He walked all the way and arrived on schedule, after a six months' journey. Philip was the only one in the party who did not grow sick nor weary. One died, two turned back, but Philip trudged on with the procession that seemed to increase as it neared the gold-fields.
Arriving in California, this very sensible country boy figured it out that mining was a gamble. A very few grew rich, but the many were desperately poor. Most of those who got a little money ahead spent it in prospecting for bigger finds and soon were again penniless. He decided that he would not bet on anything but his own ability. Instead of digging for gold, he set to work digging ditches for men who had mines, but no water. This making ditches was plain labor, without excitement, chance or glamour. You knew beforehand just how much you would make. Philip was strong and patient; he could work from sunrise to sunset.
He was paid five dollars a day. Then he took contracts to dig ditches, and sometimes he made ten dollars a day. Parties who were "busted" and wished to borrow were offered a job. He set them to work and paid them for what they did, and no more. It was all a question of mathematics. In five years Philip Armour had saved eight thousand dollars. It was enough to buy the best farm in Oneida County, and this was all he wanted. There was a girl back there who had taunted him and dared him to go away and make his fortune. They parted in a tiff—that's the way she got rid of him. There was another man in the case, but Philip was too innocent to know this. The peaceful hills of New York lured and beckoned. He responded to the call and started back home. In half the time it took to go, he had arrived. But alas, the hills had shrunken. The mighty stream that once ran through Stockbridge was but a rill.
And the girl—the girl had married another—a worthy horse-doctor. Philip called on her. She was yellow and tired and had two fine babies. She was glad to see her old friend Philip, but the past was as dead to her as the present. In her handgrasp there was no thrill. She had given him a big chase; and soon his sadness made way for gratitude in that she had married the horse-doctor. He gave them his blessing. Philip looked around at farms—several were for sale, but none suited him.
On the way back from California he had traveled by way of the Great Lakes and stopped two days at Milwaukee. It was a fine city—a growing place, the gateway of the West and the market-place where the vessels loaded for the East.
Milwaukee had one rival—Chicago, eighty-five miles south.
Chicago, however, was on low, flat, marshy ground. It would always be a city, of course, because it was the end of navigation, but Milwaukee would feed and stock the folks who were westward bound. So to Milwaukee went Philip Armour, resolved there to stake his fortune in trade. Opportunity offered and he joined with Fred B. Miles, on March First, Eighteen Hundred Fifty-nine, in the produce and commission business. Each man put in five hundred dollars. The business prospered. One of the great products in demand was smoked and pickled meats. At that time farmers salted and smoked hams and brought them to town, with furs, pelts and bags of wheat.
All the tide of humanity that streamed into Milwaukee, westward bound, bought smoked or pickled meats—something that would keep and be always handy.
These were Winter-packed. The largest packer was John Plankinton, who was a success. John was knowing, and he made Phil. Armour his junior partner, as Plankinton and Armour. Then business sizzled. They were at the plant at four o'clock in the morning. They discovered how to make a hog yield four hams. Our soldiers needed the hams and the barreled pork, so shortly more hogs came to market. The War's end found the new firm much stronger and well stocked with large orders for mess-pork, sold for future delivery at war-time prices, which contracts they filled at a much lower cost and to their financial satisfaction. Their guesser was good and they prospered.
Meantime, the city of Chicago grew faster than Milwaukee. There was a rich country south of Chicago, as well as west, and of this Philip Armour had really never thought.