and various undertakings.
We are proud of the history you have made. We come to-day, therefore, to
bring you our greetings, to manifest our love and admiration, and to
express the hope that your useful and distinguished life may be spared
many years to your country, family, and friends.
“‘As an evidence of our affection and respect, we herewith present you,
as a fitting birthday gift, this compass, commonly used for directing
and ascertaining the course of ships over a waste of waters. This
compass is fitted with a magnetic needle which points ever to the north,
enabling the tempest-tossed mariner to hold his way over the stormy sea
when there is neither cape nor headland, sun, moon, nor stars, nor any
mark in the heavens or on the earth to tell him when or where or how to
steer.
“‘We pray that the star of destiny, like this mysterious needle, will
ever guide and help you to keep an unfaltering step along the dangerous
crags and treacherous precipices which beset the pathway of every man,
and that your life may be long and useful “in the land that the Lord,
thy God, giveth thee.”
“‘Truly yours,
“‘J. W. FITZGERALD.
“‘On behalf of the employees of the Plant Steamship Line.’
“The Southern Express men presented their president with a handsome
marine glass.
“The following testimonial, read by T. W. Leary, Assistant General
Manager of the Southern Express Company, which was organized by Mr.
Plant in 1853, explains the sentiment conveyed with the gift:
“‘ATLANTA, GEORGIA, October 27, 1895.
“‘MR. H. B. PLANT, President Southern Express Company.--Dear Sir: The
employees of the Southern Express Company extend to you on this
anniversary of your birthday cordial greetings, fraught with sentiments
of highest respect and esteem, inspired by the kindly courtesy and
impartial consideration which have ever marked your intercourse with
them.
“‘Regarding you not alone as an official superior, but also as a
personal friend, sensible to their welfare and the true relationship of
the employer and the employee, exemplified by your long career in
friendly association with those with whom you have called around you in
the conduct of the company’s affairs, they are glad to avail themselves
of this auspicious occasion to manifest the interest it inspires within
them by an offering in token of their appreciation and good will.
“‘It is, therefore, the privilege and pleasure of the undersigned, in
behalf of the employees of the Southern Express Company, to present to
you the accompanying testimonial, coupled with heartfelt wishes that as
things viewed through its lenses are brought clearer and closer to
vision, so with each succeeding return of the day this glass
commemorates, may you see the nearer fruition of the unremitting labor
of years devoted to the upbuilding of those important enterprises with
the history of which your name is indissolubly connected.
“‘Commending this souvenir to your acceptance with the united hope of
those from whom it comes that continued health, strength, and success
may be granted you in the future, we are, yours faithfully,
“‘F. L. COOPER, “‘W. A. DEWEES, “‘W. M. SHOEMAKER, “‘Committee.’
“After the above letters were read, Mr. Plant addressed those present in
substance as follows:
“‘Gentlemen of the Plant System of Railroads and Steamship Lines and of
the Southern Express Company, and my Friends: I thank you sincerely for
the beautiful presents which you have given me on this the anniversary
of my birth, and for the loving words of congratulation which accompany
them.
“‘While it reached my ears that there was to be some observance of the
occasion, I am wholly unprepared for the magnificence of the gifts and
the demonstration of fidelity and affection with which they are
accompanied, and I am, therefore, unable to do justice to myself in
expressing to you the appreciation I feel. I speak from a full heart,
and can more than fill this beautiful loving-cup with affection and
esteem for you, and for the employees whose feelings towards me are
manifested not only by this testimonial, but as well by their constant
and untiring devotion to the trusts confided to them through many years.
To them, in a large measure, is due such success as has crowned my
efforts in railway construction and management, and I now take pleasure
in making this acknowledgment, and in assuring them of my continued
confidence in them, and of my gratitude to them; without their
unflagging efforts no measure of success could have been achieved. I
look to them all with the fall assurance that the future, with their
assistance, will result in still greater accomplishments in our railway
enterprises.
“‘This compass, the gift of the employees of the Plant Steamship Line,
brings to my mind the thought that, whatever may have been my mistakes
in life, I have always had one aim, which, like the needle, though
oscillating and varying at times in some slight degree, pointed ever to
one end, and that was to endeavor to do what was right and just.
“‘Our steamships were the children of my later years, and they, with the
faithful employees who operate them, are, and shall continue to be, very
near to my heart.
“‘The gift of the employees of the Southern Express Company brings to
my mind pictures of the past. The express business was my first love,
and I see here present those who were with me in troublous times, and
bore with me the heat and burden of the fight. Their affection and
loyalty have sustained me in many an anxious moment, and the knowledge
that I had around me those upon whom I could count in every peril has
enabled me to achieve some measure of success. To extend to them my
thanks for all that they have been to me and done for me would be idle.
They know how I feel towards them, and I am sure I know how they feel
towards me.
“‘I wish to say to you all that I am more apt to express my feelings in
acts than in words; many of the employees of our several companies have
been with me so long that they have become as members of my family. I
feel towards all the employees that in a business sense they are members
of my family and I want them to feel that they bear this relation to me.
“‘I see with us to-day one to whom I feel I owe much; I refer to Dr. G.
Durrant, of New York. I had a severe attack of illness last May, but did
not know until long after it was over how near to death I was. To his
untiring and faithful attention, both as a good friend and as a skilled
physician, I owe my recovery, perhaps my life, and it gives me pleasure
to take this occasion to express my confidence in him and my thanks to
him.
“‘These beautiful flowers on my left came to me from my little grandson,
and I bespeak in his behalf from you all the love and affection which
you have shown to me, and express the hope that in days to come, when I
am no more with you, he may be one of yourselves and a co-worker in the
enterprises which all the employees of our companies sustain by their
energies and their work.
“‘These flowers on my right come from those at our New York office, some
of whom cannot be with us to-day in person, but who are with us in
spirit and love and testify their memory of the occasion by this
beautiful remembrance.
“‘Mr. and Mrs. Frank Q. Brown, of Boston, have presented me with this
cane, which I appreciate very highly, but will hope that I may not need
to have immediate use for it, though if that time should come it will be
a staff upon which I will gladly lean. Mr. Brown is now one of us, and
though he has but lately come among us, I am sure you will all welcome
the President of the Florida Southern Railway in our ranks.’ [Applause.]
“It was the happiest of seasons for Mr. Plant, and his face beamed
brightly with the light of profound gladness.
“All day there was a stream of distinguished callers, who congratulated
him on the day with good wishes for many returns. Letters and telegrams
and cablegrams were read, all bearing the hearty congratulations of
friends and employees.”
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER XIV.
Tampa Bay Hotel, One of the Modern Wonders of the World--Its
Architecture, Furniture, Works of Art, Decorations, Tapestries,
Paintings, Inlaid Table and Three Ebony and Gold Cabinets from the
Tuileries, a Sofa and Two Chairs once Owned by Marie
Antoinette--The Dream of De Soto Realized--A Palace of Art for the
Delight and Joy of Those who are in Health, and an Elysium for the
Sad and Sorrowful.
The following account of the Tampa Bay Hotel, from the pen of W. C.
Prime, is taken from the New York _Journal of Commerce_:
“The most charming book in all the world of literature is the collection
of tales known to common fame as the _Arabian Nights_. Their charm
consists in the total freedom from all restraints of verities, of either
probabilities or possibilities. Events occur in dreamlike succession,
and transformations take place with such delicious swiftness and ease
that, if you read the story as you should, with forgetfulness of self,
and without any of the folly of critical judgment, you are removed into
another world than this--a world of refreshing liberty, wherein thought
has no bounds and imagination flows in glorious revelry.
“That which the unknown Saracen story-teller created in words and
fancies, this late nineteenth century seeks to create in reality, by the
aid of wealth and steam and electricity. It does not succeed. But it
comes so near to success that we may wonder and admire, and for a moment
at a time we can forget that the result is artificial, not natural, and
that it is a miracle of human invention which dazzles and astonishes our
senses. All this by way of introduction to my letter....
“The scene changed suddenly. The train emerged into a blaze of electric
light. By this blaze of light you could see, high in the air and
stretching a thousand feet to right and left, bright domes and minarets,
appearing and disappearing with all the swiftness of magic. It was
bewildering. A few steps lead into the blinding light of the grand hall
of the new hotel, a wilderness of all that is gorgeous in works of
modern art. Rich furniture in gold and ebony, velvets, tapestries, grand
vases of porcelain, massive figures in pottery, bronzes in groups, small
and of life size, oil-paintings, works of masters, etchings, engravings,
carvings, in short, countless examples of the most costly and superb art
productions of the age, under a flood of light from a hundred electric
bands; all this bursting on the gaze of the traveller at the end of his
journey, it forms what may well be considered a modern artificial
approximation to one of the transformations in dreams of the Saracens.
“It is not to be denied that this Tampa Bay Hotel is one of the modern
wonders of the world. It is a product of the times. It illustrates the
age, the demands of the people, what they enjoy, and what they are
willing to pay for. I have no space to enter into a description of it.
It would require a guide-book for a full description. ‘It is splendid,
but it is incongruous,’ said a friend. ‘Why should it be incongruous?’
was my reply. ‘It is a hotel, not a private house.’ There is,
nevertheless, a sufficiency of uniformity in the building and
decorations, while the general principle of the furnishing is in
harlequin style, which is most pleasing to the mass of visitors. Each
work of art (of which there are hundreds and hundreds) is chosen by some
one who has exercised taste of high order. The objects are good, each
worthy of examination. The many large tapestries are costly, and are
fine works. The paintings are of extraordinary rank. There is no more
striking feature of the furniture than the table porcelains. These are
exquisite works of ceramic art. The plates are of infinite variety. You
may have your beef on a very charming bit of French porcelain, your
salad on a reproduction of an old Vienna plate of semi-Saracenic
pattern, your ice on one of the little plates designed by Moritz
Fischer, and copied elsewhere, your coffee in a very perfect repetition
of one of Wedgewood’s simple and lovely bordered cups. In fact, there is
no end to the variety of these lovely porcelains. And just here I may
add, that the cooking and the service are unexceptionable. The table is
of the very best class, and equal to that of any hotel in the world.
This, too, is miraculous, in a new house at this remote point.
“I may sum up a sketch of the hotel in a few words. There is nothing
cheap, nothing inferior in it. Money has been freely expended in the
purchase of the most costly objects, in all departments of art, for
furniture and decorations; good taste has been exercised in the
selection of these objects, and they are brought together in lavish
profusion. The building is vast in extent. The grounds around it have
been rescued from savage nature and reduced to order and beauty. The
river is in front and Tampa lies across the river, which is narrowed to
less than three hundred feet wide. Some hundred palmetto trees have been
transplanted to form a grove near the river. Orange blossoms in
neighboring orchards fill the air with their odor. Pineapples grow in
luxuriance. To one who knew this spot as I knew it years ago, the
gorgeous hotel and its surroundings may well seem the creation of a
dream.”
Mr. Henry G. Parker, in the Boston _Saturday Evening Gazette_, writes:
“It was reserved for the sagacious and enterprising railroad and
steamboat magnate, Mr. H. B. Plant, to reap the honor of erecting in
tropical Florida the most attractive, most original, and most beautiful
hotel in the South, if not in the whole country; and it is a hotel of
which the whole world needs to be advised. It has one vase, which is the
admiration and wonder of all who behold it, in the grand office rotunda,
where ladies and gentlemen congregate at all hours of the day and
evening. The entire estate, including land and building, cost two
millions of dollars, and the furniture and fittings half a million more.
No one who does not see it and dwell in it for at least a day, can form
the faintest idea of the comprehensiveness of its purpose, the breadth
of its plan, the ideal refinement of its comforts, the noble scale of
its luxuries. Nothing offends the eye or the taste at any point, and
while the first view of the hotel exteriorly is impressive, the effect
produced by a first glance on entering its broad and inviting portals is
one of astonishment and delight.
“The architecture of the Tampa Bay Hotel is Moorish, patterned after the
palaces in Spain. The horseshoe and crescent are everywhere visible in
its design, and minarets and domes tower above the great building, which
is five stories high above the basement. The house is constructed of
Atlanta red brick with rolled steel beams, and brick partitions, floors,
and ceilings, and so is absolutely fire-proof.
“Numerous flights of stone steps lead up by easy ascent to the long
verandas that extend along each side of the structure. These piazzas
vary in width from sixteen to twenty-six feet. The length of the main
building is 511 feet, but with the solarium and dining-room, which are
connected with it, the house affords a continuous walk of twelve hundred
feet, and the walk around it on the outside is exactly one mile. On the
building there are thirteen minarets and domes, each surmounted with a
gilt crescent, making in all a complete lunar year. The hotel contains,
nearly five hundred rooms.
“The drawing-room, in perfect taste throughout, is a museum of beautiful
things, embracing fine contrasts, rich harmonies, and pleasant
innovations that render it indeed ‘a joy forever.’ Here there is an
inlaid table which once graced the Tuileries, as did also three ebony
and gold cabinets. On the table is a rare bit of sculpture, _The
Sleeping Beauty_, in Carrara marble. There are a sofa and two chairs
that were owned by Marie Antoinette. A set of four chairs may be seen
that belonged to Louis Philippe. Then there are numerous French and
Japanese cabinets, and above each is suspended a dazzling crystal
mirror. All these and hundreds of other wonderful things were
personally secured in Europe by Mr. Plant and his accomplished wife,
while Boston, New York, and Grand Rapids have been drawn upon for what
is best in their specialties in useful and ornamental furniture.
“The dining-room is octagon in shape, lighted from above, and is
decorated with costly and elegant tapestries and Japanese screens. Its
tables and nicely upholstered chairs are the very acme of comfort, and
the whole apartment is tempting, aside from the unsurpassed excellence
of the cuisine. The waiters are well groomed and well trained, having
gained their knowledge and their courtesy in the leading hotels and
clubs of New York. The _chef_ is Joseph P. Campazzi, celebrated all over
this country. He has fourteen first-class assistants, besides a dozen
others, in his kitchen, which is the largest, most thoroughly equipped
and most convenient to be found in the United States. He has arranged
his departments for the care of meats, game, and fish on a plan of his
own, which is worthy the attention and examination of every _chef_ in
the land. His ice-box contains between four and five tons, and he
provides also for The Inn (also Mr. Plant’s property), at Tampa Port,
and for the Havana steamers of the Plant Line. Meats are shipped in a
refrigerator car from New York, while game goes from Baltimore, and
largely from the sportsmen in and about Tampa. Fish is to be found in
great variety and abundance in Southern Florida, at very low prices, and
red snapper, pompano, sheepshead, and shad, deliciously cooked, are
always to be found upon the table. Giovanni Carretta, who for fifteen
years enjoyed a remarkable fame in New York at Delmonico’s and the Union
Club, is the pastry-cook, and his deft hand has lost none of its wonted
cunning. Rossi, from the Manhattan Club, is the baker.
“There are two hundred employees in the Tampa Bay Hotel, all of them
carefully selected with a view to their special fitness for the places
they fill. The chambers and suites are handsome and convenient
proportionately with the public rooms. The carpets everywhere are
harmonious in color, restful to the eye, and in the best of taste; more
than thirty thousand yards of them have been laid.
“The music-room is a special feature. It is large, well ventilated,
attractive in its circular form, simple in decoration, has a raised
stage, and its acoustic properties are fine. Moreover, the band is
superb. It consists of sixteen picked and skillful musicians, six of
whom were taken from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Their performances
of classical music, as well as of the tuneful and delicious dance music,
will stand the test of severe criticism, and not be found wanting. This
important feature of entertainment is to be maintained at any cost, and
it affords a great deal of pleasure to all who visit the Tampa Bay
Hotel.
“Tampa is of interest historically, being the place where Ferdinand De
Soto landed, May 25, 1539. From there he started on his search for the
mines of wealth supposed to exist in the New World, which resulted in
the discovery of the Mississippi River. There also Navarez, having
obtained a grant of Florida from Charles V. of Spain, landed with a
large force, April 16, 1528. Tampa is on the Gulf coast of Florida, 240
miles from Jacksonville. There are two trains daily, with Pullman cars,
from Jacksonville and St. Augustine to Tampa, passing through Palatka,
Sanford, and Winter Park, both having direct connection with all Eastern
and Western cities, and one being a through train from New York. Its
rapid growth during the past seven years, from eight hundred inhabitants
to as many thousands, has been brought about by the Plant System having
completed the South Florida Railroad to Tampa for the purpose of
developing it commercially. The climate is perfect, and it is the only
city in Florida with all the advantages of both inland and coast without
the inconvenience of either; the only city that affords all the delights
of a sportsman’s life to hunter and fisher, yachtsmen and horsemen,
along with first-class business facilities in all directions. No malaria
ever infects the delicious air, and the water is as soft as lavender. It
is the place of places for invalids, and a lapse of two years will see
Tampa the most important business city in its State. We are writing, not
for the interest of the Tampa Bay Hotel alone, fine as it is, but to
impart information and to convey suggestions that may be valuable to
many of our readers. By no means fail to go as far as Tampa if you visit
Florida in this tempestuous winter.”
AT TAMPA BAY.
“Was it not some old reportorial ruse played upon the credulity of the
ancients that made the story of Aladdin’s wonderful lamp to live in
literature and come down to us through the ages to make us listen with
open ears, gape with open mouth, and wonder with open eyes at the
wonders of it--and I wonder if that ancient reporter could prove in any
way the foundation of his story of the lamp and the rubbing of it. Aye,
there’s the rub--I think he couldn’t prove it. He might show the lamp,
but no palace would rise up at his rubbing, however hard. _But_, to-day,
the vision may be produced and the palace reared, and yet no lamp to
rub. I would lead to a land where balmy breezes blow and sigh among the
pines, and make the feathery palm trees wave as nodding plumes. Coming
out from under these, on a night when the moon is bright, to the banks
of a beautiful river with banks fringed with ferns, look across its
waters where the moon and stars are reflected and so many, many lights
that are on the river’s other shore, there the palace is, a brighter
than Aladdin’s, and more beautiful. That’s Tampa Bay. That your coming
under these pines and palms may be in a palace car, produces no
disillusion,--there’s a palace at Tampa Bay.
“It might have been, in the long centuries agone, when his ship floated
lazily and his barges glided noiselessly over the waters to the
fern-fringed banks of Tampa’s river, that that ancient and original
tourist, on the same mission bent as those of to-day, in search of the
fount of perpetual youth, might have looked, disheartened, on the
tangled forest and heard the moaning of the winds through the pines that
brought no tidings of a land of life.
“I wonder if in his dreams that night, when his ship came in to Tampa
Bay, this grand old Grandee was back in his castles in Spain, and
sported in fantastic fandango with the dark-browed Señorita of fair
Castile. Was his dream a prophetic vision that it seemed to be an
Alhambra just there under the lee of his ship, or did some grander
palace with Moorish minarets and silvered domes, glistening with more
silvery brightness under the rays of a tropic moon, topped with golden
crescents that could only come from the Orient to ornament its towers
high above the pines, seem to be here in this far-off land--a dream
passing all realization. And what a disappointing awakening awaited this
ancient cavalier who sought the waters that would make him young again,
for when the morning came, and the sun shone brightly, the knight must
have trod the deck with restless impatience; the vision of last night
carried him back to lordly Spain, the awakening brought him here again,
and only a lofty pine stood in the place of the tallest tower, the
swaying top was not a silver dome, and the mournful moaning in its
boughs fell not as sweetly on his ear as the tinkling tingle of guitars
and his dream-made mandolins. And I am sure, in haste he left a spot so
disappointing, and perhaps to the tune of ‘Over the Hills and Far Away,’
marched to find the great Mississippi.
“I say, perhaps old De Soto dreamed all this when he landed here at
Tampa, and if he did, behold ’t was prophecy--for the swaying pines have
toppled and in their places have risen higher the golden crescents of
the Orient, and the silvered domes and Moorish minarets that ornament a
palace, and here at Tampa Bay the Spaniard’s dream has been realized two
hundred years after.
“The tourist of to-day does not approach from the direction of his
illustrious predecessor, but has the decided advantage, whether the
coming be by night or day. If by day, the grandly magnificent picture
comes suddenly upon the view as the train makes a turn and stops
between the little town and the river. The foreground is the river, the
middle distance, green sloping lawns dotted with flowers, around whose
beds are winding walks that circle fountains and lead through groves of
palms and oranges to the pines beyond, the same great pines that De Soto
walked under in the struggle to get off his ‘sea legs.’ In the
brightness of a semi-tropic sun the domes and crescents glisten
intensely, and the massive pile grows to immensity. The broad galleries
extend all along the front, the roof commencing above the third-story
windows, slopes gently, so as not to obstruct the view, and at its outer
edge drops in huge ornaments, in arched and hanging pendants ending in
brackets at every column, and at the walls; the grateful shade inviting
as on a summer’s day.
“The lawn, carefully kept and green as one of Kentucky’s own, has a
miniature fort with mounted cannon and a flagstaff that floats the
country’s colors by day, and sports a crescent of electric fire at
night. The fountains, the flowers, and tropic fruits growing here as if
’twas their natural home, serve as ornaments. A dainty little boat-house
at the bottom of the lawn is headquarters for all sorts of boats for
rowing or sailing, as well as for naphtha and steam launches. The view
from the cars comprises all this, as also from the bridge that spans the
river from the hotel to the town. The intending guest need not leave
the train here; after a short stop it will cross the river and come
right to the galleries of the west entrance and stop under the shadow of
the great hotel at Tampa Bay.
“If in the ecstacy of a first impression I likened this to a palace of
Spain that Ponce de Leon might have dreamed of, I had no retraction to
make when the second day of my visit came and I saw it with modern
surroundings of railway and steamer--it is a palace still, and more of
that than the hotel, and in its appointments more like a gentleman’s
residence on a scale exaggerated to positive magnificence--totally
unlike any other, and it is no disparagement to any to say it is the
most unique in the world--I was about to say of its kind--it has no
kind; there is none other in similarity with it, and taken all in all is
the finest in the world.
“I say this not without thought of what it means--the Ponce de Leon at
St. Augustine may have cost more dollars to build, decorate, and
furnish, and the name and fame of the Ponce de Leon has gone to the four
quarters, and ’tis not intended to compare invidiously. Here at Tampa
Bay, the surroundings take one back through the centuries even before De
Soto came, and this may have been the very spot where he landed.
“The horseshoe arches of the Moorish curve are everywhere, from the
grand galleries to the rotunda doors, in the salon entrances and to the
grand banquet hall, for it is nothing less, and every minaret is
crescent crested, and passing under them leads to some old picture,
antique, or cabinet that ornamented some palace hall before the land on
which this one stands had been discovered,--and herein is the argument
that this is the only one in the world. The others boast of their
‘especially made’ appointments, while these were made before the land
was discovered.
“The rotunda is a grand assembly hall with its polished floors, rich
carpets and hangings, antique vases and bric-a-brac, divans and
luxurious lounges, as little like a hotel office as the ‘east room’ of
the White House is like a railway station. The apartment is
seventy-eight feet square and is thirty feet from the floor to the
ceiling. The massive doors are of Spanish mahogany, highly polished,
encasing heavy plates of bevelled glass, the frames are carved in
designs of great beauty. Thirteen marble columns support a balcony that
looks over from the second floor, around which is a carved rail, also in
Spanish mahogany.
“The Moorish and Spanish styles which prevail in the architectural work
do not always obtain in the decorations and furnishings--the divans in
the rotunda were once in the Tuileries salons, and there is an original
portrait in oil of Louis XIV. of France, also a clock of the same
period. The paintings are varied in design, as they are in age and
history, and every one, every antique and cabinet, has its history. On
one wall is a beautiful canvas, the _Return from the Masquerade_, on
another, _Wine, Woman, and Song_, these suggest the gay side of life,
while some of the old faded examples of the school of long ago carry one
back to the old masters. Two dwarfs in bronze that suggest the Black
Forest legends guard the entrance to the hall of the grand salon, and
near them are two Japanese vases, six feet high, which were exhibited at
the Vienna exposition.
“Mirrors in antique frames rich in gilded carvings are on the walls,
massive doors in bevelled glass lead to parlors, halls, libraries, and
writing rooms, electric lights are imbedded in the ceilings and walls,
and hang down in chandeliers. This is the rotunda. The business office
occupies the smallest corner, as if it was of the smallest importance in
a hall so replete with ornament and so devoted to comfort and luxury.
The telegraph and ticket offices are also in the rotunda, and everything
that pertains to the more prosaic business ideas--but they do not
intrude upon the dreamy existence that obtains from the antique
surroundings.
“The grand parlor is magnificent. Every nook and corner has some dainty
bit to show a woman’s hand has been here, and in all the grand
apartment shows what might have been done by a princess in her own
house. It was a woman’s design that this divan should have growing
flowers from its centre, and between the seat-arms, that roses and
calla-lilies should mingle their perfume where beauty holds sway. Her
idea that this cabinet, three hundred years old, should be brought from
some castle in Seville or Salamanca to ornament this salon. It is an
exquisite piece with inlaid woods, ebony, pearl, and ivory, with quaint
little paintings under marvellously clear glass in the carved panels.
The bronzes, gildings, and inlaid woods of the cabinets contrast with
the white and gold of the surrounding decorations in pleasing effect.
The white and gold of the upholstery and the hangings have their beauty
enhanced by the shaded electric lights in ground glass, softly tinted,
that are set in the arched dome above; the light falls on these
cabinets, tables inlaid in a hundred woods and pearl and ivory,
bric-a-brac and candelabra from every land. Paintings not from this shop
or that, but from the old masters to salon celebrities of modern times.
One is a portrait of Marguerite de Valois and another of the Duc de
Savoy. On the mantels and cabinets are some beautiful, exquisitely
chased ewers and drinking cups in silver, and busts of Elizabeth of
England and Mary, Queen of Scots, in very rare silver bronze.
“There is marble statuary in exquisite designs from the chisels of the
best sculptors--some Sedan chairs with the eagle of France in their
decorations.
“The drawing-room is a museum of beautiful things, embracing fine
contrasts, rich harmonies, and pleasant innovations that render it
indeed ‘a joy forever.’ Here, there is an inlaid table which once graced
the Tuileries, as did also three ebony and gold cabinets. On the table
is a rare bit of sculpture, ‘The Sleeping Beauty,’ in Carrara marble.
There, are a sofa and two chairs that were owned by Marie Antoinette. A
set of four chairs may be seen that belonged to Louis Philippe. Then
there are numerous French and Japanese cabinets, and above each is
suspended a dazzling crystal mirror.
“There are eight cabinets of antique pattern that have been brought from
this or that province of old Spain, gathered in their travels by Mr. and
Mrs. Plant, and _not_, as I have said, ordered from this factory or
that, in the ordinary way of the modern hostelrie.
“The carpet--scarlet, with its black lions rampant, made in France--is a
replica of one of Louis XIV., and covers the entire floor of this
splendid salon, in which are chairs of gold and silk and plush of the
same era--as there are also tapestries of incalculable values and
richness that have hung in palaces before they came to this one. The
writing and reading rooms just off the rotunda are furnished in the
same unique manner--one which might be called ‘the Louis XIV. room’ has
all its decorations and appointments of the era of that monarch; these
are replicas, or in some cases originals.
“In the grand chambers the style is not less regal; in magnificence
these surpass anything I have ever seen; no two of them are alike. They
range in size from the grand suite of complete living apartments with
parlors and libraries, to the chamber for two, with silken hangings of
gros-grain watered silk, in white and delicate rose color; a canopied
dressing-case, as dainty as the bride who may stand before it to attire
her pretty self for the grand halls outside her door. The guest rooms on
the floors above have every convenience known to modern inventive
genius, including telephone connection with the office and through a
‘central’ to every other room in the house. A grand hall-way extends
from south to north seven hundred feet, passing through the rotunda.
Just south of the rotunda is the grand staircase, with its life-size
bronzes, holding groups of electric lights, and near by are the
elevators to the upper floors. The north hall passes from the rotunda by
the grand parlors to the gracefully rounding curve of the solarium till
it ends, where shall I say it ends?--in modern parlance at the
dining-hall, but what might be the banquet-room of a Moorish king, with
its lofty dome and arches that rest on fluted pillars.
“There is no more striking feature than the table porcelain. These are
exquisite works of ceramic art. The plates are of infinite variety. You
may have your beef on a very charming bit of French porcelain, your
salad on a reproduction of an old Vienna plate of semi-Saracenic
pattern, your ice on one of the little plates designed by Moritz Fischer
and copied elsewhere, your coffee in a very perfect repetition of one of
Wedgewood’s simple and lovely bordered cups. In fact, there is no end to
the variety of these lovely porcelains. And just here I may add that the
cooking and the service are unexceptional. The table is of the very best
class and equal to that of any hotel in the world.
“The room may not be faithfully described in its frescoes and its lights
and pictures, any more than I could satiate your appetite by copying the
menu here--it can’t be done.
“Just at the end of this hall and very near the entrance to the
dining-room is a grand orchestrion, which, with interchangeable rollers,
plays the latest music, from the popular airs of the day to the classic
productions of the great composers.
“Just off the rotunda is the music-room with its waxed floor for
terpsichorean uses. There is a perfect stage suitable for concert,
lecture, or tableau, there are foot-lights, and overhead, the electric
fire gleams in a star and crescent group. The room is circular in form
with broad galleries extending around it, so the company may sit in the
open air and listen to the music or look in upon the dancers. These
broad galleries extend on the west and east side, forming a grand
promenade for the gay company such a place attracts.
“The interior scenes under the brilliant glow of the lights is
entertaining, but I remember in more dreamy way a stroll by moonlight,
down by the river under the palmettos. The moon shone bright and made a
wide silver ribbon far up the broad river and across it, and here came
to me the idea of Ponce de Leon’s dream.
“The arched and towered façade, the silvered dome, again silvered by the
moon’s rays, lifted up more brightly against the star-lit sky, the
crescented minarets, the electric-fired crescent on the color-staff, the
lights from a hundred windows, the soft patter of the water in the
fountains falling on the lily-pads, the perfume of the flowers, the
splash of an oar and the half murmur of a love song from him who
splashed the oar. Think you this is not an Alhambric picture? Then you
have not read of the Alhambra nor seen Tampa Bay.”
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER XV.
Programme of Plant Day Ceremonies--Ringing of the Liberty
Bell--Presentation of Addresses to Mr. Plant in the great
Auditorium--His Reply--Resolutions from the Different Departments
of the System, from the Savannah Board of Trade, etc.--Mr. Morton
F. Plant’s Acknowledgments.
Knowing that all employees would be unable to attend the celebration in
Atlanta, President Plant requested the superintendents of the railways,
steamship, and express interests to allow such men as could be spared
from duty without detriment to the operative departments to be present,
and also requested that special train service should be provided for
their accommodation. This request of the president was so heartily
carried out by the superintendents, and so willingly accepted by the
employees, that three special trains of the Plant System, carrying
several thousand employees, rolled into the Union Depot in Atlanta at an
early hour Monday morning, October 28th. In order that all might be
fully informed of the movements of their worthy president, and of the
programme of the day, the following notice was published in the Atlanta
_Constitution_ of October 28, 1895:
“Mr. Plant will call on Governor Atkinson at 10 o’clock this morning.
“He will be at the Exposition grounds at 12 o’clock, when the Columbian
bell will ring for the first time, in his honor.
“At 1 o’clock all the employees of the Plant System will assemble at the
Auditorium on the grounds, at which time addresses will be delivered by
President Collier, on behalf of the Exposition Company, and Mayor King,
on behalf of the city of Atlanta. Mr. Plant will respond to these
addresses.
“Music will be furnished by Innes’s band, and, after Mr. Plant’s speech,
resolutions, congratulatory and otherwise, will be read on behalf of the
employees of the system and commercial bodies.
“At 3 P.M. Mr. Plant will be at the Plant System Building, which is one
of the most picturesque on the grounds. He will spend some time making a
close inspection of the exhibit that has been placed there and which has
attracted such attention all the while from visitors to the great fair.
“At 8 o’clock this evening a banquet will be tendered Mr. Plant at the
Aragon.”
Mr. Plant placed himself in the hands of his friends for the day, and
carried out to the letter the programme as above set forth, in order
that he might have opportunity of meeting the employees at the
Exposition. Such of us who had the pleasure of being present and of
personally congratulating the gentleman will be pleased, no doubt, to
read the following account of the day’s proceedings, and to those who
were less fortunate it will be interesting to hear what the Atlanta
_Constitution_, of the 29th of October, had to say of “Plant System Day
at the Exposition.”
“Eloquent indeed was the demonstration of affection and loyalty by the
employees of the Plant System to their great chieftain, Henry B. Plant,
yesterday at the celebration of Plant System Day at the Exposition.
“Never was there such an ovation to any living railroad magnate in the
Southern States. The day was beautiful and bright and most auspicious,
and the exercises in the auditorium at the Exposition grounds were
profoundly interesting and impressive.
“Early in the morning Mr. Plant was driven to the Exposition grounds in
a carriage, the rest of his party accompanying him in other carriages.
They drove through the grounds, and at 12 o’clock sharp they stopped at
the Columbian bell, near the Forestry Building, and, in accordance with
the programme as arranged, the bell was rung many times over in honor of
the great railroader. The bell was rung by Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Plant,
assisted by Mrs. Wood, Mrs. B. W. Wrenn, Major O’Brien, and Mrs. Tilley.
“Those present at the ringing of the bell were: Mrs. H. B. Plant, Mrs.
W. A. Wood, Mrs. B. W. Wrenn, Mrs. George H. Tilley, Mrs. Porter King,
Mr. H. B. Plant, Mr. R. G. Erwin, Mr. M. F. Plant, Dr. G. H. Smythe, Mr.
G. H. Tilley, Major M. J. O’Brien, and Col. B. W. Wrenn.
“The party then drove through the grounds, and after a brief glimpse of
the splendid Exposition from the carriages while passing, they went to
the Auditorium, where the regular programme of the day was to be carried
out.
“Long before they arrived at the auditorium the hall was fairly packed
with the employees of the Plant System of Railroads and of the Southern
Express Company, of which Mr. Plant is president. The distinguished
party, consisting of Mr. Plant and his family and a number of friends,
arrived at the eastern side of the auditorium and entered the vast hall
through the doorway to the stage.
“At the first sight of them the vast multitude of people within gave a
round of applause which lasted for a long time, and which was a becoming
greeting from the several thousands of Mr. Plant’s employees to him at
such a season.
“When Mr. Plant and his companions were seated on the stage, the
applause ceased and order was restored in the hall. On the platform,
Mrs. H. B. Plant was seated on the left of Mr. Plant. There were also
there Mrs. W. G. Wood, Mrs. G. H. Tilley, Mrs. B. W. Wrenn, Mr. M. F.
Plant, Mr. R. G. Erwin, Mr. M. J. O’Brien, Mr. S. G. McLendon, Mr. G. H.
Tilley, Mr. A. A. Wiley, Mayor Porter King, Vice-President W. A.
Hemphill, of the Exposition Company; Mr. W. F. Vandiver, Mr. Fleming G.
duBignon, Mr. W. C. Bibb, Judge Robert Falligant, Hon. W. B. Thompson,
formerly Second Assistant Postmaster-General; Hon. W. H. Brawley, U. S.
District Judge; Mr. F. Q. Brown, Mr. G. W. Adair, and others.
“After music by the Innes Band, Vice-President W. A. Hemphill, of the
Exposition Company, acting as president in the absence of President
Charles Collier, arose and addressed the vast audience on behalf of the
Exposition Company, bidding them a cordial welcome to the fair.
“Mr. Hemphill said:
“‘Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen:--I have no doubt that the
welcome that Mr. Collier was to have given you to-day would have been
the most pleasant duty he would have had to perform since the opening of
the Exposition, but he was suddenly called away, and wired me to welcome
you.
“‘This is an hour of thanks and congratulations. The Board thanks you
for the interest you have taken in our Exposition. We thank you for the
magnificent exhibit of the resources along your line that you have made
at our Exposition, and for the competent people you have placed in
charge of it. We thank you for your presence here to-day, and we are
highly honored that so many distinguished people are here with us.
“‘Mr. President, we congratulate you upon the magnificent system of
railroads and steamships that you have builded up. Your life and example
have been a great thing for the young men of this country to profit by
[applause], showing them what it is possible for them to attain. We
congratulate you, sir, upon your birthday, and we wish that you may live
to observe many happy birthdays and that each one may be brighter than
the one preceding it. [Applause.]
“‘What an opportunity this Exposition has given to the States of this
section! The State that has neglected to be represented here has missed
the opportunity of its history. I am glad, sir, from your side, that
Florida is represented here. Her grand resources of factory, of mines,
of forest, of rivers, her fruits and flowers, are here to show our
visiting friends from the North what a great country Florida is.
[Applause.]
“‘We thank you, sir, for being such a friend to the South. You have
spent more money and developed more territory in this section than any
other man in the Union. [Great applause.] We thank you and honor you for
it, and we hope you will live to see the day when your railroad lines
will extend all over this country [applause]; when your steamships will
plow the Atlantic Ocean and reach the ports of Europe. We hope, sir,
that you will live to see the building of the Nicaragua Canal; when your
steamships shall go through that canal, and, crossing the Pacific Ocean,
reach the ports of China, Japan, and Australia--all these lines pouring
immigration and wealth into this section, making it the most powerful,
most populous and richest section of this Union, and your System the
greatest upon the face of the earth. [Continued applause.]
“‘I now have the honor and pleasure of introducing to you Mayor King,
who will welcome you for the city of Atlanta.’”
“Mayor Porter King was greeted with applause and spoke as follows:
“‘Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen:--On the part of the city of
Atlanta it is to me a matter of peculiar pleasure and pride to welcome
in our midst that broad-minded, grand, glorious, golden-hearted
gentleman and the splendid men who come with him. [Great cheering and
applause.]
“‘I but re-echo the sentiment so beautifully expressed by Colonel
Hemphill, who preceded me, that if Georgia, the South, and Atlanta owe
aught to any man, it owes as much to Colonel Plant as to any one whose
name I could call. I speak a truth which is perhaps not generally
known, so modest is this gentleman, that to-day he is one of the largest
real estate owners in the city of Atlanta. [Applause.] We think in that,
he has shown the wisdom of his judgment.
“‘I honor the head of this great System because of the policy that he
has pursued--to build up himself, not by pulling down another, but by
carrying others up with him. [Applause and cheers.] And not alone to
him, but to this vast army of employees, who are themselves but
representatives of the magnificent System of which he is at the head, I
extend a cordial welcome. [Applause.] I am sure it is not in his heart
to detract one bit from any progress, or any forward movement of the
very lowest employee connected with his whole System. [Applause and
cheers.] Rather than to grow up that way, I believe he would rather see
his whole System wrecked.
“‘We thank you for your presence here to-day. We thank you for the
magnificent exhibit which your System has placed upon these grounds. To
you, one and all, Mr. President and gentlemen, we bid you welcome to
Atlanta; all that she has is yours. We gladly turn it over to you.’”
[Great and continued applause and cheering.]
“Colonel Hemphill proposed three cheers for President Plant. The cheers
were given.
“Here the Innes Band gave a splendid rendition of the popular medley,
‘Plantation Echoes,’ including ‘Way Down Upon the Suwanee River,’ which,
was loudly cheered.
“Mr. Plant’s Address was as follows:
“‘Mr. President of the Cotton States and International Exposition
Company, and the Honorable Mayor of the city of Atlanta:--In behalf of
my associates and employees of the Plant System, and friends, gentlemen
and ladies, whom I see around me and before me, I scarcely know how to
thank you for this glorious welcome, this grand reception. I can but say
that we are here to witness a very magnificent Exposition, quite beyond
any conception of mine, and, I believe, of any of the gentlemen who have
come here with me to-day, to examine and make a study of this monument
to the enterprise and energies of the good people of the city of Atlanta
and of the State of Georgia.
“‘When I was called upon in Jacksonville, Florida, in December, 1894, by
a committee of gentlemen of the Exposition Company, and requested by
them to make an exhibit here of interesting products from the country
bordering our lines of roads in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and
Florida, the four States that our rail lines traverse, I was backward to
do so, for the reason that I feared we had nothing that would do credit
to our line, our interests and our patrons; and had I known, sir, of
the extent and the grandeur of this Exposition, I believe that I should
have continued to hesitate.
“‘It has been some years since I have visited Atlanta, and I was hardly
prepared to see the growth, the tremendous growth, that I find has
occurred in my absence. I see you are rapidly going forward; that you
are becoming a metropolis. You represent, sir, the capital of one of the
greatest States of the Union--the Empire State of the South. [Applause
and cheers.]
“‘You never need be backward to represent Atlanta; it appears to me that
within a very short time, without saying anything to the detriment of
any of the other cities in this country, that it will be called The City
of the South. [Applause.] Other cities may advance, and do advance; many
cities and many communities in the South advance rapidly; they advance
in population and in wealth, but, sir, nothing have I seen in many years
to admire like your city of Atlanta.
“‘I hardly know what language to use that will fittingly present to you,
sir, and to my audience, the opinions I hold in regard to this great
Exposition. It is a surprise, it is a marvel, it is to me wonderful,
and, sir, it proves what can be done by people acting in unison, united
in their enterprise, united in their progress and their desires to
benefit their people and their country, and united through their
capital. Without this unity, and without the other qualifications that
have made the representative men of Atlanta and of this Exposition what
they are, this Exposition could never have been what it is. It is a
visible proof of the importance of united action; it shows what may be
accomplished through union. Without union none of us would be what we
are to-day.
“‘To my friends and associates, and to the officers and employees of the
Plant System I desire to express my thanks for the numbers they show
here to-day. I commend you all for your good judgment in embracing this
opportunity afforded by the Cotton States and International Exposition
Company, to come here and witness this great work that has been going on
almost without our knowledge. We have all read in the newspapers about
the Cotton States and International Exposition, but I believe that very
few of us had any idea what we were to see and to meet here to-day. But
we are here, most of us only for the day, and I hope that we will
earnestly avail ourselves of all the time possible, not only for the
gratification of our curiosity, but for our further education as well.
Everything we see should be made useful to us; it is such an opportunity
as some of us may never have again, and I therefore say to you
all--while you are in Atlanta, emulate my example, and make this
Exposition a study. [Cheers and applause.]
“‘As I said before, I am pleased to see such a large representation
here. It is very gratifying to me. It is gratifying to know that so many
could be spared from their duties without disadvantage to the public
whom we serve. You all know the general principles that have influenced
us in the formation of the Plant System. It was to prepare the way to
make as good means of communication as possible with the resources we
had at hand. We have used of our means freely; not only myself, but my
associates have not been sparing in this particular. We have expended
capital and energy in the hope of some day reaping a benefit, which is
proper. As you know, all men seek to benefit themselves; but there has
been behind it, as the President of this great Exposition and the
Honorable Mayor have to-day stated, a desire to do good to our
fellow-man. [Applause.] We have at least been able to furnish good means
of transportation, and I am pleased to say that it is appreciated by our
patrons. I would, however, have you recollect that we are the servants
of the people, who are our patrons, to the extent that we must treat
their property, while in our possession, with all the care we would our
own. We must be careful in our manners and our speech; we must see to it
that no patron of the Plant System ever comes to an officer or employee
for information without getting it to the fullest. [Applause.]
“‘We must also see that our connecting lines of railways receive proper
treatment from us. Be sure that we cannot well serve the public unless
we treat our allied lines fairly, justly, and properly; be sure of this.
Be sure that we are not all for ourselves. We are public servants, and
we must serve all well, and always recognize the rights of our patrons.
We must never take a customer’s money without giving him his money’s
worth. All this is very easy to say, but it is very difficult for human
nature to carry it out, and we must, therefore, school ourselves in the
effort to learn how best to serve our patrons, and at the same time be
just to ourselves.
“‘How are the railroads built? Where does the money come from that
constructs and maintains them? It is through the union of men, and the
combination of means and labor. This is how it is accomplished.
[Applause.] There can be but little success in any effort to accomplish
good, in this age, without union. This Exposition could not have been
created and carried on, could not have presented the grandeur it does
now, except through the combination of capital and the energy of men of
enterprise. Look at the States that are represented here. We see not
only many of the States of the United States, but also many foreign
States as well. I find the Central American Republics are represented
here; those unions that are dependent upon the voice of the people for
their government are here. They are getting in line with us. They are
here to co-operate with us of the South in this great work. Even our
United States Government has made a large appropriation, and has sent
down many of its people and many of its products to illustrate itself
and its people. It is through union that success is attained. Look over
this city to-day, I suppose it is so every day, we see floating from the
house-tops, from the towers, and from the flagstaves, that emblem of
Union, the Star Spangled Banner! [Great applause.] Long may it wave over
us [applause], and we be fit and proper citizens to represent it in this
“Land of the free and the home of the brave!”’ [Long continued
applause.]
“‘We are going to have some resolutions read,’ said Mr. Hemphill, ‘and,
Mr. President, I wish you would commission me a brakeman in order that I
may vote with the boys.’
“‘I do,’ said Mr. Plant.
“In presenting the resolutions passed by the Commercial and Industrial
Association of Montgomery, Alabama, Mr. W. C. Bibb, Jr., chairman of the
committee appointed to convey them to Mr. Plant, said:
“‘Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen: Among the ancient Greeks and
Romans the laurel was the symbol of triumph; the laurel wreath was
second only to a kingly crown. Shafts of stone and marble and statues of
bronze commemorated the deeds of demigods, kings, and conquering heroes.
History teems with names and deeds of men who carved out a niche in the
Temple of Fame with a bloody sword. To raze a fair city, invade,
overwhelm, and destroy a smiling land, hew down and slaughter its
inhabitants, or drag them in chains to slavery, were the only deeds by
which Fame might be won.
“‘In this fair land and enlightened age, he who makes two blades of
grass to grow where was one before; who links new cities with the old by
shining bands of steel; who masters the sea and brings the forces of
nature subservient to the will, the comfort, and the uses of his
fellow-man; who builds up, develops, and makes the land to abound in
plenty, while thousands of happy men and women rise up and call him
blessed--he it is for whom the laurel blooms, he it is who has builded
for himself a monument more enduring than brass and more lasting than
marble. We are gathered here to celebrate the natal day of such a man.
“‘Sir, it is the pleasure of this committee, in behalf of the Commercial
and Industrial Association, of the people of Montgomery, and of Alabama,
to read in the presence of this audience and to present to you the
resolutions I have in my hands, and to wish for you many happy returns
of your birthday.
“‘WHEREAS, The 28th day of October, 1895, has been set apart by the
Cotton States and International Exposition Company, of Atlanta, Georgia,
to do honor to H. B. Plant, the genius and controlling spirit of the two
great Southern enterprises--the Southern Express Company and the Plant
Investment Company; and
“‘WHEREAS, We deem the time and occasion fit and opportune to unite with
other Southerners in paying homage to one so richly endowed with merit
and worth, yet so unpretentious; so eminently successful, yet
unassuming; who has, by his latest achievement on land and sea, given to
the three States of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida a system of railroads,
steamships, and palatial hotels in the interest of commerce, travel, and
internal development unsurpassed in the civilized world. Therefore, be
it
“‘_Resolved_, That we, the members of the Commercial and Industrial
Association of the City of Montgomery, Alabama, by unanimous rising
vote, do most heartily congratulate Mr. Plant upon his continued health
and prosperity upon this his birthday; that we convey to him by these
resolutions tidings that his name and fame are dear to us and to all
Alabamians.
“‘_Resolved_, That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to Atlanta,
Georgia, to be publicly read and presented to Mr. Plant on October 28,
1895.’ [Applause and cheers.]
“Colonel Hemphill:--‘I move these resolutions be adopted by a rising
vote. All in favor of the resolutions will stand.’ All present
responded.
“On behalf of the Savannah Board of Trade, Judge Robert Falligant spoke
as follows:
“‘Mr. Chairman: I was spending with my family a season of quiet and rest
amid the mountains of Georgia when we got news of this auspicious
occasion. In former years I had the pleasure of serving under the great
leader whose birthday we celebrate to-day, and I could not resist the
temptation of being present and adding my voice to the universal
acclaim, not only of Georgia, but of all Southern States. As I came in,
these resolutions were presented to me to read and I was requested to
make a few preliminary remarks. I really don’t know what I can say on
this occasion so replete with force and eloquence, both in speech and
resolutions, but my heart is impelled to say something in this
magnificent presence. I feel that not only Georgia is here, but the
entire South and the entire country. [Applause.]
“‘I am proud to see that Atlanta has touched the high-water mark of
civilization in this illustrious display. I feel proud as a Georgian,
and, as the representative of Savannah, I bid her godspeed in the
magnificent tide of prosperity that awaits her. We have no envious
feeling upon the coast, but trust that her future may be as limitless
and as beautiful as the grand ocean that expands beyond her borders, the
image of infinity.
“‘I say this is an occasion for patriotic emotions, and we should all
unite in doing honor to the citizen who has devoted himself to the
public good. Let us honor the man who plants his high purposes in his
native land, who knows no South, no East, no West, no North, but is an
American, heart and soul.’ [Great and continued applause and cheering.]
“Then the following was read:
“‘ATLANTA, GEORGIA, October 28, 1895.
“‘MR. H. B. PLANT, Atlanta, Ga.--My dear Sir:--On behalf of the Savannah
Board of Trade I congratulate you most heartily upon this auspicious
occasion of your seventy-sixth birthday. You have, in the providence of
infinite power, been permitted to dwell among your fellows beyond the
allotted period of man, and it has also been your most favored privilege
in that period to bring to completion undertakings of vast magnitude for
the uplifting of the South especially, and for the whole country in
general, which will stand a monument to your foresight, zeal and
patriotic devotion to our common country long after the shaft or statues
of marble or bronze have lost their significance as finger posts
pointing to martial renown or the triumph of the forum. For your works,
engraven upon the hearts of your generation with the stylus of
commercial probity, will always be recalled with pleasant memory because
free from the painful associations of sanguinary fields or the bitter
words of fierce debates. May the mighty God, in His providence, as He
spares you for the years to come, continue to bless you with bodily
strength to pursue your active career of usefulness, until your eyes can
look upon the full fruition of the great works in the interests of
commerce, with which your name will ever be inseparably associated in
fruitful memory through the multiplying cycles of time. With profound
esteem, very truly and sincerely yours,
“‘D. G. PURSE,
“‘President Savannah Board of Trade.’
“The resolutions were adopted by a rising vote.
“The Plant System employees were represented by Hon. A. A. Wiley, who
spoke as follows:
“‘Mr. President, Mr. Plant, Ladies, and Gentlemen: These men who wear
these badges to-day, whether they come from South Carolina, Florida,
Georgia, or Alabama, are the employees of the Plant System, consisting
of telegraph, express, railway, and steamship lines. They number perhaps
three thousand, but represent more than twelve thousand employees, and
have come from the smoke and the dust of the workshop, from the railway
car, from the locomotive, from express and law offices, to pay their
tribute of respect, and to manifest their love for our distinguished
chief, their admiration and appreciation of him. [Applause and cheers.]
“‘This great day becomes a national day, because it is replete with
mighty consequences to both North and South.
“‘Here we may forget our business cares and worldly contests, for the
soft hand of kindness, friendship, and hospitality smoothes down the
ruffled brow. A quarter of a century ago, ruthless and unpitying war,
with all the devastations that follow in its wake, swept with relentless
fury over our fair and fruitful fields.
“‘When that fratricidal struggle was ended and the soldiers who survived
it returned to their desolated homes to find poverty and want at every
door, Mr. Henry B. Plant, a Union man, who, notwithstanding his loyalty
to the North, had been commissioned by President Davis, because of his
honesty and integrity, to go at will everywhere throughout Dixie, was
also true to the South. He recognized the fact that the war was over. He
had confidence in the reserved energy, loyalty, devotion, and
patriotism of the men who wore the gray. [Applause and cheers.]
“‘He had faith in the magnificent possibilities of this land of golden
summers. He knew that we would never again renew hostilities against the
Union of our fathers; and he was right.
“‘Mr. Plant began anew with us the battles of life. He poured out his
wealth like water, to build up and beautify our waste places. He put
activity and intelligent direction into the industrial life of the
South; and his confidence was not misplaced. He has built grandly and
well--wiser, perhaps, than he knew--and has rolled onward the car of
progress and prosperity. The whole South has felt the touch of his
magical hand, and recognized in him a potential factor in the
advancement of commerce and civilization. To-day about fifty thousand
people owe food, shelter, and raiment to his bounty and munificence.
[Applause and cheers.]
“‘He has carried happiness and plenty to many a fireside, and poured the
sunshine of peace and gladness into many a weary heart. [Great cheering
and applause.]
“‘We, his servants and employees, have now assembled here, not only to
do him honor on this, his birthday, but we desire to keep his name and
memory forever fresh and green in our heart of hearts; and no more
fitting method, it seems to me, can be devised, than by setting apart
the 27th day of October, in each succeeding year, as a memorial day, to
be commemorated by appropriate services and the planting of trees. With
this object in view, I offer the following resolutions, and move their
unanimous adoption by a rising vote:
“‘WHEREAS, It is meet and proper that we, the employees of the Plant
System, should in some appropriate manner observe the birthday of Mr.
Plant, our worthy and honored President; therefore, be it.
“‘_Resolved_, 1. That the 27th of October in each and every year
hereafter shall be set apart and observed and duly celebrated in honor
of the life and character of Mr. H. B. Plant.
“‘_Resolved_, 2. That on said 27th day of October, water-oak trees shall
be planted at all station grounds and about all section houses on all
the lines of the Plant System, this tree being the favorite of our
much-loved chief.
“‘_Resolved_, 3. That the general superintendent and the division
superintendents are hereby created a permanent board, with the request
that Mr. Plant’s birthday be honored as herein set out.’
“These resolutions were adopted unanimously by a rising vote and with
great enthusiasm.
“The Tampa (Florida) Band then furnished music.
“Mr. M. F. Plant addressed the crowds as follows:
“‘Colonel Hemphill, Ladies and Gentlemen, and Members of our Family, the
Plant System [Great cheering and applause]: I desire to thank you in
behalf of my mother, of my wife, who is absent, and my boy, for the
great compliment you have paid my father. [Great applause.] It is,
indeed, a great treat to me to be here and to thank you for your
kindness, not only to my father, but to the name of the System which, by
your very careful, studious, and painstaking application to its
business, you have built up. Gentlemen, I thank you.’ [Great applause
and cheers.]
“Mr. Hemphill announced that at 3 o’clock P. M. Mr. Plant would hold a
reception in the Plant System Building.
“This reception was most pleasant. Mr. Plant sat beneath the tropical
foliage of the Plant Building display and shook hands with all his
employees, who passed him by the hundred. He was driven back to the
Aragon Hotel late in the afternoon.”
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER XVI.
Banquet at the Aragon Hotel Ends the Festivities of the Day--Sketch
of the Southern Express Company--Distinguished Callers on President
Plant during the Day--Many Telegrams and Letters of Congratulation
Received--Many Press Notices of the Day, and many Tributes of
Respect and Esteem for him who Called it forth.
“The banquet at the Aragon last night,” says the Atlanta _Constitution_,
“given in honor of Mr. H. B. Plant, was a fitting climax to the day set
apart for the celebration of the seventy-sixth birthday of that
distinguished man.
“The occasion was one that must have been gratifying to the honored
guest, in that he received the warmest assurances of the high esteem in
which he is held by the people of the South from the eloquent
representatives of many of the States. He was the toast of the evening,
and he bore the distinguished honors with his characteristic demeanor.
“When Captain Evan P. Howell called upon the fifty prominent guests to
rise and drink to the health of the guest of honor, Mr. Plant, there was
an enthusiasm and love for the latter inspired in the heart of every
man around the banquet tables, which found vent in the many eloquent
speeches of tribute which followed. Upon Mr. Plant there was bestowed
the highest encomiums of praise, admiration, and love, and he was made
to feel the enthusiasm of the sentiment in the hearts of the speakers.
“The dinner in honor of Mr. Plant was given by the Exposition directors.
It was the concluding honor bestowed upon the South’s benefactor in
connection with the great Plant System Day at the Exposition. About
fifty guests assembled to do honor to the occasion, and among them were
some of the best-known and most influential men of the country. The
South was represented by distinguished men from many States.
“At the conclusion of the dinner, Captain Howell, who acted as
toast-master, arose and proposed a toast to the distinguished guest of
honor. At the request, every guest arose and drank to the health of Mr.
Plant in silence.
“‘I have been offered many toasts and received some honors,’ said Mr.
Plant, in response, ‘but none has ever afforded me more pleasure than
this. I feel that I am among friends to-night, and it is useless to
assure you that I am deeply appreciative of this honor. I have had
something to say to you already to-day, and am almost talked out. There
is so much talent and so many men here to-night who can entertain you
with a ventilation of the English language, and I am so hoarse that I
will yield to them and not detain you. I thank you, Mr. Toast-master,
and gentlemen.’
“Captain Howell, in introducing the speakers of the evening, took
occasion to say many happy things about Mr. Plant and the guests around
the tables. He was in his happiest vein, and with wit, wisdom, and
story, he entertained the assemblage. Each effort of the toast-master
was received with applause.
“‘We are indebted to the distinguished gentleman we have gathered
to-night to honor,’ said Captain Howell, ‘for one of the best exhibits
at our great Exposition. His is an exhibit of which we should feel
proud; one that reflects credit on his effort and the Exposition. He has
shown us loyalty, fidelity, and love for the South by the work he has
done for us. We are pleased and honored to have him among us, and to
call him one of us. This Southland owes to him much of gratitude. He has
benefited every section of the Southeast, and done work which will last
as a monument to his fame for years to come.
“‘We regret that our zealous president, Mr. Collier, is unable to be
with us this evening to extend to Mr. Plant in person the welcome felt
by the Exposition Company, but in that absence we have a man to speak
for him who can do so fittingly. We ask Mr. Alexander W. Smith to
return to Mr. Plant the thanks of the Exposition Company for the
splendid exhibit he has sent us and for the good work he has done, not
only in our interest, but for the State and the entire South.’
“Mr. Smith paid a fitting tribute to the worth of Mr. Plant to the State
of Georgia, the South, and to the Exposition. He thanked him on behalf
of the Exposition Company for the complete and magnificent exhibit sent
by Mr. Plant, and warmly congratulated him on his birthday, which gave
occasion for such a great day as yesterday had been to the Exposition.
Colonel George W. Adair was called upon and he made one of his best
speeches. He entertained his hearers with stories and reminiscences of
his boyhood and manhood days, referring to the time when he first met
Mr. Plant. The speaker had assisted in forming the Southern Express
Company, and he proposed to share the honors with Mr. Plant, for the
evening at least.
“Among the other speakers were Colonel H. S. Haines, Colonel A. A.
Wiley, of Alabama; Speaker Fleming, Major J. W. Thomas, of Nashville;
Judge Falligant, of Savannah; Hon. Fleming du Bignon, of Savannah; Dr.
Smyth, and several others. All of the speakers paid high tribute to Mr.
Plant and his work for the South. He was eulogized in the language of
highest praise, and declared to be a man worthy of all honors that
could be bestowed upon a citizen.
“Some of the speakers referred to the esteem in which Mr. Plant is held
by his twelve thousand employees, and laid stress on that fact as being
the best evidence of the noble character of the man, one who treated all
men with justice, moderation, and kindness. Mr. Plant was made to feel
that the welcome extended him was sincere, and he left the banquet table
honored as perhaps no other man will be honored during the Exposition
period. To him was shown the appreciation of the Exposition Company of
his work, by setting aside a special day in his honor, something that
will not be accorded to any other individual.
“The banquet was one of the most elaborate of the season, and reflected
credit on the committee in charge and Manager Dodge, of the Aragon, who
supervised it in person.”
* * * * *
With the banquet at the Aragon, tendered to President Plant by the
directors of the Exposition Company and the citizens of Atlanta, the
festivities directly incident to “Plant System Day” were brought to a
close. This history, however, would be incomplete without reference to
the Southern Express Company, to which Mr. Plant has been pleased to
allude as his “first love.” It numbers among its officers some of the
men whom Mr. Plant had in mind when he said on Sunday morning, October
27th, “I see here present those who were with me in troublous times and
bore with me the heat and burden of the fight,” and this may be
considered a fitting place to give a brief history of the company as
published in the _Constitution_ of October 29, 1895.
From the Atlanta _Constitution_, Tuesday, October 29, 1895:
“Among the thousands who gathered at the Exposition yesterday to do
honor to Mr. Henry B. Plant, the great ‘man of affairs,’ the officers
and employees of the Southern Express Company formed a notable group,
the central and most prominent figure of which was Mr. M. J. O’Brien,
the vice-president and general manager. It was fitting that this great
enterprise should be represented by its most prominent officials and a
large delegation of its employees on this day, for it was as an express
company employee that Mr. Plant began life, and the history of the
express business in the South is almost identical with Mr. Plant’s great
success. It was also appropriate that the representatives of the great
army of Southern Express Company employees should be headed by the man
whose master mind and admirable executive ability have contributed so
largely to every success of the mammoth enterprise over which he
presides with such marked distinction, for the history of the Southern
Express Company is not only the history of Mr. Plant but of Mr. O’Brien,
since the latter gentleman has been closely identified with the express
business of Mr. Plant for the past thirty-five years, and its
achievements have largely been his own.
“HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN EXPRESS COMPANY.
“On July 5, 1861, a charter was granted for the Southern Express Company
for fourteen years, with H. B. Plant as President; R. B. Bullock,
Superintendent of the Eastern Division; E. Hulbert, Superintendent of
the Central, and D. P. Ellwood, Superintendent of the Western Division,
who, however, shortly resigned, and was succeeded by A. B. Small, with
James Shuter as Assistant Superintendent.
“As the Federal forces advanced into Dixie the Southern Express Company
abandoned its lines, which were immediately utilized by the Adams
Express Company. In fact, the Southern Express Company was operated
under difficulties throughout those belligerent times, arising from the
changing lines of armies, destructions of railroads, and from the
conscription acts, until express employees were exempted from service in
the army and navy.
“At the close of the war another source of danger presented itself.
Gangs of disbanded soldiery and raiding parties, ever ready to
appropriate portable property wherever it could be found, in many cases
plundered the express offices, their horses being taken and nothing
valuable left. But it’s a long lane that has no turn. A reaction soon
set in, and the marvellous prosperity of the ‘Sunny South’ has been only
equalled by the growth and development of the Southern Express Company.
To-day its service extends from Richmond, Louisville, and St. Louis on
the North; Charleston and Savannah on the East; Springfield, Missouri,
and Houston, Texas, on the West, and New Orleans, Mobile, and Tampa,
Florida, on the South, reaching twelve States and embracing about three
thousand agencies, with a through line to New York and direct
communication with Cuba.
“In 1875, a renewal of the company’s charter was applied for and
granted, and, in 1886, the Georgia Legislature granted the company a
charter for thirty years from December 21st of that year. The little
concern organized at Augusta, Georgia, in 1861, has now become one of
the strongest and most successful express companies in the United
States.
“The _Constitution_ to-day publishes excellent portraits of General
Manager M. J. O’Brien, Assistant General Manager T. W. Leary, Traffic
Manager C. L. Loop, and Superintendent W. W. Hulbert, all of whom have
been intimately identified with the growth and development of the
Southern Express Company.
“General Manager O’Brien began service with the Adams Express Company at
Memphis, in 1859. He next served as way-bill clerk and then as
messenger, being later promoted to the cashier’s office at New Orleans.
Evincing a remarkable aptitude for the express business, he was next
appointed agent at Montgomery, Alabama, and, in rapid order,
successively became President Plant’s secretary, secretary of the
Southern Express Company, general superintendent, general manager, and
vice-president and general manager.
“Assistant General Manager Leary commenced as secretary to General
Superintendent O’Brien and for years was his faithful lieutenant.
Subsequently he was made assistant to the general manager and then
appointed assistant general manager.
“Traffic Manager Loop began his express career as messenger in the Adams
Express Company’s service, and was particularly prominent in express
operations during the war. He was for many years auditor and cashier of
the western department of the Southern Express Company, and upon the
consolidation of the eastern and western departments was made general
auditor, succeeding from that position to his present office.
“Superintendent Hulbert began service as local agent at West Point,
Georgia, in 1858, and with the exception of four years, during which
time he was in the war, has been continuously in the service of the
Southern Express Company ever since.
“To give some idea of the magnitude of the Southern Express Company’s
business, it is only necessary to say that should their employees, with
their families and others dependent for their living upon services
rendered to this great enterprise, move to the State of Nevada, and the
present population of that State should leave it, Nevada would have a
much larger population than she has at present. In other words, the
officers and employees of the Southern Express Company who are in
Atlanta to-day represent a larger number of citizens of this country
than do the two United States Senators who represent the State of Nevada
in the upper House of Congress. Again, the amount of money invested in
horses, wagons, etc., is simply fabulous, while their stationery bill
for one year would make a man independently wealthy.
“The business of the company must necessarily be enormous to support and
justify such an expense. It consists of forwarding freight, money, and
valuables of all descriptions by the fastest passenger trains, in charge
of special messengers. As forwarders of money, bonds, and valuables,
they successfully compete with the government mail service. Absolute
safety is guaranteed in all transactions, and in case of damage to, or
loss of goods, the delay, almost inevitable in government red tape, is
avoided.
“THE HANDSOME EXHIBIT.
“The Southern Express Company’s office on the Exposition grounds makes
one of the handsomest exhibits to be seen. It is not, however,
altogether for show, but the express business in all its branches is
conducted just as it is in the Atlanta office. The pretty, tasty little
office is doing a thriving business, if one can judge from the crowds
which are constantly about it. Mr. M. W. Wooding is in charge of the
Exposition office, and yesterday happily sustained the reputation which
he has earned of being a most delightful host. Mr. Wooding is an old
Atlanta boy, and has been with the Southern Express Company for the past
twelve years.
“Among the well-known gentlemen who called yesterday at the express
office were: H. B. Plant, President, New York City, New York; M. J.
O’Brien, Vice-President and General Manager, New York City, New York; M.
F. Plant, Vice-President, New York City, New York; T. W. Leary,
Assistant General Manager, Chattanooga, Tennessee; C. L. Loop, Traffic
Manager, Chattanooga, Tennessee; G. H. Tilley, Secretary and Treasurer,
New York; F. J. Virgin, Auditor, Chattanooga, Tennessee;
Superintendents--H. Dempsey, Augusta, Georgia; C. T. Campbell,
Chattanooga, Tennessee; O. M. Sadler, Charlotte, North Carolina; H. C.
Fisher, Nashville, Tennessee; G. W. Agee, Memphis, Tennessee; W. J.
Crosswell, Wilmington, North Carolina; C. L. Myers, Jacksonville,
Florida; V. Spalding, Roanoke, Virginia; C. A. Pardue, New Orleans,
Louisiana; Assistant Superintendent Mark J. O’Brien, Chattanooga,
Tennessee; Route Agents--J. B. Hockaday, Greenville, South Carolina; K.
C. Barrett, Florence, South Carolina; S. R. Golibart, Suffolk, Virginia;
P. B. Wilkes, Monroe, North Carolina; J. Cronin, Waycross, Georgia; John
Lovette, Atlanta, Georgia; W. C. Agee, Memphis, Tennessee; Agents--F. L.
Cooper, Savannah, Georgia; W. A. Dewes, Chattanooga, Tennessee; W. M.
Shoemaker, Montgomery, Alabama; F. M. Folds, Messenger, Montgomery,
Alabama.
“It would not do to close this article without giving due meed of praise
to Daniel Davis, the urbane colored boy who, under the direction of Mr.
Wooding, dispensed ‘the hospitalities of the house’ in the most approved
and satisfactory manner.
“Were we to record herein the numerous telegrams and letters of
congratulation received by Mr. Plant from his many friends who were
unable personally to be present in Atlanta, we would have to publish a
second edition to retain a pamphlet form of this little volume. We must,
therefore, content ourselves with saying to one and all who so
thoughtfully remembered Mr. Plant on the occasion of his anniversary,
that their kindly sentiments were highly appreciated by him, and to each
and every one, through these columns, he returns his sincere thanks.
“To our newspaper friends, who so kindly espoused our cause, prior to,
at the time of, and since the festivities in Atlanta, and who are always
ready to deal kindly by us, we return our thanks. To them we would most
heartily accord the space necessary in which to reprint all of the nice
things they have said of us, but for the same reason as given in the
foregoing paragraph, we must abbreviate. However, we feel that it is not
just to them or to ourselves entirely to ignore all quotations from
their columns, and with their permission we give below, in so far as our
limited edition will permit, some of the many pleasant references made
by our journalistic friends.
“Among the many telegrams of congratulation received by Mr. H. B. Plant,
President of the Plant System, we give below two, together with copies
of Mr. Plant’s responses, which were omitted in our report of
proceedings in yesterday’s issue.
“‘MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, Oct. 28, 1895.
“‘HENRY B. PLANT, Atlanta, Georgia:
“‘Montgomery Division, No. 98, Order of Railway Conductors, tenders
you its heartiest congratulations. It is the uniform hope of all
its members that you may live to see many more years of such
usefulness and happiness, and that your every wish may be realized.
“‘JOHN C. ELLIOTT,
“‘CHAS. J. READ,
“‘_Committee_.’
“‘ATLANTA, GEORGIA, Oct. 29, 1895.
“‘JNO. C. ELLIOTT and CHAS. J. READ, Committee,
No. 98, Order Railway Conductors, Montgomery,
Alabama:
“‘Of the many telegrams of congratulation I have received, none are
appreciated more than the one from you, as representatives of the
Order of Railway Conductors, and my best efforts in the future, as
in the past, will be to deserve the commendation of all members of
your order.
“‘H. B. PLANT.’
“‘TAMPA, FLORIDA, Oct. 27, 1895.
“‘H. B. PLANT, Atlanta, Georgia:
“‘Recognizing in you a friend of Tampa and of Florida, our city
congratulates you on this the anniversary of your birthday, and
indulges the hope that you may live to celebrate many others and to
reap the fruits of your labor and enterprise.
“‘F. A. SALOMONSON, Mayor.’
“‘ATLANTA, GEORGIA, Oct. 28, 1895.
“‘F. A. SALOMONSON, Mayor:
“‘I thank you personally, and through you the good people of Tampa
and Florida, for your hearty congratulations and well wishes. I
shall hope to celebrate many more anniversaries of my birthday, and
as each milestone is passed I trust we may all look back and see
that I have contributed in a measure to the interests of the good
people of your State and city.
“‘H. B. PLANT.’
“A REMARKABLE OVATION.
“President H. B. Plant, of the Plant System, was a happy man yesterday
when he looked into three thousand smiling faces at the Exposition
Auditorium and saw among them about one thousand five hundred of his
faithful employees, who were assembled to celebrate his seventy-sixth
birthday.
“It was a rare tribute to a great and a good man. Probably no railway
president in the world could have commanded such an ovation.
“Mr. Plant was overwhelmed with graceful attentions from his employees,
the Exposition directors, and our citizens generally. The day at the
Exposition was a celebration in his honor, and at night the directors
entertained him at a banquet.
“It goes without saying that this tribute is worth more to Mr. Plant
than presents of silver and gold. It will touch his heart as nothing
else could. That he may long hold his honored place among us is the
earnest wish of all who know him.
“MR. PLANT AND THE NEGROES.
“In addition to what has been said of Mr. Plant and his great System,
the negroes are grateful for what he has done for them. There are over
two thousand negroes employed by Mr. Plant. A great number of them have
accumulated homes, educated their children, and have nice bank accounts,
and they all love him. He has contributed liberally to churches,
school-houses, and other negro enterprises; in fact, he has built
several institutions of learning for negroes. A number of negroes hold
positions of trust, with good pay attached, as is not the case with any
other system the size of his in the United States.
“May the years of Mr. Plant’s usefulness in behalf of the South, colored
and white, be many more.”--Atlanta _Constitution_.
“HONORS TO MR. PLANT.
“Few men have done as much as Mr. H. B. Plant to develop the South, and
the _Journal_ joins heartily in the tributes which are being paid to him
to-day.
“He has reached the age of seventy-six with a record which any man might
envy, and we trust is good for many more years of usefulness. Mr. Plant
is the head of great corporations which have been of incalculable value
to the South. They have been so, not because they are rich and powerful,
but because, under his direction, they have been conducted on broad and
liberal lines. Mr. Plant’s policy has been to build up. His career
presents a splendid contrast to those of the railroad wreckers who have
enriched themselves at the expense of thousands of individual victims
and of great regions of the country.
“Mr. Plant has used his power nobly. He has made it beneficial to
multitudes of his fellow-citizens, and has contributed immensely to the
general development of the South. As the president of a great railroad
system, of steamship lines, and of the Southern Express Company, and the
Texas Express Company, Mr. Plant enjoys, not only the kind regards of a
host of employees, but the respect and admiration of the public as well.
The many evidences which he receives to-day of the good-will and esteem
of his fellow-men must be exceedingly gratifying to him, but we are
justified in saying that seldom have tributes been more richly
deserved. We extend to Mr. Plant our cordial congratulations on his
seventy-sixth birthday, and hope that we shall have the pleasure of
seeing his honored and useful career continued for many years to come.
“Mrs. H. B. Plant, the wife of the distinguished president of the Plant
System, is at the Aragon. She is a beautiful, cultured, travelled woman,
and as such receives everywhere the most flattering social attentions.
She will be the conspicuous social figure of this week, and several
brilliant affairs will be given in her honor. Mrs. Plant is one of the
New York Commissioners, and has proven her interest in Atlanta’s
Exposition in many satisfactory and assuring ways.”--Atlanta _Journal_.
“A splendid banquet was tendered by the Southern Express Company to its
superintendents, route agents, and agents attending the Cotton States
and International Exposition, last evening in the Kimball House.
“The occasion was a most happy one.
“The banquet was held in honor of Plant Day--Mr. Plant being president
of the Southern Express Company.
“Mr. T. W. Leary, the popular and genial assistant general manager of
the Southern Express Company, presided and acted as toast-master. In
this capacity he distinguished himself, and made some of the happiest
hits of the evening. The speeches were of the happiest character, and
befitted the occasion which they commemorated--the birthday of the
venerable president of the express company, who has done so much towards
the building up of this rich and powerful transportation company.
“Among those who spoke were the following:
“Mr. C. L. Loop, traffic manager of the Southern Express Company; Mr. H.
Dempsey, superintendent; Mr. H. O. Fisher, superintendent; Mr. G. W.
Agee, superintendent; Mr. V. E. McBee, general agent Seaboard Air Line;
Mr. J. L. McCollum, superintendent Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis
Railway; Mr. F. H. Richardson, editor Atlanta _Journal_; Mr. C. S.
Gadsden, superintendent of the Plant System.
“The entire occasion was marked by the greatest enthusiasm, and it will
be long remembered by those present. The following is a list of the
guests:
“J. S. B. Thompson, assistant general superintendent Southern Railway;
V. E. McBee, general agent Seaboard Air Line; W. R. Beauprie,
superintendent Southern Railway; J. L. McCollum, superintendent
Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis Railway; D. E. Maxwell, general
manager Florida Central and Peninsular Railway; L. M. Weathers, Memphis,
Tennessee; F. de C. Sullivan, E. M. Williams, George E. Carter, New
York; B. R. Swoope, Virginia; F. H. Richardson, Atlanta _Journal_, and
G. W. Haines, H. A. Ford, C. O. Parker, C. S. Gadsden, W. B. Denham,
Judge Brawley, of the Plant System; M. F. Echols, agent Southern Express
Company, Atlanta, Georgia; W. A. Dewees, agent Southern Express Company,
Chattanooga, Tennessee; F. L. Cooper, agent Southern Express Company,
Savannah, Georgia, and H. M. McCulloch, W. E. McGill, G. A. Wilkinson,
J. A. Cleary and F. M. Folds; C. L. Loop, traffic manager Southern
Express Company; H. Dempsey, superintendent; H. C. Fisher,
superintendent; C. T. Campbell, superintendent; O. M. Sadler,
superintendent; W. J. Crosswell, superintendent; G. W. Agee,
superintendent; C. L. Myers, superintendent; W. W. Hulbert,
superintendent; V. Spalding, superintendent; C. A. Pardue,
superintendent; J. C. Arnold, route agent; S. R. Golibart, route agent;
P. B. Wilkes, route agent; W. C. Agee, route agent; J. Cronin, route
agent; K. C. Barrett, route agent; John Lovette, route agent; H. E.
Williamson, route agent; J. B. Hockaday, route agent; W. M. Shoemaker,
agent Southern Express Company, Montgomery, Alabama.
“The Exposition was crowded to-day with the employees of the Plant
System and the friends of Mr. H. B. Plant, the president of that System,
for it was Plant Day.
“There is perhaps no more interesting figure in American business life
to-day than H. B. Plant, and his employees have for him that feeling of
love that is so rarely held by the employees of a great corporation for
its head. As an evidence of that love and kindly feeling the employees
gathered to-day to do him honor.”--Atlanta _Journal_.
“The _Chronicle_ publishes this morning an interesting sketch of Mr.
Henry B. Plant, by Mr. Clark Howell. The writer has a most excellent
subject for his theme, and he has handled it admirably. Than Mr. Henry
B. Plant there is not a better man to be found anywhere. Starting from
the plain people, unaided by the adventitious circumstances of birth or
wealth, he has, step by step, ascended the ladder of fame and fortune,
until he is now classed among the railroad magnates and the
multi-millionaires of the country. He has been the architect of his own
fortune, and he has done the work in the most artistic and substantial
manner. His work for Florida and the South cannot be exaggerated. He has
been one of the most potential factors in the upbuilding of this
section, and he is still full of hope and faith in the present and
future possibilities of the South. He knows thoroughly the advantages
which we possess, and he is enthusiastic for their full utilization. Mr.
Plant was for years a familiar figure in this community and a valued
citizen of Augusta.
“Speaking of Mr. Plant yesterday, one of our prominent citizens observed
that he had the remarkable gift of always selecting the right man for
the right place. He is a capital judge of human nature. His life has
been a most exemplary and laborious one. He is the personification of
kindness and courtesy in his intercourse with his fellow-citizens, and
his consideration for his employees is most marked.
“Monday was set apart by the Cotton States Exposition in honor of Mr.
Plant. This recognition of his services to the South is well deserved.
In his case it is an honor most worthily bestowed. At the age of
seventy-six, Mr. Plant possesses a sound mind in a sound body. Long may
he live to continue his good work for Florida and the South, and to
wield his influence for good among his fellow-men.”--Augusta
_Chronicle_.
“The employees of the Plant System, who went to the Cotton States and
International Exposition on the invitation of President Plant, returned
yesterday very much gratified with their visit. And Mr. Plant was very
greatly pleased to meet them at the Exposition. The occasion was the
celebration of Mr. Plant’s seventy-sixth birthday.
“Mr. Plant is still a very vigorous man. His mental faculties are as
bright and keen as they ever were. He looks back on a long life of great
activity and usefulness. He has built up a splendid monument to himself
in the Plant Railway and Steamship System. All his life he has been a
builder--never a wrecker. And the speech he delivered to his employees
on Monday shows that he has a just appreciation of the relations he
holds to the public.
“No man has contributed more to the building up of the South than Mr.
Plant. The country tributary to his lines of railroad presents an
appearance vastly different from what it did a quarter of a century ago.
There are thousands of comfortable homes now where there was then only a
wilderness. Plant Day was a feature of the Exposition, as the Plant
System is a feature of the South.”--Savannah _Morning News_.
“On this, the seventy-sixth anniversary of his birthday, we extend our
wishes to Mr. H. B. Plant, the head of the great system of railways
which bears his name. Long life and happiness to him.”--The _Bulletin_,
Savannah, Georgia.
“The ceremonies attending the anniversary of Mr. Plant’s birthday
yesterday in Atlanta were very imposing. There was a large crowd on
hand, and Mr. Plant responded in a very feeling and appropriate speech.
There was a feeling and eloquent address by Judge Falligant. One of the
gems of the occasion was the excellent letter of Capt. D. G.
Purse.”--Savannah _Press_.
“To-day is a great one in Atlanta. The Plant System celebration of the
birthday of its great founder is perhaps the most remarkable event of
its kind that ever occurred in this country. It marks the beginning of a
distinctive era in progress--when the men who are leaders in material
progress are recognized and honored as public benefactors. While Florida
is under vast obligations to statesmen of the past and present, to the
heroes of several wars, to the pioneers who redeemed its lands to the
plow and hoe--it is not too much to say that the present generation owes
fully as much to the group of men who, having acquired large means
elsewhere, are expending and investing them in developing the resources
and advertising the resources of the State. And it is not overstating
the case to say that to no one on this list belongs so much credit as to
Henry B. Plant. He was the first, as he is to-day the leader, to see the
good points of our soil and climate, and to bring them to the notice of
the world. To him, and to his unwavering attachment to Florida, is due,
to a preponderating extent, the surprising and persistent growth of the
State. No pretense is made that he has done it all, but he led the way
and set the pace, and it is a pleasure to the intelligent and
fair-minded people of Florida to hold him in high esteem, and to testify
to it. As long ago as 1853, Mr. Plant saw and appreciated Florida, and
from that day to this he has been its unflinching friend. He has been
the direct agency for the investment of many millions of dollars here,
and the indirect cause of its duplication by others. He deserves the
honors and compliments that are paid him, and more.”--Tampa _Times_.
“The birthday of Henry B. Plant, head of the Plant Railway System and of
the Southern Express Company, was yesterday celebrated in fine and
appropriate style at the Atlanta Exposition. It was Plant System Day.
Mr. Plant deserves such recognition. He has done much for the South, the
section of his adoption. He has brought a great deal of capital and
enterprise into the section, and built up important conveniences that
have proven highly profitable to the Southern country and people. No one
man has done more for the advancement of the South’s material
development. He was seventy-six yesterday, but looks twenty years
younger, in spite of the big load of care and the big amount of work he
has done in the last fifty years. Long may he live to enjoy the fruits
and honors of his good works.”--_Daily Times_, Chattanooga.
“The west coast of Florida, Alabama, and the portions of the country
around the Plant System in Georgia, sent thousands of people to the
Atlanta Exposition for the celebration of Plant System Day at the
Exposition. They have been coming on special trains since yesterday
morning. To-day Mr. H. B. Plant celebrated his seventy-sixth birthday,
and to-day is Plant System Day at the Exposition. Officials and
employees from all the railway, steamship, and express lines controlled
by Mr. Plant, and numbering nearly 5000 men, are here to celebrate the
day. The public exercises occurred in the Auditorium, and the Plant
System people were welcomed by Mayor King. Mr. Plant made a response to
the welcome.”--New Orleans _Times-Democrat_.
“The following invitation for last Monday the _Marine Journal_ regretted
very much not having been able to accept:
“‘The Cotton States and International Exposition, Atlanta, Ga., having
designated October 28, 1895, as Plant System Day, the officers and
employees of the system will meet there to commemorate the birthday of
their president, Mr. Henry B. Plant. You are invited to be present.’
“Advices from Atlanta since Monday announce that the event was a
brilliant success, as befitted such an occasion. Mr. Plant was weighed
down with congratulations, both personal, telegraphic, and by mail, and
presented himself in such an excellent state of health and enjoyment
that no one would have imagined he had so far passed the regulation
threescore years and ten as the day commemorated. Mr. Plant saw much
that must have deeply gratified him on the occasion, not only the result
of his own labor and enterprise, but in the encouraging presentation of
things that give evidence of such a restored measure of prosperity
throughout the South as only men like himself, who have worked so hard
to accomplish such a happy state of affairs, can thoroughly appreciate.
The recognition of the Plant System in such an auspicious manner by the
management of the Atlanta Exposition was a fitting testimonial to the
prominent part that the System is recognized to hold in conducing to the
well-being of the South, not only from a commercial point of view, but
from the excellent reputation among the best classes of people that must
necessarily attach to the places where the Plant hotels for winter
tourists are situated. Thus the day became a fitting compliment to the
true worth of the founder and president of the Plant System and an
additional ray in the glory with which his deeds crown him in the
fulness of his days. Long may he enjoy it.”--_Marine Journal_.
“To-day the anniversary of the birth of Mr. H. B. Plant, President of
the Plant System of Railroads and Steamships, the Southern Express
Company and the Plant Investment Company, is being celebrated by the
officers and attaches of these companies and friends of Mr. Plant at
Atlanta--principally by the Plant System men.
“H. B. Plant is a remarkable man, and though well advanced in years, he
is just as active in business to-day as he was a half-century ago.
Thousands of his employees to-day assemble to pay tribute to his worth
as a man; besides, thousands of acquaintances and admirers extend their
heartiest congratulations.
“No better place or time for such celebration could be had than at the
Atlanta Exposition, where is another, and the latest, monument to Mr.
Plant’s worth as a developer and as a man of enterprise and genius. The
building and the exhibits there of the Plant System are similar to his
good works all over the country, and every Floridian, South Carolinian,
Georgian, and Alabamian must feel proud of these representatives of the
products and enterprise of their States collected and displayed to such
an advantage by the great System that benefits the States.
“The best men in Florida acknowledge H. B. Plant as one of the State’s
truest friends, and willingly in heart, if not in person, join in doing
him honor on this, his seventy-sixth birthday, and all hope he may be
spared many more years to the grateful people.”--Jacksonville
_Metropolis_.
“The reception given to the venerable president of the great Plant
System of hotels in Florida on Monday, October 28, at Atlanta, was a
deserved recognition of the work he has done in developing Florida and,
indirectly, the whole South.”--New York _Hotel Register_.
“As a rule, men of large interests are charmingly simple and unaffected
in manner, and this is eminently true of H. B. Plant, President of the
famous Plant System Railway and Steamship Lines, a millionaire, and the
controlling power of three great hotels, the Tampa Bay, the Seminole at
Winter Park, and the Inn at Port Tampa, all in Florida.
“Mr. Plant resides in New York much of the time, in an elegant home, but
is also to be found a good deal in Florida, while he takes trips to
Jamaica and other places where he has business to transact.
“Personally, he is a delightful conversationalist, and remarkably young
for his years, which are not few. He is quite up to date in every way,
and never lets a business chance go by him. The magnitude of his orders
may be understood from the fact that he has recently given an order at
Newport News for the largest coastwise steamer ever built, 440 feet in
length, and having every comfort and modern arrangement for safety. He
is deeply interested in the Cotton States and International Exposition,
and has a building of his own at the grounds, with a comprehensive
exhibit.”--New Haven _Evening Register_.
“THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION.
“We hardly think the Northern Press has been as generous in its good
offices to the Southern Exposition as it might. We have just returned
from a visit to Atlanta, and were delighted with the beautiful landscape
order of the grounds, the large and elegant buildings, and, above all,
the wonderful exhibits they contained. The farm products will astonish
our Northern visitors. Canned fruits and garden produce are varied,
numerous, and luxuriant. The manufactures, especially of cotton, were
very fine, and their machinery equal to the best in the country--was so
pronounced by the Manufacturers’ Committee from the New England States.
The Art Building; is a model of artistic taste and elegance. The
Industrial Building, in which France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal,
and other nations are represented would require an entire day to
explore. The minerals, fossils, photo plates, gold and silver ores,
coal, salts, lime, and peculiar clays found in the Southern States, will
repay close inspection. I saw beautiful china made from a white clay
found in Florida only four months ago; also great blocks of salt as they
were taken from the mine, that needed only to be crushed to fit them for
immediate use.
“One of the things that has given a great uplift to the Cotton States
has been the improvement of its railroads. A quarter of a century ago
these were in a very depressed condition, crippled, bankrupt, and
unremunerative, and about this time, H. B. Plant, of New York,
interested Northern capitalists in them, bought, combined, reorganized,
and improved them in every way, adding steamboat lines to the West
Indies, and perfecting an express system unsurpassed in any part of the
country, for the whole South. This so increased travel to the South,
especially in the winter season, by health-seekers and pleasure-seekers,
that better hotel accommodations were demanded. These were soon
provided, at a large outlay, giving the South, especially Florida, the
finest hotels in the world. St. Augustine, Palm Beach, and Tampa Bay,
especially the latter, are unsurpassed for healthful, comfortable, and
luxuriant appointments. Hence, Plant Day was one of the great days of
the Exposition, when some two thousand of the more than twelve thousand
employees of the Plant System came to do honor to the man who had done
so much for the Southern section of our country. Receptions, addresses,
silver cup, compass, and flowers, and a grand banquet in the evening at
the Aragon Hotel, were cordially tendered to this benefactor of the
Cotton States. Labor and capital clasped hands in the most friendly
accord, and this problem of the age was here solved, where peace and
good-will abounded among these men. We saw the man of war, the admiral
of the fleet at Hampton Roads, pay his respects to this man of peace,
whose guest we were, and whose power for good has been so widely felt in
our land.”--AN EAST ORANGE DOMINIE, _East Orange Gazette_, East Orange,
New Jersey.
“EXPOSITION ECHOES.
“Mr. A. B. Wrenn, special agent of the Southern Pacific, who has been in
Atlanta for the past few days, returned to the city yesterday, and gives
a glowing account of the Exposition. He says that the number of people
who visited the great show on President’s Day was something over 78,000,
and that on Atlanta Day the number will be considerably more.
“‘One of the prettiest sights I saw while in Atlanta,’ said Mr. Wrenn,
‘was that of the thousands of the employees of the Plant System, when
Plant Day was celebrated. Mr. H. B. Plant, president and owner of the
Plant System of railroads, gave the thousands of his employees, who
could possibly get off duty, a free trip to the Fair, and on Plant Day
there were several thousands of them present. A grand reception was
given, and section bosses, freight agents, clerks, and even negro
laborers who worked on the sections, were given an opportunity of
shaking hands with Mr. Plant, who is now an elderly gentleman. Mr. Plant
made a speech and expressed his satisfaction at meeting so many of his
men, and the affair passed off most pleasantly.’
“Mr. Wrenn says that the Exposition is well worth seeing.”--_Daily
Picayune_, New Orleans, Louisiana.
“THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION.
“BY THE REV. GEORGE H. SMYTH, D.D.
“Coming so soon after the great Exposition at Chicago,--the greatest the
world has ever seen,--and considering the general depression of the
country, and the short time taken for preparation, the Exposition of the
Cotton States, at Atlanta, Georgia, is a marvel. The terraced ground,
selected and laid out with such beautiful landscape effect, the
architectural designs of the buildings, the artistic skill displayed in
locating them, together with the drives, walks, ponds, fountains, lawns,
and ornamentations of the whole Fair grounds, reflect great credit on
the committee of distinguished gentlemen who had the matter in charge,
and who spared neither pains nor expense to make the Exposition a great
success. Atlanta alone contributed $1,000,000 to the enterprise.
“Plant Day was the great day of the Fair thus far. It was set apart by
the Committee of Management in honor of Henry B. Plant, who has done so
much for the progress, prosperity, and welfare of the Southern States.
More than a quarter of a century has passed since he began his
patriotic, not to say philanthropic, work of uplifting a prostrate
section of our country. Up to this time the railroads of the Cotton
States were poor, crippled, and some of them bankrupt. In 1879, Mr.
Plant interested other capitalists in purchasing, reorganizing, and
improving the railroads of the South. He organized and perfected an
express system, steamboat system, railroad system--until now, the Plant
System, as it is called, embraces nearly two thousand miles of railway
lines and over twelve hundred miles of steamship lines. Of course, the
facilities for comfortable travel to and through the South brought the
health-seeker, the pleasure-seeker, investor, and permanent settler to
the South; and this influx of population continues with increasing
numbers each year. ‘To-day, the South is universally acknowledged to be
the most prosperous portion of the great Union, and that portion over
which the Plant System ramifies itself is known as the garden-spot. Mr.
H. B. Plant is the mainspring that moved the whole, and he is, in every
sense, a public benefactor.’ This is only the briefest intimation of the
reasons for Plant Day at the Exposition.
“Sunday, October 27th, was Mr. Plant’s seventy-sixth birthday. I had the
pleasure of being one of a party of friends that filled his private car
in going to the Exposition, and occupied one of the large and elegant
rooms of his suite at the Aragon Hotel, Atlanta. On the morning of that
day a few gentlemen--and they were gentlemen in every sense of the
term--representing the more than twelve thousand employees of the Plant
System, adroitly entertained their president in his own room, while the
others took possession of his parlor. When everything was in readiness,
Mr. Plant and his guests were invited into the parlor. He was most
cordially greeted and congratulated on the seventy-sixth return of his
birthday. Then written addresses, couched in choice language, were read
from the three different departments--railroad, express, and
steamboat--of the Plant System, followed by presentation of flowers, of
a silver compass, suggesting the straight and upright course of his
life, and a silver cup, large and massive,--a ‘loving-cup,’--‘filled,
Mr. Plant, with the esteem, affection, and best wishes of your
associates and employees, to whom you have been a benefactor and
friend.’ Mr. Plant’s response was beautiful, tender, and touching, as
kindly eyes looked through their tears at this grand old man whom they
esteemed as a father.
“Next day, the reception given Mr. Plant in the Auditorium, by the
employees of the Plant System, where addresses and resolutions of
appreciation, esteem, and gratitude for what he had done for the South,
were presented to him, was grand beyond description. In the evening of
the same day a banquet was tendered him at the Aragon Hotel by the
managers of the Exposition. Judges, lawyers, merchants, the mayor of
Atlanta, and a large company of distinguished gentlemen sat down to a
sumptuous repast. But it was ‘the feast of reason and the flow of
soul’--the eloquent and patriotic sentiments expressed in the
after-dinner speeches that gave this choice chapter of Plant Day its
chief significance and greatest charm. Never was Southern eloquence more
eloquent or tongues more fluent in giving forth the overflow of heart.
‘No North, no South, but one united, happy country--the land of the free
and the home of the brave.’
“When, near the close, we were most unexpectedly called on for a speech,
what could we say but express the pleasure experienced in all we had
seen and enjoyed this whole day. We had witnessed the solution of the
greatest problem of the age, a problem that many say will never be
solved, that will yet bring on universal revolution. We had to-day seen
labor and capital--employer and employed--clasp hands in mutual sympathy
and most friendly accord. We had seen, everywhere we travelled in the
South, the Plant System men vie with each other in doing honor to their
chief. His presence was the signal for willing hands and happy faces in
any service they could render him. Men felt better for his presence. The
Czar of all the Russias might well envy this modest, quiet, Connecticut
man, the connecting link between North and South, the harmonizer of
differences, and the promoter of peace and good-will among men; and
around whom cluster the respect and manly affection of 12,000 employees
and many more thousands of invalids who find lost health travelling in
the luxuriant cars and dwelling in the luxuriant hotels of the Plant
System. Mr. Plant was first led to Florida in 1854 in search of health
for his invalid wife, whose life he believes was prolonged many years by
her residence in the soft, balmy air of this State. Travel then was so
uncomfortable, and hotel accommodations so poor, that he began to think
what could be done to improve both. Verily, ‘There is a divinity that
shapes our ends, rough hew them as we may,’ and well is it when our own
sufferings lead us to discover means of alleviating those of our
fellow-men.”--_The Christian Intelligencer_, New York.
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CHAPTER XVII.
Some Changes that have Taken Place in the Configuration of the
Globe--Islands Born and Buried--French Revolution--Napoleon’s
Influence on Europe--England’s Long Wars--Barbarous Treatment of
Prisoners--Slavery Abolished--English Profanity and
Intemperance--Temperance Movements--Duelling--Penny
Postage--Expansion of the Press--Canals, Erie and Suez--Railroads
in England and the United States--First Steamer to Cross the
Atlantic--First Steamship Line.
The changes that have taken place on the globe itself, and in its
inhabitants during the life of Mr. Plant, are varied, numerous, and
wonderful.
The configuration of the earth has altered to a degree incredible to any
but those observant of such changes. Winchell has tabulated some of
these undulatory movements that have taken place along the Atlantic
shore line of the American continent and elsewhere. “At St. Augustine,
in Florida, the stumps of cedar trees stand beneath the hard beach
shell-rock, immersed in water at the lowest tides. Some of the sounds
upon the coast of North Carolina, which have been navigable within the
memory of living sea-captains, are now impassable bars, or emerging
sand-flats. Along the coast of New Jersey the sea has encroached, within
sixty years, upon the sites of former habitations, and entire forests
have been prostrated by the inundation. In the harbor of Nantucket the
upright stumps of trees are found eight feet below the lowest tide, with
their roots still buried in their native soil.” Similar ruins of ancient
submarine forests occur on Martha’s Vineyard, and on the north side of
Cape Cod, and again at Portland. In the region of the Saint Croix River,
separating Maine from New Brunswick, the coast has been raised, carrying
deposits of recent shells and sea-weeds, in one instance, to the height
of twenty-eight feet above the present surface of the sea. The island of
Grand Manan, off the mouth of the Saint Croix River, is slowly rotating
on an axis, so that, while the south side is gradually dipping beneath
the waves, the north is lifted into high bluffs. Near the River St. John
is an area of twenty square miles containing marine shells and plants
recently elevated from the sea. One hundred and fifty miles east of this
place, the shore is experiencing a subsidence.
The north side of Nova Scotia is sinking, while the south is rising,
insomuch that breakers now appear off the southern coast in places
safely navigable in years gone by. The ancient city of Louisburg, on the
island of Cape Breton, is another testimony to the uneasy condition of
the land. This place was once the stronghold of France in America, and
one of the finest harbors in the world. It was well fortified and had a
population of twenty thousand souls within its walls.
It was destroyed during the French and Indian War, and the inhabitants
dispersed, but Nature had herself ordained its abandonment. The rock on
which the brave General Wolfe landed has nearly disappeared. The sea now
flows within the walls of the city, and sites once inhabited have become
the ocean’s bed. In 1822, the entire coast of Chili was elevated to a
height varying from two to seven feet, an area equal to that of New
England and New York, having been lifted up bodily. In 1831, an island,
since called Graham’s Island, sprang from the bed of the Mediterranean
between Sicily and the site of ancient Carthage. The island is now but a
sunken reef. Another island, as recently as 1866, rose from the bottom
of the Grecian Archipelago, before the very eyes of the American Consul,
Mr. Chanfield, bearing upon its slimy back fragments of wrecks that had
been sunken in the little harbor of Santorin.
“An island in the Missouri River, broken into fragments and washed away,
was the unusual spectacle witnessed by the people of Atchison, Kansas.
For years an island of 600 or 700 acres has been one of the attractions
of Atchison. It was as fertile as a garden, and was known all over the
West for the excellence of the celery, asparagus, sweet potatoes and
melons it produced. It had the appearance of a veritable oasis in a
desert, and its green shrubbery, generous shade trees, velvet lawns, and
cool spring, were a perpetual joy. Upon this island a shooting club had
a home, and the base-ball enthusiasts had their grounds, and grandstand.
Altogether, it was a most pleasant resort. In a single night this island
was dissolved into fragments.
“The big June rise in the Missouri River struck it, and to-day it is
only a reminiscence. What was Kansas’s loss, however, was Missouri’s
gain. With the obliteration of the island the current left the Missouri
shore and struck hard against the Kansas bluffs. The result of this is
that the Missouri banner has been planted a mile westward, and hundreds
of acres of rich bottom land have been added to its domain, while Kansas
mourns the loss of its green island and pleasant park.”
The wonderful changes going on in the configuration of England are
recorded in a well-known London paper (_Tit-Bits_) in the following
words:
“Is England disappearing? Readers may pucker up their lips and ejaculate
‘Absurd!’ but facts, nevertheless, remain and show pretty clearly that
England is positively disappearing, and may in years to come be marked
on the map as a vanished isle.
“On the coast the sea is encroaching upon the land at an astonishing
rate. Seaside towns and villages, holiday resorts, are gradually being
eaten up and the inhabitants driven inland. In many parts the sea runs
up on a beach which was once far inland. In other cases churches which
were at one time far from the sea now stand at the edge of cliffs and
have the sea lapping almost at their doors.
“The Goodwin sands, about five miles off the coast of Kent, were at one
time a portion of the mainland itself and the property of Earl Goodwin.
But the sea has swallowed them up.
“The coast of Norfolk is minus three villages which it once
possessed--Shipden, Eccles, and Wimpwell--all of which have been taken
into the arms of the encroaching ocean. The Cromer of to-day stands
miles inland of the original Cromer.
“Auburn and Harlburn, two Yorkshire villages, once promised to develop
into seaport towns of considerable importance; but, like the will of
Canute, the will of the inhabitants of these villages was ignored by the
rising sea, and Auburn and Harlburn now exist in mere names and
sand-banks.
“Dunwich, on the coast of Suffolk, is gradually being swallowed up.
Every now and then the inhabitants move a distance inland, rebuild their
houses and shops and wait patiently and philosophically for the next
“notice to quit” from the sea. Many other seaside places have suffered
or are suffering a similar fate.
“It may be argued, on the other hand, that some seaside towns are
gradually becoming inland towns by the failure of the sea to ‘come up to
the mark,’ and running out only to run in for a shorter distance.
Winchelsea, Sandwich, Rye, and Southport are all suffering in this way.
Winchelsea and Rye were originally two of our cinque ports, but the sea
has left them standing high and dry. Sandwich was once a highly
important seaport town. It now stands two or three miles inland.
“The sea is leaving Southport quite in the lurch--so much so indeed that
the inhabitants have had to sink extensive lakes down on the beach to
keep the sea from running off altogether and leaving merely an ordinary
inland town.
“But the extension of our island in this way is very much less than the
encroachment of the sea at other points, and while our land is certainly
becoming more extensive in one direction, it is contracting, and with
much greater rapidity, in some other. And the ultimate effect may be
that our mountain peaks may form small islands, and eventually be
pointed out by posterity as ‘the position in which Great Britain is
reputed to have stood.’”
The nineteenth has been the most remarkable century in the world’s
history. It was the most destructive and wasteful of life and property
in the early part of its career, and in the latter half has been the
most constructive and uplifting to the human race of any of the past
centuries. The population of all Europe at the beginning of the century
numbered one hundred and seventy millions, of whom four millions were
engaged in the murderous work of war. The demoralization of society and
the miseries inflicted on the people by these wars are beyond the power
of pen to describe. France had an absolute monarchy. “The King held in
his hands the unquestioned right to dispose, at his will, of the lives
and property of the people. He was the sole legislator. His own pleasure
was his only rule. He levied taxes, asking no consent of those who had
to pay. He sent to prison men with no crime laid to their charge, and
kept them there, without trial, till they died.” Political corruption
was rampant. For sixty years the court of Louis XV. had festered in the
most filthy debauchery. Then followed the bloody Revolution,
unparalleled in history. The guillotine, worn out with its butchery of
more than a million lives stood idle, and peace--rather, the lull of an
unfinished storm, for a time rested upon unhappy France. Then the
tumultuous hurricane burst out anew in the wars of Napoleon, which
terminated only at Waterloo in 1815.
“The influence which Napoleon exerted upon the course of human
affairs,” says McKenzie, “is without a parallel in history. Never before
had any man inflicted upon his fellows miseries so appalling; never
before did one man’s hand scatter seeds destined to produce a harvest of
change so vast and so beneficient. It was he who roused Italy from her
sleep of centuries and led her towards that free and united life which
she at length enjoys. It was he, who by destroying the innumerable petty
states of Germany, inspired the dream of unity which it has required
more than half a century to fulfil.” The progress made by these two
countries during the century, in liberty, education, and all that
conduces to the welfare of the individual and the strength of the
nation, has been great beyond precedent.
England has perhaps outstripped all other nations in the advancement she
has made during this period of the world’s greatest progress. Her long
and terrible wars with France and her allies had wasted her people and
depleted her treasury. Taxes were enormous, food was high, wages low,
and work scarce. The introduction of machinery in some departments
reduced hand-labor a hundred-fold. The power loom threw thousands of
people out of employment. England was badly governed. The laws were all
made in the interests of the rich. Multitudes of the poor were famine
stricken, one in eight being fed on charity, and many died of
starvation. Hunger maddens men, and hence crime abounded. Laws,
numerous and terrible, were enacted for its prevention and punishment.
Capital offences numbered two hundred and twenty-three. Some of the
offences were ridiculous trifles. If a man appeared disguised in public,
cut down young trees, shot rabbits, or stole property worth a dollar and
a quarter, he was at once hanged. The treatment of prisoners was most
barbarous. Young and old of both sexes were huddled together like
cattle. Vermin, filth, and starvation were the common lot of all. John
Howard and Elizabeth Fry inaugurated reforms in the interests of the
prisoners that have since engaged the thought and effort of the best men
and women of the nation.
War was carried on in the most cruel and brutal manner. Conscription and
the press gang forced men from their families, and from peaceful
occupation, and drove them to an unwilling military or naval, bloody
field-servitude. Five hundred lashes was no uncommon punishment for some
trifling offence. “The men who applied the torture were changed at short
intervals, lest the punishment should be at all mitigated by their
fatigue. The doctor stood by to say how much the victim could bear
without dying. When that point was reached, he was taken down and
carried to the hospital, to be brought back for the balance of his
punishment when his wounds were healed. There is record of a soldier
sentenced to one thousand lashes, seven hundred of which were actually
inflicted. In the Crimean war two thousand six hundred British soldiers
were killed, while eighteen thousand died in hospital of wounds and
disease.”
Scientific skill directed by generous-hearted Christian philanthropy has
now mitigated these horrors, reducing them almost to a minimum. The same
may be said of the brutality endured by women and little children
working in mines from twelve to sixteen hours a day.
Slavery, which was almost universal at the beginning of the century, has
been abolished. Forty millions in Russia, four millions in the United
States, and many more millions in other lands have been made free.
Nor has this freedom been confined to the chattel slave. The courts of
Europe were debauched beyond description. Even in England among the
higher classes, “the supreme crowning evidence that an entertainment had
been successful was not given till the guests dropped one by one from
their chairs, to slumber peacefully on the floor till the servants
removed them.”
The temperance movement belongs to our present century, and while it has
not yet accomplished all that could be desired, it has done much to
lessen some of the grossest evils of society, and is full of promise
for final triumph. The first temperance society was only eleven years
old when the subject of this biography was born. It was organized in
April, 1808, at Morean, Saratoga County, New York, with forty-three
members. The American Temperance Society was formed at Boston, February,
1826, and, in 1829, the New York State Temperance Society, which in less
than a year had one thousand local societies with a hundred thousand
members. Soon the movement extended to the Old World, and a society was
formed at New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland, and within a year sixty
other societies were formed in different parts of the country. The
Father Mathew crusade began in 1838, and it resulted in the enrollment
of one million eight hundred thousand men and women in the temperance
cause. The wave spread to Scotland, England, Wales, and the Continent.
The Washington movement, started at Baltimore in 1840, doubtless
advanced the cause of temperance in our country, half a million having
signed the pledge. The great progress made in this direction is seen not
so much in the number of temperance societies as in the fact that while
there is difference of opinion as to the moderate use of wines and
liquors, there is but one opinion among respectable people as to the
immoderate use, and any one indulging in orgies such as those to which
we have alluded would be excluded from all participation in decent
society. No man of standing in good society glories in the shame of
beastly intoxication; multitudes do not use liquor at all, and many
others use it only as a medicine or aid to health.
The duel was made a legal way of settling disputes between gentlemen,
and even, “Fox, Pitt, Castlereagh, Canning, O’Connell, and Wellington,
had all attempted the slaughter of a foe.”
Profanity was almost universal. “Erskine swore at the bar. Lord Thurlow
swore on the bench. The King swore incessantly. Ladies swore orally and
in their letters. The chaplain cursed the sailors, because it made them
listen more attentively to his admonition.” Obscene books were exposed
for sale by the side of bibles and prayer-books.
Education was limited in its range and extent, and only the more wealthy
could enjoy its benefits. In 1818, more than one half the children in
England were without school advantages. In manufacturing districts,
forty per cent. of the men and sixty-five per cent. of the women could
not write their own names.
Penny postage, first proposed by Rowland Hill in 1837, adopted by Act of
Parliament in 1839, and followed since then by every civilized country
in the world, has proved to be a great adjunct in the education of the
people.
The freedom and expansion of the press during this century have also
been a great power for the enlightenment of mankind. True, it has not
been an unmixed good, but let us hope the good has been, and will
continue to be in the ascendant.
Canals, before the days of railroads and steamships, did much for the
transportation of merchandise and intercommunication of the people. The
Erie Canal, 363 miles in length, commenced in 1817, and finished in
1825, is said to have been one of the first impulses given to New York
City in its ascendancy over every other city in the United States. On
account of its great cost many of the people were opposed to it; “but in
1866, it was ascertained that besides enlarging many of the principal
cities, and adding to the comfort and wealth of nearly all the people of
the State, it had returned into the public treasury $23,500,000 above
all its cost, including principle, interest, repairs, and
superintendence.”
In this same year, 1825, New York City was first lighted, partially
only, with gas.
The Suez Canal, opened in 1870, was used by only 486 vessels, with a
total net tonnage of 436,609, but its use was steadily increased, until
in 1891, it rose to 8,698,777. When the canal was opened, it had cost
$100,000,000, that is, $1,000,000 a mile, and since then $40,000,000
more have been expended in improvements. These are large amounts, but
the canal pays annually from $4,000,000 to $5,000,000 over the interest
of its bonded debt.
The introduction of railroads into England and the United States marks a
great era in the progress of these two nations, not to say that of the
whole world, though the event is of comparatively recent date, as the
following account taken from a recent issue of the New York _Tribune_
goes to show:
“The Chicago _Record_ says that Edward Entwistle who has lived in Des
Moines, Iowa, for forty years, ran the first passenger engine. He was
born at Tilsey’s Banks, Lancashire, England, in 1815, and was
apprenticed to the Duke of Bridgewater, who had large machine shops at
Manchester. The first railroad for general passenger and freight
business was completed in 1831, between Manchester and Liverpool, a
distance of thirty-one miles. The Rocket, the first locomotive or
passenger engine, was built under the direction and according to the
plans of George Stephenson, in the works where young Entwistle was
serving as an apprentice. Stephenson engaged Entwistle as his assistant
in the engine. The line being opened for general traffic, young
Entwistle was put in charge of the Rocket, and for two years made two
round trips every day between Liverpool and Manchester, one in the
forenoon and the other in the afternoon. He came to this country in
1837.”
When Mr. Plant was nine years old, there were only three miles of
railroad in the United States. They were completed in 1827. Now there
are 173,453 miles, and the speed of trains has been increased from ten
miles an hour to more than seventy miles. The sleeping-and parlor-cars
have made travel one of the great luxuries of this most luxuriant
century. The first ocean steamer that crossed the Atlantic was the
_Savannah_, which made the trip to Europe in the year 1819, the year Mr.
Plant was born, and in 1838, the first regular line of Atlantic steamers
was established.
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER XVIII.
Railroads Established--Engineering Progress--Steel, Iron
Steamships--Horse Railroad--Kerosene Oil in Use 1830--Sewing
Machines--Agricultural Implements 1831-51--Sanitary
Progress--Philanthropic and Christian Progress--Higher
Education--Medical Progress--Humane Care of the Insane--Sailors’
and Seamen’s Home--World’s Fairs--Religious
Reciprocity--Arbitration--Numerous Inventions and
Discoveries--Concluding Remarks.
Engineering skill has greatly improved, and by its daring achievements
has added much to the progress of the world during the last forty years.
This is seen in the construction of railroads of vast dimensions, four
of which span our own continent, and stretch over vast prairies, deep
chasms, and great rivers, penetrating through the Rocky Mountains,
seemingly impassable as they rear their snow-capped peaks to the clouds.
The Mont Cenis Tunnel connecting the railways of France and Italy, on
the direct railway route from Paris to Turin, is a marvel of engineering
skill. It is seven miles, four and three fourths furlongs in length.
Fourteen years passed during its construction, and it cost about six
millions and a half of dollars. It was begun in 1857 and completed in
1871. The Saint Gothard Tunnel which runs through a section of the Alps
to Italy, six thousand feet below the top of these mountains, is another
great achievement of engineering daring. The work consumed ten years’
time, the labor of over three thousand men daily, and cost over eleven
millions of dollars. The Sutro tunnel, in our own Rocky Mountains, was
another grand feat of mechanical progress during the last half of the
century.
In 1830, the first steel pen was made and the first iron steamship was
built. One year before this, the first lucifer match was made; and nine
years afterwards, envelopes were first used. In 1826, the first
horse-railroad was built, and kerosene oil was first used for lighting
purposes. In 1846, Howe’s sewing-machine was given to the public, but it
took eight years’ hard work to convince the public that the new
invention was of any great value. Many other sewing-machines have since
come into use, but all are modifications of Howe’s. They have
revolutionized the whole “make up” of men’s and women’s wearing apparel,
not to mention horse harness, upholstering, and all departments of life
where fine stitching is called for. The delicate services of this
wonderful machine have increased certain industries a thousandfold,
though at first, like all other improved methods of work, it was
supposed to be the destroyer of these industries, and to bring untold
miseries upon all who lived by the needle. The manufacture of these
machines, sales, and repairs have employed tens of thousands of people,
and added millions to the wealth of a nation; to say nothing of the
comfort and betterment of the life of the people.
Agriculture has made great strides during the last half century by
reason of the increasing use of scientific methods. Rotation of crops
and artificial manures have preserved the land from exhaustion and
maintained it at a high power of production. Machinery also has added
largely to the facilities for its cultivation. Ploughing, sowing,
reaping, threshing, and other machines have made it possible for the
farmer of comparatively limited means to produce immense quantities of
food for man and beast, so that starvation in almost any part of the
globe can be averted by the over-production in other parts. In 1855, at
a great trial of threshing-, reaping-, and mowing-machines in France,
the American machines gained a complete victory. In 1862, the United
States Government established the Agricultural Department at Washington.
Agricultural societies and colleges, in many of the States, have greatly
advanced this most important department of the nation’s strength. It is
as true now as when the wise Solomon spoke it, “The profit of the earth
is for all: the king himself is served by the field.” A better knowledge
of agricultural chemistry has contributed much to the more profitable
uses of the soil. The sanitary conditions of living have greatly
improved, especially among the poor, during the last half-century.
Underground sewerage in cities, drainage of swampy grounds, removal of
the cesspool which often poisoned the well which supplied the family for
cooking and drinking, and the introduction of pure water in abundance,
cleaner streets, and better homes for the working-classes, have lessened
the death rate about one half. From McKenzie we learn that “In 1842, the
average length of life among the gentry and professional men of London,
was forty-four years: in the laboring-class it was twenty-two years.
Filth and bad ventilation cost England more lives annually than she had
lost by death in battle or by wounds during the bloodiest year of her
history. The annual waste of adult life from causes which ought to be
removed was estimated at from thirty to forty thousand.” Food is
abundant and of great variety in our favored land, and the canning
industry supplies the luscious fruits of summer at low prices throughout
the entire year.
One noteworthy feature of the progress of the last fifty years is that
it touches all classes; the workingman especially shares largely its
advantages. The general and rapid diffusion of knowledge, by means of
the greatly improved press, is one of the marvels of this most wonderful
age. The “Hoe” octuple press can print 96,000 copies of a newspaper per
hour, or 1600 every minute; the paper travels through the press at the
rate of 32½ miles an hour; is printed, pasted, cut, folded, counted, and
delivered in bundles of twenty-five, automatically. Three of these
presses would be able to print 748,000 eight-page sheets, equal to
forty-two tons per hour of printed matter.
Mr. Plant might stand on the roof of his office at Twenty-third Street
in New York City, and say, “How changed is this city since I first saw
it when a boy.” It had no horse-cars, no trolley-cars, no cable-cars, no
elevated roads, no large hotels, no buildings of more than three stories
in height, few stores more than twenty-five feet wide. It had no
telegraph, telephone, phonograph, or electric lights,--only oil
lamps,--no asphalt pavements. No steam-cars, no photograph galleries, no
sewing-machines or type-writers, or bicycles, or horseless carriages, or
public baths. No time-lock safes, stem-winding watches. No submarine
cables, or Bessemer steel, or great suspension bridges. In 1820, the
population of New York City was only 123,706; now it is over a million
and a half. In the same time he has seen the population of the country
grow from 9,628,131, (of whom 1,528,064 were slaves) to upwards of
70,000,000, and he has seen the inauguration of nineteen of the
twenty-five Presidents of the United States. The territory of the United
States has nearly doubled during his lifetime, and its accumulated
wealth can hardly be measured during the same period. The development of
our coal mines, iron mines, gold and silver mines, oil wells, natural
gas stored up in the bowels of the earth--these, too, have made giant
strides. The great railroad industries of the country, furnishing work
for hundreds of thousands; the increase and enlargement of our
manufactories, the great cities that have been built, some of them
burned and rebuilt, as was the case with Boston, Portland, and Chicago;
all these have added to the enormous wealth of the nation. In 1831, a
dozen families around Fort Dearborn formed the nucleus of the present
city of Chicago. Minneapolis this summer removed its first house, built
in 1849, to a more convenient place, to be kept as an heirloom of that
city of phenomenal growth. With the increase of wealth, large fortunes
have been accumulated and have enabled their earners and owners to build
the large railroads which have done so much for the development and
progress of the country; to lay ocean cables, and work large mines,
providing work and wages for millions of men.
The humane and philanthropic progress of this period is seen in the
reforms instituted in prisons. Up to the present century punishment for
crime seems to have been the leading idea of prison management.
Instruction in the common-school elementary branches of education was
introduced with encouraging results. Then libraries were established,
and moral and religious instruction tended greatly to the reformation of
the criminal. Wholesome rules and regulations were adopted. Various
kinds of work, adapted to the prisoners’ intelligence and strength, were
given. Rewards were apportioned for good behavior, which shortened the
period of confinement. Better classification was made of the inmates,
and generally just and kind treatment was instituted. All this had an
uplifting influence on the crushed and degraded men, and turned many
from being the enemies of society to be its friends, and to appreciate
the efforts made for their recovery from lives of vice. Reformatories
for youthful offenders caused their separation from old and hardened
criminals, and caused many of them to become useful members of society.
The first of these was “The House of Refuge” on Randal’s Island, in New
York City.
The “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,” established by
Henry Bergh in New York, proved to be the seed from which germinated
hundreds of other similar societies throughout our country. Later, the
“Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children” has saved many an
unprotected child from inhuman treatment, often received from its own
parents. It is by far the best age of the world for children. Many
millions of dollars are invested in the manufacture of toys and in
preparation of books, papers, and magazines especially devoted to the
interests of children. Life-saving stations along the coast of dangerous
seas have rescued thousands of lives from a watery grave, and saved many
millions worth of property. Travel by sea and land has become one of the
greatest luxuries and means of education in this most enlightened
century. The circumnavigation of the globe is no longer the daring feat
of the skilled mariner. The human race is coming closer together, and is
massing into cities. Clubs are being formed for the discussion of
literary, scientific, æsthetic, historic, political, dramatic, musical,
and social topics, and admit to their membership young and old of both
sexes.
It is also an age of conventions,--scientific, political, and religious.
Christianity is exerting a mighty influence in various forms. Throughout
the world this is shown by the multitudes it has lifted out of barbarism
in India, China, Japan, Australia, Africa, and made them law-abiding,
peace-loving, and self-governing Christian peoples. Cannibalism and
human sacrifice have now disappeared from the earth, with many other
practices too horrible to name. For the care of the poor and
unfortunate, New York City alone spends annually more than $6,000,000.
It has homes for the aged, for orphans and for half-orphaned children,
also for crippled, and the deformed. Poor women about to become mothers
may go to a suitable institute where medical attendance and trained
nursing are furnished free, or they may have both free in their own
homes. The advance in the higher education, as well as great improvement
in our common-school system, is a marked feature of our times. Most of
our colleges have greatly raised the course of study, and several have
become fully equipped universities, while other new universities have
been added to the number; one in Chicago, two in Washington City, one in
California, and one in Baltimore. Probably the most marked feature in
the education of our time is the throwing open the doors of so many
colleges and universities to women. These have flocked thither to take
equal stand with the men, who have had a monopoly of these privileges
since colleges and universities were founded: and they have entered the
learned professions of medicine, law, and divinity, professions once
thought to be forever barred against their sex. Co-education, the higher
education of women, and their aspiration to lead a professional life,
fifty years ago would have been considered the dream of fanatics only.
Some even now doubt the wisdom of the movement, but, good or bad, it is
here to stay, and will advance with ever increasing velocity.
There are homes for incurables where their hopeless condition receives
such treatment as not unfrequently returns them to their homes restored
to a measure of health. The blind, deaf, and dumb are kindly cared for,
educated, and made useful members of society. That class once considered
hopeless, women fallen from virtue, are sought out, cared for, and
restored frequently to society, and often become rescuers of their own
sex from like degredation. Discharged criminals are looked after and
provided with temporary homes, and work is sought out for them. The
children of the street are taken up, taught, and placed in homes in the
West, away from the city temptations that were destroying them. For
young men, and now for young women, coming from the country to our large
cities, the Christian Associations find safe lodgings, work, schools,
and churches, and throw around them every safeguard. The reading-room,
gymnasium, lecture course, evening classes, and devotional meetings are
all intellectual and moral forces in character building, and in
preparation for the great work of life.
The higher education of medical science has made rapid progress during
the last century, and especially during the last half of it. Health
boards have done much in the way of sanitation to prevent disease and
protect communities against epidemics and virulent plagues that have
scourged the world for centuries. The use of anæsthetics has saved an
incalculable amount of agony, and has greatly aided physicians in
improved methods of surgery. Operations are now performed, with almost
universal success, which would not have been thought of fifty years ago.
Improved medical apparatus and instruments for examining the body have
proved of great value in the treatment of bronchial and internal
affections. The Roentgen Ray, which can bring to light the whole inside
of a man, is the latest and greatest discovery of the period under
consideration. The discovery of disease-producing germs or microbes is
worthy of mention in this connection. Pasteur’s cure for hydrophobia has
lessened the dread of one of the most terrible maladies that has
afflicted the human family.
It might be supposed that humane treatment of those most unfortunate
beings who have been deprived of their reason would be found even in the
least civilized period of the world’s history, but alas! the opposite
has been true. Until within a comparatively recent date it was customary
to confine these poor creatures in jail, along with the vilest
criminals, a custom still prevailing in some places. “In 1826, a young
clergyman, rendered insane by overwork, was found in the Bridewell
Prison of New York, herded with ruffians and murderers. At that time
there was in the prisons of Massachusetts thirty lunatics. One had been
in his cell nine years, had a wreath of rags around his body, and
another around his neck. This was all his clothing. He had no bed,
chair, or bench; a heap of filthy straw like the nest of a swine was in
the corner. He had built a bird’s-nest of mud in the iron grate of his
den.” Many were chained, kept in cages, “whipped, scourged, ironed, shut
in close cells, and left for years in filth, naked, hungry, exposed to
bitter cold, frozen,” had lost toes or feet, and suffered torture until
death ended their misery. All this is happily changed, and medical skill
and intelligent, humane care, have taken its place, with some exceptions
perhaps. Sailors were once the legitimate prey of the worst class of men
and women the world ever produced, when they landed in large cities,
often after most tempestuous voyages, and dangers most terrible to
contemplate. In so-called sailor’s boarding houses they were drugged,
robbed, stripped naked, and thrown out on the street at midnight to
groan and suffer and die.
Seamen’s Friends Societies and Sailors’ Homes, with hospitals,
libraries, Christian ministry of godly men, and kindly care for the
sick, disabled, or aged sailor until he enters the haven of eternal
rest, is now in all Christian countries the provision made for this
brave man to whom the world owes so much. Similar provision is made for
the old or disabled soldier who has fought his country’s battles. The
“Soldier’s Home” is one of the institutions for which America has reason
to be proud.
The World’s Fairs, first organized by Prince Albert in London in the
year 1851 and continued in different countries until the present time,
the last and greatest of them all held at Chicago in the United States
in 1893, have done much to stimulate progress in every department of
life, and to strengthen the spirit of friendly reciprocity that should
bind the human family closer together in mutual helpfulness and
good-will. The international congress of all religions held at the
Chicago Fair, the first and only congress of the kind ever held, was in
the line of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.
The bitterness of the sectarian spirit among all Christian denominations
is happily passing away, and a desire for closer relations, even for a
union of all peoples of the Christian faiths, is fast taking its place.
The Roman Catholic Church through its head, Leo XIII., and the Episcopal
Church through its Bishops have both expressed their desire for the
union of all Christian peoples. Arbitration for the settlement of
disputes between labor and capital, and even between nations, is
advancing towards a blessed consummation, and the day cannot be far
distant when peace and good-will among men shall become universal, and
Jesus of Nazareth shall reign, Prince of Peace and King of Nations
through the whole world. Who knows but that the six hundred and one
thousand miles of telegraph in the United States and the one hundred and
sixty thousand miles of submarine telegraph in the world, shall soon
flash the news round the globe, “The Lord is come.”
The following item taken by permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons from
_The Last Quarter of the Century_, by Andrews, is significant in this
connection:
“During the great Electrical Exposition in New York City, May,
1896, a message was transmitted round the world and back in
fifty-five minutes. It was dictated by Hon. Chauncey Depew, and
read--‘God creates, Nature treasures, Science utilizes electrical
power for the grandeur of nations and the peace of the world.’
Starting at eight thirty-five these words sped over the land lines
to San Francisco, thence back to Canso, Nova Scotia, where they
plunged under the sea to London. A click of the key four minutes
later announced the completion of this part of the journey.
“Cannon were fired in honor of the achievement, while the throng on
the floor of the Exhibition Building cheered.
“Meantime, the general manager of the Western Union Company had
despatched the same message over his lines to Los Angeles,
Galveston, City of Mexico, Valparaiso, Buenos Ayres, Pernambuco,
across the Atlantic to Lisbon, and back to New York by way of
London, a journey of ten thousand miles, in eleven and one half
minutes.
“At nine twenty-five, just fifty minutes from the start, the
receiving instrument clicked and Mr. Edison, for the nonce again a
simple telegraph operator as of yore, copied from it the Depew
message.
“It had travelled from London to Lisbon, thence to Suez, Aden,
Bombay, Madras, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nagasaki, and
Tokio, returning by the same route to New York, having traversed a
distance of 27,500 miles.”
We have thus tabulated, in the briefest manner, a few of the advances
made in various departments of life during the period covered by this
biography: and we have done so because Mr. Plant loves to recount the
progress of the human family. He has kept in touch with it all, enjoyed
it all, and has himself contributed no small share to its furtherance.
It enhances one’s estimate of the marvellous progress of the age in
which we are living when we think how much has been accomplished in the
comparatively brief period of one life. It gives ground for believing,
too, that the next decade will surpass any that has preceded it, and
that the twentieth century will outstrip the nineteenth as far as the
nineteenth has outstripped any of its predecessors. It inspires the
wish, also, that the subject of this biography may live to enjoy much of
the world’s era of peace and progress in science, art, industry,
philanthropy, and Christian alleviation and uplifting power. May this
very imperfect history of a very instructive life prove helpful to those
taking their place in the onward march of the race towards its great and
final destiny.
The wish expressed above for the continued health and life of the
subject of this biography was written one year ago, and what follows
affords strong hope of its realization.
The winter after the Atlanta Exposition found Mr. Plant with signs of
failing health, somewhat alleviated by his sojourn in the South; but on
his arrival in New York in the spring of 1896, he was taken violently
ill and was constantly under the doctor’s care for four or five months.
The next winter he passed in the South, resulting in marked evidences of
improved health. The next spring, however, another malady developed,
greatly impairing health and threatening life for several weeks. Early
in the spring he had so far recovered that he went by rail to San
Francisco, in his own private car, thence by ocean to Japan and China,
and, returning to Japan, spent a large part of the summer there, from
whence he sailed for San Francisco and returned to New York early in
November, nearly all evidences of past diseases having disappeared, and
he has passed his seventy-eight birthday in apparently good health.
It is needless to say that honors, courtesies, and kindnesses were
liberally tendered him throughout his whole trip in the East, which he
enjoyed to the full.
The following incident is one among many that occurred to Mr. Plant
during his very interesting tour in the land of the Rising Sun, and
shows how promptly he improved every opportunity that came in his way,
not only for learning all about the customs, manners, and ways of the
Japanese, but of recalling old acquaintances, and renewing old
friendships of his early boyhood in his native State, and town of
Branford. On his return voyage via the Hawaiian Islands, the steamer
stopped for a few hours at Honolulu. Mr. Plant at once set out to find a
Branford lady who had long been a resident in these islands. Soon his
search was rewarded by finding Mrs. Mary Parker, widow of a missionary
of that name, and now in the ninety-fourth year of her age. Mr. Plant
was present at the marriage of this good lady in Branford, Connecticut,
when only a boy of seven, and doubtless some of the happy boyhood
emotions of that occasion came back to him when he clasped the hand of
this aged woman so far away from their native Branford.
HENRY B. PLANT IN WAR AND IN PEACE.
Few men are more blessed with a peaceful disposition and an inborn
dislike of the antagonisms that arise so frequently between men and
nations than is the subject of this sketch. Nor has it fallen to the lot
of many to take such an important part in the two greatest wars of our
country. In the former chapters of this biography we have spoken of the
valuable services rendered to both sides of the contestants in our Civil
War by the Plant System, then only in its embryo state of development.
At the banquet given to Mr. Plant at the Atlanta Exposition we heard,
from some of the representative men of the South, patriotic speeches
full of native eloquence, that thrilled us in every fibre of our being.
“Mr. Plant,” said one of the distinguished speakers, “you have done more
to bring the North and South together than any other man living.” Mr.
Plant has been privileged to have a large part in the present conflict
that has completely cemented the whole nation as never before. This is
by no means the smallest benefit that has come to our country out of
this great conflict, for it is as true now as when it was uttered by one
of the greatest American statesmen, “United we stand, divided we fall.”
The following description of the facilities afforded for shipment at
Port Tampa is from the pen of one who is well acquainted with every
foot of land and water about which he writes.
“The war with Spain directed attention more to Port Tampa than any one
place in the United States. This was for the reason that the largest
military expedition that ever left the shores of the United States was
loaded and sailed from the docks there. The work was done in a very
short time, considering the lack of experience of the government
officials in charge.
“So much has been said and written about the loading of General
Shafter’s expedition, with its fleet of thirty-six steamships, that the
public will appreciate some detailed information about the immense
facilities which are found ready for use at Port Tampa. This was through
the foresight and business sagacity of the head of the Plant System, for
he built largely for the great business that must pass through that port
at no distant day.
“The railroad yards of over thirty-six miles of track, at Port Tampa,
Port Tampa City, and Tampa, belong to the Plant System, and have a
capacity of over two thousand cars, leaving working room for all the
business that this number of cars would bring to the place. The tracks
are perfectly arranged, and experienced railroad men say that no
railroad yard in the South will compare with this for conveniences in
handling a big business. The business is in the hands of railroad men
of experience, and no delays were traceable to them. Between Tampa and
Port Tampa is a stretch of nine miles. To illustrate the perfect system
employed in handling the business, it is only necessary to say that from
six o’clock in the morning until 11:40 at night, twenty-six passenger
trains passed over this nine miles every day. Besides this, the freight
trains numbered more than this, comprising the various sections of
regular trains and the large number of troop and supply-trains for the
movement. There was no delay and not an accident.
“Of the facilities at the docks, as much can be said. It is the only
port in the country where vessels drawing twenty-four feet of water can
come alongside and load in such numbers. There is room for twenty-four
vessels of that draught, three hundred and twenty feet long, to lie end
for end, and receive cargoes at the same time. These steamers are all
loaded from the railroad tracks, just twenty feet removed from the edge
of the pier, and nothing stands in the way of the quick work. Vessels of
less length make it possible to increase the number, and at one time
there were thirteen vessels loading end to end at one side of the pier.
According to this calculation, thirty-two vessels could be accommodated.
At these docks are to be found berths for phosphate vessels where their
cargoes are loaded from electric elevators, which are the latest
improved. Just across the slip is the government coal dock, and here are
electric elevators for handling this business. A large amount of coal is
now stored in these docks for the government.
“It was not necessary to provide any of these facilities for the
especial purpose of handling the government war business. They were all
there and in use before the war, and the government used them in sending
off this fleet of thirty-six vessels, under convoy of a large number of
war vessels. It was one of the most imposing sights of the age to see
this great fleet steaming down the bay; flags flying and bands playing,
and sixteen thousand American soldiers cheering as they felt the vessels
move over the waters of Tampa Bay, all bound for a victorious campaign
against the enemy.
“The Plant System has done well its part in the great modern war, and is
equally well prepared to do its part in carrying on the great commerce
between the United States, Cuba, the West India Islands, and all of the
South American countries.”
The _Marine Journal_ of New York of July 9, 1898, has the following
editorial:
“PORT TAMPA--Phœnix-like Rose and Met the Occasion--Over Thirty
Troop Ships Loaded and Departed from its Piers--The Largest War
Fleet ever Sent from One Port at One Time in the Nation’s
History--The Port’s Immense Facilities.
“It would take the entire reading space of the _Marine Journal_ to
describe the great amount of work done at Port Tampa, Fla., in getting
Gen. Shafter’s army afloat, and the exhaustive facilities that were
found by the government to exist there available for this purpose; in
fact, only those who have visited the West coast of Florida within ten
years past have any idea of the extensive improvements that have been
made at Port Tampa by the Plant System with a view to bringing the
commerce of the United States within close communication with the Island
of Cuba, Jamaica, and other nearby Gulf ports. Millions of dollars have
been expended by Henry B. Plant and associates under the supervision of
the best known experts in railroad and harbor improvements that could be
obtained for this object, and the work was near completion when war was
declared with Spain, and the Island of Cuba became the base of
hostilities.
“Fortunately the government was well informed as to the superior
facilities already in operation at Port Tampa, and the Quartermaster’s
Department of the Army was not slow in recommending this place for the
mobilization of troops and their preparation and embarkation to Cuba
therefrom. The vexatious delays caused by inexperience in handling such
a large body of men and munitions of war, reports of spook Spanish
fleets, etc., are more or less familiar to our readers, as well as the
detail of the fitting out and embarking of over 12,000 troops and their
supplies which were loaded on board over thirty transports at Port Tampa
in a very short space of time. The wharf facilities at some times
accommodated as many as thirteen of these troop ships strung along end
on.
“Let the _Marine Journal_ readers imagine for a moment that the Florida
terminus of the Plant System of railroads at Port Tampa extends out into
the harbor nearly a mile on two solidly built piers of sheet piling,
earth, and rocks between which is a canal or basin with twenty-five feet
depth of water its entire length, where a fleet of ships can lie and
load or unload from or into cars night and day. The south pier is
seventy feet wide, and has three tracks laid upon it, twenty feet of
this width is set apart for working cargo from car to ship, and vice
versa, also a promenade its entire length, midway of which is the famous
“Inn,” built out over the water, where passengers in transit to Cuba and
Key West, as well as tourists, can enjoy a cool, delightful rest after a
trip by sea or land. One can hardly imagine the amount of transportation
facilities afforded at this immense terminus, with its mile in length
railroad-yard, and Port Tampa is but twenty-four hours sail from Havana
by steamers of fair average speed. The _Olivette_, of the Plant Line,
has frequently made the trip in nineteen and a half hours.
“There is twenty feet of water on the shoalest part of the bar at the
entrance of the (thirty feet) harbor of Port Tampa, and a very small
expense in dredging, which is now being arranged for, will enable
vessels to enter drawing twenty-five feet. Outside of the harbor, in
Tampa Bay, is a roadstead where the entire naval and transport fleet of
the United States could ride safely at anchor in the fiercest hurricane,
thereby adding another valuable argument for Port Tampa as a naval as
well as an army base.
“It is a well-known fact to mariners who are familiar with West Indian
and Gulf navigation, that after July 15th, it is necessary to keep an
eye to windward for hurricanes up to the middle of September; then more
or less heavy weather occurs until the middle of March. And here comes
in another great advantage in favor of Port Tampa as against all other
ports in the United States as regards safety from the elements. With the
present able weather bureau, and its complete arrangements for signaling
the conditions of the weather from all important points, there is not
the slightest danger of encountering a hurricane between Port Tampa and
Cuba. The weather reports available make it not only easy to avoid them
through reliable information of their coming, but enables the mariner to
prepare for them in the harbor of Port Tampa or Key West if there isn’t
time to reach Cuba. If the government is wise it will ship no more
troops to Cuba or Porto Rico this season from north or south of
Hatteras, as there is no need of subjecting them to the risk of
hurricanes. Our soldier boys should have as short and comfortable a sea
voyage as possible, and that is only obtainable in first-class shape
from Port Tampa, following down the west coast of Florida, always under
the lee of the land in case of an eastern gale or hurricane.”
The caution contained in the above against storms, and the desire for a
safe and comfortable passage for our soldier boys, will find a tender
response in many hearts for him who facilitated the embarkation of the
brave men going from their native land to fight a foreign foe.
TESTIMONIAL ACCOMPANYING A SILVER SERVICE PRESENTED
BY THE OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES OF THE
SOUTHERN EXPRESS COMPANY TO MR. AND MRS. H. B.
PLANT ON THE CELEBRATION OF THEIR TWENTY-FIFTH
WEDDING ANNIVERSARY.
“NEW YORK, July 2d, 1898.
“TO MR. AND MRS. H. B. PLANT.
“_The following officers and employees of the Southern Express
Company ask that you accept this ‘SERVICE’ as an evidence of the
affectionate regard in which they hold their honored President and
his Wife._
“_It has appeared to them that upon a day commemorative of the
ceremony which twenty-five years ago united in affection your
lives, they should give some enduring expression of the esteem in
which they hold you both._
“_They gratefully recognize the wise direction, the patient
forbearance and the friendly counsel of their President, which has
done so much to guide and aid them, in their respective spheres of
duty, and they are equally sensible of the fact that under
advancing years, and multiplicity of duties, only the ceaseless
care and affectionate heed of a devoted Wife has made this
possible._
“_They beg that you accept the testimonial in the spirit which has
prompted it, and with the assurance that to your ‘wedded love’ is
indissolubly linked their respect, admiration and affection._
“H. Dempsey, J. Cronin, N. S. Woodward, W. J. Crosswell, C. A.
Pardue, Mark J. O’Brien, W. A. Dewees, W. W. Allen, F. G. du
Bignon, W. A. Blankenship, A. M. Richardson, H. E. Williamson, L.
H. Black, J. L. S. Albright, L. Spaulding, A. Montgomery, J. B.
Hockaday, G. C. Crom, F. de C. Sullivan, W. Buckner, W. E. McGill,
G. A. Wilkinson, S. C. Hargis, G. W. Bacot, G. Sadler, C. C.
Wolfe, P. B. Wilkes, W. J. Brown, F. R. Osborne, O. M. Sadler, C.
T. Campbell, V. Spalding, H. C. Fisher, M. F. Plant, F. J. Virgin,
C. Pink, C. L. Loop, W. C. Agee, F. Q. Brown, J. C. Stuart, L.
Minor, R. B. Smith, W. B. Menzies, John Lovette, E. J. Loughman, J.
T. James, W. H. Hendee, S. R. Golibart, E. M. Williams, J. C.
Barry, W. R. Twyman, E. C. Spence, L. Kuder, C. R. Smith, J. B.
Gartrell, M. Culliny, A. Welsh, G. W. Agee, C. L. Myers, W. K.
Haile, W. A. Mehegan, R. G. Erwin, C. H. Albright, W. M. Shoemaker,
H. C. Mendenhall, G. H. Tilley, A. McD. Mullings, J. W. Gaines, T.
W. Leary, C. G. McCormick, W. W. Hulbert, K. C. Barrett, M. F.
Loughman, E. F. Gary, J. J. Crosswell, E. J. Michelin, T. T.
Weltch, Thomas Grier, R. A. Buckner, H. M. Smith, M. J. O’Brien, W.
S. McFarland, E. G. Williams.”
MR. AND MRS. PLANT’S ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF TESTIMONIAL
AND SERVICE.
“NEW YORK, July 2nd, 1898.
“ESTEEMED FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES:
“_Twenty-five years ago, this second day of July, was a very happy
one for us, and, to-day, on our Silver Anniversary, we are most
pleasantly reminded of the occasion by the unexpected receipt of a
handsome token indicative of the affection in which we are held by
those who, during the last quarter of a century, have surrounded
us as friends as well as business associates._
“_The sentiments embodied in the testimonial accompanying the very
beautiful ‘Service’ are highly appreciated and accepted by us as an
evidence of the sincere feelings prompting your thoughtful
recollection of this memorable mile-stone in our lives._
“_In returning our deep gratitude for your remembrance and kind
expressions, we indulge the hope that we will have many years
together to enjoy the gift which your generosity has provided, and
that while life lasts we may have the friendship of those whose
acts in the past and present have brought them so near to us._
“_Very sincerely_,
“HENRY B. PLANT,
“MARGARET J. PLANT.”
[Illustration: text decoration] PLANT GENEALOGY
PREPARED BY
G. S. DICKERMAN
THE PLANTS IN GENERAL
There are many families of the Plant name. This will be seen on looking
into city directories and running the eye over lists there given.
Accounts show that these families have come from several progenitors who
arrived in this country at different times.
Attention is paid here more particularly to the descendants of John
Plant, of Branford, Connecticut. But it may be of interest to glance at
certain other families.
The Plants of St. Louis, Missouri, have occupied an honorable place in
the history of that city during the last fifty years. One of their
number[2] tells of having traced their ancestry back some three hundred
years to the County Palatine, of Chester, in England, where, about 1600,
were two brothers, Samuel Plant and John Plant. From the latter of these
they are descended in the following line: John,^{1} Thomas,^{2}
George,^{3} Samuel,^{4} who married Ann Haigh and lived in
Macclesfield, England, Samuel,^{5} who came to Boston, Massachusetts,
between 1790 and 1800, and married there Mary D. Poignaud, a Boston lady
of Huguenot ancestry.
This Samuel^{5} Plant was sent out by his uncle, Mr. Haigh, a
manufacturer of woollen cloths at Leeds, to sell his goods, which he
did, with his headquarters at Boston, though he travelled extensively,
going once as far as Charleston, South Carolina. Some years later he
brought over from England plans for cotton machinery and built, in
1808-9, the first cotton factory in Worcester County, Massachusetts, at
Clinton.
He was the father of six sons and six daughters. The sons were George
P.,^{6} Frederick William,^{6} Samuel,^{6} Alfred,^{6} William M.,^{6}
and Henry,^{6} who all removed to St. Louis, and have been identified
with the enterprise and development of that city since 1840. Of these
sons Mr. Alfred^{6} Plant is the only survivor.
Another family has a representative[3] in Chicago, who writes that his
branch came from Ireland to Massachusetts early in this century. His
father’s name was Thomas Plant and he had an uncle Robert, who also
settled in Massachusetts.
Again the name appears in the annals of Newbury, New Hampshire, where
the Rev. Matthias Plant was rector of Queen Anne’s Chapel from April,
1722, till his death on December 23, 1751, a period of twenty-nine
years.[4] Previous to his time the church had been weak, but under his
ministry its position became secure. St. Paul’s Church was built in
another part of the town from Queen Anne’s, and he officiated there
also. His wife was the youngest daughter of Samuel Bartlett, of Newbury.
No further knowledge of this family has been obtained.
The name occurs twice in lists of persons embarking from England in
early times to settle in the colonies.[5] In one list William Plant is
reported to have died on a plantation in Virginia in 1624. In another
Matthew Plant, who was then twenty-three years old, was enrolled to sail
on the _Assurance_ from Gravesend for Virginia, July 24, 1635. Under the
term “Virginia,” in those times, were included the New England colonies
as well as those in the South, so that it is quite supposable that
Matthew Plant may have settled in New England.
THE PLANT FAMILY
OF BRANFORD, CONNECTICUT.
John^{1} Plant, the progenitor of this family, was a soldier in the
Narragansett war. The Connecticut General Assembly, in October, 1696,
bestowed on the “English Volunteers” in this struggle a tract of
territory six miles square, to be divided among them, which was located
in New London County, and has since borne the name of Voluntown. In the
list of those receiving these grants John^{1} Plant was numbered 59 in
the drawing of “Cedar Swamp Lots.”[6]
The Narragansett war ended in 1676. Soon after this the name of John^{1}
Plant appears on the records of the town of Branford, January 21, 1677,
when a lot of two acres was granted to him on condition that he should
build upon it within three years. It seems unlikely that he was at
Branford much before this date, for the reason that his name is not in
the lists of residents enrolled in January, 1676. Nor do we find any
others of the Plant name previous to this date. Subsequently his name
occurs a number of times in connection with grants of land.[7]
He died about 1691, as evidenced by the inventory of his estate taken
June 4, 1691. The valuation of his property was £130 8_s._ 9_d._
The indications concerning his family are not altogether clear.[8] He
had a son John,^{2} concerning whom accounts are somewhat full. There
was a Martha Plant enrolled among the members of the church in 1704. She
may have been his daughter. There was also an Elizabeth Plant,[9] who
may have been another daughter.
CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN
OF JOHN^{2} AND HANNAH (WHEDON) PLANT.
| HANNAH PLANT |Reuben Whedon
| born July, 16, 1708 |William Whedon
| married |Noah Whedon
| ABRAHAM WHEDON |Hannah Whedon
| |Martha Whedon
| |Submit Whedon
| |Sarah Whedon
| |Deborah Whedon
+---------------------------+----------------
| JOHN PLANT |
| born September 19, 1711 |
+---------------------------+----------------
| JONATHAN PLANT |
| born July 29, 1714 |
--------------------------+---------------------------+----------------
JOHN PLANT, JR. | JAMES PLANT |Solomon Plant
baptized March 3, 1678 | born November 4, 1716 |James Plant
died February 10, 1752 | died February 7, 1795 |Samuel Plant
married |married September 22, 1740 |Stephen Plant
HANNAH WHEDON | BATHSHEBA PAGE |Lois Plant
died Nov. 5, 1754, aged 69| |Ebenezer Plant
| |Sarah Plant
| |Moses Plant
--------------------------+---------------------------+----------------
| ELIZABETH PLANT |Josiah Parrish
| born August 1, 1720 |Elizabeth Parrish
|married September 21, 1748 |Sibil Parrish
| JOSIAH PARRISH |Hannah Parrish
| |Mary Parrish
| |John Parrish
+---------------------------+----------------
| TIMOTHY PLANT |Lucy Plant
| born April 6, 1724 |Hannah Plant
| married February 12, 1745 |Timothy Plant
| LUCY PARRISH |Joel Plant
| |Ithiel Plant
+---------------------------+----------------
| ABRAHAM PLANT |Eli Plant
|baptized September 23, 1727|Electa Plant
| married (1) |Lydia Plant
| HANNAH HOADLEY |Abraham Plant
| married (2) |Anne Plant
| TAMAR FRISBIE |Hannah Plant
| |Elizabeth Plant
| |Rebecca Plant
| |Jason Plant
+---------------------------+----------------
| BENJAMIN PLANT |Hannah Plant
| born 1732 |John Plant
| died August 11, 1808 |Benjamin Plant
| married (1) |Anderson Plant
| LORANA BECKWITH |Lorana Plant
| married (2) |Peggy Plant
| ABIGAIL PALMER |Samuel Plant
| married (3) |Elias Plant
| LOIS FRISBIE |
JOHN^{2} PLANT, JR.--HANNAH WHEDON.
John^{2} Plant, Jr., son of John^{1} Plant, was baptized at Branford,
March 3, 1678; died February 10, 1752, aged seventy-four; married Hannah
Whedon, a daughter of Thomas and Hannah (Barnes) Whedon, who was born in
1686; died November 5, 1754, aged sixty-nine.[10]
Their children were born in Branford, and were as follows:
I. Hannah^{3} Plant, born July 16, 1708; baptized August 7, 1715;
married Abraham Whedon, who died about 1762.[11]
II. John^{3} Plant, born September 19, 1711; baptized August 7, 1715;
died about 1788.[12]
III. Jonathan^{3} Plant, born July 29, 1714; baptized August 7, 1715;
living in Branford May 29, 1753, as shown by the “ear mark” for his
cattle entered on the records, May 29, 1753; died before October 7,
1772.[13]
IV. James^{3} Plant, born November 4, 1716; baptized November 18, 1716;
died February 7, 1795; married, September 22, 1740, Bathsheba Page,
daughter of Samuel and Mindwell Page, of Branford; born January 25,
1715-16; died, at Stratford, January 5, 1803. _Account continued on page
315._
V. Elizabeth^{3} Plant, born August 1, 1720; baptized August, 1720;
married, September 21, 1748, Josiah Parrish, son of John and Hannah
Parrish, of Branford.[14]
1. Josiah^{4} Parrish, born April 6, 1749; married, December 25, 1770,
Thankful Plant, perhaps the widow of Samuel Plant.
2. Elizabeth^{4} Parrish, born August 3, 1751.
3. Sibil^{4} Parrish, born March 28, 1753.
4. Hannah^{4} Parrish, born July 11, 1756.
5. Mary^{4} Parrish, born June 7, 1759.
6. John^{4} Parrish, born May 16. 1762.
VI. Timothy^{3} Plant, born April 6, 1724; baptized May 17, 1724;
married, at Branford, Lucy Parrish. _Account continued on page 317._
VII. Abraham^{3} Plant, baptized September 23, 1727; married (1), May
(or March) 9, 1751, Hannah^{4} Hoadley, daughter of John^{3} and Lydia
(Rogers) Hoadley (John^{2}, William^{1}); born May 8, 1733; died April
4, 1755; married (2), January 12, 1763, Tamar Frisbie; born about 1740;
died 1793, aged 53. Children by second marriage, and born at Branford.
1. Eli^{4} Plant, born August 4, 1763; married, July 8, 1787, Sarah
Stent.
2. Electa^{4} Plant, born September 27, 1765.
3. Lydia^{4} Plant, born December 20, 1767; baptized, with the younger
children, May 2, 1784.
4. Abraham^{4} Plant, born August 3 or 4, 1770.
5. Anne^{4} Plant, born August 3 or 4, 1770, twin with Abraham.
6. Hannah^{4} Plant, born March 14, 1773.
7. Elizabeth^{4} Plant, born October 12, 1775.
8. Rebecca^{4} Plant, born March 7, 1777.
9. Jason^{4} Plant, born August 11, 1782.
VIII. Benjamin^{3} Plant, born about 1732; died August 11, 1808, aged
76; married (1), April 5, 1758, Lorana Beckwith, of Lyme; born about
1736; died March 16, 1789, aged 53; married (2), June 17, 1790, Abigail
Palmer; married (3), December 6, 1797, Lois Frisbie. _Account continued
on page 318._
_Authorities._--New Haven and Branford Town and Church Records; Probate
Records at New Haven, Branford, and Guilford; _Atwater’s History of New
Haven Colony_; Orcutt’s _History of Stratford_.
JAMES^{3} PLANT--BATHSHEBA PAGE.
James^{3} Plant, son of John^{2} and Hannah (Whedon) Plant (John^{1});
born November 4, 1716; baptized November 18, 1716, at Branford; died
there February 7, 1795; married, September 22, 1740, Bathsheba Page,
daughter of Samuel and Mindwell Page, of Branford; born January 25,
1715-16; died January 5, 1803, at Stratford, Connecticut. _See page
313._
He had a farm near the head of Lake Saltonstall and raised a family,
most of whom left Branford. He was drowned while crossing the lake on
the ice, and his farm was sold by John and Samuel Plant to George
Townsend, of East Haven. His widow seems to have passed the closing
years of her life with their oldest son in the home he had made at
Stratford.
I. Solomon^{4} Plant, born May 1, 1741; died May 20, 1822; married (1),
November 16, 1769, Sarah Bennett, of Stratford, who died September 15,
1815; married (2), November 19, 1816, Mrs. Esther (Frost) Botsford.
_Account continued on page 320._
II. James^{4} Plant, born September 10, 1742; living at Southington,
Connecticut, as late as June 15, 1813, when he deeded land to his son
Ebenezer^{5}; married, January 9, 1772, at New Haven, Lucy Judd,
daughter of Joseph and Ruth (Thompson) Judd, of that place. _Account
continued on page 321._
III. Samuel^{4} Plant, baptized February 10, 1745; married, July 2,
1769, Thankful Towner, of Branford. He was lost at sea.
IV. Stephen^{4} Plant, baptized March 8, 1747; died before February 3,
1808, when his estate was admitted to probate in Litchfield,
Connecticut, and his widow was appointed administratrix. _Account
continued on page 322._
V. Lois^{4} Plant, baptized April 2, 1749; died April 21, 1833, aged 84,
at South Hill, Onondaga County, New York; married Obed Fellows, of
Canaan, Connecticut. Their son, Ephraim^{5} Fellows, was the father of
Lucy^{6} Fellows, who became the wife of William Agur^{6} Plant. _See
page 328._
VI. Ebenezer^{4} Plant, born October 26, 1751; baptized December 15,
1751; died April or May, 1796; married, August 17, 1774, Esther^{6}
Bassett, daughter of Lieutenant John^{5} and Naomi (Wooster) Bassett
(Samuel,^{6} Robert,^{3} Robert,^{2} John^{1}), residence, Derby,
Connecticut.[15]
Captain Samuel^{5} Plant, his son, died at Norfolk, Virginia, in 1815.
His wife was Dorothy^{8} Gorham, daughter of Isaac^{7} and Sarah
(Atwater) Gorham (John,^{4} Isaac,^{5} Jabez,^{4} John,^{3} Ralph^{2},
James^{1}), born February 22, 1775; died August 4, 1832, aged 57. Their
daughter, Sarah Atwater^{6} Plant (born December 4, 1800, died June 16,
1880), married Nathaniel Jocelyn, of New Haven (born January 31, 1796,
died January 18, 1881).
VII. Sarah^{4} Plant, born May 6, 1754; baptized June 9, 1754.
VIII. Moses^{4} Plant, born March 17, 1760; supposed to have settled at
Niagara, New York, and died there. He was in the Revolutionary War,
Sixth regiment, Connecticut line, Captain James Prentice, of New Haven;
enlisted, April 20, 1777, for eight months; discharged, January 1, 1778;
also enlisted, February 21, 1778, in the regiment of Artificers, from
Branford, for three years.
_Authorities._--New Haven, Branford, Guilford, Litchfield, and
Southington Town and Probate Records; Branford Church Records; Orcutt’s
_History of Stratford_; Orcutt’s _History of Derby_; _The Tuttle
Family_; gravestones in Grove Street Cemetery at New Haven; private
records of Hon. Livingston W. Cleaveland, of New Haven, a grandson of
Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel Jocelyn.
TIMOTHY^{3} PLANT--LUCY PARRISH.
Timothy^{3} Plant, son of John^{2} and Hannah (Whedon) Plant (John^{1}),
born April 6, 1724, at Branford; baptized May 17, 1724; married Lucy
Parrish, daughter of John and Hannah Parrish of that place. _See page
314._
I. Lucy^{4} Plant, born May 27, 1745; died February 26, 1825, aged 80,
at Saybrook, now Westbrook, Connecticut; married, December 24, 1764,
Daniel Dee, son of William Dee, of Saybrook; born about 1739; died
August 23, 1823, aged 84. Their gravestone is in the old cemetery at
Westbrook.
II. Hannah^{4} Plant, born March 15, 1747; married, at Saybrook, Jared
Baldwin, son of Jerjah Baldwin, of Milford, where they afterward lived
and are mentioned in the records, November 30, 1819, as occupying their
house with their daughter, Hannah Bassett. _See The Baldwin Genealogy._
III. Timothy^{4} Plant, born July 4, 1750; married, 1770, Mary Ann
Colberth, who died about 1788, residence, Litchfield, Connecticut.
_Account continued on page 323._
IV. Joel^{4} Plant, born March 25, 1753. He is supposed to have died
young.
V. Ithiel^{4} Plant, born in 1755; married, November 20, 1783, at
Saybrook, Connecticut, Hannah Denison, daughter of George and Jemima
(Post) Denison of that place; born October 25, 1758.[16]
_Authorities._--Town and Probate Records at Deep River; gravestone at
Westbrook; _Early Connecticut Marriages_, by F. W. Bailey; _The Baldwin
Genealogy_; _Record of Connecticut Men in the War of the Revolution_;
United States Pension Records as given by Commissioner Evans.
BENJAMIN^{3} PLANT--LORANA BECKWITH.
Benjamin^{3} Plant, son of John^{2} and Hannah (Whedon) Plant
(John^{1}), born, about 1732, at Branford; died August 11, 1808, aged
76; married (1), April 5, 1758 (by Rev. Philemon Robbins), Lorana
Beckwith, of Lyme, Connecticut; born about 1736; died March 16, 1789,
aged 53; married (2), June 17, 1790, Abigail Palmer; married (3),
December 6, 1797, Lois Frisbie. He lived in Branford and his children
were born there. _See page 315._
I. Hannah^{4} Plant, born January 26, 1759; baptized April 25, 1759;
married, June 30, 1779, John Russell.
II. John^{4} Plant, born December 1, 1761; baptized January 17, 1762;
removed to Seneca Lake, New York; was twice married but left no
children.
III. Benjamin^{4} Plant, born October 1, 1763; died 1812; married, 1787,
Lucinda Potter, daughter of Captain Stephen and Sarah (Lindley) Potter;
born April 4, 1767, at Branford; died June 26, 1848. They removed to
Utica, New York, about 1795.
1. Sally^{5} Plant, born 1790; died 1808.
2. Stephen^{5} Plant, died 1793.
3. Benjamin^{5} Plant, born April 28, 1794; died August 7, 1876;
married, April 7, 1823, Sarah Mason, daughter of Arnold and Mercy Mason,
1798-1879.
4. James^{5} Plant, born June 16, 1798; died January 5, 1860; married,
November 27, 1833, Hannah A. Mason, daughter of Arnold and Mercy Mason;
born 1812.
5. John^{5} Plant, born June 16, 1789; died young.
6. Mary Eliza^{5} Plant, born June 9, 1800; died March 1, 1886; married,
September 9, 1820, Roswell Keeler, son of Timothy and Luranay (DeForest)
Keeler; 1791-1864.
7. Frederick^{5} Plant, born April 27, 1810; died January 31, 1884.
IV. Anderson^{4} Plant, born November 18, 1765; baptized November 24,
1765; was drowned in the Susquehanna River at the age of about 25.[17]
V. Lorana^{4} Plant, baptized August 30, 1767; married Henry Garret and
went to Trenton Falls, New York. Their son Orrin Garret was a printer,
and one of the early missionaries to the Sandwich Islands.
VI. Peggy^{4} Plant, born May 26, 1769; baptized June 4, 1769; married,
March 23, 1793, Jonathan Frisbie.
VII. Samuel^{4} Plant, born April 1, 1772; baptized April 12, 1772; died
July 29, 1862, aged 90; married, February 11, 1795, Sarah Frisbie; born
May 15, 1774; died August 25, 1841, aged 67. _Account continued on page
324._
VIII. Elias^{4} Plant, baptized August 7, 1774; married (1), March 31,
1799, Ruhama Hall, daughter of Elias and Ruhama Hall, and widow of
Thomas Trowbridge; born January 16, 1776; married (2), November 10,
1843, Lydia Linsley. _Account continued on page 325._
_Authorities._--Town, Church, and Probate Records at Branford and
Guilford; _History and Genealogy of the Potter Family_, Part V., p. 6.
SOLOMON^{4} PLANT--SARAH BENNETT.
Solomon^{4} Plant, son of James^{3} and Bathsheba (Page) Plant
(John,^{2} John^{1}), born, May 1, 1741, at Branford; died, May 20,
1822, at Stratford; married (1), November 16, 1769, Sarah Bennett, of
Stratford, who died September 15, 1815; married (2), November 19, 1816,
Mrs. Esther (Frost) Botsford.[18] _See page 315._
I. Hannah^{5} Plant, born October 25, 1770; married, October 7, 1787,
Asa Benjamin; born December 2, 1763.
II. Sarah^{5} Plant, born January 5, 1775; died August 14, 1857;
married, September 10, 1797, Daniel Judson; born November 24, 1763; died
October 4, 1847.
III. Cata^{5} Plant, born December 30, 1777; died January 16, 1778.
IV. David^{5} Plant, born March 29, 1783; died October 18, 1851;
married, December 5, 1810, Catharine^{6} Tomlinson; born October 9,
1787; died June 2, 1835. _Account continued on page 327._
_Authorities._--Rolls of Soldiers in the State of New York; Orcutt’s
_History of Stratford_.
JAMES^{4} PLANT--LUCY JUDD.
James^{4} Plant, son of James^{3} and Bathsheba (Page) Plant (John,^{2}
John^{1}), born September 10, 1742, at Branford; died May 16, 1814;
married, January 9, 1772, at New Haven, Lucy Judd, daughter of Joseph
and Ruth (Thompson) Judd; born 1742; died August 17, 1822. _See page
315._
I. Lucy^{5} Plant, born May 14, 1773; died May, 1863.
II. Joseph^{5} Plant, born March 26, 1775; died March 30, 1803.
III. Rebekah^{5} Plant, born February 6, 1778; died September, 1862.
IV. James^{5} Plant, born February 16, 1781; died March 23, 1806;
residence, Harwinton. Litchfield records say that he left a wife, Nancy,
and an infant daughter, Laura.
V. Sally^{5} Plant, born April 14, 1784; died May 23, 1874; married,
February 5, 1803, Zephi Brockett, son of Amos and Lucy (Dutton)
Brockett. _See “The Tuttle Family,” page 547._
VI. Ebenezer^{5} Plant, born January 10, 1787; died April 30, 1821, at
Southington, married, August 29, 1809, Lydia Neale, daughter of Jeremiah
and Anna (Fuller) Neale, of that place; born January 29, 1788; died
February 22, 1857. _Account continued on page 329._
VII. Vesta^{5} Plant, born March 23, 1791; died January 30, 1815.
_Authorities._--Town and Probate Records at Branford, Guilford, New
Haven, and Southington; gravestones in Quinnipiack Cemetery at
Plantsville; Letter of Mr. F. H.^{7} Plant.
STEPHEN^{4} PLANT--REBECCA ----.
Stephen^{4} Plant, son of James^{3} and Bathsheba (Page) Plant
(John,^{2} John^{1}), baptized March 8, 1747, at Branford; died before
February 3, 1808, when his estate was admitted to Probate in Litchfield,
Connecticut, and his widow, Rebecca Plant, was appointed
administratrix.[19] _See page 316._
I. Naomi^{5} Plant, born September 2, 1776.
II. Jerusha^{5} Plant, born May 17, 1778.
III. Orpah^{5} Plant, born July 24, 1780.
IV. Stephen^{5} Plant, born June 25, 1782.
V. Ruel^{5} Plant, born March 21, 1785; married (1), September 18, 1807,
Phebe Spinyer; married (2), October 30, 1842, Hutsah Williams. Children
by the first marriage, and born in Litchfield.
1. Isaac^{6} Plant, born August 13, 1808.
2. Maryan^{6} Plant, born February 7, 1811.
3. Hariot^{6} Plant, born March 10, 1814.
4. Stephen^{6} Plant, born January 31, 1817.
5. Jane^{6} Plant, born February 4, 1819.
6. David^{6} Plant, born January 30, 1821.
7. Phebe^{6} Plant, born September 1, 1823.
8. Charlotte^{6} Plant, born July 1, 1826.
9. Abigail^{6} Plant, born October 21, 1828.
VI. Rebecca^{5} Plant, born May 21, 1787.
VII. Ammi^{5} Plant, born November 5, 1789; married, December 7, 1820,
Mary Barney, of Litchfield, the service being by Rev. Isaac Jones, of
St. Michael’s Church.
VIII. Isaac^{5} Plant, born March 31, 1793.
TIMOTHY^{4} PLANT--MARY ANN COLBERTH.
Timothy^{4} Plant, son of Timothy^{3} and Lucy (Parrish) Plant
(John,^{2} John^{1}), born July 4, 1750, at Branford; died about 1777;
married, 1770, Mary Ann Colberth.[20] _See page 317._
I. Margaret^{5} Plant, born December 11, 1771; married a Gleason.
II. Timothy^{5} Plant, born January 3, 1773; died April 7, 1836, aged
63; married, January 3, 1795, Chloe Dickerman, of New Haven. _Account
continued on page 330._
III. Lucy Parrish^{5} Plant, born November 6, 1774; married a Dickinson
and went to the West.
IV. Joel^{5} Plant, born August 22 (or 24), 1776; died 1853, at
Meridian, New York. _Account continued on page 332._
V. Avis^{5} Plant, born 1777; unmarried; resided in Richmond, Virginia,
for some years and died there.
_Authorities._--Town and Probate Records at Litchfield; _Connecticut
Soldiers in the War of the Revolution_; Family Records and Traditions.
SAMUEL^{4} PLANT--SARAH FRISBIE.
Samuel^{4} Plant, son of Benjamin and Lorana (Beckwith) Plant, born
April 1, 1772; baptized April 12, 1772, at Branford; died July 29, 1862,
aged 90; married, February 11, 1795, Sarah^{6} Frisbie, daughter of
Joseph^{5} and Sarah (Rogers) Frisbie (Joseph,^{4} Joseph,^{3} John,^{2}
Edward^{1}); born May 15, 1774; died August 25, 1841, aged 67. They
lived at Branford. He served as a coastguard in the War of 1812. _See
page 320._
I. Anderson^{5} Plant, born January 2, 1796; died October 29, 1826, aged
30; married, December 23, 1818, Betsey Bradley, of Branford. _Account
continued on page 335._
II. Polly^{5} Plant, born October 16, 1798; died April 20, 1800.
III. Sally^{5} Plant, born September 17, 1801; married Judah Frisbie, a
merchant in New Haven.
IV. John^{5} Plant, born May 19, 1806; died May 22, 1881; married
Angelina Beach, daughter of Asher S. and Statira (Baldwin) Beach; born
October 9, 1807; died January 13, 1883. He was a deacon of the church.
1. Mary E.^{6} Plant, born October 13, 1826; died September 19, 1879;
married, November 9, 1852, William Norton.
2. Anderson W.^{6} Plant, born March 21, 1829; died June 22, 1847.
3. Sarah J.^{6} Plant, born July 24, 1831; died May 30, 1846.
4. George W.^{6} Plant, born March 12, 1833; married, October 6, 1857,
Eliza E. Lane, of New Haven; born November 16, 1832; she died March 17,
1895.
5. John B.^{6} Plant, born May 5, 1836; died December 28, 1836.
6. Angelina B.^{6} Plant, born December 24, 1838; died July 20, 1841.
7. Angelina B.^{6} Plant, married, October 5, 1858, Henry T. Swift.
8. Emily S.^{6} Plant, born August 9, 1842; died June 11, 1856.
9. Elizabeth R.^{6} Plant, baptized August 9, 1846; married, July 12,
1871, Edward A. Anketelle.
10. John A.^{6} Plant, born April 7, 1848; died September 16, 1852.
V. Mary R.^{5} Plant, born October 9, 1808; died October 1, 1825, aged
17.
VI. Samuel Orin^{5} Plant, born June 24, 1815; married, February 26,
1839, Mary Ann Blackstone, daughter of Captain James Blackstone.
1. Ellen Blackstone^{6} Plant.
2. Sarah Frisbie^{6} Plant, married Hon. Lynde Harrison, residence, New
Haven.
_Authorities._--Town and Church Records at Branford; gravestones at
Branford; Family Records; _Baldwin Genealogy_; Rokeby’s _History of New
Haven County_.
ELIAS^{4} PLANT--RUHAMAH HALL.
Elias^{4} Plant, son of Benjamin^{3} and Lorana (Beckwith) Plant
(John,^{2} John^{1}), baptized August 7, 1774, at Branford; married (1),
March 31, 1799, Ruhamah Hall, daughter of Elias and Ruhamah Hall,[21]
and widow of Thomas Trowbridge; born January 16, 1776; married (2),
November 10, 1843, Lydia Linsley. The children were by the first
marriage. _See page 320._
I. William^{5} Plant, born January 4, 1800; baptized with the four
younger children, September 30, 1810, at Branford; married Polly Beach,
daughter of Asher S. and Statira (Baldwin) Beach. Children born at
Branford.
1. Anna Louisa^{6} Plant, born February 14, 1832.
2. Alonzo Austin^{6} Plant, born October 27, 1834; married, July 2,
1857, Elizabeth Mary Hough, of New Haven.
3. Edwin Ezra^{6} Plant, born February 6, 1837.
4. Margaret^{6} Plant.
5. Lucerne^{6} Plant.
6. William^{6} Plant.
7. Albert E.^{6} Plant married Bessie Upson, of East Haven, and had two
children, Albert C. Plant and Mabel M. Plant.
II. Mary^{5} Plant, born September 3, 1801.
III. Thomas^{5} Plant, born April 14, 1804; died about 1873; married
Sarah Chidsey. His will, dated April 4, 1867, proved June 26, 1873,
appoints his brother James executor, and bequeaths all his estate to his
sister, Jane Maria^{5} Plant; residence, Guilford.
IV. Edward^{5} Plant, born September 8, 1806; married, September 13,
1831, Harriette Jennette^{7} Street, daughter of Elnathan^{6} and
Clarissa (Morris) Street (Nicholas,^{5} Elnathan,^{4} Samuel,^{3}
Samuel,^{2} Nicholas^{1}); born July 8, 1807; died June 14, 1866.
1. De Forest Edward^{6} Plant, born June 27, 1832; died March 7, 1875;
married, June 16, 1857, (by Rev. H. W. Beecher at Plymouth Church in
Brooklyn), Harriet Ely, daughter of C. H. Ely, of Hanover, New Jersey.
2. Harriet Evelina^{6} Plant, born January 18, 1834; died January 13,
1837.
3. Marian Albertina^{6} Plant, born April 1, 1839; died November, 1863;
married James La Hon.
4. Ella Alexina^{6} Plant, born July 29, 1849; died 1864.
V. Jane^{5} Plant, born March 1, 1808.
VI. James^{5} Plant, baptized April 28, 1811.
VII. Harriet^{5} Plant, baptized May 23, 1813; married, February 28,
1839, James Morris.
VIII. Julianna^{5} Plant, baptized July 22, 1815; married, August 6,
1839, James T. Leete.
IX. Elias^{5} Plant, baptized June 27, 1817; married, December 31, 1848,
Delia E. Beach. He died, and she married, November 24, 1874, Henry
Doolittle.
1. Jane Frances^{6} Plant, baptized September 3, 1851.
X. Jane Maria^{5} Plant, baptized July 4, 1819.
_Authorities._--Town and Probate Records; _The Trowbridge Family_; _Hall
Family Record_; _The Street Genealogy_.
DAVID^{5} PLANT--CATHARINE TOMLINSON.
David^{5} Plant, son of Solomon^{4} and Sarah (Bennett) Plant
(James,^{3} John,^{2} John^{1}), born March 29, 1783, at Stratford; died
October 18, 1851; married, December 5, 1810, Catharine^{6} Tomlinson,
daughter of Dr. William Agur^{5} and Phebe (Lewis) Tomlinson (Agur,^{4}
Zechariah,^{3} Agur,^{2} Henry^{1}); born October 9, 1787; died June 2,
1835.[22] _See page 321._
I. William Agur^{6} Plant, born November 21, 1811, at Stratford; died
January 29, 1898, aged 86, at Syracuse, New York; married (1), April 29,
1832, Lucy Fellows, daughter of Ephraim Fellows, and granddaughter of
Obed and Lois (Plant) Fellows; she died in 1883, after a married life of
over fifty-one years, and he married (2), September 5, 1886, Abbie
Healey.[23]
II. Catharine Tomlinson^{6} Plant, married John W. Sterling, son of
David and Deborah (Strong) Sterling, residence, Stratford, Connecticut.
III. Sarah Elizabeth^{6} Plant, married Lauren Beach, residence,
Marcellus, New York.
IV. Henry^{6} Plant, married Eudocia ----. He was prominent as a business
man in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
V. John David^{6} Plant, died February 29, 1860, at St. Anthony,
Minnesota, where he was in business.
_Authorities._--Orcutt’s _History of Stratford_; _The Syracuse Press_;
Letter of Mrs. W. T. Plant, of Syracuse.
EBENEZER^{5} PLANT--LYDIA NEALE.
Ebenezer^{5} Plant, son of James^{4} and Lucy (Judd) Plant (James,^{3}
John,^{2} John^{1}), born January 10, 1787; died April 30, 1821, at
Southington; married, August 29, 1809, Lydia Neale, daughter of Jeremiah
and Anna (Fuller) Neale, of that place; born January 29, 1788; died
February 22, 1857. _See page 321._
I. Harriett^{6} Plant, born May 29, 1810; died September 30, 1816.
II. Laura Ann^{6} Plant, born April 20, 1812; died January 4, 1871;
married, June 28, 1831, Alfred A. Hotchkiss.
1. Edwin P.^{7} Hotchkiss, a manufacturer at Plantsville.
III. Amzi Perrin^{6} Plant, born July 2, 1816; died July 24, 1874;
married (1), A. E. Shipman, who died April 3, 1849; married (2), March,
1850, Cornelia Dakin.
1. Adelia^{7} Plant, born June 22, 1843; died July 1, 1846.
2. Emily C.^{7} Plant, born May 4, 1853; died April 18, 1867.
3. William Perrin^{7} Plant, born February 8, 1857.
IV. Ebenezer Howard^{6} Plant, born February 25, 1821; died January 12,
1891; married, September 28, 1843, Hannah K. Ives, daughter of Samuel
and Abigail (Moss) Ives; born January 6, 1823; died August 17, 1873.
1. Frederick Howard^{7} Plant, born November 15, 1859.
Messrs. Amzi Perrin^{6} Plant and Ebenezer Howard^{6} Plant engaged in
manufactures in the southern part of Southington, which developed into
large industries, giving employment to many people. The village growing
up about these establishments received their name, and is known as
Plantsville.
_Authorities._--Southington Town and Probate Records; gravestones in
Southington; Trumbull’s _History of Hartford County_.
TIMOTHY^{5} PLANT--CHLOE DICKERMAN.
Timothy^{5} Plant, son of Timothy^{4} and Mary Ann (Colberth) Plant
(Timothy,^{3} John,^{2} John^{1}), born January 3, 1773, at Litchfield,
Connecticut; died April 7, 1836, aged 63, at New Haven; married, January
3, 1795, Chloe^{5} Dickerman, of New Haven, daughter of Stephen^{4} and
Eunice (Tuttle) Dickerman (Isaac,^{3} Abraham,^{2} Thomas^{1}); born
July 7, 1773; died May 17, 1850; residence, Litchfield and New Haven.
_See page 323._
I. Mary Ann^{6} Plant, born February 17, 1796; died 1852; married, May
19, 1816, Samuel Westcott, of Providence, Rhode Island, died January 28,
1824.
1. Susan^{7} Westcott.
2. Mary Ann^{7} Westcott.
3. Henry P.^{7} Westcott.
4. George^{7} Westcott.
II. Benjamin Dickerman^{6} Plant, born February 8, 1798; married,
November 6, 1828, Maria Kaigler, of South Carolina; born December 27,
1805. He was a bookseller in Columbia, South Carolina.
1. Caroline Elizabeth^{7} Plant, married Samuel Rumph; residence,
Marshallville, Georgia.
2. George Benjamin^{7} Plant, married Lætitia McGehee; residence,
Marshallville.
3. Emily Maria^{7} Plant, married William I. Greene; residence, Fort
Valley, Georgia.
III. Susan^{6} Plant, born September 19, 1800; died August 30, 1801.
IV. Susan^{6} Plant, born October 21, 1802; died January 20, 1831;
married, November 6, 1828, Timothy McCarthy.
V. Caroline^{6} Plant, born January 27, 1806; died July 14, 1879;
married, February 21, 1830, Fordyce Wrigley, son of Edward Wrigley, of
England; born January 25, 1803; died October 1, 1846; residence, Macon,
Georgia.
1. Benjamin Henry^{7} Wrigley, married, January 12, 1864, Lucy Knott.
2. Julia^{7} Wrigley, married, May 10, 1866, D. H. Peden; residence,
Griffin, Georgia.
3. Lucia^{7} Wrigley, married, October 31, 1888, A. W. Blake.
4. William^{7} Wrigley, married (1), November, 1866, Annie Mellard;
married (2), Ida McPherson.
VI. Timothy Henry^{6} Plant, born February 1, 1808; died January 4,
1871; married, August 28, 1834, Sarah Maria Peck, of Kensington,
Connecticut, born September 14, 1814. He and his brother, Increase
Cook^{6} Plant, were together at Columbia in the store of their older
brother, and from there went to Augusta, Georgia, and established a book
business under the firm name of “T. H. & I. C. Plant.”
1. Augusta M.^{7} Plant, residence, Macon, Georgia.
VII. Ebenezer^{6} Plant, born April 28, 1810; died November 26, 1876;
married Adeline Gibbs Nye, of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
1. Ida^{7} Plant.
2. Lucy^{7} Plant.
3. Annie^{7} Plant.
VIII. A child born April 8, 1812, died young.
IX. Increase Cook^{6} Plant, born February 27, 1814; died November 16,
1892; married (1), July 24, 1838, Charlotte Walker; married (2),
October 2, 1843, Elizabeth Mary Hazlehurst. _Account continued on page
335._
X. A daughter, twin of Increase Cook^{6} Plant, died young.
_Authorities._--_Families of Dickerman Ancestry;_ Private family
records.
JOEL^{5} PLANT--MARY JORDAN.
Joel^{5} Plant, born August 24, 1776, in Connecticut; died in 1853, at
Meridian, New York; married, November 27, 1800, at Litchfield,
Connecticut, Mary Jordan, of Woodstock; born December 4, 1776; died in
1846, at Peru, New York.[24] _See page 324._
I. John^{6} Plant, born June 26, 1801; married twice; a physician at
Hyde Park, Pennsylvania.
II. Lorenzo^{6} Plant, born April 17, 1803; died July 2, 1836, at
Orwell, Vermont; married (1), October 7, 1829, Louisa Hall, who died May
9, 1830, aged 21; married (2), October 11, 1831, Harriet M. Cook; born
December 29, 1812; died March 11, 1888, at Georgia, Vermont. (She
married (2), February 13, 1844, Noah R. Parker.)
1. Azro Melvin^{7} Plant, born May 25, 1835; married, November 29, 1864,
Annie Fairchild, of Milton, Vermont, born March 27, 1846. He was
Assistant Surgeon, 14th Regiment, Vermont Volunteers in the war, and
served in hospitals at Washington, after which he was a druggist at St.
Albans, Vermont. Residence, in 1898, Milton.
III. Alanson^{6} Plant, born March 28, 1805; died in 1844; married
Betsey Hiscock, of Onondaga Hill, New York; residence, Kenyonville, New
York.
IV. Althea Mariah^{6} Plant, born May 7, 1807; died June 27, 1862;
married William M. Taylor (died December, 1850), who had previously
married her sister Mary, who died; residence, Dudley, Massachusetts.
1. Mary P.^{7} Taylor, born August 11, 1839; died July 2, 1843.
2. William A.^{7} Taylor, born about 1841; died July 20, 1864.
3. Martha O.^{7} Taylor, born January 15, 1843; died August 2, 1848.
4. Mary A.^{7} Taylor, born November 2, 1844; married, October 19,
1871, ---- Prentice, Norwich, Connecticut.
5. Helen^{7} Taylor, born July 27, 1846; married Henry Holt; residence,
Hartford, Connecticut.
6. Hyram^{7} Taylor, born July 27, 1846; died July 22, 1863.
7. Annie Maria^{7} Taylor, born November 2, 1847; died July 19, 1849.
8. Lorenzo P.^{7} Taylor, born December, 1850; died March 30, 1851.
V. Almira^{6} Plant, born April 30, 1809; died December, 1891; married
A. G. Wheeler.
VI. Mary^{6} Plant, born March 8, 1811; died 1837, at New Boston,
Connecticut; married William M. Taylor.
VII. Lucy^{6} Plant, born June 26, 1813; died 1843, at Peru, New York.
VIII. A. Joel^{6} Plant, born May 15, 1815; died 1872, in Cortland
County, New York; married, 1845, Margaret Phillips, of Locke, New York.
1. Adin^{7} Plant, residence, Binghamton, New York.
2. Leona^{7} Plant, residence, Binghamton, New York.
IX. Lauren P.^{6} Plant, born March 7, 1817, in Rutland County, Vermont;
died at Cicero, New York, January 29, 1898; married, February 25, 1836,
Mrs. Sarah R. Smiley, of that place, who died there December 5, 1877. He
was a Republican in politics and held the offices, at different times,
of Town Clerk, Constable, and Deputy Sheriff.
1. Byron^{7} Plant, born April 29, 1839; married, September 25, 1861,
Minerva Saunders.
2. Mary Elizabeth^{7} Plant, born January 18, 1842, at Sullivan, New
York; died February 25, 1891; married, April 11, 1867, Job Fuller, of
Syracuse.
3. Almira^{7} Plant, born September 2, 1844, at Cicero; married, October
6, 1886, John S. Botsford, of Clay, New York.
X. Arunah H.^{6} Plant, born October 25, 1819; died September 5, 1873;
married, April 19, 1848, at Maumee, Ohio, Mrs. Amelia Lane. In 1866 he
wrote to his niece in Vermont, “I have not accumulated much of this
world’s goods, but have a pleasant home and am contented.”
1. Mary Sedate^{7} Plant, born December 31, 1848; married, January,
1885, J. M. McCann, of Toledo, Ohio.
2. Helen M.^{7} Plant, born September 12, 1850; married, September 1,
1880, Elijah Lee Jaquis.
_Authorities._--Letters from members of the family.
ANDERSON^{5} PLANT--BETSEY BRADLEY.
Anderson^{5} Plant, son of Samuel^{4} and Sarah (Frisbie) Plant
(Benjamin,^{3} John,^{2} John^{1}), born January 2, 1796, at Branford;
died there October 29, 1826[25]; married, December 23, 1818, Betsey^{6}
Bradley, daughter of Levi^{5} and Lydia (Beach) Bradley (Timothy,^{4}
Daniel,^{3} Isaac,^{2} Francis^{1}), born August 28, 1799; died January
20, 1886, at New Haven. She married (2), Philemon Hoadley, born March
31, 1797, at Southampton, Massachusetts; died January 28, 1862, at New
Haven. _See page 324._
I. Henry Bradley^{6} Plant, born October 27, 1819; married (1),
September 25, 1843, Ellen E. Blackstone, who died February 28, 1861;
married (2), July 2, 1873, Margaret Josephine Loughman, only daughter of
Martin Loughman of New York City. _Account continued on page 336._
II. Eliza Ann^{6} Plant, baptized September 26, 1824, died young.
_Authorities._--Branford and Guilford Town and Probate Records; _The
Hoadley Family_.
INCREASE COOK^{6} PLANT--MARY E. HAZLEHURST.
Increase Cook^{6} Plant, son of Timothy^{5} and Chloe (Dickerman) Plant
(Timothy,^{4} Timothy,^{3} John,^{2} John^{1}), born February 27, 1814,
at New Haven; died July 23, 1883, at Macon, Georgia; married (1), July
24, 1838, Charlotte Walker, of Leamingston, Vermont, who died March 12,
1839; married (2), October 2, 1843, Elizabeth Mary^{5} Hazlehurst,
daughter of Robert^{4} and Elizabeth Pettingale (Wilson) Hazlehurst
(Robert,^{3} Isaac,^{2} Robert^{1}), born April 20, 1819, at Brunswick,
Georgia; died July 23, 1883, at Macon.
Beginning business in a bookstore with his brother at Augusta, Georgia,
he soon entered upon a banking business, which he followed at Columbus
and Brunswick, and finally at Macon, where his name is held in honor not
only as a banker but as an influential, public-spirited citizen. _See
page 331._
I. Mary Hazlehurst^{7} Plant, married, October 6, 1875, Marshall de
Graffenried; residence, Atlanta, Georgia.
II. Robert Hazlehurst^{7} Plant, born December 21, 1847; married, July
25, 1871, Margaret Redding Ross, daughter of John Bennett and Martha
(Redding) Ross, of Macon. He succeeded his father in the banking
business, and has engaged in other enterpises, insurance and
manufacturing, which are highly prosperous.
III. George Henry^{7} Plant, married Minnie Leila Wood; residence,
Macon, where he is engaged in banking in the firm with his brother.
IV. Elizabeth Wilson^{7} Plant, married Alonzo D. Schofield; residence,
Macon.
HENRY BRADLEY^{6} PLANT--{ELLEN E. BLACKSTONE.
{MARGARET J. LOUGHMAN.
Henry Bradley^{6} Plant, son of Anderson^{5} and Betsey (Bradley) Plant
(Samuel,^{4} Benjamin,^{3} John,^{2} John^{1}), born October 27, 1819,
at Branford; married (1), September 25, 1843, Ellen E.^{7} Blackstone,
daughter of Captain James^{6} and Sarah (Beach) Blackstone (Timothy,^{5}
John,^{4} John,^{3} John,^{2} Rev. W. T.^{1}); born February 21, 1821;
died February 28, 1861; married (2), July 2, 1873, Margaret Josephine
Loughman, only daughter of Martin Loughman, of New York City. _See page
335._
I. A boy; ----, born ----, died June 17, 1846, aged 17 mo., 4 days.
II. Morton F.^{7} Plant, born August 18, 1852; married Nellie^{7}
Capron, daughter of Col. F. B.^{6}; Capron, of Baltimore, Md. They have
a son, Henry Bradley^{8} Plant, Jr., born May 18, 1895.
Banfield^{1} Capron, born in Chester, England, in 1640. In 1654 he came
to America, to Barrington, Mass.; married a lady named Callender, of
Rehoboth, Mass. They had twelve children, six sons and six daughters. He
died August 20, 1752; gravestone in Attleboro.
Jonathan^{2} Capron, farmer, sixth son, of Attleboro, Mass., born March
11, 1705; married Rebecca Morse, who died August 29, 1772. (See
gravestone, Attleboro.) They had eight children.
Elisha^{3} Capron, third son, married Abigail Makepeace, of Norton,
Mass., and resided at Attleboro, Mass.; had nine children.
Seth^{4} Capron, first son, born September 23, 1762; married Eunice
Mann, of Attleboro, Mass., daughter of Jesse Brown, of Cumberland, R. I.
They had six children. Fought in the Revolutionary War; died at Walden,
Orange County, N. Y., September 4, 1835.
Newton Mann^{5} Capron, first son, born August 24, 1791, at Cumberland,
R. I.; married Maria Brown, May 29, 1815; had two children.
Francis Brown^{6} Capron, first son, born May 17, 1816; married Olivia
Royston at Baltimore, Md., and had three children.
Nellie^{7} Capron, first daughter; married Morton Freeman^{7} Plant,
June 23, 1887.
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration] INDEX.
Adams Express Company, organized March, 1853, and April, 1854;
list of shareholders, 52;
in 1861 this company sold and transferred its entire interests in
the South to H. B. Plant, 54
Atlanta Exposition of 1895, object of, 157;
Mr. Plant’s interest in, and exhibit at, said Exposition, 157, 158;
“Plant Day” at the Exposition;
Mr. Plant’s seventy-eighth birthday;
importance of “Plant Day,” 159;
Plant System described, 160;
opening up of Florida by this System, 161;
purchase of railroads;
extending the System;
Plant Investment Company, 161, 162;
purchase of railroads and establishment of steamboat lines, 161-163;
steamship line to Canada, 164;
Exposition described by the press;
various newspaper accounts, 221-263;
Atlanta Exposition’s recognition of Mr. Plant’s services to
the Exposition, 253;
he is appreciated, feasted, and honored, 254;
Florida’s truest friend, 254
Blackstone family: William Blaxton
only one in State of Massachusetts;
lived in wilderness among wild beasts and savage men;
Boston Common;
Blackstone’s beautiful character, 23;
Captain Blackstone was father of Mr. Plant’s first wife;
his son Timothy’s gift of a library (memorial to his father);
his education and successful career, 26, 27;
history of Blackstone family in Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
and Branford, Connecticut, 29, 30;
five generations lived and died on the old family farm in Branford;
James a strong character in politics and patriotic service;
Timothy, his son, donor of library, 31-33;
Ellen Elizabeth, second daughter of James Blackstone, married
Henry B. Plant;
Sir William Blackstone, author of _Law Commentaries_, was fifth
cousin of James Blackstone, 34
Board of Trade, Savannah, resolutions, 221;
Mr. Wiley’s address, 222;
Mr. Plant’s acknowledgment, 226
Branford, Connecticut, purchased from Indians in 1638;
first settled, 1644, by people from New Haven, 15;
first church;
danger from Indians;
records of;
colony from, 16;
John Plum first town clerk;
resembles Harlem, N. Y., in customs, 2;
second church built, its architecture, seating, etc., 17;
its pulpit;
foot stoves, 18;
Rev. Timothy Gillett, its pastor, taught an academy also;
strained relations with his congregation, 19;
he and wife buried at Branford, 20;
this
town rendered patriotic service in Revolution, 20, 21;
once shipbuilding flourished;
seaport town;
seat of colonial governor, 22
Bullock, Ex-Governor: description of H. B. Plant, 99-101
Canals: Erie;
Suez, 276
Changes that have taken place in the configuration of the globe
during Mr. Plant’s lifetime, 264-269
Cotton States, development due largely to H. B. Plant, 165, 248-251
Cuba: scenery;
architecture, Moorish, Saxon, and Doric;
Morro Castle;
Santa Catalina warehouses;
mail service by the Plant line of steamers, 114-116
Duelling once legalized, 275
Engineering skill, great achievements of, 279
England’s bad laws;
favored the rich;
severe in punishing crime;
cruel treatment of prisoners, 271, 272;
war barbarities, inhuman treatment of soldiers, 272, 273;
educational progress, 275
Frisbee family, sketch of;
Edward Ebenezer;
Elisha;
Professor Levi;
James;
Richard;
John;
Joseph;
President Edward S., of Wells College;
O. L. Frisbee, 4-7
Nineteenth century: demonstration at its beginning, 269, 270;
political and social condition of France, 270;
Napoleon’s bad and good influence on Europe, 271
Penny postage originated, 275
Plant, A. P., his industry, religion, and success in life, 1-2
Plant, David, 2;
education and career, 3
Plant, Henry Bradley: birth and parentage, 1;
descended from J. Frisbee, a major in Washington’s army, 4;
right to join the “Sons of the American Revolution,” 13;
the Plants settled in Branford over two hundred years ago;
their descendants still own the lands of the first settlers;
Anderson Plant, father of Henry B., 35;
died when Henry was six years old, 36;
death of father’s sister, and also Henry’s sister;
Henry’s first recollections of his mother, 36;
enduring and tender impressions of an hour;
poem, 37;
poet’s mother, 38;
the boy Henry’s first day at school, 38;
his courage fails him, 39;
diffident all his life, 39;
his mother’s second marriage, 40;
moved from Branford to Martinsburg;
lived part of the time there with mother and stepfather,
and part with grandmother Plant at Branford, 40;
here he was thrown from a plow horse and badly injured, 40, 41;
testimony of A. P. B., “one of the noblest and best of men,” 41;
parents moved to New Haven, 41;
declined grandmother’s offer of a course in Yale College, 41;
studies under Rev. Gillett and John E. Lovell, 42;
his first attempts at business did not succeed, 42;
in 1837 began as captain’s boy on New York and New Haven
line of steamers, 42;
manly boy, 42, 43;
first experiences in express business, 43;
it was hard at first, but improved after a time, 44;
his development of Southern Express, 44;
enlargement of responsibility by addition of railroads,
steamship lines, and hotels, 45;
Captain Stone’s fondness for young Plant, 45;
marries Miss Blackstone in 1842;
first child died, aged eighteen months;
second son, Morton Freeman,
now associated with his father, 45;
removes from New Haven to New York;
is employed by Beecher Express Co., 46;
next by Adams Express Co., 46;
his mother banked his savings, 46;
bought some New Haven bank stock, which he still owns, 46;
buys a pew in a new church, 46;
stepfather died at New Haven in 1862 or 1863;
failure of his wife’s health takes him to Florida in 1853;
the journey took eight days by three different steamers, 47;
Mrs. Plant’s improved health and return to New York, 47;
landing at Jacksonville, and romantic experiences while in Florida, 48;
lost their way in the woods five miles from boarding-house;
sail in a “dug-out,” 48;
drive in a buggy;
Indian girl, 49;
boarding at the Judson Hotel, New York;
Captain Stone leaves his son in Mr. Plant’s care;
Plant returns South on account of wife’s failing health;
appointed superintendent of Harnden’s Express, at Savannah, 51;
appointed superintendent of Adams Express Company, 1854, 52;
large development of the company under his superintendence;
difficulty of the work, 53;
extent of business of the Southern and Texas Express Companies,
of which Mr. Plant is president, 54;
formed, and became president of, Southern Express Co. in 1861, 55;
death of wife at Augusta, Ga., February 28, 1861;
remains afterward removed to Branford, Conn., 55;
buys a slave, who proves a good nurse to Mr. Plant, 58;
impaired health, and change of climate ordered by doctor;
pass from President Davis to pass through Confederate lines
at any point, 59;
goes to Bermuda, Halifax, and Montreal;
son Morton brought to him;
visits his mother at New Haven, Conn.;
in fall sails for Liverpool;
a stranger in a strange land, 59;
goes to Paris;
courtesy of French officials in passport;
visits Rome, Naples, Leghorn, Barcelona, Milan, and Venice, 60;
travelled in Switzerland, 60, 61;
returned by way of Canada, and was in New York when President
Lincoln was assassinated, 61;
his second marriage and trip to Europe in 1873, accompanied by
his wife, mother, and son, 61;
his third visit to Europe, 1889;
represented the United States as juror in Class Six, at the
Paris Exposition, 61;
medals for Plant System, diploma to Mr. Plant, and many
courtesies extended, 61;
his busy life in Augusta;
difficulties of express work caused by the war;
bravely met and adjusted, 62;
hotel life in Augusta; letter of a friend, 63;
his health fails, 64;
rewards a kindness done to his wife and child thirty-six years ago 65;
his second wife Miss Loughman;
her ancestors;
her interest and impress on some achievements of the System, 67;
Mr. Plant’s intuitive knowledge and keen insight illustrated, 68, 69;
after-dinner speeches, Tampa Board of Trade banquet, 70-72;
Florida Mr. Plant’s hobby;
banquet given him at Ocala, in 1896, at Ocala Hotel, 87, 88;
his reply to many addresses of welcome on the subject,
“The Plant System,” 88-94;
reception, excursion, and banquet given Mr. Plant and
friends by the mayor and leading citizens of Leesburg, 95;
reception next day at Eustis, 95;
his words of cheer to the people who had suffered great
loss from the freeze of the previous winter destroying
their orange groves, 96;
their grateful appreciation of his visit, 96;
honesty, importance of;
testimonies to this quality of his character, 97, 98;
his power and influence over employees and associates, 99;
Ex-Gov. Bullock’s description of Mr. Plant’s ability,
fidelity, and gentlemanly character, 99, 100;
industry and power of endurance, 102-104;
character and manner of answering his large mail, 102-104;
missionary letter from Japan, 103;
his private car;
comfort, elegance of, 103;
old darkie “shining up 100,” 104;
keen intuition, and great power of self-control, 105;
calm, quiet spirit, kindly nature, and efficient performance
of all he does, 105;
testimony of an employee, of respect and appreciation of
Mr. Plant’s character and work for the South, 105, 106;
his calm and kindly spirit saved him the consuming force
of friction which grinds some men, 106;
not a pessimist or recluse;
loves music and social life, 107;
medical benefactor, 107, 108;
much pain saved by medical progress, 108;
Mr. Plant’s share in alleviating suffering, 109;
testimony of physicians to healthfulness of Florida for invalids, 110;
Mr. Plant facilitates travel, and provides hotels healthful
and luxurious, 111-113;
furnishes comfortable transit from Florida to Cuba and Jamaica;
press notices of Mr. Plant and his philanthropic work for
the South in railroads, steamship lines, hotels, etc., 121, 122;
promoted orange-growing by the facilities afforded for getting
the fruit soon and safe to market, 123;
railroads induced many people to settle in the South, 124;
various railroads bought, built, and combined in the Plant System, 126;
steamer _Mascotte_, elegant and comfortable, 127;
railroad topics;
notes, characteristics, and success of his life, 128;
largely a pioneer in his work of opening up the South, 131;
the Plant Investment Company’s president, 132;
his palatial residence in New York City, 132;
never speculates in Wall Street, 133;
analysis of his disposition, temper, spirit, and pleasant manner, 133, 134;
_Home Journal_;
Ocala _Evening Star_;
similar descriptions, 134-140;
his close and constant contact with the Plant System, 141;
notes of his voyage from New York to Key West, 142-146;
also from Port Tampa to Jamaica;
attentions of distinguished people, 146;
Lady Blake’s garden party at King’s House on February 1st, 146, 147;
entertainment and enjoyment at Jamaica, 147-149;
his economical management of the Plant System, 150;
riding in a baggage-car saw expressman handle carelessly
a box marked “glass,” etc.;
gentle rebuke;
saved the man from discharge by superior officer, 152, 153;
generous treatment of an honored employee, 153;
horrors of strikes contrasted with “Plant Day” at Atlanta
Exposition in 1896, 153;
spent over forty years of his life in developing the South, 166;
eulogies on his character and work, 166-168;
“Loving Cup” and other presentations, 169-178;
Mr. Plant’s response, 178-181;
programme of “Plant Day” at Atlanta Exposition, 204, 205;
ringing of the “Liberty Bell,” 206;
services at the Auditorium;
enthusiastic reception, 207;
music and speeches, 208-210;
Mayor King and others, 210-212;
Mr. Plant’s response, 212-217;
resolutions, complimentary,
217-220;
Judge Falligant’s speech, 220-221
Profanity and drunkenness lessened, 275
Railroads: waste of railroad strikes, 150;
losses to employers and employed, 150, 151;
damage to commerce, demoralization of labor, inconvenience
and losses to the public, 151;
no strikes on Plant System, 151;
due to President Plant, 152;
strikes contrasted with “Plant Day” at Atlanta Exposition, 153;
“Plant Day” as described by employees of the System, 154;
introduction to this description, 154-156;
railroads, introduction of in England, and United States, 277;
Edward Entwistle ran the first train in England, came to this country, 277;
railroad mileage in the United States increased from three
miles to 173, 453 in Mr. Plant’s lifetime, 278;
first steamship that crossed the Atlantic;
first regular line established, 278
Southern Express Company formed, 1861, 54, 55;
its relations to and services for the Southern Confederacy;
given the custody of all government funds, it collected
tariffs, and had soldiers detailed for its service, 56;
President Davis’ proclamation for all non-citizens of
Confederacy to leave its bounds;
permission given Mr. Plant to remain and conduct express business, 57:
generous service of the company to soldiers in the war, 65-66;
presentation of silver service by the company to its president, 66;
Southern development due largely to H. B. Plant, 165;
history of the company, 233-236;
the company’s building and exhibit on the fair grounds, 236;
reception in this building to Mr. Plant and friends, 237, 238;
thanks tendered the press, 239;
telegrams and congratulations, 239-241;
honors to Mr. Plant, 243;
list of employees present, 245;
sketch of Mr. Plant published in Atlanta _Chronicle_, 247-248;
slavery abolished, 273
Tampa, progress of, 70-72;
speech of Mr. Plant, 73, 74;
growth of Tampa, Mr. Plant’s share in its growth, 74, 75;
cigar-making industry, 76;
phosphate mines, 76;
the town as Mr. Plant found it in 1885, 77;
description of the great hotel, 78;
grounds, 80;
description of Tampa, streets, buildings, water supply, brickmaking, 81;
population, character of;
Spaniards, Cubans, colored, Americans, 81-82;
Ybor City, its tobacco factories, 82-83;
rapid increase of population and wealth, 83;
colored people thrifty and well-to-do, 84;
own their homes, have schools, churches, and are respected
by their white neighbors, 85;
Port Tampa, its inn, or hotel, open all the year, 85;
good fishing, bass, tarpon or silver king, 85;
Tampa’s boards of trade, health, and education, 86;
Tampa Bay Hotel,--described by W. C. Prime, 183-186;
also by Henry G. Parker, 187-192
Tampa Bay, De Soto’s dream, Aladdin’s Lamp, 192-195;
description of the Palace Hotel, architecture, furniture, 196-203
Tampa’s historical interest: De Soto landed here on May 25, 1539,
discovers the Mississippi River afterwards, 191;
Navarez obtains grant of land from Charles V. of Spain, 191
Temperance societies formed, 273-275
Tunnels, 279, 280
Varied progress: steel pens, steamships, iron, lucifer matches,
kerosene oil used, machine sewing, agriculture, 280;
Mr. Plant on roof of office in New York noting progress, 283;
sanitary progress, life lengthened by it, 282;
territorial extension of our country, increase of wealth, rapid
growth of cities, 283-284;
philanthropic and Christian progress;
higher education, better care of the insane, aged, orphans,
sailors, neglected children, seamen, and others by societies, 285, 286;
conventions for mutual counsel in reform and charitable work,
clubs multiplied, social, scientific, 286, 287;
female education, co-education, 287;
homes for all classes of dependent human beings, 288;
progress of medical science, lessening disease and suffering, 288-290
World’s Fairs, International, 291;
arbitration;
better Christian spirit, among all who bear the name, 291;
Electrical Exposition, 292;
message round the world in 55 minutes, 292, 293
[Illustration: text decoration]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] George Frisbie Hoar.
[2] Mr. Alfred Plant, of Webster Grove, Missouri, in a letter of
December 11, 1897.
[3] Mr. George D. Plant, Principal of the Seward School in Chicago.
[4] _New Eng. Hist. and Gen. Reg._, April 1886.
[5] _Lists of Emigrants_, by J. C. Hotten.
[6] _Soldiers in King Philip’s War_, by George M. Bodge, page 442.
[7] His name appears, November 6, 1677, as a witness on the record of
a payment. On February 20, 1683, he was given six acres on Mulliner’s
Hill, below the road, on condition of his improving it within two
years. On February 4, 1688, he was given six acres more “on the way
hill,” that is, half way to the iron works at the outlet of the lake.
He was sworn in as a freeman at Branford, April 8, 1690. His lot
was laid out below the path, bounded on the west corner by a great
white-oak-tree, on the north corner by a small walnut-, on the east by
a black-oak-, and by a walnut-tree at the south.
The original home of the Plants seems to have been near George Plant’s
present residence. The old Plant house was once used as a hotel and
again as a store. A tornado once tore down a fine orchard behind the
house, and overthrew a cider mill near it. John^{2} Plant, Jr., sold
the part of Mulliner’s Hill, which had formerly belonged to Thomas
Goodsell, to Deacon John Rose, July 13, 1713, and bought of John
Goodsell, in 1727, three acres at Mulliner’s Neck.
[8] Orcutt’s _History of Stratford_ says that John Plant’s wife
was Betty Roundkettle, and that he was probably of the Saltonstall
company, but the authority is not stated.
[9] Elizabeth Plant married, July 23, 1712, John Coach, also of
Branford, who died about 1728, as evidenced by the Probate Records.
She was appointed administrator, June 14, 1728. The inventory
exhibited June 26th following gives the valuation of his property at
£118 14_s._ 4_d._ The children are named, Sarah, about twelve years of
age, James, ten, Elizabeth, eight, Mary, five, John, three.
Sarah Coach married, September 20, 1738, Eleazer Stent.
Elizabeth Coach married, March 9, 1736, Jacob Carter.
[10] Thomas Whedon, the grandfather of Hannah Whedon, came to New
Haven with John Meigs, who, in 1648, bought the lot on the corner
of Chapel and Church Streets, where the Cutler building now stands.
Before leaving England Thomas Whedon had been bound to Meigs as an
apprentice to learn his art of tanner. He took the oath of fidelity
in 1657; married, May 24, 1651, Ann Harvey, at New Haven; moved to
Branford, and his name appears on the lists of proprietors, January
17, 1676, as having five children, and an estate valued at £96; he
died in 1691, leaving a wife and five children. Their son, Thomas
Whedon, Jr., was born May 31, 1663, at New Haven, and died in 1692;
his wife, Hannah Barnes, was the eldest daughter of John and Mercy
(Betts) Barnes, and was born December 23, 1670.
John^{2} Plant became a member of the church at Branford, September 2,
1716, and Hannah Plant, September 21, 1729. His will is in the Probate
Records at Guilford, Connecticut, dated February 29, 1752, proved
July 7, 1752. It names his wife, Hannah Plant, who was appointed
administratrix, daughters Hannah Whedon and Elizabeth Plant, and sons
John, Jonathan, James, Timothy, and Abraham. The inventory of the
estate places the valuation at £1007 6_s._ 1¼_d._ whereof £891 8_s._
11¼_d._ was real estate, of which one hundred acres of land was in
Litchfield. In the distribution, which was made December 19, 1752,
Elizabeth is called the wife of Josiah Parrish.
The will of Hannah Plant is also to be seen at Guilford, dated
November 31, 1752, proved December 18, 1753, presented by John Plant,
executor. It names sons John, Jonathan, James, Timothy, Abraham, and
Benjamin, and daughters Hannah Whedon and Elizabeth Parrish. The
distribution occurred February 18, 1754, when Hannah was called the
wife of Abraham Whedon, and Elizabeth the wife of Josiah Parrish.
Benjamin’s name occurs in his mother’s will, but is omitted in his
father’s.
[11] His will, dated December 22, 1761, proved September 7, 1762,
names wife Hannah Whedon, sons Reuben, William, and Noah, daughters
Hannah, Martha, Submit, Sarah, and “youngest daughter Deborah, that
still lives with me.” William and Noah were minors, and chose their
mother guardian.
Reuben Whedon’s will, signed March 20, 1806, proved September 23,
1806, names wife Rachel, son Abraham, of Bolton, grandson Daniel,
son of Abraham. The court appoints Captain William Whedon one of two
commissioners to divide the estate.
William Whedon’s will, dated February 6, 1821, names daughter Polly
Page, son Captain Ozias Whedon, grandsons William N., Charles R., and
Amaziah H., also five grandchildren, John, Catharine, Andrew, Noah,
and George, children of son Edward Whedon.
Guardian’s records of Amos Seward, January 20, 1822, and June 14,
1824, name Charles R. Whedon, minor son of Captain Noah Whedon, of
New Haven, and grandson of Captain William Whedon, with his brother
William N. Whedon, and Lucretia, the widow of Captain Noah Whedon.
[12] His will, signed at Branford, March 4, 1755, proved March 25,
1788, names his brother Benjamin executor and sole legatee.
[13] The deed of Timothy^{3} Plant to his son Timothy^{4} (page 313)
names “heirs of Samuel Baker, deceased, assignee of my late brother
Jonathan Plant, deceased.”
[14] The will of John Parrish, the father of Josiah and also of Lucy
Parrish, the wife of Timothy^{3} Plant, dated April 5, 1748, proved
April 14, 1748, names wife Hannah Parrish, son Josiah, two younger
sons, Gideon and Joel, and three daughters, Hannah, Lucia, and
Abigail. In the inventory his estate was valued at £471 10_s._ 8_d._
[15] On December 25, 1780, he was appointed by the town of Derby to
collect the assessments to raise recruits for the Continental army.
His will, dated April 1, 1796, proved July 3, 1796, names widow Esther
Plant, two sons, Samuel and David, daughters Lucy, Polly, and Sally.
The estate was appraised at £313 4_s._ 11_d._ and includes seventy
acres of land with a house and barn, in the parish of Great Hills.
[16] Ethan Plant, of Saybrook, is recorded as in the Revolutionary
army, from May 8, 1775, to December 18, of the same year.
Ethel Plant is also enrolled as enlisting at New London, May 24, 1778,
in the Third troop of light dragoons, and is described as “a cooper,
stature, 5 feet 8½ inches, complexion light, eyes light, hair dark.”
On June 5, 1813, Ethel Plant made application for a pension, being
at that time 63 years of age, and a resident of Delhi, New York. The
pension was allowed for six years’ actual service in the Connecticut
troops in the Revolutionary War.
The town clerk of Delhi writes, January 26, 1898, that no traces of
such a person are now to be found there.
His marriage was by the name of Ethiel Plant. The various spellings
were no doubt due to the unusualness of the name.
The home of this family seems to have passed from Branford to Saybrook
soon after the marriage of the elder daughter, devolving on her the
care of her younger sister and brothers. In a similar way, after the
marriage of Hannah Plant to Mr. Baldwin, her home in Milford may have
become a place of frequent resort for her brothers. This would account
in a measure for the marriage of Timothy to a person who seems to
have been of a Milford family, probably that of Humphrey and Margaret
Colebreath.
[17] Anderson Plant, of Branford, bought three acres of land in
Southington, October 3, 1787, and sold the same to Thomas Stow of
Middletown, April 7, 1788. Witnessed by John Plant.--_Southington Land
Records_, Vol. ii., pp. 302-321.
[18] He was a soldier in the French and Indian War, enlisted at the
age of 19, April 10, 1760, under Captain Jonathan Baker, in Suffolk
County, “from Brandford, New England, wheelwright.” He served in
Captain David Mulford’s company. On returning from the war he settled
in Stratford, where his children were born.
[19] On May 5, 1770, he, with John Smith, also of Branford, bought
of Joseph Pickett forty acres of land in Litchfield, for which they
paid £45. Soon after this he removed to Litchfield, and on July 13
following the land was divided, and he took the north half. Here he
seems to have lived and reared his family.
[20] He removed to Litchfield, Connecticut, about 1772, the occasion
for which was as follows: On June 26, 1734, his grandfather,
John^{2} Plant, bought of Josiah Rogers, of Branford, a tract of
one hundred acres of land in Litchfield on the west side of the
Waterbury River. This land remained undivided at the settlement of
John^{2} Plant’s estate, and passed in this manner to his six sons.
Of these, Timothy^{3} Plant sold his share of one sixth to his son
Timothy,^{4} October 7, 1772, for £17. A little later, January 13,
1773, Timothy^{4} Plant, Jr., bought also the share of his uncle
James, which had been previously sold to David Wooster. Then, May
23, 1774, he bought of Asa and Harris Hopkins two thirds of another
tract of one hundred acres. He afterward sold both of these tracts
at a considerable advance on their cost. But having made his home in
Litchfield, the family remained there.
In the Revolutionary War he entered the army, March 2, 1777, in the
Fifth regiment, Connecticut line, Captain J. A. Wright’s company, and
was reported missing at Germantown, October 4, 1777. Tradition says
that he was drafted, and that in the battle he was taken prisoner
and confined in “the old sugar house” at New York, or in “the prison
ship,” and died there, no word having ever come from him to his
family. The births of his children are registered in Litchfield,
except of the youngest, who must have been born after he went to the
war.
[21] Elias^{5} Hall was the eldest child of John^{4} and Abigail
(Russell) Hall; (John,^{3} John,^{2} John^{1}). Ruhamah was the only
child of his second wife, who died at her daughter’s birth. He served
in the French and Indian War in Colonel Whiting’s regiment, under Lord
Amherst, and was on duty at Ticonderoga and Crown Point until 1759.
He settled in Cheshire, Connecticut; removed in 1784 to Pittsford,
Vermont, and died October 30, 1821, at the house of his son Elias, at
Williston, Vermont.
[22] “He prepared himself for college at the Cheshire Academy, and
was graduated at Yale College in 1804, after which he studied law at
the Litchfield Law School. He was a classmate and friend of John C.
Calhoun, who was not only with him in college but also studied law at
Litchfield. In 1819 and 1820 Mr. Plant was Speaker of the Connecticut
House of Representatives, and in 1821 was elected to the Senate,
after which he was twice re-elected. He was Lieutenant-Governor from
1823 to 1827, and from 1827 to 1829 was a member of the United States
Congress. In politics he was a staunch Whig. Calhoun when Secretary
of State offered him, for friendship’s sake, any position within his
gift, but he declined to hold office under the dominant party. He was
one of the most influential men of his day in political circles of the
State of Connecticut.”
[23] For several years of his early life he was in mercantile business
in New York City. At the age of twenty he removed to Marcellus, New
York, and engaged in farming until 1872, when he made his home in
Syracuse, where he became a prominent member of the Brown Memorial M.
E. Church.
“He was a man of strong character, honorable and upright, with clear
intellect and much originality, fond of books, and well informed on
the events transpiring in his country and throughout the world.”
There were six children by his first marriage, two of whom were
Charles H.^{7} Plant and Mrs. W. R. Knowles, who died before him. The
four others are Dr. William T.^{7} Plant, Alfred D.^{7} Plant, and
Miss Ailda^{7} Plant, of Syracuse, and Mrs. I. W. Davey, of Marcellus.
William Tomlinson^{7} Plant, the eldest of these, was graduated from
the University of Michigan in 1860, and began practice as a physician
in Ithaca, New York. Early in the war he entered the United States
Navy as surgeon, and continued till October, 1865, when he resigned,
and in 1866 began the practice of medicine in Syracuse. This he
followed till about 1894, when paralysis compelled him to retire from
active life. He has filled many positions of honor and responsibility;
has been on the medical staff of a large hospital, doing duty there
four months in the year; was one of the founders of the Medical
College of Syracuse, in which he held the chair of Jurisprudence and
Pediatrics, and has contributed much to medical journals, having been
the editor of one such periodical.
He has one son, John W.^{8} Plant, who is in the graduating class of
Syracuse Medical College for 1898.
[24] A tradition represents him to have been the son of Joel^{4}
Plant, the brother of Timothy,^{4} but no records confirm this view,
while a number of points in his story seem to identify him with
Joel,^{5} the son of Timothy,^{4} born at Litchfield, according to
one entry there, August 22, 1776, and according to another, August
24, 1776. The following account is from his son, Mr. Lauren Plant, of
Cicero, New York, December 25, 1897.
“Timothy, the son of John Plant, married Lucy Parrish, settled in New
Haven, and was in the bookbinding business. Among their children were
two sons, Timothy, born July 4, 1750, who subsequently settled in
Litchfield; and Joel, born March 25, 1753, who was a soldier in the
Revolutionary War, and died, or was killed, on Long Island in 1779,
leaving a wife and two children in New Haven. A daughter, Margaret,
afterward married Benoni Gleson and went to Vermont. Joel was born
August 24, 1776; his mother died when he was twelve years old, and at
the age of fourteen he was bound out to work in the bookbindery that
his grandfather had established long before. Not liking the business,
he ran away, at the age of seventeen, and went west to the banks of
the Susquehanna River, where he remained two seasons, returning to his
Uncle Tim’s in Litchfield and attending school in the winter, where he
made the acquaintance of Mary Jordan, whom he married. They lived two
or three years in Worthington, Massachusetts, then moved to Benson,
Rutland County, Vermont, and, in 1837, to Onondaga County, New York.”
[25] Anderson Plant’s estate was in probate, June 13, 1827. Mr. Samuel
Plant was chosen and appointed guardian of Henry Bradley Plant, who
with his mother, Mrs. Betsey Plant, were the only heirs.
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