Gen. Samuel Thomas.
General Samuel Thomas, who is prominent in the Southern railroad system, is now about 50 years of age, is a Western man, and before the war was a civil engineer in the service of an Ohio railroad. After the war he again became a civil engineer, but, drifting after a time to New York, engaged in railroad enterprises, and ultimately secured a large interest in Southern railroads. He is now President of the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia, and is largely interested in the Richmond & West Point Terminal, the Richmond & Danville, the Memphis & Charleston, and other Southern roads. He is tall, well-built, energetic, and affable. He lives in fine style, and is a member of the Union League. He is worth several millions.
Gen. Thomas M. Logan is President of the Virginia Midland Railroad, Vice-President of the Richmond & Danville and Richmond Terminal, and a Director in all the roads in this system. He was born in Charleston, S. C., about 44 years ago. He served with distinction in the Confederate Army, and rose to be a Brigadier-General, being one of the youngest in the service. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina, and formerly practiced law in Richmond, Virginia, where he is also engaged in extensive manufacturing and mining enterprises. He resides in Richmond, and is a member of the Westmoreland Club, but often comes to New York on railroad business, in which he has amassed a comfortable fortune.
John W. Garrett’s name will always be associated with that great property, the Baltimore & Ohio, which he rescued from the verge of bankruptcy. He was a man of great force of character, and inherited an aptitude for business. He was a graduate of Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, and engaged in business in Baltimore. He became a Director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and in 1858 was elected its President. He was a staunch supporter of the Union in the civil war. Despite a disloyal sentiment plainly noticeable in Baltimore and elsewhere in Maryland, he lent the Government all the assistance in his power in the transportation of hundreds of thousands of Federal soldiers. He was quick to repair burned bridges, and to do anything to facilitate the military operations of the Federal Government. President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton thanked him warmly. His salary as President was $10,000 a year. The Directors repeatedly offered to increase the remuneration, but he declined to accept it. He often refused offers as high as $50,000 a year to become the President of other roads. He was autocratic in his administration. His will was law. He found the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad a weak and struggling underline in the railroad world, and he left it a giant in the American system of railroad transportation.
Robert Garrett, the son of the preceding, and now the President of the Baltimore & Ohio Road, is one of the railroad kings of the United States. He became the President of the Baltimore & Ohio in his thirty-seventh year, after having served as Third Vice-President and First Vice-President under his father’s administration. He is a graduate of Princeton, a man of genial characteristics, and a favorite in society. He has made a study of railroad administration, but is now understood to seek some relief from the burdens unavoidably incident to his position as the head of a great railroad. And he is wise. He is many times a millionaire. Why should he devote his life to unnecessary care and labor? Rich men in this country are apt to work too hard. They do not enjoy life as men of far less wealth do in Europe. Under almost any administration the Baltimore & Ohio Road has a great future before it. The road was built to draw the Western trade to Baltimore. This trade had been diverted from that city by the building of the great canals. New York & Philadelphia were receiving the lion’s share of the traffic. The first stone on the Baltimore & Ohio Road was laid by Charles Carroll, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, in 1828. The road was opened to Wheeling in 1853. The firm of Robert Garrett & Sons was established in 1849, and was originally engaged in the wholesale grocery trade. When the road reached Wheeling its finances were at the lowest ebb. The house founded by the grandfather of the present head of the road bought largely of its bonds at a very low figure, and this marked the first connection of the Garrett family with this great property. The house of Garrett & Sons still exists as a banking establishment under the management of T. Harrison Garrett. In 1853 Baltimore & Ohio stock could be bought for a song. Since then it has sold at as high as $225 a share. The improvement in the property was very largely doe to the efforts of John W. and Robert Garrett.
The recent embarrassing complications of Mr. Garrett in connection with the management of his railroad and telegraph companies, it is hoped, will only be temporary, and I expect to see him again, at no distant day, reinstated at the head of the great corporation over which he and his father presided. His present difficulties are matters of current newspaper record and comment, and I need not, therefore, enlarge upon them here. As shown by the latest report, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is virtually in a good, prosperous and solvable condition, and I have no doubt that the Drexel-Morgan syndicate which has undertaken to put the property on a still more solid and durable basis with the ten million loan which it has negotiated, will uprightly do its whole duty, and in due time return the trust considerably enhanced in value to Mr. Garrett, his heirs and assigns.
John H. Inman, another member of the Southern railroad circle, was born in Tennessee. He is tall, fine looking and soldierly in appearance. He is one of the shrewdest of the capitalists who have invested large amounts in Southern enterprises. He came to New York from Atlanta, quite poor, after the civil war. In the war he was a quartermaster’s clerk, and his old quartermaster afterwards became one of his brokers on the Cotton Exchange. Young Inman went into the office of an uncle on arriving in New York, and learned the business of a cotton broker. He was clear-headed and successful. After he became a partner in the firm he added very materially to his wealth by carrying cotton for the premiums on the options. He is recognized as one of the leaders of the Cotton Exchange. In recent years he has become a financier, has made large loans to railroads in the South, and has invested heavily in Atlanta real estate, and in iron enterprises in Birmingham, the rising Southern market. He was prominent in the reorganization of the Richmond & Danville railroad system, in which he is largely interested. He is a director in the Richmond Terminal and associate lines, as well as the Louisville & Nashville and other Southern roads. He invested nearly two millions in the Tennessee Coal & Iron Company. He is now about 50 years of age. He seems to be a man of destiny. He is a man of great force of character and exceptional business skill. He resides in New York, and is possessed of a large fortune.