Albert August Pope.
The name of Colonel Albert August Pope is identified with the popularizing of the bicycle in this country, for he it was who, more than any other, gave it the impetus which made it a prime favorite with the public. Apart from that, however, he has furnished us with yet another example of the power of push, perseverance and probity. Colonel Pope was born in Boston, May 10, 1843, of poor parents. He had to leave school early in life in order to earn a livelihood. When ten years of age he peddled fruit, and it is said by persons who knew him in those days that he made it a rule to pay every debt as soon as it was due. After years of hard work young Pope, then nineteen, accepted a junior second lieutenancy in Company I, of the Thirty-sixth Massachusetts Volunteers. His record during the war was most brilliant, and he came out of it with the rank of colonel. He then went into business for himself and built up a profitable trade. It was in the centennial exposition in 1876 that he first saw a bicycle. Realizing the future of the machine, he in 1877 placed an order for “an importation of English wheels.” In the same year he organized the Pope Manufacturing Company. The vast nature of the business done by the corporation is a matter of familiarity to all those who were or are interested in bicycles. He also founded the publication entitled The Wheelman, putting upward of sixty thousand dollars in the enterprise. It is known to-day under the name of Outing. It was mainly through his efforts that public parks and boulevards were thrown open to the uses of bicycles, and that the machine was put upon the same footing as any other vehicle. When the bicycle interest began to wane, Colonel Pope turned his attention to the manufacture of automobiles. He also has a large interest in banks and other corporations. He is a member of the Loyal Legion and a visitor to Wellesley college, and the Lawrence scientific school. In 1871 he married Abbie Lyndon, of Newton, Mass.
C. W. Post.
The name of C. W. Post is identified with an industry that has only come into existence within the past few years, but which, nevertheless, has assumed tremendous proportions, and is remarkable in many ways, not the least of which is that it puts cereals to uses which were absolutely unknown a generation ago. Postum cereal coffee, for example, has only been before the public since 1895. Yet recently Mr. Post and his associates declined an offer of ten millions of dollars for the factories which made the coffee and its associated products of the wheat field. Mr. Post’s life story is that of a boy with a light purse, boundless ambition and a determination to reach the goal of large successes. He was born October 26, 1854, in Springfield, Illinois. After a common school education he entered the University of Illinois when thirteen years of age, took a military course, and remained there until he was fifteen, when the spirit of independence which has been a characteristic of his career throughout asserted itself. To use his own words, “I became weary of depending on my father’s money.” Leaving the university, he obtained a position with a manufacturer of farm machinery, which he sold and put in operation for the purchasers. After a couple of years of this work, he began business for himself in conjunction with a partner in the appropriately named town of Independence, Kansas. The firm dealt in hardware and farm machinery. But too little capital hampered his efforts, so he sold out and again took up drumming. Later he became manager of a wholesale machinery house in Kansas City. Returning to Illinois, he organized a company for the manufacturing of plows and cultivators, was quite successful, but his health breaking down, chaos resulted, and he lost all his savings. After dabbling in real estate in California, he ranched in Texas, fell ill again, recovered, and then bought twenty-seven acres of ground at Battle Creek, Michigan. Here it was that he began to make the famous coffee, to which allusion has been made. Here, too, he experimented with prepared, and finally placed upon the market those cooked and semi-cooked cereal foods with which we are familiar at the breakfast-table. The first year that the Post products were before the public, there was a profit of $175,000, the second year showed a loss of over $40,000—this being due to profits being sunk in advertising—and the third year there was a clear gain of $384,000. From that time on the business has been most profitable. It is stated that the concern is now preparing to spend one million dollars a year for advertising. Two years ago Mr. Post retired from the active conduct of the concern. He now divides his time between the offices in this country and abroad, and the chain of factories in the west. He is president of the association of American advertisers, and maintains at his own expense the Post check currency bureau at Washington.
John Wilson Wheeler.
John Wilson Wheeler, whose name is familiar to every housewife who owns or wants to own a sewing machine, was born in Orange, Franklin county, Massachusetts, November 20, 1832, being the second of nine children. He was the son of a carpenter-farmer, and was educated in a district school. When about fourteen years of age he began to follow the trade of his father, and continued to do so until he was twenty-three years old. But he was not satisfied with his narrow surroundings, and so when the opportunity came for him to accept a place in a little grocery store in Fitchburg at one hundred and twenty-five dollars a year and his board he gladly accepted it. Returning to Orange some time later, he became a clerk in the store of one Daniel Pomeroy, finally succeeding the latter in the business, which he conducted for three years longer. Selling out, he became clerk in the claim agency of D. E. Chency, one of the leading men of the village. By this time he had established a reputation for ability and integrity, and so it came about that Mr. Chency and another of his friends loaned him two thousand dollars on his personal security to buy a grocery store. The venture was successful and was only given up in 1867, in order that Mr. Wheeler might become a partner in the firm of A. E. Johnson & Co. that had just started in a small way to make sewing machines. After some years of struggling the firm was turned into a corporation under the name of the Gold Medal Sewing Machine Company, Mr. Wheeler being secretary and treasurer. In 1882 the name was again changed to that of the New Home Sewing Machine Company. Of this corporation Mr. Wheeler was vice-president, as well as secretary and treasurer. He later became president, but subsequently resigned, but retained the office of treasurer, as well as being a member of the board of directors. How the business has grown from small beginnings to its present extensive status is a story that is familiar to everyone who knows somewhat of the sewing machine industry. The company employs nearly six hundred men and turns out about four hundred machines daily. Mr. Wheeler is also president of the Orange savings bank and of the Orange national bank, and has been president of the Orange Power company and the Orange board of trade. He has furthermore held office with the Boston mutual life insurance company, is the director of the Athol and Orange City railway company, is president of the Leabitt Machine company, of the Orange good government club and is vice-president of the Home Market club. He married Almira E. Johnson, by whom he had three daughters, only one of whom survives. He is the owner of much real estate, and is erecting a mansion near Orange at the cost of $150,000.
TRANSPORTATION LEADERS.
George F. Baer.
George F. Baer, when a boy, worked on his father’s farm in Somerset county, Pennsylvania. He was recently chosen president of the Philadelphia & Reading and New Jersey Central railroad systems, two of the most important transportation corporations in the country. He is also identified with many enterprises of a diversified and extensive nature. He is still in the prime of life, and the secret of his so attaining is an open one—he did not waste time. Young Baer attended school for but a few years, and then entered the office of the Somerset Democrat to learn the printing trade. But he did not permit himself to retrograde in his studies, but instead pored over books and practiced writing at night. When sixteen years of age he managed to get a year’s tuition in the Somerset academy and afterward secured a position as clerk in the Ashtola Mills, near Johnstown, Pennsylvania. At the end of twelve months he was made chief clerk. Resigning, he entered the sophomore class at Franklin and Marshall colleges. Next, and in conjunction with his older brother, he bought the Democrat. Then the war broke out and the brother enlisted. Mr. Baer, then hardly nineteen years of age, ran the paper alone. In 1862 he, too, got the war spirit and went to the front. He was mustered out in 1863 and forthwith began to read law with his two brothers. After practicing in Somerset for four years, he went to Reading, where he was retained by the attorney of certain railroads that were trying to compete with the Philadelphia & Reading railroad. The opposing company finally decided that he was worth more for them than against them and so made him its legal adviser. From that time up to his election as president of the corporation he had been its solicitor. He is also interested in coal mines, paper manufacture, banks and insurance corporations, is married and has five daughters.