My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands Part 1

My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands.

by George Francis Train.

PREFACE

I have been silent for thirty years. During that long period I have taken little part in the public life of the world, have written nothing beyond occasional letters and newspaper articles, and have conversed with few persons, except children in parks and streets. I have found children always sympathetic and appreciative. For this reason I have readily entered into their play and their more serious moods; and for this reason, also, have dedicated this book to them and to their children.

For many years I have been a silent recluse, remote from the world in my little corner in the Mills Hotel, thinking and waiting patiently. That I break this silence now, after so many years, is due to the suggestion of a friend who has told me that the world of to-day, as well as the world of to-morrow, will be interested in reading my story. I am a.s.sured that many of the things I have accomplished will endure as a memorial of me, and that I ought to give some account of them and of myself.

And so I have tried to compress a story of my life into this book. With modesty, I may say that the whole story could not be told in a single volume. I have tried not to be prolix, keeping in mind while preparing this record of events, "all of which I saw, and part of which I was,"

that there is a limit to the patience of readers.

I beg my readers to remember that this book was spoken, not written, by me. It is my own life-story that I have related. It may not, in every part, agree with the recollections of others; but I am sure that it is as accurate in statement as it is blameless in purpose. If I should fail at any point, this will be due to some wavering of memory, and not to intention. Thanks to my early Methodist training, I have never knowingly told a lie; and I shall not begin at this time of life.

While I may undertake other volumes that will present another side of me--my views and opinions of men and things--that which stands here recorded is the story of my life. It has been dictated in the mornings of July and August of the past summer, one or two hours being given to it during two or three days of each week. Altogether, the time consumed in the dictation makes a total of thirty-five hours. Before I began the dictation, I wrote out hastily a brief sketch, or mere epitome, of my history, so that I might have before my mind a guide that would prevent me from wandering too far afield or that might save me from tediousness. I give it here, as a foretaste of the book. I have called it "My Autobiography boiled down--400 Pages in 200 Words."

"Born 3-24-'29. Orphaned New Orleans, '33. (Father, mother, and three sisters--yellow fever.) Came North alone, four years old, to grandmother, Waltham, Ma.s.s. Supported self since babyhood. Farmer till 14. Grocer-boy, Cambridgeport, two years. s.h.i.+pping-clerk, 16. Manager, 18. Partner, Train & Co., 20 (income, $10,000). Boston, 22 ($15,000).

"Established G. F. T. & Co., Melbourne, Australia, '53. Agent, Barings, Duncan & Sherman, White Star Line (income, $95,000). Started 40 clippers to California, '49. Flying Cloud, Sovereign of the Seas, Staffords.h.i.+re.

Built A. & G. W. R. R., connecting Erie with Ohio and Mississippi, 400 miles.

"Pioneered first street-railway, Europe, America, Australia. (England: Birkenhead, Darlington, Staffords.h.i.+re, London, '60.) Built first Pacific Railway (U. P.), '62-'69, through first Trust, Credit Mobilier. Owned five thousand lots, Omaha, worth $30,000,000. (Been in fifteen jails without a crime.)

"Train Villa, built at Newport, '68. Daughter's house, 156 Madison Avenue, '60. Organized French Commune, Ma.r.s.eilles, Ligue du Midi, October, '70, while on return trip around the world in eighty days.

Jules Verne, two years later, wrote fiction of my fact.

"Made independent race for Presidency against Grant and Greeley, '71-72.

Cornered lawyers, doctors, clericals, by quoting three columns of Bible to release Woodhull-Claflin from jail, '72. Now lunatic by law, through six courts.

"Now living in Mills Palace, $3 against $2,000 a week, at Train Villa.

(Daughter always has room for me in country.) Played Carnegie forty years ahead. Three generations living off Credit Mobilier. Author dozen books out of print (_vide_ Who's Who, Allibone, Appletons' Cyclopaedia).

"Four times around the world. First, two years. Second, eighty days, '70. Third, sixty-seven and a half days, '90. Fourth, sixty days, shortest record, '92. Through psychic telepathy, am doubling age.

Seventy-four years young."

It may be a matter of surprise to some readers that I should have accomplished so much at the early age when so many of my most important enterprises were accomplished. It should be remembered, however, that I began young. I was a mature man at an age when most boys are still tied to their mothers' ap.r.o.n strings. I had to begin to take care of myself in very tender years. I suppose my experiences in New Orleans, on the old farm in Ma.s.sachusetts, in the grocery store in Boston, and in the s.h.i.+pping house of Enoch Train and Company, matured and hardened me before my time. I was never much of a boy. I seem to have missed that portion of my youth. I was obliged to look out for myself very early, and was soon fighting hard in the fierce battle of compet.i.tion, where the weak are so often lost.

It may be worth while to present here some important evidence of the confidence that was reposed in me by experienced men, when, as a mere youth, I was undertaking vast enterprises that might have made older men hesitate. When I was about to leave Boston in '53 for business in Australia, and organized the house of Caldwell, Train and Company, I was authorized by the following well-established houses of this and other countries to use them as references, and did so on our firm circulars: John M. Forbes, John E. Thayer and Brother, George B. Upton, Enoch Train and Company, Sampson and Tappan, and Josiah Bradlee and Company, of Boston; Cary and Company, Goodhue and Company, Josiah Macy and Sons, Grinnell, Minturn and Company, and Charles H. Marshall and Company, of New York; H. and A. Cope and Company, of Philadelphia; Birckhead and Pearce, of Baltimore; J. P. Whitney and Company, of New Orleans; Flint, Peabody and Company, and Macondray and Company, of San Francisco; George A. Hopley and Company, of Charleston; Archibald Gracie, of Mobile; and the following foreign houses: Bowman, Grinnell and Company, and Charles Humberston, of Liverpool; Russell and Company and Augustine Heard and Company, of Canton.

These were among the best known commercial houses in the world at that time. Any business man, familiar with the commercial history of the modern world, should consider this list fair enough evidence of the confidence I enjoyed among men of affairs. Let me reproduce here--partly as evidence along the same line, and partly because of the value I attach to it on personal and friendly grounds--the following letter from Mr. D. O. Mills:

"NEW YORK, _September 30, 1901_.

"Hon. GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN, "_Mills Hotel, Bleecker St., New York_.

"MY DEAR CITIZEN:

"The many appreciative notices that have come to my attention of your distinguished talents of early years lead me also to send you a line of appreciation, particularly as touching the part played by you in some of the great commercial enterprises that have so signally marked the nineteenth century, notably in the Merchant Marine, and in the building of the Union Pacific Railroad, in the conception and construction of which you bore so distinguished a part.

"The present generation, with its conveniences of travel and communication, can not realize what were the difficulties and experiences of the merchant and traveler of those early days when you were engaged in the China trade, and your Clipper s.h.i.+ps were often seen in the port of San Francisco.

"The long voyage around the Horn, the danger experienced from sudden attack by Indians while traversing the wild and uninhabited country lying between Omaha and the Pacific Coast, are experiences which even an old voyager like myself questions as he speeds across the continent, privileged to enjoy the comforts of a Pullman car, and a railroad service that has shortened the journey from New York to San Francisco from months to a few days. In recalling the many years of our pleasant acquaintance by sea and land, not the least is the remembrance of your kind and genial spirit, and I am glad to see that you have lost none of your sincere wish to do good.

"With kind regards.

"Very truly yours, "D. O. MILLS."

Mr. Mills has known me in many walks of life. We have at times walked side by side. At others, oceans have roared between us. He is my friend, and I was glad to receive this kindly word from him, after many long years of acquaintance.

Although I am a hermit now, I was not always so. All who read this book must see that. I spent many happy years in society--and never an unhappy year anywhere, whether in jail or under social persecution; and I have lived many years with my family in my own country and in foreign lands.

My wife, of whom I have spoken of in the following pages, pa.s.sed into shadow-land in '77. I have children who are scattered widely now. My first child, Lily, was born in Boston, in '52, and died when five months old, in Boston. My second daughter, Susan Minerva, was born in '55, and married Philip Dunbar Guelager, who for thirty-six years was the head of the gold and silver department of the Subtreasury in this city. She now lives at "Minerva Lodge," Stamford, Connecticut, with my seven-year-old grandson. My first son, George Francis Train, Jr., was born in '56, and is now in business in San Francisco. Elsey McHenry Train, my last child, now lives in Chicago. He was born in '57. I was able to see these children well educated, at home and abroad, and to give them some chance to see the great world I had known.

A last word as to myself. Readers of this book may think I have sometimes taken myself too seriously. I can scarcely agree with them. I try not to be too serious about anything--not even about myself. When I was making a hopeless fight for the Presidency in '72, I made the following statement in one of my speeches:

"Many persons attribute to me simply an impulsiveness, and an impressibility, as if I were some erratic comet, rus.h.i.+ng madly through s.p.a.ce, emitting coruscations of fancifully colored sparks, without system, rule, or definite object. This is a popular error. I claim to be a close a.n.a.lytical observer of pa.s.sing events, applying the crucible of Truth to every new matter or subject presented to my mind or my senses."

I think that estimate may be used to-day in this place. It does not so much matter, however, what I may have thought of myself or what I now think of myself. What does matter is what I may have done. I stand on my achievement.

And with this, I commit my life-story to the kind consideration of readers.

CITIZEN GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN.

THE MILLS PALACE, _September 22, '02_.

MY LIFE IN MANY STATES AND IN FOREIGN LANDS

CHAPTER I

WHEN I WAS FOUR YEARS OLD

1833

My grandfather was the Reverend George Pickering, of Baltimore--a slave-owner. Having fallen in with the early Methodists, long before Garrison, Phillips, and Beecher had taken up the abolition idea, he liberated his slaves and went to preaching the Gospel. He became an itinerant Methodist preacher, with the pitiable salary of $300 a year.

The sale of one of his "prime" negro slaves would have brought him in more money than four years of preaching. He would have been stranded very soon if he had not had the good sense to marry my beautiful grandmother, who had a thousand-acre farm at Waltham, ten miles out of Boston. My grandfather thus could preach around about the neighborhood, and then come back to the family at home. My father married the eldest daughter of this Methodist preaching grandfather of mine, Maria Pickering.

I was born at No. 21 High Street, Boston, during a snow-storm, on the 24th of March, '29. When I was a baby, my father went to New Orleans and opened a store. Soon after arriving in that city I was old enough to observe things, and to remember. I can recollect almost everything in my life from my fourth year. From the time I was three years old up to this present moment--a long stretch of seventy years, the Prophet's limit of human life--I can remember almost every event in my life with the greatest distinctness. This book of mine will be a pretty fair test of my memory.

I can remember the beautiful flowers of the South. How deeply they impressed themselves upon my mind! I can recall the garden with its wonderful floral wealth, the gift of the Southern sun. I can recollect exactly how the old clothesline used to look, with its load of linen--the resting-place of the long-bodied insects we called "devil's darning needles," or mosquito hawks--and how we children used to strike the line with poles, to frighten the insects and see them fly away on their filmy wings. And I can remember going down to my father's store, filling the pockets of my little frock with dried currants, which I thought were lovely, and watching him there at his work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rev. George Pickering, George Francis Train's grandfather.]