The Inside Story of a Deal
It was in January, 1882, that Mr. Robert S. White, then, as now, chief editor of the Montreal Gazette, whose casual acquaintance I had previously made in the East, arrived one morning at Winnipeg, on an interesting mission. He was accompanied by General J. S. Williams of New York; or, as Mr. White took pains to tell me, he was merely General Williams’ cicerone for the trip. Their object was to purchase the charter of the Great Northwest Telegraph Company. It came about in this way: the Union Mutual Telegraph Company had been organized in New York a few months previously by Messrs. Evans, Moore and other financial magnates as a competitor of the Western Union. A considerable mileage of wire had been strung and was in operation. It was important for the Union Mutual to obtain connection with Montreal, Toronto and other principal eastern points in Canada. Learning of the existence of the Great Northwest Telegraph charter they decided to buy it if possible. General Williams was deputed to proceed to Montreal to confer with Mr. Charles R. Hosmer, now a leading figure in Canadian finance, railways, banking and industry, who had then left the position of manager of the Dominion Telegraph Company at Montreal to join the staff of the Union Mutual. It was agreed that General Williams with Mr. White should proceed to Winnipeg.
Time pressed. It had leaked out that the Western Union was hot after the G.N.W. charter. The telegraph lines to Winnipeg being under control of that company, the risk of a message to myself to obtain options on the G.N.W. shares held in Winnipeg was deemed too great. So the conspirators, Williams and White, proceeded by rail. Fortune did not favor them, they arriving at Winnipeg about two days after Erastus Wiman’s agent, acting for the Western Union, had secured the plum. And it was a plum, the G.N.W. charter being of the blanket variety; good for all kinds of telegraph construction and operation from Dan to Beersheba within the Dominion of Canada, but it only ran zig-zag from Winnipeg to nowhere in particular. My recollection is that the price paid by the Western Union agent for the whole capital stock of the G.N.W. was about $8,000. When Hon. John Norquay and his associates, who had parted with their stock, learned what General Williams was prepared to pay, what they said was quite unfit for publication. However, we solaced our sorrows in the club and took it out of Mr. Wiman in the manner customary to such incidents. It may be of interest to learn how nearly the Great Northwest Telegraph charter escaped the Western Union, which soon after that date became perpetual lessee of the property linked up under the former name, and in which the old Montreal Telegraph Company was merged.