Wm. C. Ralston was one of the most notable, as he was one of the most remarkable, of all the financial giants of the Pacific Slope. He ascended the gilded summits of financial renown, and he fell into a shadowy valley of stern retribution and utter ruin. No man could be more popular, none could exhibit greater daring in his business enterprises. He was a New York boy, but drifted to the West, and became a clerk on a Mississippi steamboat, finally became Captain, and having amassed some money, he leaped into speculative waters, like another Leander, to swim the Hellespont of California finance. He became associated with Commodore Garrison and two others in the banking business in San Francisco about 1853. Finally he organized the Bank of California, and became first its Cashier and then its President. His rise was marvellous. At one time he was supposed to be worth $20,000,000 or more. He had a country seat at Belmont, in San Mateo county, that a king might have been proud to own, and here he entertained in royal fashion. Every celebrity that visited California was received with regal hospitality by this monetary prince of the golden State. But as the allied armies arrayed against Napoleon were often put to rout from being too much spread out, so this financial Titan, combining the genius and courage of many in one, was finally overthrown by adverse fortune, because his enterprises were too much spread out. He had too many projects on hand at one time. He lost heavily in mining and real estate speculations; he lost in manufacturing enterprises. Fate struck him suddenly as with the hammer of Thor. In one fearful storm of trouble all his misfortune descended upon him at once. All the waves and billows of adversity broke over him. He had no chance to recover himself. Birnam seemed all at once to come to his financial Dunsinane. An investigation of the affairs of the Bank of California was made by the directors of that institution. Their suspicions had been aroused that Ralston’s administration of its affairs was open to grave criticism. He attended the meeting of the directors, and was coldly requested to withdraw during the discussion. He who had been absolute in the great bank saw that his power was gone; he stood on the brink of a moral Niagara. He left the Directors to make the inevitable discovery that he had over-issued the stock of the bank some $6,000,000, and crazed with grief and despair, found a suicide’s death in the waters of the bay. He had over-issued the stock hoping and believing that success in some one of his numerous and gigantic enterprises would enable him to provide for it, but disaster stealing on him suddenly, like a thief in the night, frustrated any plan of restitution, and he paid for his fault with his life. He was a man about five feet seven inches in height, with a rather florid complexion, a full light brown beard and kindly brown eyes. He was once the idol of California, and his one great fault is almost swallowed up in the memory of his princely generosity, his hearty geniality, and his many other engaging traits.
John P. Jones.
John P. Jones has had an eventful career. He has made and lost millions. He was worth at one time five or six millions. He lost very heavily in railroad enterprises in Southern California. He had been engaged in mining and had won a big heap of treasure, probably as much wealth as any one needs, or more, but with the restless ambition of one who would travel still higher up the glittering heights of financial fame he sought to emulate Huntington, Stanford and others and become a railroad magnate. It was a case of vaulting ambition o’erleaping itself and falling on the other side. He lost almost his entire fortune, but he has now regained his feet again and is once more wealthy. He profited by the revival of interest in mines and mining stocks in 1886, and secured, moreover, a considerable interest in the Alaska mine, in which D. O. Mills was interested. He bought stocks of once famous mines at low prices, and when the advance on the revival of public interest in mining shares took place he was a large gainer. John W. Mackay has within the last few years shown a disposition to lend him assistance in his endeavors to recover his former footing. John P. Jones is one of a number of Englishmen who have won financial celebrity in this country. He was born in Herefordshire, England, in 1830, and came to this country with his parents when only a year old, settling in Ohio. For a few years he attended school in Cleveland. In the early days of the gold excitement in California he emigrated to that State and engaged in farming and mining. He acquired a taste for politics. He represented his county in both houses of the State Assembly. In 1867 he went to Gold Hill, Nevada, and has ever since been engaged to a greater or less extent in developing the mineral resources of that State. In his earlier days he worked hard as a miner in one of the counties of California. He worked in placers and tunnels; he had many ups and down. He was daring and ambitious, and sometimes seemingly reckless. He spent a million dollars trying to develop some mines in Mono, California, and then gave up the attempt. At one time he controlled the Ophir, Savage and Crown Point mines on the Comstock lode; he owned large establishments for the manufacture of ice in Georgia, Louisiana and Texas and elsewhere; he made large purchases of land in California; he engaged in a multitude of ambitious enterprises. He had too many irons in the fire. Misfortune did not daunt him. Like the old hunter of tradition, his motto was, “Pick the flint and try it again.” He may yet become a financial power again. He has a certain readiness as a speaker; he is of large frame and not unpleasing aspect, and his taste for public debate and the excitements of the political arena have led him into contests for public honors which have been successful. He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1872, and has twice been elected, so that his term will not expire until 1891.
R. J. Baldwin has become widely known by the sobriquet of “lucky.” He is 59 years old and was born in Ohio. His father moved to Indiana and had a farm adjoining that of Schuyler Colfax. There he worked till he reached his twentieth year. He married in the following year and went to a small place in Indiana and kept a country store; he soon built canal boats to ply between Chicago and St. Louis. He went to Racine, Wisconsin, in 1850, and engaged in the grocery business with considerable success. He was keen at a bargain and always had an eye out for the main chance. His so-called “luck” was in reality business skill. He went to California in 1853, after purchasing a number of horses and wagons and an ample supply of merchandise. He found a good market for his goods in Salt Lake, making nearly four thousand dollars on the venture, and further on he sold his wagons and harness and made up a pack train over the mountains, and, arriving in San Francisco, sold his teams at good prices. His trip had been a complete success. He now went into the hotel business, and, after selling out twice to good advantage, he formed a partnership to engage in the brick trade, which, proving very successful mainly through his skill in drumming up business, he decided to go into it alone. He himself knew nothing about brick making, but he studied up the subject and eventually became an expert. He obtained remunerative contracts with the Government; he boarded his men and made for a time about fifteen hundred dollars a month. He finally sold out and went into the livery business. He made money and invested considerable in real estate. He sold out and went to Virginia City, Nevada, at the breaking out of the mining excitement there. At that point he started a lumber yard. He speculated in mines and met at times with great success, but once he was so badly worsted in this great game that he was compelled to mortgage all of his property; but the tide turned soon and became a flood of gold. He speculated in such mines as the Crown Point, Belcher, Consolidated Virginia, California and Ophir. He acquired at one time the controlling interest in the Ophir. He has speculated heavily in San Francisco real estate, and with marked success. He erected a building there that cost, with all its appurtenances, over three million dollars. Part of it is used as a theatre. He bought sixty thousand acres of land in Los Angeles county, and had practically a town of his own. He spent about half a million dollars improving this tract, more particularly his Santa Anita ranch of over fifteen thousand acres. His sagacity and industry, rather than mere “luck,” have won him his fortune of ten or fifteen million dollars.
William H. Stewart.
William H. Stewart, another successful man of the Far West, who has twice represented Nevada in the United States Senate, was a New York boy, born in Wayne county in 1827. A good many New York boys have succeeded in the West. He went to California early in 1850. In the fall of that year, while prospecting, he discovered the Eureka placer diggings; he built saw mills, worked claims because disgusted with mining, went to Nevada City in the spring of 1852, and in December of that year was appointed District Attorney, was elected to that office in the following year, and in 1854 was appointed Attorney General, thereupon taking up his residence in San Francisco, where, by the way, he married a daughter of ex-Governor Foote, of Mississippi. Later he returned to Nevada City and established a very lucrative law practice, and remained in that county till the spring of 1860, when the furore over the Comstock mines induced him to go to Virginia City, Nevada. He thoroughly understood mining law, and soon had a large practice. The large sums which his legal talents brought him were invested in mines, and he became one of the leading operators on the Comstock lode. He invested half a million dollars in San Francisco real estate. He rendered important services to mining interests while in the United States Senate, in preventing the passage of a bill providing for the sale of all the mineral lands of the country at public auction, a measure which it was supposed would concentrate much of the mining property of the United States into the hands of the wealthy.
James Lick.
James Lick, born in Pennsylvania in 1796, was one of the strange characters of California. He went there in 1847, after having been a manufacturer of pianos in this country and different parts of South America. He took $30,000 to San Francisco, which he invested in real estate, foreseeing that it was to become the great city of the Pacific Slope. He bought lots by the mile. His profits were enormous. He became one of the great millionaires of California. He set aside $2,000,000 in 1874, to be held by seven trustees, and to be devoted to certain public and charitable purposes. In 1875 he desired to make some changes in his schedule of gifts, and when the trustees expressed some doubts as to their legal right to give assent, at his request they resigned. The next year he died, and then followed a litigation by his son and other heirs, which was finally so adjusted as to leave a large sum to be devoted to various public and charitable projects. He left $60,000 to be devoted to a statue of Francis Scott Key, the author of the “Star Spangled Banner.” He was very eccentric, due, it is said, to an early disappointment in love. He sought the hand of a miller’s daughter, but was dismissed by the father, because young Lick did not own a mill. When he became enormously wealthy, James Lick built a large mill, and adorned it with mahogany and costly woods as a memorial of his youthful attachment. He seemed to derive almost childish pleasure in contemplating this splendid building, which would have so far outshone any that could ever have been owned by the man who had once spurned him for his poverty. The poor young men of one generation are often the millionaires of the next. One of the great monuments to his memory is the great Lick Observatory.
John W. Shaw.
John W. Shaw, who made considerable money in mines and mining stocks, is one of the Western millionaires who reside in New York. He was a superintendent of mines, and speculated on his information. He was at one time prominently identified with the Eureka Consolidated mine. He is supposed to be worth $4,000,000 to $5,000,000, and is now President of the Hocking Valley Road. Messrs. Keene, Lent, Dewey, Harpending, Verdenal and other more or less successful men well known in California, live here. One of the distinguished lawyers of the West who have come here to establish a practice is ex-Governor Hoadly, of Ohio. Austin Corbin, though at one time a lawyer in Iowa, found his true field in New York, and Alfred Sully, after amassing some means in the same State, likewise found himself drawn to New York, and won unexpected success in finance here.