The lessons to be learned from this early period of the life of the one who was in future time to be the “Wizard of Wall Street,” are not in anything obscure. Unceasing vigilance and unflagging energy were the qualities that were most prominently developed in him from his very youth. These qualities properly directed and controlled, are in this age bound to win success for any young man. Gould never lost an opportunity to make more money by increased efforts. He was not afraid to assume any amount of extra work if he saw in it a just amount of remuneration. From the time when he left his father’s house and started out into the world to take care of himself and make his own living, there was never a man with whom he came in contact who did not consider the young fellow a valuable person to have attached to his business. Gould always made it a point to prove himself valuable. He made his employer’s interests his own, and was always ready for whatever appeared necessary to be done. In all of this, his example is most worthy of emulation. And while it is not to be expected that the same efforts will bring to every one equal results, one may rest assured that they will amply repay for their adoption.

THE TANNERY WAR IN PENNSYLVANIA.

CHAPTER IV.
GOULD AND THE TANNERY WAR.

From the mildly humdrum life of school boy, tinker, surveyor and bookseller, Gould’s career now changes to an intensely dramatic period. While pursuing his avocation as a surveyor, he made the acquaintance of Zadock Pratt, a local celebrity who lived at Prattsville not far from Roxbury, for whom he had done some surveying. Pratt is described as an ignorant man who had amassed what at that time and in that section was considered an immense fortune. He was worth a hundred thousand dollars, and had the largest tannery in the country. He had also been to Congress, and, as is usual with such district nabobs, he was a very vain man. How he happened to become attached to Jay Gould does not appear. Mr. Gould himself once said: “While I was carrying on these surveys, I met a gentleman who seemed to take a fancy to me.” Zadock Pratt was a famous man in his days. He was not only the biggest tanner in the country, but he was also a power in the politics in the state. During his ten years’ service in Congress, at least one of his speeches attracted widespread attention. He was one of the earliest advocates of cheap postage, and he moved the establishment of the Bureau of Statistics, which has since developed into the Department of the Interior. He also moved the first survey of the Pacific railroad line. When he ceased his Prattsville tannery in 1845 he estimated that in twenty years he had used one hundred and fifty thousand cords of bark and wood, had employed thirty thousand men, had cleared twelve thousand acres of land and tanned over one million sides of sole leather. He was, however, nearly seventy years old when he interested himself in Gould. The latter was fortunate in obtaining the confidence of this man. The history of his association with Pratt, and later with Leupp, is not contained in legislative and law reports, as are other portions of Gould’s career, but there are several very circumstantial accounts extant based on the testimony of eye-witnesses, some of whom may still be living.

One story has it that the young historian had artfully flattered Pratt in his “History of Delaware County,” and so won his good opinion. However this may be, certain it is that Pratt asked the young man who had surveyed his place in Prattsville to embark with him in the business of tanning leather. Gould agreed and immediately demonstrated his capacity for managing the new venture by going over the Delaware and Lackawanna railway, then recently completed, into Pennsylvania, on a search for a site of the proposed new tannery. He found a large tract of land growing hemlock in Lackawanna county and reported the fact to Mr. Pratt. Soon after he started for the hemlock woods again, and this time he made contracts of purchase with their owners. In his next expedition into Pennsylvania he took fifty or sixty men with him to build the tannery. The site chosen was in the midst of the forest, fifteen miles away from the nearest village. The men took with them a portable sawmill. Gould went in and chopped down the first tree which was sawed up, and transferred it into a blacksmith shop, under the roof of which Jay Gould passed the first night, sleeping on a bed of hemlock boughs. Thus the tannery, “a very large one, the largest in the country at that time,” to use Mr. Gould’s own words, was built. Near it there soon sprung up a village which was called Gouldsboro, and in this village Gould established a bank of which he elected himself director by means of proxies obtained from relations whom he had persuaded to take stock.

Pratt was taken with young Gould’s snap and energy and considered him just the kind of material to use in pushing a new enterprise. Pratt furnished all the capital and Gould conducted the active operation. The capital of the firm was $120,000, and the tannery at Gouldsboro, Pennsylvania, became the biggest concern of its kind in the country. Gould threw the whole energy of his being into the enterprise. Pratt made occasional visits to Gouldsboro, but the business was left practically in Gould’s hands and it grew rapidly. After a while Mr. Pratt became dissatisfied with the condition of affairs. Apparently a rushing business was being done from which there was no adequate return. After awhile, Mr. Pratt having invested $55,000, sent an agent to Gouldsboro to investigate affairs.

The books seemed to be so mixed that it was quite impossible to ascertain just how the firm stood. Gould soon saw that his partner was becoming suspicious and determined to be ready for him. On the growth of the business Gould had, of course, occasion to frequently visit New York, where he became acquainted with most of the merchants in the “Swamp,” then, as now, the center of the leather trade. Among others, he became acquainted with Charles M. Leupp, a merchant of the old school, honorable and correct in all his dealings. He was a man of great refinement and of poetic temperament, and possessed many literary and artistic tastes. He was a man of wealth and owned a fine mansion on the corner of Madison avenue and Twenty-fifth street. This mansion is still standing, but has been altered into an apartment house. In Mr. Leupp’s time it was probably the handsomest and best constructed private dwelling in the city and cost about $150,000.

It was an evil day for Mr. Leupp when Gould came to him and proposed that he advance the money to purchase Mr. Pratt’s interest in the tannery. That was the beginning of Mr. Leupp’s troubles, but at that time he considered the proposition an advantageous one and he consented to advance the cash. Gould never seems to have had at any period in his career any difficulty in interesting the wealthiest and most powerful men in his schemes. He has himself said that it is just as easy to obtain the acquaintance and secure the friendship of the most powerful as of the most insignificant if only one will set about it in the right way. Well, Gould returned to Gouldsboro with Leupp’s backing. He found Pratt looking over the books and puzzled by their intricacies. He discovered that Gould had started a private bank at Stroudsburg in his own name, and he became suspicious that the firm’s funds were used in the bank. Pratt then demanded an explanation and finally threatened to close up the tannery and dissolve the partnership. Gould protested that this would ruin him, when Pratt said that he must buy or sell. This was what Gould was waiting for, and he told Mr. Pratt to make him an offer. Pratt gave his energetic young partner the choice of two alternatives, either to take $10,000 for his interest in the business and retire from the firm, or pay $40,000 for the interest of the senior partner. Gould got ten days’ time in which to make up his mind, and at the expiration of that period surprised Mr. Pratt by buying him out on his own terms.